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Comment by dcchambers | Hacker News Reader

Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs.

EVs are best for the types of driving we do on a day-to-day basis. Short commutes in areas we know well. Charge at home over night and 95% of the year you never worry about charging.

Renting a car means I'm usually either driving long distances or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infrastructure. Can I charge at the hotel? What about at Disney World or the San Diego Zoo or wherever else I'm driving on vacation? What if there are no super chargers nearby? Etc...

Maybe in a couple decades of battery/energy tech advancements where we can charge faster or swap batteries easier EVs for rentals will make more sense. Until then it's just extra stress you don't want when traveling. I know that's not why Hertz is dropping Tesla (the article sites high repair costs) but it's just my personal thought on rental EVs.

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I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs.

This was my recent experience. I was offered an EV car as a rental upgrade in a major city because the local rental place didn't have an EV charger. I figured what the hell because it was a relaxed holiday vacation. Turns out that was a hilariously bad idea.

Ended up spending at least 5-6 hours of my week vacation trying to avoid the EV going to 0% battery. Half of that time was spent on Google Maps - trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a charger I sat in the parking lot waiting for it to juice up.

All of that effort and I still could only give myself the miles back that I spent finding chargers, it was even funnier when the cold weather took miles away. Finally ended up luckily finding one at a local movie theater and asked family to shuttle me back and forth because of how long it took to charge.

Not a knock on EV's really, mostly the charging infrastructure and the rental experience.

I'm sorry that happened to you. I can say that having an EV in a place you know and as part of a familiar routine is a very different experience.

As long as you live where you can place your own charger. I've ridden with countless Uber drivers who rent EVs from Uber whose experience would disagree with such a blanket statement.

Uber drivers are not representational of all drivers

It is a knock on EVs as longs as the missing/lacking/very deficient charging infrastructure is what literally makes the EVs work or fail. No suitable (and fast) charging means EVs are meant to fail, and deservedly so.

Yeah but petrol cars weren't serviced as well as now when they started (arguably with a much longer range per much faster "charge", maybe). EVs are probably going to be a good idea, it'll just take time.

Imagine in 1995 saying emails will never replace sending around documents at the office, just because there wasn't any infra yet. Wait a bit, or even help !

today, i consider email to be a failure, Imagine saying that in 1995. I rarely get them or have a need to send them which amplifies the spam ratio.

It annoys me to get and send pdfs in text messages, but that seems to be how the world works now.

> It annoys me to get and send pdfs in text messages, but that seems to be how the world works now.

Do you mean PDFs for correspondence such as bills or invoices? That is not common for me.

mostly referring to pdfs to fill out and "e signature", my assistant sends them to me all the time.

In 1995 email was very common, but it was always a propriatory system that only could be used in your office. Very little was connected to an outside network.

We had an email system starting before I joined in the mid-80s (a product we made called CEO) but it was purely internal until well into the 90s. I'm not sure exactly when most people had some form of interoperable email but it was well into the dot-com era.

I still use email pretty frequently even if communications are at least somewhat fragmented across SMS, Facebook, Slack, etc.

ICE cars had an advantage though: if you ran out of petrol, you could hitch to the closest garage, fill up a tank, and you were back in business.

With EVs it's always going to require a tow, which is a nightmare experience I don't recommend to anyone.

There are non tow options for evs. a ev can recharge another (non do this, but they could). Or a generator can be brought to the ev.

> ... trying to find chargers with the right plug, ones that aren't broken, ones that were available, downloading various apps, etc. Then when I did find a charger I sat in the parking lot waiting for it to juice up.

These considerations are why I think we'll eventually move to battery swapping, when the market is mature enough to have standards for batteries. When there are as many battery swapping stations as there are gas stations now, the problem will be greatly diminished.

The market is mature enough to have standards for charging, but is nowhere near being mature for battery swaps. The charging problem will be solved long before battery swaps get close to being a thing, especially with the recent convergence on NACS.

Which is why h2 is the answer. h2 that is shown to work, regardless of all the hyperbole and reckless claims battery fans make.

Just need to solve that pesky little storage problem and it will all be coming up roses…

H2O is a pretty robust storage solution for H2.

The bigger issue is scaling down cracking stations so you can use stranded electricity from solar and wind to generate the H2.

That doesn’t make any sense at all. The point of storing H2 is to use it as a way to store energy. If you store it as H2O, you’re not storing energy any more, it’s just water.

It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam.”

>It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam

You’re obviously not a New Yorker

And here we go. If the storage problem is an issue, how are all these h2 cars getting refueled? And how is the h2 getting to them? And how is it stored before shipping?

It's not a problem. At all.

“It’s a problem” is not the same as “it is impossible.”

Likewise, “It’s possible to ship and store H2” is not the same thing as “it’s not a problem to ship and store H2”.

Meanwhile, the presumed "problem" was "preventing adoption", yet my counter point invalidated your statement. H2 is a success. It's stored. It's usable, in consumer driving applications. It's being refueled by consumers, right now, world wide.

It's not a problem. At all.

The more of a problem something is, the less it gets used. Showing some use doesn't disprove it being a problem. At all.

And nobody said "preventing" adoption, since that's easy to misinterpret.

It's reducing adoption a lot, compared to what it would be if hydrogen was as easy to store as butane or kerosene.

I don't think the US is ready for a compressed gas powered car. Natural gas vehicles are basically gone except for some fleets, and there was already extensive distribution of natural gas. The fuel tanks on compressed gas cars expire, and chances are it won't be economical to replace them; it certainly wasn't economical to replace natural gas tanks when I was looking circa 2016. When cars are lasting longer and longer, having a 15 or 20 year ceiling on the life of a vehicle that's not connected to the amount of use is a problem. EV batteries might wear out over time, but that's more connected to number of charge cycles than how much time has passed.

Maybe it took too long, but we've got a single standard for high powered charging going forward, and I think J1772 is universal for PHEVs and slow charging of EVs. Eventually, people running charging networks will figure out how to keep their machines working and add card readers. My favorite broken charger is the wireless ones --- someone has run off with the cable, but hey the advertising display still works.

That is one of the least efficient solutions possible - making hydrogen gas from water is at best 50% efficiency, and then you get to burn that hydrogen in a thermal engine with 30% efficiency.

Fuel cells have much better efficiency no?

This is the problem with the anti-h2 crowd. It's almost all based upon lack of understanding.

One person in this thread, was talking about cars, with no knowledge or understand that 3 separate manufacturers have h2 products on the market. Not 3 cars. 3 manufacturers. Another was discussing things as if it's an insurmountable task, that having h2 in cars is "really hard", yet these cars are being sold and used all over the world, with loads of adoption in Japan.

People make up weird claims about efficiency. About storage. About where h2 comes from. On and on and on. It's so ... absurd.

