Comment by TheLoafOfBread | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheLoafOfBread | Hacker News Reader

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Charging - Expensive and epic waste of time. Ionity leading the way with 0.79EUR/kWh and still you are there for 40 minutes and that's charger which can give me 150kW on start of charging. Slower chargers, like stupid 50kW? Yeah, 2 hours charging and they are wide and far. 20kW and weaker chargers? You are playing lottery with compatibility buddy. Yes it is there, yes it is on, but it does not like your car. What's the point of CCS when there are different incompatible software stacks in power delivery protocol?

Car almost left me stranded in middle of France north of Troyes, when it lead me to charge to Freshmile, which was not compatible at all (car navigation was thinking otherwise). I needed to charge at local Citroen dealership to get 30km so I can get to Ionity in Troyes.

Applications - Frustrating chapter for itself. New charger, new app to be installed, account created in etc.... And new problems to be solved, like their pay gate does not like your Visa card. Huh? Or they will happily take your money as a credit for charging and then you will figure out that your car is not compatible with the charger. Money back? F You!

This could have been resolved by installing normal debit card terminals, like are in stores. Just let me use my NFC card / phone to pay what I have charged. Like on an automated gas pump or when I am buying groceries. IT COULD BE THAT SIMPLE.

Driving - 2 hours going 130km/h on highway, then you need to charge for cca 1 hour. So your average traveling speed can't exceed 90km/h. That's an epic waste of time.

Charging at home - I moved to another country, where I can't charge at a driveway, because now I am living in the apartment. So I am forced to charge 2km away on a 20kW charger. Completely uncomfortable.

And then seeing ban on ICE cars 12 years away and there is 50% of people in EU living in apartments... yeah after my experience, I am confident that this will get postponed.

I think your experience reflects more your choise of car than EVs as technology. I have been driving Tesla happily for 3.5 years. I regularly make long distance trips to remote areas of Finland. No problems whatsoever. I pay 25 snt/kWh for on-the-road charging with Elli membership, about 12 snt at home.

The moment when you will get off the supercharger network with your tesla you are in the same crap as the rest of the BEV owners.

>on-the-road charging with Elli membership

Why should I buy some stupid membership so I can pay monthly fee + charging fee? I am not buying memberships for taking gas either.

Net cost of energy, and a quick payback on your monthly fee based on the savings vs. not paying the monthly fee.

It's math.

> The moment when you will get off the supercharger network with your tesla

There are 21 Tesla charging sites in Finland and 14 of them are now open to all EVs. So you could be making use of two thirds of Tesla's Finnish charging sites with your Skoda Enyaq right now.

Lol on 14 open superchargers. Tried Tesla app. It told me to insert VIN of my car, to tell me that this is not Tesla VIN. Well no shit Sherlock. So even if I would like to charge (and pay) on superchargers, I can't.

Everyone else is managing to. Maybe you should try again.

It just seems like a lot of your problems are self-inflicted. You could be doing things easier.

Or, hear me out, there could be NFC payment terminal instead of registering on ANOTHER STUPID APPLICATION

Even public transportation trams and buses in Eastern Europe have NFC terminals on board to buy tickets. Why is it so hard for a damn charger in Western Europe to have one?

https://www.dpp.cz/en/fares/cashless-payment-of-fare

So you don't actually want any practical solutions. You just want to have a whinge and a moan.

Instead of wishing for what isn't, you could be doing a lot better with what is.

I don't need a "practical" application of local gas network to buy gas.

I don't need a "practical" application of local supermarket chain to buy grocieries.

Why should I tolerate buggy applications to charge an electric car on incompatible chargers? Why there isn't an NFC terminal which I can find almost in any store in EU and today even on vending machines? The chargers already have internet connection, so where is the problem? I am not a masochist and I am refusing to live in this customer hell. This is one of the reasons why I am selling this joke of a car and going back to ICE.

> I am not a masochist

I think you are. Why else would you buy something you didn't understand? You plainly didn't think through the practicalities before you bought it.

Oh, so 12 years from now only BEVs will be available, what will be your recommendation to people who will have same issues like I do? Tell them that they are masochists, who don't understand the car and they should not have bought it at a first place, despite the fact, that their choices are artificially limited?

