But beyond that, when you pull into a supercharger, you know it's working. If it wasn't working it would say so on the dash. You park, pick up the cable, point it at your port and the port opens. You plug it in. You walk away. Your phone gets a notification when it's time to go. And it charges your card automatically. No goofy app required, no NFC/authorization, no noodling with the charger to make it work, no effort. It's really really nice.

Chargepoint stuff works fine. Stations are often broken (and like the author said, there's no way to know without going there). You have to use an app which thankfully supports an Apple wallet card. Before I figured that out it was super fiddly. I've had stations on other networks that are unusable because they have poor cell service. Then there's a whole "reload your card" thing where you get charged in $20 increments. And adapters, chunky connectors. To be fair I've never tried DC fast charging with anything but a supercharger.

- evgo was decent, but had limited capacity (usually 2 L3 per location)

- chargepoint was usually pretty decent, but mostly was an L2 charger network

- blink was L3, but their chargers were ALWAYS broken.

that was 3 years ago, and switching to a tesla changed a few things:

- the range of the car was higher

- superchargers were in more locations

- had more stalls per location

- were faster at charging

- were more reliable

- one small detail worth mentioning - the other systems had payment networks that were frequently part of the problem - either preventing charging, or having you fiddle with things, or calling in to manually start things

When I tried to charge my previous EV (a non-Tesla) at public chargers, half they time they didn’t work, or charged at unpredictably slow rates.

Yes, that's my experience too. I never worry about range.

It was a key reason for me too. I considered BMW, MB, and Audi EVs, but ruled them out due to horrendous state of non-Tesla charging in the US.

Another reason was software. Tesla's UI has a lot of issues, but it's the only car UI that feels smooth and responsive to me. And now I'm looking forward to this: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1362/tesla-update-2023-12-...

When I need to make that trip (with more than one person. If just one traveler it's cheaper to fly) I just rent a gas car and can make the trip in just over 5 hours. I'd say that includes gas stops but often I don't even need to stop for gas. One tank will get me all the way across. It's still a good idea to stop for gas because you can find cheaper stations outside of the big metro areas. But a gas stop is 5 minutes offramp to onramp.

I feel like all this comparing of charging times and ranges of various EVs misses the point that NONE of them offer a better experience that a gas vehicle yet. Sure, it's a trade off some people are willing to make already and that's great. But it needs to get even better.

The thing is, when there is an issue, it’s at minimum a huge pain in the ass, and a complete nightmare at worst.

Compared to Tesla, where you just pull up and plug in. No app, no card reader. It just works. I've encountered 1 bad stall out of like 50 visits to superchargers, and since there are typically 10 to 20 stalls it wasn't a big deal.

The problem with EA (and CCS networks in US in general) - 10x more likely to encounter a broken stall, and that stall will be at a station with 1/2 to 1/3 the stalls of a typical Tesla station, and if the whole station is out.. the next station is probably 2-3x as far as the next Tesla station would have been.

I find EA roadtrip planning to be more nerve wracking than Tesla was 5 years ago, and Tesla continues to build more stations at a rapid pace... so the lead is not closing.

This has been 100% of my Electrify America experiences as well, along with a few other brands. Some have been able to take payment by tap to pay credit card as well without an app.

Most EVgo charging experiences have been plug and charge. I did have one experience a while ago that needed an app but that was one of their older chargers which even still had their old logo on it. All their newer chargers have successfully done plug and charge.

I've had tap to pay work with Google Wallet at Road Ranger (Freewire) and Francis Energy chargers.

> You mentioned taping a card, not just plugging in

That's why I included the language "as well". I've used a number of different brands of EV chargers.

Out of all the times I've used a public DCFC, I had to use an app maybe 10% of the time. And of that, it was only earlier into my ownership, I haven't had to use an app in about a year. Every charger I've used in the last year has been either plug and charge or supported credit cards directly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15118

Now if they could just support it for my i4...

Other stations require payment, but EVGo plug and charge works too if you’ve set it up ahead of time.

Imagine a light switch or sink faucet working "90% of the time".

Or the gas pump working "90% of the time", knowing that there are no other pumps in a 30 mile radius.

For gas stations, 99.99% of the time the pump works. So much so that I don’t even consider that it doesn’t work. That’s the level of reliability that I expect.

I say this as an exclusively EV driver for 5+ years myself... let's not defend the indefensible (EA's CCS network).

