My wife and I own a single family home, a gas-powered car (Toyota Rav4), and an electric car (a standard range Tesla model 3). The electric car is much more convenient for us for city driving and the gas-powered car is much more convenient for road trips.

Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time, planning, and mental energy. For my wife it's also a low-level danger: women find gas stations spooky, apparently.

Refuelling the Tesla is automatic and effortless. After you park at home, if the charge is <40% then plug it in. The next time you need to drive somewhere it will be full. It took me an afternoon hanging out with my electrician cousin and about $400 in parts from Amazon to build our own at-home electric refuelling station.

Road trips with the Tesla, however, are currently impractical: we end up adding another ~30% to the drive time. With only a ~220 mile range the Tesla needs to stop about every 150 miles for 40 minutes which is brutal. Range anxiety also becomes a much bigger factor driving through more rural areas and your route choices weigh supercharger locations above everything else.

We've got used to the self driving convenience of the Tesla but the Comma[1] on our Rav4 is just about as good for highway driving.

1. https://comma.ai/

> It took me an afternoon hanging out with my electrician cousin and about $400 in parts from Amazon to build our own at-home electric refuelling station.

This is a big reason I haven't even considered an EV. How I'd find someone to do this work on my garage, and how much it would cost is a huge unknown, and that's just enough friction to simply not consider getting an EV.

My vehicles are first and foremost utilitarian; I use them to get from A to B. EVs make that simple equation "complicated", and I have other issues maintaining a household that demand my attention.

it depends on how much charging you want. all EV's can charge off of a slower 115vac 15amp circuit. At my last place I had a dedicated 40amp 230vac socket much like you'd have installed for a big electric heater in a garage or a pool heater or a dryer. Good recharge times which I actually have only needed once in my life.

At my current place I'm just using an extension cord to my outdoor outlet and I give it the 1500 watt option. You can even cut that in half if you don't want the "my this cord is warm.." effect.

In the end, the slower charge is the better charge, so my laziness has been winning. I don't see installing a 230vac socket any time soon given how well it's been working.

I've got an older phev that originally only got 14 miles of pure electric @ up to 79 mph, it's battery is down to about 9 miles expected. And that isn't a lot, but it is enough for 90% of my trips around town. Where you REALLY see this working well is if you have to go out every day to pick something or someone up locally. The amount of fuel burned on warmup cycles and local trips is not insubstantial.

The gas tank needle just LOVES to move with every small trip otherwise.

I sometimes go months without buying gas using that tiny miniscule range.

the question I can never find anyone answering is pretty straightforward.

is it cheaper paying the electricity for charging? I can't imagine it is, but while everyone talks about things like only having to gas up once every 4 months now, it's not as if the electricity comes for free.

There are several people in this thread explaining it is about 10x cheaper.

A base Tesla 3 is 70kWh * 5¢/kWh (my Toronto overnight rate) is ~$3.50 CAD for ~400km range. Gas in my Volvo C30 would be 400km * 8l/100km * $1/l = $32 CAD.

If you drive every day, a plugin-electric can save you a LOT of money. And that's before the savings in oil, brakes, and other maintenance.

I'm stuck with street parking, so it is much less appealing to me.

EVs still have brakes.

Yes, but they wear slower since more energy is captured instead of wearing the rotors and pads.

> There are several people in this thread explaining it is about 10x cheaper.

Well, no. It depends on all the variables. It may or may not be cheaper.

Your case is quite extreme with nearly free electricity! Sure, EV will be cheaper to run for sure.

Here in California with overnight rates around 30c/kWh and day rates over 70c/kWh, the numbers come out different.

Ouch. I forget how mad California is. No wonder rooftop solar is so attractive.

Peak rates are ~20¢/kWh here, but there is a largish fixed per-customer monthly hit for various debts and obligations. And people regularly complain we're the highest cost province in Canada. 70¢/kWh (in BIG dollars!!!) is just insane.

It's "free" if you have excess solar energy you're not burning on something else.

It’s not free, you have to include the price of the solar panels you bought excess of in the cost because you can just remove those and sell them if they’re not needed. You essentially installed greater solar capacity to fuel an EV, so not free!

Selling solar panels is going to recover very little of the cost. Most of the cost is the labor and permitting. A lot of the rest is the wiring and inverters. Might as well use the excess power you generate to run a space heater/crypto miner, or net-meter it to the grid.

You could’ve avoided buying them. Point is, you can’t ignore the cost of something and proclaim that charging your EV is free.

Average US price for electricity is ~$.15/kwh. A Model 3 will use ~330 wh/mile at highway speeds, and if you charged _very_ inefficiently (level 1), you'd see gross of around 360 wh/mile.

Compared to a gas car that can get 40 mpg on the highway this works out to: 40 mpg == 1 gallon == ~$2.85 (current price here) == 0.07125/mile EV == .360 * .15 == .054/mile

Of course, if you have time of use rates, you might pay half that for the EV. If you drive in town, your efficiency might be more like 270wh/mile too.

Similarly, that MPG is... very arbitrary. But the bottom line is that most people are getting a significantly lower $/mile purely on energy usage.

Gasoline is very expensive. If it wasn't so expensive, we'd burn it to make electricity.

We do, it's called an alternator.

Well, yeah, and people use gas generators in remote places occasionally. But I meant at utility scale. :)

> is it cheaper paying the electricity for charging?

EV promoters will say it is always cheaper but you need to do the math. Depends on your fuel cost vs. electricity costs vs. your gas car mileage.

For example my first EV (Fiat 500) was more expensive to run than my gas car that got over 40MPG. This is in CA with extremely high PG&E electricity rates (but also high fuel costs).

So, it depends.

Also if you use public chraging stations they usually charge a premium for profit. You can see your local charging station rates on e.g. chargepoint website. Use the actual numbers and do the math to be sure.

> How I'd find someone to do this work on my garage, and how much it would cost is a huge unknown, and that's just enough friction to simply not consider getting an EV.

Car dealerships will sell the hookups and have connections with local companies who will install for you. No effort required on your part .

Plug it into any AC outlet. I gain around 50 miles overnight, which is plenty for my commute/errands.

I suppose it depends on the length of your commute and what vehicle, but I’ve found that a standard Level 1 charger plugged into a regular outlet, if plugged in all of the time, was more than enough for daily EV commuting. Slow charging is also better for the battery. A lot of people likely don’t need a high powered charger install.

> Slow charging is also better for the battery.

My understanding is that this is largely a myth, at least with modern BEVs with intercooled battery packs. My understanding is that modern battery packs can Level 2 charge with no additional degradation, because they don't get any hotter than during a Level 1 charge.

Level 3 charging is different, but even then, the degradation in battery life isn't as much as you think -- I've heard numbers as low as just 3% faster degradation.

That makes sense, my experience is with a first gen VW e-golf which just has plain batteries- no cooling.

I actually do that with my phone- I use a fast charger with a peltier cooler, that can rapidly charge the phone while keeping it cold. Family/friends think I'm crazy for caring about it, lol

If you own a home, you should learn how to locate local trade workers you can trust. You're going to need an electrician eventually, might as well find one before an emergency.

Charging at home is difficult compared to driving to a gas station?

This is all moot. Sodium ion and lfp and newer battery techs will increase range and drop the initial purchase price of EVs under what an ICE can compete with

Some snap in time clickbait article won't change the technological tsunami. Even if the US drags it's feet, the rest of the world will eagerly adopt them. EVs promise energy independent and cheap transport combined with wind / solar.

Every automaker knows this to differing levels of organizational denial, but they all feel it coming.

You realize this isn’t the first EV hype cycle yes? They’ve been tried before and as the article states the early adopter market is saturated worldwide.

There are some very real problems that can’t be solved by battery tech, and only by removing the battery and switching to an alternative fuel source.

The only reason EVs are succeeding now given all their shortcomings is because we’re being forced into them. Remove that force and I don’t see EVs seeing mass adoption.

Oh there were 400 mile cars cheaper than ice cars before?

Look Tesla can already build EVs at price parity with ices, they are currently sitting here n their profit margin. This isn't a hype cycle, Chinese EV makers and battery suppliers have 200+ wh/kg lfp and 150 wh/kg sodium ion in mass production scaling.

This isn't a hype cycle, there are entire car companies in mass production with equal to ice costs now, and the cheaper than ice can ever be is in production scaling.

Yes it won't be over night, but if you are doing production planning, financing, stock prediction and other 5-10 year planning, the writing now on the wall.

This is without solid state and sulfur techs. Im only talking about the CATL LFP and sodium ion techs. Those alone will beat ices on cost at initial purchase, to say nothing of cheaper permile "fuel" and maintenance costs.

And keep me n me and wind / solar is STILL dropping in cost, under what any old school power generation method has been. EV costs will only drop.

" Very real problems"

Please name one

> Oh there were 400 mile cars cheaper than ice cars before?

Neither gas nor electric cars got that kind of range when they first launched in the early 1900s. But as is true today, gasoline engines got about 20% more range than the electric and were easy to fill.

> This isn't a hype cycle, there are entire car companies in mass production with equal to ice costs now, and the cheaper than ice can ever be is in production scaling.

As there was before. Entire car companies went out of business because they chose to make electric cars instead of gas.

> Very real problems

I’ll name a few:

Battery decreases range with ambient temperature changes

Cannot refuel outside of a charging station

Battery degrades with every charge

Fire hazard having that much energy in a battery that it’s not an if it will fail but a when

Towing anything

>Charging at home is difficult compared to driving to a gas station?

It absolutely could be. Ever lived in an apartment?

I have a SR+ and have done about a dozen trips from Lake Tahoe to San Diego and back about 10 hours in a ICE car and 11.25 in my SR+

You really should never be charging past 70% (the exception being before climbing in sub freezing temps in the sierras) on road trips and instead plan to make much shorter charging stops more often. I’m normally out of a supercharger in 15-20 min if I precondition the battery before charging and it’s about the time my wife needs to stop for a pee break anyways so it’s kinda great to stop. Use the restroom and be ready to go again. If you are charging 45 min you are doing it so wrong.

This entire idea just underscores the inane mental burden for the average person just to drive their car long distance.

