I love talking to people that I know with range anxiety when I know they could charge every night at their home.
And then they start on about “What about long trips?”, and I’ve known them for over 20 years, and the only travel they’ve ever done is from the airport.
Seriously, are they getting paid ? I don’t get why they feel obliged to just talk about scenarios that don’t even apply to them.
As someone who doesn’t own a car, it’s wild to me that people will buy something for the extremely rare times they’ll use that feature.
Renting a car for the weekend is a thing, folks…
And then they start on about “What about long trips?”, and I’ve known them for over 20 years, and the only travel they’ve ever done is from the airport.
This is also why they buy those massive 4WDs as city and suburban people. It’s for the imaginary off road camping trip they are definitely going to go on…one day. Could just buy a normal car and hire the 4WD, but no - they plan their entire life around the one thing that will never actually happen.
The funniest part is that if 90% of those cars attempt actual offroading, the cars will kill themselves, or, the driver will kill the car, having absolutely no clue how to drive off road.
Several years back, I was in a Prius C, hybrid, trying a shortcut through some empty truck loading dock areas, to get around an accident at a fairly major intersection not too far away.
… Me, in my little putt-putt subcompact… found myself blocked by… it must have been a Ford 350.
He had come up to a puddle.
A 3 inch deep puddle.
But it was really broad, wide.
This fucking moron was evidently not from around here, doesn’t cut through this completely flat parking lot that gets puddles like this whenever it rains, which is often.
So I carefully mount a bit of a curb, with two wheels, (again, in my subcompact hybrid) to drive around this lost idiot. I carefully dismount the curb, with him honking at me the whole time, and then make a rooster tail in the 1/8 mile long, 3 inch puddle that him in his F 350 can’t fucking figure out.
When I got home, I checked my undercarriage for any damage.
Nothing.
Also, no electrical problems either, in the following months, in my hybrid, that 90% of local mechanics say has electronics that are too complicated for them to even touch the car for anything semi-complicated.
Truck people are not worthy of drawing breath.
Suburban people buy SUVs because they’re big with lots of space, and they’re safer. It’s a circular thing too, because when everyone else has one you need one to be “safer” in an accident, rinse and repeat.
99% of them aren’t 4WD. The number of actual 4WDs you see driving around are negligible. Most SUVs don’t even have a AWD option, let alone AWD.
Don’t get me started on the SUV thing.
I seriously question how often they leave the tarmac, and would love to see proof if they are ever put in 4WD mode.
Meh, most of them are probably 2WD and only pretend offroaders anyways.
I have a mate who genuinely drives across australia. For leisure, he’s a travelling man. He"s done melb to broome, to busselton, followed the 'ghan, whole kit and caboodle.
He does it in a divvy van he’s had converted to lpg.
I suspect much of it is a fear of change. People are looking for a remotely plausible reason to dismiss it, even if it doesn’t apply to them, because it means they won’t have to modify their behaviour. You can see this with plant based diets, public and active transport, and cooking and heating technologies such as induction cooktops and heatpumps.
The plus side is that the moment people actually make the change, they rarely go back. See also congestion pricing across the world, where the view of it is negative right up until it’s implemented and it almost immediately becomes popular.
TL;DR: You can’t charge in remote areas in central Australia.
If you live in a city you can charge almost anywhere. All major highways are covered. Check PlugShare for charger locations.
If you can charge at home, you’ll get cheaper and more convenient electricity.
Yeah there’s not a lot of petrol stations that way either.
But if it’s a problem, rent a gasser.
Yes, really. I recommend checking plugshare (linked above) to find chargers before complaining about the lack of chargers.
As long as Plugshare data is accurate. A lot of towns only have a 3kW public charger.
No one does the maths to determine that it would take 20 hours to fill a 60kW battery.
Some have 7kW and some even have 22kW, so you can park your car in a side street for 3 hours before you can continue your journey.
Fast DC chargers are available in main highways, and more are being installed all the time, but just because a charger is shown on Plugshare; there is no guarantee that it; A) will be in service, B) will charge your car in a reasonable time, C) will not be occupied.
Most people’s home electricity isn’t enough to charge an EV for daily use btw.
I did rideshare driving for several years using just a standard 10A outlet. I can promise you it’s fine for over 99% of people.
The only reason I upgraded to a 3x faster charger was because it had a cable mounted to the wall which was more convenient.
If you only charge overnight, a 10 hour charge will add 24kWh which is about 150km. If you absolutely must drive over 150km per day (7 days per week) and you can’t charge at home for more than 10 hours per day (even on weekends), you can stop at a rapid charger once per week. It’s still cheaper and more convenient than petrol.
Yeah it is. I ran my EV from an 8 amp charger for the first year. Charging for ten hours overnight adds about 100km of range. Most people don’t do many kilometres per day.
You only really have trouble if you’re doing back to back long trips, or if you haven’t charged for a couple of days and suddenly find out you have a long trip to do the next day.
8 amp? Normal wall power point is 10 amp.
The early Tesla mobile chargers only did 8A from a 10A socket, something about a 20% derating. They don’t do that anymore thankfully.
That charger advertises 8 amps to the car, so that’s what the car draws. I’m not sure why. A safety margin for bad wiring and dodgy outlets, maybe?
