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Comment by Mountain_Skies | Hacker News Reader

Best to look at commercial fast chargers as a convenience service. You pay more for a 1/2 liter Coca-Cola at the gas station than you would for a two-liter bottle at the grocery store. You pay extra for the convenience of it being right there as you get gas and for it being pre-chilled. For most people's daily use, charging at home will fulfill their needs. If you take a long trip, then you will end up paying convenience rates. But unless you frequently take long trips, it's a small share of the annual cost of using the vehicle. And if you do take frequent long trips, perhaps an EV isn't the best choice for you at this time.

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For most people's daily use, charging at home will fulfill their needs

Right, so not fit for the massive constituency with no access to home charging then (in addition to their many other problems as a realistic transport option for many).

As much as I like the idea of electric cars, the complacency of those championing them in the light of the lack of suitability for a huge part of the population is really frustrating.

Is anybody advocating for leaving them out? Most EV enthusiasts that I know are all for extending overnight grid access to people who don't currently have it (which is a big number of people, to be sure, but still less than half). It's an important problem to solve, the solution is not to give up on efficient cars and stick with gasoline.

Is anybody advocating for leaving them out?

Reread the quote I replied to, and what I actually said, please.

People need efficient transport not efficient cars. Efficient cars are merely less bad, rather than good. We need more public transit and less urban sprawl so that we can reuse infrastructure efficiently.

So let's keep driving gasoline cars? Or are you suggesting that we can just wave a magic wand and change how people use transportation? What you want takes decades. In the meantime, the world is getting hotter.

Another option is to promote commuter electric motorcycles, e.g. something like the Ryvid Anthem which has a removable battery you can take inside and charge. With a range of 80 miles it's definitely a commuter motorcycle, but it's top speed of 75 MPH definitely allows you to hop on the freeway as part of your commute.

The best part? It costs less than a typical used ICE car, so it's very budget friendly. And it has virtually no maintenance.

I'm not against public transit but it's a significant investment and towns like mine have spent the past 40 years failing to make it happen and unlike an e-bike an electric motorcycle can fully utilize all existing roadways.

I think it's time to start re-thinking transportation.

Main issue with electric motorcycles is that it still doesn't solve the safety issue of motorcycles, especially at freeway speeds. At least e-bikes are locked at 25kph/mph. And can be folded into public transportation.

The safety issue with motorcycles is two-fold:

* Currently the predominant category of motorcycle riders are young males who ride like idiots (i.e. they are their own biggest cause of their own accidents)

* People driving 2 ton vehicles with their heads completely up their posteriors while driving. Fortunately those people are generally easy to spot and deal with.

If anything, more motorcycle riding will make the roads safer because you actually have to pay attention to what you're doing while riding. You can't shave, put on your makeup, or read text messages while riding. You actually have to pay attention! Also, motorcycle-on-motorcycle crashes are extremely rare outside of the context of group rides.

My biggest concern with e-bikes is people treat them like bicycles. I see people cruising around my neighborhood going 35 MPH on an e-bike without any safety gear on outside of maybe a bicycle helmet. The motorcycle safety culture of ATGATT isn't even on the radar of the e-bikers. Not to mention they don't seem to know the strategies of lane position, how to make yourself visible to others, how to swerve and brake quickly - which are all standard fare for motorcycle riders.

I'm not sure I see your point, the only way to get to a world with L2 chargers at apartment buildings and such is to have demand for it or legislation supporting it, the best way to get that is to champion EVs.

Championing them is fine. Championing them in a complacent way with disregard for the masses for whom they are not an option is not.

Agreed, particularly in the states, we seem to be charging into electric cars by mandate when the infrastructure just doesnt exist for it. It doesnt have to be this way, we can mandate building the infrastructure too, or just outright pay for it - like 35% of americans live in apartments, they must be reasonably accommodated to help them with the transition. This doesnt even begin to touch on the issues rural places have with the electric revolution - again, all solvable problems that.. I think we're just assuming will solve themselves.

My largest frustration is, we're charging into electric cars in such a way that will leave the poor behind, and create a larger wealth gap. I genuinely worry that the poor will be priced out of automobile access in the states, and before anyone says "well, they shouldnt need a car" - the realistic truth is.. they do and there is a massive amount of capex and opex that must be spent to make it not so. In America, we have structured our world around personal transportation, and while we can change that, it will take a concerted effort and lots of money to do so.

The earliest mandate is California's, which takes effect 12 years from now and only applies to new cars sold. The poor generally do not buy new cars.

Other than the possibility of fuel price increases as time goes on (which, as a net exporter, the US has some amount of control over), how are electric vehicles making the wealth gap larger?

The poor are certainly priced out, but considering EVs currently have constraints and are expensive, what benefits would they bring outside of reducing externalities to the environment?

