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Comment by thayne | Hacker News Reader

That isn't entirely true. EVs' smaller range, and longer "refueling" time are annoyances by themselves, and compund the annoyance of not having good charging infrastructure.

OTOH, being able to charge while you are sleeping or working is pretty convenient.

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BYD flash charging is as fast as a gas pump.

Alternatively, my buddies EV does 700km to a charge. I’m not driving 7 hours straight without a good break.

I also think people don't consider how EVs are actually used when they think about longer "refueling" times. It's not like you usually bring your EV to a charger and wait for it to charge. You just plug it in at home in the evening and start every day with a charged car.

I've owned EVs for a decade, and I've never actually waited for one to charge.

If you are just commuting or driving around town, then sure. Assuming you have the setup to charge it at home. The inconvenience is when you are traveling longer distances.

> Assuming you have the setup to charge it at home

This feels like another point where people may not think about how this works in the real world. Sure, you may only have a regular plug for your car, but how long does the car stay in the garage? If you work ten hours a day, it's in the garage for 14 hours, which is plenty of time to charge the battery even if you have an hour+ commute and a slow charger.

IME pro-EV people will say "L1 is all you need" but then motte-and-bailey and insist having an L2 is essential for cold winters...

We have snow half the year. The car goes about 20% less far. That's all.

Less about range (though mine is ~30% hit) and more about a 120V socket not being able to heat the battery to charge effectively in sub-zero temps.

Hm, yeah. Mine is in a garage.

Not everyone has a garage with power at all to park their car in.

For a while, I charged my car with a long cable coming out of my second-story flat window

That sounds pretty annoying to me. And probably violates HOA covenants or apartment rules in a lot of places.

After owning an EV for a year I have only truly needed to charge at a fast charger on two trips.

Both times I absolutely did notice the slow "refueling" times, but for 95% of my driving "around town" it is _so_ nice.

A gas pump is somewhere on the order of ~30MW. Even if you account for the greater efficiency of EVs we're still an order of magnitude away from equivalent charging speed.

The theoretical amount of energy transferred is irrelevant. All that matters is how long it takes to ”refill” the car.

Even going as fast as I can on a small car (45l tank), it takes about 6 minutes.

BYD flash charging is very close to that.

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