I bought the car using my own money to get the experience with BEV and I found out, that it sucks big time. I was expecting that it might be a little bit inconvenient, but I was not expecting to be such a massive bag of problems with BEV proponents like you trying to gaslight me that user is the problem.

> what will be your recommendation to people who will have same issues like I do?

They won't have the same issues like you do. You're doing a lot of this to yourself.

> BEV proponents like you trying to gaslight me that user is the problem.

No one's gaslighting you. You're refusing to use the tools that will make it easier for you.

Are you using A Better Routeplanner yet? Configure it to prioritise your preferred charging networks so you don't end up trying to charge on Freshmile again.

If you’ve owned any EV besides a Tesla you know this is sadly the cold hard truth. I’m not sure why EV owners rush in to try and refute the problems with charging but as a Bolt EV owner it was a terrible experience.

Imagine if every time you tried to use a gas station you needed to install a buggy, crashing phone App that required you to type in your credit card and other personal information. Imagine if 50% of gas stations simply didn’t work and you get stranded somewhere far from home having to sleep in your car. This is the reality of owning a non-Tesla EV. After a year of this and owning a rapidly depreciating car I said screw it and went back to gas.

"The user is the problem"

> when it lead me to charge to Freshmile

Try A Better Routeplanner and configure it to plan routes which prioritize your preferred charging providers:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

You'll probably have an easier time of it with ABRP.

Not the parent you're replying to, but this comment is very indicative of the problem being addressed. With an ICE car, or even a hybrid, this is just not a consideration. I don't need to plan my route around fuel stops unless I'm going somewhere well away from 'civilization'.

The issues described are not insolvable, but dismissing that they aren't currently solved is a little bit like sticking your head in the sand. Suggesting a better route planner just seems a little naive in that context.

What a bizarre thing to say. EV charging infrastructure is still being built out. It's still the case that there aren't EV chargers absolutely everywhere.

Until there are many more EV chargers in more locations such that you don't have to think about it, you use a route planner to easily find the charger locations that exist now.

I retort that I find it bizarre that you somehow think that for most people, offering them a solution that strictly requires more effort on their part is preferable.

> Until there are many more EV chargers in more locations such that you don't have to think about it, you use a route planner to easily find the charger locations that exist now.

Or I use an ICE car and not have to deal with this, like at all.

> offering them a solution that strictly requires more effort on their part is preferable

The whole point of suggesting a route planner is to reduce the effort on their part.

Any change of vehicle is a tradeoff - maybe it's faster but has worse fuel economy. Maybe it's got more passenger space but the navigation is worse. Ways to mitigate the downsides are a good thing.

> Or I use an ICE car and not have to deal with this, like at all.

Sure, but there are significant downsides to ICE. The tradeoffs may be worth it or they may not. Would you call it naive to talk about e.g. catalytic converters on ICEs to reduce their emissions (which then end up getting stolen - whereas I can use an electric car and not have to deal with that, like at all)

> The whole point of suggesting a route planner is to reduce the effort on their part.

How would having to use a route planner be less effort than not having to use one at all? With my ICE car, I very rarely have to concern myself with being able to find a gas station in range. I also very rarely would need to use any sort of route planning software to find a gas station in range.

> Ways to mitigate the downsides are a good thing.

Yes, but the problem arises when you're mitigating downsides you added yourself. For a _lot_ of people, EVs have many downsides that they currently do not need to suffer from with ICE or hybrid cars. Yes, route planning software might mitigate the issue; I can imagine having a mode in Google or Apple maps that lets you route plan around charging stations could work quite well. But you're still stacking having to do that on top of the other downsides EVs currently have. Gas stations on the other hand are widely available, and on longer routes (in the US at least) often marked on roadside signage that makes them very accessible. If you're planning around charging stations you may also not have opportunities to take more interesting or faster routes, which could be a downside depending on the purpose of your trip.

> Sure, but there are significant downsides to ICE.

No disagreement from me there. But these downsides are largely well known, and either very diffuse or tend to have well-known mitigations at this point. When you change that set of downsides, there will be an adjustment period.

> Would you call it naive [...]

