[diminish]

We need >2000 km ranges in one charge of electric vehicles for widespread adoption.

[sho]

I think James May made a great point when he said it's not about range, it's about quick and ubiquitous charging. I wouldn't mind if my vehicle could only travel 300km... if I could have the confidence I'd be able to stop and top it up in just a couple of minutes no matter where I was.

Faster charging would really make all the difference.

[closewith]

The problem with fast charging, at least here in Ireland, is that it's significantly more expensive than petrol. Our family moved back from an EV to PHEV because we get the benefit of 90+% of our journeys being for free (from solar charging at home), but that last 10% is petrol that is always available.

There's also nothing more miserable than being stuck in a queue for a fast charger with a colicy baby. I've offered people cash to get to the front of the queue, although no-one's ever accepted money when they understand why.

[vasco]

> I wouldn't mind if my vehicle could only travel 300km... if I could have the confidence I'd be able to stop and top it up in just a couple of minutes no matter where I was.

This is called a motorcycle! Mine can do 260-280km on a gas tank, still does huge trips. Once batteries work like gas, you're absolutely right.

[davedx]

Eh I much prefer my Model 3 to my wife’s Mach-E because of the longer range it has. Even with fast chargers on the motorway it’s inconvenient to have to stop regularly to charge and delays your journey. 450km is nice for the Netherlands; if I had 500-600km range then I’d only ever need to charge at home which is way better.

[hackernewds]

Not really. if your choice is a better ICE car at the same price point, why get an EV that has to stop intermittently and has failure modes like broken chargers. It has to be as good. And better

[9dev]

People really need to get away from that notion electric vehicles need to be as similar as possible to ICE vehicles. Most people living in cities don’t ever require that range, because 99% of their rides will be constrained to less than 50 kilometers. And even on the countryside, few people need to drive such long stretches on a single charge.

Keeping up this stoic desire to not having to change your habits around driving at all is dismissing a lot of the benefits small, lightweight electric cars could get us, if they didn’t need to carry tons of battery around—that isn’t even necessary most of the time.

[AmericanChopper]

If you want people to choose one thing, then you want it to be better than or at least as good as the alternatives. The idea that EVs need to be comparable to ICE vehicles isn’t just some silly argument, it’s literally the choice that consumers are faced with if they want to buy a car. Even if longer range travel is only 1% of what consumers will do with their car (which I’m sure is a number you just made up), why would you get a product that only meets 99% of your needs, when you can get the competing product that meets 100% of them?

[gertop]

> Most people living in cities don’t ever require that range

Very true! But most people in cities can't charge at home (street parking, rental, etc).

So charge time and access (finding a working station with a reasonable wait time) must also be considered before we tell people they're dumb for resisting change.

[whatever1]

Even if you drive 10km per day the big advantage of long range is that you don't have to refuel/recharge frequently.

[beAbU]

Not everywhere is massive and spread out like US. In Ireland I can basically get anywhere in the whole country with one charge and maybe a top-up along the way. I'm more than happy with my 400km range.

[realusername]

People use their car way less than they think.

The median work distance in France is 12km in the countryside and 6km in the cities.

25% of the workers travel less than 4km even in the countryside.

Source: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/7622203

The current range is way above most needs already and I'm not sure cars (electric or not) is even the answer with such a low usage.

[closewith]

I'm also in Ireland and while 400km might get you anywhere in the country, it won't get you home. Fast charging here is more expensive than petrol (over twice as much per km in many cases), the charging infrastructure is not reliable, and it's very easily overwhelmed.

After the All Ireland semi-final this year, there were multi-hour queues for fast chargers on the M7. Multi-minute queues for petrol.

This is reflected in sales, where even with tax and BIK incentives, EV sales are falling sharply and second-hand EVs are being exported because the market has tanked.

[dudeism_est_03]

I personally doubt very much that this range is required. Charging infrastructure is definitely a lot more important.

I still drive a diesel because I drive across Europe a lot. My usual journey is 700km, which I can do with ca. 40L. The total my 65L tank would give me is about 1000km depending on the conditions. Anyway, those 700km take about 8 hours with a couple of short stops. If I were to drive 2000km I would definitely need a long break in which I could easily charge. I am not really aware of any ICE having a greater range than that, never mind 2000Km. I’ve once driven the Plugin-Hybrid Kuga and it got very close to the diesel range. It almost made the entire 700km journey with the 40l petrol tank. But these long journeys only happen a few times a year and I think it would be silly to drive a huge battery around for the off chance I am driving across an entire continent.

[kyriakos]

As an owner of an EV it took me the first 6 months to adapt. The concept is different and you need to adapt your mentality to it. When you use an ICE car you fill up once it goes under 20% When you drive an EV you leave home and it's always full and costs nothing (PV takes care of that). Most places I visit have chargers which means you charge while you do what you have to do be it restaurant, shopping mall, supermarket etc. Things only happen differently if you plan long journey and living on an island that's no issue.

[amatecha]

How does that work when all cars are electric? Fighting with some guy at the grocery store for a charging port? I'm not trying to be inflammatory asking that, I genuinely wonder what the approach is supposed to be if suddenly everyone went and bought an electric car. I always hear that "you can charge all over the place" but I'll see like, two charging stalls in a giant parking lot. I wonder what the future looks like in that regard in, say, 5-10 years.

[vrighter]

some places have a couple of chargers, which is nowhere close to "the whole parking lot"

[ggm]

What % of cars have this range? Not your diesel f150, the real cars real people with real everyday lives drive

My Hyundai i30 has a 600km range, max.

[Hamuko]

Range is kinda irrelevant if you live in a place where filling stations are ubiquitous. Going 850 km in my old petrol-powered car required just one five-minute stop.

[closewith]

A diesel F150 will easily do 1,000km+ on a full tank.

[manmal]

I think a cheap car with 1k km range would sell pretty well already. For many people that’s a once a month charge.

[ben_w]

You commute from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico?

[wg0]

Or 10x longer battery life. Or 100x faster charging time. Something has to change among those factors for wider adoption.

[woggy]

I don't think my Mazda3 has anything near that range