All the messaging about fast charging speed is focused on the wrong thing. EV drivers should be able to do the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination. The messaging should be about getting chargers in more homes, apartment complexes and workplaces. Speed doesn’t matter as much if you’re going to be parked for half the day or overnight. That’s something that gas simply can’t do.
Fast charging stations should only be necessary for road trips, where you should be taking a break every so often anyways.
The fact that so many people don’t think about this or are unaware shows how well the propaganda worked.
Here is a car that is by far the easiest car you’ll ever own, the power to run it is the cheapest you’ll ever see, and 99% of your trips will be within one charge/tank meaning you’ll never need to worry about range ever - but the propaganda convinced them all that that’s a deal breaker.
As an EV owner the road trips we take are the vast minority of driving anymore. When we do there are options.
- plan out your route and stops. Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.
- if you are one of the 80% of households with 2 cars, take the other car for that roadtrip.
- get a rental car for your trip. (Remembering that a couple hundred for a rental car is vastly cheaper than paying for gas for 10+ years)
I can’t help but feel if EVs were invented first, convincing people to adopt gas cars would be impossible.
- “You mean I have to take it somewhere and stand outside every time I need energy?”
- “Why do I have to put all these fluids in it? And why does it need all these filters, brake pads, and maintenance?”
- “These things are so slow, why would you ever want to drive one?”
- “What do you mean I can’t turn on the climate control anytime I want? You mean I have to wait for this thing to heat up?!”
The saddest part is that EVs were invented first, but it was easier to tanker fuel everywhere, rather than building out the electric grid in low-density areas.
Tbf, battery tech was also shit back then.
Many people fail to appreciate just how much consumer battery technology has improved, in their lifetime.
Yes. And another thing people don’t appreciate is that gas always had the inherent advantage in that the oxidizing agent is just sitting around wherever you go. You don’t even need to carry all the chemical agents. If gas cars had to carry around their own oxidizer like rockets do, batteries would have surpassed them long ago.
First, just to be pedantic, EVs did exist first. They go all the way back to the early 1800s. But battery technology didn’t advance enough to make them a good option until recently, so your point remains.
I fully agree with you that the only thing keeping gasoline going is inertia. There have been parodies applying the same logic to other fields, like the gas-powered phone.
There’s a reason why 80%+ of EV owners say they’ll never go back, and a good chunk of the remainder are just waiting on the field to mature a bit.
EVs still use brake pads. lol
Also electric cars, gas, and steam has a bit of a format war in the 1890’s-1920’s or so, and people really did make a lot of these points back then. Unreliable and sometimes unsafe chargers (basically due to people not understanding electrical engineering as well as we do now) were a big part of why gasoline won out
EV brake pads can last a lot longer on one pedal cars. Henry Ford’s wife drove an EV, she hated his gasoline cars because they were loud, stunk, and could not be started by most women.
Chiming in from experience, our EVs brake pads were rusting faster than they were wearing down. We bought used, so maybe the previous climate was humid, but around 80k miles may have been their first change.
Many (most?) EVs now periodically apply friction brakes to reduce corrosion issues. If an EV doesn’t have it, you can do it manually.
EVs still use brake pads. lol
not really. almost all EV breaking is regen, unless you drive like shit.
Ha, I never thought of it that way but yes, that tracks perfectly. The “inconveniences” of EVs aren’t worse than gas cars, it’s just that the gas car inconveniences are considered “normal” right now.
“those fluid is VERY flammable, it’s insane people wanted to sit above one”
“it stink when it’s running.”
“leave it running in a closed garage and it will kill you in minutes with poison gas”
“the wear and tear from containing thousands of internal explosions will inevitably wear parts down over time.”
Also, that place is disgusting and you have to step over the rotting corpse of 600 soft drinks poured out next to the pump, then touch a handle which is visibly soiled and often sticky, and then you will probably smell like gas for at least the next 20 minutes.
Wait, since when did electric cars stop having brakes?
1 pedal driving doesn’t use brake pads to slow down your car. You still have brakes in case of an emergency, but if you’re using them enough to wear out your brake pads then you’re doing something wrong. As someone else pointed out, you’re much more likely to rust off your brake pads rather than wear them out.
The amount of braking force that you can apply with that is relatively small, so if you want to either brake quickly or come to a complete stop, you’ll still use the actual brakes. While your brake pads would last longer than typical car, they would still need wear down.
A year later, we still haven’t even gotten a 240V fast charger at home. Still just pluggin’ in to the old wall with a regular old cord. We still manage to get all the charging we need done during the cheap-metered hours, too.
I laugh when I think back to buying the EV. I was so panicked about getting fast charger as soon as possible. I thought the wall plug would get us through the weekend while we tried to find an available electrician, but then we’d get desperate. It just never happened.
I can vouch for this 100%. Have had an electric vehicle for 6 months now.
The vast majority of my charging has been done at home on 120v. Granted, my wife and I both work from home most of the week and have short commutes. Our grocery store has free 240v charging so I top up while I shop.
We took one long trip in those 6 months and rented cars for the drive to/from and used public transit while we were there.
I used a fast charger for the first time this weekend to drop off a kid at the grandparents a couple hours away on Friday and then picked them up in Sunday. Didn’t have enough time between trips for the trickle charge to leave me in a comfortable range. 20 minute fast charge did the job for about $15.
Requires maybe 15 minutes of planning before your trip. You pick a place with food nearby, get out for 30 minutes, stretch, eat your meal, and you are good until the next meal.
It assumes when you want to eat coincides with when you need to charge. It assumes there’s something you want to eat within walking distance of the charging station. Also assumes you eat as often as you charge. I almost never find any of those to be true.
Good thing I wrote up two other options if it doesn’t work for you. It works perfectly fine on our car trips.
And what will happen to all those gas stations when we are at 90% EVs adoption, as is the goal? Where will you find a gas car to rent? How many gas stations will be left? EVs still need to be much faster at charging if we are going for high adoption
Is your argument both in the same breath that EVs will catch on too quick that all gas stations will disappear in a matter of days and also that EV adoption will not catch on quick enough because charging is too slow?
I want EVs, but they’re simply not good enough yet. They need to be much better before they can reach 90% adoption
simply not good enough yet
This thread is full of people telling you the opposite. I own an EV and am telling you it’s the best car I’ve ever had and will never go back. If you don’t believe they’re good enough then you need to analyze why you believe that, because it’s simply not true. If you want to ask me questions about what they are actually like, feel free, but I won’t sit here and help you “feel” better about them when all the facts show that they’re great vehicles to own.
EVs are perfectly fine, even with current charging speeds. the problem is not fast charging but AC charging coverage. everyone should be able to charge their cars at home or work.
The thing with charging times is mostly anxiety based on fear of the unknown rather than anything tangible
okay so a few times a year your meal isn’t exactly when you want to eat. or you can’t eat exactly what you want to eat.
i’ll take that over having to go to a gas station weekly to fill up and pay $50 for the privilege.
After 100k miles in an EV, road trips add about 20 minutes for every every 3 hours of driving. That’s all. It’s basically a trivial difference which gets statistically lost in the noise of traffic variability. If this causes an issue, it’s a lack of prior planning.
