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

I’m ready to trade in my electric car

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 339 posts

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

#241

Post by mapmap »

harshaw wrote: post #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 apprecia…

> I only have to hunt for fast charging on these longer trips so it's kind of a fun route planning game.

Try the ABRP (a better route planner) app. It will route based on your vehicle and the charging networks you prefer. It’s free unless you want certain features like live headwinds.

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

#242

Post by ivraatiems »

_xerces_ wrote: post #7

She's not blowing past any muscle cars in her Kia Nero EV with a 0-60 of 6.5-7 seconds. I guess everyone in an EV assumes their vehicle is superfast?

If you haven't tried pedal-to-the-floor from a dead stop in an EV (in the appropriate "sport" mode, if there is one), you really should. No, you won't get to 60 faster than everyone else, but you will get to 10, 20, 30, 40 faster than almost anyone. Off the line the amount of acceleration available is crazy compared to an ICE car, even a really fast one. It consistently shocks people how fast my Bolt can accelerate even though its 0-60 and top speed are nothing special.

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

#243

Post by jjav »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #201
harshaw wrote: post #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 apprecia…

Gasoline is a pain in the ass. You have to go out and fill your car up in dirty gas stations once or twice per week, and the time you’ll need gas is invariably the moment when you’re in the biggest hurry and can’t waste the time filling up. EVs, on the other hand, eliminate all of that. It is as though a magical fairy comes to my house every night (and again between every minor drive) and fills my “tank” to the top.…

> the time you’ll need gas is invariably the moment when you’re in the biggest hurry and can’t waste the time filling up

If you're actually in a hurry, you can always fill up an ICE car in a couple minutes whereas the EV, not so much.

For example, we had to evacuate during the California wildfires a few years back. The EV wasn't full and didn't have enough range to get to a useful destination, so we left it behind. Luckily we're privileged to have many cars, so we took two of the ICE cars. One was near empty, so we filled it in under 5 minutes and were on our way.

But occasionally we think: imagine if we'd only had the EV and no way to get out ASAP?

(Fortunately nothing happened and the house and EV survived fine. But many others nearby weren't so lucky.)

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

#246

Post by pjmlp »

tashoecraft wrote: post #69
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As great as electric is, an extra hour in the car on a road-trip with 3 kids is a tough sell. If you’re doing road trips frequently and you absolutely cannot find a charging station that coincides with a lunch break spot and you cannot afford a single extra hour, then sure, this seems like a reason to wait for things to improve. But I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard this argument from people who are more…

People way over estimate how often they do 300+ miles in a day. I think it’s partially them not realizing that every time they leave the house with an ev, you’re leaving with a full tank.

Depends how lucky they are dropping a cable from the 5th floor, tied to the street lighting into the car down the street somewhere.

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

#247

Post by retrocryptid »

vel0city wrote: post #224
retrocryptid wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the Tesla he wanted at the time he wanted to purchase it was $76,000 more than my Fiat. The existence of $30k Teslas at other points in spacetime do not change that fact. If we rework the example with a $30k Tesla, that's still $26k more than my used car, which brings the break-even point down to about 150,000 miles (if you assume electricity going into the EV is without cost) or somewhere around 225,000…

But if you're comparing the break even costs you should really be comparing a cheap used version of the car instead of a high end version as you're comparing it to a ludicrously cheap counterexample. His $80k Tesla was $2M cheaper than a Bugatti Veyron. Clearly Tesla's are way cheaper than gas cars. I don't understand how anyone can afford the millions of dollars gas cars cost. Or maybe $4k cars that aren't absolutel…

Sure. But he didn't buy a Bugatti Veyron and I didn't buy a Tesla. He bought an $80k Tesla and I bought a $4k used Fiat.

Again.

If your objective is to drive around cheaply, neither a Bugatti Veyron nor a Tesla are your best bets.

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

#248

Post by jjav »

k8sToGo wrote: post #138

Yes same happened to me. After about 3 years I went back to a gas car. After the vanity / hobby enthusiasm diminishes, charging and the current limitations become just very frustrating to deal with every day. To be fair I made the frustrating experience mostly in non-Tesla cars. However, Tesla has other things that can be frustrating.

> Yes same happened to me. After about 3 years I went back to a gas car. After the vanity / hobby enthusiasm diminishes, charging and the current limitations become just very frustrating to deal with every day.

Same here. We had EVs (two) from 2014 to 2020, it had benefits at the time (HOV access) but it's also a pain to be planning your day around time/distance/charger-access logistics all the time every day.

With the pandemic ending commutes, that wiped out the HOV benefit and it all just doesn't seem worth the hassle anymore. We let the lease expire, no EVs in the household now. Maybe in the future again. For now only ICE cars here and driving life is so much easier.

No more waking up at 2am realizing didn't plug in and going out to the freezing driveway to fix that. No more telling the boss I won't be in until the afternoon because I forgot to plug the car in. No more having to stay in the office until 9pm because I couldn't get a charger spot until 5pm. Now I just get in the car and drive whenever I like. Tank is low? I stop by a gas station, buy some chips and by the time I walk out the tank is full and I'm good to go another 400 miles.

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

#249

Post by roflchoppa »

vel0city wrote: post #218
roflchoppa wrote: post #179

So one of the two phases of power that comes into my house went out. I was chatting with the lad that came to fix it from PGE. I wanted to know how much it cost to update my 125amp main panel to 200 amp. He responded , 30-50k after all the trenching work. At home charging is gonna be a pickle for older homes… esp if you have powerlines that are trenched.

You don't need 200A to charge at home. I've got 150A service and have no problems charging at 32A. Even at 12A charging at home is still pretty viable. 12A * 240V = 2.88kW. I'll round down to like 2.5kW for some charging losses, average at least 3.5mi/kWh, and that's 8.75mi of range an hour. 8 hours of scheduled charging and that's 70mi of charge. Are you pulling over 100A of power at midnight normally?

It is the aggregation of all utilities in the house that might become a pain (heat pumps + electric ranges + electric washer drier), but you have a good point, the stuff like car-charging can be done on off-peak times when you only have that one service running.

Maybe I don't need the 200 AMP main, lets see what they install tomorrow.

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

#250

Post by roflchoppa »

operatingthetan wrote: post #181
roflchoppa wrote: post #179

So one of the two phases of power that comes into my house went out. I was chatting with the lad that came to fix it from PGE. I wanted to know how much it cost to update my 125amp main panel to 200 amp. He responded , 30-50k after all the trenching work. At home charging is gonna be a pickle for older homes… esp if you have powerlines that are trenched.

While overhead lines are ugly, they make upgrades like this easy.

I was talking to the repair-man who came in, apparently they could run 200amp on the lines that are currently in place, had they been overhead. Running the wire straight in the ground (no conduit in my case) makes for poor heat dissipation, which limits to the 100/125 main.

I wonder if this changes if they have the 3inch conduit.

Post reply on HN