In an ideal world, I probably would be tying a phase out of ICE cars to charging access.

I'd then also mandate charging access in every apartment with two or more units and put together a government fund to help fund building it out. You also offer a rebate to homeowners (with the rebate covering up to 100% of reasonable costs the lower income they are) so they can do the needed electrical work (which might involve a whole new load center and service to the house - think 10-15k in work).

Once say, better than 90% apartment and condo dwellers have access to electric charging and there is an ongoing program in place to ensure that everyone else has access, then its pretty safe to mandate a ban ICE vehicles.

I bought a brand new car two years ago. I expect it to last twenty more, and 200k miles or more. Nobody is going to put a gun to my head and make me replace it with an electric anything, ever.

Meanwhile the used car market will be full of ICE vehicles forever.

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything.

In some countries or cities, you may be prevented from driving into those countries or cities.

Several European cities have low- or zero-pollution zones, and these are likely to increase once the disruption to normal people is limited. Currently, it's generally old diesel trucks and buses that are banned or restricted.

Who are you blaming? People who have access to overnight charging and therefore are enthusiastic about EV ownership? The government? I'm confused. Are you saying that it's not okay to advocate for EV adoption without disclaiming every statement with "but only when we've figured out how to get grid access extended to everybody's parking spot?"

The grid already exists everywhere. Getting it out to the parking spots is mostly a tedious exercise in construction, not even much of an engineering problem. Yes let's encourage this construction. Incentivize it, even.

To repeat again (see me earlier reply to you), I'm questioning the tone and implied assumptions of those conveying the idea this is an acceptable solution for the majority of the population of even developed countries.

I took a trip to Fairbanks in February a few years ago. I was warned to plug in the engine block heater whenever I could. There were outlets many places. There was no charge for using the outlet but it was just the typical 110 volt US outlet.

If people would aim more for that kind of infrastructure - really slow but "too cheap to meter" - it would be more widespread. No need for the expensive upgrades to the electrical system, no need for cabinets with cooling systems, no internet, no computers at all.

You could put all the EV slots in one part of an apartment or shopping center parking lot, like now. It'd be nice if there was a proportional circuit breaker, so that if every EV was charging they'd get half charge instead of tripping the breaker.

There is a marked difference in the needs of a block charger and an electric car - block heaters draw between 4-10a, a car charger will draw 15+ (as much power as can be supplied).

And while someone may abuse the engine block charger (I've seen someone plug in a mobile phone to one) the total cost is minuscule and not worth metering.

Not so for actual electric cars (you can plug one into a block charger but you won't get that many miles per hour) - especially on high-speed chargers that are 220 or 440 and many amps.

You also don't "need" a block heater for a modern (last 40yr) spark ignited gasoline engine in good repair anywhere on earth. It's just a "nice to have".

a lot of street lamps had a socket in London; but then they're on 230v 10A. with 110v 10A in colder areas it's probably just enough to keep the battery pack warm...

Most people I see championing them 1) own one and use it daily 2) understand that overnight charging is a blocker to mass adoption and aggressively push for better access for renters and business owners etc to add normal outlets and 3) openly advocate for people who don't think electric cars work for them to not get them.

Remember that you don't necessarily need to charge AT HOME. If you drive yourself to work and sit there for 8 hours, your employer should be encouraged and subsidized to set up 15 amp charging for some of their employees.

> you don't necessarily need to charge AT HOME. If you drive yourself to work and sit there for 8 hours

This make sense but I think it's a deal breaker for many. It would be for me, anyway.

I don't want to depend on my employer to keep my car running. Just the idea is depressing; it'd feel like an admission that I'm "living to work".

Not to mention the fact that it would limit my options for switching jobs.

> Right, so not fit for the massive constituency with no access to home charging then

There's another massive constituency that has access to home charging, but can't afford the EV itself.

E.g. I can afford to pay the mortgage on my home, but not a $50,000 EV car, because I don't want to pad the pockets of dealerships and greedy manufacturers.

I want my $200/kWh car or I'll keep using the car I already have.

Absolutely, I was thinking of things like economic and geographic factors with my parenthesis note.

But some of the commenters seem to be unaware of those constraints and how significant they are, or at least, use a tone that conveys those assumptions.

Totally agree. Also what will this demand for electricity created by EVs do to the price of electricity for ordinary household devices? Already in the UK people are turning off their fridge because they can't afford to run it. This is due to Ukraine crisis affecting electricity prices, so what effect will EVs have on the price of electricity? It's all just assumed things will be wonderful. Blinkers on as usual.

i know many that charge with a standard outlet at home, including myself. for many, maybe most, that's enough.

