[kirse]

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.

[rdtsc]

> 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.

[starbugs]

> 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.

[Sebb767]

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.

[starbugs]

> 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.

[toyg]

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.

[petre]

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.

[foofie]

> 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.

[foofie]

> 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.

[light_hue_1]

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.

[culturestate]

> 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.

[light_hue_1]

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.

[culturestate]

> 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.

[AdamN]

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.

[ljm]

> 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.

[Clubber]

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

[lotsoweiners]

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.

[moffkalast]

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.

[foofie]

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...

[ufocia]

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

[Ekaros]

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.

[theGnuMe]

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

[talldatethrow]

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

[ufocia]

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.

[porkbeer]

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.

[hiddencost]

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.

[alibarber]

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.

[bb123]

> 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.

[AdamN]

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.

[troupo]

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.

[averageRoyalty]

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.

[jasoncartwright]

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.

[toyg]

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.

[jasoncartwright]

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.

[michaelt]

> 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".

[troupo]

> 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 ---

[haspok]

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

[justinclift]

> at 85p/KWh at public recharging points.

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

[tuatoru]

> ... 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.

[moconnor]

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.

[masklinn]

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.

[malfist]

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

[iruoy]

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

[masklinn]

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.

[heavenlyblue]

Who owns the battery?

[dagw]

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.

[borg_]

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.

[Dylan16807]

What are you even talking about?

[chrisbolt]

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.

[brnt]

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.

[petre]

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.

[nsteel]

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.

[petre]

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.

[brnt]

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.

[robertlagrant]

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

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

[petre]

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.

[DoesntMatter22]

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

[brnt]

These don't exist in Europe.

[nsteel]

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.

[b112]

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

[brnt]

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.

[multjoy]

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…

[robertlagrant]

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.

[b112]

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?

[postingawayonhn]

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.

[brnt]

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.

[Balero]

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.

[klodolph]

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

[hedora]

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.

[klodolph]

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.”

[b112]

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.

[klodolph]

“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”.

[coderenegade]

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.

[toast0]

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.

[wenyuanyu]

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..

[b112]

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.

[tonyedgecombe]

> 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.

[andoma]

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.

[b112]

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?

[tsimionescu]

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.

[brohee]

Fuel cells have much better efficiency no?

[b112]

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.

[tsimionescu]

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.

[forgotusername6]

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.

[_heimdall]

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.

[forgotusername6]

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

[petre]

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.

[tonyedgecombe]

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

[forgotusername6]

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.

[masklinn]

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

[ssl-3]

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.

[theptip]

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

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

[robaato]

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

[imtringued]

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

[kylebenzle]

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

[datavirtue]

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.

[otabdeveloper4]

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

[hnbad]

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.

[SargeDebian]

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

[ddeck]

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

[otabdeveloper4]

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.

[donatj]

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.

[klodolph]

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.

[petre]

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..

[otabdeveloper4]

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.)

[paganel]

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.

[xwolfi]

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 !

[toyg]

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.

[bluGill]

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.

[fsckboy]

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.

[pbourke]

> 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.

[fsckboy]

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

[bluGill]

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.

[ghaff]

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.

[kbos87]

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.

[computershit]

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.

[bigshot]

Uber drivers are not representational of all drivers

[huytersd]

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.