This isn't a 'my team your team' thing, yet it seems like, especially americans, are wired this way. "It's not thing $x, thus evil! wrong!! We must, absolutely must destroy any hope of this other thing existing.

h2 is the future for many application and usage spaces, and I can see batteries the same way too. It's not either or, and made up claims won't help the green movement at all.

They're a maximum 85% efficiency, with a range of 40-60%, and then you're supplying electricity to a 90% efficiency electric motor. So, overall, you have 90% of 85% of 50% of the generated electricity going into moving your car, so at best around 38.5%.

In contrast, an electric car uses electricity to charge a 99% efficient battery, and discharge to the 90% engine. So, 89% efficiency - much, much better.

Honestly, H2's got a long long way (if viable at all) to go as the future of clean cars. There is not much natural H2. In a way, H2 acts like a battery as well using electricity to produce from H2O, and discharge as electricity to H2O. Producing it cleanly, like with green power, isn't efficient yet – it's only around 70% efficient. Plus, getting H2 from the factory to the customer is way way pricier than just using our current electricity grid for charging stations... Converting it to electricity is only about ~30% efficient(?) It will cost a few times more than electricity in the foreseeable future. It will be definitely much harder than have charging stations everywhere.

Not to mention the technical challenges (assume we can handle) of the low volume density, low temperature..

> There is not much natural H2

There may well be, we don’t really know because we haven’t been looking for it at any scale.

There's no clean power for cars at all. Every extra joule of energy used by cars, should be considered coming from the dirties of fuels... because the first thing we do, when we have an excess of power generation, is turn off the dirty plants.

But outside of that, these things will improve, although your numbers are a bit out there.

Storage of H2 is a challenge in space and weight constrained devices such as cars. Plus, any well to wheels analysis shows H2 coming up behind the alternatives in efficiency.

There aren't claims, these are physical constraints. For heavy vehicles such as trucks and busses (and trains) there might be a market, provided the H2 is an otherwise unused byproduct of some process and needn't be produced, but for the majority of personal mobility major breakthroughs are required to make it competitive.

Yet there are 3 separate car manufacturers, with h2 passenger vehicles, all with 500km+ range, all being sold for 1/2 a decade. Seems like it isn't a physical constraint?

I did some (academic) research in a group working on storage (tanks and metal hydrides), so yeah, I know why it's only 3 and they all did it 20 years ago. Sources for such into aren't private, but I have the feeling you've never looked at them.

20 years ago? These are sold now. Today.

So much denial in the anti h2 crowd.

It's the same cars, from the same companies, using the same tech (structural use of metal hydrides isnt commercially viable yet).

I'm not anti H2, why would I? I'm not part of any crowd. I just did part of my physics training on the subject.

20 years ago, while there were more H2 vehicles on the road, nobody in the H2 storage fields thought it would last. On a basc level, the physics of getting electrons out of a material is better than getting protons out. And then there is an already preexisting infrastructure for free.

Being sold in absolutely tiny volumes.

The biggest issue is the need to build out an entirely new fueling infrastructure with a highly explosive fuel. EVs can piggyback off of the existing electrical grid.

EV's are still in relatively tiny numbers.

To replace fossil fuel transport will require an entirely new infrastructure regardless - if it's electric the existing grid will essentially have to be built out by a substantial factor.

A hybrid future is entirely feasible with long established city to city truck transport routes using hydrogen from dedicated planned end points and mid points along with lighter EV vehicles and non standard route EV trucking.

We had a hydrogen powered Toyota in our fleet for a while and it was great, but we were also down the road from the National Physics Laboratory at Teddington where they had a hydrogen filling station…

This could be solved by regulation. Just start tracking National Physics Laboratory deserts to ensure that no house in the US is more than 300m from a National Physics Laboratory.

I've seen a very good take that it is the ideal renewable fuel for large machinery such as farming or construction equipment. Batteries wouldn't work due to the cost and charging time (when you're using them you need them for long stretches), but weight (and therefore some of the complex/heavy containment). These places (at least in the UK) have their own diesel logistics infrastructure already.

I think green methanol is more likely, since that's what global shipping seems to be converging on. Methanol is really just a vector for H2, but you can make it without having to first synthesize H2 (although you can do that too if you want). Depending on the method of production, I've seen efficiency numbers around that of producing LH2, but you get a product that is liquid at STP conditions, which is a huge advantage.

One of the biggest upsides of an EV is that you charge at home. Always start in the morning fully charged. No "Dang, need to go to the station". H2 is definitely not a step in that direction so for me it's DOA.

Indeed, for you this seems to be the case. For many, it's a royal pain to charge an EV. Maybe your apartment doesn't have plugs, for whatever reason. You work from home. You have to go somewhere to charge, and then wait.

For such people, and there's a lot of these people, h2 is less work (quicker fill up) than electric charging.

Right now, electric cars are targeting the wealthy. Wealthy people tend to have houses. That could certainly change, but even if it starts to target those with less fiscal fortitude, many such live in apartments with no charging infrastructure.

What then?

I'd call the charging market far from nature. Installing random apps, practically per charging point? Or requiring a second wallet for all the 'network' cards?

Wake me up when I need nothing more than the payment card I already carry.

It's solved because you just use Tedla super chargers and that's it.

These don't exist in Europe.

Rubbish.

> The stations are primarily deployed in three regions: Asia Pacific (over 2,000), North America (over 2,000), and Europe (over 1,000).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger

Some supercharger stations also work with other cars. I used them over Christmas with my Kia. Surprisingly they were faster and cheaper than anything else in the area.

Those in Europese arent what they are in the US, they're just, of ten individuap, stations with the common plug, just like the other ones.

What are they like the in the US? I've searched and on the face of it they look just like the ones I used in the UK with two types of connector (like in the picture at https://thedriven.io/2022/02/27/where-can-you-charge-a-tesla...)

Correct. I've lived both in US (Cali) and EU (Sweden) with a Tesla. And apart from that's is a different plug there's virtually no difference at all. 250kW DC charging. No problems.

Here in NL they are few and far between. It's a diverse market, with dozens of companies (hence the hassle with cards). And still nowhere near the coverage of gas of course.

I'm sure they are the best, those Tesla stations, you're just gonna have to go out of your way for them, around here at least. Hope you got the right card. Or your leasing company. Or your car rental. Etc.

1000 stations is nothing. Like there's more than 10000 gas stations in France alone, with just a fraction of a 1000 you won't get anywhere (or at least nowhere near as easily as with an ICE).

You can still get anywhere you need to go with them and they are adding more locations all the time

It only works with Teslas, forget the other ones. That's part of why the others have failed to deliver a useful EV: only Tesla has a reliable charging network. The others are reliant on half assed solutions made by third parties.

Im in Europe, so that doesnt matter.

