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Comment by VBprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

It seems with electric cars there is always another compaint. First came the long tail pipe argument, I think even the most ardent of naysayers have realised that that one is bullshit.

Then the batteries were going to be scattered about the countryside. Except most of them are still in cars, the demand for batteries from crashed damaged cars is high and the life even in early models appears to exceed expectations.

The reality is that Tesla has replaced the Ferrari as the car to aspire to. Nissan have even started producing their e-power cars who's main advantage is that they drive like an electric car (using a petrol engine as generator). Electric cars are going to be a thing, the only limit it battery tech and to my mind that only changes the eventual market share, if some of the battery tech pans out it could be close to 100%. I'm expecting more 60% or so, battery tech will be good enough for most people.

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The problem with electric cars is that they're still cars. Cars are inherently way less efficient than trains, or even buses. In practice, trains take less than 1/7th the power that cars do to transport passengers - and that's before we get into the land-subsidies (parking, giant roads) that cars need in order to be financially competitive.

But even when cars are necessary, they tend to be massively overengineered - does every car need to be 1) a five-seater, 2) 500KM range (300mile range), and 3) capable of driving at 110KM/hr (70miles/hr)?

Every one of those requirements basically doubles the cost and halves the efficiency.

>First came the long tail pipe argument, I think even the most ardent of naysayers have realised that that one is bullshit.

I wish. Obviously it is bullshit, but it's a goddamn zombie argument that just won't die.

Yes, I get it. But on the other hand I tend to think that the reality of getting people to use public transport and cycling en masse is comically naive.

You can see how defensive people get about the marginal adjustments that swapping from a ICE to an electric car would mean. Basically just that journeys of several hundred miles become slightly more painful, oh and if we're being fussy it's not clear how towing would work with an electric car yet (the impact on range rather than their ability to do it is the issue).

> But even when cars are necessary, they tend to be massively overengineered - does every car need to be 1) a five-seater, 2) 500KM range (300mile range), and 3) capable of driving at 110KM/hr (70miles/hr)?

I'm with you on this but it's slightly worse than you say. Most of the popular electric cars are large sedan / SUV sized rather than small city cars and hatchbacks. Cars like the VW E-up and the Honda E are exceptions. Admittedly they still have 4/5 seats but the market demand is a problem for anything less (people are irrationally attached to the ability to transport 4+ people, even if they never actually do it).

Well I agree about public transport (and I happen to live in a country with decent public transport - I do less than 3000 km per year so buying EV makes no sense, I'm still driving a Fiat Punto made in 1995 and if not for my wife sentiment for the car we should probably just sell it and rent when needed ;) ).

When I was commuting 180km every day for a few months (lived in Lublin, worked in Warsaw temporarily) I realized I'm making the whole route using electricity (a trolley in Lublin, a train between the cities, a tram in Warsaw). And I was reading a book the whole time. It's the self-drivining car dream made true with 19th century technology :)

But US is fucked up culturally and infrastructurally when it comes to cars so the next best thing is making EVs cool.

I've never heard of this. What's the long tail pipe argument?

edit: I see. I definitely have heard this, just not called as such https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe

Here in the UK (and I believe most of Europe), they’re planning to ban sales of new ICE cars in I believe 2030. As such, 100% uptake (or close enough, perhaps there will some exceptions for specialised use cases) is almost guaranteed.

In Europe. the greens are only talking about it, but no concrete law was proposed or even planned afaik. But VW did talk about no longer selling ICE cars in 2035 [1]. But as always, 2030 is long ways off and there is probably a lot of marketing in it, let's see how it plays out.

[1] https://carthrust.com/2021/06/28/vw-says-no-to-ice-powered-c...

I'm in the UK too. I think the 2030 date is unrealistic. I'm pro-electric cars but we're still a long way away from it being the only option. At the very least we need widespread on street charging for the half of people who don't have the option to charge at home. Rapid charging is ok but not suitable for exclusive use.

> At the very least we need widespread on street charging for the half of people who don't have the option to charge at home.

Where I live there is already a pilot scheme in operation that implements this. It does need to be rolled out more widely, but I think the technology is relatively simple, so it might well be doable. 8 years to roll it out doesn't sound ridiculous (although we probably ought to get a move on). Also, remember that 2030 is only the date for halting new car sales. Most cars will still be ICE for at least 5 years after that.

builtInThe70's apartment building. I can't convince the management body to take this seriously.

I don't want to install chargers everywhere. I just want a thought out plan.

IE have a planned build for the electric backbone sometime in the future, and each owner can build their part and be connected when they wish.

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