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Comment by Shawnj2 | Hacker News Reader

As long as your old cars are like Toyota corolla/camry’s and not like giant gas guzzling SUV’s or trucks keeping them on the road is better than buying a new EV IMO. I think the current EV gen is kind of doomed because of the fact the next EV gen is going to have massive QOL features the current one doesn’t and waiting for a more compelling car is worth doing IMO

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Even vehicles with poor fuel efficiency are better to keep on the road until EOL. This is why cash for clunkers was such a terrible program.

I don't follow your take on the current EV gen either. A car at the end of the day derives most of its value from taking you one place to another. The current gen of EVs do this and do it well. "current EV gen is kind of doomed" that is just hyperbole, nothing is changing in the near future that would doom current EV vehicles on the road.

Not like that but an ICE car from 2018 and 2023 are basically the same while a 2023 EV is massively more efficient than a 2018 one.

Define massively. I think a 2024 M3 has ~20% better range than a 2018 M3. 2018 was the second year of the M3. The 2018 LR version still had a ~300mile range. No doubt future generations will be better but again, I don't think we will have a case that "dooms" the current generation of EVs, they will serve their primary purpose well until EOL.

There’s other big changes like the current model 3 has a heat pump and the 2018 one doesn’t

>the next EV gen is going to have massive QOL features the current one doesn’t

Like what?

I think proper V2H/V2G (vehicle to home/grid) is a big one that is very rare at the moment but is probably making a lot of people who could buy an EV at the moment (i.e. have a garage/driveway in a city) hold off until it's more common, because it makes the economics a lot more attractive.

(In general, because of cratering manufacturing costs, improving tech, and a still low trust for battery health, being an EV early adopter is an expensive option at the moment because even if an early EV is still at 80% functionality compared to new, the resale value is terrible, and I think this plus the lack of charging infrastructure is a big impediment to adoption growing to become dominant in the mainstream)

I'm not super convinced about the V2H stuff, tbh. I only need backup power at home to keep the heat on when I'm not there. If I'm not there almost certainly my car isn't either. When I am there I can light a candle and run the wood stove to keep the pipes from freezing. So a stationary battery bank for my solar system makes a lot more sense than trying to use my car for that purpose.

And probably a backup generator with a big propane tank is a better solution.

I've thought about it over the years and if I was regularly away for long periods in the winter I'd probably have spent the money. As it is, I cross my fingers and generally try not to have long periods away from my house in the winter.

Natural disasters that cut power (like hurricanes)?

https://electrek.co/2022/11/08/electric-vehicles-provide-bac...

Right, what I'm saying is in such a scenario I only actually need power if I'm not home and it's below freezing.

Ah. I think lots of other people would like to keep their refrigerator and freezer and appliances running in the event of multi-day power outages when they are at home, even when it is not freezing (like in Florida, for example).

Sure, but if you're already going to make the investment in the grid cutoff, inverter, etc then the fact the car could in principle act as a battery/generator is a little gimmicky. Might as well also get a generator (or battery if you've already got solar). Then it works automatically whether you're there or not.

The vehicle already has the inverter, using the same active rectifier hardware in the on-board charger. People want to have electricity when they are at home. And they are home a lot of the time. So I agree that it is a very niche case to want to have a backup system to provide electricity to your house during a natural disaster when you are not even there.

https://gmenergy.gm.com/for-home/products/vehicle-to-home-so...

OK but you still need a grid cutoff--you absolutely can't put power into the grid when it's down. It's not a huge investment, but it's not nothing.

All you really need is a $20-30 extension cord.

That's more like V2L, not V2H.

Whatever you call it based on exact details, my point is that using your car for power is not "gimmicky" like they said. Based on budget you can get a transfer switch or you can get an extension cord. Either way you're making effective use out of the car you already own, and the idea that you're wasting time and should really just get a generator or fixed battery is incorrect.

Fast recharge and high capacity long life batteries.

Reliably getting 300-400 mile range (even in cold), getting 250 miles range in 10-15 minutes of fast charging, and seeing batteries comfortably make it to 150k miles with small degradation.

Unfortunately people seems to really care about edge cases (What if I have to unexpectedly drive 400 miles on a frozen January evening?), so until EVs can easily cover those bases, people are really trigger shy.

> Unfortunately people seems to really care about edge cases (What if I have to unexpectedly drive 400 miles on a frozen January evening?)

There are plenty of people who live in places where it's frozen every evening for getting on for half of every year.

"Unexpected long trips" aren't exactly an edge case in our household either, for a bunch of reasons.

The biggest one I can think of is really stupid actually which is a NACS port and proper supercharger network access for any non Tesla (and I personally would recommend against buying a Tesla for build quality and lack of repairability). Either way ICE cars are basically about as good as they can get while EV’s have a ton of room for improvement

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