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Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by mikeash on Sunday April 03, 2016 @10:03PM (#11418945)
I'm impressed that you can go four hours between stops with a wife and kid in the car.

I think most people will find the stops to be more than they're used to, but not onerous. You'll probably hit 4-5 chargers in a day of driving. If you can time it right, two of those will coincide with meal breaks, so you're looking at 2-3 where you hit the bathroom, grab a snack, and maybe have to wait a bit on the car.

If you make big trips once or twice a year then it can easily be a net win over a gas car. The gas car wins on long trips, but requires ~15 minutes/month at gas stations even when you're just local. In my year of Tesla ownership, I'd say I've lost about two hours total waiting for a charge, and gained about that much not going to gas stations.

Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by lotharbot on Sunday April 03, 2016 @10:43PM (#11419074)
> "it can easily be a net win over a gas car"

oh, I agree. I just don't see it as a win over a plug-in hybrid with a gas generator, yet. In ~6 months of ownership of a Volt, I've been to the gas station about 4 times (all on a trip to/from another state) at 5-10 minutes per stop, and have never lost time waiting for a charge.

The supercharger network is a nice step, and combined with electric vehicles with a 200+ mile range, we're a step closer to electric vehicles becoming the norm. But there are still obstacles to be overcome -- still some inconveniences that are better solved by other technologies.

Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by mikeash on Sunday April 03, 2016 @11:00PM (#11419149)
That does sound like a pretty good compromise. I wanted a plug-in hybrid for a long time, but never found one that was good enough for what I wanted, and finally ended up with the Tesla instead. I don't think it's inherent to the technology (although the gas engine takes up some space), but everything on the market was just too small, especially in terms of cargo. Apparently the Volt has a whole 10ft^3 of trunk space? I think it's just because everybody besides Tesla is still aiming for the compact, economical, Prius-like market.
Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by kalleboo on Sunday April 03, 2016 @11:57PM (#11419315)
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV seems like it's finally filling the niche of a bigger plug-in hybrid car. I know a friend with one and he's happy with it.
Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by mikeash on Monday April 04, 2016 @09:13AM (#11421581)
That's the one I had my eye on for years. It was supposed to be available in the US in 2013, then 2014, then 2015.... Now they're saying August of this year, but we'll see if it's real.

Edit: I just looked up the specs. The PHEV version (at least the UK one) apparently drops the third row seats. I can't figure out the available cargo space. Everything I find says it's 436L, which is about 15ft^3, but there's no way it could possibly be that small. In any case, all I can say is: no wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame.

Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by dagw on Monday April 04, 2016 @09:20AM (#11421625)
I'm impressed that you can go four hours between stops with a wife and kid in the car.

I think it depends very much what you grew up with. My wife and I both grew up in families when 8-9 hour drives with only a quick stop for lunch as a vacation was the norm from basically when we where born, and neither one of us thought anything about it.

Our daughter on the other hand spent the first several years of her life basically never going anywhere by car (as we didn't have one) and she absolutely hates spending more than an hour at a time in cars.

Re:I Drove Chevrolet's Bolt by mikeash on Monday April 04, 2016 @09:27AM (#11421669)
I was thinking more along the lines of biological needs.