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

261–270 of 339 posts

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

#261

Post by tomatocracy »

barbazoo wrote: post #189
tomatocracy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the chargers are owned by a private company. Why would they lower their charges in future?

Competition, I'd assume as more and more chargers become available, their price will reduce.

But competition within an apartment building car park will be limited - I'd assume there is only a single supplier today and it wouldn't be economically viable for a second supplier to build on top so it's a quasi-monopoly. If the building owners are alive to this then they would probably have negotiated a price cap of some form in the contract but I'd be surprised if theres any incentive to cut prices.

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

#262

Post by retrocryptid »

HopenHeyHi wrote: post #252
retrocryptid wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother's new Tesla cost $76,000 more than my used Fiat 500. The fiat gets something like 26mpg in the city and 34 on the highway. If gas is $5/gal, then it's going to be 400,000 miles or so before the cost of gas equals the $76,000 price differential. (It occurs to me I didn't even factor in the cost of the electricity to pay for miles his Tesla drives.) I'm also driving a car with about half to one fourth the en…

[flagged]

[flagged]

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

#263

Post by nikau »

barbazoo wrote: post #211
nikau wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> benefits of an EV but can fall back to your gasoline car for trips. Why not just get a pehv

Having both, ICE and EV tech under the hood means more technology that can fail. Heavier than either, less EV range, possibly no subsidy in some jurisdictions, things like that.

That's cool in Gartner research theory land, but Prius and hybrid Camrys confirm its nonsense.

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

#265

Post by sasaf5 »

jjav wrote: post #238
mkozlows wrote: post #121

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,…

> even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience Remember how with a VHS you could skip all the obnoxious copyright and fbi warnings but with the DVD you were stuck with them? Not all newer is a better experience.

+ no zoning + recording being a basic feature.

But hey, with DVD there's no need to rewind!

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

#266

Post by TapWaterBandit »

jjav wrote: post #238
mkozlows wrote: post #121

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,…

> even though the DVD experience was a lot better than the VCR experience Remember how with a VHS you could skip all the obnoxious copyright and fbi warnings but with the DVD you were stuck with them? Not all newer is a better experience.

Sure but do you also remember having to rewind tapes or do an absurd dance to rewatch or find a specific scene? I was a big watcher of both and there isn't a doubt in my mind that in terms of time wasted with BS, VHS had DVD comfortably beat.

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

#267

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #228
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) 50% of EU citizens lives in apartment B) When ICE cars are banned, then what? Get a horse?

I expect that by the time ICE cards are banned it will no longer be a problem.

Because people won't need to travel anymore?

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

#268

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

wcoenen wrote: post #158
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience it is often software incompatibility between charger and a car. I can often see that charging company will charge my debit card for charging credit (20-50EUR) and then charger will refuse to charge my car. Good luck getting those money back, loser.

That's just the "pre-authorization" on your card. It gets released again when you end the charging session, minus the charging cost for the kWh you used. Same thing as gas stations where you use your card before using the fuel pump. If you didn't end the charging session (e.g. by pressing a button or presenting the same card again), you may have given the next person a free charge?

Lol, no. The money is gone, turned into "charging credit" into that application.

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

#269

Post by alistairSH »

vel0city wrote: post #212
alistairSH wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure and that’s the best case. Just about anything else needs a multi-hour detour. Anyway, my only point was there are still some gaps, even in the relatively dense eastern seaboard. But not many.

There's a Sheetz in Stephens City that adds like 10 minutes to get to. Add 15-20min for actually charging. If you do it both ways, that's probably less than 1 hour extra on a 6 hour drive. Hardly a "multi-hour" detour. And if your camping area has power, you probably don't even need to stop at all.

Maybe ABRP isn’t aware? If I route a Tesla 3 base, it sends me through Cumberland. I’ve also had it route me through Hagerstown with non-Tesla. In both cases, it wasn’t charge time that was the problem - it was getting to the charger.

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=8c9a884e-0429-42c...

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

#270

Post by mmaurizi »

kybernetikos wrote: post #256
datadeft wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since the battery is one of the biggest expenses to replace when it no longer holds charge, the economics of it would be tricky. Nobody would want to swap their good battery that they've carefully looked after for one that holds much less charge. Not to say that it's not possible to solve, but it's not so straight forward. Also, I've used lots of chargers greater than 100 kw, and they really don't take that long to c…

Financially for swapping to make sense, I think you need to be renting the batteries from the swapping company, not own them as part of the car purchase.

I think Renault used to do something like that?

Post reply on HN