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Comment by 4fterd4rk | Hacker News Reader

Ah yes good thing gas stations have an infinite supply of fuel ready to go that'll never need to be replenished in the face of unprecedented demand. Also we're very lucky that gasoline is such a stable material that it'll surely not cause problems in the event of "battle damage".

What is it about EVs that makes you people's brains turn off?

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I agree with your point. I see this type of comment on HN frequently when EVs are discussed. There is a certain (very vocal) minority of people, that no matter how good is an EV, will only focus on the negatives. It is best to mostly ignore these types of comments, unless they are bringing new ideas to the discussion.

> no matter how good is an EV, will only focus on the negatives

What? I would love to be able to drive EVs. They just don't cut it for the uses I need a vehicle for. Multi-hour recharge times and the weight of batteries make it untenable. Hopefully some day we'll get there, but we're talking an order of magnitude in both the charge and mass dimensions.

you can fast charge a Ford lightning from 15-80% in 40 minutes. slow charging is for when you plug it in overnight. the infrastructure for that isn't everywhere yet, so ymmv (literally), but like gp said, focusing only on the negatives is gonna make you miss the positives.

Same for gasoline right? Focusing on the negatives and you miss the positives?

fair

Gasoline contains energy inertly and can be moved around in almost any container. Electricity almost always relies on a grid that requires uncommon knowledge to tap into. I took the parent comment to mean that LA or NY was in some sort of "zombie apocalypse" scenario in which it's hard to argue that EV's are better than gas.

You don't need grid to get energy from the SUN.

Widespread adoption is non existent.

You need to have battery bank, which many people don't do in places where there is net metering. I've put off installing batteries because currently the utility pays me for power. Unfortunately, this means when the power is out the grid disconnect flips and the solar power goes nowhere. I'll get batteries some day.

"You people"? Tell me more.

> Also we're very lucky that gasoline is such a stable material that it'll surely not cause problems in the event of "battle damage".

What? Are you saying gasoline burns? Congratulations you cracked the world's greatest mystery! Batteries burn real good too, you should try it sometime it's quite spectacular :D

EDIT: Seriously, though, taking out all the hydrocarbon fuels is a much, much more difficult proposition than taking out the power grid. The environmentalist in me wishes this wasn't true, but it is.

Disturbing the supply chain for both hydrocarbons and electricity is actually scarily easy and in most places those are closely linked anyway. But it really takes a tiny push and the whole system comes crumbling down. Especially if you have adversaries that know what they are doing. There is very little "offline" infrastructure.

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