Maybe it would be, if the Tesla nav system didn't do most of that work for me.

Great, now I need to stop even more often...where do I sign up? If your wife has to pee for 15-20 minutes, that often, she should probably see a doctor. Last week I drove my V8 F-150 from Raleigh to near Baltimore Maryland (~310 miles) with 4 adults and a child, a bed full of suitcases and hockey equipment (for a tournament) and we stopped exactly once for coffee. I filled the gas tank in Raleigh, and didn't fill it again until we were almost halfway back to Raleigh on the way home.

Give me 500 miles of realistic range and a 10 minute full-tank "fill-up" in an EV and I'll consider it. Until then, it's simply not going to happen for me.

Yeah that drive already sucks, stopping more than necessary would make it worse. We drive from Raleigh to around State College a few times a year and usually make one stop to eat and stretch our legs. A four year old and a dog sitting around waiting for a charge would add on to that stress.

> shorter charging stops more often

But this is what makes it so painful. You need to map out available working charging station at short intervals which adds a lot of extra driving and stopping.

On a road trip I drive the full range of the gas tank (~450 miles) nonstop and then stop for 5 minutes at the next exit which invariably has a working gas station.

The Supercharger network is cool. But I can go 300ish miles in my class B RV before refueling as opposed to 120ish miles in my Mach E. It's 10 minutes to refuel my RV vs 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on the state of the charger (ElectrifyAmerica) or how long I have to wait. That was how I made the decision to wait for 400 mile range (likely a Silverado F-150 EV and yes I haul stuff, I build things, and my RV makes for a crap pickup truck but I get by) before returning to long range travel with an EV.

A friend circumnavigated the United States in a 300 mile Range Tesla so I don't doubt what's possible here.

>ith only a ~220 mile range the Tesla needs to stop about every 150 miles for 40 minutes which is brutal.

If you ask my Eastern Europe wife, that's pretty much the way she needs to road trip lol. I think if we get it to 3hrs / 15 minutes break it would be perfect. 240km/40 minutes is a bit of a reach.

Your doctor will tell you stop more often than that. I haven't been able to find anything official though, but nobody says more than 2 hours between breaks for health reasons.

> but nobody says more than 2 hours between breaks for health reasons

DOT regulations for truck drivers is something like every 8 hours stop for 30 mins. This is the first I’ve heard stop every 2 hours which would drive me nuts if we were road tripping together.

this is how i road trip generally. i almost never drive more than 3 hours without stopping for coffee/lunch/dinner. And if its more than 300 miles 90% of the time i'm going to fly.

Any time i'm road tripping more than 3 hours i'm trying to find some cute little town along the way to stop in at. Usually these cute little towns have chargers.

I hope you're really good to that cousin. It's damn hard to get time with skilled contractors.

This is the text version of those old infomercials where someone tries to open a jar of pickles and flubs it so badly they end up killing their small dog and going to the hospital with injuries. But for 3 easy payments of $19.99, here's a device that will save your dog and your time!

you're free to describe gassing up as this arduous event that takes all this time, planning, and mental energy, but that doesn't make it true, and while your wife may have anxiety around gas stations, most women don't unless they're gassing up in a strange place late at night. It's generally a non-issue.

You can be pro-EV without trying so hard to vilify gas.

Indeed. All I need to know about gas is that I paid $50 this morning for ~450km of range. While my EV would take multiple charges to get that range, the total cost would be only a few dollars.

On a purely fuel cost/KM basis, but you don’t save money on the long term with an EV. You have to do a LOT of driving to make up the difference between the vehicle costs and infrastructure costs.

I don't know, I really hate gas station trips. It's not, like, a dealbreaker, but if I had a car that I could just plug in in the garage, it would be a fairly sizable improvement. Plus it's expensive as hell, 10 EUR per 100km.

But plugging into a garage outlet isnt available to everyone. Take that garage outlet away and require yourself to go to a location and sit for an hour to charge. Is it still better?

That's a bit of a fallacy, because "a location" will probably be "the place where I parked my car", given how easy it is to transport electricity and how profitable it is to install a cheap charger on the sidewalk. I'd very much rather go to "a location" of "where I happened to park" than a dedicated gas station (which isn't very far, but isn't right where my car is).

> That's a bit of a fallacy, because "a location" will probably be "the place where I parked my car"

Maybe. The closest public charging station to our house is in the parking lot of a semi-abandoned office complex a mile away. It has the best rate but my partner refuses to use it, both for the boredom factor and the isolated location factor.

The second closest is 5 miles away at a Whole Food which yes, the car would be parked there sometimes anyway. But having to spend an extra hour sipping coffee at WF waiting for the car gets old pretty fast.

Sure, that's now (the closest EV charging spot is pretty far away for me too). The convenience factor for "when everyone has EVs" is much larger than the one for "when everyone has gas cars", as in the former, the refuelling station is going to be much closer, on average, than in the latter.

Yes, I can see that becoming the case at some point. For the past decade (the time we've had EVs) and even today, it's not though (at least around here). So EV ownership is still a daily logistical exercise.

True, if you don't have a garage or other way to charge when parked, it's an issue. Over here we have chargers in many super market/mall parking lots, so you can charge while shopping for groceries, which is very convenient.

If you can’t charge at home it’s an issue. Charging while running errands again will not work (what if you do almost everything online? amazon fresh, etc)

The only way this works is reducing 0-100 charge time to 5 mins.

This is the reality for me now. I have a charging station about a mile away, and another a couple miles away. But I’m still supposed to find an additional 1-2 hours per week to charge my vehicle?

I think you've never experienced a long commute without gas stops.

I take 9+ hour trips (1 way, so 9+ back) multiple times per year.

try again.

That isn't even remotely relevant to my comment, in context. :)

I think you are missing the point though.

I haven’t had to ‘go get gas’ for 4 years. People probably argued “getting water from the well isn’t that hard compared to maintaining all this infrastructure”… but none of us want to go back to that. Completely losing a class of chore is freeing, even if it wasn’t that horrible anyway.

For long distance trips, I mostly agree with you. My habit was always to stop every hour to get a drink and stretch legs so it doesn’t bother me as much. For your 11 hr trip, it would probably add 2 hours.

I'm sorry, did you compare walking miles to a well to gassing up a vehicle?

yeah, no. A minor convenience vs running water is not comparable, stop being dishonest.

I'd assume that the parent post compared walking outside your door to a well in your own yard, as used to be the common practice in the countryside, which indeed takes much less time than gassing up a vehicle but obviously not something you'd want to do if you can have indoor plumbing instead.

I hate going to the gas station

> Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time, planning, and mental energy.

I have never seen anyone say fueling a gas car needs planning and mental energy. Unless the first car you ever drove was an EV, it is hard to believe that it NOT almost a second nature to drive to a nearest gas station as soon as your car beeps about remaining mile range. This is greenwashing at its finest.

But it does. Some of us have gotten burned by putting poor-quality gas in our cars. Now I have to make sure I find a "good" gas station. Guess what? Those aren't as plentiful. Usually I have to go out of my way to get to one. That's in the middle of running errands when I have other things to do and don't necessarily have the time to go out of my way to go to a gas station.

I also live in an urban area that seems to have fewer pumps per capita than other urban areas I've visited. This results in lines at the pump, which are exacerbated by automakers not standardizing on which side of the car to place the fuel filler. So cars end up queuing up from two different directions for the pump - and I've seen fights break out over people believing other drivers had cut in front of them at the pump.

Let's not even talk about trying to get gas during rush hour when getting in and out of the station may be problematic and exacerbates all the other problems noted above. So you go home to wait out the traffic but you still have to go back out on a separate trip just to get gas.

So yeah, that requires planning and mental energy. I'd love to get an EV and just come home and plug it in and not worry about it.

For the 2-3 long trips I take per year, I rent a car anyway. That way I upgrade to a nicer, bigger car than I drive on a day-to-day basis, I don't have to worry about breaking down on the trip, and if I do end up buying an EV, I don't have to worry about charging on a trip. It's the way to go.

Yeah, people will say none of this matters, but talk to people in the gas station biz and you find out differently. Which side of the street or traffic circle the station on has a huge impact.

It turns out, even 10-30 seconds during a commute matters to people. I've personally met people who don't like using a particular station that is basically within a subdivision. Why? Because like most drivers, they fuel up more often on the commute home than out, and this station requires turning left onto a residential street.

It is a small annoyance, but it really is nice not having an annoyance. :)

> Yeah, people will say none of this matters, but talk to people in the gas station biz and you find out differently. Which side of the street or traffic circle the station on has a huge impact.

It certainly doesn’t bother me, but given there are people who will drive 100 MPH to save 3 mins on a commute, I can see how some would be impatient and act this way.

> I also live in an urban area that seems to have fewer pumps per capita than other urban areas I've visited. This results in lines at the pump, which are exacerbated by automakers not standardizing on which side of the car to place the fuel filler.

EVs have also not standardized the location of the charging port, and it takes substantially longer to charge an EV vs fuel a gas car, so doesn’t an EV exacerbate your issues here if you don’t have home charging?

Everybody seems to like home charging, which makes sense, but it’s not available to everybody. So what are these people to do? Spend an extra 1-2 hours a week at a charging bay? That’s a hard sell, spending an hour or more per week doing something that used to take 5 mins.

If you don't have home charging then you're probably not driving an EV right now. You're waiting for new battery tech to provide for faster charging. Meanwhile, there's only been about 6% penetration of EV's into the homeowner market so it's not like there isn't growth for years to come just in that market alone.

You didn’t answer the question.

> But it does.

I'm not anti-EV (we're on our third one, over 10 years!) but I'm not a fanboy either, I try to be very objective on them. There's good and there's bad. The expenses are higher than some will want you to believe, but there's benefits.

If you want to promote EVs it's good to be objective. Claiming that filling up a gas car is a major hassle doesn't pass the smell test. Gas stations are everywhere so you never need to plan for it or go out of your way or wait more than 5 minutes.

Doesn't pass the smell test? I commented on the real issues I have and yet you're here saying it doesn't pass the smell test? Who are you to tell me I'm not experiencing the problems I experience?

