xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas

My EV sits in the driveway and soaks up excess production from my PV setup.
My main problem is it's never really empty enough.

If I'm on the road, a high voltage DC charger gets me from 10% to 50% in about 10 minutes. Barely enough time for a coffee and a leak, then it's another 2 hours of driving. Rinse, repeat.

Sure, you can't barrel down the Autobahn for 10 hours straight without stopping but who wants that?

I make a 9-10 hour drive to see my family multiple times a year. I normally stop twice to get gas and use the bathroom, and that's it. Sounds like you'd be adding most of an hour to my travel time each way. I've tried stopping longer and grabbing food, it's not worth it for me.

With that said, I drive 25-40 miles a day the other 360+ days of the year, so it'd really make much more sense for me to have a short range EV and rent something for travel when I have too much luggage to fly.
- Maybe don't do that? Catch a train it's significantly cheaper anyway.
  
  No passenger rail. It's car or a once a week bus that doesn't even stop in the town my family lives in.
  
  That's an infrastructure problem you can help solve and regardless going on long trips for most people is 100% optional.
  
  That would become a 15+ hour trip then...
  
  Edit: On further investigation, it's also not significantly cheaper than flying, and is much more expensive than fuel for driving.
  
  But much better for the environment, sometimes others matter more and when more people use rail it's more likely our country will catch up and build hyper train networks.
  
  Sadly, yes. I live in Germany, and here you need a BahnCard50 (or better) for the train to be cheaper than the gas for driving.
- you really ought to be stopping a few more times, i don't understand how so many people are just completely fine with driving for 3 hours nonstop
- You should just live near the place you're driving to.
  
  Oh my God, why didn't I think of that! Simply have more money, thank you internet stranger. My problems are solved!
  
  Well I just think you should live closer but that's a great idea too. You should try that.
  
  Real shit though, I can solve your problems. Just tell me what they are, I'll give you my best answer.
  
  I'm glad you think I can afford to triple my rent, but that's not happening.
  
  Edit: If you mean the road trip scenario, my family works in various different industries, and the opportunities are better in different cities. That's also not happening.
who wants that?

I do. We have family that we visit a few times each year. If I leave at 2am and drive straight through, we get there in 7-8 hours. If I make the drive during the day, it takes 10-13 hours.
- Sounds like you need a train. Not a car.
  
  Sure. But first you need to build one that takes me there.
  
  For various reasons a car is often better for that kinda trip
  
  Some real examples that are specific to the trip I take:
  
  There is no rail service that goes there. It would be a combo of trains and busses that takes significantly longer and costs more than the gas.
  
  Our dog comes with us, generally isn't allowed on mass transit, and the much longer trip would stress her out if she was.
  
  There is little to no mass transit in the town they live in to get around once we arrive so we'd end up borrowing or renting a car anyway.
  
  With limited amounts of time off, making the trip overnight adds a full day of getting to see our family to the trip.
  
  The only other realistic means of getting there is flying but, I enjoy driving and hate everything about air travel. It's a pretty cheap flight for one person but becomes more expensive once you add in the rest of the family and the dog can't come.
  
  Edit: formatting
I’m not wealthy enough for a PV setup.

And I love road trips. Some of the most beautiful areas of my country are 3000+ km from me.
My EV sits in the driveway and soaks up excess production from my PV setup.

Yeah EVs are a great solution for homeowners.

Sure, you can't barrel down the Autobahn for 10 hours straight without stopping but who wants that?

As an Uber driver, I want that. I want to be able to gas my car back up and go back on he road and keep earning money.
- Congrats your are not the market target for EVs then, guess what that doesn't mean that the majority of the population isn't though.

