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

Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

grist.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 85 posts

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#51

Post by jononomo »

sigio wrote: post #27
logicalmonster wrote: post #18

At one time, hotels didn't offer free (or any) Wi-Fi, and now it's basically standard even at the bargain basement cheapo motels. As the market demands a feature, it will eventually come. I think time will ultimately solve the EV charging issue in many apartment complexes, multi-family homes, townhouses, and other types of residential areas as that feature gets more demanded. Property management companies are particu…

Here in suburbia in the Netherlands, there's chargers on basically every street in area's without driveways, and in areas where people mostly have a driveway, you can find most will have a private charger. I can't charge in the carpark with my house, but never have an issue finding (many) free charging spots on the streets around my house. And besides the level 2 chargers (11/22kw) here, there's also enough fast-char…

Who pays for the electricity from these chargers around the street that are free for you to use?

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#52

Post by jononomo »

This seems to be an issue even for plug-in hybrids, which in my view are a far more intelligent solution than all-electric vehicles. The all-electric portion covers 90% of the trips you take, and the gas portion gives you basically unlimited range, given how common gas-stations are.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#53

Post by lostapathy »

logicalmonster wrote: post #35
lostapathy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was really surprised on my vacation last summer how often I saw EV chargers at hotels in rural locations. Especially in central and western Kansas.

You'll come across them randomly in places you'd never expect. The problem still exists though. 1) Unless your trip is relatively short, you'll probably need to charge between your home and the hotel. 2) What happens when there's 4 EV parking spots at your hotel and 5 (or more) guests show up at a hotel with EVs? Are people willing to spend their vacations stressing out over getting one of those spots? Personally, I…

Right - I totally understand that we have a long ways to go. But at the same time, I think there's probably a lot more chargers running around already than most non-EV owners suspect.

Do we have enough EV chargers for everyone today? Of course not. But the deployment does seem to be keeping up with the amount of EVs that exist, and that's good enough for today.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#55

Post by jononomo »

zamalek wrote: post #7
yboris wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the next sentence: "Unsurprisingly, renters tend to have lower incomes than those who own their own homes; they are also more likely to be Black or Latino." Given the history of the US, this seems a worthwhile thing to note.

> Unsurprisingly, renters tend to have lower incomes than those who own their own homes Not only that, but renters are often put in the situation where their rent is the same as a mortgage, but can't afford to save for a down payment. Renting is a cockroach motel.

My landlord has to replace a rotting front porch, and that will cost him five months worth of the rent I pay him. There is so much more cost associated with owning a home than just the down payment and the mortgage payments. In fact, it often makes a lot more sense financially to rent, and it is also a lot more flexible.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#56

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

Insanity wrote: post #17

This is what is kind of keeping me back from going electric. My current condo building (in Toronto) does have chargers on the first parking level, but each time I drive past them, they are taken. Dealing with that sounds annoying. Across the pond, in Belgium, there is now a push for companies to offer electric cars as part of the compensation package, some friends have placed their first EV "order". Because of this,…

I wouldn't want to rely on charging at work. That would significantly reduce my workplace options. And what happens if EV adoption at your employer grows and there ends up being contention for chargers there?

I do wonder if the chargers at your condo punish at all for being plugged in even once fully charged. Some people might not care about the location of those charging spots, so they just park there and leave it there all the time.

Tesla learned many years ago that people just leaving their car at the supercharger while they spend a couple hours at the mall watching a movie or whatever was going to become a massive problem, so they charge idling fees if you're fully charged and the charging station is at more than 50% capacity.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#57

Post by xhkkffbf »

coredog64 wrote: post #25
zamalek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unsurprisingly, renters tend to have lower incomes than those who own their own homes Not only that, but renters are often put in the situation where their rent is the same as a mortgage, but can't afford to save for a down payment. Renting is a cockroach motel.

Two years ago I had to replace my roof and the cost was more than the sum of mortgage payments for a year. Not too long before that, the AC needed replacement and that was ~ 6 months of mortgage payments. I’m grateful that I can afford it, but I understand that the mortgage isn’t the entire cost of the house and that renting allows me to leverage someone else’s capital in an efficient manner.

It's worth remembering that mortgage payments rarely include utilities, but some rental leases do.

Also, getting out of a rental is often as easy as just leaving. Some unscrupulous types forget to pay the last few months of rent before skipping out giving themselves an unofficial discount. When owners want to sell, they need to pay commissions, inspection costs, transfer taxes, title searches and a few more unexpected and hidden charges. The transaction can take months and that's when you find a buyer. Yes, many people like to focus on the extreme profits that some lucky people have found in the right neighborhoods, but housing prices do go down and they often go down by a staggering amount. When you're underwater on your mortgage, you're trapped. You might be able to afford the monthly payments but you can't sell because you don't have the spare cash to pay off the mortgage.

The high down payments evolved as a safety mechanism for the banks first, but also for the home buyers because markets fluctuate.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#58

Post by LazyMans »

I live in a townhome community managed by an HOA with shared electric costs. A proposal to explore shared charger installation was not explored because they had made up their minds already that nobody that would live in our community would be able to afford an EV anyway. I have a plug-in hybrid. It's an uphill battle and generally the people against BHEV or EV just don't know that much about them, and why would they? It's not like they're keeping up with EV news. I bet a number of people still think Tesla is the only EV player in town. Buying an EV and living in this community would be a huge pain unless I had a car with a really good charge curve and nearby DC charging. The places I regularly visit each week don't have level 3 charging yet.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#59

Post by dylan604 »

triceratops wrote: post #41
helen___keller wrote: post #32

Depending on location, apartment hunting with any car can be difficult, and likewise house hunting without a car can be difficult. In general the infrastructure needs of apartment dwellers and house dwellers tend to differ a lot. Personally, if we're talking about upgrading legacy infrastructure in rental units, I would really like if including in-unit washer dryer combos would be the norm in my city (Boston). Althou…

No in-unit washer-dryer at $3500/mo in Boston?! Even from the Bay Area that seems absurd.

My favorite was moving into an apartment that had no fridge which is what happened to me when I relocated to LA. Not once in my previous apartment renting experience until then did an apartment not come with a fridge.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#60

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #18

At one time, hotels didn't offer free (or any) Wi-Fi, and now it's basically standard even at the bargain basement cheapo motels. As the market demands a feature, it will eventually come. I think time will ultimately solve the EV charging issue in many apartment complexes, multi-family homes, townhouses, and other types of residential areas as that feature gets more demanded. Property management companies are particu…

> Long Distance travel

Yeah, I've done a couple road trips and I think I've gotten lucky so far. Usually, the charging stations are at only about half capacity, but one time I got to a 12-stall Supercharging station and there was only 1 stall left, and within one minute of me plugging in, two more Teslas arrived and had to park and wait.

I've heard that in some areas in California, they've been known to have lines a dozen cars deep, but that was a couple years ago. There's constantly new construction of Supercharging stations, and Tesla just released a CCS adapter, so things are getting better.

Still though, it's a race between EV manufacturing and charging installation.

What really needs to happen is 250 kW EV chargers at highway rest stops. It sucks when I plug in to charge, and the local businesses are either closed or their bathrooms are closed.

Post reply on HN