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I’m ready to trade in my electric car

latimes.com

141–150 of 339 posts

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you aren't doing road trips much you won't. When you don't do road trips you don't need any infrastructure at all except your own house

With most rental cars giving you unlimited miles, I'm very much of the opinion that when you factor in mileage and wear and tear on the car plus vehicle depreciation due to the long miles on the road trip--that renting a car for long trips is the way to go. Especially when compared to owning a second care with an ICE just for the occasional trip.

I know a lot of women who own a beater and when they want to drive long distance rent a car. I think because they know it's cheaper and the idea of being stuck on the side of the highway makes them anxious.

And then there is my friend on a fixed income that's realized it's cheaper to rent a compact car for long drives. Same as above because having the car break down in nowheres is expensive quick.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Superchargers are normally built in retail areas that are popular enough to be safe.

There are no designated "safe areas" to run around in lol

Do you only allow children to run around in areas that someone designated as safe?

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#143
I have an Ioniq 5 and a PHEV pacifica. I love the ioniq5 and do new england road trips with it for skiing. I only have to hunt for fast charging on these longer trips so it's kind of a fun route planning game. I also love having the minivan to take 6 people anywhere and not worry about charging. I have the luxury of picking the right tool for the job. Not everyone else does.

After owning an EV I have come to appreciate that gasoline is frigging magical and convenient. You just fill up in a couple of minutes and go. I think people are *way* over estimating the middle majority's appetite for EVs. Once you burn through the early adopters (which we haven't done yet) I think it is going to be a long hard slog to convince most folks to move. I think this is going to be a super huge political issue. If the republicans take up the ICE vs EV battle they will move to quickly turn over this 2035 mandate because their constituents love driving these super convenient, cheap, and powerful ICE vehicles, especially trucks. I hope I am wrong.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#144
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in Calif, the whole world does not live in Calif. The closest charging station to me is about 20/30 miles away. So EVs are out of the question. And this is true or even worse for many places.

A charger being 20 miles out does not make EVs unviable, because all you need is an outlet at home or at work.

Not if you live in an apartment :)

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#145

In 1997, I bought a DVD player, and didn't have a VCR. You couldn't rent DVDs at Blockbuster, or indeed anywhere. Most movies weren't available on DVD, so you could watch only the few that had made it to the format (and had to purchase them for full price, at that). Being a DVD-only owner was limiting and annoying in a bunch of ways, even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience. If in 1997,…

> If you have an EV today, you're an early adopter, and you're going to suffer early adopter pains.

Today, that's true only for non-Tesla EVs. Five years ago, it was true for Tesla too. But not anymore.

Speaking from experience as someone who regularly goes on ~300-mile trips on a Tesla EV:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35678905

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get a TeslaTap. I used one with my Leaf so I could charge off my Tesla charger at home. http://www.umc-j1772.com/index.php?route=product/product&pro... When I sold my Leaf and moved across the country I gave mine to a guy charging his Leaf near a supercharger. He was so excited

Can he use this at the Supercharger? I didn't think that was possible.

It says no, but this is still really useful. We got multiple chargers that didn't work because of the plug, not the voltage.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have better data than them feel free to post it. Only 50% of attempts to charge at EA succeed without a problem according to their chart.

I’m talking about personal experience. Is my experience universal? Of course not. However, the data on that page has massive sampling bias.

Precisely this.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#148

In 1997, I bought a DVD player, and didn't have a VCR. You couldn't rent DVDs at Blockbuster, or indeed anywhere. Most movies weren't available on DVD, so you could watch only the few that had made it to the format (and had to purchase them for full price, at that). Being a DVD-only owner was limiting and annoying in a bunch of ways, even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience. If in 1997,…

> and I want to have a "hybrid" VCR + DVD experience

To be fair, that's exactly what I had. You could buy these two in one VCR/DVD players that had a cassette reader on one side and a DVD drawer on the other. Super handy for quite a while.

Hybrid cars will make sense economically for a while yet in my opinion.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#149

I had assumed the intent is that until infrastructure changes, electric cars are for people who live in houses, and have 2+ cars. You use the electric car to commute, make errands etc, and use the other car to travel etc.

I read a report from an insurance outfit. People that live in urban areas drive about 6000 miles a year average vs suburbanites that drive 12000. That matches my living in SF experience. Bonus about 1/3 of that 6000 miles was long distance.

So I think not having a dedicated charger in the city isn't as much of a problem as one might think. Probably can charge here and there or every two weeks if needed. Hassle yes. But living in a city with a car is a hassle.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#150
post #19

At the moment, ONLY Tesla has decent supercharging (i.e., fast-charging) infrastructure in the US: https://www.tesla.com/findus I regularly go on ~300-mile drives that need only a single charging stop, lasting 15-20 minutes, on my Tesla EV. By the time I've gone to the bathroom and gotten a drink, the supercharger has added 100-150+ miles of range and the EV is ready to go. All the stalls always work. No other EV bra…

I am not sure when the car industry reaches that iteration where you can swap out batteries. It already happened for the electric rollers and it is freakin amazing. I think many of the electric car skeptics would convert if there was a way to "re-charge" the car within 5-10 minutes. The batteries would be also happier.

https://www.vehiclesuggest.com/what-happened-tesla-battery-s...

Tesla tried it. There was no point Tesla building more swap stations because so few people paid the premium to get a swappable battery. It turns out that people who won't buy an electric car unless they can swap the battery will find some other reason not to buy an electric car if that reason is removed.

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