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Comment by aeleos | Hacker News Reader

This is pretty cool. The general idea is that a gas station dispenses a water and ethanol solution that acts as the electrolyte and provides energy for the battery. And then recharging is done by reprocessing the electrolyte with renewable energies. If this turns out to be a technology that can work well on large scales, it could really be a game changer.

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Can you also recharge it in the battery with electricity, or do you have to go to a special station? The ability to "fill up" at home is one of the great advantages of EVs, although I realize a lot of people can't do that.

when it comes to traveling its a big drawback. You need quick charging stations and tesla even admits the lines are getting long.

In California, maybe, but they're ok otherwise.

I have a Tesla, and if I had to make a choice between a traditional battery and a battery I can fill instantly but can't fill at home, I'd take the traditional battery without hesitation. Faster charging on trips would be nice, but not worrying about it the rest of the time is even nicer.

Why not both? Same idea as a plug in hybrid, except the "gas" in this case is presumably greener.

Both would be great, thus my original question.

Chargepoint claims that 10 minute charges are coming soon. That's plenty fast enough considering that most charging is done when a car is parked at a destination or a pee break.

There's really no point to exchanging the electrolyte in an EV, even a 45 minute charge while grocery shopping or eating is "one less stop."

You're confusing the worst case with the average case -- maybe you should instead ask Tesla owners if they're happy with long distance travel? The overwhelming answer is "yes".

Duh? The limitations of EVs are known before you buy the car. The people who still choose to buy them is a strict subset of people who are okay with the downsides.

Tesla owners are distinctly not representative of the average person's situation.

mikeash was asking, can you also charge it at home. It's a fair question, since most of the time the overnight home charge is all you need, and even more convenient than going to a gas station. So an EV that can do both is great, an EV that must be filled at a gas station only, that's actually a tricky trade-off, and reasonable to assume a large number of current EV owners would not make that trade-off.

In otherwords, if you're adaptable to home charging, then you really want home charging. Makes perfect sense to also observe all current EV owners are adaptable to home charging, by definition.

So strictly speaking adding it expands the market to different kinds of EV owners who would treat it like a gas car, just with no direct emissions. If you can add this feature without sacrificing anything else, I'd say that's a very big deal.

I assume that in reality this tech is a decade of hard work away from even being usable in an EV, so we'll never see it made.

> maybe you should instead ask Tesla owners if they're happy with long distance travel? The overwhelming answer is "yes".

That's confirmation bias at best. You should ask why folks who don't buy Tesla (and buy cars at the same price point) decided otherwise.

Trying to understand this from a customer's point of view:

1. would this be dispensed just gas? Pull up, pay, and pump it in?

2. But in this case you would also pump the old stuff out?

3. Is there any "prep" time needed for the solution? aka charging

1 and 2 I think so, 3. The stuff that comes out of the pump is ready to use, the old stuff needs to be "recharged" to be usable again

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