I fully agree with you, but you should check out the rest off this thread. I have someone who literally said:
I’m not willing to compromise on my road trip plans.
I’m unwilling to plan out two 20 minute stops in my day long road trip that happens maybe once or twice a year in order to have the lowest maintenance lowest fuel cost vehicle I have ever owned. Not to mention the other two options if you seriously cannot do it. People are so carbrained/gas brained I just can’t even. I will never go back to owning an ICE vehicle, literally why would you?
Yep, though that depends on destination in some regions. When my partner and I planned our trip to their parents’ place, what’s normally a 9 hour drive turned into a 13 hour one because we ended up having to charge up to 100% from 5% for one of the intervals due to lack of CCS stations, which was nearly a 60-70 minute charge each way.
That may have changed in the intervening year, and I’d love to have that drive only extended ~1hr instead because we can do ~15% -> 80% charging intervals instead.
the vast majority of their charging at home or at their destination.
Absolutely true, which is also why I found it extremely annoying when reviewers began claiming that range wasn’t as important as fast charging speeds in daily use. Luckily most have stopped that shit, probably realizing there’s a reason most people want good range, and this is one of them. Also charging at home/destination cost way less than using a fast charger, and it’s better for battery life too.
Speed doesn’t matter as much if you’re going to be parked for half the day or overnight.
The apartment complex and workplace chargers I’ve seen all limit how long you’re allowed to leave your car parked at them. I suppose speed doesn’t matter in the sense that having to move your car 20 minutes later isn’t much less annoying than having to move it 4 hours later. Still, I wouldn’t want an EV without my own garage even if I never went on road trips. It seems like a pain.
Considering how inexpensive it is to put in a 30A, 50A, or 60A circuit, and how modern L2 chargers can both downrate dynamically and be activated with simple apps or cards, this is not a difficult problem to solve.
Then you have where my apt had another company put in and manage the charges but they charge 15 cents more a kw then the fast charger around the corner.
I don’t mind sitting every so often in the morning drinking some tea while charging but it would be nice if it’s faster
Ugh, greedy landlords.
Considering how inexpensive it is to put in a 30A, 50A, or 60A circuit
I have a 50A circuit that i just installed. And previously installed a 30A circuit at my last house. It’s not inexpensive. A 50A breaker and 30 feet of 6/2 Romex with ground costs $240. Then add in a 40A capable Grizzl-E Classic for another $299 and you’re on your way to $600.
If you’re like me, you also buy conduit for the wiring in the garage to keep it dry/protected and a receptacle rather than hardwiring to allow for a little more flexibility.
Easy, yes. Cheap, no.
Only $600??? That’s cheap as hell! I thought you were going to say $2k at the absolute lowest
You do not want 50A 240V circuit built cheap, because of the circuits arcs, the house will burn down. The proper way to do it is a pony box for the charger circuit only, and special plug hardware designed for 100% duty cycles, not clothes dryers. States haven’t even updated codes for EV charge circuits.
That’s only $10/mo over a 5 year period.
Great which contractor offers those terms?
I have a 50a charger installed but holy hell this comment is silly.
You still have to pay up front for the charger+wiring. That can be a deal breaker for many, and the point is apartments are much harder as most don’t offer any electricity for even l1 charging
Think like a business and it makes sense.
Again most people can’t afford the up front cost.
Its expensive to be poor, and most people are poor
They are already in debt paying huge amount of interest monthly.
I like being able to charge at home and it’s a luxury I know not everyone gets.
For the numbers:
Paying off a $600 charge at $10/month like you suggested would take almost 13 years and cost over $900 in interest at a 18% apr
So you are spending almost 50% more on interest than the original charge. So 150% more expensive at 1500 vs 600.
For a 5 year payoff you have to spend just over $15/month but still are paying over $300 in interest. That’s now over $900 total or 50% more expensive because you can’t afford the up front cost.
That’s a matter of location I guess. Here you sometimes have to pay a small extra fee to keep it there the whole day. But that may be also because there are plenty of public chargers around
Yeah EVs seem almost non-viable if you live in an apartment complex right now, which is a shame. At least where I am
You can literally have just a simple wall plug and charge a car. It doesn’t need to be a fitted wall-mounted charging box. Yes, it is much slower and takes 24+ hours to charge the car completely but most people don’t actually use much of their battery per day anyway so if you plug in every night when you get home, you’re not going to have a problem for the majority of the time. And those are a very cheap socket run that an apartment’s body corporate could/should install.
Not OP, but nearly every apartment complex I’ve ever been to has absolutely 0 electricity to a surface lot, and very limited/restricted access in a garage. And no apartment managers are going to change that unless there’s money to be made from it.
Fortunately, newer buildings are now including some public charging stations, presumably getting a portion of the sales.
Theres no external outlets just out in the parking lot in my complex. You’d have to run an extension cord out a door or window all the time, which would leave them cracked, and I live on the third floor
More progress really needs to be made on infrastructure for a lot, probably the majority of apartment complex dwellers
All doable… we can route power easily enough to about any place on this planet
I have been an EV owner since 2018 and I have never had a “level 2” charger installed. I’ve been fine with just plugging into the wall. Now, granted, my cars have been 80-125 mile range vehicles. But it’s been fine.
Which part of “apartment complex” did you misunderstand
When we made laws for handicap parking, there was handicap parking everywhere, overnight.
I live in an apartment and can neither charge at home nor at work. I just charge when I go grocery shopping. It’s absolutely viable.
Most EVs charge at home doesn’t mean it’s not cheaper than fossil fuel even using the charger down the road. As for convenience, using a public charger is like pouring fuel in at the petrol station.
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- Depends on your utility plan and if it’s time based or not. The chargers at work are the same price from 7:00 to 22:00.
- Yes
- Depends on the office. Plenty of office parks don’t require you to move.
- I’ve avoided (as best I can) the “energy providers” that charge and extra fee just to charge. Obligatory fuck ChargePoint.
I can’t charge at home (fuck you NJ) but still have two EVs that I take to the single public charger (limited to 2 hours) nearby because fuck gas powered cars.
Maybe next time don’t make sweeping generalizations about things you personally haven’t experienced.
Industrial electricity prices are a lot more complicated than residential. You basically get the price set by your highest demand/lowest supply. Meaning you charging your car could hike their rates.
Answers “possibly” or just straight up “yes” to literally every point, and then criticizes them for generalizing.
While EVs are 100% the way to go, acting as though the very real problems and drawbacks faced by real people don’t exist is disingenuous and just gives anti-EV people more ammo.
Problems exist, sure. But not those.
Then why were your answers “Possibly, Yes, Possibly, Yes”?
The problems being fixable by legislation a) doesn’t make them not problems and b) doesn’t mean they’ll actually be fixed by legislation.
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This, and the cheapest charging option will always be at home.
If you can’t charge at home, an EV is not worth the additional cost vs a combustion or hybrid.
that’s not always true, its free at my workplace I just need to unplug every two hours. They do that so people don’t sit on the chargers all day. I know people without home charging, for them its 6kw charging at work, public parking and a visit to a fast charger when needed. They say its still cheaper than gas.
That’s basically me.
No home charger because no off street parking and fuck NJ.
