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Comment by romafirst3 | Hacker News Reader

Building physical things in the real world takes more than a couple of years. Think how long it takes to plan and build a regular building and these are buildings with insanely high energy requirements.

This seems to be just partisan point scoring.

Besides half the Republican Party is still advocating for coal and oil extraction, it’s a bit hypocritical to be complaining that EVs aren’t happening fast enough.

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Don’t blame the messenger. Of course when a democratic president fails to execute on a policy, his political opponents are going to be the ones that point it out. That’s irrelevant. The point is that it should not take years to build out some goddamn EV chargers with $7.5 billion in funding. If it does, then we shouldn’t spending that money because there’s a more fundamental problem with the government’s ability to execute that needs to be fixed first.

The reaction you expressed is exactly the wrong one for anyone who wants to see government build infrastructure, or do more in general. It would be a disaster for republicans if democrat-run governments could actually deliver on their promises and deliver cost-effective, efficient public services in transit, education, healthcare, etc. The defensive reflex that seeks to insulate government failures from accountability only helps republicans.

It doesn’t take years as a rule. Many, many complex physical builds are completed in far less time than “years.”

Are they permitted, funded and planned and built in less time than years? Not very many are. This a good thing, we don't want people cutting corners and building wherever they want. The downside is that we need to wait a little before we get what we want. I'm actually impressed that 7 have been fully constructed and opened in 2 years.

In fact, many building projects take years to just purchase the real estate to build on.

> It doesn’t take years as a rule

Specially when you're investing BILLIONS on a project. Moreso id the changers are already standardized.

Well, we can compare it with Tesla rollout of their supercharger network.

2012 - 7

2013 - 63

2014 - 380

(based on Wikipedia with cited sources there)

So second year is +56, third +317.

So a comparable rate should be possible.

How many years did it take to get to 7?

Tesla was founded in 2003.

So only 9 years.

They didn't start with the Supercharger network right away. First they had to build the car and survive which wasn't 100% certain.

Still took 9 years to get to 7 chargers. So this article is complaining about a 450% increase in rate of charger building.

Ok. I'll bite. And ask this: What does Tesla know that everyone else doesn't? Their charging stations are decently common in high population density areas. I presume their ability to GTD wouldn't change if they ventured into less dense areas. So what do they know?

Tesla has been doing it for over a decade.

Tesla was founded in 2003.

Obviously they didn’t start building charging stations straight away but this doesn’t really feel like we are all having an honest discussion :/

That said they’ve had a long time to plan those chargers.

Yes. But just like the 4 minute mile, once possible is manifested those that follow know it can be done. Or is the gov buying million dollar screwdrivers to build a 2 mill charging station?

Until a few months ago, the government was convincing the car manufacturers to adopt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Charging_Standa....

As well as obtaining thousands of bits of real estate, permitting, etc.

The Federal gov has plenty of land, plenty of office space with parking lots, etc. It could easily find partners, etc. Instead it feels like ground up wheel reinventing with million dollar screwdrivers.

That’s because the plan is to do it largely along major highways, not BLM land in the desert or on military bases.

As with those highways themselves, the money goes to states, who run the thing.

Diesel generators ;)

It just takes time to build physical buildings. Tesla doesn't have any secret sauce they just started years ago.

> insanely high energy requirements

That is just for small personal cars, not even SUV or trucks. And requires a few megawatts... Very good argument to cancel this whole insanity.

> coal and oil extraction

EV charging stations are still using oil and coal. Some are even build with diesel generators, as a "backup" (like at night).

Petrol pumps also have insanely high energy requirements and take a long time to permit and build. And for good reason. They just get their energy via tanker.

The fact that something needs energy doesn't mean we shouldn't build it.

You keep talking about diesel generators. So what if these chargers have diesel generators for backup. People in EVs are probably ok with a fall back to diesel generators - they probably all used to drive petrol cars. It's not this smoking gun you think it is.

The point is that we are moving from oil to not-oil and EVs make this a reality even if occasionally they fall back to the way things are done at the moment (i.e. using oil)

1 megawatt connection is not question of some paperwork and permits, but massive underlying infrastructure. And that infrastructure is simply not there.

If EVs use diesel generators and coal, they are not zero emmisions. In fact ICEs produce less CO2 emmisions, if you count energy losses from charging, battery production etc...

It is another Enron waiting to happen!

That’s why it takes time to build the infrastructure, that’s my point.

It’s taken time to build all the other infrastructure, why do we think that a whole new transport infrastructure across all the states should just magically appear in 2 years.

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