The basic idea is enough range for 2 4h segments on highways, going uphill into the cold mountains & and the heater on with a break in the middle for lunch and charging. The rating is 400 miles, but those 4 things will drop it a good chunk.

I make a 400mile trips frequently enough that I don’t want a separate vehicle just for shorter trips.

But the pitch needs to be better than “this car is great, and you can just buy or rent a second car for when you want to do a 600+ mile trip.”

Why?

This car covers 99.99% of your current car usage. If you want that extra .01% (driving all day without stopping), you can rent a polluting vehicle in 5 mins on your phone.

If it’s actually 99.99%, then sure. That’s an hour per year. If you’re only going to do a 24-hour road trip once every 24 years then of course renting is probably the best option.

LOL, I got carried away there. How many times a year do you do a 24hr road trip, or even an 8hr non-stop road trip?

I live in Seattle.

Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. Going to the grocery store a mile away involves more elevation changes than people living in Florida go through in a year. Seriously, tons of hills in every direction.

Driving around the city, my current compact ICE, 1.6L turbo, tiny hatchback, gets around 22 miles to the gallon.

My other car, ICE, subcompact, 2L engine, 140 horse power, barely hits 20 MPG.

For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.

> Lots of hills. Hills everywhere.

> For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.

I thought your conclusion would be the opposite. Hills kill EV range.

I've had a few Fiat 500e EVs, with a flatland range of about 90 miles. But commuting here involves some good hills (~2000ft elevation change) so the true range was more like 40 miles. Which was just about barely enough to get to work. Good thing there was free charging at the office.

> Hills kill EV range.

It sounds like your source is your personal experience? EVs are far better than ICEs at navigating hills, because the moment you can no longer coast and must apply friction braking (either through your brake pedal or engine gearing) you lose 100% of the energy going to friction. In comparison, EVs typically recover the majority of the breaking energy (mine recovers 70-80%). This is the same reason that both EVs and hybrids substantially outperform ICEs in city driving - lots of application of friction brakes.

In addition, EVs tend to have a better coefficient of drag, so if you were tempted to go higher speeds down a hill, you'll find EVs get substantially better efficiency than ICEs there too.

I'm struggling to think of a hill-traversing scenario that doesn't overwhelmingly favor EVs for efficiency both in theory and practice.

Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency? In which case, I would offer that a 90m range EV is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel. That kind of take is becoming fairly niche nowadays.

Maybe the Fiat 500e was particularly bad at regenerating, not sure. I haven't driven newer models on these hills.

With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side.

> is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel

This is local travel, it's just that the area is hilly so going anywhere is going to inevitably involve hills.

> Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency?

To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range.

> With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side.

Yeah, if you aren't riding the brakes, I agree with you that it sounds related to the Fiat. 35mi of range for 20mi of hills seems off.

> To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range

Sure, but efficiency is a factor in range. What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range (much less so than an ICE).

I don't know a lot about the Fiat, so perhaps something strange is going on with its regen breaking. For example, with its smaller battery capacity, it's likely to have a lower max regen limit. Perhaps you're driving in cold weather and it poorly regens under those conditions. It looks like the Fiat does blended braking, so perhaps your using more of the friction brakes than you expect. Etc.

> What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range

While I have not driven some of the most recent EVs and have no doubt they are better, the above statement surely contradicts physical reality.

It takes more energy to go up a hill than to drive on flat ground, so it is inevitable that a trip uphill will drain available range far faster than driving on flat ground.

> It takes more energy to go up a hill than to drive on flat ground, so it is inevitable that a trip uphill will drain available range far faster than driving on flat ground.

Yes, but real world trips that involve hills tend to be somewhat balanced (round trips rather necessarily so) and it takes less energy to go down a hill than to drive on flat ground (and, while some of that advantage is wasted by excess speed from gravitational acceleration, regenerative braking can get a lot of that back, too.) So, the range impact on a trip with an uphill component will often not be substantive if you have enough energy to handle the uphill portion itself, if you have a car and driving pattern that uses things like regenerative braking efficiently.

> So, the range impact on a trip with an uphill component will often not be substantive

All I can say is that didn't match my experience as an EV owner (leaser) at all.

At 100% battery, indicated range was 90 miles and on level ground that estimate was just about right.

But on the commute over a hill, 30 miles, I'd arrive at work with only ~10 miles left. So it used up 80 miles of indicated range to travel only 30 miles! Due to the uphill portion. Recovery on the downhill is minimal as mentioned in earlier post, just a couple miles of indicated range.