Ignoring the better driving comfort of an ev, which is valuable on its own, it’s still much cheaper to charge on the go, than buying gas.
Amen. The building I work at, where there’s roughly about 100 people each day, including police department and local part of ministry’s office has exactly ONE charging point built last year. One.
My EV’s getting older now, but it’ll still do 400+km if I charge it fully overnight. If we’re doing a road trip it’s time for a burger and to stretch ones legs when it’s getting low anyways. Eat my food, get some rest and 20-30 minutes later I’m ready to go again.
I was sceptical before buying it, but I will never buy a gas car again. And I work in oil and gas
One doesn’t have anything to do with the other. Fast chargers ARE for road trips. And we can improve them irrespective of L2 chargers. Where are you seeing “messaging” that suggests otherwise?
It’s for all the people that wont accept that must be able to charge to full at any moment regardless that they usually wont have to because its already full from being charged at home/work etc
“Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away”
WTF? This is exactly how I have refeuled every single time I have ever gotten gas. If I could pay a little extra for a pit stop style refuel I would. Who wants to linger around gas fumes, processed “food” , and energy drink boner pills?
A big draw of EV for me is that 99% I don’t need to stop anywhere to recharge. If I do though I want it to be as fast as possible.
We bought an EV and it took a few trips for it to click that you don’t need to charge to 100% or even 90%. Hook it up, hit the restroom, buy a latte, then get back on the road with 50% charge.
You only need enough to get to wherever your longer parking+charge is going to be.
We also figure out the range anxiety. Getting down to 10% isn’t a big deal, especially if that last stop is going to get you back to full charge. Our EV doesn’t even have that great of range to start with.
100%. The time I spend at a fucking gas station is the time the gas is flowing + the overhead of tapping the card. Plus, if there are ads and the mute button doesn’t instantly work, leaving a 1 star review.
“If there are ads”
WTF where do you live?
Ads at pumps are fairly common in the US. They been around since 2019 if not earlier.
I think he meant this as where would someone live that it would be an if. Ads are pervasive
No ads in Europe as far as I’ve seen.
Not as many but there are occasional posters, banners, window ads. Hard to be in a public place without them.
We have ads in Australia too. :(
In Latvia there is gas station chain that has no workers. Fully self service. They have screens that run ads.
AFAIK, in some countries some stations that have workers and where you have to go to pay at cash register also have pumps with screens and play ads on them. Some even have pistols with screens for the same purpose. Yep.
I think it means specifically in the context of long road trips, the kind where everyone gets out to stretch their legs and take a piss while stopping for gas. On the other hand, I was under the impression that EVs simply didn’t have the range for such activities, so IDK.
Modern EVs have hundreds of miles of range and can easily do road trips as long as there are chargers along the route. I haven’t done any cross county trips but I have driven from NorCal to SoCal and eastern to western CO without issue.
4 hours driving and a half hour charge while doing a biobreak is perfectly doable these days. You can keep that up a long time. Personally not a fan of that long a stretch and we’re doing more 2 hours driving and a break.
My EV has a 330 mile range, and a full recharge at home costs me $4. It’s amazing.
If I remember correctly, the new BMW 3 series EV is like a 430 mile range.
Keep in mind the range listed, just like mileage, is based on certain circumstances. Freeway speeds (~80 mph) will drastically reduce that.
I was under the impression that EVs simply didn’t have the range for such activities, so IDK.
Maybe 10 years ago that was true, but now ranges and charging speeds have gotten much better. The infrastructure of gas stations is still better for easy road trips without pre-planning though.
Where I live (Denmark) there is no need for planning your charging, there are charging stations everywhere. I think the same is true for Sweden and Norway.
It’s only a matter of when the infrastructure is established enough. Scandinavia is among the more developed regions with regard to charging infrastructure, but it will be the same in other countries soon.The same in Finland
😀 👍
The US doesn’t do infrastructure. Bridges barely work.
Yes USA is a funny country, one of the richest countries in the world, but for some reason they can’t afford basic infrastructure and healthcare for all?
It’s very possible. Aging Wheels on YouTube has a couple videos on road tripping in an EV.
Sure, maybe a few min with a family I guess. But if traveling alone it’s still quick stretch, in and out of restroom in less than 5min.
In Europe I’ll grab an espresso, add an extra min I guess for that.
I know some families will spend maybe 20-30min at such places, but ideally that’s a choice not forced by charging time. Doesn’t need to happen tomorrow, but I do think fast charging is a desirable goal.Mine, an MG4, has 400 km. Enough to make you need a stop. And it gets from 20% to 80% in half an hour or less (50KWh+)
Don’t forget the unmutable unskippable multimedia advertisements on the fuel pump!
(Yes, I know some of them are allegedly mutable, but I have yet to find one.)
I’ve been told that a butter knife placed in just the right part of the speaker slot unveils the hidden permanent mute button
I agree with you. I always hurry to get out of there ASAP.
When I had an ICE car, it was exactly the same. With our BEV however, I don’t generally need to charge “on the way” as I can start each morning fully charged, and have more than enough battery for a full day.
It’s only on longer trips we need to charge, and on those we can easily combine charge and a short break.Yea, I don’t get all these people who are like “yea lets get a 30 min lunch break at a gas station”. Dude, the last place I want to spend time at on a road trip is at a fucking gas station.
You can charge at gas stations, but why would you? Around here, there are cafes, restaurants, and supermarkets with fast chargers.
And why would a Walmart be any better? Around here, no charging stations have a restaurant neaby. I just looked up all the charging stations near me and none of them have stores I would want to stop at on a road trip
Just sounds like a CEO who doesn’t want to invest anything in upgrading anything.
Of course I want to be out of there quicker. I’m driving to somewhere and it sure as shit is not to a charging point.
It’s Ionna, one of the (IMO) best options for DC fast charging.
He’s not justifying slow chargers; he’s justifying building stuff around them. Basically the “truck stop” model.
All Americans should travel to Italy and have a meal at an Autogrill on the highways. It’s likely the best food you ever eat. US highway stops are all hot garbage.
The Autogrills are absolutely great for a motorway stop but you’re over selling them just a tad. After all, you’re now comparing them to restaurants in the Italian cities at either end too.
Anyway, we’ve got 150+ kW chargers at most stops now, at least in the north. And signage for stops indicates if there are chargers. An espresso and toilet break is usually enough to keep going.
You are missing out on delicious sushi.
The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
Say what? Outside of a long road trip, that’s very much what I do every time.
In the context of EVs, your daily grind refueling is a scenario that doesn’t really exist - and shouldn’t exist. Your weekly trip to the gas station should be replaced almost entirely with AC charging, either at home or at work. DC fast charging should only be used when you are driving an extended amount in a single day. And if you’ve been driving 200 miles that day, you probably need some food and a restroom.
Coincidentally, it solves one of the biggest (and least explainable) gaps on fast charging. If you make your regular rest/food stops the same thing as your charging stops, then you’ll spend very little extra time charging on a road trip. It’s always been weird to me that fast chargers have traditionally been nowhere near amenities like food and restrooms.
We just came back from a trip. Started with below 50 percent, first stop was a nice caffee for a second breakfast. Within 20 minutes, charge went up to 80, giving uns around 400 km range. The car was full before we even finished.
