If you can charge while you sleep, you would typically have enough capacity to make it through a normal day?
Yes, there are probably exceptions but if you're not a commercial driver and drive >250 miles a day, that sucks....
At that rate, you're adding time really quickly as charging might take 8 minutes but getting to and from the charger easily adds another 4 to 8 minutes. At that point you're talking about adding about 10 to 16% to your total time taken
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit_Courier#Tourneo_C...
I’m guessing it’s an American thing too though, we can drive many more hours and no one is driving straight 4, let alone 5 hours going 75+ mph in an EV because no one is going to run their battery down to zero. On top of that Americans really don’t like taking long breaks on road trips because that only extends the trip that in a fuel vehicle can, well, could commonly be 6-20 hours driving in the past.
All the winning we are doing over here is quickly changing the mobility of American though. But that’s a whole different and interesting topic because it has major implications for America’s survival as a single entity that people overlook. America has held together to a large extent precisely because Americans could afford being mobile during the American century, i.e., the glue that kept the country together and made it feel like it belonged to us, an actual nation. That glue is breaking down for many reasons, one being expensive, impractical mobility.
For your road trip example let's say we take a 1000 mile trip. With an EV that can be done in 6 legs (sandbagging it), maybe even 5 or 4 now. So that's 5 stops, over 16 or so hours of driving. If you average charge takes 30 minutes (sandbagging it) instead of 10, that adds 1 hour and 40 minutes or about 15% of total time. And this is pretty much worst case.
I would think that's perfectly acceptable, but that's just an opinion. It'll give you time to go to the bathroom, stretch your legs, have a bite etcetera. If you're going to be peeing in a bottle and eating while driving, yes you can do it in less time.
I would strongly suggest, the next time you do one of those trips. Time how long you actually spend at a stop, it might not be far off the 15 minute mark on average
Likewise? If you're in the cold part of the US I can totally see your comment. But just saying, there's not that many people living there. Density wise thats really sparse. Most people live in much better climates, Europe has 1.5x the number of people of all the US and no climate that is remotely the same.
If it doesn't work for you because you're in a remote area that does get really cold, I can totally see that. But I do think that makes you the exception, not the rule. For the US, California has been setting the rules for cars for years, because that's where a lot of the customers are whether you like it or not
I get it. There are worst case scenarios but you buy a car for the rule, not the exception.
I owned a 2013 leaf with a range of 65 miles or so, without fast charging port because it was air cooled. So this wasn't a proper first/only car. But it worked like a charm for my daily commute...
Did I drive 80 with it? No, 65 which was the speed limit anyway.
Did I do road trips with it? No, we used the other EV for that
It's just like software guys. There's no solutions, only tradeoffs
Also our electricity rates fluctuate based on the underlying wholesale rate. It's going to be clear and sunny tomorrow at midday. Sure would be nice to be able to set my car to charge at midday when the price is single digits cents per kw, or maybe even negative. Instead I'll just have to drip it in with the higher rates at midnight-6am and know tomorrows cheap rates will average out to a much lower cost.
TLDR: definitely useful even for people who charge at home.
You talk about rates, but if you care about that, this is a no brainer. You can go to that super charger and charge in 10 minutes. You'll just pay triple your home rate though? So if you care about cost, you would never charge anywhere else.
Also, you say you need 2 days of charging to recoup 40 to 50% of battery (assuming you don't typically charge to 100 which you shouldn't). This implies you charge from a normal outlet. That's fine and I've been doing that for years, but if charge time was an issue you could have a level 2 charger at home and cut that time in 4 or something with not that big of an expense.
Anyway this wasn't meant to be a debate about rates. Just that "nobody that charges at home would want this" was an overly reductive claim.
