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Comment by jd | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Or to put it in a different way, the total time you spend waiting for your car to recharge/refuel is way lower for an electric car. The electric car is optimized for the 99% case (where recharging at home is sufficient). A gasoline car is optimized for the 1% case where you take a road trip.

You get the exact same effect for people who claim they need a pickup truck instead of a small city car just so they can transport some furniture or motorcycles or a Christmas tree in the back.

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I own a Tundra short bed, but also a Lexus ct200h (wife) and a Model S.

If there was an app like Uber, but for pickup trucks (on-demand/fungible capacity for transport of larger-than-car items), I'd sell my pickup truck tomorrow. I don't own the truck because I haul every day, I own it because its 8pm and someone calls and says they need help moving something right now.

Have a Home Depot nearby? Most places do. They have long hours (6AM-10PM) and rent trucks by the hour or the day.

Bingo. The first time I saw this at my local Home Depot, I sent a photo of the rental trucks to my brother. He now drives a 2-door car.

* (Well, he drove one then, too. But we were stressed about how to move large items in a pinch, and this solved our problem.)

If they had online rental reservation with an in cab activation terminal they could conceivably expand that to 24 hours a day availability.

It works for Home Depot because they don't have additional real estate requirements to support truck rental, just park them in a standard parking space at their existing retail outlet.

If there is no Home Depot maybe other business such as Walmart or the region's grocery store chain could get in the truck rental business using their own surplus parking.

If you live in a city, Zipcar is great for this.

How many times does that happen? Genuine question. I never needed a van or a truck out of the blue. Is it something to do with the American culture?

Your friend is getting a new couch and will give you the old one. How do you get it from his house to your house?

On the notice board in my local supermarket, there are about 10 man and a van business cards pinned on. I'd probably call the one with the cutest logo.

That's the cultural difference. In the US, we like to do things ourselves, no matter the cost.

It's funny because of the wasted resources.

I wouldn't say no matter the cost, but if the income is disposable, yes, we'd prefer to be able to do something when we want and not based on the schedule of a company/vendor we'd have to have the service provided by.

A great example? Look how popular 24 hour Walmarts are.

2-3 times a week.

really? what kind of situations?

People with trucks arrange their lives with the expectation they can immediately move large objects. The rest of us only move large objects a few times a year and borrow our friends' and families' trucks, and they resent us for it.

No resentment here. If couldn't have afforded the ~$45K for the truck, and the few thousand dollars per year for gas and insurance, I wouldn't have bought it.

I don't get people. I don't own the truck for social signaling, I own it as a tool, just like my welding gear, my CNC mill, and my laser sintering 3D printer.

You say "Hey, sorry maybe you should have thought that out better. But can it wait until tomorrow, because we can go rent a truck for way cheaper than me paying insurance and maintenance on a truck in case you have an 8pm 'emergency' again."

Zipcar rents Tacomas and E-150s. I wish they'd add something like a long-bed F-250, but I guess many zipcar drivers would find it difficult to drive one (even driving the E-150 in cities is a pain)

Zipcar has pickup trucks depending on where you live.

I live in a suburb of Chicago; no Zipcars nearby. I am a member though, as it allows me rental both in the US and Europe (I travel to Europe often, and I find Zipcar rentals very convenient there).

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