The planing simply changed. Instead of rushing through a gas stop, we prefer a route with places for a nice break. Or, in a pinch, nearly every McDonald’s now has a row of quick chargers.
It is becoming a non-issue.
Literally my solution in a nutshell. I’ll take a longer trip with a nice place I can stop for an hour-ish, then move on.
Went to Italy…wanted to grab an Espresso… the car was at 80 percent before I even manage to get the cup in last my hand…
Yeah, same for me. But it is true that it doesn’t necessarily apply when charging at home, overnight.
Yeah that sentence was bonkers. Like that’s exactly what most people do haha
Yeah, that statement makes little sense in context of ICE, but the point does kinda work for EV. Ideally, outside of road trips, you wouldn’t go to designated charging areas, but just charge where you’re going anyway. I usually charge at a supermarket
ITT: Lots of people dont realize how infrequently you actually stop at a charger if you have charging at home or work.
Since they installed chargers at my workplace roughly one year ago, I have stopped exactly 3 times to charge in a public charger:
First was when we had an issue with chargers the day before I was going on a 2 weeks holiday out of town.
Second was when I arrived to my holiday destination.
Third was the day we were going back home from the holiday destination after two weeks.
That’s about it in a whole year.
Okay, now what about the people who don’t live in SFHs? I could charge at home most nights if I had an EV, but a lot of people literally can’t install chargers.
It’s so easy to install communal chargers, that no house has an excuse to not do it. It just needs to be normalised.
Here where I live, I don’t think there is a house with no ev charger at a parking space.Of course your daily mileage comes into play… but
You don’t have to install a charger, if you can charge your laptop/phone at home you can charge your car at home.
It’s just an extension cord.
Of course this requires you to run the cord outside if you don’t have a garage but it’s not like you have to bury it or anything. Because again it’s just an extension cord.
And even if you want “fast” charging at home you aren’t really “installing” a charger you are just getting a 220v outlet installed in the US. If you have a central A/C unit or electric dryer as an example you already have this installed in your house you are just adding an additional outlet for ease of access.
The “real” fast chargers that are installed for public use are not being installed in your home because those are 480v or even 800v. Which is considered industrial use, as far as I am aware you can’t get that power connection in your garage because the infrastructure isn’t there.
So like, out my door and into the parking lot?
I’ll let my friends living in apartments know they can run an extension cord from the 5th floor then lol, I’m sure there’s nothing unsafe about that.
Daily mileage isn’t the only factor either. I’m not sure why I would pay 30k for a used EV if it costs almost the same to charge per 100km as a diesel car worth under 2k takes to refuel per 100 km but takes much more time to do so. EVs start making more sense for people in apartments when public fast charging is nearly free, like charging at home is.
Hey everyone with an electric car did you know you are wrong because if i follow this correctly.
1 .You can buy a 20 year old car for $2000. 2. This person knows someone who lives on the 5th floor.
Yeah it’s called individual choice. It’s not for everyone in every situation. Just like diesel versus gasoline or natural gas or walking or riding a bike or taking a bus.
But the point I made still stands you don’t “have” to install anything.
And yes I have seen people running cords out of windows from apartments. Is it the best option. No. Would I do it also no.
But there are options available.
Make the choice that works best for your situation.
If we’re going to ban fossil fuels 100%, we need EVs to work for everyone. If we don’t ban fossil fuels altogether, people can continue driving old cars which is bad. I know I will.
It doesn’t have to be a binary choice. We could have regulations that require EV charging stations on new construction, from street lamp poles, etc, and still let people fill up their gas car.
The government should probably do something to combat the proliferation of huge pickup trucks, but idk what that would look like.
You live somewhere that allows randoms to lay trip hazards across the pavement?
Yup. I’ve had an EV for 6 years (in Texas of all places) and have only used a public charger a handful of times, and mostly because of the novelty to see what DC charging is like. I’ve only needed it one time on a long distance trip. So 6 years, 1 DC fast charge.
If you have a dedicated 220v outlet near your driveway or are willing to have a dedicated wire coming out of your home out of a garage or a janky window, if you don’t to drill into the siding and hard install the wire to the siding. My fiance’s aunt has a new Electric RAV 4, like the latest model and she has a 110v charger and it takes for fucking ever to charge. She gets frustrated when the charger isn’t back in when someone uses it because it takes for fucking ever.
Campsites usually have 110v and not 220v. If you want good charging speed you’re inevitably paying more for it. You can do the whole figuring out some clever way to utilize natural resources to charge an EV or have it set to a battery backup or something cute like that but even still that’s better for like if your typical way of charging isn’t working or unavailable.
Either way though, you’re not gonna get an EV to be effectively charged with any kind of speed with a 110v home charger. It could take an hour to get 5%. If you have one or know someone with an EV, you’ll know the actual struggle that people who switch from gas to electric go through, not just going along with the hive and hype.
Most EV owners do not realize that most car drivers live in apartment buildings and have no chance to charge their car at home.
I live in a building that was built in 2023 and has no underground charging stations. In fact no stations around the building either. In Germany. Berlin. Yep
We have been wanting an EV (something other than a Swasticar) for our next vehicle and think we could deal with the extended charging times required during a long drive or trip, but we ended up ruling it out.
For us the big problem is the difficulty getting parts and service. Service for the models we looked at is only available at dealers (and only some dealers), and parts are regularly not in dealer stock.
We really don’t want to risk taking a cross-county trip and having the car break down 200 miles from the nearest mechanic. With the additional real possibility of having to wait weeks (or months) for a part, an EV is not an appealing choice for us, at least not yet.
What are you expecting to break down? A modern internal combustion engine plus continuously variable transmission is one the world’s most complex pieces of engineering in common use today.
An electric drive system is trivial in comparison.
This is the truth. 4 years with a Chevy Bolt EUV and so far I have only replaced the tires and windshield wiper fluid. As someone who worked on several ICE cars for 2 decades, it’s kind of a dream to have so few things that can go wrong. The number of moving parts in a EV is a couple magnitudes less than an ICE car.
People don’t account for the time I am not spending at gas stations sniffing fumes every week or getting oil changes. The handfull of times I don’t charge at home are a fraction of time spent dealing with ICE routine maintenance.
The only thing I am slightly worried about is that my car has 3 coolant loops, which is one of my least favorite repairs.
You should get the brake fluid replaced. You’re probably due.
Nope, manual says 5 years, 50,000 miles.
I’d be worried about some of the electronics, modern cars, electric or not, tend to be overcomplicated with tablets and server connections and what have you. I might also worry about getting into an accident.
Hate to tell you this, but cars have been like this for about 15 years now.
Been a long time since ol Joe at the gas station could fill the tank and tune your carburetor with a screwdriver.
Yes but other cars can be repaired at any mechanic rather than just at a dealer, which is the issue we were talking about above.
I am well aware of the computerization of cars, how carburetors have not been a thing for more like 30 years, and how generally electric vehicles are better than combustion ones but both are worse than public transit.
My fears are software/firmware issues or battery pack failure. It’s an impossible problem for the common man to solve and you are beholden to the manufacturer. And at what cost? Minor accident? Manufacturer declares it unfixable and deactivates it. Doesn’t even matter if you repair it. Boo!
