Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days • Hacker News Board

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#21

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

From the end of TFA:

>And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [ ... ] There’s no excuse not to.

Admirable sentiments, but can anyone point definitively to the net gain/loss in CO2 terms of actually ditching a fossil fuel based car and replacing it with a new EV? And how does that look if the FF car is something like a Honda Fit (good mileage, lower than typical emissions)?

I'd be willing to dump our Fit for some sort of EV, but I'm really not convinced that it's helping climate change to do so.

Change my mind?

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#22

Post by ortusdux » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

Also, charging by the minute seems wrong .... a Porsche Taycan is going to get a whole lot more range out of each minute than a five-year-old Nissan Leaf, so why should they pay less for the same amount of range? Hmmmm.

Bear in mind that at home with the Level 2 charger in the carport, charging feels close to free.

You are primarily paying rent to take up a charging spot vs. buying electricity. If it took some vehicles 45 minutes to pump 20 gallons of diesel, I guarantee stations would start charging per minute.

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#23

Post by AdrianB1 » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

feifan wrote: post #13

hogFeast wrote: post #6

Wait until the author finds out how the batteries are made. EDIT: just to be clear, I am not a "climate change denier"...although always interested to have lots of random people attempt to diagnose me. I worked in equity research, I have seen mountains of reports on this topic: lithium and cobalt production are terrible for the environment (ignoring issues with forced labour and human cost at mines, most people who m…

You're making a stock-vs-flows comparison: a battery is manufactured ~once for the lifetime of a car and then produces ~zero emissions per marginal mile driven. Combustion engines produce emissions for every mile driven (and require some emissions to produce as well).

One battery for the lifetime of the car is dramatically reducing the car's life (me looking at my 21 year old car).

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#24

Post by pbourke » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

sparrish wrote: post #4

1000 Miles in two days is a pretty lazy pace of a drive. I imagine that's because it takes so long to recharge. 750 miles a day is my usual but 1000 a day is doable.

Assuming that there is only one driver, 750 miles is 12.5hrs and 1000 miles is 16.6hrs at 60mph average. Both of those are above the 11 of 24hrs that a commercial truck driver is permitted to be on the road in the US. Say what you want about regulations, but I take that as an upper limit to how long one can safely operate a motor vehicle. I try to stay under 8hrs per day for long trips with around 7 being my target average.

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#25

Post by hogFeast » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

rpmisms wrote: post #16

hogFeast wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable numbers...if you can afford it. Saying $40k is "reasonable" depends on how much you earn. That is 20-25% more than US median annual gross income...it is a lot of money. Also, most people who are unable to buy this kind of car aren't polluting a great deal anyway. A huge share of pollution is caused by wealthy people jetting around every few days on planes. I have an ICE car, it cost something like $4k, it…

It's also very close to the average price paid for a new car in the US: $39k. > A huge share of pollution is caused by wealthy people jetting around every few days on planes. This is true, I'm not really into Tesla for the environmental aspect, I like them because they're fun appliances that break less.

Average for a new car. A lot of people can't drive at all. A lot of people buy used cars. It is funny because I find it hard to imagine a wealthy person in my own country not being aware of this...in the US, the wealthy seem to live on another planet.

Okay, maybe. But lots of ICE manufacturers have 10-year warranties...they don't break down a lot. I also think that whilst a car is a "fun appliance" for some people, for most people it is how they earn money. They can't live closer to their work because property is too expensive. It is practical, it is how they feed their kids, not fun. Making everyone pay the luxury price because people without your "fun appliance" are morally inferior is...questionable.

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#26

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

feifan wrote: post #10

Hamuko wrote: post #2

> And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [...] There’s no excuse not to. I have my doubts that everyone can switch over to a (prices starting at) $70,000 electric car like the author can.

IIRC, the average price of a car last year in the US was around $41k. There are many options whose MSRP is under that price, e.g. https://www.myev.com/research/buyers-sellers-advice/comparin...

