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Comment by lostapathy | Hacker News Reader

I think there's a common misconception by non-EV drivers that every charge you have to wait until the battery is full - you don't. You just have to charge enough to get to your next stop.

If you're in a small town with a level 2 charger at a city park, you just charge enough to get back to civilization. Then hit the fast charger when you're back to the main highway.

Yeah, it takes a little planning to hit charging stops - but it's not actually much planning. And the built-in navigation takes care of most of it for you anyway. I was genuinely surprised on my first trip (again, through not-EV-friendly territory) how much of a non-issue it was in practice, and how much I didn't feel like I was waiting on chargers (even relatively slow "fast chargers"). I just took my time using the restroom, grabbed a fresh drink, checked my notifications on my phone, and it was time to head out again.

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I own and drive an EV. I know what they are really like and you are trying to wand wave away things as not a big deal that are a big deal.

You seem to have a misconception about how far it is from a small town to a anywhere else. Your 1 hour at a level 2 charger will get you about 15 minutes down the road - where will find the closest public charger in the previous town that you just left. There are a lot of small towns there are over an hour drive to the nearest highway that has level 3 chargers. Even on the highway the level 3 chargers are often an hour apart. So figure 8 hours at the public charger in the small town to hit the nearest level 3 charger.

> it takes a little planning to hit charging stops - but it's not actually much planning

You know how much planning I do when I take the gas car: almost always 0. I know that I'm never more than 15 minutes from a gas station so I just plan on stopping at the next gas when the gauge start to get close to empty and I'm always fine. There is one trip I sometimes make where the gas states are 30 minutes apart (through desert that is almost uninhabited) , and I'm careful to ensure I have fuel before driving that section.

My EV is a GM where I can't use the car's nav system without paying a subscription which I don't. It works fine for most trips, but I wouldn't not recommenced it for road trips or when going small towns.

> Your 1 hour at a level 2 charger will get you about 15 minutes down the road

A level 2 charger adds about 40 miles to a Model 3 or Model Y in an hour of charging. I don't know what you drive that is so much less efficient. 8 hours on a level 2 would fill the battery, not just get you to the next charger.

> I know that I'm never more than 15 minutes from a gas station You're being dramatic the other direction here - plenty of routes have you more than 15 minutes from a gas station, including the one I described in my prior post.

I'm sure there are places where it actually is a little tricky. Maybe more so depending on vehicles (Tesla does seem to be the best experience, by a lot). That doesn't change the fact that good EVs are just not a big deal to travel with anymore.

The last level 2 charger I used added 15 miles of range over about an hour. I drove a Chevy Blazer, which undoubtedly gives different ranges for some amount of power. Not all level 2 chargers charge at the same rate. As a result YMMV.

The topic here is travel to small towns.

> The topic here is travel to small towns.

The solution is simple - plan ahead just enough to have enough charge to get back out of the small town.

That is a bludgeon masquerading as a solution. People are terrible at planning ahead. Even those who are good at it sometimes plan wrong. There are sometimes energencies which people have to deal with against their plans.

Eventually chargers will be everywhere, but not today. When gas was new in 1900 cars had the same problems.

The people living in small town rural areas never need to buy an EV. They are such a tiny sliver of the population that they can have their gas cars forever and the climate won't notice.

The fears and anxieties of that small shaving of people is simply a misguided talking point about EV viability.

It's called the "Gas Station Mindset"

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