I really want one, but I can still repair my current car myself if needed.
I have a seven year old Volvo.
It cannot be repaired at a mechanic beyond simple mechanical things. Everything else has to pass through a Volvo dealer because they locked down their software (Vida) and regular mechanics COULD buy it, but it would cost them several thousand dollars a year for the subscription. Unless they are going to specialize, it’s not worth it. I cannot drop my car off at joe’s garage.
There’s no real difference between ICE and electrics in that regard. You can still do basic repairs to an electric like brakes, tires, suspension, etc.
if you get into an accident on a road trip you’re fucked regardless of what car you have.
Yet EVs are much less reliable than many ICE vehicles. The control module is one of the weak points. When it fails the car is down until it’s replaced.
No
Huge Study Shows EVs More Reliable Than ICE Cars With One Surprising Common Issue
EVs averaged 4.2 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles, while similarly aged combustion models more than doubled that rate
https://www.carscoops.com/2025/04/new-study-shows-evs-are-more-reliable-than-ice-cars/
Sorry for lazy copy/paste. 1st search result in ‘reliability EV ice’
‘Not looking for this or that’ means cherry picking… So I guess you are right in your own little world
Also kudos for posting anecdotal evidence like it would mean something. You are really cheering up my day :)
Yeah but GM can’t make any kind of car reliable.
Get a BYD
But, I’m assuming you are a Yank, given your attitude, so you can’t get them
But you don’t want an EV anyway
I figure I’d upset some EV fanboys with a dose of reality, but holy shit, you’re REALLY upset. Take your meds already.
posts a lie
gets downvoted
shocked pikachu
You seem to be imagining things.
I was FOAMING when I pasted this 😹😹😹
I am sure you can show us real word data
You could say that about a number of components on ICE vehicles.
As opposed to your ECU?
You’re just making shit up
Particularly when there’s less vibration, heat etc. to fuck with electronics
You’re pushing an agenda here
Why?
Right. My “agenda” is simple. I would prefer an EV, but when in the middle of bumfuck Nevada with no cell service when it’s 110F out, I don’t want a car that can only be fixed at a dealer and that may require a 3 week wait for parts.
You would think that, but Hyundai EVs are popping ICCU fuses and Tesla motors all leak coolant from the seals. There is a Tesla that went 3 million kms. Only needed 4 battery swaps, but it needed 14 motors. Coolant leaks will be problem at higher mileage.
My biggest problem with my EV is that I was stupid to get the service pack as it never has any service needs. Breaks last twice as long. No oil changes. No critical fluids other than wiper fluid. The easiest to fail part is the 12v battery which is standard for any car. If something hard to replace fails it is going to be a sensor and I’ve had that happen on a gas car before and no one had it in stock because no one stocks random sensors.
The service pack better include tires replacement, and then it would make sense for people who drive a lot on roads that destroy tires.
call your dealer and ask if you can cancel the service plan for a prorated refund.
You guys don’t have insurance? If my car breaks down away from home, I can get a rental brought to me so I can continue my trip while my car gets fixed.
You don’t do road trips much? Trips don’t necessarily go to the same location twice and it can take days of driving to circle back.
Why circle back? My insurance would give me a car to continue my holiday.
The US is huge and it might take several hours to a day or more to get another car brought out if you’re in a rural area. So if possible, it’s usually faster to work your way towards wherever the car is coming from.
Use to meet up with my buddy that lived in another state every time he had to tow a car to ‘the nearest dealer’ for warranty work which was 6-7 hours away. We’d have lunch and he’d head back.
Going up to a higher comment. Co-worker was in an accident. They just got the car back from the shop after ~7 months because a part was on backorder and the car wasn’t drivable. His insurance paid for his rental for that duration but part availability is a valid concern.
I sure as hell don’t. That doesn’t sound fun at all.
How often are you taking cross country trips on the spur of the moment? Take the advantages of owning an EV and then just rent something for the trip.
Often enough and the trips can be for a few weeks. Checked car rental rates recently and a small SUV had a nearly $2K base rate.
Sounds like a plug in hybrid would be right up your alley. Many of the benefits of an electric vehicle (regen braking and the ability to charge at home, foremost) while still being able to fill up instantly using gas. Unfortunately you lose out on the basically-no-maintenance-required part of a pure EV, but frequent road trips are basically the ideal use case for a PHEV.
That’s exactly what we’re looking at.
I call bullshit
I think the reason they don’t have spare parts is because the motors are less complicated and, in theory, will need fewer replacement parts. An ICE motor is like 10,000+ moving parts, an electric motor is like 300 moving parts. They’re an order of magnitude less complicated.
But there are still several ways the software or high voltage system can fault leaving people stranded and that usually isint a roadside fix or even a nearest auto part store run (yet)
Hyundai ICCU failures, for example.
For context, parts are as available as they need to be. IOW, parts are in stock when they are frequently needed. If a part is rarely needed, it won’t be in stock locally.
If you choose a common EV model, like GM, Hyundai, or even Tesla, you are extremely unlikely to suddenly need extensive service. Dealers (with EV mechanics) are common, with multiple in every major city, and a parts network that can have anything shipped overnight.
The only time i seen a new EV breakdown is…that 12v battery. It usually happened around 2 or 3 years down. Other than that i still haven’t seens any EV breakdown yet.
Also for the part availability, logically newly released car tend to not having part laying around because logically no one will expect a new car to break down and waste a storage space for it, so no matter what car you buy it will be the same. But if a new car(released only 2 to 3 years) have parts widely available, then logically speaking, is that car still reliable?
EVs can break down. It tends to be less frequent but more expensive. I just had a bigger repair on mine. I’ll be crunching the numbers one of these days to see what the average cost of repairs has been.
No argument on that, just that it be strange to worry about replacement part for an EV that isn’t 5 or more years old. You will make as less sense if apply that to ICEV too, no new vehicle are expected to breakdown. Whatever module that might break on an ICEV will break on an EV too, but that’s not enough to dismiss the point that EV is much more reliable solely because there’s significantly less part required to run it.
You won’t find any readily available part for a newly launched EV the same way you won’t find any readily available part for a newly launched ICEV.
Better not drive a car at all…
Yep
They’re looking for problems to justify their position
owning a BYD EV here in Australia, 80% of my charging is at home, just plug in to a wall socket powered by mostly solar from my roof. 15% is destination charging eg when buying groceries, plug in, shop, unplug and go and only 5% is charging on a road trip.
I love how people looking into getting a car will go crazy over range. All the while they have not driven more than 100k in a single day in the last 5 years.
I really hope there will one day be a solution for people who don’t own detached houses.
Every single parking spot should have a charger. It will happen some day.
In my country we do have a ton of public chargers but car owners report that it’s more expensive than gas. You either have a way to charge at home or it’s just not worth it.
Depends on the gas prices, but yeah, even in the US often ‘fast chargers’ would be equivalent or even more expensive than gas.
If you take fast chargers with the milage most EVs get (roughly 2mi/kwh), the per kwh price needs to be roughly $0.35/kwh or lower for electric to be cheaper (home rates essentially across the US are lower than this), but fast chargers often climb to $0.45-0.55/kwh.
