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

Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 300 posts

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

#191

Post by m-i-l »

1-6 wrote: post #108
drewg123 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done multiple ~1000mi road trips in my Model X, and I've peed in a lot of bushes too. A lot of the newer chargers (at least on the east coast) are located at WaWa's, and have 24hr restrooms. But the chargers at malls are a pain. Either the mall is closed, and you need to pee in the bushes, or the mall is open and the traffic is terrible and the chargers are ICE'ed in. There is one charger in Hardee SC thats in t…

I wonder if the smell of urine is a thing around superchargers.

I'd hazard a guess that most people will opt to urinate as far away from sources of high voltage electricity as they can. In the UK we periodically get news stories about people being electrocuted by urinating on railways, and many will have been traumatised by watching the terrifying "Play Safe" Public Information Films as children.

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

#192

Post by carcostthrow »

thangalin wrote: post #135
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 ROI write up on RAV4 vs. KONA EV, but general enough for other vehicle comparisons: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/08/06/typesetting-markdow... > assuming main panel doesn't need upgrading and only installing a 240V circuit. A Load Miser can split the dryer circuit; charging happens overnight, so no usage conflicts. It was about $1,500 USD for my house to run a line from the attic. YMMV, but probably less expe…

>A Load Miser can split the dryer circuit; charging happens overnight, so no usage conflicts. It was about $1,500 USD for my house to run a line from the attic. YMMV, but probably less expensive.

I'm not sure why that would make any difference.

>Vancouver is experimenting with curbside chargers.

Maybe; I'd be concerned about someone cutting the cables for scrap copper here. I don't know if richer Vancouver suburbs would have to worry about such a thing.

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

#193

Post by masklinn »

gambiting wrote: post #182
throwawayboise wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So I did the same recently, but in a PHEV, and I honestly think it's the best of both worlds. In my daily usage, I use zero fuel. Last time I filled up was in March, because I just charge it at home and nearly all of my daily driving is within the 30 mile EV-only range. But when we drove across Europe I could just carry on for about 600 miles per tank, only filling up once at a well stocked petrol station(with workin…

> So I did the same recently, but in a PHEV, and I honestly think it's the best of both worlds. In my daily usage, I use zero fuel.

Yeah in theory PHEV provide the ideal flexibility of EV for commute and ICE for long-range driving, however apparently lots of people with PHEV never charge them, mostly resulting in less efficient ICEs / HEV (because the plug-in-ability means a larger battery and more complexity, so a PHEV is heavier and more complex than an equivalent HEV).

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

#194

Post by watt »

chrisseaton wrote: post #188
thioordc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good points! However one thing EVs have is much cheaper maintenance! Having no oil changes adds up in savings.

> Having no oil changes adds up in savings. You probably don’t need to change your oil as often as you are, if it’s registering as an expense at all. Check what the manufacturer actually says - for example my manufacturer says don’t bother changing for two years. Lots of Americans driving the exact same cars change their oil every three months for no reason.

Actually this is exactly about expenses you are not consciously "registering", but they are real, and they add up. A daily coffee is not "registering" as well, but it's massive amount of money if you consider how much you spent in a year.

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

#195

Post by m-i-l »

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…

I did a 1,857mile (2,989km) road trip including some of the more remote parts of Scotland in an electric car last year. Interestingly most of the ChargePlace Scotland chargers were in public car parks, which have public toilets. The Highland Council even has a map of public toilets. All very civilised.

When it comes to Tesla superchargers in the UK, most are in service stations, which tend to be open all the time, and indeed were some of the few facilities to remain open in the strictest periods of lockdown given that good transportation was classed as essential service. There are a few superchargers by hotels and restaurants, but in my experience they're always fine with you using their facilities (the main issue seems to be a few who charge excessive parking fines if you don't register with them while charging).

