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Comment by jesterson | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what way of thinking these people exercise. They think electricity prices are somehow shielded from price going up?

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ICE cars use energy from close to 100% oil. As long as your electrical grid is more diverse than that, you're already better off.

Exactly, electricity generation is already diversified, so it naturally gets somewhat shielded from shocks. Energy companies can burn wood if they get truly desperate, but I can only fill up my car with gasoline.

What? Where? In face that statement is not true pretty much everywhere. 50% of electricity in Hungary is nuclear. 80% in France. 50% coal in Poland, 30 % solar in Spain.

You should reread their post. You're proving their point.

In places where electricity generation is primarily nuclear, solar, hydro, wind, or geothermal? Yeah pretty much.

In most countries electric utilities have either regulated rates or are public-owned. They don't increase prices willy-nilly.

If you have an internet connected charger, which is standard in some countries, you can be decoupled from gas prices long before the gas gets phased out of the grid by charging when the grid is cheap and clean, even if gas is still being used for peakers. A simple timer will also often do the job, but you get even lower prices if you help the grid out by letting it dictate the exact time to start charging.

It's not about price; it's hedging against the very real risk of petrol rationing and shortages. An EV can charge from any source, and in Europe a lot of power is sourced from non-oil sources

If that's the case, probability of rationing/shortages for electricity may be even higher, unless you have your own generation.

There are several oil companies/sources, but for electricity you are at mercy of those who control grid. Again, unless you have your own generation.

> Again, unless you have your own generation.

Which is cheap compared to even cheap Chinese cars before the tariffs are added: https://www.kaufland.de/product/512021383/?search_value=pv+c...

Don't accuse people of not thinking before you've thought about it.

Charging an electric car at home is a lot cheaper than filling an ICE car with petrol. If the price of both doubles you save more money by switching to electric.

To make it really simple...

Before: Petrol car costs £10k to buy, plus 20p/mile (or whatever). Electric car costs £20k, plus 5p/mile.

After: Petrol car costs 40p/mile. Electric car costs 10p/mile.

That pushes the incentive towards electric.

Very few electricity grids (I think _none_ in Europe?) are particularly dependent on oil. Many European grids are quite _gas_ dependent, but gas prices are considerably less volatile than oil.

Here’s my way of thinking: charging overnight on a smart tariff means my cost per mile is a quarter of what it used to be. It could go up by 3x and I’d still save.

No. But there is more control than with petrol. An if you have more charger, could balance charginf during off-peak cheaper hours.

Can't do anything about petrol. Pay or gtfo.

i rarely (as a 12 year ev driver) see discussions mention you just get multiple times more distance per dollar, as a consumer, with an EV over ICE. (and i like both....it's just what i have measured having both)

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