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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I think #1 will probably play out to a certain extent. Perhaps as an oscillation between low and high as each wave knocks more gas stations out of business and refinery capacity offline. But I have to say, even low prices on gas won't make me go back -- I prefer my EVs in all regards to the ICE equivalents, with the sole exception of marathon (>450 miles per day) road trips, which is not my use case.

I hope #2 won't be the future. It's not as easy to just jack up electric prices because EVs are charging, because they are regulated, and electricity is used for way more than cars (if my napkin math is right, on average people will use around 30% more electricity if they go full electric).

I expect that as a practical matter #3 is here now, it just hasn't filtered down to retail car sales in the US yet.

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> with the sole exception of marathon (>450 miles per day) road trips

I've done 4 3000km road trips and intentionally took the EV leaving the ICE vehicle at home. It's a better car, and we need to stop to bathroom anyways, so charging isn't inconvenient. Saving a few hundred dollars in fuel is nice, too.

Long EV trips are possible amd convenient if there are enough chargers along the route. Sadly, this isn't the case on many routes in the US, at least. Europe is doing much better. I have no experience in other places.

Different people optimize for different things. I have a 450 mile trip (each way) next weekend. I can do it in 1 full tank of gas, but realistically I’ll stop once to fill up halfway. I don’t plan any other stops. If I had an EV, I’d probably have to stop twice, for 30+ minutes each, extending my already long trip by an hour each way.

Why would you do that when you can easily make that trip in a typical 320 mile range EV with a single 20 minute charge?

> If I had an EV, I’d probably have to stop twice, for 30+ minutes each

You probably wouldn't for a 450mi trip, so long as you're driving an EV that's even halfway decent for road trips.

1. if you are driving 450 miles you should stop at least twice

2. unless you have an old or low mileage battery you won’t have to stop more than once

3. if you do stop twice (which you should) you should not need more than 15-20 minute stop

Honestly, even my Lightning could do 450 with one stop, and it’s not the poster child for high range. My model 3 would do that no problem and the stop would be half as long.

My back and butt beg me to stop every couple hundred miles anyway, so on a long road trip I plan for a lunch stop. Longer than 450 and I stop for the night or fly. But I don’t love road tripping no matter how big the has tank.

Like what route? Everytime I've talked to someone who claimed they couldn't buy an EV because of a certain route, abetterrouteplanner.com showed it was covered.

A day trip from Seattle into the cascades for hiking is a scenario that pushes EV range. I'm sure that I can't properly reach some hiking destinations. Going uphill into the Cascades eats battery range in a way that I still find hard to estimate.

Another other example that I couldn't make work was multi day stay in Gardiner to visit Yellowstone National Park.

Third example where I struggled was a weekend trip to Lincoln City, OR. No usable chargers within the city or along the coast. The ones listed on maps have restrictions. The only way was to get a full charge at the last station on the way there and keep careful watch over the remaining range while there.

ICEs have access to a much denser network of gas stations, which eliminates range concerns. EVs aren't there yet and the additional trip preplanning imposed by that is real effort at times.

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