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by Retric 1017 days ago
Parked cars don’t impact traffic. The major difference is presumably the size of parking lots devoted to charging vs pumps, but ant home/work/etc charging offsets quite a bit.

On longer trips the pay/pump/bathroom/grab a soda/hit the road cycle is probably 15 minutes. I expect many businesses focusing on capturing revenue from the captive audience of people waiting 20-30 minutes for their cars to charge.

However, this goes away if we end up with in road charging.
2 comments
mannykannot 1017 days ago
I am assuming a large majority who stop to refuel do not park at all, let alone for 20-30 minutes, and there would not be room for them all to do so if they wanted to.

In-road charging would render this article moot, together with the discussion about it.

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godelski 1017 days ago
Tell that to anyone who's been on a roadtrip and visited a busy rest stop. I've definitely seen long times on off-ramps as well as on-ramps for them. Given your "15 minute" time I'd take it you haven't really done a long road trip. As in multiple days of 8+hrs of driving. I did 4 days of 12hrs (split with someone) and that was rough.
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Retric 1017 days ago
I entertain myself on long trips by timing how long things take and 15 minutes is sadly common I’ve seen it take take 25 minutes when the bathroom has a line. Gas stations are much faster day to day when you just want fuel and to hit the road, but after a few hours in the car someone needs to go to the bathroom etc and nobody is racing for the car.

I do know people who try and minimize such stops. They got an extra gas tank and use a piss bottle etc but businesses optimize for the general population not extreme outliers.

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godelski 1017 days ago
> I entertain myself on long trips by timing how long things take and 15 minutes is sadly common

Honestly, seems like you have a bias. If you're timing yourself you're biasing yourself to be faster. So incorporate higher variance into your model and assume you're on the lower end of at least that 1std deviation.

And again, I'm considering a long trip as multi-day 8hr+ driving. Your legs just don't last that long. First day is usually fine. Second if you're seasoned. Beyond that is where it gets real hard.

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