I can't presume to speak for you, so I assume you are experiencing those things as problems.

However, your experience is so far out of the norm that it does not translate to convincing people to buy an EV. For just about everyone who drives, finding a gas stations and filling up is not something that requires planning or mental energy. It's so easy that it's lost in the noise of daily tasks.

Um, don't fill up at Brand X on the road? My millennial personal trainer said her dating prospects couldn't even change a tire let alone do an oil change, now I understand just how bad the situation was for her until she married a rocket engineer.

Smaller battery EV means slower to charge (until battery tech evolved well). There should be a market for smaller battery EVs for who rarely drive long, so please don't say that every EVs should have big batteries and overkill cooling system.

> For my wife it's also a low-level danger: women find gas stations spooky, apparently

Parking lots are dangerous for women, yes. Purse-snatchers and carjackers exist. They all insist on carrying expensive iPhones that can be fenced, so there goes calling for help. Vehicles themselves are mobile rape cabins (ask Uber) and corpse storage lockers. It's a very vulnerable position for women.

But if your wife thinks a 2-minute refuel at a gas station is bad, wait'll she has to recharge the EV while out and about and can't make it to Walmart.

Some of those recharging lots make illicit gay cruising spots feel like Disney World-- we're talking an empty parking lot in a wooded area behind an office building after-hours, with nobody around to hear you scream.

I don't feel comfortable sitting around there.

> Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time, planning, and mental energy

Is there something about that RAv4 vehicle that makes fueling difficult? I have a Lexus, generally it tells me “hey! I’m low on fuel” so I stop at the next convenient gas station I see, fill it with gas in about 5 mins, and I am back on my way to wherever. Sometimes when I am feeling particularly rebellious, I happen to be driving by a gas station even before the car is low on fuel, and I stop and top it off in a few minutes and then am on my way to wherever.

Also, sometimes I’m driving and want a cup of coffee and stop at a coffee shop too…

er... I'm pretty pro-ev, but I don't think you can reasonably generalize feeling so put-upon by the non-financial aspects of getting gas.

Also using a comma3x with a rav4. Checkout frogpilot, it is much better than openpilot.

https://github.com/FrogAi/FrogPilot

I agree: if you a part of a two-parent household, who lives in a home with off-street parking where you can add a charger, the best of both worlds is one EV (Tesla) and one plug-in hybrid (e.g. Prius Prime or Rav 4 Prime). Then you only go to a gas station on longer trips.

What percent of the US population falls into this demographic? And what percent of this demo already has one EV?

> Refuelling the Rav4 is an errand that takes time

Sure.

> , planning

A little.

> , and mental energy.

C'mon now.

If you hate filling up at a gas station and want the convenience of it at home then fill gas cans next time you go and bring them home. You can even keep one in the car for on-the-go refueling, something an EV can’t do.

I drove from Reno to LA recently in a Model Y and my charging stops all lined up with bathroom breaks and food. I never actually waited for the charging process itself. It doesn't take 45min and it's not like I have any interest in sitting for more than 3h-4h straight without stopping at all. I've done plenty of long distance trips with my kids and the Tesla and, really, charging is a non-issue.

The only actual negative I have is that chargers aren't as present in remote locations and if it's not a Tesla charger, it's not real. Also when towing a camper uphill to Yosemite, it was stressful but we made it on top.

As more and more people buy EVs, it's not uncommon that the charging infrastructure is not expanding at the same rate. Many EV owners I know, have all experienced to wait in a line for 15 min charge on a trip. Those that have had a Tesla for 7-8 years all agree that it is a relatively new thing.

The infrastructure will improve and will expand to keep up, but it is one of the teething issues that is slowing mass adoption.

Different strokes, different folks.

I prefer stopping every four hours, and making the stop take less than 10 minutes. Having my EV is very much worth it overall, but it _is_ annoying to add more than an hour for every eight hours of driving.

I'm in good shape and healthy and if I sit and drive for more than 3h straight, my body is quite unhappy with it. It's possible but not a good idea.

I feel the same way and after speaking with many EV people i've realised the main benefit is how cheap they are to run. This comes down to the increase in efficiency compared to an ICE - ~80% of the battery energy finds its way to the wheels on EV's, vs ~30% on an ICE. If you live somewhere where electric costs are very low then a 0 to full charge your EV costs about $10. (Someone please correct me if i'm off on this one)

Depending on your mileage, by saving $3k-$4k a year on gas theres certainly a case to be made for an EV being a more sensible financial decision in the long term especially given government tax incentives

One of the biggest reason for the massive disparity in efficiency on EV's is due to regenerative braking (16-25%). So what's interesting is when you compare an EV to a Hybrid ICE vehicle then the efficiency disparity becomes a lot less and you still have the benefit of being able to take long trips and not needing a home charger.

Anyone thats driven a Hybrid Toyota will tell you that fuel consumption is dramatically less, in my real world scenarios I use about 2.5x less gas in something like a Toyota Corolla Cross compared to my not overly thirsty ICE BMW.

Another benefit to Hybrids is they only require a ~1kWh battery instead of needing a huge 60-70kWh battery like an EV. So you could create 60 or 70 hybrid vehicles for the same amount of lithium mining as one EV.

One has to wonder why the governments aren't just pushing everyone into Hybrids instead of EV's? If a young person was asking me to recommend a car and they didn't have a home charger I wouldn't hesitate to recommend something like a new Toyota HEV / Honda e:hev - they are basically an EV with an on-board Atkinson engine as a powerplant.

EVs are still solidly in the "luxury" category; they're specifically being sold to folks who are not paying attention to the price at the pump in the first place. So I don't understand why "they save you money" is even a selling point at all right now.

Once you see folks replacing their beat-up 1992 Honda Civic with EVs then you'll know that "they save you money" is actually a thing.

A lot of people have weird budgets. So they will think nothing of $1000/month for a car payment, but complain about gas prices that work out to $100/month. They rarely consider that they could get better mileage luxury car for similar monthly payments but using a lot less gas.

Which is to say I do know people who complain about gas prices on their luxury cars.

> EVs are still solidly in the "luxury" category

Not all models. With the tax rebate, a Tesla 3 costs nearly the same as a Camry, so does the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt. If you want a Polestar or Mach-e, sure, then your in BMW/Merc price range.

Pricing from manufacturer websites just now. Base Camry is $26,420, base Model 3 is $38,990(apparently not tax rebate eligible) and the base Model Y is $36,490(after $7500 tax rebate).

Best case comparison there is a $10,070 difference between the Camry and a Tesla.

$10k is a LOT of money to average Americans living paycheck to paycheck. In percentages that's 38% more than the Camry! That's before considering larger loan balances to pay 7% on, since the poor average American won't have that kind of cash. This is almost on par with saying that Whole Foods is the same price as H-E-B or Kroger!

The 3 was eligible for the 7500 tax rebate until a few days ago (Dec 31) so only a few thousand more than the Camry which is easily made up in gas savings (if charging at home) and lower maintenance cost. Over 3 years comes to about the same. However, once you compare feature parity, the 3 was (with rebate) cheaper than the Camry because for the Camry you have to add on option packs to get the same safety features available in the 3 (like blind spot monitoring, backup camera warning, etc.; very important to us), not to mention other features like moonroof etc. You'd have to get the Camry XLE to start matching features (and even that doesn't have the moonroof) and the Hybrid version has a starting MSRP of $32970.

Obviously if your only concern is cost then yes, an ICE is the cheapest option, especially if you get a Corolla or Civic. But if you want more features, EVs are fairly competitive price wise esp once you factor in the gas savings over 3-5 years.

There are also cheaper EV models like the Leaf, Bolt.

I have a 2021 Chevy Bolt, it is not a luxury car, it was hella cheap. My sister-in-law drives for Uber/Lyft and bought a Tesla model 3 because the total cost of ownership is lower than any gas car

Edmunds would disagree with you, showing the Tesla costing almost $20k more to own than a Honda Accord:

https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-3/2020/cost-to-own/

https://www.edmunds.com/honda/accord/2023/cost-to-own/

>I have a 2021 Chevy Bolt, it is not a luxury car, it was hella cheap.

For an EV, maybe. Still more expensive than a Honda Civic.

> the main benefit is how cheap they are to run

This is a pretty weak main benefit as ICE cars are already cheap to run. At 12k miles/year, 30 MPG, and $3.20/gallon you are only talking $1300/year in fuel.

According to AAA, taking fuel, maintenance, repair, and tires into account someone driving 15k miles a year would only save $330. Given the cost premium on an EV over a comparable ICE car, I’m not sure you would ever come out ahead, although the cost gap is admittedly shrinking.

There's a section on XKCD 980's chart for that - https://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-2004&y=-6294&z=6

While it's a bit dated, you can see the parts with the cost difference and the "if gas was this much".

You can see some things like the Honda Insight (hybrid) has a slightly lower 5 year cost of ownership than the Honda Fit (ICE).

It would be curious to do an update of that part of the chart for current models.

> If you live somewhere where electric costs are very low then a 0 to full charge your EV costs about $10.

It's not that simple because "full" means something very different in a Cybertruck (123kWh battery) vs a base Ioniq 6 (53kWh battery).

Likewise the fuel economy is dramatically different with the Cybertruck at 2 miles/kWh Vs the Ioniq 6 at 4.6 miles/kWh.

Assuming a cheap electricity rate of $.15/kWh, the Cybertruck will cost $.07/mile to drive.

The Ioniq will cost $.03/mile.

The regular hybrid Prius gets 56 mpg. At the cheapest current (i.e. Texas) gas price of $3/gallon, it would cost $.05/mile to operate.

It will be far less performant than either the Cybertruck or the Ioniq 6, though.

> One of the biggest reason for the massive disparity in efficiency on EV's is due to regenerative braking (16-25%). So what's interesting is when you compare an EV to a Hybrid ICE vehicle then the efficiency disparity becomes a lot less and you still have the benefit of being able to take long trips and not needing a home charger.

The disparity is still around 28%, which when talking about efficiency is pretty big.

