[SideburnsOfDoom]

I don't agree that 20-minute charge is "very clearly a bottleneck" on road trips.

Never mind "target" shopping, for 2 people to each stetch legs and use the restroom in turn, is already 10 minutes.

Get another bottle of water at the attached convenience store, and you're close to the 20 minute mark.

And if small children were also involved, then well...

If you stop every 2 hours, you don't need the full 20 minutes to fully charge anyway.

20 mins is about where you equal the other, human time constraints. i.e. no longer the bottleneck.

[Neywiny]

When I got my car I had to drive it 1500 miles back to my home and did it alone. I would stop when the tank needed filling. I got maybe 450 miles per tank, so maybe every 6-7 hours or so. That's 10 minutes per 6 hours, which is (10/6 / 20/3 =) 1/4th the overhead you're describing. So I'm agreeing with OC: when it's just me, 20 minutes every 2 hours starts becoming a bit much.

[sanswork]

You're describing a trip to had to do once and the difference in time would be what an extra hour in a 15 hour trip?

[Neywiny]

I am. But it's the same for everything. I don't live in a place I can install a car charger. It would be that overhead increase for every time I charged. It would actually be worse if it's not a once in a lifetime (so far) road trip because at least those times I wanted to be stopped for a bit. I'd imagine the times I'm rushing to work and have to stop for gas would get a lot worse with a long charge time.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> I'd imagine the times I'm rushing to work and have to stop for gas would get a lot worse with a long charge time.

Of course. That's where my other comment is relevant: " "very fast charging" should not be the default, it should be rare. ... the default is overnight at home or during the day at office or a mall, with the software giving you that "topped up as specified, every morning, that's better than what an a ICE vehicle can provide"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43671612

i.e. with an EV and commute, you can slow charge and also never "stop for gas", ever. The vehicle is just ready, every day.

If you "don't live in a place where you can have a car charger" at home or at work, then IMHO an EV is not ideal for you, yet. The infrastructure isn't ready for you, work on that first.

[triceratops]

> I don't live in a place I can install a car charger.

That's very different from needing to charge in 10 minutes on a road trip. For most people even a garage with access to a 110v wall socket is sufficient to cover daily commute driving. If you don't have that or a place to charge at work, yeah going electric is a chore.

[sanswork]

I am in a rental and don't have a charger I just plug into the wall.

I haven't had to visit a gas station since I got it so that's about 10 minutes a week this year saved. So I'm up almost 2 and a half hours so far this year.

[mcpeepants]

But - and hear me out - what if that trip happened _twice_.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

It's not one-size-fits-all? If you're regularly driving extreme distances and peeing into a bottle while driving, and you don't have access to home or work charging, then your vehicle choice can and should be different at present.

[sanswork]

I save about 10 minutes per week not having to ever go get gas. So even two of these 15 hour trips a year and I'd still be ahead

[triceratops]

Rent a car.

[okdood64]

But - and hear me out - what if someone had to a do a trip where the chargers where clearly out of the way of their route? That adds more time.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

But what if someone had to a do a trip where the gas stations where clearly out of the way of their route? That adds more time.

Gas stations are ubiquitous simply because they are 100 years worth of infrastructure roll out.

If you're saying that EV infrastructure isn't there yet, then you're stating the obvious.

But, and hear me out :

a) Will it stay that way? If 50% of vehicles are EV's then 50% of gas stations could be out of business, and that's a re-enforcing spiral of inconvenience. My view is that there some cases where a fossil fuel vehicle is the best choice. But when they're under 10% of all cases, will the infrastructure agree, or nix it by being 10% as common as it is now? Past a certain point the whole distribution system is unprofitable and just folds up. Then gasoline engines go the way of the horse: A few people still ride them, but it's mostly an impractical, expensive hobby with known issues with the smelly stuff that comes of of the back of them.

b) Gas stations of any kind, even bad ones, are rare at a home. Electrical plugs - wall sockets - are EV chargers usable for some purposes, and almost all homes have them. That level of emergency infrastructure is hard to beat.

[okdood64]

Everything you say is fair; but that doesn't explain why someone TODAY would prefer a gas car, or something that can charge high enough in ~5 minutes.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> 20 minutes every 2 hours starts becoming a bit much

I didn't say that it was "20 minutes every 2 hours" - in fact the sentence "If you stop every 2 hours, you don't need the full 20 minutes " says that it's less than that.

Your specific case described "10 mins stop every 6-7 hours" is extreme and of questionable safety. How much fluid did you consume during that time?

I'm not going to say "don't do it", but lets not pretend that it's the average use, or even your average use. So you should not optimise for that at the expense of making other cases worse.

You're also saying that the comparable charging time, even for extreme cases like this, is not all that far off.

[doubled112]

I used to get over 1000km to a tank of fuel. I didn’t stop until I got there.

That was in a 2002. What huge quality of life improvements we’ve made…

[justinrubek]

If I felt the need to drive 1000km without a break, I would be supremely glad to have technology that forced me to be more reasonable with my body.

[Zigurd]

Do German cars, in Germany, still have a two hour timer to remind you to take a break?