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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Article spends all its time talking about a ~40% increase in electricity costs, when the headline is just as related to oil prices having crashed in the past few months.

Indeed, electrical generation in Europe remains high right now due to the disruption in the gas market. That's newsworthy and deserves coverage, but it's got nothing to do with "Electric Vehicles".

Also, article spins badly trying to conflate charging at DC fast chargers with "charging an EV". In fact most EV charging happens at home at residential rates, not at fast chargers which need to charge a premium to provide high-amperage service to remote locations. FWIW: my Model Y in the west coast of the USA (an area much more heavily reliant on long road trips and thus fast charging) has received just 27% of its total energy from superchargers. I'd expect British cars to use them even less.

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I have a Model X on the east coast of the USA. I charge at home, and only use superchargers when away from home (even though I have free supercharging). In the last year, just 4% of my car's energy has come from superchargers.

The Tesla app, which may be biased, says that I've saved $639 vs gasoline in the last 12 months.

They must be comparing you to a performance ICE car? Or you log lots of miles?

I only spend around $300 a year on gas for my Prius, though I'm only logging 4000 miles a year on average. 50MPG goes a long way.

Likely, yeah. The market equivalent to an X would be something like a Porsche Cayenne getting 23mpg. It's absolutely true that plugins doing around-town driving are going to get very close to an EV in energy costs (though still burning a lot of real fuel; you can buy renewable electricity, but not gas yet).

> Also, article spins badly trying to conflate charging at DC fast chargers with "charging an EV". In fact most EV charging happens at home at residential rates, not at fast chargers which need to charge a premium to provide high-amperage service to remote locations.

Contrary to your point, the article actually addresses that directly: "The RAC data shows that those charging from a slower home charger are paying just £17.87 for the same 188 miles of range."

> my Model Y in the west coast of the USA (an area much more heavily reliant on long road trips and thus fast charging) has received just 27% of its total energy from superchargers. I'd expect British cars to use them even less.

It's quite possible that British vehicle owners don't have as many garages (probably synonymous with the ability to easily and securely charge at home) as owners on the west coast of the U.S.

https://worldofsynonym.com/qa/what-percentage-of-uk-homes-ha...

I would think they probably do (garages or driveways), but don't forget the other options: charging at ~7-22kWh chargers at supermarkets, workplaces, etc.

There are 29000 slow/medium (3-22kWh) public charging points in Britain, and 7000 fast/ultrafast (25kWh+) points. The article only covers the latter.

Most if not all the slower chargers I know of are at or above the domestic capped rate of £0.34/kWh. Sadly the days of a free charge seem to have gone (but were good when they lasted, thanks Tesco!)

You don't need a garage, just a driveway. Plenty of people with chargers mounted on an outside wall.

Then you also run into this:

“Car chargers are particularly appealing to thieves because they can be sold for up to £200 and they are selling them everywhere – eBay, Facebook, and to dodgy scrap dealers,” says divert.co.uk spokesman Mark Hall. “They can be pretty costly and inconvenient for you to replace, so it’s best to keep it locked away from the crooks.”

https://www.whatcar.com/news/electric-car-charging-cable-the...

This bit of journalism amuses me. Headline reads (emphasis mine): "Electric car charging cable theft could be the next car crime wave".

And the evidence? "There has been a recent rise in reports of thefts of cables for EVs and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs)". No numbers. No link, just a statement.

The fact that there has been a "recent rise" in purchases of EVs and plug-in hybrids seems plausibly related, no? Not covered.

That's just awful, sorry. I mean, all journalism has perspective, everyone disagrees about some stuff, truth is hard, but that's just completely shameless.

Their next story: microwave theft up infinity percent in the last 75 years.

Perhaps these citations will be more to your liking:

https://news.google.com/search?q=ev+charger+theft

None of these strike me as an epidemic, just a note that they're made of copper and stolen like other things made of copper. This doesn't look like a serious, decision-changing issue.

Really? Easy to steal, definitely not cheap or simple to replace, and usually wouldn't be covered by insurance.

At least in the USA, catalytic converter theft is rampant, and not just theoretical. If I had to choose which I'd rather have stolen, I'd rather have the charger stolen. A car charger is far faster, easier, and cheaper to replace than a catalytic converter that has been hacked out of the exhaust system.

is it possible to get a locking charging plug or an anti-theft device?

A very brief search resulted in my finding that Kia EVs automatically lock the charging plug in place while charging. My guess is other manufacturers do as well or will.

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