You don’t need fast charging if every parking spot has a charger. You only need those for long trips.
True, but not sure how you make that sort of infrastructure a reality. Most parking lots in general don’t have electrical structure for every parking spot or even 1/10th of the parking spots to have dedicated high voltage charging.
In the UK they’re installing chargers in the lamp posts, in Germany they’re installing them in the curbs. There are solutions slowly making their way out there.
We don’t, I charge while shopping most of the time.
Gasoline cars need to accept grass if they are ever to be a viable replacement for a horse. Like, what if you’re far from a gas station but there’s a meadow right there?
Only fringe enthusiasts can own a gasoline car that doesn’t have a biofuel fermenter attached.
The technology should still be improved as much as possible.
Everything is a tradeoff. At this point there are more valuable things to be spending money on than making chargers that are as fast as possible. Not all cars can charge at 500+kWhs many cannot even do 100kWhs. IMO better to spend money upgrading all the slow 7-50kWh chargers. As well as putting in more slow charging near residents. Kerb charging for people that dont have a driveway in cities or chargers for those living in flats. That would serve people better then spending more money on something very few can actually benefit from.
I think for my commute I would prefer a battery chemistry that needed slower charging, if it was cheaper or lasted longer or was safer, or lighter, or whatever. But I think there will always be use cases where it’s worth maximizing uptime, like long-haul driving.
I wonder if trucking will evolve to do tractor swaps, where rigs coming into charge up will hand off trailers to fresh tractors. That way the cargo doesn’t have to take up space in the charging lot or whatever. Or they might do battery swaps. I imagine for above some threshold of cost/minute downtime, the hardware for doing swaps will be worth the extra cost.
In most jurisdictions, trucks are required by law to stop for the driver to rest every 5 hours or so. You can just charge the vehicle then.
oh yeah, duh. the vehicle’s uptime is bound by its operator’s.
Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away
This almost reads as satire. Like this has to be a joke, right? No way this guy can really be this stupid (or out of touch), right?
Yes. Because with an EV you live at the gas station.
People need to stop thinking about EVs like cars that need to be fueled. They’re more like phones that need to be charged.
The great majority of my gas stops are stop, fill up, leave. I expect those would be eliminated by having a EV I just charged at home though.
This is pure cope from a nation that is a long way behind the rest of the world on EV technology. I’ve done some very long road journeys, 900+ km in a day, and having an EV would likely have added at least an hour to that day, even more if I was towing.
The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
This is exactly how I go about my business at a fuel stop. Maybe do a few stretches and check everything on the roof isn’t working it’s way loose, but once the pump clicks off, I’m goneburgers.
I’ve done some very long road journeys, 900+ km in a day, and having an EV would likely have added at least an hour to that day, even more if I was towing.
You do realize that 99.999% of people don’t drive anything like that on a regular basis right?
As someone who’s had an EV exclusively since 2018, several makes and models, and not near a massive metro area like NYC, LA, etc. where infrastructure has been extremely built out for a long time. I’ve made long trips, and the total time difference across an entire day of driving, accounting for stops for meals, bathrooms, etc. that would have happened anyway with an ICE vehicle, the trips were maybe total an hour and a half longer spread across that day.
Does it take more time on long distance trips? Yes. Does it actually matter when those long trips are usually going to be entire day or even multi-day trips anyway? Not really.
I’ve found non-EV owners usually still think of charging the car like filling it with gas, full every time with all the time it takes to fully charge. But you almost never fully charge the vehicle while on a trip, only at the beginning and maybe end. The batteries charge significantly faster when at a lower state of charge, so most travel happens in the middle between 20-70%. It’s faster to charge twice for 15 minutes at a fast rate, than taking an hour or more to fully charge each time. And the built-in navigation and charging systems take that into account along your route to optimize those stops to take advantage of those higher charging speeds. I also have noticed that non-EV owners significantly underestimate the amount of time they take when stopping to get gas, use the restroom, etc. The real world time difference between those quick charges where you can let the car sit unattended while you use the restroom, grab snacks, etc. versus having to stand at the pump and then do those things, is much closer than most people tend to think.
This is a really common, and really stupid argument people make.
Someone will say “an EV isn’t right for me because I do X”
And someone will almost certainly say something stupid that starts with the word “statistically”
I don’t give a fuck about what people do statistically, I care about what I do with my vehicle. And I’m not going to buy a vehicle that does 95% of what my current vehicle does.
I’m just pointing out that the common assumptions about EVs based on reading other online comments from non-EV owners may not be accurate.
You might not have those assumptions, but from my experience talking to thousands of people over the last nearly decade is that very few non-owners have it accurately. Most people think they use their cars much differently than they actually do, and a lot of people get stuck on the one or two times they travel long distance each year for a week or two, and ignore the other 50 weeks where they’re paying out the nose for gas and maintenance when an EV would make more sense for their daily driver, and then just renting something for the trip.
Does it take more time on long distance trips? Yes. Does it actually matter when those long trips are usually going to be entire day or even multi-day trips anyway? Not really.
Yes, but when in the rare cases when you need to make 900km+ in a day, you really need that ability. 99% simply isn’t enough because that 1% is really important.
Time on a road trip is way more important than time in regular drives. I don’t mind being 30min late getting back home from work, that happens all the time from traffic, but 30min late on a roadtrip means you’re missing daylight, or an appointment, or that restaurant you really wanted to try is closed.
Yes, but when in the rare cases when you need to make 900km+ in a day, you really need that ability
So rent a gas car.
This stupid argument is why grown men drive huge pickups with pristine beds to office jobs, in case they need to move a couch every 7 years.
You can rent a van or pickup for $20.
I’m amazed no one has pulled the TOW MY BOAT card yet in this thread.
You cannot be serious.
I’m not buying a car I can’t take on holiday with me, that’s just ridiculous. Especially considering it would spend most of the trip sitting around at a campsite.
EV cope, honestly.
Good to know you’re the overtired and in a rush driver that the defensive driving courses warn me about. Worse if you’re towing something.
I’ve got shit to do, especially when I’m doing that type of distance.
So leave earlier. Don’t put me and me family at risk.
How is me not wanting to fart around for half an hour every time I stop putting you at risk?
You know there can be two drivers swapping back and forth with no downtime but still well rested right? That how we do most of our roadtrips
Sure; where did they state that in their comment?
If that’s the case I’ll strikeout my comment and publicly apologize.
Lets say you have a 300mi range EV. that sounds great, until you realize you can’t actually use it all.
We like to save the bottom 20% for emergencies and battery longevity, and fast charging is too slow above 80% to be worth it, so effectively, on a road trip. only the 20%-80% range is usable. Your 300mi+ range just turned into 180mi of usable range. And then factor in ~10% battery degradation over time, or range reduction in winter conditions, and you could easily have as little as 150mi of actual usable range between charging stops. And that’s assuming the charging stations are perfectly spaced apart.
That’s only a little more than 2 hours at highway speeds. And that’s not along time to be driving, even for a single person. In gas cars, we will regularly do 3-4 hours without stopping at all. And if we do stop for a break, it’s rarely at gas stations or places with charging stations. Those are typically awful places to spend the limited amount of time you have on a trip.