And even if they had then here top, they'd be useless to me, because Teslas are too large for me.

Which part of Europe? See the map. If it's SE Europe, Cyprus or the Baltics, you are basically screwed. Western, Central and Northrn Europe (the populated areas) not so much.

https://www.tesla.com/en_eu/findus

Model 3 is a normal sized compact car, but if you live in Italy or on an island, it could be too big.

This a case where the markets are so different that the names diverge.

The Tesla Model 3 is a Medium car by NHTSA standards and a Compact by EPA standards.

However, in the EU Euro Car Segment standard, the Model 3 is a D-segment or "large car".

Maybe you'd be a 2025 Model 2[0] customer?

[0] https://www.whatcar.com/news/tesla-model-2/n25636

It really is a shame that Musk has tarnished the Tesla brand so much, because this looks like a great car.

I think outside of the "is speech good or evil"-osphere, most people would still aspire to have a Tesla.

I don't know. I live in Ireland and Teslas have definitely lost their caché in general. Certainly nobody has a positive impression of Elon.

Branding matters, as people do tend to buy the image almost as much as the capabilities.

Musk is inextricably tied to Teslas brand.

All good when he was ‘space Howard Hughes (pre-hypochondriac shut-in)’, since that brand resonated with people with money who were going for the ‘better future’ image.

Now his antics remind everyone of their asshole racist uncle that they can’t stand. Not a good brand association, as asshole racists uncles aren’t as popular with those with a lot of money.

Maybe! Didn't know that was coming!

But since Tesla is leading the bottom in reliability scores, it's still quite unlikely I'm getting one.

Some supercharger stations can be used by non-teslas with a CCS port. And it seems there's a big move coming for more to adopt.

https://www.motortrend.com/features/tesla-nacs-charging-port...

Edit Although I should add, even if they work, they may not support the full power charging. My Kia works, but nowhere near 250kWh.

Yes, that's why most of the other brands have announced the will use the Tesla port, to be able to use their charging network. There are still issues with that approach because all Teslas have their charging port on the back left side and their Supercharger cable is quite short, while other cars do not necessarily maintain this. Also they might not charge at full power. It's still a better solution than the half assed ones.

> their Supercharger cable is quite short

It really is! My port is on the front centre and depending on how others have parked, it's quite tricky to get the angle required to be close enough.

But these are just niggles. We absolutely need standard hardware.

I thought batteries being built into the frame was the direction things were going, right?

Swappable batteries are a huge fire hazard. They stopped doing that even for scooters. Too dangerous.

We’ve literally got people right now open air pouring liquid gasoline. It’s not uncommon to even get some on yourself.

My point is it can’t be much more of a hazard.

This is gonna sound crazy but gasoline is not that much of a fire hazard. I’m speaking comparatively.

I used a gasoline stove for a while and it is bonkers how hard that thing is to light. You can spill the gas or do all sorts of things—the only thing I could do to get a fire out of it was to follow the instructions, exactly, and keep the stove perfectly level. I later learned that gasoline only burns if you keep the gasoline / air mixture within a narrow range. I know that gasoline is implicated in a lot of fires, but it’s also just so damn common and people are careless with it.

Powerful batteries scare me more, to be honest. Not a lot more, just a little. Not trying to fearmonger here. It’s just that I love those sparks and that fire, and have spent time playing with batteries and playing with gasoline or other flammable substances. If you short a battery, it will basically dump as much energy as it can, as fast as it can. It’s easier to accidentally short a battery.

Properly stored & maintained batteries are fine. I just get a little nervous holding a wrench, sometimes.

Gasoline is not much of a fire hazard. (Compared to other things like a 32 ampere spark right next to a lithium battery, at least.)

Sounds like you haven't seen a lithium or a sodium fire yet. After you've seen one, you'll handle batteries like you do explosives..

Who's they? There were thousands of shcooters with swappable batteries riding around Taiwan when I was there in November.

Correct.

Gogoro currently do more than 400,000 battery swaps / day, primarily in Taiwan, but are expanding into other Asian countries.

https://www.gogoro.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogoro

Never heard of these guys before, thanks. Insteresting. But it looks like they have severe limitations on the kinds of vehicles they support and their parameters. Would never use this as a daily driver for personal use.

There's a difference between user-swappable and battery-as-a-service. There is a company called NIO that seems to be successfully doing battery-as-a-service in China right now and is trying to expand this platform to Europe. They're also in talks with other manufacturers who seem to be interested in developing a common standard to make the batteries interchangeable so the stations can service other brands too.

There may be safety concerns (e.g. if I understand it correctly, the swapping process is fully automated and the car locks the doors and takes over steering, so I'm not sure how this deals with emergency scenarios where the driver might need to leave the car or intervene) but as far as the driver is concerned they never touch the battery so the risk of accidents from improper wiring is significantly reduced.

With enough market penetration you just plug in to the nearest street light.

https://www.evstreetcharge.co.uk/

We have them locally - but parking is generally not easy - so getting to chargers isn't either...

I used to think this, but my car adds about 300km range in 20-30 mins on one of the many plentiful 300kW chargers in my area. A whole chain of gas stations now has 6-8 high-speed chargers on the forecourt. I plug in, take a break in the heated seat and call a friend, unplug and drive away.

On long trips stopping for 20-30 mins every few hours is ~normal anyway. Stretch my legs, use a restroom, have a drink, get back on the road.

Newer cars charge even faster. I don't think battery swapping is going to be important in the end.

To me battery swapping makes no sense for consumer cars unless it’s used to significantly increase prices (possibly by removing home charging as well): battery swapping requires a ton more maintenance, space, infrastructure, and logistics, constrains vehicles enormously, and requires a very small number of standard battery formats.

Battery swapping is also not very accessible, not evening can lift 50+ pounds

Oh battery swapping would be entirely automated, no way you'd do it at home (let alone on the reg).

Nio Inc. has videos of the process, and that's what you'd expect (and I assume what tesla tried at one time), you drive to a booth, the car gets locked in and the battery is replaced automatically, then you drive out.

Who owns the battery?

In the NIO case, NIO owns the battery and you pay a monthly leasing fee. One interesting feature this allows is that you can lease a cheaper low capacity battery for the 48-50 weeks of the year you drive less then 100 miles a day, and upgrade to a more expensive high capacity battery for the few times you're driving far.

https://www.nio.cn/charger-map

This map has real time stats on battery swap. Unfortunately it's only available in Chinese. NIO has done 35 million battery swap to date and you can see where the swap stations are located. Not quite as accessible as your gas stations but not far off especially in the large cities.

NIO now has 9 battery swap locations in The Netherlands. I'm not sure this is better than charging points, but at least we'll get some data on it. Tom Scott has made a video[1] about it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w

What are you even talking about?