Meanwhile in the last year I've waited in lines several times to get gas, and I've pulled up to a pump only to find it out of order three times this last year and seen many others with bags over the pump handle signifying they're out of order.

It's definitely not 99.99% of gas pumps working.

Yes, I do see those often enough. Maybe once a week, so way more than 0.01%

But of course, even the tiniest of gas stations has multiple pumps, four is the smallest I recall seeing and the smallest one around here is 8 pumps.

One or two may be out of service regularly, but in more than 35 years of driving I have never pulled into a gas station where all 4/8+ pumps were out of service simultaneously.

And then, even if that happened, given the way gas stations congregate, there is another one across the street which will be working.

I haven't personally experienced any failures to get a charge on CCS chargers though. I do agree if the power can't run the pumps it won't run the chargers either, but there hasn't been a similar major power outage since I got an EV and tried to charge on a public charger.

That reminds me, I've experienced bad gas require me to make repairs on my cars. I've never personally had an EVSE break my car, but I do contend it could happen.

And I’ve never experienced bad gas requiring repairs.

I’d say 95% of these fillups were in the US if that matters.

One occasion my fuel filter got badly clogged a few miles from a gas station on a road trip. I've had it happen to one of my vehicles and I've seen it happen to a few friends as well.

The power issues or just being completely out of gas were usually from hurricanes or the big freeze in Texas.

You've also never encountered or seen a gas station that was closed for the night? Every pump has always been 24/7 operations? I'm not even talking about full service stations, but I've encountered many gas stations where the store closes at like 2 or 3 AM meaning no attendant so they can't leave the pumps on. Its the worst when you're running low on gas on a late night road trip, you just have enough gas to roll into town, and the first gas station you roll up to, the only one you can see from the highway, is closed for the night. Bonus points, that small tiny town in the middle of no where also has absolutely abysmal cell reception so no phone maps. Better hope the TomTom shoved in the glove compartment eight years ago knows a couple of other gas stations in the few miles you've got left in the tank and that those stations still exist and are not also closed. Fun times. I've had this happen way more than once.

And its definitely happened more than once to me where credit card processing was down so they were asking everyone to pay cash. I don't usually carry cash on me, so buying gas wasn't happening.

And then finally I'll plan on getting gas at a Costco or Sams Club, see the massive lines, and decide to go drive another mile or two and pay more. Are there never lines at Costco or Sams Club stations near you?

And then finally I've definitely pulled into a station only to realize every handle has a bag on it.

You don't need every pump to be open, just one.

Living in the west coast of the US I spend a lot of time driving around desert areas which are pretty remote. Many times I've rolled into remote gas stations in the middle of nowhere at ~3am where everything was dark but the pumps were operating.

You are either supremely unlucky, or vastly exaggerating the issue. It is very difficult to not find a working gas pump in the US, they're everywhere.

Anecdotes are anectodes, but I've been driving 35+ years and I have many cars and I drive a lot including much time in remote areas and yet, I have not even once experienced any of the problems you assert are common.

In order to promote EVs it is important to be honest about the advantages but also the disadvantages.

A few minutes later, someone moves. I get to that pump. I try tap to pay. Declined. I put in a chipped card. Declined. Try another card. Declined. I go inside, cash only today for some reason. I don't carry cash with me often, so no gas for me.

There's like 10 minutes of my day wasted and I didn't even end up getting any gas. I'll have to try going to some other pump later.

Meanwhile my wife with the EV left the house with a full tank, just like every day. Zero minutes spent waiting or failing to dispense energy this week for that vehicle.

Let's be honest about the pros and cons of each.

Many states require someone to be working at the station to quickly respond to any issues. If there's not enough business at 3am to justify paying someone to work all through the night, they won't keep the pumps on all night long. This will definitely vary from state to state. And places like Costco, those pumps shut off at like 9:00PM.

And I do agree, most of the times where I was unable to get gas at one station I was able to find another working station within a few miles, especially in suburban areas. In times of natural disasters though, I was definitely unable to find any working gas pumps, at least not without potentially risking getting stranded continuing to drive around wasting gas to try and find a different pump. I do agree those are disaster situations and not indicative of the normal state of affairs, and that CCS chargers would probably also have not been operational at those times.

> You are either supremely unlucky, or vastly exaggerating the issue.