I've just moved from the US to London, and one interesting approach I've seen here to EV charging is adding it to municipal infrastructure. In many London boroughs, there are now EV chargers built into the street lights. You simply scan the QR code at the device and the charge point unlocks for use.

Whilst I think QR codes are maybe the wrong choice for this because of the security implications, I think the idea of integrating chargers into existing public infrastructure is quite a good one, and applicable in many places where you'd otherwise have issues with EVs.

This of course doesn't solve apartment buildings, but new apartment buildings should be required to provide EV charging infrastructure, and grants to implement it in existing apartment buildings would go a long way, too.

Many apartments already have slow chargers installed, many more are working on it. The world rapidly built a massive network of gas stations to make gas cars work, requiring massive underground tanks full of toxic chemicals and pumps and machines to pump them into cars.

For EVs we need to run some wire, its way simpler, its already happening, rapidly. It doesn't even put more net load on the grid, since it takes the same amount of electricity to refine a tank of gas, as to fill a "tank" of an EV.

This also means that EVs aren't ready for people who can't charge at home, like most apartment renters or people in rental homes who drive too much for whatever outlet is available in their garage.

In the UK it also includes the many, many people living on terraced streets with no off-road parking.

People on therraced streets just park in front of their house and run a cable to charge the car.

Unsafe for obvious reasons, not remotely a practical solution.

As others have pointed out there are real infrastructure problems, and not really difficult in cases like the above to sort technically, but nobody seems to be doing it practically, it's clearly in the power of the government and suppliers to do en masse if the intent is to encourage wide scale adoption.

At least in Europe if they have access to any outlet at all, they can usually get much better charging than we do in the states (240V vs 120V).

Do they?

I dont think every outlet in Europe can do the 20a to 30a at 240v that you'd expect for a car charger - just like most outlets here are rated for 15a at 120, most outlets in the UK are rated for 13a at 240 (and thats on a ring circuit fused for 40a, which may be shared with many other outlets) - its a difference of about 1320w (in Germany 10a outlets are common, which means even less, a mere 600w difference) in actual power delivery. Whereas a dedicated home charging ciruit in states will be 4800-7200w.

while yes, there is a difference, you dont know how many other devices that power line will pass, and it wont do in common space living situations where often exterior outlets are.. A) Shared and B) on the buildings meter, rather than the individuals.

It often isn't as good as an L2 charger, but it is usually better than an American L1 charger. Incidentally, I already see this effect in using an electric water kettle: in the USA they are really slow, but in Europe and Asia, they are much faster (because 230-240V).

L1.25 perhaps ;-)

Point taken, and conceded in my original comment - the larger issues are, to suddenly add a bunch of high amperage loads at everyones parking space requires additional infrastructure - infrastructure we probably dont already have.

I've never seen power outlets in shared parking in Europe, so I didn't really consider that case. I guess I'm just considering Europeans in SFHs, where they really don't need to worry about adding L2 wiring for most use cases.

On-street and public-car-park chargers are very common. Scroll around https://chargefinder.com/

I don't know about private parking, e.g. a car park reserved for residents of adjacent apartments. My building has two chargers, but it's not something I look out for elsewhere.

A random search brought up a SMEG KLFO3 retro kettle at 3000w for the UK, the US get a Hamilton Beach 40869 - 1500 watts, so almost exactly half.

If you really want to it is possible to wire 220/240 to an appropriate outlet in the US and have a 240v kettle, but some will be industrial - https://www.webstaurantstore.com/13957/commercial-coffee-mak...

Ya, my next kitchen renovation is going to have a 220/240 outlet just to use a faster water kettle (well, an induction cooktop should already be able to boil water quickly, but just in case a separate appliance still makes sense).

It's a convenient backup, and can easily be sufficient for normal use.

My friend can drive to another friend's house in the British countryside and plug an almost-empty Tesla into the ordinary socket in the garage. After a weekend hiking etc, with little use of the car, it is full or close enough.

That's something he can rely on in the UK/Ireland (13A@240V=3120W), something he couldn't rely on in North America (15A@120V=1800W), and the rest of Europe is somewhere in-between.

(Does a typical German house have higher-rated sockets in the garage?)

> Does a typical German house have higher-rated sockets in the garage?

At least where I'm from, it's not super unusual to have a 400V socket with 16A or higher in private garages (either for tools or people preparing for an EV at some point), but you can't count on it.

Every US electrical grid connected site has access to 240V. It's just not the voltage at regular outlets, despite being trivially available from the main service panel.

You need to wire it, which depending on how your garage is located vs your access panel, can be a few hundred dollars or a few thousand. In my case, we have to wrap around a cable (so $$$, but I also need a panel upgrade, so $$$$), but I've found L1 to work well enough for my usage.