I'm sorry to hear your experience wasn't great. It sounds like we're at a bit of an impasse, because our personal experiences vary. If you'd like a demonstration in my vehicle, let me know.

This is my experience, but the point is that in a gas car you'd get even worse milage because it would be working hard going up just like the EV but it wouldn't regenerate anything.

Indeed, very true. But on ICE cars I don't worry about that because the range is 300-450 miles (instead of 90 miles) and recharging takes 5 minutes (instead of 5 hours).

The problem is people don't appreciate the new patterns you use with an EV.

I pay zero for my fueling because I do it at work or a local free level 2 charger where I'll drop it off then walk home and do other things for a few hours and come back. I'm in an apartment btw.

It's not the same as pulling up to a gas station but it's just about as easy, the cars handle better and it's a smoother ride.

You might have to be a little cheap to bother to logistically coordinate free charging, but when I drove a gas car I never got free fuel. It's pretty remarkable that it's an option.

Also they're way cheaper to maintain. I literally do not know where I'd even take my EV to get it repaired because its never happened. I'm on year 5 of EV driving btw.

People believing in FUD over EVs, I have given up on. Whatever, be wrong, it's fine. Also, I don't like Teslas. There's lots of great options on the market, Hyundai and Kia's lineup are fine choices. I'm considering an Ioniq 6 myself, probably mid-next year just to make sure there's no issues.

If you’re considering it for next year then get on a wait list now. Where I live the Ioniq 5 wait times are 2-3 years.

Where's that? I just got one, it took some work calling dealers for a few weeks, but you can't order them, you have to find the one you want on the lot. All dealers have their inventories on their website and Hyundai's site has a master search for all of them. The exact car I wanted showed up, the dealer had it, so I had to drive from NY to PA to pick it up. I hired a car transport to bring it to my house the next day. So it took me a little less than a month to get it. In the tri state area there's a good deal of ioniqs in stock.

There is zero chance that everyone with a car today could get free charging at work.

Ok, so what? Why am I on the hook for single handidly solving the economics of global EV fueling in a tiny reply window, in this conversation, in order to defend my preference?

I haven't had to pay for fuel in half a decade. Theoretical abstractions and rhetorical slights of hand don't change that.

You can do whatever the heck you want.

Perhaps that explains why

>people don't appreciate the new patterns you use with an EV

The pattern you describe is not available.

Right, so what? Some people own homes and I can't do what they do. Others live close to a supercharger and I can't do that.

Some work from home and there's no charger at the office and so they can't do what I do.

This is like if I said I charge my smartphone on my nightstand when I go to sleep and you say "aha, what about people without nightstands! Checkmate!"

A diversity of exacting detail doesn't make something infeasible. We still all say eat meals or communicate with words despite vast differences in how these things look and operate among all of humanity

Again it's not my personal responsibility to itemize all theoretical dimensions here.

I don’t understand why you would be concerned why people don’t appreciate the pattern.

And then not seem to understand why they wouldn’t…

There's new patterns. That's the point.

It's that you can't define one system in another's terms.

Someone who lives in say Tokyo would probably see private car ownership as incredibly expensive and inconvenient while someone living in rural Montana probably can't conceive of how to live their life using public transit.

An inability to imagine new ways is inherent to any system change. I'm sure people can adapt just like I'm sure someone from Montana can get used to using trains if they went to Tokyo.

I don't know all the patterns but I've got faith that people can modify their behaviors as required by at least this amount.

But I get it. You can't really see it until you do it and then it's obvious and easy.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. There is zero chance you could solve any part of global ev fueling.

That part is certainly not true. I've worked pretty extensively with OCPI, that crazy nightmare.

Read me bitch about it over 4 years ago https://kristopolous.medium.com/authorizing-a-charge-with-oc...

I had a bunch of conversations after that with people at greenlots, chargepoint, evgo about bringing sanity into things ... The industry is smaller than you think here and my impact is nonzero. Near zero, but certainly nonzero!

My ICE car right now costs $1100 in insurance. For me to insure an 2022 Acura NSX is $1500 a year to the same level.

A Bolt to be insured to the exact same level is $$4200 a year. A Tesla Model 3 would ring me $5700 a year. A Porsche Taycan is $7300 a year. None of these are as expensive as the NSX.