> Another benefit to Hybrids is they only require a ~1kWh battery instead of needing a huge 60-70kWh battery like an EV. So you could create 60 or 70 hybrid vehicles for the same amount of lithium mining as one EV. > One has to wonder why the governments aren't just pushing everyone into Hybrids instead of EV's?

We aren't lithium constrained, we are battery manufacturing capacity constrained. One goal of the IRA (and its EV incentives) is stimulating the build-out of a domestic battery manufacturing supply chain. That battery production capacity is a strategic asset, not just for cars, but also for stationary storage. It's a win-win for energy security and decarbonization.

There are also plugin hybrids that use smaller batteries, but let you use either/both electricity and gasoline (albeit with an efficiency penalty on both drivetrains).

Also, 67% of Americans live in single family homes (mostly suburbia), many with an electrical outlet near their parking spot that they can use to charge their cars. These are also the people who drive the most on a per capita basis.

> If a young person was asking me to recommend a car and they didn't have a home charger I wouldn't hesitate to recommend something like a new Toyota HEV / Honda e:hev - they are basically an EV with an on-board Atkinson engine as a powerplant.

Depends on the young person. For one thing, I wouldn't recommend that any young person buy a new car unless they are very financially comfortable. But if you don't have a home charger (or nearby DC fast charging) it's not a matter of a recommendation, but rather a physical requirement to get an ICE car, so it might as well be a hybrid.

The Cybertruck is a bad example, being a car that doesn't really exist (they've sold what, a hundred cars?) and that has at best a tiny niche market (man children living their boyhood dreams of driving a Transformer).

> The Cybertruck is a bad example, being a car that doesn't really exist (they've sold what, a hundred cars?)

Then sub the F150 Lightning or the Rivian and you'll get basically the same numbers.

> and that has at best a tiny niche market (man children living their boyhood dreams of driving a Transformer)

I agree with the customer characterization (although I suspect that number of such people out there is higher) and from an efficiency perspective it's just as bad as it's more conventional looking EV truck competitors.

> i've realised the main benefit is how cheap they are to run

Depends what you value. For me, that's a nice to have. Greater benefits are: never go to a gas station, no oil changes, no fumes, more fun to drive.

> more fun to drive

I’d argue the opposite, but it’s certainly subjective. Driving my sister’s Model 3 was leagues below my cheap little BRZ, and it’s still slower than my motorcycles if I want to accelerate fast. The suspension is crap. Body roll was astoundingly bad and the front end doesn’t want to push you through corners when trail braking. I was excited to drive it, but after 500 miles of backroads and open freeway I firmly believe a cheap sports car is a much better driving experience.

I've never driven a cheap sports car, so I might agree with you. However, my subjective take is, between otherwise similar non-sports cars, the EV is more fun to drive. For a few reasons, I can't realistically have a purely fun car at the moment.

I think, then, you're the perfect target for a well-established EV platform. Don't listen to naysayers, I'm sure you're not a shill l(ike this whole thread seems to think about anyone pro-EV.)

Personally, I'm in a spot where my "perfect car" is a cheap sports car with two seats and a bunch of turbo lag. But I can see the appeal of having main car be an electric horsepower monster with a squishy ride.

BRZ/GR86 are ridiculously fun to drive. There is just no comparison in that price range, other than Miata.

IMO the lack of fumes/exhaust is my favorite part of owning an EV. Sure there are some downsides with EVs (more expensive to buy, less range, lack of public charging infrastructure) but those don’t impact me and I’d gladly take the negatives for a car that doesn’t smell every time I park it in my garage.

There is no lack of fumes. They are somewhere else, that's all.

Coal and oil power stations have scrubbers to remove organic and sulphurous compounds from the chimney.

In most developed countries, coal and oil is a small part of power generation which continues to decline.

Even if that was true, it's still an improvement.

The resounding success of sewer systems shows that that's a huge improvement.

> If you live somewhere where electric costs are very low then a 0 to full charge your EV costs about $10.

I rented a Tesla Model 3 recently. From 40% to 98% cost me $7 CAD and I was able to drive from Vancouver to Tacoma, WA on a single charge and arrived with 20% battery. In the Seattle suburbs it cost a bit more, $13 USD, to go from 20% to 90% due to a supercharger station having issues so demand was higher at the next closest one.

$7 to go 175mi(283km) sold me on an EV as my next car. I never felt like I would be stranded and when the battery is conditioned for fast charging by time you pop in somewhere to use the bathroom and grab a coffee or snacks you're pretty much good to go.

>by time you pop in somewhere to use the bathroom and grab a coffee or snacks you're pretty much good to go.

I really think these comments are just EV driver rationalization. You really spend 30-45 minutes at a rest stop on road trips? When we take road trips we spend almost no time stopped. Even if we're eating, it's in the car. I can't even imagine stopping multiple times for 30-45 minutes to recharge, that is not the same as "going to the bathroom and grabbing a snack". That takes like 5 mins tops, the rest is just wasting time you could be on the road.

I think the point is that one group of people is imagining a change and saying, “That change will be intolerable!” And then another group is actually experiencing the change and saying, “Hey, it’s actually pretty good.” You won’t know how you really feel about it until you try it yourself, and speculating about the second group won’t net you any benefit.

It’s quite simple really, there’s a wrong group who disagrees with me, and a right one who agrees. Not sure what all the debate is about to be honest.

20 minutes every 6 hours is absolutely minimum for me, if not more often. That’s to stretch, relax, walk around. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do that. But this is in Europe where distances are smaller.

Seriously? If I take a shit, it's more than 5 minutes itself. Waiting in line to buy coffee or a donut, let alone eat (I guess if you are in a real hurry eat in your car, but don't you want a break???). Just doing a lap of the parking lot to stretch my legs. Even if that's just 25 minutes, that's still quite a bit of charge. That said I'll still choose a bus or train over a car trip any day I can, but yeah..

45 minutes is only if you are trying to charge over 80% which you don’t actually want to do. Unlike gas tanks that have a consistent fill rate, batteries are like a sponge where near empty the charge/fill rate is much much faster than when it’s nearly full. 20% to 80% is about 10 /15 minutes depending on how new the super charger station is. This gives you about another 3 hours of normal highway driving or so depending on conditions like temperature, 70mph+ and how hilly/windy the drive is. However, if you time the stop around meal times then you can take 45 minutes to charge to fill while you are eating at a restaurant.

Sadly, it is true most non Tesla chargers are terrible and require you make an account/give up personal information first and are not maintained well. Tesla does as well but the stations are maintained and the account signup happens when you buy the car so you just plug it in and charge.

There needs to be a just a pay and fill chargers like gas pumps but that doesn’t fly with todays VC vultures.

Electrify America was built by Volkswagen as punishment for the diesel scandal. They have zero interest in maintaining them.

> 45 minutes is only if you are trying to charge over 80% which you don’t actually want to do. Unlike gas tanks that have a consistent fill rate, batteries are like a sponge where near empty the charge/fill rate is much much faster than when it’s nearly full. 20% to 80% is about 10 /15 minutes depending on how new the super charger station is. This gives you about another 3 hours of normal highway driving or so depending on conditions like temperature, 70mph+ and how hilly/windy the drive is. However, if you time the stop around meal times then you can take 45 minutes to charge to fill while you are eating at a restaurant.

Great so instead of just filling to 100% and using that until it runs out now I have to think and plan the next few hundred miles and charge accordingly.

EVs are making less and less sense.

So you're stopping every 3 hours for 15 minutes? So a 10 hour road trip includes 45 minute waiting for your vehicle to charge? And that assumes the chargers are immediately free. That sounds horrible to me.

The mental gymnastics these people do to make themselves feel good about waiting longer to fuel up their EVs to go shorter distances vs filling up ICEs is impressive.

I'm not ready to drink the Kool-aid. Give me an 800 mile range EV. Then and only then will I not care if it takes an hour to charge to 100% because I'm unlikely to be able to drive farther than that in a day. I've had to drive nearly that distance once and it was miserable and I'll never do it again without breaking it up into overnight stays at a hotel.

I also usually rent a car for the same trip, but am quite happy to continue renting every single time. $150 for the couple of days I usually leave for, maybe at most 3 times a year, and maybe $80 in gas. Saves me like $2000/year minimum. Buying a car hasn't seemed sensible since moving to Vancouver, because the transit is so good, and I'm not rich and don't want the liability of owning one when the job market disappears (now).

Not that there aren't reasons to own one here mind you, surely a long and unwieldy commute might do it, but then you're probably in Delta or a suburb, which was my situation when I last had one; after it was crashed, I just didn't buy another and realized that I used it more because I had it rather than having it to help me go distances I'd need to anyway.

I think the savings argument often misses the context of discount rate: the NPV of the savings is a lot less than the total savings, especially with high interest rates.

> Anyone thats driven a Hybrid Toyota will tell you that fuel consumption is dramatically less, in my real world scenarios I use about 2.5x less gas in something like a Toyota Corolla Cross compared to my not overly thirsty ICE BMW.

well that depends on the ICE car and your driving behaviour. E.g. VW group turbo 4 cylinders from ~5y ago are very efficient. I drive a 5yo Seat Leon ST (basically like a slightly smaller Golf Variant, e.g. a typical European hatchback), and mostly at highway speeds with some mountain driving also. With this I get ~45-47mpg or ~5.0-5.2l/100km. A hybrid would maybe get me up to 50mpg but not much more, as highway speeds are not really where they gain you much. They're great for the occasional shopping run, but where I live those are max. 20min driving both ways, so not that much of an impact either.

Absolutely! But most ICE vehicles people drive don’t get anywhere near that type of mileage because we tend to be buying much larger heavier cars. Hybrids help a lot of people get god level mpg and the reduced running costs without needing to go all in on electric

As "someone with a Toyota hybrid": I consistently use about 1l/100km than that. (The dash keeps a "best milage" number, which is 3.8l/100km for me right now.

At some point it becomes bike shedding, but a 20% reduction (from 5l to 4l) is still impressive to me.

Indeed. Is that also at highway speeds? And what generation is it, I’m guessing a Prius? Afaik e.g. a Corolla with comparable trunk space as my Leon doesn’t get that low.