In practice, the charging interval is far, far less than the ideal 300mi and far more frequent.
That much driving sounds miserable
Well, 3-4 hours without stopping is not only miserable, it is also unsafe.
Also… you can do this with most EVs already
Highway Hypnosis/ Road Hypnosis is real. In most driving manuals it’s recommend to take breaks and stretch.
US people will only get out of their cars under threat, apparently.
Welcome to the US highway system.
My drive to the university from home was 152mi.
Except nmc batteries have no issue with being below 20 or above 80 percent soc, they have an issue with staying outside those values for longer periods of time. That’s why people say you shouldn’t charge above 80% in your day to day driving, because you’ll usually charge it to 100% and then just have the car parked in your driveway for hours with a full battery. When you’re on a road trip, you can absolutely use the bottom 20% of your battery as you’ll be charging it up immediately. You can also charge it up to 100% before starting your road trip with next to no effects on the battery for the same reasons.
So, yes, there’s obviously degradation for older cars and there’s the obvious effect of batteries charging slower the more charged they are, so I’ll give you that you won’t fully charge your car during a road (if you don’t have kids, I guess, as ours will absolutely drag out the break long enough to have the car sitting at 100%), but at the end of the day, the effects aren’t nearly as terrible as you describe, as you’d be at about 90% range for the first episode of the trip and about 80% for consecutive ones.
I used to think this way until I actually drove an EV long distance. This tech is mature and useful for road trips. Most people aren’t willing to drive 12+ hour days anyway and that’s the only real way to get a time advantage out of a gas car.
I think the issue is like trucks in the USA. People buy what they think they need not what they actually they need and then underutilize it.
You don’t need it 99% of the time, but in that 1% when you need it, you really need it. 99% simply isn’t enough because that 1% is really important.
Time on a road trip is way more important than time in regular drives. I don’t mind being 30min late getting back home from work, that happens all the time from traffic, but 30min late on a roadtrip means you’re missing daylight, or an appointment, or that restaurant you really wanted to try is closed. These are not imaginary hypotheticals, all of these situations have regularly happened to me even with gas cars.
This is fascinating to read because it’s completely the opposite of how I think.
If I was regularly 30 min late coming home from work I would scream. Nobody has time for that!
30 min late on vacation? Who cares? You can’t even plan any trip with that tight of tolerances, anyway. Too many factors beyond your control could delay you by more than 30 minutes, easily. As you say, this type of thing can happen even with gas cars, or trains, planes, boats, bicycles, etc.
Americans don’t get much vacation time. Which makes what limited vacation time we do get much more precious. Losing 30min out of 365 days is a bummer, but losing 30min out of a 7 day vacation is worse. If you have the choice of spending an extra 30min at Walmart vs spending that 30min at the beach or sleeping in at the Hotel, which would you pick? That is exactly the trade off you make when choosing between a gas car and an EV on a road trip.
As you say, this type of thing can happen even with gas cars, or trains, planes, boats, bicycles, etc.
Yes, but it’s worse with EVs. Why would I willingly make my experience worse on a vacation?
If that’s really how you feel, I implore you to slow down and enjoy the trip as much as the destination. Who cares about an extra thirty minutes if you’re basically enjoying all of them. And you’re wasting much more of your vacation than thirty minutes if you hate the whole time you’re travelling. Perhaps you have a perspective issue, more than a propellant issue.
And that 1% of the time is where renting is more effective perhaps even moreso with increasing gas costs
Speaking from embarassed experience, I live in the USA thought it would be OK for me to get a pickup truck because I literally do work in the trades. Even I underutilize it tbh, and I’m thinking about selling it. I mostly just drive it to and from work like any other car, and then move things around in the company vans, lol.
Most people aren’t willing to drive 12+ hour days
I like my roadtrip vacations. OTOH you can also rent for your yearly holiday, but this can get pretty expensive quickly.
You and I have very different idea of what a road trip should be like
I used to believe the EV evangelists until I tried to drive EV on a road trip. I will never do it again. Why can’t anybody just admit that there are real downsides which sometimes become a deal breaker?
I guess different people work differently. I’m speaking from my direct experience; I was cynical as hell until I actually tried it, and it really wasn’t as bad as I expected.
Would I prefer an ICE car for a long distance road trip? Yes. Can I take an EV on a road trip and have a good time? Also yes. Was the EV cheaper than taking an ICE car an equivalent distance? Also yes.
Yes. Can I take an EV on a road trip and have a good time?
I mean, I get it, it’s not the end of the world. But given the choice, I still would never choose an EV over gas on long road trips. The difference is large enough that it matters. Trips are the time when I have the least tolerance for hassle, and even small inconveniences add up really fast.
The usable range is 10%-100%. Nobody starts an EV road trip with much less than 100%. Though you may consider cutting a mid trip fast charge somewhere around 90%. Usually for me that’s because I see that I can get to my destination without going up to 100%
Charging stations will eventually be spaced at close enough distances that you don’t have to think about where to stop. In a mature EV market there’s generally many more EV chargers than gas stations along a given route.
And if we do stop for a break, it’s rarely at gas stations
I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped at a gas station to fast charge. I stop at roadside McDonalds (we have kids), cafes, supermarkets (last stop before a trip to a cabin), etc.
How, in this day and age, could you not be aware that fast chargers are put up in more diverse places than gas stations? They’re not stinky. They don’t need to be separate from the businesses where car drivers want to spend their time.
I’ve stopped at a fast charger at a small cafe in the middle of nowhere on the top of a mountain, you could take a wonderful hike there while your car charges. You do know you can walk away from the car while it’s charging… right?
we will regularly do 3-4 hours without stopping at all
My trip to my family cabin is around 3 hours. And the last 30min is through an actually snowy dirt road up a steep climb. And I still have 40% or so left. With skis in the roof. So get outta here with your arm chair expertise.
Incidentally I don’t have to fast charge on this trip at all since we have electricity at the cabin. Super slow but I can get at least 80% which is plenty to get back.
Anyone still bringing up winter in an EV conversation should be laughed out of the room now that Norway is at near 100% market share. And no, you can’t use “Norway is small” as an argument. Road trips are common here to start with, every other family has a cabin in the mountains. But Norway is also part of Schengen. The borders in EU/Schengen are open just like the US. The first post I saw on my EV car models Facebook group was a person planning a trip to Croatia.
I’m in the East Coast U.S. and with an adapter, we’re basically at the effortless point now, especially for tesla drivers. There are still some tesla only spots that make it tough for CCS cars, but it just means that the pressure on CCS chargers is lower with most people choosing superchargers if available.
Add in the fuel crisis, and even the high price at Interstate fast chargers is cost competitive with regular unleaded mile for mile, and cheaper at the right stations.
Like Bebe’s kids, Chargers don’t die, they multiply.
McDonald’s… the bane of every EV driver :-)
Nobody starts an EV road trip with much less than 100%.
That’s exactly the problem. Yes you start a trip with 100%, but that only happens at most once per day. What about in the middle? You willing to sit a fucking Walmart for 1hr to get to 100%? We’re not talking about a trip where you drive 3hr from home to the destination. I’m talking about road trips where you go half way across the country and do 5+hr of driving in a day, across multiple days.
