The Electric Car • Hacker News Board

Re: The Electric Car

#211

Post by schuke » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:57 AM UTC

harshaw wrote: post #165

I wish people would be slightly more honest about technological change. Smartphones are very special. They are very cheap, easy to mass produce, and you can iterate on them very quickly. Cars on the other hand have a much longer life cycle, involve much more capital, and in general are going to follow an elongated investment / replacement cycle. Comparing these two systems, while enthusiastic and great for a college…

When cars crash, passengers automatically go back to where they started instead of dying, then one can innovate as quickly in cars as in phones.

Re: The Electric Car

#212

Post by lern_too_spel » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 3:59 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #118

While I agree with the author that electric vehicles will in not long time dominate the car market, I strongly disagree with point #3: > Gas stations will start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold, making gasoline powered vehicles even more inconvenient. Gas stations even today don't make money with gas, it's next to a loss leader to get customers into the store and spend money on snacks and car…

The author completely blundered with that claim. Cars on the road have become more than 10% more efficient over the past few decades, but gas stations didn't go out of business en masse like he prophesies a 10% electric fleet will cause. As everybody else already pointed out, self-driving cars will change everything, not the few years in which the personal vehicle market becomes a little more electric.

Re: The Electric Car

#213

Post by cbhl » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:21 AM UTC

JimboOmega wrote: post #93

greglindahl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For refill time, note that most electric car owners do almost all of their charging in their own garages overnight... not something that's common for gas-powered cars. Long trips are worse for electric cars, sure. But day-to-day driving? Charging is not an issue if you can charge in your garage.

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.

Electric Car-sharing, just like how since you don't have a garage you would use normal car sharing (Zipcar).

If you live in the SF Bay Area: https://us.drive-now.com/

Re: The Electric Car

#214

Post by dzhiurgis » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:24 AM UTC

brc wrote: post #198

dzhiurgis wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

one-pedal responsive operation is a win in the same way multi-touch is a win. It doesn't sound like a big deal,but once you get used to it, everything else seems dated. Operating multiple pedals to operate a vehicle is a leftover from crude technology. Sure, some people like it that way (a set that includes me). But for most people, once they get used to push pedal a bit to go slow, a lot to go fast, let go to stop -…

You must be joking mate. All movies since 90s tell me that most Americans can't even drive manual transmission. Modern automatic transmission is totally invisible. Some cars even have variator transmission.

I get it, the car is more dynamic. So what? It's an incremental change.

By the way, if you do not like pedals, there is even better technology, called cruise control.

Re: The Electric Car

#215

Post by vtsrh » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:28 AM UTC

sahat wrote: post #178

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.

If you own a Tesla Model S and live near a supercharger network, charging is not an issue. Over 8,000 miles in my Model S, all powered exclusively by the superchargers, free of charge. Note: I live in an apartment less than 2 miles from the nearest supercharger in Los Angeles and only 8 miles from work. So, the range is never a problem.

Tesla Superchargers are not the solution for this, as they are simply not designed for such use. They were built to help with long range destinations.

There are cases where users, (ab)using them as you do, got a request to reduce their usage. I guess you didn't trigger any flags.

Re: The Electric Car

#216

Post by curiousjorge » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:29 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #52

curiousjorge wrote: post #31

I think the article is overly optimistic and derives some sort of future prediction based on a simplified past performance of a totally different market. Tesla is a luxury , many of us can't afford it and if we could we would most likely opt for BMW or Benz. The reason these other car makers aren't moving yet is they are learning from Tesla. You don't want to be a first mover in this industry, you want to move so sli…

> To say gas stations will go out of business is ludicrous at best, Tesla will go out of business sooner as established car brands move in and hurt bottom line for Tesla. I don't get that dichotomy. If established car brands move into electric, wouldn't that kill both Tesla and gas stations? Why would gas stations survive?

Right now we don't know if electric cars that Tesla has will be the formula for everybody else or that it will be the standard (optimists will claim so). There are so many problems we are ignoring and the biggest which ansible brought up is the battery & cost. Could you charge your battery faster you can fill up your tank with fuel? Yes I'm sure it's improving every year but there's going to be a lot of time that will be required. There are so many other economic unknowns during this time. What if gas became so abundant and cheap due to continued oversupply from some determined group of oil producing countries hell bent on making sure there's a market for their black gold? What if we improved and lowered the cost of extracting oil deep deep below the earth and run into an ocean size worth of supply? What if car technology improves suddenly that burning fuel becomes extremely efficient that batteries can't match? What if somebody comes up with a new type of fuel concoction that you could put into any old used car and get crazy mileage?

If we do arrive at a point where everybody is producing electric cars, wouldn't there still be an interest in buying out existing gas stations and turn them into super charging stations where you can just drive your car through a tunnel and come out the other end with batteries fully charged? Or would battery become so crazy good that you charge it overnight and it lasts for deacades (you gonna put a mini nuclear reactor in your car?)? Maybe it will be possible to just subscribe to some power station in the orbit that charges your battery constantly wirelessly. I'd love to see that happen but the time it will take to get all of these things right is quite long and a lot of things can change during that time.

I hope you are right, I really look forward to that day when we can say the hell with relying on oppressing people (creating some very angry people that are willing to blow themselves up to make a point) in countries where their leaders get all of our dollars in exchange for that sweet sweet black gold.

Re: The Electric Car

#217

Post by dzhiurgis » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:30 AM UTC

kailuowang wrote: post #167

reedlaw wrote: post #156

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…

If I remember correctly, iPhone came out when most featured phone is either free with a contract or less than 50 bucks.

You can get everything for free with contracts. High end smartphones of the time were about 20-30% off iPhone retail price.

Either way, comparison with smartphones is totally irrelevant.

Re: The Electric Car

#218

Post by jebblue » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:33 AM UTC

"The iPhone demonstrated that smartphones are infinitely better than the feature phones which dominated the world in 2007."

The iPhone had predecessors, some Apple, some Microsoft, many tiny companies with good ideas but no business brains. It like the electric car stood on the shoulders of giants.

The electric car still has two major hurdles (I wish it weren't true I really wish that the prediction comes true): 1) the Oil industry is powerful 2) batteries.

With a car, if I want to take a short trip to the local gas me up station then decide to drive 300 miles just to say hey to a friend...I could do that. With an electric car and today's batteries, each "filling" station would have to be able to provide a fully charged, safe battery pack that is compatible with my vehicle.

If better batteries could be made with oil, adoption for electric cars would be overnight and the prediction manifested.

Re: The Electric Car

#219

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:40 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #163

ghaff wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Level 4: The vehicle performs all safety-critical functions for the entire trip, with the driver not expected to control the vehicle at any time. As this vehicle would control all functions from start to stop, including all parking functions, it could include unoccupied cars." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Definition

That's many decades away.

Re: The Electric Car

#220

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 4:45 AM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #199

jannotti wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars can drive autonomously, but they can't sense a spill?

Person has a drink inside their bag, no tech that let's the car see through solid objects, it doesn't even know the drink is there. That's unusual, butnot even the only problem. Someone needs to write something to recognise a liquid container. Not just the one, but all of them, some of which it's never seen before. Not simple.

Doesn't need to recognize liquid containers, hidden or otherwise, just needs to detect spills.

And, AFAIK, moisture sensors for the kinds of materials used in cat interiors already exist, so it's not particularly novel.