Hacker News Reader

Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

…why?

I get range anxiety is a thing. But no one needs that kind of range in a car.

Why not make it 400mi/650km and save a ton of weight? The battery here gives double the range of an Accord. Who needs that?

Less battery is less weight. That’s better for tires, roads, charge times, brakes, accidents, acceleration, drivability, cost, and probably more.

250mi is plenty. For most even less. But there’s a psychological factor, I get that. Outside something like a truck that’s going to get a very low mi/kwh when towing no one needs that much battery.

View on HN

I drove across the country for the holidays a couple years ago because I planned to spend a few weeks there and didn’t want to rent a car the whole time at the destination. Plus we had our dog to tow around with us.

If I only drove 400 miles a day, it’d have taken me 2 weeks to drive there and back. I have better things to do with my time and paid vacation than spend two weeks driving. No, this is not an every day/week/month journey for most people. I get that 250 miles is plenty for most people, but failing to account for all use cases is poor planning and inconsiderate to those left out.

The correct thing to do is segment the market for all use cases, not just the ones that are convenient for MBCook. Don’t forget that HN is a bubble just like every other social network. People need more than 250 miles.

Also, depending on where you are, it allows more distance between charging stations.

However, also you should try to broaden your horizon. Not everyone lives in the US or Australia or Canada. Especially in Europe there‘s other countries and big cities that won‘t require thousands of kilometers to drive to. And of course, there‘s convenient public transport for long distances.

>Not everyone lives in the US or Australia or Canada

Hence, segment the market.

>there‘s convenient public transport for long distances.

Public transportation has good use cases, but also terrible use cases. It is good if you don't have stuff and are going to an urban center,which covers a lot of needs. If you want to clean out your mom's house, or go camping with friends,it sucks

It's a paradox. Everyone thinking about buying an EV worries about range, but nobody who has an EV worries about range.

You charge your car at night, just like your phone. So it effectively takes zero time to charge, and you always get a full day out of it. It's different from gas cars, the same way smartphones required new charging habits compared to a Nokia 3310 with its two-week battery life.

(And yes, if you live in an apartment or don't have a parking space, this sucks and it doesn't work for you. Same as if you used to charge your 3310 only at your girlfriend's house on weekends because you lost your charger a year before, and then you switched to a smartphone and needed to figure something else out. Conceded.)

If you do not have another vehicle available except the EV, you have to think: will driving from SF to LA be a nightmare? It is less the case than it used to be, but coinciding the recharge with a lunch stop is probably wise.

Likely because it alleviates the need to always be charging, whenever you're not on the road. Not having to make special arrangements for a charging station at work. Or for example, sharing a charging station at home instead of requiring your own, because you only need to charge every other day, etc.

It would make owning an EV less tedious.

How is 250 enough. On roadtrips I can easily go 500 miles in a day. With 900 miles you could go on trip and return home before you need to charge your battery again.

With this sort of range it might actually make EV pickups useful. You can now probably tow an RV 400-500 miles in cold weather with this. If this is legit, it’s going to revolutionize everything.

Or could you add extra capacity like drop tanks for fighters in WWII. Use built in 259 mile range normally. Rent a 900 mile range extender pack for your cross country trips.

Who is going to move a 500 lb battery?

Aren't batteries kept in best condition under 80% and above 20-30%? That high capacity number might be for a taxi and they'd have a lower more standard one for normal commuters.

maybe they are thinking about the rest of the world?

0 EV infrastructure in Argentina, but they could sell that car tomorrow, they have dealerships everywhere here.

I could make the trip I normally do to visit my parents on my ICE car and still have some margin for emergencies.

why don't you take a plane you say? there are no inter-state flights here sadly so traveling by car here is the normal thing.

Large Vehicles?

Freight Carries?

Locomotives with battery cars for energy recovery (braking, downhill, etc)

towing + cold most likely?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com