I wonder if it would be easier to switch to say a part swappable battery, rather than try and make the whole thing swappable. Something smaller, but with a reasonable range, say 50 miles, might allow for a smaller ejection port on the car and possibly even light enough to handle by a person.

NIO (Chinese brand) has solid state swappable batteries and a battery swapping station in a shipping container.

You still need standardisation between all manufactureres for it to work.

Or hook up a battery in a trailer for the occasional long journey.

This is a good idea. Why carry round all that weight 100% of the time when you can only take it when you need it.

One of the issues with that idea is you need very heavy duty connectors, EVs are hundreds of amps coming out.

A trailer mounted auxiliary battery doesn't need to supply hundreds of amps of current.

It can supply energy slowly, perhaps at dozens-of-amps.

The only time when an EV gets into hundreds of amps territory is when it is doing real work: Work like accelerating, or going uphill (or both).

Maintaining a speed on a straight stretch of highway is not a huge burden in terms of work, and that is where I think that a trailer-mounted battery might shine brightest.

The car's internal battery can take the brunt of rapid acceleration tasks and get filled back up over time, just like it already does in normal charge-daily EV use.

So to put some of this into real terms:

20A at 355V is 7,100 Watts, or about 9.5 horsepower. That's a ton of real work.

100A at 355V is 35,500 Watts, or about 47 horsepower. Way more than plenty to keep a portly EV heading down the highway.

The connection for the trailer APU doesn't need to handle the peak current draw of hundreds of amps. It just needs to be able to (slowly) pick up some slack and thus provide greater range.

Like the BMW i3 with the gas-fired range extender: The EV drivetrain could consume a ton more peak power than the built-in genset could produce, and that's OK.

It's not like people are using these in endurance racing or something. Most real-world driving is pretty mundane, with only occasional instances of rapid acceleration.

Batteries are still surprisingly heavy. I'm sure someone here has a more accurate lb/kWh figure, but my first gen Chevy volt can do about 35 miles on a charge and the batteries weigh several hundred pounds.

Ok, so we are still looking at some kind of power assisted mechanism if not completely automatic.

What makes you think complicated swapping stations are going to be ubiquitous compared to chargers?

My wife and many millions of others will not be lifting any batteries.

She asks me to deal with the batteries in the TV remote.

Hopefully everyone converges on NACS and the weird charger issues go away. It would be a pain to have to go to specific gas stations for different car models if they had different nozzle sizes for different models for instance.

> Not a knock on EV's really, mostly the charging infrastructure and the rental experience.

But why not knock on them? They had a lot of promise and a lot of hype when they were being touted as simpler and cheaper and just overall better. Somehow they ended up being more expensive, unless we're talking about Chinese brands, more costly to insure, a longer time to charge than a corresponding IC car and incompatible charging networks. I think they can handle a bit of criticism, it's a big industry, and it can deal with some minor criticism from an orange hacker forum.

I think you're confused. The future predictions that you all listed are right. No one promised them to you this year. The subsidies exist to support the market until the market can support itself. Taking on those kinds of costs is one one of the intrinsic functions (and reasons to exist) of a government.

There were certainly mistakes (e.g., not supervising VW properly when they went full DGAF on the electricify america rollout).

The parent is saying they still believe in the analysis that electric will work, they just spent their whole comment criticizing their EV experience.

> Somehow they ended up being more expensive, unless we're talking about Chinese brands

The Chinese brands' pricing seems to be at least in part due to subsidies: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-launches-anti-subsid...

At least that's what the EU says.

> But why not knock on them?

I would agree that the discussion on EVs is a bit misguided in general. It always is EVs or ICE cars and EVs must be the winner otherwise you are "confused" or "out of your mind". In reality, both can coexist and have a place for what they are really good at.

From your link:

> The anti-subsidy investigation covers battery-powered cars from China, so also includes non-Chinese brands made there, such as Tesla (TSLA.O), Renault (RENA.PA) and BMW (BMWG.DE). It is also unusual in that it is brought by the European Commission itself, rather than in response to an industry complaint.

This does seem like more of a political play rather than China actually trying to flood western markets, especially considering that western EV producers are also being subsidized and that the Chinese domestic market is sufficiently large by itself.

> This does seem like more of a political play

Agreed. That's why I added "At least that's what the EU says."

The EU is clearly whining because the Chinese local market imploded, so they are now exporting more of their cars into the EU markets.

Yet, articles like the linked one make it unclear to me what part of EV production is really subsidized and what part is not. I think it would be advisable to be cautious about claims that they are already cheaper than ICE cars. At least, that's how I am looking at it currently.

There might be more than reflexive whining at play, considering the review will include European manufacturers. The Commission might be trying to gear up towards some sort of EU-wide subsidy program to match the Chinese one. It's the sort of thing that individual EU governments are explicitly banned from, by Common Market rules; but when the push comes from some of the biggest German and French businesses, a solution has to be found.

Don't worry. The EU manufacturers will get slap on the wrist, while the Chinese ones shall be hit with huge fines, tariffs and other EU antics.

And the consumer will pay for it.

> The EU is clearly whining because the Chinese local market imploded, so they are now exporting more of their cars into the EU markets.

I think it's disingenuous to downplay EU's response as "whining". The automotive industry is a strategic sector, not only in terms of economy but also directly and indirectly in defense. Shifting demand from the internal market to the output of a rival and potential threat means spending their own cash financing a rival to place it in a controlling position.

If you have a Tesla the charging story is wonderful.

The car finds chargers on it's own. It shows you exactly what's available at each charger. Hardly anything is ever broken.

EVs are far easier and more convenient than gas cars. It's the non Tesla infrastructure that just sucks.

> EVs are far easier and more convenient than gas cars.

EVs certainly have some advantages, but for most of the world's population "convenience" isn't one of them.

If you live in a house with a garage where you can install a charger and you use your car mostly as a runabout, it's great.

The majority of the western world lives in cities with street parking and fewer chargers than vehicles, though, and in that situation it's far more convenient to spend five minutes at the gas station on your way to the office than it is to find a spot to charge your car for three hours which may or may not be anywhere close to where you actually need to go.

If by "majority" you mean, a small minority, then you're spot on!

All you have to do is look at the census. 2/3rds of households have a garage or carport. If you add to this the number of people with private parking, that's like 80+% of people who can have chargers subsidized by the state.

It's always important to look at numbers before you get trapped in your bubble.

> If by "majority" you mean, a small minority, then you're spot on! ... It's always important to look at numbers before you get trapped in your bubble.

Speaking of bubbles, I wrote "majority of the western world," which admittedly surprisingly stretches beyond America.

Two-thirds of households in, say, Berlin absolutely do not have carports, garages, or private parking.