Nope, a 2013 Yaris (XP13).

To be fair I am mostly on rural roads (70-100 km/h) during my commute. But if I am not doing WFH I M doing 100km per day and with our family car that equated to >10€ Gas per day.

So getting a used car with great milage was a reasonable decision to me.

I tend to keep my Vehicles longer than most people, currently I drive a 2015 model.

All that savings goes out the window if I am hit with with $40,000 to $60,000 repair bill to change the battery, even if my entire drive chain goes out in my ICE I am looking at probably $5,000 and that rarely happens.

batteries 100% will need replaced, and ICE can go decades with no major issues

Except global warming.

I have never and will never make a purchasing choice based on global warming

Why?

Because greenwashing with batteries mined by children and vegan soy-based food from toxic crops are just a way for snobs for virtue signaling.

You might want to look into the science a bit more. The carbon burn is already having consequences all over the place. Transportation and energy are about 65 percent of the emissions, and solar, batteries, and electric vehicles are pretty simple ways to mitigate the harms. Cows are only about six percent of emissions, so relatively less important.

I don’t understand why this simple physical problem of absorbing more infrared radiation has become confused with class warfare. I don’t think the US manufactured batteries are more tied up in child,labor than like regular clothes and chocolate, and ending child labor across the globe is mostly independent of how we power transportation and energy.

There is a lot of greenwashing, but actually converting sectors of the economy to non-fossil fuel is not an example of that.

Just read a great book about this - Apocalypse Never. It's mostly just alarmism and white guilt mongering.

How much is the environmental cost of a new battery vs environmental cost of gasoline hold up?

Otherwise we are just shifting where the pollution is happening.

One needs to distinguish carbon dioxide and methane from your run of the mill toxic chemical pollution. It isn't a linear sum of "pollutants" but different substances with different effects.

The grid not being able to handle recharging electric cars in every home, does not agree with your purist stance. Switching to hybrid vehicles, or an efficient generator at home, would be a responsible stopgap.

https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/208891-2016-12-14-darpa...

For sure. But “stopgap” isn’t keeping a car for twenty years despite the flooding and storms and heat waves and that sort of thing over those decades. Moving some stuff to hybrids for a while isn’t a terrible idea. As well, moving some trips onto small electrics like bikes or tuk tuks. Lot of ways to mitigate the problem. My purist stance isn’t “do it my way only” but “gas burning has a major issue”.

Since I grew up and left home, my dad kept using an inefficient freezer from the 1950's, my own family went through 5 of the newfangled energy-saving freezers, prompting me to question the environmental friendliness of most modern appliances, and cars.

Remember to factor in the supply chain, and shipping costs.

If we keep burning the fossil fuels we are going to keep increasing the temperatures. If we switch the power plant the freezer is plugged into to power the freezer and the powerplant the factory making freezers is plugged into, and replace the trucks moving the freezers around, we improve the odds of a nice world in fifty years, regardless of whether or not the freezer is low tech cheap junk or not.

As "somebody who just bought a 2013 Toyota Yaris Hybrid":

Full EVs are for some selected few... Here in Germany it's just homeowners with PV already installed. I did the math before deciding on the hybrid and literally everybody else is paying more for electricity (at 0.4€/kWh) and is producing more CO2 (at avg. 400g/kWh).

I really pity the guys in their Dacia Spring SUVs in the supermarket parking lots (at 0.6€/kWh) who bought a EV to "do the right thing" here.

(That said, that's a problem very unique to Germany ... Most countries around us have cheaper electricity and a smaller CO2 footprint per kWh.)

> If you live somewhere where electric costs are very low then a 0 to full charge your EV costs about $10. (Someone please correct me if i'm off on this one)

Our utility offers very cheap prices at night, so our Tesla 3 costs $2.25 to fully charge vs. $55-70 for our Forester.

Also, maintenance is cheaper on EVs.

I don’t think I’ve ever done a 45 minute charge stop in many trips between California and faraway places including Colorado, Montana, and Texas. These are not day trips. People read stuff and just believe it without questioning. Most of my charge stops are much quicker than what you think. 10 minutes usually. Sometimes 20 or more ahead of a long desert stretch where gas stations are also few and far between, but usually 10.

The most priceless thing though is safety for your family. I read about accidents people had in their nice 5 year old gas cars, and it’s just sad to me that they didn’t see the options for what they were, and could have easily afforded a much safer car, but instead based their choices on bad information about supposed long charging times and supposed long lines at chargers.

I'm sorry I was with you until you started talking about safety? Gas cars are not inherently unsafe. Yes, a lot of EVs have very high crash safety ratings but I'd be willing to bet a volvo is safer overall even if tesla has managed to game some scores. I will admit that evs typically have a much lower rollover risk, but frankly stability control will not let you drive a car beyond it's limits. Even a hulking SUV is pretty hard to rollover these days.

I'm sure Volvos are safe (definitely far behind Tesla though, I've owned both) but now knowing that Volvo is a China owned company, I would never buy one for that reason, nothing to do with safety.

Kind of like how tesla is a musk owned company. I would never buy one for that reason.

From what I can tell Elon is actually a good guy. I think he gets a bad rap because a lot of people believe everything they read and regurgitate it without question. They almost never provide specifics — your comment is a case in point — and if they do it’s totally trivial stuff where he’s just being a person. We’re all imperfect; he’s just more open.

Spoken like an Elon.

Another perfect case in point! Good one.

I had a bet with my partner if leaving this comment would attract Elon apologist fans and how many. Theres only one of you which means I lost 5$. Damn you.

In all seriousness I really wish SpaceX and Starlink werent associated with Musk because they are amazing. Tesla less so, Teslas are mostly a status symbol.

People absolutely provide specifics. How about the times he keeps firing people who disagree with him? Or when he sexually assaults people? Is that “just being a person”?

The first one, he has the right to fire jerks. So that’s kind of a non-issue. Happens in every company, but when he does it, it makes the news.

The second one is just a vague smear; I don’t know where you got that one but it sounds made up. Or you may be confusing him with someone else.

That’s about all people pull out. Smears, unfounded and unsourced and decontextualized accusations, stories of lawsuits filed by what seem like bad actors looking for a payday, etc., no substance.

Perhaps without meaning to, you have amplified my point.

Considering that I the first, second, third, …basically every result for a search of “Elon Musk sexual assault” references the incident in question, your claim that you have no idea what I’m talking about either shows that you’re playing dumb or not willing to do a single search to look up what other people are talking about. Why are you surprised when people push back on you saying he’s basically a great guy? Of course you’ll have that viewpoint if you ignore everything that points to the opposite being true or just never look at it. If you’re going to make the argument that Elon just has gamer moments or is constantly being vilified by the media I think that’s also completely false but at least it’s possible to respond to. If you’re going to go “look I don’t even know what you’re talking about” I don’t see how there’s anything more to discuss.

…alleged* incident. I had forgotten about that story since it was so thoroughly debunked right there in the article itself. But go ahead and believe anything you want, that’s your right.

Next youre going to tell me he engineered and designed Tesla, Falcon Heavies and Starship.

It is always the same with you Musk fanatics. Is it an appeal to authority thing because hes rich? What is it about Musk in particular that makes people of a certain bent feel the need to appear out of the woodwork and defend his honor?

Look up neitzschian slave morality.

But it’s the reverse of what you’re talking about. It’s what drives the baseless critics of Elon. You can see the level of emotion by their use of words like “fanatics” to describe people who dare to so much as suggest thinking for yourself.

What drives the fans? Or “fanatics” as you say? I guess just annoyance at people still channeling so much money to the likes of MBS. We should be moving past that world, not supporting companies that are doubling down on it.

Also annoyance at the Karens of the world. Live and let live. Appreciate humor. Lighten up. If you’re not onboard with helping big projects that improve things, fine, but it shouldn’t be some big unfathomable mystery why some of us do appreciate i.

Agreed :) I've driven a Wrangler since I got my drivers license (nearly a decade ago) and I am just waiting for the day I am side swiped or my car rolls over due to some unforseen accident. Whether it's my fault or not. I love my car but the safety ratings are abysmal and I for one look forward to the day I have a savings high enough to afford a safe EV.

Man, I miss my TJ. I now have a family car with excellent crash ratings. Take the top off and enjoy it while you can :P

Safety is great in EVs until a battery pops and it takes a 3 alarm fire crew and 36,000 gallons of water to put it out.

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2024/01/02/unusual...

> “This was a first for Autauga County,” the fire department wrote. “Electric vehicle fires are unusual and present unique challenges and dangers to firefighters.” The smoke from these types of fires contains toxic gases such as hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen chloride, officials said. The batteries can also reignite even after they blaze has been put out, the fire department added.

"I read about accidents people had in their nice 5 year old gas cars" So the question becomes why is "I've read about" a valid response and how does it stand up against "I read about how dangerous EVs are in a random article somewhere online sometime"?

Now post a link abut how often fires happen in gas vehicles versus EVs.

"I read about" is only part of my response, and the rest of my response speaks for itself. One does have to poke beyond what one reads.

Poke beyond the dramatic headlines and you see that if EV batteries ever burn, which they usually don't even in accidents, they always make the news, but they burn slowly, giving occupants ample time to get away assuming they avail themselves of the easily grasped and intuitively placed manual door releases.

Fires happen less often with EVs... but if they are 20x worse and spew worse toxic chemicals? Then how is it "better"? People get away slower but in exchange for batteries that cost tens of thousands to replace? Strip mining to get the rare earth minerals? etc.

"one has to poke" definitely... which is why the "i read" line really stands out as a limited comment which I am poking at. The notion that EVs are "better" is an interesting view considering the cost to make, the dangers and the waste left behind.

The crossover point is 1.5 years of use.

1.5 years to have spent less on gas compared to electricity is what I assume you're saying... YOU get paid back for getting a car marked down by government programs that make the car cost less than it should and in exchange you have a vehicle that will be last a lot less because the batteries can't be affordably replaced.

I question that assertion as most of the math that I've seen behind those equations gloss over the creation of "green" tech (battery creation is not green. megatons of windmill blades in landfills is not green. unrecyclable stuff, etc). It also glosses over the long tail problems (recycling, or to be more accurate the lack of).