I plug my car in in seconds

Driving to work 110 miles a day meant I had to get gas once per week, driving out of my way, stopping to get gas cost me 500 minutes per year as opposed to the two seconds to plug in at home. Totally a no brainer. I HATED stopping for gas on the way home from work at 11 in the evening, or whatever hour really. I think of people tied to ICE engines the way people were tied to outhouses a hundred years ago.
And then wait an hour to get acceptable charge levels for range. Filling up at a gas station is much faster.

This is not to say electric vehicles aren't a good idea, the charge rate and convenience while traveling are issues we need to improve on.
- You can't fill your gas tank at home while you sleep...
  
  I'm not at home sleeping when I'm out traveling. I'm referring to multi hour or multi day drives. This is an extremely common use case where I live.
  
  Also not everyone has access to a charger where they sleep.
  
  I don't need to
- I hear this complaint a lot about charging times, but for 99.99% of people they are never in a single day going to drive beyond their cars range, meaning even a standard level 1 slow charger over night at home can manage their entire car usage.
  
  It's only people doing long distance road trips that have to worry, and that's by far a minimum. Instead of boosting gas cars for that we could be looking at investing in rail so people don't have to make the longer trips in a car anyway.
  
  Not only that, people going on those long trips are going to be looking for something to eat in a similar time frame that their EV takes to fully discharge. It takes EVs about 15-20 minutes to get from 0-80% charge. That's less time than it takes to sit down and eat at a restaurant
  
  This is incredibly short sighted. I usually bring my own food on a long trip because I dislike stopping or buying crappy food. I eat while driving on long road trips because I have a schedule and want to get where I'm going. My gas car gets double the range of an electric car, so I'm stopping less often as well. I'm often in places where getting gas or food isn't within an hour's drive, and almost none of those places have the ability to charge a vehicle anyway.
  
  Look, everyone has different use cases. I think electric cars for the in-city drive around town use case are great, and we should continue to encourage their use. I'm just saying that for wider adoption we're going to have to solve the charge rate, range, and charger accessibility issues.
  
  I rarely go inside restaurants to eat on a long trip. I grab a burger and wolf it down and go again. I eat the fries while I'm driving and they're gone in an instant, and i'm still going.
  
  Sounds like a you problem then
  
  sounds like they have different priorities and values than you, is that intolerable?
  
  And for about 50% of Americans, they don't have a place to plug in an electric car at night. It's only people above a certain level of wealth who have the luxury of their own parking space with a charger.
  
  For the rest of us, we must take time out of our day to sit in a grocery store parking lot while the car charges.
  
  EVs generally have adapters that allow you to plug into a standard home outlet, it's just significantly slower to charge to full due to the lower amperages. And even if you only have 1 plug in your garage, it's not hard or expensive to add more.
  
  The only real hurdle for that is if you rent a house and aren't allowed to make those easy changes
  
  And even if you only have 1 plug in your garage, it's not hard or expensive to add more.
  
  Yeah this is losing the plot. I believe they're talking about the tens of millions of Americans who don't have private garages.
  
  99.99% of people they are never in a single day going to drive beyond their cars range, meaning even a standard level 1 slow charger over night at home can manage their
  
  You're saying 1 in 10,000 people will never drive more than ~200 miles in a single day? What country is that statistic for? Source?
  
  I love the idea of rail, but it doesn't work in large spread out countries like where I live. Sure cities can be connected, and we should definitely do that, but the idea that I could get to all the natural and wild places I love in this beautiful country by taking mass transit is impossible.
- The point is that, for most journeys, you just charge at home overnight. It's rare to plug in and wait for it to charge. With petrol / gas, you always have to wait
  
  *If you have a homecharger
  
  It is faster to refuel your car with petrol.
  
  A 120v standard Ac adapter is all you need for overnight charging, and I'm pretty sure those come with the cars.
  
  Lv 1 charges are pretty shitty...takes my car about 12 minutes to get a mile-worth of charge on a 120v. I could still make it through a week of commuting doing that, but my range was a little lower each day until the weekend when I didn't have to commute. That being said, I ponied up for a 220v outlet in the garage, and the Lv 2 charging is much better. Takes about 15 minutes to recharge from a days-worth of driving (usually 30-40 miles between work and running the kids around to all their activities).
  
