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

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

#111

Post by notJim » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #94

notJim wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a post-hoc rationalization to me. I drive a Tesla and I do often find the breaks annoying. I would prefer to drive straight through rather than stand in some random parking lot for 30 minutes. Even if I want a break, I’d prefer to find a park or something. You can take a break whenever you want with any car, the car doesn’t need to force you.

Are the breaks annoying enough you'd go back to a gas car if you had to pay the fully loaded carbon costs per gallon of fuel? At ~$100/metric ton of CO2, that's about 90 cents of carbon tax alone per gallon of fuel.

Absolutely not, it’s minor. For me it’s not really a financial decision, it’s about driving a very nice and practical ev with much lower lifetime emissions than a gas car. Also most of my driving is local.

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

#112

Post by abraxas » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

alvah wrote: post #105

"In this context, there’s another number there that I think is really interesting: The “km/c-h”, how far you can get on an hour’s charge. For this particular car on this selection of chargers, it was over 200km (124 miles) per charge-hour. I think that’s enough? Maybe in the lower regions of enough, but there." So at 110km/h, less than 2 hours of driving for every hour spent charging? In what world is that close to "…

Yes it is ridiculous to claim that this is somehow minor.

That said, there are electric cars far better for road trips than the Jaguar mentioned in this story.

A long range Tesla Model 3 will easily do about 350km within its 10-80% state of charge bounds and the charging stops can be limited to 20-30 minutes each.

Experienced EV drivers with good EVs can achieve 100km/h average speed INCLUDING stoppages for charging.

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

#113

Post by nibsfive » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

Kirby64 wrote: post #57

908B64B197 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Model X you mean. There's no way 7 can fit in an S (and be safe!).

No, he means Model S. It was an option (that is currently discontinued) that put 'jump seats' where the trunk would be. Not useful for anything except younger kiddos, but could be fine for younger kids. Sort of like the 7 seater option for the Model Y, yeah it technically exists but it sounds uncomfortable... See: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-discontinues-two-colors-rais...

I have a model Y 7 seater, it's actually not bad in the third row. Kids totally fine, small adults for short trips. Over six feet would hit the roof though.

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

#114

Post by elif » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

wstrange wrote: post #89

If my math is correct, driving 1,725km in a Prius (assume 6L/100KM - which is fairly conservative) would cost about $135 CDN in fuel - (approx. $1.30 per litre). Not much more than $120 spent on charging. For a car that is much less expensive than the Jaguar. Environmental considerations aside, this is a tough sell for most consumers.

Even if you set aside environmental considerations (which is mental) the gas is only a tiny portion of the value proposition of EVs. In 5 years of used leaf driving i've visited 0 gas stations, 0 repair shops, 0 emissions inspectors. It's the burden of all that mess that you get to avoid, not a just $0.15 on the dollar savings.

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

#115

Post by elif » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #95

238475235243 wrote: post #87

Genuinely baffled why anyone buys anything but a Tesla. It's cheaper, autopilot is pretty great, has a vastly better charging network, charges vastly quicker... I guess it means you can write blog posts about bad experiences with an electric car...

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. I've read so many horror stories about bad experiences with non-Tesla fast charging. One of the YouTubers I follow (Out of Spec Motoring) frequently takes road trips in non-Tesla EVs and vlogs about them. As a Tesla owner, I frequently watch his vlogs and feel a huge amount of schadenfreude. His trips are much more "interesting" than my own experiences road tripping using th…

Agree. I've driven nissan leaf for the last 5 years and just added tesla y.

Non-tesla chargers in my city are blocked by careless ICE drivers about 20-25% of the time, and the rates some of them charge are more expensive than gasoline.

the Y on the other hand, its like impossible to run out of juice, and not even a problem i have to think about unless i really want to. For non-tesla drivers: it navigates you where to go for charging when you need it, optimizing your route for the fastest charging experience.

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

#116

Post by ReactiveJelly » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

carcostthrow wrote: post #85

>And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [...] There’s no excuse not to. Isn't there? Right now for me to own a Ford Mach E, a Tesla Model 3 or a RAV4 Prime is $3400 to $3700 per year for comprehensive insurance, $1400 a year for liability only. My SUV right now costs $1100 a year to insure comprehensive, but even a 2021 Acura NSX or Jaguar F-Pace is only $1400 for the same level of insurance t…

My excuse is that I just don't drive much. So yeah, money. The incentives don't favor me selling my good-condition low-mileage ICE for a used high-mileage hybrid, even though I do want one.

If the government passes a carbon tax (or just cuts gasoline subsidies) then the math may change and push me over.

But to avoid harming poor people, they'd have to atomically pass an increase in welfare while making gasoline more expensive for the middle class. So it's politically difficult.

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

#117

Post by throwawayboise » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

jmpman wrote: post #98

I just did a 2 day 2000 mile trip in my long range model 3. Total charging costs were around $100, which didn’t include two stops where the superchargers were free (network connectivity problems?). Required a total of 13 supercharging stops. Each stop was between 20min to 45min. I started off completely full, and charged overnight at a Tesla destination charger, (so, 14 stops?). Roughly half the cost of the article’s…

Most recent long drive was 725 miles in a gasoline-fueled Volkswagen. Took about 12 hours with one 10 minute fuel stop.

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

#118

Post by chrischen » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

senkora wrote: post #107

There’s this documentary I really enjoyed watching called “Long Way Up” where Ewan McGregor (plus another actor I was not familiar with) rode from Tierra del Fuego to Los Angeles on electric motorcycles. They talk a lot about the pros/cons of going electric, and there are issues with like cold temperatures affecting battery performance at the start. But I also found that I just really enjoyed the show even excluding…

They had those problems but also had basically a support convoy following them that ran on gas.

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

#119

Post by throwawayboise » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

alvah wrote: post #105

"In this context, there’s another number there that I think is really interesting: The “km/c-h”, how far you can get on an hour’s charge. For this particular car on this selection of chargers, it was over 200km (124 miles) per charge-hour. I think that’s enough? Maybe in the lower regions of enough, but there." So at 110km/h, less than 2 hours of driving for every hour spent charging? In what world is that close to "…

Yeah, and try it in the Canadian winter.

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

#120

Post by bishoprook2 » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 3:04 AM UTC

carcostthrow wrote: post #85

>And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [...] There’s no excuse not to. Isn't there? Right now for me to own a Ford Mach E, a Tesla Model 3 or a RAV4 Prime is $3400 to $3700 per year for comprehensive insurance, $1400 a year for liability only. My SUV right now costs $1100 a year to insure comprehensive, but even a 2021 Acura NSX or Jaguar F-Pace is only $1400 for the same level of insurance t…

> ... for comprehensive insurance,...

That's a thing that blew me away about Teslas, the whole deal with insurance. Maybe it'll be somewhat solved in the upcoming F-150 (which has the big advantage of being a decent whole-house backup power supply, useful in a place where the power company shuts us off whenever it's windy).

I guess it's also worth considering that the technical changes are still coming pretty quickly. Capital goods pricing combined with consumer electronics obsolescence.

Honestly, I'd probably rather just spend the $50k on a Chevelle SS.