I'm not buying that assertion because it's pointing at a tree and ignoring the forest of problems. Its a rosy glass tinted answer designed to ignore the greater conversation.

No, for pollution. You spend less than on gas on day one, and your car doesn’t stink to boot. Gas cars stink and cost more. You can get a Model 3 for less than a Corolla now.

>less on gas compared to electricity

I think you had a typo there, it is backwards.

Cars are recycled all the time. Nothing new there. If you’re thinking of batteries, one, they don’t need to be replaced for hundreds of thousands of miles, and two, it is affordable, and, for recycling of materials in batteries, JB Straubel who used to be an executive at Tesla has a startup that is solving that problem cold. A lithium battery is one of the richest sources of lithium out there; there’s no way they would not be recycled now that we have scale.

Shit is real.

"its backwards" Probably but we both got the idea I was pushing - which I stand behind. The cost in electricity vs gas does tilt towards electricity but that excludes the cost creating and the lack of recycling options.

"recycling happens all the time" Sure for some stuff... but electronics are not in a good spot on recycling.

https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-re...

2-5% of batteries are recycled. in 2019. You think the numbers have gone up that far? I don't think so.

That's not counting the environmental damange done getting "the most richest sources" into a usable state.

"no way" I'm talking reality... not could be. should be. will be.

Is.

Today? Shit isn't recycled. IE: Windmill blades

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...

One of the key pieces of the green "solution" is filling up landfills with megatons of unrecyclable material.

And that's not talking about the "cheap" batteries.

https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-car-battery-cost-re...

Batteries are expensive. Insurance is expensive. Getting materials is expensive (and destructive). Recycling electronics and batteries is expensive (and thus filling up landfills).

I'm sorry but at the end of the day? The "solution" of green tech is no solution so far. It's simply promises and ignoring the problems because gas "stinks".

"Shit is real" my above statement is real as are the problems with "green".

> The most priceless thing though is safety for your family. I read about accidents people had in their nice 5 year old gas cars, and it’s just sad to me that they didn’t see the options for what they were, and could have easily afforded a much safer car, but instead based their choices on bad information about supposed long charging times and supposed long lines at chargers.

Huh? On what basis do you believe EVs on the market today are safer than their ICE counterparts?

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/top-safety-picks

It all depends on how much importance you put on those few road trips per year. With an EV those few road trips definitely take slightly more time, but the rest of the year (assuming you can charge at home or work) you never go to a gas station or charging station and almost certainly save vastly more time over the entire year.

I’m in that first group too and I bought a new car in 2023. I went ICE ultimately because I didn’t see many electric options I would want. Cars are part fashion so I wanted to “like it”. But I also mostly car about reliability and longevity as I usually buy new but keep for 10-12 years and don’t want the inconvenience of maintenance beyond the routine stuff. In the past, this put me in a Honda/Toyota but this time I was open and even wanted something more luxurious/expensive.

Most EVs are just unproven in my opinion. Just because it says Mercedes, nice test drive I don’t want to be their EV Guinea pig in terms of long term ownership. Companies like Rivian, cool but way too new for me to even blink an eye at. This basically left me with Tesla as an only option. If you do any research at all you’ll hear/see how hit and miss their build quality is. Seems worse on certain models, but ultimately I also know too much about Musk’s management style and it does the opposite of instilling confidence in the product. I also happen to just not “like” the interior/dash setup. So, I just felt like I was sacrificing /risking too much with EV. The other issue in some cases, the EV has been announced with a release date and accepting deposits but I couldn’t actually purchase one like I needed/wanted too; Too much friction in 2023.

I ended up in a Lexus. Basically the luxury Toyota. So i essentially kept my purchasing behavior unchanged due to not finding any compelling EV, but i kicked some EV tires.

Don't get a Mercedes if you want reliable. Spoken from second hand experience at least.

Toyota and Lexus are hard to beat.

Yeah I have that long standing impression too. Heard a lot of bad stories over the years on all the German manufacturers except maybe VW. It was something I considered sacrificing on as it seems the be a luxury tax of sorts. They do make more luxurious vehicles than Lexus, but it’s pretty marginal IMO after consideration even on their ICE vehicles. I’d probably have gone with a loaded GM/Ford over a German vehicle. Domestic manufactures also have a dealership problem though. They are the sleeziest of them all and I just really get turned off by it. Also, I didn’t need a tank in the Yukon but also didn’t like their smaller SUVs as much.

Curious if you looked at any PHEV options?

Once I had a shortlist, I looked into the option. I think 2 offered it, including the Lexus model I ended up with, however there was no actual inventory available and IIRC it would have taken 6-12 additional months to actually get one. Supply chain issues were still present and I had already been avoiding/delaying my purchase for about 2 years because of that. I most likely would have chosen that option had it been available in a more reasonable time span.

> I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car.

With fast charging you typically only stop for 15-25 minutes, the infotainment or app does the planning for you, and the frequency you'll have to stop at matches the natural frequency people typically need to stop anyways by design.

"It only takes 5x longer to charge at some specific charging stations that may or may not be conveniently located for your trip, I don't know what's the big deal"

I can see how EV cars are good options for people who live in the city and only go grocery shopping, but for people who have family scattered around the country / continent with young children or babies, it sounds extremely inconvenient.

I have personally found Supercharging to be too fast at times. Multiple times I've had to unplug and move the car because it finished charging before I was ready to leave the restaurant/store. I think people underestimate how long they spend stopped on road trips.

> I've had to unplug and move the car because it finished charging before I was ready to leave the restaurant/store

And you bring this up as an advantage of EVs, it's mind blowing.

Not so much an advantage, but a counterpoint to the misinformation that says EVs take 45+ minutes to charge on a Level 3 charger. And also to counter the false belief (present only in EV debates, strangely enough) that the average stop on a road trip is ~2 minutes.

Agree, the average stop is not 2 minutes even with a car, it's not what I was saying. I'm saying that quite often, though, it is really only 2 minutes, and in my opinion, in those scenarios having to deal with a 20 min forced wait time is annoying, and people insisting that "having a nice meal next to the Supercharger" is a valid counterargument is annoying.

Sure, if EVs work out for you, that's awesome, but let's not pretend that the 20 minutes wait time cannot be a disadvantage for some people.

As opposed to taking so long that you can go shopping and have a sit down restaurant meal?

He gets a gold medal in the EV mental gymnastics olympics!

Can one drive continuously without rest stops for more than a couple of hours with children in the car? Even when I'm driving alone, 2 hours is absolutely the limit before my knees force me to stop and stretch my legs for a bit. As long as the charging locations are numerous enough and have all the facilities that people with many children need, isn't it easier to just do both at once? If there are not enough reliable charging points with restaurants, bathrooms, etc., I understand your objection.

I can go longer and I could force the kids to go longer but the overall mood is crankier than with more frequent stops.

This isn’t really an EV topic but a philosophy of life topic: do you plan to have a relaxed time or do you push thru to minimize your metrics. Funny these people seem to end up in couples.

Tho, on the EV topic, my son now borrows the Tesla for roads trips and has discovered that long trips are faster going 65 than 75 or 80 or whatever he was doing because the increased efficiency cuts down on total charge time. He has been showing up to places early. It’s weird.

Sigh. As someone who just made two different 27 hour drives across the country in the last 6 months, I can tell you this is completely fine. Driving on major US highways you will always be able to plan it out and find one. Plus, I took longer breaks of that size anyway because every 2-3 hours I needed to get out of the car and stretch. Having forced time to get out of the car for a longer trip would have been beneficial for me.

And what if I want to drive on roads that are not one of the handful of major highways?

And what if, unlike you, I can manage to sit down for more than 2-3 hours?

The mental gymnastics are so weird to read. It's like .. for a horrible analogy, you're trying to defend a power drill which no longer drills, by saying "well hey, it works just fine, as long as you want to use it as a hammer and not as a drill, and hey, having to rotate it manually to actually screw something in is actually a good thing because it's good exercise".

I drove Chicago->SF recently. I had to stop for bathroom breaks before gas ran out. And then you might as well fill up the gas and get something to eat. And you should stretch your legs for 5-10 min. Oh what do you know, by now my EV has enough miles to do the same all over again in about 300 miles. And I made the trip in 2 LONG days (36 hours of driving). And EV would not have slowed me down on this breakneck pace. I have no idea where all these families are road tripping off to who have to beat some world record time.

My brother in law has done a 21 hour trip (according to google maps) in 20 before. Stop when the gas gauge is at 1/4, and everyone better be back in the car before the pump stops or they get left behind. His wife refuses to do that again, it is very hard on the body (and not safe at all)

Personally I want 3 days for a trip like that.

This is a very valid point. Recently I joined the EV bandwagon for an EV6 and I was super nervous about not being able to fill up at every corner. I've had it a month or so, and I haven't even installed a charger at home or work yet. I'm getting around to it, but it has not been a requirement.

There's a local DCFC that's really fast to 80%, and a fair amount of 5-7kw chargers that are SUPER cheap at places I go near.

I've learned to just live more slowly because of it and I'm ok with that. I drive slower and safer, I know when I need to charge might be a good time to take a walk or grocery shop or something, and I just kind of plan around that.

Heck, sometimes I sit there and read a book in peace and quiet. I can't speak for people who have kids; I might not want to deal with that, but as a married adult without kids I'm totally fine.

I'm a Chicagoan. A friend of mine from high school is big into long haul EV trips (in his Tesla); every couple of weeks I get a trip report. It never seems to be as simple as you're making it out to be; he always seems to hit pretty substantial charging delays. Nothing that makes the trips untenable --- he's sold on it. But it's not like "charging just fits into what you'd normally do at a rest stop".

Interesting that you and I evaluated who EVs are good options for completely differently. I've considered getting one for many years but only felt doing so made sense now that I'm moving out of the city to the country in a few weeks.

It never made sense before because I didn't have anywhere to plug an EV in nor did I want the hassle of street parking two vehicles. I have a 4x4 for offroading, mountain biking, and other weekend trips but getting around town on bike/foot/transit was faster day to day.

