Hacker News Reader

Comment by quonn | Hacker News Reader

It's fair only to young people without kids. The Model 3 barely manages to be below that limit and it might work with kids (although no doubt the Y is better for that). But it is difficult to use for old people because it is so low that getting in and out is not easy and making it less low will make it less efficient and require adding a larger battery - making it heavier.

View on HN

No, even the long range still has a 150kg margin. The problem is that people use their large car to go on vacation with the children for their work commute, be it an SUV or a long rage EV, that's not sustainable. Especially in a town like Paris where you have good public transports (could be better, granted).

So it's more sustainable to have two cars instead of one?

For an EV most of the emissions are created during production, so the less production the better. It's best to have one sufficiently flexible car, even if it's bigger, since that minimises production emissions.

Also the large car is not just used to take the kids on vacations, but typically all the time.

> So it's more sustainable to have two cars instead of one? Depends on the cars but if the second one is a small EV yes, you're better using that for your daily commute. The larger one should last longer, mitigating the production cost over the long term.

Still in towns like Paris you should favor bicycle or public transportation. You can also have a smaller EV and rent a larger one for the long trips.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com