Charging infrastructure in Berlin is fine - I had an EV for over a year and charged on the street no problem. The two major caveats are that you really need a card specifically for paying the charging networks (not a credit card which is a major hassle) and road trips are more difficult than they would be with an ICE car.

I suppose that depends on your perspective. The nearest charging point to my flat is ~10 minutes on foot, which I wouldn't consider convenient in any way.

It's true for me also but I didn't think of it as much of a burden. The car would last for about 2+ weeks between charges with the way I drove it and there was also the option of trying to charge near work which I would drive to sometimes.

> It's always important to look at numbers before you get trapped in your bubble.

The irony. I didn't realise that the UK (and in fact a large portion of Europe) wasn't part of the western world.

I have a garage and my car won't fit in it because it's filled with crap.

Haha I have a 3 car garage and can barely fit one in. I admit that it is a problem that technology is unlikely to solve.

If you really wanted you could order diesel delivered to your home. And then fill your car in your own home. Nothing stops people from installing their own tanks. It is just that it is not needed as filling occasionally is minimal inconvenience. Much less than having to stick cable in your car each time you park it.

I am pretty sure zoning and environmental laws prevent that. A gas can maybe max 3 gallons

I love hacker news. Opinions about storing gas, not even knowing the universal gas can size is 5 gallons in the US.

Also, many people in the US (overwhelmingly in the Northeast) heat their houses with heating oil and thus already store roughly 300 gallons (or 1000 liters) or so of this diesel compatible substance in their abodes.

Nope. Most farmers keep a 50gal tank in their truck bed replete with nozzle for fueling tractors etc. And a larger one on the farm, usually 50 to 400gal.

Now if only there was an EV that combined tesla's charging infrastructure with an actual quality car at a reasonable price, that would be great.

The European Union created their Combined Charging System (CCS) standard and has been enforcing it since around 2014. I think Tesla's charging infrastructure in Europe has been forced to comply with that standard since it's inception as a precondition to apply for subsidies.

The US followed suite and has also forced support for CCS when applying for subsidy programs to grow Tesla's charging network.

https://qz.com/the-white-house-is-trying-to-persuade-tesla-t...

I read the post to mean that Teslas are expensive crap.

> But why not knock on them? They had a lot of promise and a lot of hype when they were being touted as simpler and cheaper and just overall better. Somehow they ended up being more expensive, (...)

I don't think EVs were ever sold as cheaper or overall better. I recall they were marketed as cheaper to run on short commutes, but at the expense of having a large upfront price, having shorter autonomies, and requiring relatively high logistics and route planning.

There's also the environmental and geopolitical angle, but it was always clear that potential customers were expected to pay a premium for that privilege. In fact, many countries even put together hefty subsidy programs to make EVs more competitive.

Yeah - I was getting excited about having booked an EV for my Christmas holiday visiting family in the UK (with Hertz). Fortunately researching charging knocked some sense into me and I switched back to a ICE vehicle.

- Even though I was staying in their house there was no way I could charge it without buying an expensive cable, or risking some cheap crap from Amazon (blow up the house or the rental car perhaps?)

- Every damn thing needs an app (and an account and registration - fun if you don't actually live in the country in question). Seriously just put up a charger and a contactless payment reader. Imagine if every petrol pump needed an app to start? May as well go back to having to put pound coins in a meter...

- Oh and it was expensive anyway at 85p/KWh at public recharging points. So 78kWh * 0.85 = 66GBP ($84) per charge, say 230 miles to be generous. I gave the petrol rental back with 600 miles extra on the clock and put a bit over 50 quid in petrol in it.

> Every damn thing needs an app (and an account and registration - fun if you don't actually live in the country in question). Seriously just put up a charger and a contactless payment reader. Imagine if every petrol pump needed an app to start? May as well go back to having to put pound coins in a meter...

This actually isn't true. It is law in the UK that every public charger must have a contactless reader on it. Many of them have apps but you don't need to use them.

Your point about the price is very valid though. With the exception of Tesla Superchargers they are extremely expensive. For some reason Supercharger prices range from 12-35p. The Supercharger network in the UK is pretty good, but driving anything other than a Tesla is a nightmare.

I think your knowledge may be a little out of date. I charge my (non-Tesla) EV at Tesla Superchargers and pay 30p/kWh at the excellent Ionity (350kW!) chargers.

There is exactly one Ionity charger for the whole of Greater Manchester, with the other nearest ones being more than an hour drive in two directions.

Not a realistic suggestion for anyone not living in London.

There are 12 Ionity chargers in Greater Manchester, plus 18 Tesla ones. I've used both sets.

You seem to be confusing home/destination chargers and rapid chargers - which is a common mistake for non-EV drivers to make. Unlike petrol, electricity comes to you.

> You seem to be confusing home/destination chargers and rapid chargers

Well, or they went to https://ionity.eu/en/network/network-status or https://www.zap-map.com/live/ looked at Manchester and it listed only one Ionity charger, "Manchester East".

This.

Doesn't really matter, but that's one location that contains multiple chargers.

Of course, very few people that live in Greater Manchester would use a really fast charger like those there whilst in Greater Manchester. Maybe if you're a taxi driver, or caught short somehow? This is the confusion I was talking about.

> that's one location that contains multiple chargers.

It's still one location. If I live in Trafford is easily a 45 minute drive, much worse at peak times.

> very few people that live in Greater Manchester would use a really fast charger

Because obviously we all have driveways and we can leave the car there overnight. Fuck 'em terraces scum. /s

Like many UK EV owners I don't have a driveway either and use a lamp post charger overnight.

Good for you, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a lamppost for every car out there.

Luckily not every car needs charging every day, plus there are extender bollards for the gaps

I wish the EU would do that. Driving in Germany is impossible without one of the charge cards. I really don't get why credit cards aren't mandated to work on all public chargers.

EU is doing that as well now: https://www.theverge.com/23806690/eu-ev-fast-charger-60km-la...

--- start quote ---

The regulation also requires that ad-hoc charging payments can be made via cards or contactless devices, without requiring a subscription. That should make it possible to pull over to any charging station from any network and charge your EV without first hunting for the correct app or signing up for a subscription. Operators are required to clearly list prices at their installed recharging points via “electronic means,” including wait times and availability.

--- end quote ---

It will take time for all chargers to convert though.

Amusingly in Australia, most car rental companies provide free charging and you can return the car at whatever battery suits. They give you a card to tap, and Tesla Superchargers are probably the most expensive charger you can find.

> Every damn thing needs an app

EU is going to require all chargers to just work with credit cards: https://www.theverge.com/23806690/eu-ev-fast-charger-60km-la...

--- start quote ---

he regulation also requires that ad-hoc charging payments can be made via cards or contactless devices, without requiring a subscription. That should make it possible to pull over to any charging station from any network and charge your EV without first hunting for the correct app or signing up for a subscription. Operators are required to clearly list prices at their installed recharging points via “electronic means,” including wait times and availability.

