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

The Electric Car

blog.geoffralston.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 349 posts

Re: The Electric Car

#151

Post by dzhiurgis »

higherpurpose wrote: post #76
JTon wrote: post #18

> The reason electric cars will take over our roads is because consumers will DEMAND them. Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy. The iPhone demonstrated that smartphones are infinitely better than the feature phones which dominated the world in 2007. The smartphone revolution analogy makes me cringe. Electric cars are currently playing catch up to the…

That's not quite true. In 2007 you would see 90% of the Internet comments talk about how feature-less an iPhone was compared to the Nokia N95 (or whatever was its Nokia competitor at the time). In fact there were some memes comparing the iPhone with a rock . The original iPhone didn't have video recording, had only 2G support (Nokias supported 3G for a while), didn't support MMS, and it didn't even have apps! And of…

Maximum torque will get you home faster by... 1%?

You still can't fly in residential areas at 160MPH.

Whereas big capacitive touchscreen allowed to read text at least twice as fast. And you can actually manipulate websites UI. That's entirely new enabler.

Electric car does not enable you to sleep in it or grow potatoes. It's a great car, but still a car.

Re: The Electric Car

#152

Post by bpodgursky »

msandford wrote: post #142
greglindahl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of places don't have super-expensive real estate, unlike the Bay Area and Manhattan. More and more places over time will require apartment garages to have chargers -- already a law for new construction here in Palo Alto. Personally, I charge at the city parking garage a block away.

So let me get this straight. In the "flyover country" where you DON'T get big city salaries, you're going to buy a $100k-$150k house because you don't make six figures. And then with all the leftover money that you don't have because you're not earning SF engineer salary, you're going to buy a car that costs anywhere from 25%-50% of your house?

Bay area house prices are not proportional (even discarding the effects of higher marginal tax rates). 150K salary for a million dollar house is not easy; 150k house on 50k salary (and a 3x salary difference is a bit of an exaggeration, while house prices are not) is much more plausible.

Re: The Electric Car

#153

Post by ghaff »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #131
CountSessine wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think in terms of exponential progress, and we're about 5 years from the majority of trips being done by self-driving car, IMHO 5 years is a fantasy. Continued exponential increases in device computing power is by no means guaranteed now that chips are at the 14nm feature size. And the recent progress in AI can only be partially attributed to improved computing power - much of it was from improved approaches to train…

> I guarantee you that self-driving cars will not be the mainstream even in 15 years. Probably more. Want to make a Long Bet on that? I'm willing to bet up to $1000 USD, loser pays winner's choice of 501(c)(3) US charity org, that self-driving cars will be mainstream in under 10 years.

What do you mean by self-driving cars? As in highly assistive driving on highways so that you can not really pay attention most of the time whether that's legal or not? That I could (maybe) buy though it's a stretch given replacement cycles.

But something I can summon with an app and take a nap? 50 years may be too soon.

Re: The Electric Car

#154

Post by ghaff »

philwelch wrote: post #137
tdiggity wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I know that live in peninsula and south bay of silicon valley have a 10-25 mile commute (1-way) and it would be a huge inconvenience to not have a car. You can't get around with just Uber down here.

Yes, it's unfortunate that people still live in suburban areas that don't have transit.

Humans have not historically all lived in hyper-dense cities that make public transportation more practical than private automobiles. Like many others, I have no intention of doing so personally. And, outside of such locations (and I'd like to see the plan to, for example, move everyone in the South Bay to a few very dense urban centers) it's generally inconvenient to depend on public transit.

Re: The Electric Car

#155

Post by stcredzero »

mikexstudios wrote: post #90
monk_e_boy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people in the 2nd hand car market (like me) will quickly switch to electric. They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. Nearly all my cars die with head gasket issues, or oil leaks or timing belt issues. does quick count so that's 4 of my cars and 2 of my partners. Electric engines won't die like that. And when they do, just grab a used one from a junked car and off you go. With 'in wheel' electric motors, t…

True, but there's at least one really expensive component of electric cars that needs replacement every 8 to 10 years: the battery. I think the current price is about $10000 for the battery if you order from Tesla in advance. Maintenance and repair costs of a gasoline vehicle over 10 years can be less than that.

There was a US govt study cited by the Car Talk guys many years ago that found that the annual repair bill for most cars stabilized at an average of $600/yr, until the car died. (Not counting oil changes and regular maintenance.)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if batteries for a car like the Tesla got down to $6000. At that point, the value proposition is already much better than gasoline cars.