No, absolutely not. Those are real problems too. What I was referring to was the way you seemed to offer a dismissive solution to the problem that the GP described. A lot of EV proponents I've found are very dismissive of the real-world issues of EVs that currently exist, and the additional challenges many people would face if they were to switch to an EV right now. Dismissing these things makes it harder to address and improve them.

To be clear, a century ago we might have been having the same discussion about ICE cars, and how the infrastructure is not ready yet; In a way, this reminds me of refactoring core components of a large intertwined codebase. Often you can't just flip a switch and just change everything, it has to be gradual, building up it's own support over time and effort -- but many an inexperienced (and dare I say naive) engineer would still try to change it all at once.

I don't know what you're talking about anymore.

If you're too scared to own an EV, if the EV chargers frighten you, if you find the leading edge too edgy, if the adoption is too early for you, then the solution in your case is simple: don't buy an EV.

In the meantime, EV owners can use A Better Routeplanner and configure it to prioritise their preferred charging networks (via Settings -> Charging Networks -> Network Preferences) to find charging sites from charging providers they like to use.

So, in TheLoafOfBread's case, if he prefers to use let's say Ionity, Tesla, BP, and FastNed with his Skoda Enyaq he can add them to the network preferences in ABRP.

Then when TheLoafOfBread plans his next road trip, A Better Routeplanner will plan a route which uses those charging sites in preference to other charging sites. TheLoafOfBread will find that most of the time he'll be charging at one of his preferred charging providers and he'll be much happier.

> If you're too scared to own an EV, if the EV chargers frighten you, if you find the leading edge too edgy, if the adoption is too early for you, then the solution in your case is simple: don't buy an EV.

Which is exactly what I have done. Driving an EV is great, owning one in my situation would introduce more problems than it solves. Many of the factors that affect this decision for me are very common and likely apply to a large fraction of the population.

> So, in TheLoafOfBread's case, if he prefers to use let's say Ionity, Tesla, BP, and FastNed with his Skoda Enyaq he can add them to the network preferences in ABRP.

I understood the complaint to be partially that they would prefer to not have to deal with any of that at all, or at least that it could and should be far far simpler.

> or at least that it could and should be far far simpler.

It is far, far simpler. A Better Routeplanner will make it simpler for TheLoafOfBread.

Uh, what about all the other issues they raised? About cost? About charging time? About charger compatibility? About the inability to effectively charge at home? The clunky app-based payment methods?

TheLoafOfBread will have a better time using better charging networks, the ones he will set up as his preferred charging providers in A Better Routeplanner.

Instead of talking in circles, just try A Better Routeplanner.

This thread is getting a little deep, but to close it out, I decided to indulge you and plan a somewhat typical commute for me from a while back. The total trip time including charging ends up being 3 hours. The same trip sans charging times is under 2 hours. That's 5 hours a week extra that I would be losing out. The trips are also short enough that I also don't need a break that sitting around waiting for charging would provide. The total distance would also use up almost a full charge, so if I start the morning with a full charge, I would still end up needing a long stop somewhere to charge up at the end of the night. I would also be unable to reliably charge at any of my destinations because of either lack of availability of facilities where I could park and leave my car for multiple hours to charge, or because the available facilities are meager (Here's a 120v 15A outlet, have fun charging much at those speeds). So yes, I will agree, ABRP does simplify things. I couldn't imagine having to deal with finding the charging stations and planning out my route without a tool like that. But all of the problems it seems to me that it solves are ones that arise from having an EV.

Here's my idea of simple: No apps needed, I pull up to the charger, any charger, I get out of the car, tap my credit card on the payment terminal, plug the charging cable into my car, stand around for 2-3 minutes while my car recharges to 100%, unplug, grab my receipt and drive off. If I'm on a long trip and starting to get low on charge, I look for the next charge station sign I see. Basically, exactly like a gas station is right now. My understand of TheLoafOfBread's comment was that they were thinking along the same lines as me.

ABRP does very little to move the needle towards this version of simple. It can't make charging times shorter than what is physically possible, it can't offer you charging stations that are as ubiquitous as gas stations, it can't enforce having the same easy to use connector at every charge station. It has a role to play, a small one, and frankly not terribly interesting one.

