Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 450 posts

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#381

Post by glogla »

davedx wrote: post #349
sixstringbudha wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are so many obvious benefits of electric cars, as soon as they are close to cost competitive. Like what exactly? You will have to assume that I am a modern man who don't give two shits about the environment, when deciding to buy a car. So can you give me one significant advantage that an electric car will give me over an ICE car, right now?

* Acceleration * No gears - acceleration is linear * No chance of diesel fumes in your cabin (like with my VW Sharan) * Lots of tax rebates, subsidies, depending on where you live * Charge at home * More room! (No bulky drivetrain) * Less maintenance, less things to go wrong * Lower fuel costs * Simpler to own and drive

Charge at home if you live in a house. Sadly, for people with apartments, electric cars are super impractical, until most residential streets include charging stations.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#382

Post by ufo »

roel_v wrote: post #330
jacquesm wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re not useful for taking kids to school, Where I live a few hundred thousand kids are taken to school by bike every day. All the way up to age 10 or so it's pretty common to see parents with kids on the back (and sometimes on the front or both) of their bikes. https://www.24baby.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/mamafiets.j...

No sane person would do so in any country that doesn't have the bicycle infrastructure we have in the Netherlands. I live in Australia and/or New Zealand a few months out of the year, and I've taken my kids to school there - it's insane to do so on a bike. And this was in places that actually have bike infrastructure and bike activism! Dutch people need to try cycling somewhere else before claiming that bikes are a c…

Bike infrastructure in the Netherlands is actually a very modern invention. It used to be a car-centric place like everywhere else.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#383

Post by sixstringbudha »

mecameron wrote: post #374
sixstringbudha wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cost of fueling - electricity is cheaper than gas. Nullified by the fact that charging stations are scarce AND that it takes a lot of time to finish a charge. People drive cars so that they can get somewhere faster. It does not help if they have to hunt around for a charging stations and have to wait an hour to get charged. We can consider the cost difference to be a concrete advantage, when and only when the infra…

>> Cost of fueling - electricity is cheaper than gas. >Nullified by the fact that charging stations are scarce AND that it takes a lot of time to finish a charge. People drive cars so that they can get somewhere faster. It does not help if they have to hunt around for a charging stations and have to wait an hour to get charged. > We can consider the cost difference to be a concrete advantage, when and only when the i…

> You're really shifting the goalposts.

Not really. Its just that I (and most people today) see a car as something that can take them mostly anywhere, across the country. If you see or limit the definition of a car as something that takes you anywhere within a very limited fixed radius (the range of your car on a single recharge), then your argument is fine. With a car, If you have to think of "Can I refuel where I want to go", then that car is lost the race against ICE's by a long mile.

>So because you don't think it's an improvement, then it's not an improvement for anyone?

Who said I am speaking for everyone here? I was only speaking of my case.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#384

Post by sixstringbudha »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #379
sixstringbudha wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cost of fueling - electricity is cheaper than gas. Nullified by the fact that charging stations are scarce AND that it takes a lot of time to finish a charge. People drive cars so that they can get somewhere faster. It does not help if they have to hunt around for a charging stations and have to wait an hour to get charged. We can consider the cost difference to be a concrete advantage, when and only when the infra…

> Nullified by the fact that charging stations are scarce No, a related disadvantage doesn't nullify the fact of an advantage. Yes, charging stations are scarce and it takes longer to charge. It still costs less to fuel the car. > I don't think this is a given. Even though more complex, I think ICE cars of today are quite reliable enough. Well, good, I guess? Your opinion on how reliable cars ought to be isn't the su…

> No, a related disadvantage doesn't nullify the fact of an advantage.

Sure it does in some cases. Having a lot of gold is an advantage. Having to keep from being stolen is a disadvantage. That disadvantage does not nullify the advantage of having it. But if no one wants gold anymore, then that nullify the advantage of possessing it.

>Doesn't change the fact that this is an advantage.

Maybe, but I think it is an advantage very few real world car users care..

> I'm not really interested in discussing this further;

Cool. I hope you don't mind my reply though.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#385

Post by Broken_Hippo »

pixl97 wrote: post #361
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Norway, in a city of 180-200k people. Folks use public transportation or walking all the time. With children. For everyday food shopping. You don't need to shop only once a week - 2-3 times makes carrying your goods easier. You can dress for the weather. It isn't all that big of a deal. Children in strollers have warm stuff around them. They sell bikes with studded tires for use on snow. It was tiring when…

No,it is not because transportation sucks... Its because things are built in a manner optimized for automobile transportation. Fixing sidewalks isn't going to fix mega grocery stores miles and miles apart. Places where people walk/bike tend to have a business infrastructure built to support it.

