Hacker News Reader

Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

This need is a bit overstated. Keep in mind that unlikes a gas car you can charge up your EV at home. How regularly does the median American actually drive 300+ miles in a single day?

The average American household has multiple cars - having at least one of them being a EV commuter appliance isn't that wild of an idea.

View on HN

I work from home and honestly might use a tank of gas a month; I also only own one vehicle. However, I do have a vacation home where I drive to/from every week from June to September and it does not have currently have the level of electric service, nor availability of charging infrastructure nearby, to allow for me to charge an EV w/o driving 25+ miles each way.

So; to answer your question: how often do I drive 300+ miles in a day? 2x a week for 1/4 of the year.

Unless your vacation home is off grid, there is almost no way you would not be able to have enough electrical service to charge an EV. Maybe not enough to install a big chunky 50-60A 240V outlet, but a much smaller and reasonable 240V 20A outlet is more than sufficient for most cars. You won’t have a full charge overnight with a 3.8kW charger, but it’ll be plenty usable for putting around town.

Also, your anecdote is certainly not the plethora of people in America. The vast majority of folks take maybe one vacation a year, if that, and certainly don’t own a vacation home.

There is definitely an inconvenience to it which affects the freedom to navigate. Americans don’t like their freedoms being taken away.

There is no need to fuel at home. Technically you could get large tank of diesel to do it. But going to stations is not big deal.

Not having to go to a gas station ever is a paradigm shift that I think a lot of ICE owners underestimate. You're never late to something because you need to make a pit stop to get gas. If you always have your car charged at home, time to get places is much more deterministic. You also don't need to worry about CC skimmers, which at least where I live have been a pretty common problem off and on for many years.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com