For commuters with reasonable commutes of less than an hour each way, EVs make perfect sense. People living in the boonies commuting 2 hours each way...no way. I only use my car occasionally (a tank of gas a month) walking to work instead, so I'm not the ideal target for an EV.
40-mile commute? That's cute. Some people have to travel 60-80 miles to work both ways. My parent's nearest grocery store is 30+ miles away. The cheapest new electric car is $35k+ the newest gas vehicle is $12k. That doesn't even mention that there are no hard numbers on longevity of electric vehicles, people in rural areas have vehicles that are 20-30 years old. An electric car lasting that long doesn't exist because they haven't been around that long, and you'd have to drop thousands for battery replacement in that lifespan. I would love an all-electric, or at least a clean alternative, future, but it's just not feasible for some people. HN is so disconnected sometimes, clearly have only ever lived in cities and are used to relative wealth.
If you are driving an hour both ways every day in a cold climate, yeah, EV probably isn't the right fit for another couple of years. It's also an extreme end of usage. I imagine that a large portion of those people in a rural community don't drive more than 60 miles a day. It is also why the average commute per a person is not 125 miles but substantially less in the US.
For reference, 125 miles is about Louisville, KY to Indianapolis, IN.
The average commute is 25 miles round-trip. Less than 2% drive > 100 miles a day, and far less than 1% drive 150+ miles.
Most EVs have a 300+ mile range with several pushing 350. It would work as a commuting car for 99% of the population without needing to charge except at home overnight, and the average person (25 mile round trip) can go over a week between charges.
Saying EVs can't replace gasoline-powered cars is nonsense.
Trucks - same thing. The Tesla Semi is said to have a 500 mile range on one charge fully loaded with 80k lbs, and it's the first iteration.
Aircraft - no, li-ion is too heavy. We know it won't work for planes. But replacing gas-powered cars and trucks would make a big impact.
I would have bought an electric car when I needed a new car, but there are not enough charging stations. I need to occasionally drive 400 mi, and it's just not feasible.
If you can't get home without charging your EV, you should move or get a new job. Suburban living is not eco friendly, I would hope that there are a small number of people who want an electric vehicle but would have such a long daily commute that they would have to charge it every day.
The problem is that here in the US, the chance of making a 200 mile trip 10-20x in 3-5 years is high and no one here wants to deal with getting a rental or special car just to do that.
We like our road trips and while they're rare, they're important and we don't want to rent or have a second car in order to do that.
EVs need to be comparable with gas cars in realistic scenarios and that means a real 3-400 miles. Not 400 miles but with a giant list of can't do's
I love the idea of an EV, but ultimately it’s just extending a pretty unsustainable car culture involving the allocation of half of urban space to individuals moving around 1~2 tons of metal in order to do trips that would be much shorter with better designed cities, while letting walking, cycling and transit languish.
Proponents of electric cars love to talk about daily commutes and charging at home over night and how they never have to "fill up", while either never leaving a 200 mile bubble around their home, or pretending they're okay with paying an extra $1k+ to rent an ICE car for road trips.
As someone who does not have a commute and mainly owns a car for the 600-2000 mile road trips I take _at least_ every ~6 weeks. I'd much prefer a PHEV, which incidentally can drastically increase range while also handling the ~30 mile average daily commute electric-only quite easily.
The average commute in this country is ~40 miles which is easily covered with weekly charging on 60-70 mWh battery packs. A typical $30,000 EV (matching the average price of US ICE sedans and hatchbacks) with those sized batteries today gets 260 miles on a full charge or about 200 miles driving it down to 20%.
So half the country today could charge weekly or less and commute just fine with an EV that costs the same as an ICE, even if they live in apartments with no charging infrastructure, even if their town or city has little to no public charging infrastructure, and it's cheaper than ICE for most of them who have some access to cheap charging, like home charging or work charging.
That's the tipping point, half can have their needs met with today's tech at today's prices. Most others could get by but they might have some slightly higher burden in charge times or vehicle price, especially outliers with very long commutes to and from locations with no good infrastructure.
For example a truck driving construction contractor in a rural home commuting to a new subdivision under development also in a rural area but 65 miles away has a 130 mile daily commute and his truck has a 150 mile range from 80% to 20% so he has to charge daily, either at home, or at the construction site. Hopefully being rural he's in a house and not an apartment building so can charge overnight, but if he lives in a suburb that's pretty rural and has no charging at home, he's kinda screwed. Or, if he's gotta carry 20 bags of cement mix in the bed or tow a trailer, then he's gotta charge at home and maybe also at the construction site to even finish the commute. So, for some rural construction workers, EVs may not quite be the optimal solution (yet.)
But most people, yes, they're holding it wrong. They're holding their 20th century car notions in 2024, where we're now decade before ICE cars get phased out in the US and as we're on a clear trajectory toward enough range and infra for no one to care just like no one cares about ICE cars and the gas stations they visit weekly.
Fully electric cars are not (yet) realistic for many people. Most people at least occasionally drive beyond the range of even a Tesla and don't want to stop for a lengthy recharge (lengthy compared to refueling with gasoline, especially if they aren't near a supercharger).
A plug-in hybrid is a more realistic option for more people.
reply