Hacker News Reader

Comment by vanilla_nut | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure it makes sense to push more people to EVs when California's grid can hardly keep up with household electricity usage. Over in the Northeast, I suspect Vermont regrets its "pay people to move here" move in 2020 that has only worsened our housing crisis. This feels very similar to me.

Does anybody know if California has plans to significantly expand power generation in the next couple of years? Otherwise we might see even more rolling blackouts soon.

View on HN

People do not charge at peak time, PG&E is waaaaay too expensive at peak time for that :)

PG&E is waaaaa...aay too expensive even during off hours.

I'm always pissed how much lower people in Santa Clara City pay then those in neighboring PG&E cities [0]

[0] https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees

Some people don't have much of a choice, if they don't have a private parking at home or a public charger nearby.

Do people usually charge at peak time?

Are people okay with letting """the grid""" dictate when and how far they can travel? My Prius gets 50MPG on a 9 gallon tank and I can "add 400 miles" (to use Tesla marketing terminology) in, like, a minute at a gas pump.

It's not about being prevented from doing something, but moreso when it's convenient & economical. Just like when you're running low on gas (but not out and not in a rush to fill up) you might plan a visit to a discount center like Costco during off-peak hours to avoid the lines, EV owners schedule their home charging during off-peak hours to save money.

If I'm on a roadtrip I can still stop at a supercharger and be boosted up in 10-15 mins.

Assuming there's a supercharger along your route that you're able to reach. The ones I've seen are placed halfway between major destinations, like LAX/SFO or LAX/LAS.

> Just like when you're running low on gas (but not out and not in a rush to fill up) you might plan a visit to a discount center like Costco during off-peak hours

Anecdata: I never ever do this. The marginal savings isn't worth the mental space it would take to plan that sort of thing. To me it's all about the availability and the immediacy, so I fill up with premium any time it's convenient and don't even look at the price.

I regularly have 10+ hour driving days and don't want to have to wait around even at superchargers. I'm open to the idea EVs, but only once they can fit into my needs instead of curbing my needs for the sake of EVs.

We are already ok with letting the oil/gas distribution network dictate when and how far we can travel. But since, as you note, people HATE having any kind of limitation on their movement, that network has scaled up to the point where there’s almost never a felt limitation. And that will happen with electrical too. The electrical distribution system for vehicles is already better than the oil/gas one was when ICE cars were coming into use.

When their employer's parking lot has charging spots, presumably yes? Charging during the day will only become more common as more people buy EVs and demand for more charging locations increases.

There's no real "demand" for parking lot charging. It's a nice perk, that's all. EVs whose owners work at employers with nice perks have access to copious off-peak charging at home. My 20-month-old Y has been on a parking lot charger a total of three times in its life.

That's fine if you own a house to charge your car in. So far I've had to live in apartments for one reason or another, and that basically makes EV ownership not feasible. Can't charge at home unless the complex has EV charging (not always, or with big caveats if they do), can't reliably charge at work.

If they can figure out how to have a fourth "nozzle" at every gas station that charges an EV in 10 minutes, I'll use it.

Most apartment dwellers just hit a supercharger for 20 minutes once a week. But yes: if you don't have at-home charging the convenience of an EV takes a big hit. I'm just saying that's not a huge population.

About half of CA lives in apartments. EV makes more sense in urban areas, where the percentage is probably way higher. Fraction of CA homeowners with a Tesla (long range and can use supercharger) is probably not much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com