Once again, the "average" fallacy. In normal circumstances, the average is rarely the statistic you want to quote (and definitely not unless it is accompanied by standard deviation values). Median is the correct way to identify "the typical" [0].

You're in luck though. The median appears to be about $38k, so the difference in this case is not that great.

[0] there's the old joke about (Gates|Bezos|Musk|...) walks into a bar, and the bartender says "hey! thanks, on average we're all millionaires in here now!"

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#27

Post by gorkish » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

bluesquared wrote: post #11

Hamuko wrote: post #2

> And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [...] There’s no excuse not to. I have my doubts that everyone can switch over to a (prices starting at) $70,000 electric car like the author can.

People who are financing brand new cars are either wealthy enough or uneducated enough to not worry about a $40k+ MSRP. I've frequently championed my Chevy Bolt. Caveat being the recent recall on the battery fires, but ignoring that...My 2017 Bolt, bought used with ~35k miles was ~$16k USD. 238 mile advertised range, 50kW "DC Fast Charging". My Bolt (and I believe all of the new ones) still have the pathetic 50kW "fa…

I paid even less for my Bolt and while I think it's a wing dang doodle of a little car, I am not stupid enough to try to take it on a road trip. If I had to move the car any significant distance, I would not even attempt to drive it; I would ship or tow it. I "fast charged" the car exactly once, to test that it worked and familiarize myself with the process. $15 and 90 minutes later, I lost interest in ever doing it again.

By contrast I would drive my Tesla without hesitation to anywhere in the continental US. I am increasingly finding that I don't even bother to plan the drives anymore or micromanage the charging-- this is a significant difference from when I first started doing >1k mile trips in the car 4 years ago.

I am sure that we will see strong opinions come from both the tesla and non-tesla EV camps in discussing this post, so hopefully my dual perspective will be of some value.

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#28

Post by gameswithgo » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #21

From the end of TFA: >And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [ ... ] There’s no excuse not to. Admirable sentiments, but can anyone point definitively to the net gain/loss in CO2 terms of actually ditching a fossil fuel based car and replacing it with a new EV? And how does that look if the FF car is something like a Honda Fit (good mileage, lower than typical emissions)? I'd be willing to dum…

Sure, here is one such full lifecycle study: https://sustain.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2018-63%20Lifecyc...

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#29

Post by ant6n » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

aakour wrote: post #18

I'm from Helsinki but live in Berlin, and drive between the two somewhat regularly. For this trip you essentially have two options - either via Denmark and Sweden, or Poland and the Baltics. You need to take a ferry to reach Finland regardless of which route you pick. The experience and emissions differ pretty dramatically. Intuitively you might think the total emissions would be lower for the Baltic route because of…

Isn't there a ferry from Finland to Germany or at least Poland?

... What would be really nice on that route would be a sleeper service, once that tunnel between Finland and Estonia and rail Baltica is built.

Re: Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

#30

Post by feifan » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

hogFeast wrote: post #20

feifan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a stock-vs-flows comparison: a battery is manufactured ~once for the lifetime of a car and then produces ~zero emissions per marginal mile driven. Combustion engines produce emissions for every mile driven (and require some emissions to produce as well).

No, I am not. I didn't mention a flow. You seem to be assuming I said something I did not. The battery has a life of ~120k miles, constructing the battery (and often, but not always, the electricity used to charge it) is so polluting that ICE cars will typically pollute less over that same period of usage. That is what I am saying: nothing about stocks or flows. The difference in pollution is, if it exists, very marg…

> The battery has a life of ~120k miles …

This appears to be untrue. High-mileage Teslas are showing about 10% range degradation after ~250kms on the odometer: https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-degradation-rep...

Notably, this isn't about Tesla specifically — the broader point is that the technology exists for mass-market car batteries to support many hundreds of thousands of miles/kms within a reasonable lifespan of the battery.