And the cost for me to install the additional circuits to the garage went up significantly since my last quote; it's now $2500 to run an additional circuit into the garage. I don't know what it would cost to upgrade the mains panel as well if it's needed (I have only a 100A) but I've heard it's averaging about $5000 or so.

So yeah... not exactly FUD at least from where I'm standing.

That's weird. I pay $350/yr in insurance. I hop insurance providers every couple years. That's a separate trick though. I had to go check since I round it down to 0 in my head.

My costs went down so substantially when I switched to electric they are for all intents and purposes, effectively 0

Sorry if you can't figure it out.

For me it's a substantial cost increase. My gas is only about $2000 a year and maintenance is roughly $200 a year. So roughly speaking I'd be paying $900 a year more to drive an EV then to drive an ICE. That's even before you start factoring in the higher upfront purchase price and the one time costs for upgrading the home.

>Sorry if you can't figure it out.

I'm honestly not sure if you're genuinely sorry if it's not working out for me, or if you're snarking.

It was meant to be encouraging without sounding patronizing. I'm not great at it

You might want to find a better electrician, those quotes are nuts. Also if your circuit panel can power a clothes dryer, it can power a home charger

That's not entirely true. There are load calculations that get done to figure out if a new circuit can be added. If you're going to trip the main breaker while charging and cooking dinner at the same time, you'll probably need a service upgrade per electrical code

They're actually reasonable, unfortunately.

The garage is detached one fed by a single 120V circuit buried in PVC conduit, and it is enough for everything in there at the moment. But if a car's charging at the same time say someone open's the garage door, it's going to trip the breaker.

So at least I'd have to pull a second circuit dedicated for charging. To do that, the old conduit needs to come out and be replaced with one that is up to code for handling either more then one circuit, or can handle a 240V circuit. The cost of digging the old one out and installing a new one is a very substantial portion of that quote.

Now granted this was a quote for a full 240V circuit with a subpanel; the quote last year was around $2000 ish. Inflation rate, increasing labor costs, and continuing supply chain issues caused the jump. I didn't get a chance to ask what the quote was for just a second 120V circuit though.

The mains upgrade cost is just what I've heard second hand from others upgrading their 100A service to 200A. I haven't gotten a quote for myself but it doesn't sound wrong to me. Just filing the paper work for the permit from the is a $160 fee. The permit itself IIRC is an additional $200 or $300. I suspect the electrician would have to get the utility involved as well to disconnect and upgrade the main lines coming from the street to the house to accommodate the increased possible amperage.

What in the world? Are those USD?

I pay $1200 a year to insure my Tesla Model S at the max liability coverage, with comprehensive and collision. Admittedly, I've filed that I drive a max of 6k miles a year and I have the highest deductible set on both comprehensive and collision, but I have strong doubts it'd quintuple in price to insure if I went and set those to more typical settings.

How old are you? I bought a model 3 performance when I was 27 and sold it a year ago. I was paying 285/month with Allstate (before Tesla started offering insurance). I drive my old ICE now and pay 108/month. Clean record.

From what I understand the older you are the less you pay.

I'm 31. I was under the impression that it was mostly a big step change in your mid to late 20s and then mostly remained stable.

Also if the issue here were age, I assume that GP would also pay more for an ICE car.

I'm also in California in a city environment, maybe that's why? Otherwise yeah I am getting ripped off D:

One thing I noticed with my model 3 was that the rates I was quoted varied WILDLY by company. Deltas of over $200 a month.

Canadian dollars. I don't pretend to understand the reasoning, the insurers have their own logic. But anything with a battery (even PHEV's) seem to command a much higher premium; I was quoted $3400 a year last year for a RAV4 Prime.

Given your situation maybe an EV is indeed unworkable for you.

Doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone else.

That. ICE drivers don’t mind driving 20 min to refill but for god sake 30m drinking a coffee is unthinkable. And apparently none of them has spotted that recharging points are everywhere.

The range expectations are also completely crazy - driving more than 2 hours without a break is just unsafe and advised against. I wonder when the GP even goes to the bathroom.

While I agree that EVs make sense in a lot of cases, I feel like you're min-maxing your values here to be as beneficial as possible to EVs.

Filling my (non economical, okay mileage) car takes ~5 minutes. I get ~300mi range from it. 30 minutes waiting for my car to charge up to 1/4-1/2 the mileage is a hard sell for some folks, depending on their workflow. I unfortunately can't run 240 at home, don't have ability to charge at work, and often find myself places that don't have many chargers in the area.