Yes, continue to build out overnight grid access for the segment of the population that does not currently have it. That is a good idea. Are you suggesting otherwise that we all continue to drive gasoline cars until that happens, then it'll be okay to switch to electric?

You seem to be taking an awfully defensive stance as if comment was from someone anti-EV, when in reality anyone reading it would see it merely points out issues with the current available infrastructure.

I haven't heard much hullabaloo made about kerbside EV charging or such for apartment complexes or terraced housing etc in the UK.

Is this something happening quietly, or not being invested in much like rural broadband wasnt?

Normally the anti-EV crowd does tend to just drop in little nuggets to prove that we don't have a perfect world for EVs yet, without furthering the discussion of how we get to that point. Because they don't want to get there to begin with, burning gasoline is their preferred permanent solution.

I do see a fair amount of quiet upgrading going on, at least in my area (in the US, not in UK, so I cannot speak to that). Having an EV charger is becoming a box you want to have checked on your rental property description, whether apartment or house. That doesn't mean we have a great solution in mind for curbside parking, mind you, but in most of the US that's a much less critical issue than apartment complexes which do have private parking lots.

The one question the "EVs still pollute" crowd can never answer is what ICEV owners can do that's equivalent to installing your own solar (or soon wind) to harvest your own clean energy for a vehicle. Same to a certain extent with heat pumps vs. oil/gas heating for the home. They act like green technologies are as good and cheap as they can ever be, and do absolutely nothing to reduce emissions, when in fact progress is being made rapidly on both fronts. It's this one-sided view that makes them seem like allies of Big Oil, even if they don't mean to be.

Britain (especially London) has more kerbside EV charging (per capita) than anywhere except China. It's often only 3000W or so, i.e. the rating of the normal domestic socket.

Scroll around https://www.zap-map.com/live/

from that map, christ it looks like they added a cable to every other street lamp in London.

Density closer to home looks about the same as what I've normally seen, scattered 2-4 bays at a few businesses, some business parks with 8 bays.

Surprised at the coverage for Coventry tbh

No; I'm pointing the unfortunate reality of today's rental properties.

I love my EV, and I have zero regrets the purchase. But I don't think it'd be practical for me to buy it if I was renting, and that sucks.

I can't charge at home. I don't have a garage or driveway and the municipality forbids extension cords spanning across the pavement.

If home charging is a necessity to use an already twice as expensive electric car, I can't be an EV customer realistically.

That is one of the reasons I moved house.

Municipalities will change their rules when enough people request it.

Another option is to charge at the office and/or at the free chargers at the supermarket car parks.

Rubbish, fast charging is essential to long distance drives else now you are paying in time.

How many people need to make regular trips beyond EV range though?

In the US, many people drive 5+hr long-distance trips a few times a year at least (visit relatives, vacation, etc). So the idea of either getting fleeced or stranded a few times a year is unappealing.

So, probably less than <1% of your miles travelled then. And throughout the rest of your travels you're paying significantly less per mile than you would in an ICE car. Even if you use super chargers on your long distance trips then in the grand scheme of things it's still cheaper.

My closest big city is 4 hrs drive away. I know lots of people in the UK who drive to places in France for vacation. I bet mainland Europeans do the same.

And then there is just range anxiety which is always gonna be there. I've driven from Scotland to East Anglia and it took long enough with the awful traffic, put a slow charge into that mix and it would have been a multi-day trip.

I just don't get why people are so ready to blinker themselves to some of this stuff. EVs are still in early adopter stage, IMO, but we are fast tracking whole nations into forcing them to be the only option. And they are just not fit for some people's usecases.

> we are fast tracking whole nations into forcing them to be the only option

Where? Tell me one place that you know of in the foreseeable future that will prevent the use of ICE vehicles?

California is planning on preventing sale of new ICE vehicles in 12 years. So within 20 years, you’d expect it to be a prohibitively huge hassle to source a reasonably in-shape ICE vehicle.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/california-bans-the-sale-of-...

Sure, not going to disagree with that (I might suggest more than 8 years from the last sale, but no matter).

It's still not a ban on the continuing use of ICEs. If ICEs still represent a desirable choice for enough people/purposes, the support for them will be there.

> If ICEs still represent a desirable choice for enough people/purposes, the support for them will be there.

This means that of the people who want ICEs, a select few people with money will be able to afford it while those without money are told to make do.

Most people I know do this a few times a year at least. In the midwest we think nothing of a 20 hour drive to get to some vacation destination.

Sure for daily driving a EV has the range, but without good charging it doesn't work for vacations. That is a few weeks every year.

A lot of fast charging networks offer memberships that make frequent usage more economical. Though I'm not sure how that works for commercial users (including Uber drivers with Teslas).

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