News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by bunderbunder on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @07:44PM (#43839417)
Just yesterday in the coffee shop the person next to me was having a conversation about his buyer's remorse over recently purchasing a full EV instead of a hybrid or plug-in hybrid. It sounded like he hadn't anticipated how much of a hassle it is to charge on road trips. Something about having to carefully plan around the locations of fast charge stations, and it really being a drag when you're just trying to get out of the city for a weekend.

My sense is that plug-in hybrids really are the sweet spot for a lot of people in North America. The shorter full EV range is still well within most people's needs for a typical day's worth of driving, but you can still travel to and through rural areas without so much stress about whether you'll get stuck killing time for an hour or two at a slow charge station.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by slg on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:05PM (#43839578)
>It sounded like he hadn't anticipated how much of a hassle it is to charge on road trips.

A few years ago this was true, but now that Tesla has opened up their network of chargers, your destination probably has to be >100 miles away from most interstate highways before road trip charging becomes much of an issue.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by ketzo on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:10PM (#43839621)
Even if there are charging stations every ten miles along the exact route you were already planning to take, it’s just straightforwardly true that it’s more annoying to charge vs. get gas.

I can fill my tank and be back on the road in <5 minutes in most cases, and I only have to do that once every 350 miles.

With an EV, I would be stopping anywhere from 10-30minutes (depending on the kinds of chargers available) (assuming I don’t have to wait for one to open up), and I’d be doing it twice as often.

It adds a very meaningful amount of time to long car trips.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by slg on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:21PM (#43839709)
I think this is overstated. My Ford EV gets ~300 miles. If I leave my home with a full charge, I can get ~500 miles with ~30 minutes of charging. If a ~30 minute break in the middle of an ~8 hour drive is a problem for you, you probably aren't a safe driver. There is a reason that truckers have mandatory breaks. A person shouldn't be driving all day nonstop.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by ketzo on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @11:44PM (#43841055)
Really? Maybe my knowledge of EV ranges is way out of wack. I was assuming avg ranges look much more like ~200mi on a full battery in real-world conditions, and that a 30-min charge usually only gets you 80%. Sounds like I’m at least somewhat misinformed.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by floxy on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @11:58PM (#43841129)
Assuming OP has a Ford Mustang Mach-E, RWD, Long Range model, you might expect:

  286 miles at 70 MPH
  249 miles at 75 MPH
  232 miles at 75 MPH with 2kW of heating
https://evkx.net/models/ford/mustang_mach-e/mustang_mach-e_l...

...that model seems to take about 45 minutes to charge from 10-80%:

https://evkx.net/models/ford/mustang_mach-e/mustang_mach-e_l...

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by slg on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @12:55AM (#43841407)
I tend to get better range than that, I'd like to claim it is my driving style, but more realistically it is because I live in Southern California so the battery is generally at ideal temperature, I often don't need heat/AC, and probably most importantly I'm not sure if I have ever driven 70+ mph for 300 consecutive miles without hitting traffic.

Also when I do road trips, I'll tend to do multiple shorter stops which according to that link means I'm closer to the "optimum charging area" than going 10%-80% in one sitting, so that might have caused me to overshoot that estimate a little.

So beyond that slight amendment of switching that one ~30 minute charging stop to two ~15 minute stops, the answer to ketzo's question is "yes, really", but as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by mjamesaustin on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:34PM (#43839816)
Yes it's straightforwardly true that road trip charging is less convenient than with gas cars.

But charging for regular use is dramatically better. Anytime you're not on a road trip, you spend essentially no time fueling. Just plug in at night like you do with other electronics.

So I'll take saving 15 mins every week avoiding the gas station, in exchange for the couple times a year I have to wait an extra 15 mins charging.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by tzs on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @10:14PM (#43840491)
Note that if your hybrid is a plug-in hybrid then you might get the best of both worlds.

On long road trips you get the fast re-energizing of a gas car.

For regular use if your plug in every night there is a good chance you can do most of your driving in EV mode. Current plug-in hybrids often have EV mode ranges of 40+ miles.

This is what someone I know with a RAV4 Prime reports. They plug in at night and it seems to mostly use the battery. It does sometime use the ICE but it is infrequently enough that they have only had to put more gas in every few months.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @10:37PM (#43840647)
But you don’t really. You get a weak drive train as many moving parts as an ICE plus a non-trivial size battery that is expensive to replace. Your maintenance costs potential are as a bad as an ICE plus an EV. EVs are way more elegant solutions, simpler, better performance. Also, EVs are improving rapidly, charging speed and range keep getting better.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by tzs on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @08:12AM (#43844102)
Hybrids done well actually have fewer moving parts than ICEs. They eliminate some systems (alternator and starter motor for example) and greatly simplify others (transmission).
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by dekhn on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @01:23PM (#43848276)
I have a RAV4 Prime (decided to get that instead of a Tesla) and I absolutely love it. It's the best of all worlds for my use case (mostly <40mi daily commute entirely on battery, occasional longer drives that use gas). I often go months+ without refilling the gas tank, and it charges overnight from empty. And, it's clearly Toyota quality in terms of implementation.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by lern_too_spel on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @09:14PM (#43840126)
He was having buyer's remorse for choosing a BEV over a PHEV. The PHEV is better on road trips and just as good at commuting. It loses on maintenance but probably still comes out ahead on TCO.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by shreezus on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:09PM (#43839610)
This is only a problem for non-Teslas or vehicles that can't utilize the Tesla supercharger network.

I don't think I have ever plugged into a supercharger more than 10/15 minutes.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by ketzo on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:12PM (#43839640)
Superchargers aren’t available everywhere, and even in your scenario that’s still twice as long as it takes me to fill a gas tank, and you have to do it twice as often (at least).

That’s not nothing!

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by bunderbunder on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @08:48PM (#43839924)
He was specifically talking about getting a Tesla.

It wouldn't be the first time reality failed to live up to the promises of Tesla's marketing folks.

Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by thehappypm on Wednesday April 30, 2025 @10:02PM (#43852975)
Depends where you travel. If you like to ski in Vermont, you lose a lot of range to cold, and there aren’t a lot of superchargers.
Re:Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to... by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @10:31PM (#43840609)
The problem with EVs and roadtrips is simply charging infrastructure. If there were L3 chargers wherever there were gas stations, it really wouldn’t be a problem even in eastern Oregon (really want to take my i4 to John Day, but alas…not quite yet, even if you drive a Tesla).