[edb_123]

I guess you could say the same about fossil fuel cars and gas stations? I doubt that everyone keeps their tanks full at all times. And just imagine the amount of traffic on roads in such a situation, regardless of your preferred energy source. You'd be struggling to get anywhere at all, unless you're among the first few fleeing town.

[Sebb767]

Not to mention that EVs outmileage every other type of engine in a traffic jam. Also, power is much easier to get compared to fuel (with maybe the exception of fuel for old diesels that will run on everything - but this depends on circumstance). This is really a bad dig at EVs.

[jcgrillo]

> power is much easier to get compared to fuel

Only if your power grid is functioning, which I wouldn't expect to be the case in most major disaster situations. Otherwise you'll be stuck burning fuel in a generator to charge your car.

EDIT: the other great thing about liquid fuel is it doesn't weigh very much. Diesel is 7.1lb/gal so if your diesel car gets 32mpg (like mine does) you get 4.5mi/lb. With 1500lb on a trailer--let's say it only gets 20mpg or 2.8mi/lb towing--that's an extra 4200mi of range. That's enough to go from Boston to Anchorage without refueling. It's also a much more easily transferable energy source than electrons--all you need to do is pour liquid from one container into another. You don't need some fancy battery charger that needs stable power at such and such Volts, Watts, and Hz.. So, no, in a disaster or war situation I doubt the EVs will work at all.

[vel0city]

When the grid wasn't functioning around me, pretty much every gas station didn't have working pumps. The extreme few which did heavily rationed fuel (I think only 4gal per customer?) and often ran out.

[jcgrillo]

I have ~200gal of red diesel in a home heating oil tank for the shop that I could easily burn in my car, tractor (with PTO generator), or whatever. This is the versatility of liquid fuel--it's a fungible asset with a pretty good shelf life (basically infinite for diesel, with appropriate additives quite long for gasoline).

Another problem with going to the gas station is payment. No internet means no credit cards or whiz-bang apple wallet stuff.

[vel0city]

> I have ~200gal of red diesel

> it's a fungible asset

Cool, let me put that in my gas-powered ICE car. Its so fungible.

And I mean practically every household has a 200gal tank of diesel in their apartment and suburban household. Only the oddballs wouldn't have it.

> tractor

Hmm, makes me think maybe most households aren't in the same situation here. Most households are going to be in the same situation if their car is an ICE versus an EV. Maybe ever so slightly better in the EV, because at least they're likely to already be charged to like 90% every night versus somewhere between nearly empty to full. In the end, if the grid stops working chances are they're going to have a hard time getting more gas until they get someplace where the grid is functioning.

[jcgrillo]

> my gas-powered ICE car

That's a choice, definitely the more common one in the US, but not the only one. I've been driving diesel cars for my entire adult life--better part of a quarter century now.

Gasoline is by far the worst of the common fuels--diesel, gasoline, and propane. They make propane dinghy outboards for exactly this reason--carrying gasoline just for the dinghy really inconveniences a boat whereas they already have propane and diesel onboard for the engine and galley. Diesel and propane both have ~infinite shelf life.

> Hmm, makes me think maybe most households aren't in the same situation here.

Yes, I've prioritized access to nature and quiet over pretty much everything else. That's not normally what people who do computers for job do.

[seanmcdirmid]

Not many people know that red diesel is simply dyed and only so cops know if you are using it in your car (since it lacks vehicle taxes). Unfortunately, they couldn’t do the same with electrons, so we just pay higher tag fees.

[prmoustache]

> I have ~200gal of red diesel in a home heating oil tank for the shop that I could easily burn in my car, tractor (with PTO generator), or whatever.

Not defending EV in particular but you can't expect everyone to have that.

[_hyn3]

Yes, unless they've had the foresight to want it and seek it out.

[Sebb767]

> that I could easily burn in my car, tractor (with PTO generator), or whatever.

Or in a generator, for use in your EV :-) Whereas it will be hard to run your diesel car or tractor on solar power.

[_hyn3]

It will take quite a long time to charge an EV on solar power (or off a portable generator). The power density is just very inefficient compared to the huge mass of the batteries.

[Loudergood]

I have solar panels at home. Electricity is way more fungible than dino fuels.

[seanmcdirmid]

You actually don’t need a power grid to generate electricity, just a water wheel or some solar panels. I’ve been to some off grid places in China that mostly use water wheels, crazy stuff. Many Alaskan communities aren’t connected by grid to the outside but have local hydro stations to supply all their needs, with maybe diesel as a back up. Hawaiian islands are similar, but with solar instead of hydro.

If the apocalypse comes, EVs will be running for a lot longer than ICEs.

[mschuster91]

> Only if your power grid is functioning, which I wouldn't expect to be the case in most major disaster situations. Otherwise you'll be stuck burning fuel in a generator to charge your car.

An AM capable emergency radio is a few bucks on Amazon, and they have a hand spin generator next to batteries and a 12V or other wide-range DC input to attach a regular wall wart or a tiny solar panel.

[toast0]

> Not to mention that EVs outmileage every other type of engine in a traffic jam.

A hybrid will be very competitive and likely do better if it's cold (maybe a jam because of a blizzard)

[_hyn3]

I agree. Also, many modern diesels, like Mercedes Blue-Tec, power down completely when they come to a complete stop, like in a traffic jam. (I don't like the idea, and I frankly find it a bit annoying, but Mercedes does make solid and reliable equipment.)

[nucleardog]

Liquid fuels are relatively light and easy and quick to transfer.