That is part of it as well in some areas. That doesn't really answer why public transportation sucks, though - busses are large automobiles and use the same network.

But it doesn't matter how far you live either. I've often lived within a mile of grocery stores, but the infrastructure isn't there. There isn't always even a sidewalk to get to bus stops. Sometimes the bus stop is just a sign, no sidewalk. Busses rarely go inter-city and often don't go to workplaces on the outskirts of town (at least not in many smallish cities). They aren't efficient.

Why would anywhere build smaller stores similar to walkable places when the infrastructure isn't there, anyway?

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#386

Post by leoedin »

OJFord wrote: post #259
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I live in an apartment, I can't charge one, on the street" I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I still can't fathom how electric cars are going to make more than a dent in NYC where most cars are stored streetside.

In the UK, every new street light will double as an EV charger. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/08/every-new-ho...

That's pretty cool, but even if we converted every single one we'd still be lacking. My street has a car to streetlight ratio of 10 or 15 to 1. Even if the cars only needed to be charged once a week, and everyone was very good at coordinating to allow cars needing charged to be parked next to the streetlight, that would still only work for half the cars parked. There's vast swathes of UK cities - especially the highest density most polluted ones - which have the same problem.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#388

Post by gnicholas »

davidgould wrote: post #341
gnicholas wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a used C-MAX plug-in hybrid and was told that with the EV plan offered by PG&E, I'd save money versus gas. Only after I purchased did I learn that the EV plan gives you cheaper charging at night only if you're willing to stomach very high rates during the day. Since I work from home a lot and have a toddler, this is a non-starter for my family. So we pay roughly the same amount per mile with electricity as f…

I don't understand this calculation. Does your toddler use a excessive amount of electricity? Do you work at home running an aluminum smelter? Snark aside, when we got our Chevy Spark EV in 2013, we switched to the EV rate plan and it has saved us a lot. I work at home too, and but the peak hour use on the EV plan is quite small, so the higher rate is balanced out by having the car automatically charge during off-pea…

It means I have to run the AC in summer and heat in winter for much of the day. The age of my child is relevant because older kids are in school during the day.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#389

Post by leetcrew »

freehunter wrote: post #376
sokoloff wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these track events that Teslas are winning? They're horrible track cars. A plain Jane 911 will walk all over them on a road course. https://www.quora.com/How-does-a-Tesla-perform-on-a-track https://insideevs.com/expected-tesla-model-s-fails-lap-nurbu... http://www.thedrive.com/news/5207/this-video-reminds-us-that... To be clear: I think the Model S is a fine, if overpriced, road car. I daily a LEAF and like…

A "plain Jane" $200,000 purpose-built track car will easily beat a $100,000 electric luxury car, that comes as a huge surprise to absolutely no one. https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-model-s-p85d-drag-race...

no, a base 911 is about $30,000 cheaper than the fastest model s and will easily wreck it on a track. the tesla can certainly beat it in a drag race, though.

Re: Electric Vehicles’ Day Will Come, and It Might Come Suddenly

#390

Post by mattferderer »

tjoff wrote: post #353
dzdt wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I live in an apartment, I can't charge one on the street." The electric car revolution is going to come at the same time as the self-driving revolution. That will change the calculus of parking significantly. No longer does your car need to be parked right next to your building to be convenient: it can be anywhere a short drive away and summoned at the touch of a button. So charging infrastructure doesn't have to be…

That's either a very pessimistic view of electric car progress or a very optimistic view of self-driving capabilities. I think electric car revolution will be at least two decades earlier than self-driving. As far as electric goes we are starting to reap benefits of vast investment in better tech, manufacturing and vehicles purpose built for it. Self-driving is very far away and the best publicly available systems on…

The earliest electric cars I noticed on the streets were glorified golf carts. They were ideal for very short distances, like getting to work & running errands.

Couldn't self driving cars in the very near future follow this same path? Find a very densely populated area. Get self driving cars to work very well in that area for short trips. Slowly expand to similar areas?

I haven't followed either of these very closely, so please correct me where I'm wrong.

Post reply on HN