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Comment by rainsford | Hacker News Reader

I'll admit I don't quite understand how EV demand works in lower income countries like Mexico. One of the major limits I see in the US is that the main appeal of having an EV is reasonably good (i.e. level 2) charging at home, which isn't an available option for many people in the US who don't have private garages with good electrical service. I feel like this limitation would be even more widespread in a country like Mexico, but maybe that's either incorrect or the appeal of EVs outside of the US doesn't rely quite so much on charging at home.

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Having just bought an EV, the charging requirements seem to be exaggerated. I'm able to put a bit over 100km range into the car with an overnight charge (9 hours) from a standard power point that can deliver 2.4kW. I'm just using a portable 10A/240V plug-in charger: no fixed infrastructure.

My typical charging regime is: charge to 80%. Drive until the car has done 100km (down to ~50% capacity), then charge back up to 80%. If we go over 100km in a day the car drops below 50%. That can't be topped up in a single night, but it just means the charging accumulates over the next few nights until it's back to 80%. It works as long as the average is less than 100km per day and the peak is less than 300km per day.

Whilst it wouldn't do for a taxi, it's perfectly okay for the driving we do.

You won't find easy access to 240v in most US homes. They're usually put in for very specific appliances like electric laundry dryers or hot tubs. To get your level of charging, most people will need at least some electrical work done.

Your 100km limit is also less than my wife's round trip commute to work, nevermind adding in running errands after or any of the regular travel we do to visit family, though at least some of that would be easy with upgraded charging.

Edit: to be more specific, most US outlets top out at 1.5kw to be safe, though they can usually be temporarily pushed to 1.8 for things like an electric kettle.

That’s essentially _just_ a North America thing (and a couple of countries in South America), tho.

In most countries standard mains outlets are 220-240V, usually 10-15amp depending on country.

> Your 100km limit is also less than my wife's round trip commute to work, nevermind adding in running errands after or any of the regular travel we do to visit family

Even by US standards, that is somewhat unusually high.

Eh, the average US commute is 27 miles according to a recent WSJ article, though this is somewhat recent as it was a bit shorter before COVID.

With that said, ignoring 600 million people, including the single most car-centric cultures, seems a bit silly when talking about EV adoption challenges, no?

The problem in the US is that outlets run at 120v and an overnight charge is closer to 30-40 miles of range assuming 12amp on a 15amp circuit.

In countries with most outlets at 220v it’s probably easier, plus usually less long distance driving than the US.

Obviously if you put a 240v, 50amp outlet in a garage you can ignore everything I just wrote.

I've been using a 120V outlet for a few years. I recoup about 50-60mi overnight without an issue. I figured I'd get around to installing a 240V outlet but it just hasn't been necessary.

In the US our regular outlets are more like 1.5kW (110V 15A).

There are also 30A circuits, usually for a dryer or stove. An electrician can set it up for a car, but it's not as easy as running an extension cord to a regular outlet.

and 50a circuits.

I have a Chevy Bolt EUV and charged it on an ordinary US 120V circuit. Because there was nothing else on the circuit, I could tell the Bolt to charge at 12A at home, otherwise it limits itself to 8A anywhere that's not-home. It seemed to be about 3 miles of range per hour at 12A, 2 mph at 8A.

It actually worked pretty well for me. There were a couple of times I ended up "fast" (the Bolt is slow at DC charging) charging but very few in more than a year. The garage didn't have 240V power and we knew we were moving.

At the new house, I have a 240V 60A hardwired circuit for the EV charger so I can charge much faster, probably 25 miles of range per hour, maybe more. I haven't used a fast charger in probably six months.

It is a shock seeing what cold temperatures do to range in the Bolt. We have an Equinox EV and it seems to do better plus it has a longer range to start with.

Unless your commute is long, charging overnight on a standard outlet is more than sufficient. We have two EVs—one for my daily ~50 mile round trip commute while the other stays in the neighborhood most the time—and we never have to charge outside the home.

Gotta take people’s commutes into account. Level 2 isn’t a necessity for many people especially in less car centric environments.

Solar is super cheap nowadays - you can have a complete 5kW solar install with an 5kWh battery for around $2000 + labor. I'd argue a similar proportion of people have their own houses.

Additionally, a level 2 charger is just a high amperage wall socket plus some safety equipment.

This is incredibly misleading. The average price per solar install is $3/W so your 5kWh is probably much closer to $15k. Additionally, "+ labor" is actually 66% of the price of solar in the USA (soft costs + balance of system). Could you do the labor yourself? Of course. Do you have the time and tools? Probably not. Is saying "$2000 + labor" false? Technically, no, functionally, yes. All numbers taken from [1]. These do not include batteries in the install.

[1] - https://www.solar.com/learn/solar-panel-cost/

we're talking about mexico, not the weirdly over-inflated home solar price of the US. For eg australia is around ~ $1/w installed, and they have high labor costs. It doesnt have to be expensive, the US makes it so somehow.

(I would genuinely like an explanation for why it’s so much more expensive in the US. Australia is not cheap for basically anything - high materials and labor cost comparatively. I don’t understand how solar in the US costs so much more. )

Since Trump’s first term, the US has had 25% tariffs on solar panels from China and a few other countries, which certainly wouldn’t be helping.

That said, the Australia price seems particularly cheap; is that before grants and things? In Ireland, say, it’s typically 1.5-2eur/W before grant (grant is .7eur/W up to 2kW, .2eur/W up to 4kW, capped at 1800).

Panels In The US are ultra cheap. It's mostly the labor and some of inverters and what not that's expensive

Most other countries in the world also don’t tend to have the US’s extremely large distances either.

Things tend to be much closer than they are in the U.S.

Urban taxis often don’t actually drive all that far per day.

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