Or maybe I just don't have as selective of memory or pay more attention to things around me than some other people. All of these issues work out to a little over a dozen failures for me to get gas over the 600-700ish times I've probably pumped gas, so yeah a pretty low failure rate overall. We should be honest about the disadvantages of pumping gas though, of which there are many.

> It is very difficult to not find a working gas pump in the US, they're everywhere.

I'm not saying I couldn't find any working gas pump, I'm saying I've found pumps not working on many occasions and needed to go find a working one elsewhere. Those are two very different concepts. It may be hard to not find any working gas pump, but given about 30 minutes in any urban or suburban area I could probably find at least one pump not working at the moment.

> In order to promote EVs it is important to be honest about the advantages but also the disadvantages.

I am being 100% honest. I spend more time waiting to charge my ICE car (driving to a gas station, starting the pump, pumping the gas, leaving the gas station, about every week and a half) than I do my EV, by hours a year. I've personally experienced more challenges and frustrations getting my ICE car fueled than I have charging my EV. And I spend more on energy costs for my ICE car than I do my EV, with those costs being extremely variable. Meanwhile my EV's energy costs are largely fixed due to 1-3 year electricity contracts.

> I've been driving 35+ years and I have many cars and I drive a lot including much time in remote areas and yet, I have not even once experienced any of the problems you assert are common.

In 35 years of driving you've never once seen a broken pump? You've never once seen a gas station closed? You've never once seen a line of people at a gas station and decided the wait wasn't worth it? Who's not being honest here?

I realize I'm just one data point in a sea of many, but it doesn't make my experiences dishonest. I'm being 100% honest sharing my experiences here. People don't often make YouTube videos of their experiences when things just go smoothly and right when charging. I'm not going to upload a video every time I plug in my car in my garage and it just charges. I'm not uploading videos every time I plug and charge on some public DCFC. Someone probably is going to make a video when it doesn't work for them though. People are going to share the headlines of "DCFC stations have high failure rates (in this limited geographic area we surveyed, briefly)". If the only reports are the times it doesn't work, you're not going to have a very "honest" set of reports. And I agree, different corridors are going to be different, YMMV. For the places I go, there's a good number of decent DCFC when I need them.

Is my experience universal? Of course not.

However, the data on that page has massive sampling bias.

You’re going to hear about the negative experiences because that is what people commiserate about. It’s human nature.

Especially when compared to owning a second care with an ICE just for the occasional trip.

2. Cost: the rental cost is actually only a small portion of the cost. Extra insurance and other fees end up more than the rent itself.

Your car will depreciate regardless of that road-trip, just by virtue of time passing. Rental companies won't subsidize the wear and tear for you, so you have to pay that anyway.

And then there is my friend on a fixed income that's realized it's cheaper to rent a compact car for long drives. Same as above because having the car break down in nowheres is expensive quick.

Tesla batteries are filled with poisonous combustible electrolyte. The cost of batteries easily dwarfs the fuel cost savings with appropriate discount rate. And the electricity probably comes from coal or low efficiency nat gas turbine.

There was a reason why people stayed on the interstates and turnpikes and regularly spaced gas stations was one of them. Many of these were subsidized.

That needs to occur again for EV chargers.

The Supercharging network is the most under-appreciated, under-advertised feature of a Tesla.

3rd party charging stations are usually only 2-4 stalls. Tesla stations are usually 8-16, with a couple monster stations on I-5 having 50+.

> All the stalls always work.

I wouldn't go quite that far. I have been to a station that had a dead charger. But that's been once. And Tesla from what I've heard, Tesla is usually pretty quick about getting repairs done.

https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging

If we rework the example with a $30k Tesla, that's still $26k more than my used car, which brings the break-even point down to about 150,000 miles (if you assume electricity going into the EV is without cost) or somewhere around 225,000 miles if you go with the previous poster's assumption that price per mile is one third of an ICE engine.

I (absolutely) got a cranking deal on my Fiat. But if you compare a new Tesla at $35,000 with a new Camry, it (the Tesla) is starting to look more compelling, but as long as ICE vehicles have functionality left in them, it's probably more environmentally conscious and economically sound to drive them.

That being said... if you want a Tesla, get a Tesla. But if your objective is to drive around cheaply, I don't think it's the cheapest option.

His $80k Tesla was $2M cheaper than a Bugatti Veyron. Clearly Tesla's are way cheaper than gas cars. I don't understand how anyone can afford the millions of dollars gas cars cost.