--- end quote ---

Wow, this is great news indeed! I never really understood how this was not regulated right from the start. But better late than never...

> at 85p/KWh at public recharging points.

Wow. For rates like that it'd be worth making your own public charger. ;)

My experience renting a model 3 from hertz was both positive and negative.

At first, it was hard since I've never owned a model 3. Even if you are a model 3 owner, you are probably used to using your phone as the key.

They give you a keycard.

anyway, I didn't know how to lock the doors. finally I figured out the lock symbol on the central display and locked the doors. But when I got out, they were unlocked again. The trick was to open the door first, press the lock icon, get out and close the doors.

The easy way to lock the doors... Well, you can google it and find out, it is not intuitive, but easy once you learn.

Now renting a car that can drive itself was wonderful. I had to put a lot of miles on and it helped.

Finding charging is easy -- it is all built into the display. You can navigate and it will integrate charging into your trip. I was already familiar with this, but if you're unfamiliar it might be something to learn. There ARE superchargers everywhere, and L2 chargers everywhere else.

I had to do level 2 charging (J1772) and it I had to call hertz to figure out where the adapter was. (It was in a bag in the footwell of the trunk). Once I had that I could charge at hotels.

Hertz did spam me with lots of "get to know the model 3 before your trip" stuff. I should have read it a bit.

>was both positive and negative.

I see what you did there...

A charged experience so to speak

One that hertz.

I rented a Model 3 from Hertz last year and drove about 120 miles in it. Due to the super cold weather (like 12 degrees), plus the fact that I drove in the mountains in New England, and I used the heat (it was freezing and I had my child with me), I had the charge the car 1/2 way there, which made me stop in the middle of nowhere for 30 minutes while I waited at a super charger. Honestly this experience stunk.

I think the Tesla is nice if you don't need to go anywhere too far. For trips stick to gasoline.

There’s tons of folk routinely driving EVs from the Bay Area to Tahoe / Yosemite.

It’s like any inconvenience though. I used to bicycle commute everywhere that was within about a 20 mile radius. Rain, shine, or snow. This was so routine that it never bothered me. But if you’re a person who hasn’t ridden a bike in ten years and I asked you to adopt my routine, I can’t imagine you’d be terribly happy.

In France we had this big plan to swap batteries near instantly at the charging station, like we did with horses 300 years ago (but it's an old idea since electrical batteries were used to power vehicles everywhere), and tested it in Israel of all places with Renault... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) . Didn't work but maybe that's one idea ? Now if only we could standardize this...

The battery market is not yet mature enough for this. When the big car manufacturers have all had another decade's experience selling EVs, and battery tech has stabilized, the logic of standardization and swapping will become apparent.

Swapping batteries makes sense for scooters because they are not heavy, and it is done already in asia.

Swapping a battery that weighs a ton and is part of the car structure is another story completely.

I think the more sensible solution is to have fast charging and a reliable network. 800 volt batteries and a good architecture enable incredible fast charging, and in the fjture it might be even faster. Combine that with cars with a lot of range, ex. 400+ miles and a 30m stop once 300 miles doesn't sound bad at all.

Battswap is being trialled by trucking companies, with much larger and heavier batteries than in cars. The engineering problems are fiddly and time-consuming to get right but not intrinsically difficult.

With battswap also being done at the lightweight end, eventually there will be convergence in the middle. But I think we have another decade or fifteen years to wait before standardization efforts have a chance and battswap can be vehicle manufacturer agnostic.

Battswap is an obvious way to lower the sticker price of vehicles, which is key to selling the next half billion of them.

Battery weight might decrease drastically with next gen tech.

We can likely get super charging down to 15 mins with latest tech. Which is an overall better long term approach than battery swapping which requires standard battery sizes limiting innovation

Tesla figured out how to do it and implemented it.

Problem is, nobody wanted it. They would rather wait to charge than turn in their personal battery, and later come back for it.

Would you want it? Would you turn over your decent, brand new battery at some charging station?

What's interesting is that they did it differently with the cybertruck. You can buy an additional battery that I believe is swappable.

They didn't really try to bring it to market. If the battery was just leased while it was installed in your vehicle (so you were only paying some reservation charge and a use fee instead of the full up front price), you might not feel so attached to it.

Do you have a source for "nobody wanted it"?

From what I can tell they showed it off to get some tax credits, then decided not to deploy it anywhere (but keep the money of course).

You can stop half way and recharge? That is amazing!

Filling in a gas tank does not take 30 minutes.

I agree, with my kids I rarely do it in less than an hour

Probably less amazing if it's a shady place in the middle of nowhere, with a dirty bathrooms, and shady characters roaming around asking for money. I don't see having to hanging out in some of those places for 30 minutes a positive experience. It's got it's excitement, but usually not the good kind of excitement.

I've been to countless superchargers in a good chuck of the country. I've never seen a shady one with anyone begging, dirty bathrooms, or anything similar. They're in reasonable places, mid to upscale, next to grocery stores, etc.

That's good that it's the case. I mainly pointing out that if it's ever not the case, and the place is not one would enjoy hanging out around, with an IC car it's a 5 minute deal and you're out of there. With an EV it's a half an hour, and possibly going out of your way, which adds extra time.

For instance, when I travel with my regular IC car, I don't plan or think too much about where to refuel, how I am going to drive there, etc. It's usually a last minute decision. Having to spend half an hour somewhere it's a bit more tricky, now the trip revolves around recharging, waiting, possibly combining with lunch or dinner, etc.

Pretty much anywhere. chargers are scattered all over. not every town has them, they are often hidden, and off the beaten path. If you start navigating to them when you are down to 150 miles of range you will ba okay and not have to go too far out of your way.

Rented model3 in New England, drove 1 trip, paid some $33 in town for charging cost, for a distance for which the gas equivalent wood have been no more than $15. Spent time hunting for charging stations until I found the supercharger.

Came here and said EV was not cheaper to run for me, many people on here disagreed. I gave up

Also, Hertz models are watered down low range ones.

There's a little pictograph on the keycard that shows how to lock & unlock the car from the outside, by pressing the card on the b-pillar.

lol, the keycard was given to me inside a oversized hard plastic holder thing. It was scratched and you couldn't read the card inside if you wanted to.

yeah, once you know it is easy.

> Hertz did spam me with lots of "get to know the model 3 before your trip" stuff. I should have read it a bit.

It sounds like that would have solved literally all of your problems.

I wholeheartedly disagree that rental companies are a bad place for EVs.

When I'm traveling and I know that I'm going to have to do a week of heavy driving, I prefer an EV to save on gas. I've rented a Tesla Model 3 from Hertz a couple of times for this purpose: when I did the calculations, the cheaper per-mile cost of using superchargers more than made up for the difference in rental price vs. an economy rental (the addition of free destination chargers when i found them was a bonus). The general driving experience was obviously better than an economy rental, as well.