  How much did the 220 outlet and the L2 charger cost to put in? Was it a turnkey thing from an electrician or something or were you able to do it yourself?
  
  I had to get an electrician to come run the 220 line for me because I don't trust myself with high voltage electrical work. Bought the charger itself on Amazon for around $300. I installed that part myself. Wasn't too hard, basically jist mounted the converter to the wall and plugged it in.
  
  "when you are empty, and you have to drive right away, its faster to refuel your car with petrol"
  
  My relatives dont have a charger at home, they just plug their car into an outlet, and get ~40km range over night. That more than enough for the daily commute.
  
  And my relatives don't have personal parking spots.
  
  Poor people's time gets no respect, because the rules are made by rich people with tons of time conveniences and they just aren't conscious of how the other half lives.
  
  They ban our shopping bags, failing to realize that for someone with a car and a garage, a disposable plastic shopping bag doesn't have much utility over re-usable bags, or dispsable paper bags. But for a person with no car and no garage, a disposable plastic shopping bag means they can carry like three in each hand and walk miles home in foul weather.
  
  And if you want to just bring bags with you in advance, you gotta carry them with you all day.
  
  It's doable, don't get me wrong. But it's more of a hassle. And the amount of hassle that it adds is far greater for poor people.
  
  I rent a car for Uber. I'm working up to buying a car, but until I do I have to rent. Uber has decreed that all rentals must be electrics. To save the planet. The electrics cost about $100 more per week to rent than the gas cars did, and as a poor person I can't charge them at home because all I have is street parking.
  
  This means that every day I work driving for Uber, I have to stop about once a day to charge the car. So that's about $25 a day I'm losing to charge instead of refuel my vehicle, so $125 a week I'm losing and then the other $100 per week it costs because it's a special car, I'm losing $225 per week due to this decision.
  
  So I'm doing my part, but unwillingly. And I strongly, strongly suspect that the people who made this decision at Uber, that their contribution to climate action was going to come out of my cut, didn't think the cut would be so big because they live in houses or in fancy apartment buildings with chargers.
  
  I just feel like nobody talks about how time poor poor people are. We lack time just as much as we lack money, and when we get new rules imposed on us that take up more of our time to comply with, the people creating the rules don't realize how must time it's costing us, because their own lives are relatively time rich. Many of the forms of their wealth come in the form of time conveniences, and those change the equation. They think the electric car's hassle consists of having to charge it occasionally on long trips, because they have a home charger.
  
  Just across the board, we need to be aware of the time cost of these changes, and also to be aware that the time cost is often many times higher for poor people than it is for middle class people.
  
  Overnight isn't "right away". "I have to get to y right away!" "Sure! I'll just charge the car and you can leave tomorrow!".
  
  Listen, I'm not saying that EVs are shit but they are currently not my cup of tea. It's just all this BS. Of course it's faster to refuel a car with petrol than to charge a battery. Would you also deny that it's faster for me to fill up a glass of water than you charging your phone? I ENVY the great fuel economy that EV owners get. This sucks for petrol cars.
  
  Not at home it's not. Where's your back garden petrol station lol.
  
  I don't know what to do with you people.... We both have 5km range left. You plug in the cable juice and I plug in the gas to refuel. Who leaves the station first?
  
  Charged at home and never needed to stop. Ten mins down the road already. Go shout at clouds old man.
  
  So your electric car has more range than a similarly sized gas car? Unlikely.
  
  Given both vehicles start at "full", drive until you have low range left. Now talk about convenience of filling up in the middle of nowhere, or when in a hurry.
  
  Is this use case common for everyone? Definitely not, but I run into it a few times a month.
  