Now that I have a house and land getting an EV as a daily driver for the 20 to 100 mile round trips I take into town/the city actually makes sense since I have plenty of space to keep multiple cars, can install the necessary charging (and solar) equipment, and don't want to die riding my bicycle on unlit country roads.

That’s disingenuous because while pumping gas you remain with the vehicle (because it’s quick). With charging an EV, you charge while going inside to use the bathroom and get food. Provided there are available chargers and it is as convenient of an experience as a Tesla charging in a Supercharger, it’s very quick to set up. I drive a lot by myself and can see the convenience of popping it on a charger while running in. I am in and out very quickly, but even that short time can add reasonable distance. With small children it takes longer and you get more of a charge.

It's not disingenuous at all, in fact I think your argument (that I hear over and over again) is misleading or missing the point completely.

Sure, if you need to charge exactly when your family gets hungry or tired and you happen to be exactly at a Supercharger, and the restaurant is exactly the kind of restaurant you like, it's not worse (but not better either) than traditional cars. If any of those conditions are not met, it's now an inconvenience charging your car.

In my experience (Europe), you can't really drive longer than 10 minutes without passing by a petrol station, and you can put gas in your car, pay, and leave easily under five minutes. Then, if everyone in the car feels like it, you can drive again for hours. If someone wants to eat, you can look up which restaurant you want to go to, and stop there. Eat your sandwiches at the top of the mountain while the sun is shining! Or pick anything else you want, Thai, local, Burger King, or get some snacks at a supermarket. ! I can decide which restaurant I go to or where I take my 30 min break, and it is not decided for me by the charger network.

Doesn’t sound like an EV is going to fit in the exact experience you want. That’s ok.

I don’t have an EV, but do drive long distances a lot. I regularly drive for six hours without stopping. I have been scoping out the feasibility of getting an EV and it seems that the Long Range style vehicles would just almost fit into my traveling without any disruption.

To each their own.

this isn't quite accurate. fast charging isn't available everywhere. did a road trip within california a few years ago and our model 3 ruined our trip on the drive from yosemite to sequoia national park. fast chargers became non existant to the point where we had to stop for 2 hours to wait for some low charge place to get us to 40% so we could make it to the next fast charging place.

i'm sure happy path traveling is great, but it becomes stressful as hell very quickly

Right. It's the situation where if everything goes well it's wonderful, but if not it's hell. Until level-3 chargers are available every 25 miles EV's aren't viable for long-distance travel.

"I did a long trip no problem", you say.

Would that have been as pleasant if 10x the number of electric cars were on the road? If you had to wait 45 minutes for a charger to become available due to demand? I doubt it. I have an EV (not a Tesla, one on the CHAdeMO standard) and I love, love, love it for driving around the city, but I don't dare take it on longer trips. Even doing a lot of driving in a single day is dicey in the winter.

Until the charging network is as ubiquitous and reliable as gasoline pumps, EV's will remain a niche.

"Next gas {100+} miles" is a reminder for some cars to fill up their tank... and a significant obstacle for many EVs.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5335.0

(I once paid close to $10 USD / gallon (after converting from cpl) diving from Banff to Jasper at a station that had 4 pumps and on that day, a 10 minute wait to get to one of the pumps)

Random off-topic comment, but I like this quote in that thread:

> the road, at the beginning, should be signed with "speed limit enforced by unmarked frost heaves".

Maybe you did this many years ago, but looking at that route there are superchargers dotted all along that route.

It's always the "vacation that I take once a year" that people use as an excuse, meanwhile families are filling two vehicles twice a week.

Get real and get new material.

I recently changed job; I used to fill my car every week now every other week. (60 miles roundtrip to 30 miles roundtrip)

I also have some times where I have to drive 10.2 hours(730 miles one way) almost non-stop. When I have to do something like that, I want to drive. Not stop and wait.

The Tesla trip planner with the Model 3 Long Range edition for that drive show it will take 13h for the same drive so about 28% longer with 4 stops @ 30min each.

Realize that people have different use cases.

It would be cool, if climate change were a convenient truth, rather than slightly inconvenient.

it would be cool if people felt like the environmental benefits were enough and didn't have to muddy the waters with made up other factoids.

if you want to buy an EV for the environment, great, more power to you, but stop trying to convince people that it's reasonable to sit and wait 45 minutes every few hours. You may find that acceptable but many of us don't.

I wouldn't find it acceptible but also I don't do that. Like people said more like 15 minutes. There's some art to it - don't charge to full during the trip, and to reduce your trip time, reduce your velocity to lower than max safe speed.

I do find it would be reasonable to pass laws to force you to switch to an EV even if it causes you some inconvenience, so that the likely future of my children and their peers is better.

I plotted from Atlanta, GA to Harrisburg, PA. You can do the same, it calls for 2 ~ 25 minute charges and 2 ~ 30 minute charges.

That's not "more like 15 minutes."

I would assume their trip planner is already calculating the optimal balance of speed and charge.

>I do find it would be reasonable to pass laws to force you to switch to an EV even if it causes you some inconvenience, so that the likely future of my children and their peers is better.

I am glad that you are willing to restrict the ability of people to live their lives because it won't have an inverse impact to you.

This thread started with the parent belittling someone else for not having the same use case. It is a shame that it has continued in that direction rather than explore ways to capture all use cases.

My data is mostly from having driven around longish trips on the West Coast where I expected it to be a much worse experience than it was, between the bath room breaks, food, faster charges when empty, etc.

If you haven’t tried it, I don’t think the idea that the route planning software gives does not reflect the actual experience, at least my experiences. Now I am not a hardcore stay in the car ten hours driver so YMMV.

The technology is getting rapidly better, all the use cases will be addressed before the fleet turns over. I had a leased Leaf in 2016 which was a lot worse than the used Model 3 I picked up in 2020, and the options I expect to have if I buy again seem to all be better each year. So far tho, the Leaf was destroyed in a pretty small fender bender, the Model 3 is holding up well.

> I do find it would be reasonable to pass laws to force you to switch to an EV even if it causes you some inconvenience

of course you do, because fuck poor people.

That’s why the phase out is for a long time and involves public subsidies.

I have ridden in cabs that were owner operated that were electric already. TCO was better for the owner despite their great cost consciousness. And a lot of poorer people drive very efficient cars, it’s the rich that tend to be the “showy wasters of resources, screw every one else” folks.

> And a lot of poorer people drive very efficient cars

you're mistaking lower middle class for poor.

poor people drive whatever the hell they can afford and EV's, and their subsequent maintenance costs, aint that.

It would be cool if we accepted that while the technology is getting better, it is not there for some use cases and people.

28% more is significant and just understand that we are not just talking about time spent. You factor that into my trip and suddenly I am awake for 2 more hours, more chance of a crash. Multiply that across the population and see what that does to death rates.

Most people live in a family situation where they have more than one car. They could replace one ICE car with an EV and not have any problems, the ICE becomes the family vacation car.

Realistically having done road trips, it's stopping every 3 hours and it's not 45 minutes, it's basically the amount of time it takes to get 2 kids out of the car, in to use the restrooms, and back into the car.

That depends; When I had toddlers, like the parent, I would often drive at night while they were asleep.

Now they are older and we travel more in the day but it is around 4 hours and have to schedule a meal.

>It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation

Uhhhh, that's crazy to me. I don't know anyone who drives that far for a holiday, especially with kids.

You apparently don't live in the US, or at least not in the midwest. I know a lot of people who do trips longer than that. Many Canadians out in the middle do similar trips as well (well there are not many Canadians living in that part of the country, but the ones who are there do it)

I do that, can be fun, there is so much to see on the way. Drove last Christmas from Riverside county to Bisbee, AZ and back via San Diego.

During COVID, I drove 24 hours to Florida. Longest stint of driving was 16 hours.

With family 750 miles away and a dog that doesn’t fit into a pax cabin carrier, we do it at least once and sometimes twice a year.

It’s a two pit-stop trip now that the kids are older; it used to be 4-5 stops when they were little.

Tangent: As someone driving a gas car, I would like to know how your car takes only 2 minutes to refuel. 5 minutes? Certainly, if the station is not getting heavy traffic (which seems to slow the pumps), and on a long trip it's quite likely it will a busy interstate-side station that might get to ten minutes due to slow-flowing gas.

Even so, as we both know, it's unlikely to reach 15 minutes as discussed else-thread, and while I do need breaks on a trip, 15 minutes is about the maximum I want to take unless I'm eating.

Maybe it depends on what you drive? My car takes about 6-7 gallons when empty, but I see tons of other cars taking huge amounts.

Maybe it's a North America thing, but I can't think of a (purely ICE) car here that has anything smaller than a ~13 gallon tank... Maybe there are a few with 10-12 gallon ones, but they'd be outliers for sure.

For a typical family-hauler that's be used on road trips like a Honda Odyssey, 16-20 gallons is totally common.

Huh, I'm in the SF bay area with a prius (advertised as a 11.9 gallon tank, but due to one thing or another, it's never more than 7 even when beeping at me to refill. But I do agree that pretty much every time I fill up and look at what the previous car used, it's some crazy high number in comparison.

It's more convenient when you can charge at home overnight when you aren't using the car

I've charged my EV at a public charging station less than 5 times in the past year. Instead of a 5 minute stop once a week at a gas station it's 5 seconds every time I get home to plug it in.

Any trip within a 3 hour drive is possible round trip on a single charge. Any trip within a 5 hour drive is possible with no stops and destination charging, actually saving a stop.

Any trip over a 5 hour drive generally takes less time and costs less to fly (I'm sure with many edge cases around rural destinations). Even on long road trips, charging from 20-80% takes 15-20 minutes and most drivers will at least need a bathroom break every 3-4 hours.

New Tesla Model 3 prices are comparable to entry level sedans like the Civic and Camry. Used Chevy Bolt's are abundant at <$20k with much less ongoing maintenance costs versus used gas cars. There aren't yet affordable large SUVs and trucks if those are your only vehicles in consideration.

>New Tesla Model 3 prices are comparable [in cost] to entry level sedans like the Civic and Camry.

