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Comment by thelastgallon | Hacker News Reader

Don't do the math for homeless people. Most people live in homes. Homes usually have electricity, unless you live in a 4th world country. All buildings have electricity. Just park and plug in.

You need to go to a gas station BECAUSE there is no supply of gasoline straight to home. Homes have electricity. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, South Sudan, Yemen, remotest village in India. I don't know where you live, but if your home doesn't have electricity, your country has bigger problems to deal with than buying Teslas and DC Fast Chargers.

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Highways. Highways need to support people traveling beyond the range of thier vehicles, be that a car or bus/truck. People could also eat and use the bathroom at home, but highways must still make space for restaurants and restrooms.

I ran into that problem during covid. I had to do a few work-related 1000-mile drives and they had closed most all the restrooms!

And my home is also home to a few hundred other people. Installing enough chargers for all our cars would require a massive grid upgrade that our city would never support. Not everyone lives in a suburb.

Highways often have powerlines nearby at least every now and then. With those you can take power from roofs many kilometres away!

And what you say about apartments is wrong, it’s definitely not impossible. I’ve heard of plenty of apartment blocks installing chargers, they have load management systems to manage the load and believe it or not, not every single apartment occupant will need to charge their car every day at exactly the same time as everyone else!

My building looked into it (a complex of several buildings sharing one giant underground carpark). Installing 300 chargers (one at each spot) would cost millions and take years to radar and cut the channels in the concrete. Even if done, the city connection to the facility would need a million-dollar upgrade too going all the way to the local substation. And then the local fire department had an opinion: they were not happy at the concept of 300 EVs in one underground structure. There are no rules limiting such things today (also on car ferries) but we are one bad fire away from some firecode regulation about EVs underground.

> Installing enough chargers for all our cars would require a massive grid upgrade that our city would never support

Do you not have an ovens? Or electric shower? Mine use 7kW, same as the car charger.

Except not every home has a driveway. With on street parking the norm in many places. Trailing a lead to your car on the other side of the road is frowned upon

Streets have streetlights. Streetlights are on poles. Poles have electricity that lights need. Utility can add chargers. Magically, the problem is solved.

Streetlights are low power.

Car chargers are high power.

For example https://electricbrighton.com/news/considerations-for-lamp-po... says charging times are 18 hours, which is hardly overnight.

Plus you couldn't do it anywhere where thieves steal copper. Car charging cables would quickly become a theft target.

Thats 18 hours if your battery is at 0%.

Most people drive 20 - 40 miles/day, hardly 10% of the battery. You will be fine.

You could also charge at work. They should have more than lamp posts.

I drive 90-130 miles a day and charge every night using the same power my oven pulls. It costs me 3 cents a mile, or equivalent of about $1 a gallon. It takes about 4 or 5 hours.

> Plus you couldn't do it anywhere where thieves steal copper. Car charging cables would quickly become a theft target.

Are you from the past? This simply doesn't happen. The reality is millions of people drive electric cars, and while there are some issues - mainly around the minority who don't have their own driveway, and the tiny numbers who drive over 70,000km year, it simply works.

People certainly steal diesel though.

> same power my oven pulls

Exactly the point of the article: that power is many times what a streetlamp uses or can provide.

Your charging likely wouldn't work from a streetlamp.

> Are you from the past?

No need to be snarky. Read guidelines.

I had two brass taps stolen from outside my house and the thieves left the main water line in broken. Worth nothing - maybe it was kids? The plumber cost me plenty to fix it. The inconvenience cost me more. In another suburb I had my spare tire stolen: for the aluminium rim.

I was thinking of catalytic converter thefts: an industry of theft that was constructed around valuable untraceable metals. Fortunately I haven't seen that in my neighborhood.

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