Comment by ItsBob | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ItsBob | Hacker News Reader

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> 15-20 minutes is a lot closer to realistic.

Blimey! Lord only knows where you live that it can take that long. I can count on one hand the number of times it's taken anything like 10 minutes over the years and they were during crises!

In reality, even if I have to wait for a free pump, my car is at 100% range in 5 mins when I pay at the pump by using my credit card.

I want my car filled to the brim any time I go to the petrol station (gas station to our friends over in the colonies :D). That's just how I roll. And I know many others who are the same. I also know some that just put in £10-£15 at a time, mainly due to finance constraints tbh.

To "fill" an electric car to 100% isn't feasible in 2 hours, let alone 5 mins. Even if it took just 20 minutes to "fill" it is still shit compared to my current diesel.

As a consumer, if I have to join a queue for hours [0] then to hell with that! However, with my diesel, it's literally 5 minutes once a week and I'm full up.

In addition, I run my car until 50 - 100 miles left in the tank and I don't get bent out of shape when the light comes on at < 50 miles. In an EV I'd shit bricks if that happened. I'd have to change my behaviour to many smaller topups.

The simple fact is that we have a chicken and egg scenario with EV's vs charging points/charging time at this time and I don't see it changing any time soon.

Anecdote: I just remember something I saw 3 weeks ago. I was in a town near where I live. I parked up to walk to a shop about 2 mins away and I walked past a girl at a charging station staring at the big charger thingy while on her phone. I couldn't hear what she was saying but I could see that the charging flap on her car was open. I was in the shop for about 10 minutes and came back the same way and she was still there, this time poking away at her phone and the cable still wasn't in her car but the charging flap was still open. No idea what the problem was but it caught my attention. Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Edit: Something else to mention - Many people round where I live are in Victorian flats with almost no parking nearby. It's not umcommon to park streets away from where you actually live... they'll not buy electric for the most part.

[0] - https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/video-massive-line-of-e...

> To "fill" an electric car to 100% isn't feasible in 2 hours, let alone 5 mins. Even if it took just 20 minutes to "fill" it is still shit compared to my current diesel.

It takes me 0 minutes to fill my EV. Plug in at night and full in the morning (and pre-heated / de-iced on an automatic schedule too). Going somewhere else and standing for 5 minutes once a week isn’t something I’d rush back to.

Edit: My anecdote is about my mum filling up the car with petrol instead of diesel because the handle of the pump was black. You don’t want to know how long we waited for that.

The pre-heating/de-icing does sound nice, I'll give you that but EV's just do not work if you live in a flat and unfortunately in and around the cities in the UK there are millions living in flats.

Of course, many living in flats won't have a car so that's moot but walk up any street with Victorian 4 floor flats and you'll not see a single parking space available outside them: they're all taken, all the time, but not necessarily by the people that live immediately next to them.

Even if they do manage to park right outside their flat, they won't be trailing a cable from their window :D

For me, EV's do not make sense for a significant portion of the people driving in the UK. Perhaps the majority. I don't have numbers to back that up but my argument about flats still stands.

What I do think makes sense is hybrids (assuming cost parity!). Put a small 30-mile battery in new cars. Let it charge from braking. Use it only when going from 0 - 30 or even just below 30 only and I bet you'd significantly reduce your fuel bills (and carbon if that's part of your reasoning for purchase).

I drive a 9 yo Hyundai diesel so I have a cheap car anyway.

I’m in the UK. There are a million EVs already out there yet I’m the only one on my street of 100 houses with one. Each of those houses has a drive.

They are not for everyone but there is plenty of room for growth. It costs me 3p/mile to run it too saving me about £100/month.

Self charging hybrids are a waste of time. My Hyundai i20 1.1 diesel got 60mpg while my colleagues hybrid got 50. Plug-in hybrids are slightly better, but you’ve got additional complexity and all the maintenance of an ICE. Plus you are cycling the small battery more. 1,000 cycles on a 250 mile battery is 250,000 miles - on a 30 mile battery it’s 30,000.

> There are a million EVs already out there yet I’m the only one on my street of 100 houses with one

You have a driveway (I assume) so you can make use of it but would you still buy one if you had a flat?

Still can't overcome the fact that (compared to ice cars and spec being somewhat equal) EV's are way more expensive to buy, more expensive to insure [0], more expensive to repair [0] (especially after a bump/crash), have less resale value than ICE cars, burn forever if set on fire.

ICE cars are not going away any time soon and gov trying to ram it down our throats will just cost billions and will turn people off (I don't want one, for instance). The car industry is pushing back too... reality is setting in.

For me, if I had to pick the primary reason why I think they're dead is price. My car, for example, was an 8 yo Hyundai Santa Fe 2.2 Diesel with 80k on it when I bought it. I paid 11k for it 2 years ago. I own it outright. It's 10 years old now and you wouldn't know it.

I've paid £900 for tyres, tracking and aircon recharge and about £160 a month on fuel since I bought it. It's had 2 MOT's too but didn't have to get anything fixed.

You just can't get equivalent EV's for that kind of money and for many, that kills them stone dead.

[0] - https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/361588/why-electric-car-i...

From your article:

> The results reveal that the cost of insuring these electric cars is indeed higher, but the difference is not as substantial as the headlines would suggest. The EV was actually cheaper to cover for one of our drivers.

Your £160/month on fuel over 2 years is £3,840. An EV charged on octopus would be at least a quarter of that, maybe less. So let’s say £960 - almost a £3k difference.

You can absolutely get second hand EVs for £11k - this seems to be at odds with your statement about low resale values too. The low residuals angle is being pushed hard at the moment but when I go looking all I see is standard depreciation on new vehicles.

The “burn forever” thing seems to be getting pushed a LOT lately too. Strange when they are 20x less likely to catch fire in the first place and car fires are already pretty rare. https://thedriven.io/2023/05/16/petrol-and-diesel-cars-20-ti...

I agree with your assessment of fuel prices and whatnot but I just checked Autotrader. I set 11k as the price, SUV body type and there are 63 electric cars to choose from. Over 40 are MG...

If I change it to Diesel I get over 11k cars available. 171 Santa Fe models.

The range on those MG's is about 180 miles too: 3 times this year I've driven to Aberdeen - I'd run out of juice on the way in the EV. I get just over 400 in my diesel.

The energy density of batteries isn't comparable to ICE cars.

An 11k EV is not a patch on a 11k diesel.

You’re comparing older ICE vehicles with relatively new EVs. In a few years time you will have more choice of older EVs in the same age bracket as the ICE cars. The second hand market will be awash with Model Ys, Audi SUVs and more in a few years.

For long distance travel it’s a bit more complicated and you have to get your calculator out.

A quick look using ABRP suggests that a trip from Newcastle ( not sure where you’re coming from but that’s 380 miles) to Aberdeen in a MG ZS EV Long Range would require 1.5 hours of charge along the way, turning a 6 hour drive into 7.5. If you’re stopping anyway (I would) then it might not be a lot of additional time.

If you do that journey a lot, it might not be worth it. A few times a year it might be worth the compromise considering fuel costs saving the rest of the time.

If you filling up your diesel takes 10 minutes a fortnight then that’s 4 hours a year too. More if it’s out of your way. You save that if you charge an EV at home but spend it on long journeys.

You can also take the train or rent a car with the fuel savings and probably still be saving overall.

So it really depends. They are not a drop in replacement for every scenario but in some circumstances they do have benefits.

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