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Comment by codex | Hacker News Reader

The most serious issue with electric cars isn't road trips, it's the fact that if you don't own your own home, or live in a dense city with no off street parking, you likely don't have reliable access to a daily recharge overnight. That's probably half the driving population of America. 30 minutes of quick charging is fine every so often, but not every day or even every week.

This is why fuel cells continue to be pushed as a viable alternative--quick, carbonless refueling. The closest equivalent that the EV world can offer is a battery swap station, but that has a host of issues.

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It's interesting now that Tesla has answered the folks saying "the most serious issue with electric cars is road trips," now we get this.

I'm a little skeptical of the "half of the driving population won't be able to charge" claim. For example, you don't necessarily need to own your off-street parking spot for the owner to upgrade it to increase its value. And I doubt on-street overnight parkers constitute anywhere close to half of the population (I'd be interested in data that shows otherwise).

Anyway, it will be many, many years before even half the driving population switches to electric. That's a lot of time to figure out charging infrastructure in cities for the rest of us.

It's Tesla that has defined the problem with electric cars as road trip refueling. Most EV dealers offer free loaners for road trips, or you can rent a car. Even vampire loads at airport parking in low temperatures is of higher priority for most drivers. They're misdirecting from the main issue to one that they can solve cheaply.

I'm saying this as someone who owns two electric cars. The infrastructure can be solved eventually, and some cities are looking into it, but even in the suburbs there are problems [2], which is why hydrogen is still out there as an alternative (albeit an immature and inefficient one), but for now, a large portion of the U.S. population cannot buy an EV.

[1] http://www.commerce.wa.gov/Documents/Demand-EVSE-Access-Gara...

[2] http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24947237/charge-rage-...

Valid points esp. about the vampire loads in cold weather. If you remember that NYT reviewer who stalled out, if you look at the details, maybe the biggest factor was parking overnight in the deep cold at a hotel without plugging in. I found it very distasteful how Musk attacked the reporter's integrity in response.

I am just saying "a large portion of the population can't buy an EV" is like saying "a large portion of the population can't buy a Macintosh" in 1984. If the biggest problem you see is that people don't park their cars near chargers right now, that seems like a tractable problem. (And I would think much moreso than making hydrogen mainstream.)

A lot of people who might live in these markets, also probably don't own cars. In NYC, for example 55% of people DONT own cars[1]

They are right to focus on high rates of adoption with people who live in suburbs than those that live in metropolitan areas.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_h...

Even within suburbs, many people live in apartments, condos, or park on the street or on a driveway outside of a garage.

It's an issue that makes electric impossible for me; I can reliably get a park on my street (Sydney inner-west) but I can't reliably park in front on my house.

We also have a usage pattern that mostly involves small electric-sized trips but sometimes involves a solid day of driving to get somewhere distant and back; this is always done with two or more drivers haring the load and driving near non-stop; no time for 30 minute charge breaks.

Electric cars are absolutely no use to me at the moment, but that's fine and I'll get an electric car if circumstance change in the future.

If you have an assigned spot and the federal government is paying for the recharge spot it may not be too big of a deal.

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