  So you admit you are talking about edge cases. This is why no-one cares what you think. You are arguing for slower, less efficient, more polluting vehicles just cos it'll save a few minutes on a long run. Get outta here. Jokes.
  
  I'm talking about millions of occurrences of this edge case a day.
  
  I'm not sure what you're trying to fight. I said multiple times that we should continue to encourage and expand our use of electric vehicles. But to blindly fanboy electric cars without being able to honestly admit that we have some improvements to make just makes you stupid and smug.
Wow. Awesome. Only takes a few seconds to plug it in. Good on ya bud

If you're driving more than 300miles a day you're just admitting your a much larger slice of the shitty pie.

This is a bit inaccurate. What about truck drivers? They are extra shitty then. But they wouldn't be extra shitty if they didn't deliver your Charmin to Costco for you to purchase.

Don't blame the end-user, blame the system.
- Short range point to point trucking (day trucking) is necessary, pretty much any other truckload is better taken by rail both faster and cheaper in countries other than the US because oil companies didn't intentionally kneecap American rail.
Fuck you, I drive so other people don't have to.

By being eager to gauge people's location in "the shitty pie", you're just admitting your (sic) a much large slice of the shitty pie
- That just isn't true, you just said you could ride a train. You choose not to, that's a big difference.
  
  But saying rail is significantly slower you narrow your nationality to maybe 5 major nations one happens to be significantly more represented on Lemmy. The "need" to drive safe over reaction to the guess means I'm almost certainly correct. Am I not?
  
  They said they're an Uber driver...
  
  An optional "profession" that steals money from qualified taxis and is also super abusive towards its employees. That's not an excuse, that's an explanation an kinda of a bad one at that.
  
  An optional "profession" that steals money from qualified taxis
  
  It's not stealing if it doesn't take it out of their wallet. Maybe the issue is instead the expensive restrictions on becoming a taxi driver? Or the virtual monopoly many taxi companies have. Or just that almost always a taxi is a worse experience.
  
  That's literally what it does. Taxis didn't have monopoly, they have a licensed job specifically because unlicensed taxis were dangerous and people at the time were getting shanghaied.
  
  Did Spotify steal from radio?
  
  they have a licensed job specifically because unlicensed taxis were dangerous and people at the time were getting shanghaied.
  
  Do you have any source for that happening significantly more frequently with Ubers?
  
  Radio is licensed to transmit at certain levels on certain frequencies, Spotify does not transmit in open air.
  
  Point to where I said it was happening. I said taxis were licensed because of crazy shit like rapists driving people to word places and having at. You don't get that with Uber.
  
  You suggested it as if from my interpretation it was a problem with Uber. If not, what is? And again, how's it any more theft than CDs stealing from record manufacturers
  
  Tbf to the guy you're responding to, getting the extra 2-3 days of PTO necessary to take the train may also be a contributing factor. There's a hidden work reform issue baked into this that also needs addressing.
  
  There absolutely is, the fact that most other major countries get 6 weeks mandatory minimum and we have zero mandatory minimum is crazy.

If it’s not a concern for my phone, why should it be for my vehicle? It is so nice never having to go to a local gas station, when all I need to do is plug in at night

Why on earth do you get down votes? This is the truth. Downvoters just straw man argue pointing out that 'just charge your car at home', which isn't the matter of discussion. There isn't even a discussion to be had - it is faster to refuel a car than recharge. Might this matter to you? Maybe, maybe not.

If the car is recharged at home, you may never need to stop to add gas. Electric is the future bro, get over your hangups.
- Charging the car at home is for middle class people and above, generally speaking. Not everyone gets to park their car next to an outlet.
  
  You're just using any scenario to claim the win. You're generally speaking for the least likely group to have electric cars atm.
  
  You can plug into the standard 120V outlet at home. You don't require the high amp charging and the installment costs associated
  
  ... Again, not everyone parks their car next to sn outlet. Actually, I feel like probably most people don't

So what? Doesn't matter for most people