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

#196

Post by watt »

aakour wrote: post #37
ant6n wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, there's a ferry from Rostock to Helsinki. However I'm trying to reduce my travel-related emissions, and after crunching the numbers have concluded that the best option would be ferry+train via Sweden, with electric car via Sweden a close second (per head, assuming two people or more in the car). Fingers crossed for that tunnel and a direct overnight train connection!

Where are the car trains when you need them!

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

#197

Post by masklinn »

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.

> that's about 90 cents of carbon tax alone per gallon of fuel.

Right now european gas prices range from 1.2 to 1.6 euros per liter depending on the country (eastern europe tends to be cheaper and western more expensive). And that's for 95, 98 tends to be a few cents higher.

That's 5.3 to 7.1 USD/gal. 90c/gal would be a significant but at the end relatively minor increase: it's less than the increase in gas prices since the start of 2021.

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

#198

Post by withinboredom »

gambiting wrote: post #183
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…

>>$3700 per year for comprehensive insurance, Bit of an aside - how is American insurance so stupidly expensive. Here in UK I have a brand new Volvo XC60 PHEV, £60k, 400bhp car, in one of the highest insurance groups(like group 45 out of 50), I'm 30 years old and my fully comprehensive insurance is £400 a year. That's including 20 million liability limit, legal cover, courtesy vehicle, key cover.....etc etc. Yeah whe…

It cost me a simple written exam (free) and a driving test (free) and then about $25USD for the actual license when I was 16. How much does it cost in the UK? If the barrier to drive is low, you end up with people driving around that got a 70% on the written test (lowest passing score) and a 70% on the driving test driving around doing stupid things. It drives up insurance considerably.

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

#199

Post by carcostthrow »

paganel wrote: post #171
jacquesm wrote: post #148

> And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now Except of course there aren't nearly enough electric vehicles to make this a possibility, and if they did the grid capacity wouldn't be there.

About a week or so ago the Greek PM (I think it was the PM) strongly advised his fellow Greek compatriots to use less air conditioning because the electrical grid was very close to collapsing. No way one can add a few million EVs to that grid. And Greece is a EU member with a resonably well functioning economy (ignoring the financial crisis from a decade ago), I fail to see how poorer countries will be able to make a…

Could go either way. Where I live we also had issues with the grid getting close to capacity due to air conditioning.

That said, someone mentioned to me once that it's about 7 years from the time a power company to notify the government of intention to build a power plant to completion. At least for natural gas plants. So it's plausible for the necessary capacity to be built over the next 15 years.

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

#200

Post by mrtksn »

gambiting wrote: post #182
throwawayboise wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So I did the same recently, but in a PHEV, and I honestly think it's the best of both worlds. In my daily usage, I use zero fuel. Last time I filled up was in March, because I just charge it at home and nearly all of my daily driving is within the 30 mile EV-only range. But when we drove across Europe I could just carry on for about 600 miles per tank, only filling up once at a well stocked petrol station(with workin…

When the infrastructure is multi-fuel, the car being multi-fuel is a great value.

Many years ago, I was driving across Europe with my old petrol car that was converted to use LPG. I like LPG because it's cheaper, the engine makes less noise and it is more environmentally friendly(but it's bad for the car AFAIK, the car was a clunker anyway).

What I found out was that in Europe, even within the EU, LPG stations don't have the same popularity everywhere and even if you find one it may have different port, thus you may need an adapter to fit yours.

When driving In Austria, I run out of LPG multiple times because the LPG stations were more like novelty, away from the main roads with no guarantees on the working hours.

Electric chargers still feel like that. There are many of them but not everywhere and the quality and availability on the spot is non-standart.

Petrol stations are actually quite good experiences most of the time. The refuelling experience is very robust and most of the time they will provide you with a WC, a place to rest, a place to wait, a place to eat, a place to shop.

Petrol stations at remote places tend to be relaxing, revitalising experiences even when the facilities are not top-notch. Well, at least in Europe.

I would love electric infrastructure to catch up and preserve that culture.

Post reply on HN