We are talking in circles, so perhaps it's time to finish the conversation.

> The total trip time including charging ends up being 3 hours. The same trip sans charging times is under 2 hours.

Hey, super. Show the trip and the car. Let's see it.

> So yes, I will agree, ABRP does simplify things. I couldn't imagine having to deal with finding the charging stations and planning out my route without a tool like that.

Good. So there was nothing for you to argue about from the beginning.

> How would having to use a route planner be less effort than not having to use one at all?

It's not, it's less effort than whatever they were doing to find charging stations before.

> What I was referring to was the way you seemed to offer a dismissive solution to the problem that the GP described.

I didn't offer it, but I don't see anything dismissive about it. It looked like a genuine effort to help someone mitigate one of the downsides of an EV (which was clearly something that had some upsides for them, otherwise why would they have bought one in the first place).

> It's not, it's less effort than whatever they were doing to find charging stations before.

I understood the GP's comment to also be a commentary on the difference between what they had to deal with when driving an EV and how that was different than their previous experiences with ICE/Hybrids.

> I didn't offer it

Oops, that is my mistake indeed.

If you don't charge at home at least 90% of the time, the EV loses most of the benefits. This will slowly change as more EVs are sold and the charging infrastructure improves.

> This will slowly change as more EVs are sold and the charging infrastructure improves.

Yeah.. no. Especially not in old big towns around Europe where hundreds of thousands (even millions) of people live without underground garage and there's literally no place to install street side chargers on every corner.

I'm living in the center of Munich, and they've built out a lot of curb-side chargers over the last years here.

My personal hope is that advances in technology and grid upgrades will eventually lead to every single lamp post being a charge socket - a lot of the cars here belong to residents and stay parked for days, so they can get away with 3.6 kW charging just fine.

In the end, however, the solution likely will be a massive expansion of public transport, to a point where almost no one but people with disabilities and tradespeople will have their own cars.

I don't think that last thing will ever happen. Even in Denmark, where cycling culture predates the car and there used to be (or is - I'm not up to date), among other disincentives, a hefty 180% registration tax people still drive.

All in all it's a useful tool if used in moderation.

How will we ever deliver 240VAC electricity to locations that are directly adjacent to urban city streets. Seems like an intractable problem. /s

240VAC, maybe if you have 4-6 hours for your car to charge.

You need a minimum 3 phase 480v electrical source to charge even a small battery in under an hour. We are talking 150-200Kw, or the equivalent energy to run around 170 American sized households to fast charge a single car. You think that’s happening in Europe, pretty much ever?

Cars are parked for approximately 100% of the time they're not being driven. For typical vehicle owners (insomniac driving fanatics and corporate "fleet vehicles" excepted), that's much more than 4-6 hours per day. So no: we do not need 200kW HVDC chargers on every city street.

What we do need is ubiquitous Level 2 (240V AC) charging present at the locations where most drivers store their cars. For drivers who store their cars on public city streets, that means installing new cable runs and charging poles. Obviously this infrastructure isn't going to be "free", but it's not some kind of intractable technical challenge. Moreover it will eventually pay for itself through a modest surcharge on the electricity consumers use for charging.

"You need a minimum 3 phase 480v electrical source to charge even a small battery in under an hour. We are talking 150-200Kw?"

The Tesla 3 Long Range AWD has a 76 kWh battery with a range of 358 miles (576 km). The average European car drives 18,000 km/year, or 72 km/day or 10 kWh/day with Tesla's efficiency.

If everyone has giant EV pickups with 200kWh batteries driving 500 miles every day, yeah you have a problem. But that's the tiny minority.

But I thought the advantage of European towns was that you didn't need a vehicle because you could walk to everything you need?

I certainly do walk and cycle. That doesn't mean millions of other don't and not everyone has workplace 5min away by foot

It is. Electric cars are a sideshow, the real disruption is e-bikes, e-scooters and golf carts.

How much space do you think an EV charger takes? They are the size of parking meters. They are built into lamp posts.

And of course, electricity will come out of unicorn's farts straight into your car. You literally need to rework complete infrastructure to support EV cars. It also motivates car culture even further, while we should be working other way around

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