For many, EV totally works. But to say it's 20 vs 30 minutes is a little silly, IMO.

Not to mention that many people drive more than 2 hours without a break. I get that it's advised against, but I still want that ability in my car without being forced to stop.

> Filling my (non economical, okay mileage) car takes ~5 minutes. I get ~300mi range from it.

Your median wait to “fill up” an ev for many/most people is 0 minutes, because they do it at home.

> Not to mention that many people drive more than 2 hours without a break.

This is standard in teslas, it’s standard in the Ioniq 6, and it will be standard in most mass market EVs in the near future (there may be a niche market for local-only cars).

EVs are only an issue for two types of folks:

1. Folks who can’t charge at home/work, and don’t have a natural place to charge while they are doing something else. Imho, this is an infrastructure issue that will be solved.

2. Folks who frequently take long road trips in a cannonball run style. Even this will be solvable with advance in battery tech (rumors are that Tesla have this tech in hand). 500-600 mile ranges with reasonable battery weight will be a thing.

What? Driving 20 min to fill the tank? Who and where does that? I fill it in a few minutes on the way from work to home.

Back and forth makes it 10m one way. I know many people who drive longer than this to refill, esp in rural or congested areas.

I don't think you realize how scant charging is if you live in an urban area. No charger at most apartments, and your workplace might not even have parking. Amazon offices in Seattle are notorious for occupied chargers. "Then why have a car?" We like to drive out to the mountains on the weekend, frequently. So then we drive a lot on the weekend and barely get a chance to charge on a weekday. You might have to set aside several hours at a parking lot at a mall to charge it which quite a chore.

My Tacoma only has 380 mile range and I still get range anxiety sometimes with finding gas. RAV4 Prime with 600 mile range is the dream, but you can't buy them unless you pay $10k markup.

Driving a lot + urban (not suburban) living makes electric cars a tough sell.

In the Bay Area, even in San Francisco it’s fine? There’s a bunch of fast chargers everywhere at Safeways and Whole Foods, most big companies have fast charging, and most old buildings with a garage have at least a 120v plug on your meter?

> you can't buy [RAV4 Prime] unless you pay $10k markup

Quite frankly, many people can't buy a RAV4 Prime at any price regardless of markups due to availability. My local dealer just quoted me a wait time of up to 18 months for a non-pluggable RAV4 Hybrid because there are simply no chips to go around.

The Cascades are well under 90 miles from Seattle. A complete trip to the Cascades and back can be done in well under 250 miles, and regen breaking will be your best friend on the way back home!

I'll grant that going to the Olympic national forest is 122 miles one way, so some range issues there for sure.

> AV4 Prime with 600 mile range is the dream,

Boise is 500 miles one way!

The entire point of living in Seattle is to that nature is insanely close by. (Sure as heck isn't for the friendly faces on the street or the affordable tasty food!)

If you're doing a 600 mile road trip in the USA, it's already hard enough at times to find worthwhile places to eat without also limiting your choices to those with fast chargers nearby. Same for lodging if it's a really long trip.

This isn't an important use case for a lot of people, but's it's much more important to me than commuting :)

Lodging only requires a Level 2 charger (because you charge the car while you sleep) and many hotels have them. Most don't even charge you for the electricity, in my experience.

There are many more of these "destination chargers" in the US than fast DC chargers.

I live in South TX, I'd have to drive 600 miles just to get out of the state. Even if I did it once a year, I'd rather not pay several hundred dollars for a rental.

People in areas like I grew up in often drive >100mi in a day since the nearest WalMart and decent chain restaurants are >30mi away. Major cities are 150mi away. My parents are currently driving around 250mi every single week day to get medical treatments in the city and will need to for the next few weeks. A hotel would save them that drive time, but driving is cheaper than that, so that's what they do. They wouldn't "charge while they stop to eat" because restaurants are much more expensive than their brown bag lunch they took.

80% of the US lives in urbanized areas and a good chunk of the remaining 20% live in relatively close proximity to urbanized areas. Rural areas in the east and Great Lakes are mostly not far from metros.

People like your parents are edge cases, although even their daily medical trip is just about feasible with an EV today. The number of people living in very rural West Texas or southwest are relatively small (and the mountain west is rapidly urbanizing unfortunately).

EVs don't have to meet every use case just like an ICE diesel pickup truck or a steel crusier bicycle wouldn't fit everyone's transportation needs today.

But they definitely can already meet the majority of Americans driving patterns today.