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Comment by gjsman-1000 | Hacker News Reader

I still don't understand why people would think EVs would succeed as quickly in America, as they are in Europe and China.

France is a little smaller than Texas. If you live in France, how often are you driving to Portugal, Belgium, or Germany? Not often. The maximum amount of range you will ever drive is quite constrained.

How often do Americans go on road trips from Minnesota to California, or from California to New York, or from Minnesota to Mexico, or from Montana to Florida? All the time, by comparison. Some will do it multiple times per year. People buy cars with the maximum in mind, not the average.

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> How often do Americans go on road trips from Minnesota to California, or from California to New York?

Very rarely, IMHO. I'm not sure who you know. I don't think I know anyone who buys cars with trips anything like that in mind.

Europe is effectively borderless for its residents - no passports, border guards, etc. - and people cross into different countries all the time.

Those are long hauls, but in Illinois it’s pretty common to drive to places like Nashville or Atlanta. We drive to Orlando so that we don’t have to deal with flying. That’s a long one but not bad. An EV would add a lot of time and risk.

You drive 30+ hours round trip to avoid 6 hours of flying? Sure, add on a bunch of hours to get to and through the airports, it's still not close.

> You drive 30+ hours round trip to avoid 6 hours of flying?

Lots of people do. If you are making $60K a year (the median in the US - half of employed people make less), and you have 3 children and live in California, what's your plan to visit relatives in, say, Nebraska? Buy 10 plane tickets? Driving the 2,600 miles both ways, at 25 MPG, will cost you "only" $320 round trip.

I understand the cost issue for a large family, but he said "so that we don’t have to deal with flying", not "it's too expensive".

Also, SFO to JFK is as low as $640 round trip for a family of 5 on the right days, and $760 in gas at 25 MPG and $3.30/gal. Plus you're going to need several nights of lodging unless you want to spend 40 straight hours in a car packed with kids.

I see you edited your comment to change the destination to Nebraska to make your numbers look better. Round trip SFO to Omaha for a family of 5 can be had for $655 according to Google Flights, vs. $440 in gas at 25 MPG and $3.30/gal, but again you'll need at least two nights of lodging for the whole family, and on a trip that long you should also account for part of an oil change and tire change and other car maintenance expenses.

Not to mention the cost of your time, which should factor highly for well paid people that can afford to fly anyways, and if you are low paid, it’s likely your vacation time is scarce, so you wouldn’t want to use it all in the transport.

The comparison just makes no sense to me. I take road trips because I love road trips, not because I think the economics are somehow better than flying.

I don't enjoy getting 4 kids through the TSA line, while trying to get my belt back on and not have my wallet stolen. I don't enjoy parking at the airport and having my license plate sticker stolen and have to deal with 6 tickets because of it. Among other things.

I'll take 30 minutes in line and 5 minutes of fiddling with personal belongings over 30 hours driving a car packed with 4 kids every day of the week and twice on Sunday. 30 hours! Even if my whole license plate was stolen every time it'd still be worth it.

It's just one more thing I have to consider. Even if I only take 3-4 500 mile trips per year, I don't EVER have to think, well jeez we'll need to stop 3 times for 30-45 minutes in specific places to charge up. We might also have to wait in line if it's a busy weekend/holiday. When I can easily do 450 miles on 1 charge and the price of the vehicle is comparable, then it's at least worth considering. The closest thing to that right now in the F-150's class is the Chevrolet Silverado RST. But it's "only" $93,000. Thanks, I'll keep my gasoline F-150 for now.

This is a big factor. The whole reason I have a truck is so I can get away for the weekend maybe once a month.

Adding 2-3 recharge stops is a deal breaker for a weekend warrior. Nobody wants to spend an hour charging stop before they get to a campground or when they heading home to get ready for work on Monday.

I agree that it's not realistic to expect cross-continent trips to be common, but I think there is a real difference in the west of the USA vs most of Europe. In the American central and western areas, things are more spread out and driving everywhere is the expectation such that it affects how cities and suburbs are spaced, while Europe grew mostly before the automobile, and towns and cities are closer together and more compact.

Yes people cross borders in Europe, but mostly when they live in a border area. People aren't making 300km trips to cross a border very often, but 50km, sure.

https://www.bts.gov/statistical-products/surveys/national-ho...

According to the US Government, more than 32 million trips every year exceed 1,000 miles - and that's only during the "16-week period between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day." 37 percent of those trips are by vehicle; so about 12 million 1000+ mile trips by car during those 16 weeks alone. That's not small.

Figure 2 trips average per traveler, and that's 6 million car buyers.

And I wonder how many are in specific market segments. For example, maybe not many luxury or super-luxury car owners; they fly. Maybe lots of minivans and SUVs for families and capacity. Maybe not many economy cars.

I think road trips are a critical consideration for a subset of consumers- especially those in the market for a non-work truck.

Road trips make up a tiny fraction of the miles/hours on my truck, but they are the primary reason why I have a truck at all instead of a Prius or something.

> How often do Americans go on road trips from Minnesota to California, or from California to New York, or from Minnesota to Mexico, or from Montana to Florida?

Rarely. Certainly not multiple times a year on average.

Perhaps the demographic buying F150 sized trucks is different, but it's definitely not the norm to be making multi-day long road trips multiple times per year. Most folks don't even have that much vacation time to burn - and if they do - they likely are working office style jobs where flights are going to be an affordable expense.

It would be interesting to see stats on this though. I do agree people tend to buy for the maximum not the average. But I've found people - at least in my circle - grossly overestimate how common the maximum is.

Midwest to Midwest road trips are common. Midwest to the coasts tend to be rare, but that's all anecdote we can fight about. Once you get beyond about 16 hours I think the curve starts to flatten quite a bit.

60% of US households have more than one car, compared to only 30% in France. I'd expect that to help with EV adoption in the US. Get one car with long range and good cargo and/or towing capacity for roadtrips and for when you have a lot to move locally and get an EV for most of your daily driving.

The second car in the US though is disproportionately likely to be a beater; or much older vehicle. Combine that with that American vehicles have an average age of 12.5 years compared to 10.5 in France; and the picture is more like Americans keep their old cars around instead of selling/disposing of them.

That does not mean they will buy an EV and feel confident in relying on that second vehicle for long distance. If it's anything like the families I know, the beater's only job is to fill up short distance trips, to avoid wear on the newer car, until the day it "runs into the ground."

There are a lot of other much more important things you just don't understand and never will, like empathy and respect for your fellow human beings.

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