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Comment by devilbunny | Hacker News Reader

> ~400+ miles per full tank

My car gets ~500 miles/800 km per tank. My wife's car, which has a more efficient engine and transmission and is also smaller, but with the same huge tank, gets ~600 miles/960 km per tank. I will have to stop for a bathroom somewhere along a route that long, but only once or twice. I used to have to stop three times for a ~900 mile/1500 km trip that I did a few times.

This is a problem with EV proponents who try to argue that "you'll stop every couple of hours for half an hour or so anyway, so charging isn't an issue". No, I won't. I'll drive 1000 miles with less than 45 minutes of downtime on the whole trip. I don't stop every two hours. Maybe 15 minutes every 4 hours, of which 10 is fueling and going to the bathroom and 5 is getting off and back on the highway.

That's not a slam against EV's, but let's acknowledge their weak points honestly.

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I think the argument is not whether EVs will take an extra 65-80 min to go 1000 miles, it’s whether that matters to the average driver. Realistically for my family it doesn’t. I’m sure for some (predominately) solo drivers it does. But then there’s the question of how often you’re driving 1000 mile trips that an extra 1.5hrs max actually impacts anything real in your life…

I guess if you’re trying to follow an ICE car on a road trip then yeah it might be a weak point. If you’re already stopping every 200 miles then it’s no matter. For us, we enjoy travel days more with the built in stretch/bathroom breaks.

You can do 1000 miles in one day, but it is a really unpleasant trip. Doing it in two is so much nicer. Take a hotel one night. Have a really nice meal at a slow restaurant a couple of times. Visit a couple of roadside attractions.

Those are five long charging opportunities, which is two more than you need for a 1000 mile trip.

And when I charge up. Well you know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the one who charges overnight...

Overnight charging at hotels is awesome. 5 years ago if a hotel had EV chargers it was very likely one was available. Unfortunately, it's more common that they're all busy now.

Ah, yes, that’s the ticket. Spend far more money and time than you would with an ICE to do your trip.

I get the concept, and I am not an EV hater. But let us not pretend that long-distance driving is an imaginary thing. I don’t stop - ever - for more than fifteen minutes, unless it’s to sleep.

I've done 1800 mile trips in 36 hours. Stopping for 20 minutes every three hours to charge, bathroom, and grab food would not have added significant time to the trip.

I've also done the same trip in 3 days, and in 5 days. The longer trips were far more pleasant, and were not slowed down at all by charging.

I don’t drive that far often, but when I do, an extra 1.5 hr means getting a hotel instead of just pushing through to the destination.

Your wife / family (if applicable) will very much appreciate more frequent breaks.

Your 500 and 600 miles per fill-up is the kind of outlier that isn't much worth discussing. That kind of range can't be more than about 5-7% of US autos.

My car (Mazda3 hatch) gets 24 mpg, which is actually typical for US mid-sized cars.

I have a 3-5 minute gas station fill up every 260 miles or so, basically once a week. The Chinese MG4 does 435 miles on a charge, 95% of which I could charge at home, the remaining 5% of my miles are my twice a year road trips @ ~400 mi (to LA) and ~800 mi (to Seattle).

The MG4 makes LA without a stop and Seattle with 1 stop.

That's a once a year stop for ~30 minute in the EV compared to 3-4 hours a year sitting at smelly gas stations for my Mazda ICE.

I would certainly trade never having to ever take my car into a gas station, ever again, for one brief stop once a year on my leisurely road trip if I had the cash to buy a great EV.

I hear you, and your concern is real for your context.

But to be fair, not every product has to perfectly fit every context. To be successful a product can fill a small niche, or it can appeal to a large market- it doesn't have to satisfy every use case.

So you're right - driving 1000 miles with no downtime is not an EV strength. But the percentage of the market doing that is tiny. Conversely the proportion of people who live in a house (home charging) and drive < 100 miles a day, is huge.

Even for those doing a "once a year road trip" - well, hire cars exist.

So I completely agree that an EV is not useful to you. I would suggest though that a product can be massively successful, while at the same time appealing to a subset of the market. And appealing to a subset does not limit validity or indeed profitability.

Lipstick seems to be a successful product, despite only appealing to something less than 50% of the market.

I'd like to see the stats on how many people regularly drive 500+ miles in a day.

I'm American, so grew up in car culture, but I've never driven more than 200 - 300 miles in a day.

I do it about once a month.

Why not? -200 miles each way is in the realm of day trips unless you’re driving very congested corridors. I drove 400+ miles each way last Christmas with two overnights in between. I did the same distance a month or two ago and again last week, though I did stay for about a week each time.

That sounds like you have a more efficient car than many of us. When I switched to an EV I actually got a range upgrade due to having a really inefficient ICE vehicle. Regardless, most of us aren't spending our days doing multi hundred mile drives. We shouldn't be optimizing for that scenario.

It’s not especially efficient. It just has a huge fuel tank. It’s like 23 gallons (~85 L).

You’re an outlier. Most people don’t do long road trips often, and when they do they don’t care to drive 1000 miles with minimal stops, and their gas cars don’t have that much range in a tank of fuel.

Yes, EVs do slow down long road trips a bit. But it’s really not much of a difference. I just did 3000 miles in 10 days in one.

Agreed but this car would solve that for just $25,000 if we didn’t have 100% tariffs on Chinese vehicles. 1,200 mile range, can charge 800 miles in 12 minutes.

If our 350 mile vehicle could actually do 350 it would be fine but the reality is that it can barely do 200 ish

I am 100% road warrior like you describe. I'll do a coast-to-coast in 29ish hours of driving.

I recently moved to an EV for my road-tripper vehicle. Yes, I need to stop and recharge every 4-5 hours for 20-40mn.

I find that I like it. A stretch, a coffee, snacks and replenishment. My favorite chargers are at a supermarket and a cafe' nearby.

I agree the pro-EV types try to whitewash this a lot, and I agree it is dishonest.

...but I find that I am okay with the cross-country EV reality anyway.

$0.02

Thank you. Simply acknowledging that it is a tradeoff instead of saying "but nobody does that" is refreshing.

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