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Comment by throwawayboise | Hacker News Reader

> anyone who looked outside their window would see EVs all over the place

Not where I am. They are rare enough that it's still something of a novelty to see one (I'm talking about pure EVs like a Tesla, not hybrids).

Toyota may be seeing that EVs will be a mass-market fiasco in many parts of the country where charging infrastructure is sparse, winters are cold, and even 200+ mile range can be a real limit and want to be able to continue to sell hybrids and ICE vehicles to those customers who prefer/require them.

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Yes, there needs to be support for ICE vehicles in certain areas for quite some time to come. Until EV technology can support those that rely on gasoline or diesel powered cars in remote places.

Once the fossil fuel infrastructure starts to lose mainstream use, folks that require larger range, better cold weather reliability, etc. will pay through the nose to be able to move freely using their existing cars.

It will be a slow transition until it's not, and then you have a bunch of useless piles of steel, glass, and rubber lying around.

I wonder how they will handle emergency and military vehicles in the future. For any of them to use it it has to just work, and work quickly.

What do you mean about cold weather reliability? Isn’t Norway one of the countries with highest EV count per capita?

Also, living in a country with cold winters - EV will heat up in winter way faster than ICE. With ICE for short trips I need to spend as much time deicing windows and heating up the cabin as driving…

(Not to mention Diesels in winter - what a fun it can be!)

"I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car.

A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time.

Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar!

Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…"

A lot of people think this song is about driving an illegal gas engine, but its really about driving a car with illegally low safety features. Honestly the cyber truck feels like what the source material was envisioning, but not due to the electric part

That song is an excellent example of Libertarian fiction that didn't happen, but it still regarded to be a cautionary tale. Which brings me to the joke about Lord of the Rings and The Fountainhead...

> and even 200+ mile range can be a real limit

If your daily commute is 200 miles, your lifestyle is unsustainable anyway. Fuel consumption, greenhouse gas and particulate matter emissions, and even with electric vehicles you're still losing 3 hours of your life in traffic.

I don’t think they’re talking about people driving 200+ miles to an office every day. Think more along the lines of service technicians (plumbers, electricians, etc), home builders (working on multiple projects at a time), and on and on. There’s millions of people who’s office is the job site wherever that may be.

People in some service jobs, many independent contractors, tradespeople, etc. have to drive from place to place, sometimes many places per day, to do their jobs. I agree that for people with well-defined commute and shopping patterns an EV may be perfectly acceptable.

On the other hand, for them the fuel cost is important. That’s why in some countries Teslas are super popular with Uber.

Just because you only drive to the office and back does not mean that's the only place anyone might ever want to drive to.

A good 12-hour shift in the taxi for me was 200+ miles, with hopefully 1/2 of those paid miles.

I don't know what percentage of paid miles rideshare drivers can get. My friend recently took a 60+-mile ride share trip. That driver certainly had to drive most of the way back empty.

In europe, it would cost you $30 in fuel a day. You could save $10-$25 per day by driving electric…

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