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Comment by ryanjshaw | Hacker News Reader

These guys [1] took an iX3 to the Kruger Park in South Africa and back with careful planning. They managed to do 100km of self-driving game viewing thru the remote park per day for 4 days without issues.

They recharged out of their accomodation while they weren't out driving. We don't even have electricity 24 hours/day here due to our ongoing generation crisis, so I'm surprised you wouldn't be able to do something similar in the USA or are those two parks just really that remote? Or is it the 120V AC that's the issue?

[1] https://mybroadband.co.za/news/motoring/504858-i-drove-an-el...

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> These guys [1] took an iX3 to the Kruger Park in South Africa and back with careful planning.

This is not as impressive as you might think, to be honest. What they did is the ideal situation for using EVs: drive short distances and charge overnight.

>> over the course of our 4-night stay, despite driving over 100km per day in the park.

Their needed range was 100km/day, over four days, with overnight charging for each 100km drive.

To get there, they drove for 3 hours, then stopped for 1.5 hours to charge.

Honestly, the story makes it clear that range is an issue, not that range is doable in an EV.

If you read their account, they actually believe they would've made it there without stopping to charge, also they used a fast charging station on the trip which would've charged to 80% in 30 minutes (a much more usual break on a long 3 hour trip). Many people stop for lunch on their way to Kruger, I suspect they did this here. Charging overnight on the slowest plug point in Kruger also delivered up to 210km range, double what they needed per day in Kruger.

It's not really an issue they were just extremely cautious, something you'd expect in South Africa if you know anything about their power grid. I believe the author was actually trying to show it is actually feasible and range is not a concern.

> I believe the author was actually trying to show it is actually feasible and range is not a concern.

I don't think that even the most anti-EV person is going to think that range is a concern for doing 100km off a full charge.

In a discussion where almost all of us are open to being convinced, it's even more pointless to link to a practical range of 100km/day.

(Also South African, so ... Hi? :-))

> 30 minutes (a much more usual break on a long 3 hour trip).

I am fascinated by this comment, because I don't consider a 3 hour trip to be particularly long. Certainly not long enough to require a half hour break in the middle of it.

That said, "range anxiety" isn't the reason that I won't buy an EV at all. Most of my driving would be well covered by EV ranges, and I'd be fine renting a car or using other transportation methods for the occasional long trip.

I personally know my attention span will not be 100% driving for 3 hours straight, a short break is necessary and parking, ordering a coffee can take a bit longer than you'd think.

…now look at the battery degradatiom from all that fast charging…

This is an interesting point. I'd like to see some stats on the cost of battery usage.

I'd also like to know how fast charging a lot but only from 20% to 80% works out cost wise over time. i.e. more stops to fast charge on a long journey but spending less time at each stop.

I have a feeling that if the car companies could get battery leasing and fast charging costs under control then a good charging network would cure a lot of range anxiety.

I've done long journeys in someone else's EV in the UK. Fast charging at motorway stops we'd make anyway really wasn't a problem but I don't know how that affects the cost depreciation.

(I still have the same old diesel car I've had from new for the last 10 years. I'd buy an electric car but I don't really drive much and I don't really like the current offerings).

> This is not as impressive as you might think, to be honest.

Not sure what argument you think I'm making, but OP already owns the car, I'm not making a claim about anything being impressive or trying to convince anybody to buy one.

I shared somebody's detailed log book for a potentially similar kind of trip in a similar vehicle in a more challenging charging environment. I've never been to the US parks in question, and I don't know how much driving one does on those trips, so I made some caveats.

> Honestly, the story makes it clear that range is an issue, not that range is doable in an EV.

How is it an issue? They had a great trip and found that the animal viewing was especially enjoyable in an EV, and the experience was significantly different from driving an ICE. If it doesn't work in OPs particular scenario, that's fine, but I don't know why you're making generalised statements about a specific trip.

100km is a short distance, i driver further then that for a day of snowboarding at the local big mountain (130km each way) - I’ve driven 2x that fora day hike

And road trip? Between 500-1000 a day on travel days.

North America is big.

With how many people in the car?

The world is big no matter where you are, but that just sounds like bragging how wasteful you can be.

> With how many people in the car?

Is that really relevant? If someone is prepared to drive 600+km one-way, it sounds like they are going whether or not anyone wants to go with them.

> The world is big no matter where you are, but that just sounds like bragging how wasteful you can be.

Someone prepared to drive long distances for a specific $SOMETHING isn't bragging.

You might argue that they must modify their entertainment preferences to suit your morals, but your morals are irrelevant.

It sounds like the types of trips you're referring to are different from the types I'm referring to.

> > Honestly, the story makes it clear that range is an issue, not that range is doable in an EV.

> How is it an issue? They had a great trip and found that the animal viewing was especially enjoyable in an EV, and the experience was significantly different from driving an ICE.

That's not relevant to "range is an issue".

> If it doesn't work in OPs particular scenario, that's fine, but I don't know why you're making generalised statements about a specific trip.

Because it is being presented as newsworthy when it really isn't - 100km/day is not what people refer to when they say "range anxiety". A long trip in which 50% of the trip duration is spent waiting for charge is also not newsworthy.

What part of my comment made it sound like I was presenting something newsworthy?

> What part of my comment made it sound like I was presenting something newsworthy?

Can you clarify what the point of your comment was? I'm just a little bit confused about the point of responding to a range-anxiety post with a link to a news article that demonstrates 100km/day range.

It's my understanding that no one is discussing and/or concerned about a range of 100km off a full charge, so my interpretation of your initial post was that it was an attempt to alleviate fears about range, so ... I (naturally) thought that you were presenting the 100km/day range as something new that I (and others) might not have know about.

[PS. Hi from another South African :-)]

I drove a 1,000 kilometers in a single day a week ago, just partially up the US coast. 100km doesn’t even leave the city.

This is in reference to a game drive. You normally drive in the mornings and late afternoons only, and you stop, wait and watch whenever you see something interesting. You could find one spot and happily spend your hours there e.g. a herd of elephants taking a bath.

Fair enough, but then you aren’t really testing the range of an EV.

Correct, I'm not. I'm replying to someone who already owns an EV and sharing somebody else's logbook with them in case it's useful but for some reason my comments are being completely misinterpreted.

RV parks let you do that here in the state, you can even get to L2 charging in most cases (this is the only way to drive an EV to Alaska ATM), but it isn’t what I would say convenient, or very practical.

Yeah it sounds like the nature of your trips there are quite different from what we would do here (mostly low mileage game drives), so not as applicable to you.

120V 15A circuit is 1.4kW. If charging time is linear, that BMW battery would take 52 hours to charge from 0-100%.

You can get L2 charging at many RV parks. It isn’t what I would consider very practical though.

>If charging time is linear

Three phase 16-25A outlets are available (common in buildings/houses) in Europe (230V each phase to neutral, 400V phase to phase). Charging Li-Ion is not a linear process at all, but at so low power (0.02C, compared to the target's battery one) it'd be, as it'd be limited by the source instead.

Most RV parks have 40-50 amps available, which makes overnight charging more practical

It's unlikely they will be able to supply that much current if there are many participants.

Yeah, they'd need to add EVSEs with load sharing. Fortunately, that'd be cost effective if there were many customers clamoring for it.

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