When we had no power for a week, I drove a couple hours away to a gas station, spent 15 minutes filling jerry cans, and came back with enough energy to power my entire house for a week.

Yeah, in a continental or global disaster, we’re quickly going to be unable to get our hands on gasoline without the drilling and refineries and distribution, etc and electricity would be much more available. In the much more frequent and likely regional disaster… I’d prefer to be stuck with gasoline right now.

I could definitely see a future where instead of a noisy generator I power my house off of my car for a week until the charge is getting low, supplemented by some solar, then drive a couple hours to where the electricity is working and spend a half hour charging it back up.

I just don’t think we’re quite there yet. A typical long range EV right now, after the power to get me there and back, would have about 25kWh of power I could use for other things. That would be three hours of driving to replace 3 hours of generator output.

[vel0city]

I've actually lived through evacuations of a major metro area...twice.

Both times gasoline quickly became incredibly hard to come by. Electricity would have been a lot easier.

Also, there was massive amounts of traffic trying to leave. An idling car slowly creeping through a 100mi traffic jam still uses a good bit of gas. An EV uses very little energy slowly rolling in the same situation. Sure at normal speeds I would have easily had 300+mi in the gas cars, but my mileage in traffic was massively worse on the 14+ hour drive from Houston to San Antonio.

[_hyn3]

I have as well, in hurricane zones, but electricity was out for multiple weeks, but gasoline was still available (if quite expensive due to market forces, but of course that meant that there were still a few gallons available for everyone.)

[vel0city]

And here come the headlines about gas shortages in Florida. Many hours of idling to go <100mi, stranding cars along the highway. Meanwhile, EVs still charging just fine.

[throwaway2037]

    > spent 15 minutes filling jerry cans, and came back with enough energy to power my entire house for a week.

Wow, this really feels like a stretch!

How much fuel were you using to power your house for a week? I find it hard to believe you can pump more than 100 gallons of fuel in 15 mins.

    > in a continental or global disaster

Have you lived through any of these? If yes, can you provide a real world example, not a hypothetical scenario.

[_hyn3]

Diesel pumps in a truck stop (on the commercial side, where the big rigs fill up) are incredibly fast.

(Side note: I have noticed that the prices on the big rig side of a truck stop are usually slightly higher for the same diesel fuel!)

[dambi0]

In theory you can fill cans in parallel

[nucleardog]

Don't even need to...

First off, apparently gas pumps should have a flow rate around 8-10gpm. So 100 gallons is still only ten minutes of pumping.

But also... If you need 100 gallons to keep your house going for the week maybe, I don't know, try turning a couple (hundred) lights off or something for now?

Using 100 gallons over 7 days is 14.3 gallons per day. Assuming you can kill the generator while you're sleeping, figure 16 hours you have it running. So you're using 0.9 gallons per hour. Looking online, looks like for a gasoline generator ~6kWh/gallon is fairly typical.

So you're planning for, averaged out, a 5.5kWh draw continuously every hour you're awake.

If that's your typical power usage, you're looking at 5.51630.4 = 2,675kWh/mo, which at our electricity rates would cost me about $375 just in usage charges to buy from the grid (never mind the connection fees and stuff).

In reality we're using more like 4-6 gallons per day.

[nucleardog]

> How much fuel were you using to power your house for a week? I find it hard to believe you can pump more than 100 gallons of fuel in 15 mins.

Well, maybe you should have stopped after the question and we could have cleared up the confusion!

If I run the generator from morning to night with typical loads, I'm usually burning through about 5-6 gallons a day. So a week of fuel is 35-45 gallons.

Because I know "I actually did it" isn't a good answer, went and looked and the typical flow rate for a gas pump is supposed to be 8-10gpm. So... actual time holding the handle down on the pump, worst case, is about five and a half minutes.

> in a continental or global disaster, we’re quickly going to be unable to get our hands on gasoline without the drilling and refineries and distribution

Did you... disagree with that? Or are you just saying things to say things? Is there a big culture of backyard oil refining where you are? There isn't where I am. I didn't think I needed lived experience to say "if the refineries are shut down and the roads are impassible, oil products are going to be pretty hard to come by".

[jcgrillo]

If your gas or diesel engine is old enough you could build yourself a wood/coal gasifier[1] and get yourself down the road. With a fairly simple regulator engines can be made to run well enough on natural gas, propane, maybe acetylene? Diesels will burn just about any liquid hydrocarbon, at least for a time before they succumb to injector pump damage or excessive carbon buildup.

EDIT: sure would love to know why y'all're downvoting... Is anything I wrote incorrect? Speaking from experience having crossed the US more than once burning various waste oils I'm pretty sure everything I wrote above is correct and factually accurate..

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator

[vel0city]

Because its massively impractical to think the average person is going to get the notice "you've got anywhere from an hour to an afternoon to evacuate" and be ready to convert their vehicle to goal gas and have plenty of wood/coal to actually get through the evacuation.

[jcgrillo]

Yes, this is impossible. If having a vehicle connotes survival such people will perish. My point was only to illustrate there are many ways to make a piston engine go brr and only one way to make an EV mobile.

[EraYaN]

But at the same time there are many many ways to make the stuff that makes that EV mobile. And you don't have to modify the car.

[TylerE]

Gas stations are independent. The energy is already on site. In a real pinch it can be pumped with manu labor.

None of that is true in the EV case.

[jdminhbg]

If you’re in the kind of Mad Max scenario where you are manually pumping gas, you might as well be hotwiring solar panels for your EV while you’re at it.

[fragmede]

you could imagine a mad max world having a bank of slaves riding bicycles so manual labor charges batteries to drive a cybertruck