I’ll be the first to say, if you regularly do multi-day 6+ road trips, staying at places with no over-night charging options, then maybe an EV is not for you.
But even among the people I know in the US, I don’t know of even one person doing this. I think the closest is my uncle driving Norway-Italy a few times. On the flip-side I’ve seen plenty of people writing online about multi-day EV cross continent trips in Europe. Even back when charging infrastructure was much worse.
A single 5-7 hour trip is not an issue in an EV. One or two half hour stops isn’t a big deal for most people. Nice to stretch the legs and get some coffee. You dont have to do all the charging in one stop you know. It makes more sense to stop at places you think it’s nice to take a break, and do a couple more of them instead.
Last trip I took across Norway (~5h) I took more breaks than I needed charging stops (needed just one). I stopped at a nice cafe at the top of a mountain crossing where I was surprised to see fast chargers even there, but I didn’t need a charge to get to my destination anyway.
Personally I’ve had one trip that would be hard with EV. Portland-SF if I remember correctly. ~10h. But I deeply regretted not splitting the trip over two days.
you don’t charge to 100% every time if you don’t need to. you charge up to 80% or enough to get you to the next charger, whichever is lesser. Charging from 80-100% is gonna take as long or longer than charging from 5-80% in most EVs
That’s exactly what I’m saying. You go to a supercharger an you don’t reach 100%, you only get to 80%. That reduces your range. Reduced range is the main problem. Only reaching 80% is a problem.
5+hr of driving in a day
5 hours of driving is nothing. This is what I’m saying, the daily time savings between gas and EV only makes a serious difference once you get to the 10-12 hours/day range, which most people are unwilling to do anyway, thus rendering it kind of a moot point.
Also, the longer distance you go, the less expensive the trip will be by EV. You don’t have to remember to change your oil before you leave on a trip, and you don’t have to worry about oil changes partway through very long trips.
You willing to sit a fucking Walmart for 1hr to get to 100%?
With the EV I was road trippin in it took like 30 minutes. I would use the Walmart bathroom, buy some candy, and read a book. I survived to tell the harrowing tale. I will say, big box store bathrooms are typically much cleaner than gas station bathrooms
If road tripping is the primary purpose, buy a proper voltage car for the task and charging to 100% becomes a rare necessity, and takes less than an hour on the actual off chance it’s necessary.
There’s two kinds of people who comment on EV threads.
People who say stuff like this post, and people who actually own EVs. There is no overlap.
What a braindead take. I’ve owned an EV for 10 years, and this is all from first-hand experience. I will never take it on a roadtrip.
Refusing to use the bottom 20% of your 300 mile pack is astonishing to me.
I understand having some buffer in case you need to divert to an alternate charging location but most people in most parts of the US don’t live or travel places where charging stations are THAT far apart.
And there is no danger to battery health with driving down to 5% or lower state of charge. You’re SUPPOSED to go that low on long trips. The only potential impact to battery health is if you leave it parked at a super low or super high state of charge, and even then doing so for a day or two on rare occasions is not gonna be a problem. Furthermore most EVs already lock off a small portion of the pack’s range specifically for battery longetivity so unless you’re in a Tesla or are under a recall or something you shouldn’t worry about this so much that you refuse to use the last twenty percent
Use your whole battery! It’s there for you to
Not that crazy. 20% of 300mi is ~60mi which is slightly more than when the low fuel gauge lights up on most gas cars. And most people refuel gas cars long before that light comes up, when there’s ~100mi of range left. Why is such behavior suddenly so crazy when you translate that to EVs? I’ll grant you that it’s unnecessary in most situations, but why is being a little more cautious than others about preventing a very inconvenient situation warrant the word “astonishing”?
Only last winter I was stuck in a snow storm due to traffic and road conditions in my EV. That route took an extra 10% off my battery than calculated due to running the heater. 10% is the bare minimum margin of safety I will ever accept, and I will not feel comfortable at all having only 10% buffer.
Also consider a gas car can be refueled with a can in desperate times, allowing you to get to the next gas station. EVs have no such equivalent. Best case, you’re waiting for a tow. Running out of fuel in a gas car is inconvenient. Running out of battery with an EV is devastating. The difference is well worth the extra caution.
only the 20%-80% range is usable. Your 300mi+ range just turned into 180mi of usable range.
but at the same time, charging 20%-80% is A LOT faster than charging 0-100%. a road trip plan optimized for time almost never plans charge stops above 80% for that reason. it’s better to stay in that charging sweet spot.
Also you do (or should) start trips at 100% charge.
Who cares? I drive a BEV for 6 years now and charging definitely is a none issue.
Nice try, BP
That’s only a little more than 2 hours at highway speeds.
Which is exactly when you should stop because fatigue starts to kick in.
Fatigue after only two hours of driving? Okay grandma. Seriously, where I live two hours at 80mph won’t get you to the state line!
15mn break every 2h are the official recommendations, and also mandatory breaks for professional drivers in europe. If you like to drive like an ass, that’s on you.
As for “grandma”, that sexist behavior associated with being sure to driver better than others is the number one reason people have accidents.
Where did you get the 10 % degradation from? Long time studies show way less, even with older models
https://insideevs.com/news/801624/sweden-batter-degradation-group-test/
You will never get full range at cold temperatures.
Umm, there are no EVs you should be going 75mph for hours at a time in unless you want to trash your range.
Not sure if you have ever actually driven an EV, but typically in my 300mi range vehicle, I usually stop every 200 miles, roughly every 3 hours for charging, stop for 20 minutes and am back on my way. Sure, am I often a little slow than if I had gas? Yes, but that’s ok, I also always arrive in my EV refreshed, have eaten, and not wore out.
All the arguments are like this. You shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that. Well of course if you can avoid all the downsides EVs would be perfect, but we don’t live in that perfect world in your imagination where everything works and we always do what you think we should be doing. If EVs were as good as everybody says, you wouldn’t have any trouble convincing people to use them. Why can’t anybody just admit that there are real downsides which in some situations become a deal breaker?
I think the downsides are going to be mitigated soon. There are cars that get 400-600 miles of range. There are also new battery materials that can be charged in 5-10 minutes. Once one of those solutions become widely available, adoption will pick up. Also, gas hitting European prices in the US of $10-$12/gallon would also make people switch damn quick.
I sure hope so. But I think the charging infrastructure is the most challenging. To deliver a (mostly) full charge in 5-10 min requires power in the megawatt range and the current electrical grid is not setup for that.
Umm, there are no EVs you should be going 75mph for hours at a time in unless you want to trash your range.
This is effectively telling people in the US they shouldn’t own EVs.
Why? Most places in the US even recommend no more than 65mph for highway driving. And most gas vehicles are most efficient for gas usage between 55-60mph. There is a reason highway speed limits back during the 70s were lowered to 55 by Nixon. It also dropped vehicle fatality rate by miles driven in half.
“And while China’s getting there, an executive in the U.S. aren’t so convinced that’s true.”
Why does this sentence bother me so much?
You go inside gas stations because you HAVE to, not because you WANT to. Same with EVs.