I know it's not the case everywhere, but along my routes, I was able to find convenient superchargers in parking lots of stores that I wanted to visit (bubble tea, Target, etc), and the car was usually finished charging before i was finished in the store. The couple of times that i stopped at superchargers that didn't have a useful establishment nearby, i was able to appease the kids with the built-in video games.

When it was time to return the car, there was no run-around trying to find a gas station to fill up near the rental center: you can return the car with a quarter charge, and it's no problem, Hertz doesn't charge any additional charging fee.

It would have been nice if i didn't have to use key cards, and if i could use the app to, say, precondition the car. It also would have been nice if the videos saved by "sentry mode" were easier to batch clear. But these are quibbles; the rentals were absolutely worth it for me.

I never rented an EV but everyone I encountered with an EV rental had received it unexpectedly from Hertz and was struggling to charge it.

It you want to give people a poor opinion of EVs, dump them in a rental EV and tell them it needs to be returned with 80% charge and don't offer any support on how to do that.

Oh that sucks. I recently rented a Model 3 from Sixt in Australia, and they said bring it back with any level of charge you want, which was great - I only had it for 3 days, and the initial charge was enough for that.

> or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infrastructure.

When I’m traveling for work and need a car, it’s usually for smaller quick trips where I wouldn’t even need to refill a tank of gas. For these types of trips, a single charge on an EV makes sense. But otherwise, I agree with you. EV rental doesn’t make much sense to me for long trips or vacation travel where you’ll be driving a lot in a place you don’t know.

> When I’m traveling for work and need a car, it’s usually for smaller quick trips where I wouldn’t even need to refill a tank of gas. For these types of trips, a single charge on an EV makes sense.

That might make sense a lot of the time. But there's plenty of exceptions - for example winter time in cold climates can transform a single charge rental into several charges needed. Even with just a few short trips taken.

And honestly, for the former type of trip, given Uber/Lyft, I'm less inclined to rent a car than I used to be--especially if work is paying--unless I'm doing short side trip(s) that aren't as amenable to just grabbing a ride from an app.

I rented a polestar from hertz uk for a summer holiday, it was wonderful. i just let it charge overnight on the mains socket of the cottage, which gave me 200 miles a day, more than enough for a family holiday

I think the driving an EV experience is massively better if you can cheaply charge where you sleep.

Looks like UK has 230V on the standard outlets, probably why it charges reasonably. Note this person taking days when on 120V:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38967392

Yeah, it’s highly dependent on the country. I rented a car in Norway this past summer. I didn’t even ask for an EV, that’s just what most cars there are. We drove a ton. It was delightful. My vehicle charged up in 30 mins at a fast charger, the chargers were all over, and most charging locations had cafes or fun things to do nearby. I loved it!

In the US, I have a PHEV but when I’m not at home, I don’t even bother to charge it because there are so few chargers, they’re slow, and the ones that exist are often broken.

> Charge at home over night

If you have a private garage. I live in a (non-US) city where there's shared garages (those who do have a garage, a lot of them just park outside) which are old and not always have power sockets. And even if they do, I don't think you're entitled to use them to charge your car. And do EVs work with standard power sockets, or needs some special stuff? I've never driven an EV.

They work with standard power outlets, just very slowly. Our Hyundai gets 50 miles of range every 24 hours its plugged in at home.

Mostly I charge at work not at home, which uses 240v power (think an electric dryer), and that can charge the car fully in 8-10 hours.

Most EVs seem to come with cables that work with regular power sockets, they're just more limited on output even compared to regular charging (not fast charging, which btw reduces battery life).

I don't know where outside the US you live but in some countries tenants have the right to install a charging station. Of course they're not exactly cheap, especially if the wiring isn't set up to handle that kind of load (from personal experience: charging your car while the washing machine is running on the same circuit in an old house is an easy way to trip the breaker).

Private charging stations can also be installed outdoors just fine and strangers stealing your power is not a problem either (the plug can't be removed if the car is locked and you can literally switch the charger off if you're not using it). Most public chargers don't have a roof so charging your car in the open isn't exactly odd.

Also in many countries even more rural areas now have charging stations. Often you can pay a flat fee per month to freely use charging stations on the same network or to do so at significantly reduced rates. In my case there's even a nearby charging station that charges approximately the same rate I pay for my home electricity provider - although the speed is also similar so it's not very useful if you don't plan to leave your car for a few hours.

Vast majority of Americans have a garage. You can charge on a normal outlet but it's easy enough to bring an electrician in to upgrade to 240v.

4 in 10 americans can’t come up with $400 without taking on debt. They aren’t bringing in electricians unless they are rich.

EVs are minimum 50% more than comparable ICE cars. Theyre not buying an EV if they cant afford an electrician.

I don't have much want or need of an EV, but I was able to bring 240V power into my detached garage and install a 100A subpanel myself. It was all legal, I got a permit to do it from L&I and had it inspected and signed off on. Most states and local jurisdictions allow homeowners to do electrical work on their residences, assuming they go through the same permitting and inspection process as the pros.

I encourage anybody with the time and diligence to do their own residential electrical work. It can save you a lot of money, and add a lot of value to your home.

That stat isn't true.

The question in the survey is whether they "would cover a hypothetical $400 emergency expense exclusively using cash or its equivalent".

Got $10k in highly liquid stocks and you'd sell some? Or you have plenty of money in your savings account but you use credit cards for all purchases? Then you get counted as "can't come up with $400".

It's useful to look at how the number changes over time, but trying to interpret the raw percentage is prone to misstep.

You actually can charge at the San Diego zoo, which I discovered last week when I (against my wishes) got an EV as a rental. It is terrible. The charger network is brutal for a non-Tesla.

Hertz is ditching their Teslas, not their other EVs, apparently. I don't blame them when the suspension keeps falling apart randomly.

I think most people will only rent a non-Tesla once. If you don’t have the option of charging at home it’s a truly miserable experience. It made me convinced the charging network is the missing piece.

100% agree - I now have 2 EV's as our primary vehicles. They are amazing for normal trips, as I charge them in our garage. But every time I go on a road trip I get a bit of anxiety. I have to pre-plan charging locations on the route, many times I've had issues (all chargers full, multiple not working). It's not for the faint of heart, as filling up at plentiful gas stations doesn't require any thinking. I wouldn't recommend EV's for my older family members, especially if they plan on taking longer drives. If running errands, commuting to work, they are fantastic. While I think the criticism is fair, gas infrastructure has had a huge headstart, so I think we'll continue to see improvements in charging infrastructure and range, which should remediate most of these problems. I still think we're in a bit of the early adopter phase, unless your variables are controlled. Edit : After reading other comments, I think part of my issue was that my first EV was our Audi, Tesla seems to remediate some of these issues with their network. Looking forward to taking a roadtrip with my Tesla and comparing the experience, but I think the point still stands for many EV companies and the consumer experience.

> Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs.

I don't agree. It really depends on what usage you're aiming for.

For instance, if you rent a car right out of an airport so that you can drive to the hotel and then to an meeting somewhere in the city and afterwards perhaps somewhere else and then back to the hotel, you're renting a car so that you are completely free to travel across town to get where you need to be. These are relatively short drives zig-zagging across town which can include a few hours of parking between rides.

It sounds like an EV is the ideal vehicle for this use pattern.

If instead you need to go on long rides that take hours and you can't afford wasting hours charging then EVs are not as well suited as ICE-powered cars.

I can hardly imagine Hertz was introducing EVs based on parcticality and prudent deliberations.

I can imagine they wanted to have a rapid publicity stunt boarding the trend train of 'Hey! We are so cool and modern and mindful and everything, we have EVs!'. Only to be slapped by reality pretty soon afterwards. As it is ubiquitous with marketing bs.

> rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs.

They make more sense for the short term car-club type rentals, where they can be charged the whole time when not in use, then borrowed for an hour or 2 booked on an app. But if you can't charge at home, it makes little sense to use an EV at the moment. It might make sense for small fleets of rental EVs to be based at hotels. You could just take whichever car was charged when you go out in the morning.

The other problem Hertz had was repair costs. EVs are more expensive to repair both because there are less repairers qualified to repair them and because parts are more expensive and more valuable etc.. I expect people driving unfamiliar cars are more likely to have accidents with them, so this would be worse for rental companies than for normal people.

As an EV believer that happily owns a Tesla Model 3, I grimace thinking about peoples first EV experience being a rental car. When I went on a 4 day vacation that would include a decent amount of driving (going from Fort Lauderdale out to Key West & back) I specifically chose the Nissan Altima in the corner of the lot, rather than the fancy EV Mercedes that wouldn't have cost me any more money due to my status with Hertz. If there was a Tesla I probably would have been fine picking it due to the robustness of the supercharger network, but someone's first EV experience being a Chevy Bolt while on vacation is setting the EV movement back years.

The way you rent cars isn't necessarily the way that other rental car customers rent cars. If you're going on a road trip you don't want an EV. But I rent cars about 12x a year for trips of just a few days with very little mileage, just so I don't have to depend on taxis, and EVs are a great choice for me. I don't usually drive more than 50 miles on those trips, and strongly prefer EVs because I find them to provide better driving comfort (more responsive acceleration, better handling) than most ICE cars.

For low mileage trips, why not Uber or take public transit?

Public transit is not an option in these places (midsize US cities: no subway, very sparse bus service).

Vs Uber: I personally prefer driving myself. No wait, and freedom (shoot, it's 10pm and I realize I forgot to pack toothpaste, I might not want to pay Uber $20 for a stupid round trip to CVS to buy a $2 tube of toothpaste). Also I tend to get carsick if the driver's not smooth.

Also most cities that are small and aren’t college towns have pretty terrible uber experiences. Not enough drivers and the ones that are there will probably reject your ride if they think they won’t get another fare easily wherever you get dropped off.

> but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs.

How could hertz not have known this? I think this was probably not a business decision but a management decision done so they can call the company green, basically virtue signalling when clearly it was a terrible business decision.

Sustainability is great but I feel like we’re making a lot of bad decisions to pretend like we are sustainable.

To be fair, the current generation of electronic vehicles are a terrible idea.

Sure, at first sight you are not burning fossil fuel in your car so you are slowing down climate change. Plenty of studies show the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are significantly lower for an EV than an ICE vehicle. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l... Although perhaps a mere half is not what people would think at first when they just compare tailpipe emissions... and it depends on how carbon intensive is the electricity you are using for charging. And there's more than just emissions to consider.

1. Lithium mining needs water. The typical amount given is 500 000 gallons per one ton of lithium. Think of fracking.

2. Mining waste for base metals such as copper or nickel is 20-200 tonnes but rare earth minerals like platinum make a million tonne of waste per tonne extracted.

3. The lifetime of the battery which is the problematic component is significantly lower than the lifetime of a typical ICE car.

And more.

The solution is, of course, to reverse the dependence on the automobile. https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-m... this might be old but it is still relevant.

> the current generation of electronic vehicles are a terrible idea... Although perhaps a mere half is not what people would think at first when they just compare tailpipe emissions

The methodolody used by IEA for that chart uses the 2021 global average grid carbon intensity to calculate its electricity generation. If you live in Iceland, Sweeden, UK, Vermont, or similar regions with highly decarbonised grids, the majority of the chart's Electricity co2e isn't generated for that vehicle.

You've got to consider your local average grid carbon intensity, and how that will change across the 20 year lifecycle of the vehicle.

Critics love to also cite the resource cost for manufacturing PV modules or wind turbines to point out that green electricity isn't emissions free either but that ignores the even worse resource costs of fossil power and the continuous environmental damage from mining/drilling the fuel.

All things considered, green energy is better than fossil and EVs are better than ICEs. Of course where we really need to go is reducing individual transport by expanding public transit infrastructure, electrified buses, trams and trains easily beat personal EVs when it comes to resource use per person.

FWIW a bigger concern than the increased energy demand from EVs is the load this puts on the grid infrastructure. But this is also very much true for rooftop PV.

Yes. Recently I rented a car and put nearly 3,500 miles on it in a week, most of that in very desolate places in the Western USA. In Nevada, we would drive for hundreds and hundreds of miles without seeing another car, much less a EV charging station. I’d hate to be out there in something with as limited a range as an EV.

I am planning on buying an EV for in town driving and keep my gas car and truck for long trips. I frequently drive through Western Nebraska and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one EV out driving around.

When the infrastructure is there and reliable, and range is consistent with gas vehicles, I’ll make a full switch.

I saw a funny picture of a guy that was driving with a gas power generator strapped to his Tesla (On Hitch Mount Cargo Carrier). Just curious how much he could extend his range. And if this would be a practical alternative.

That’s called a hybrid with range extender.

Every hybrid and EV I've ever been in refused to move if they detect a cable is inserted.

It’s a mistake to believe every picture you see on the internet is real.

Every time I wanted to rest car, I wanted Tesla but I always ended up getting gas vehicle because price difference was usually more than 2X. Hertz simply couldn’t beat price proposition of Kia, Toyota etc.

This was the situation I found myself in recently. I would have been more than happy to rent an electric car, but charging infrastructure was a big, unknown variable.

I drove an EV once as a courtesy car and something struck me immediately: EVs are electric wheelchairs.

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