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I looked up Tesla's website to get an idea of how long a charge takes and what kind of range to expect. A typical charge gives an estimated 29 miles of range on 1 hour's worth of charge. Their fastest charge ("supercharge!") can give you "up to" 170 miles in "as little as" 30 minutes, which is a best-case scenario and probably not very true to real life. They also say that they can replentish half the battery life in 20 minutes, so a full charge ("up to" 255 miles, if my math is correct) takes "as little as" 40 minutes.

I can fill the tank in my car in under 5 minutes, including paying and swabbing the windshield while I wait. That gives me nearly 400 miles.

As far as how often I drive 250 miles in one go, it's not often, but my daily commute is 80 miles round-trip, and that's if I don't go anywhere else. 100-150 miles in a day is common for me. And I can't count on being able to "supercharge!" everywhere I go.

Batteries have a LONG way to go in this regard.

As someone who has put a lot of miles in a Model S, I'll say it again. In the end, it's just not that big of a deal for the vast majority of use cases. The 29 mile per hour charge is at home, on a 240v circuit. But nobody cares how long it takes to charge at home, because your car is parked at home overnight pretty much every day. You need 400 miles of range in your ICE not because anybody routinely drives 400 miles at a go, but because it prevents you from having to go to the gas station every week. Several of the Tesla owners I know have never used a Supercharger in the entire time they've owned the car. My father - who puts the most miles on it - has used it several times, as have I - and it takes about 20 minutes to get ~140 miles of charge (it begins VERY fast - I've seen up to 340 miles per hour - as the battery is low, and then slows as it fills up, so the first 100 miles is extremely fast). Is it as fast or convenient as an ICE? No. But it's something that he does perhaps a few times a year, always on a longer drive, where he would be stopping for fuel/bathroom/food at some point anyhow. Fueling an ICE at a gas station is not a convenience once you realize that with an EV you do so at home the vast majority of the time. 100-150 miles per day in a Model S would be NO problem at all, right now.

That is not to say that concerns about range and charge time have no merit - they absolutely do and the Supercharger network, as vast as it is, is nowhere near extensive enough - but rather that the level of concern is generally overblown by folks who have never considered closely how they actually drive or how inconvenient refueling an ICE is already - we just forget about it because it is familiar and something we have always done.
 
Hydrogen fuel cell cars have a very long way to go, but if the society is willing to give them a chance, it might as well become the best alternative to electric cars down the road.

No. Gas powered cars is the way to go. Electric cars are allegedly cheap to run until you have to pay for maintenance on a hybrid. They're one big con.
 
No. Gas powered cars is the way to go. Electric cars are allegedly cheap to run until you have to pay for maintenance on a hybrid. They're one big con.

Then why are taxi fleets around the world switching to hybrids? Electric motors far fewer moving parts than combustion engines, don't require multi-speed transmissions, and reduce wear-and-tear on the brakes through the use of regenerative braking.
 
No. Gas powered cars is the way to go. Electric cars are allegedly cheap to run until you have to pay for maintenance on a hybrid. They're one big con.
But with electricity the provider is able to choose how and where to generate it, and the waste products of generation can be contained. That gives scope (perhaps too much for many of the current vehicle makers) for development of the vehicles that use it. For instance, if recharging is too slow for some, why not have battery pack replacement as an option (like you would with your camera). Time to 'recharge' would be about 2 minutes, but it would cost more.

Current high maintenance costs are due to it being a niche product... for now.
 
Commercial vehicles aside, I agree that the average hatchback or sedan is not best served by diesel, but SUVs are often better served by the greater torque over petrol.

Poseurs aside, electric is suitable for golf carts - and not much else.

Hybrids are available for Gaia cultists, if they are prepared to put with the extra costs and maintenance problems down the road. However, on freeways, they should be restricted to the inside lane only.

Hydrogen, as a viable fuel source, is relegated to when oil becomes unsustainable - but this way down the road.

Like it or lump it, petrol still drives the world - and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

I'll disagree with the bolded part; I have a diesel VW Beetle that gets 40-45mpg at interstate speeds (70-80mph), and it's a convertible to boot. :D
 
I'll disagree with the bolded part; I have a diesel VW Beetle that gets 40-45mpg at interstate speeds (70-80mph), and it's a convertible to boot. :D

I'm a petrol-head, so i appreciate the sound, smoothness and performance of high-revving petrol engines, rather than fuel economy. Besides, 70 mph is parking speed. :)
 
That is not to say that concerns about range and charge time have no merit - they absolutely do and the Supercharger network, as vast as it is, is nowhere near extensive enough - but rather that the level of concern is generally overblown by folks who have never considered closely how they actually drive or how inconvenient refueling an ICE is already - we just forget about it because it is familiar and something we have always done.
There are 6 Tesla Supercharger locations within <30 minutes of my parents house in Connecticut (Greenwich Merit Parkway N & S, as well as Darien I-95 N & S and Milford I-95 N & S). Granted, I'm not in CT constantly, but I have never seen ANYONE using a supercharger and there are quite a few Teslas down there in the Greater NYC/Farfield County CT area.

Here in Boston, the nearest supercharger is in Dedham, which at best (zero traffic) is 30 minutes outside the city. It's the only Supercharger in the metro area and it's not really even on a major road (like I-95, I-90, or I-93). Massachusetts' offerings are pretty strange location wise, somewhat off the beaten path.

Then why are taxi fleets around the world switching to hybrids? Electric motors far fewer moving parts than combustion engines, don't require multi-speed transmissions, and reduce wear-and-tear on the brakes through the use of regenerative braking.
Talk to any independent mechanic and they will tell you hybrids are junk.

Most Taxis are Hybrids because of legislation (minimum mpg/emissions requirements, usually only met by hybrids) or incentives by the government to do so. For example, NYC require one of a few select hybrid vehicles unless you buy the official NYC Taxi of Tomorrow (Nissan NV200) or handicapped van.

In Boston, most taxis have been hybrids due to multiple incentives. They originally mandated all vehicles must be hybrids by 2015, but I think that got overturned. Regardless, pretty much all Boston taxis are Camry Hybrids.
 
There are 6 Tesla Supercharger locations within <30 minutes of my parents house in Connecticut (Greenwich Merit Parkway N & S, as well as Darien I-95 N & S and Milford I-95 N & S). Granted, I'm not in CT constantly, but I have never seen ANYONE using a supercharger and there are quite a few Teslas down there in the Greater NYC/Farfield County CT area.

Here in Boston, the nearest supercharger is in Dedham, which at best (zero traffic) is 30 minutes outside the city. It's the only Supercharger in the metro area and it's not really even on a major road (like I-95, I-90, or I-93). Massachusetts' offerings are pretty strange location wise, somewhat off the beaten path.

Tesla's intention is to first make common point to point travel possible with the Supercharger network. As such, most superchargers are on the interstates in between major cities, and not in the cities themselves which are commonly the endpoint of a trip. We commonly travel between upstate NY and the Boston/Cape areas, and the supercharger locations as they exist now would be reasonably convenient for us to be able to drive a Tesla on those trips.

You never see any cars there in all likelihood because most Tesla owners do the vast majority of their charging at home.
 
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