I was with you until this. This is provably false just by going to the tesla and toyota websites.

Well…

2024 Camry XLE with Nav and Cold Weather - $36,965

Tesla Model 3 - $38,990 - without any credits or subsidies.

But worth noting two things - first, there may be significant State tax credits for buying a Model 3, and the base Model 3 currently doesn’t qualify for the $7,500 Federal subsidy, only as of 12/31/23.

In other words, last week the base Model 3 was at least $7,500 cheaper than $38,990.

Why are you not comparing base prices? This is extremely misleading as you're misrepresenting the Camry and including the rebate (even though you say you're not).

According to their US websites, the 2024 Camry starts at $26,420. The Model 3 starts at $46500 (not including the $7500 rebate).

Base Model 3 in inventory right now near me is $36,440, fyi. LR version is $43,190. Both not including $7500 rebate.

I just pulled the MSRP straight off “Order Now” on Tesla.com, I don’t know why you would see a different price.

Camry does have a lower end “LE” trim with cloth seats, 4.2” screen in center console, and also missing all of the following; navigation, sun/moon roof, heated seats & mirrors, smart key, driver assist / blind spot monitoring, memory seats, and power passenger seat… for $27,215.

The XLE trim is still lacking many Tesla features, but it’s at least somewhat more comparable to a base Model 3.

But still truly notable that 3 days ago the Tesla Model 3 was cheaper after tax credits in many states even than the starting base price of a Camry.

Hopefully the Model 3 battery sourcing can adapt to the changing tax credit regulations to have their base trim qualify again for the Federal credit. Currently only the Performance trim qualifies, which is funny in that it makes the Performance cheaper than the lower-spec’d Long Range.

Key word was "inventory", not the custom order. Inventory is what Tesla has in stock on their lots near your location and are sold at a slight discount to the custom order price. Look for "Inventory" on the website rather than "Order".

FWIW, this would be somewhat comparable to what a dealer would actually be selling on a lot for a Toyota, because in reality you can't really custom order from Toyota and have to just get whatever the dealer has for you, though they often give you all kinds of crappy add-ons plus a dealer markup and other nonsense.

Hmm, that’s interesting. Thanks for the correction

With the rebate a Model 3 is within a couple grand of Camry similarly equipped.

I just did a road trip with my family (four kids aged 6-13). If we had an EV, I would have simply topped off the battery any time we stopped for a bathroom break (I get excited whenever we're able to pass a service plaza without someone needing to go).

I would guess most single family home owners have two or more cars. This is a total guess based on my own situation and those of people I know who own EV’s but most EV owners with a single family home will also own a gas car.

So an EV is more convenient than a gas car for daily commutes because you never have to go to a gas station. For the rare times you go on a long trip, you just take the gas car or you put up with having a longer trip in the EV.

> I would guess most single family home owners have two or more cars.

I was curious so looked this up. Not sure how good these stats are, but here's what I found at https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st...

The average US household owns 2.28 vehicles. 35% of US households own three or more cars. I found that interesting because almost no household that I personally know owns more than one vehicle (regardless of income level), so there may be large geographical variances here.

Also interesting is that the total number of registered vehicles in the US declined by over 25 million between 2012 and 2019. There is hope!

> Also interesting is that the total number of registered vehicles in the US declined by over 25 million between 2012 and 2019. There is hope!

Really? Awesome! The future is bright indeed. EVs are objectively better than ICE-cars, they don't nearly trash up the city as much as ICE-cars (less noisy, less stinky, no gas stations, nothing trashes up a neighborhood than a gas station), but a lot feel like they have made strides in being safer for pedestrians, cyclists, ...

Hard to square with the overall increased aggressive vibe in overall traffic, more antisocial driving, larger cars, meaner looking cars, ...

Out here in the suburbs of Massachusetts, it is very common to see 3 (or more) cars in the driveways of single family homes. In my experience, it's usually because some of the cars belong to one or more of the kids who live there. And each parent usually has their own car.

Growing up, getting a car was a watershed moment for me personally. It marked a transition into a new type of independence from my parents, and also the primary motivation for getting my first job. It was liberating. Out here, it's not feasible to get anywhere, really, without a car. Before getting my own car, if I needed to get somewhere, I had to convince some adult (usually my parents or a friend's parents) to take us there.

I think a household will tend to average on how many adult drivers there are in the home. You don’t want to be stuck at home while someone else is at the gym, store, etc

I’m in the first group with a 30 minute commute every morning. With the solar panels on my roof, transportation is essentially free for me.

I'd think a bit of inconvenience would be worth it for a better future for your children as well as all the world's children, but I've been around long enough to come to the understanding that that's just wishful thinking on my part; truly you are just one incredibly minuscule drop in the ocean of carbon emissions that will doom us. I don't envy young children the future world they're going to inherit.

Don't worry, at some point those children will grow up. They'll cease to be innocent victims, and will be forced into the same moral compromises that all adults are forced into. My only hope is that some of them will realize how silly their youthful generational blame had been.

yes, I had understood that this is time to type GG, we have no chance haha.

I assume all of us heard something to the effect of "you'll understand it when you grow up". Fair enough, but I guess I never really grew up because the older I get, the less I understand any of this really. As far as I can tell, everyone is just trying to "get their kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames" to quote Jim Morrison. I wish I could do that, but it seems to be beyond me not to worry about the future.

Contrary to stereotype, I don't think most adults are _intentionally_ passing the buck to the next generation so much as they are _incidentally_ passing the buck to the next generation. They don't know how to live without producing carbon & other waste, and there are practical expenses they need to answer for. (bills, family members, putting food on the table) Most adults don't have many skills beyond using the infrastructure which is laid out for them. (roads, cars, supermarkets, public schools, available careers, etc.)

And crucially, my point is that today's kids will simply not be in a better situation. They'll have the tools of society at their hands, and in general, not much more. I don't love child labor, but I genuinely have no practical way to know if my clothing was produced via child labor. (I buy 99% of my clothing used, so hopefully that's helping) I don't have any practical way to know if my plastic recycling isn't getting dumped in the ocean in Turkey. I'd like to use less carbon, but my wife isn't willing to live with the heat set any lower than 62 F. Etc. The impacts which I can make are pretty small. Populations are rising, and technology is not the panacea some people think. Technology can improve carbon output, but everyone needs to eat and live. This will always be deleterious to the environment, and the "victim" generation will eventually grow up to be the victimizers as they have to run governments and companies.

They'll be faced with compromises they can't avoid, no matter their politics.

I fully understand all this which is why I've become very sad for the future of humanity; I try to look for reasons for hope, but watching trees die in my hometown while wells failed was very hard. All I can say is that I'm increasingly happy I opted out of the idea of children long ago, because while I used to be jealous of the young for the future they would live to see, I feel exactly the opposite these days.

Based upon the amount of comments here this must be a controversial comment but I can’t imagine how you do this. With one toddler, she can barely make a 1 hour trip let alone 11 hours. I could use an electric vehicle with a 90 mile range for that trip because that’s about how often I would need to stop. Props to you for keeping 2 toddlers in the car for 11 hours

Toughen up your toddlers ;) A decade ago we moved from one state (NY) to another (NC) with an 18 month old and a 6 year old. We did the 650 mile trip at night in way longer than 10.5 hours it should have taken due to horrible weather, traffic, etc...but we didn't stop for anything other than gas and one or two coffee breaks.

EV stops have a big advantage in that they force you to get out and move around a bit. Sitting in a car all day is bad for you. Taking a break every few hours is good. Walking around during that break is ideal.

You don't want to give yourself a blood clot on a family vacation.

Is there a name for when someone bends over backwards to paint a disadvantage as an advantage? I guess it's the same as the old "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" trope.

It's the opposite. Supposed advantages often get you into trouble.

Constraints, in this case not being able to drive for eight-straight hours, is a good thing. Constraints are often a good thing because they introduce just enough friction to prevent us from harming ourselves.

You can make this case for anything though, as with every advantage comes a downside. "Horse-drawn carriages have a big advantage in that they force you to not go as fast, and so they make crashes less fatal. Crashing a car is bad for you. Going slow is good."

This isn't a real argument though; how fast I go is my business, and how long I drive is my business as well. If I have two people in a car, we can trade off and solve your "driving too long" problem in a way that doesn't compromise ability. Nobody is going to buy this rationale. An EV can do less than a gas car (in this area), and it's just worse.

From your argument, it follows that we should push auto manufacturers to make the gas tanks of non-EVs smaller, so that it's impossible to drive for longer than 8 hours on one tank of gas. This is just a terrible position, it doesn't even merit being argued against.

In fact, making up rationalizations like this is so much worse than doing nothing, because it saps the incentive to improve things. If we delude ourselves into thinking that a car that can do less is better, then we'll never make it better, fewer people will purchase them, and we'll blame everyone else for not buying into our delusion.

>I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car.

How often do you do this? Once, maybe twice a year? With my current commute i have to go out of my way to get gas every week. It takes at least 15 minutes extra on my way home (but thats only because the gas station on the route is about $1 a gallon more). i'd be prepared to add an hour twice a year in return for getting 15 minutes back 48 times a year. And the annoyance of having to make an unexpected trip when i was planning to get gas the next day (whereas i could keep an EV charged abouve 50% at all times).

> How often do you do this?

Get it through your heads, the frequency is irrelevant. We have this feature now with ICEs..and EVs do not. Some people will choose to stick with ICEs until such time that they reach parity in this department.

We're in the first group and it definitely makes sense for us. 90% of our driving is in town, and we can recharge at night in our garage for a small fraction of the cost of gas. We also have 2 young kids. For vacations, camping trips, etc., we would take our Forester (which we already had before we bought an EV), but otherwise we don't need to use it. If we only had one car (and we did for years), we'd keep the EV and would rent an ICE SUV for long-range vacations (which, this being the U.S., we get precious little of), and still save tons of money.

I’m excited to one day own an EV, but the prices need to come down and charging infrastructure needs to continue to improve. I have a house that I’d do most of my charging at, but I want to feel comfortable driving anywhere in the country just like I currently experience with gasoline powered vehicles.