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Comment by DrBazza | Hacker News Reader

"Better" how? I want a range the same as petrol car, with a recharging time the same as it takes me to pump gasoline into the tank. Until I have that, EVs aren't 'better' for me in any way. I drive 300 miles point to point several times a month and with an EV the journey time is an hour longer, and definitely not 'better'. That's not to say that EVs won't improve, but by 2035 will we have 700 mile range EVs that charge to 100% in 3-4 minutes?

The chassis, interior, and "technology" in combustion engine cars is largely the same for every manufacturer that produce EV + internal combustion because of economies of scale. So that's not a unique selling point.

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> I drive 300 miles point to point several times a month

EV's won't be better for you any time soon; unless the solid state batteries with a higher energy density become the norm. For long road trips, ICE vehicles are more convenient. That being said; I've drive an electric car (Model S) twice from Norway to Spain (3700 km ~ 2300 miles), so it's definitely doable, but it does add time compared to a doing the same trip with a regular ICE car. At highway speeds you can probably add 1 hour per every 2-3 hours of driving.

We had an i3, and when on a summer vacation we noted our "usual" trip took about an hour longer due to a couple of recharge stops. However my SO, which drove the whole way, said she actually preferred it as she felt less exhausted when we arrived thanks to the extra stops. As such she was able to do more the evening we arrived.

Obviously others prefer to get there ASAP, but yeah, isn't necessarily clear cut.

There’s nothing except you preventing you from taking an optional longer stop in an ICE car (with more flexibility on where you take it instead of being limited to just “anywhere within walking distance of the fast charger”)

Of course. But she hadn't considered the effects of the stops before being "forced" by the EV.

> Obviously others prefer to get there ASAP

My problem with long road trips in an EV are not just the time added. Especially if you drive across Europe and rely on the supercharger network, you will notice that they are very often located in the middle of nowhere; next to a gas station or McDonald's. Not cool places to hang out for 45 minutes. There was one supercharger on my way to Spain (I think it was outside Bremen?) that was located next to a shopping mall, or "factory outlets" for Puma/Adidas etc. At that location 45 minutes flies by like nothing, it's actually to little time. But at some random gas-station, hotel or McDonald's in the middle of nowhere, 45 minutes feels way to much…

> At highway speeds you can probably add 1 hour per every 2-3 hours of driving.

Similar experience for me. Our family wrote off getting an EV until they're significantly better.

> "Better" how?

Several metrics. Clearly the only ones you care about is maximum range and minimal recharge/refuel time. But for many others there are other metrics that are more important, where a BEV is better.

For example, for us, being able to recharge at home is a major plus. It's been 6 months since we used a public charger, and our car is used daily. Especially my SO appreciates this, as she hated having to fill up with gas at the end of the day rather than going straight home to sleep. Not to mention it's way cheaper than gas, at least here.

Noise is another one. In slow moving traffic, it's so nice and quiet. We got an ICE rental last year while our car was being serviced (got hit by someone who didn't honor our right-of-way), and we'd completely forgotten how noisy (and stinky) an ICE car is.

Just some examples. Not saying BEVs are perfect, but range isn't the only metric that matters for everyone.

> The chassis, interior, and "technology" in combustion engine cars is largely the same for every manufacturer that produce EV + internal combustion because of economies of scale.

Precisely why I'm looking at BEV's that don't have an ICE variant. So much better with a pure BEV design.

> I want a range the same as petrol car, with a recharging time the same as it takes me to pump gasoline into the tank.

The "recharging time" part is easily achievable with battery swapping, which is already big in China. The luxury car maker Nio is introducing it to Europe, Norway first.

Battery swapping also reduces the sticker price of cars. You don't pay for the battery up front; you pay for it over the lifetime of the car in swap fees. The advantage is if you don't need much range for the next week or so, you can choose an old partly used-up battery pack for a lower price than a brand new one.

Range is more difficult, but there are grounds for optimism that this won't be so much of a problem in 2035.

1. https://www.nio.com/blog/power-swapping-europe

Edit: Ample[2] is working with manufacturers in the west to try to create a "gas station" industry model for battery swapping, where any manufacturer's batteries work with any manufacturer's cars.

2. https://ample.com/

300 miles, this is like 5-6 hours? You don't want to take a break for 15 minutes to go the bathroom and get a bite? That is all you need to add during your drive if you start with a fully charged battery. It can also be done at pretty much any point besides the first and last 50 miles.

Genuinely curious, what EV can give you a comfortable 300 mile with a good threshold, and charge in 15 minutes from a regular EV point?

As I said in the other reply, there's a paucity of EV chargers in the UK that are not along a major route, there aren't a large number of them, and they're rarely 'superchargers'.

When you leave for your trip your car is full.

The Tesla Model 3 has a real world range of 300 miles [0].

You want to give yourself a 50 mile buffer. So you need to add about 13kWh of energy along the route. That's like 8 minutes with a 100kW charger round it up to quarter hour.

[0] https://ev-database.org/car/1591/Tesla-Model-3-Long-Range-Du...

285 miles on the highway isn't bad but that's only in mild weather. People in the North (American and Europe) live six months of the year in cold weather. Then they get 217 miles on the highway. In Europe this isn't even three hours of driving. And this is one of the best ranges on an EV under $70k.

I mean this is just what abouting and hunting for edge cases where you can feel good for being camp gas-car. And I guess that is fine.

I am just saying that having lived with a reasonable family-EV for a year, there has been nothing that would make me regret the decision.

Someone trying to convince me that I should have regrets is just gaslighting.

It's a very common scenario for hundreds of millions of people. I'm really happy that your EV works for your family's use case. It doesn't work for mine.

What you want might never happen, especially the charging time part. If you pull out a calculator, you will find out the current required （under domestic voltage) to charge a 80kWh battery in 2 hours is already staggering. In 3-4 minutes at your home? I don't see it anytime soon.

Current Teslas will get you 50% charge in half an hour. Is adding 25 mins to your 5 hour journey really that big a deal?

In the UK, in 2023, yes.

I drive a part motorway, part countryside route that has very, very, few EV charging points, and on many occasions they've been full or broken, or both.

EV cars are good for cities and city to city along motorways. Anywhere else, not so much.

The UK charging experience has improved rapidly in the the past few years and will continue to do so. That is, buy an EV today and it's only going to improve tomorrow as more and better charging infrastructure is rolled out.

Isn’t "adding 25 mins" conditional on having a charging point right on your way waiting for you?

Exactly my point.

Based on time to charge vs time to pump gas, let's be charitable and say you need 30 minutes to charge an EV fully, vs. 5 minutes on a pump, so you'd need 6x the number of publicly available EV chargers to replace an existing gas station.

On my regular UK route, the motorway services have petrol garages that can fill 20 cars at once https://goo.gl/maps/wF7dxup3jBMAGqjg9, and only 6 EV points: https://goo.gl/maps/GXm2xoPNvXGZiMxU9 and they're always occupied when I pass through.

I'm sure every car park will eventually get more EV points, never one per space though, but we're not there yet. We're not even at 6x the gas station pump count yet.

I'm sure I'll be in the last group of people to buy an EV.

This is not real world. Here is one (https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=550e4ca1-4a68-4ef...) My family regularly travels from Denmark to Austria for skiing. This route is 10:36:00 of driving, and 2:26:00 of charging. And that's assuming the chargers are free. They're often not. In reality - and I have tested this with a rental - charging occupies 30%+ of total driving time. This is absurd on a road trip.

I think EVs are great - for short trips. They're clearly terrible for longer trips. We all hope they get better.

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