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Comment by fbdab103 | Hacker News Reader

Barring a technological leap, I would disagree with that. EVs still have limitations vs ICE: less range, longer "fill up", cold-weather issues, and more expensive sticker price.

The last one is likely going to the the thorniest problem for many who need a car now, regardless of long-term operational costs. I expect EV tax credits to dwindle into nothingness, further expanding the price disparity.

I want to get an EV, but as a renter without overnight charging, I fear I would have to plan my life around how to keep my car charged. Currently, I know that I can fill the car at the spur of the moment at nearly every block in under five minutes.

Edit: added cold weather

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The vast, vast majority of daily driving is way, way under the range possibilities of every popular EV.

Charging rates keep getting faster and faster, but as someone with a Tesla for the last few years it has never once been a problem.

When you charge at home you wake up "full" every day and on road trips an extra 15m every few hours isn't a big deal. When I go to Buccees in Texas, by the time I use the restroom, get some water, and walk to/from my car is usually charged.

And the last thing I'll add on that point is that I've found the extra "fill up" time to be a healthy thing. Between autopilot/FSD and a 15m break every few hours, I arrived to my destination much more refreshed.

You are right about the cost thing, but I think competition from China will drive prices down a lot in the next few years. Trade regulations won't be enough when they start making EVs for half the price.

The points are valid, but I don't think this needs much of a technological leap.

The sticker price is dominated by the battery prices, which appear to be currently limited by resource supply rather by the energy requirements of turning rocks into batteries; the range follows from the battery price; cold weather issues that I'm aware of are also fixed by a bigger battery pack.

That leaves the fill-up time.

You would be right to say that reducing this to 5 minutes would need a technological leap, but I don't think it's truly necessary. First: it is easy to imagine a high-level government requirement that one-in-n street lights is retrofitted with a charging port for electric vehicles[0].

Second: PV cells are also getting cheaper, to the point that many EV makers are just slapping them on as afterthoughts. When this gets raised, the conversation diverges into two groups, those saying "that only gets you 8 miles per day, which is terrible" and those saying "that only gets you 8 miles per day, which is 80% of the average actual usage of a vehicle so this is good". In either case, trickle-charging even while you're driving will reduce both the degree to which you as a driver need the charging infrastructure and also the cost to the municipality of installing the kind of charging infrastructure I've described.

This doesn't reduce fill-up times, for which we would still need to think in terms of 30 minute breaks. This would definitely change the character of European petrol stations… though from what I remember of US gasoline stations on that one road trip I've been on from Davis CA to Salt Lake City, perhaps less so the American ones.

[0] or something along similar lines if my assumption that all residential areas have street lights is false

I think most of the limitations are almost covered or will soon be covered.

Batteries are getting cheaper, denser, faster to charge and more durable every year. It's not a miracle improvement as sometimes is announced but the evolution is constant and CATL for example is already starting the mass production of 500Wh/Kg which would be impossible to imagine not long ago.

EV tax credits are designed to dwindle, similar to renewables subsidies, because the tech is projected to get cheaper over time, and has historically, which should take care of any price disparity.

I think it'll exhibit more as a slowdown in ICE sales than a speedup in EV sales. The people who buy a new car every 3 years are mostly unaffected, but anybody who buys a new car planning on keeping it for 5 - 10+ years is likely to be questioning their decision. Choosing between EV and ICE is hard, there's lots of FUD on both sides, so the easiest decision is not to choose, to keep their current vehicle longer, to buy used instead of new, et cetera.

>Barring a technological leap

I understand your point of view, and would agree with it if OEMs were not constantly and consistently advancing the technology. Software updates alone have given considerable range increases. And solid state battery tech is very real, to the point of being a silver bullet for mass adoption if it arrives within the next 4 years.

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