Re: The Electric Car

#156

Post by reedlaw »

I can't believe he's comparing a $70,000 electric car to a huge bucket labeled "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Of course the $70,000 car is better in almost every way. I've driven a lot of electric cars in the $5,000 to $10,000 range and I assure you they are not better than "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Our last gas-powered car was a used Lexus that cost us $8,000. It's an extremely comfortable luxury car that seats 5 and can easily be driven across the country. A new electric car [1], on the other hand, costs approximately the same but can only seat 2 people and can travel 160 km on one charge. It's top speed is 80 km/h. It takes 6 hours to fully charge. The costly lithium-ion batteries will have to be replaced at some point. True, it is convenient for trips around town without much luggage. I'm fairly confident that the used Lexus will outlast and outrun the new electric car.

1. This is the car: http://chinaautoweb.com/car-models/zotye-zhidou-zd-e20-ev/

Re: The Electric Car

#157

Post by Retric »

JTon wrote: post #18

> The reason electric cars will take over our roads is because consumers will DEMAND them. Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy. The iPhone demonstrated that smartphones are infinitely better than the feature phones which dominated the world in 2007. The smartphone revolution analogy makes me cringe. Electric cars are currently playing catch up to the…

Electric wins on, low end acceleration, safety, noise, and at normal driving levels lifetime costs. They require significantly less maintenance, but it's currently more expensive.

Realistically as charging stations become more common you can expect adoption to keep increasing which is a very positive feedback loop.

PS: I suspect eventually we will simply directly power cars on the freeway which eliminates range concerns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-level_power_supply

Re: The Electric Car

#158

Post by ghaff »

hackuser wrote: post #20

The real story my be that car sales may decline, gas or electric: * People drive less; I saw a study showing that significantly fewer millenials are licensed to drive than their predecessors. * More people live in cities, where the cost of cars is higher (insurance and parking) and the demand for them is less due to the proximity of destinations and the availability of alternatives (public transport, taxis, ride-shar…

According to FiveThirtyEight, the urbanization trend is largely exaggerated. The more accurate statement is that college-educated millennials are somewhat more likely to live in a handful of particularly dense urban locations (think Brooklyn).[1]

In fact, among all adults 25-34 the percentage in urban locations overall has actually declined. The data is a bit hard to interpret for a variety of reasons but the bottom line is that, according to this data: "Millennials overall, therefore, are not increasingly living in urban neighborhoods. Rather, the most educated one-third of young adults are increasingly likely to live in the densest urban neighborhoods. That’s great news for cities trying to attract young graduates and a sign that urban neighborhoods have become more desirable for those who can afford them. But the presence of more smart young things in Brooklyn is not evidence that millennials are a more urban generation."

[1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less...

Re: The Electric Car

#159

Post by JacobAldridge »

martinald wrote: post #53

To be honest, this misses the point in urban areas (which is increasingly where everyone wants to live). There's too much congestion for cars to work in urban areas, at least for commuting. It doesn't matter whether they are autonomous, electric, petrol, hydrogen or whatever. The capacity of a multi-lane freeway vs a heavy rail commuter line or metro is so small, even with carpooling. Unless suddenly this trend rever…

Isn't a big part of congestion due to inefficient human driving?

While it won't be v1.0, I could see autonomous vehicles taking half the cars off the road (car pooling) and then providing much more efficient transit regarding speed, lane changes, real time route selection etc.

This will definitely be more valuable for the suburbs, or cities with poor public transport infrastructure. Perhaps in some places your autonomous Uber will take you to a much more efficient bus hub (departing every 5 minutes) on the city fringe, but I do believe it will work in urban areas as well.

And don't forget, comparing Uber in a time of transit problems isn't really a fair comparison as those are the times when many other people, not used to making that drive, flood the roads. If I drive to the right train station, transit is about 30% faster for me during peak hour so I agree with your point.

Re: The Electric Car

#160

Post by threeseed »

greglindahl wrote: post #98
JimboOmega wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us who live in apartment buildings and don't have a garage where we can install such things, then what? To me this has always been the biggest obstacle of an electric car.

Wait to buy an electric car until it's convenient for you to charge it?

I guess you have missed the big population trends of the last few decades. More and more people are moving to inner city apartments every one of which is not designed with electric cars in mind. And with property prices reaching astronomical amounts in many places e.g. Australia, UK, Europe, HK, SG the lure of cheaper but smaller apartments is only going to grow.

For me this is is one of the big advantages of hydrogen cars i.e. you use them exactly the same as your existing car.

Post reply on HN