Or maybe $4k cars that aren't absolutely falling apart and Veyrons aren't the most useful yardsticks of car pricing. I definitely understand the $4k used unicorn, I drove one for years. But IME the vast majority of $4k cars are priced that low for a reason.

I can find a used Bolt for ~$20k pretty easy. Most decent used gas cars are probably going to be around $10-14k. Let's say $10k price difference. At $3.50/gal, 25mpg, 12,000mi/yr, that's $1,680 in gas. At 4mi/kWh, 11¢/kWh, same mileage that's $330. $1,350/yr cheaper, so from energy cost differences that's a seven and a half year break even on 10k difference. If your ICE was $14k, that's only four and a half years.

And that Bolt probably just got a brand new battery from the recall, meaning it'll probably last at least a decade (probably more) without any major maintenance issues. Meanwhile that $10k ICE probably needs a new timing belt soon, probably has some aging motor mounts, and maybe it isn't always shifting into third gear very well.

I'm definitely not telling you to throw away your $4k unicorn. It's good you're getting a lot of life in it. I'm just suggesting that acting like EVs cost $80k and ICE cars cost $4k is stretching those markets to the point where it's pretty unrealistic to most buyers.

Also, that point about batteries spontaneously igniting, I've seen neighbors houses burn down from ICE cars spontaneously igniting. I see gas cars burning on the highways pretty regularly. I've had cars have recalls telling me to park outside. Gas cars catch on fire all the damn time.

Silly comparisons are fun I suppose, but for someone who is poor ultimately the only comparison that matters is how much will it cost this year.

The cheapest non-salvage Tesla I see on craigslist right now is 30K. I also see tons of 2K-4K Honda/Toyota/Mazda cars that will give someone plenty of low-cost miles for years to come. It is not realistic to think a poor person will buy a 30K car on the hope that in a few decades the operating costs will break even and eventually save them money.

> At 4mi/kWh, 11¢/kWh

Here with PG&E they charge 33c/kWh after midnight, or 56c/kWh during peak hours.

Also, I think we're conflating two stories here. The first is about the SPECIFIC example of me and my brother. He bought an expensive car, I bought an inexpensive car. It's going to be at least another 300k miles before my gas expenses meet the price difference. At that point he can certainly start teasing me about how expensive my car is to operate. But I will still be able to call him a reactionary imperialist whose only interest is cheating the proletariat out of their right to travel in the HOV lane unimpeded by bourgeois singletons.

The second story is the general case, where someone who needs a car wants to compare the total cost of ownership of a Tesla vs. some other random non-EV. Let's also make the other random non-EV reasonably nice because if you're bougie enough to consider a Tesla, you would NEVER be seen in a Hyundai Accent. Bing tells me the MSRP on a 2023 Camry is $27k which is DANG CLOSE to a current Tesla after you throw in government credit. But the Camry can go 500 miles on a tank of gas and if you get the long range Tesla, the price starts going up. So there is a bit of a question here about how you might use your car (I mostly only drive city-to-city and use a bus in town, like any civilized person would.) But, I think the point here is the break-even point is MUCH lower than in my case.

There's also a third story I think is a little outlandish because we're comparing frightfully expensive cars with Teslas. This is where we compare the 2022 Rolls Boat Tail at $28M to the standard Model 3 after all the price cuts Elon's been talking about lately. If you can afford a Rolls Boat Tail, you don't care about how much gas (or electrons) cost. You would probably NEVER be seen in a standard Model 3. I think you would have to get a plaid and then gold plate every surface. Or maybe palladium plate every surface because someone told you gold was passé.

A model 3/Y purchase price is pretty much at the average new car price, so a person looking for a new sedan or mid sized SUV would look a step further and look at things like total cost of operation.

I gave a specific example involving an expensive EV my brother bought and a remarkably inexpensive used ICE vehicle I purchased. I did not say that every comparison of EVs with ICEs would exhibit the same relative costs. I was talking about a SPECIFIC example.

We're I logician I might refer to this as an existential: there exists one. I am not arguing it is a universal.

But if someone says "all EVs are less expensive to operate than all ICEs," then to disprove that statement you only have to find a single counter-example, which I did.

Finding a single counter-example to the universal does not imply the obverse of the universal. In other words, saying "hey, I bought a cheap used ICE vehicle and it is considerably less expensive to operate than my brother's EV" does not mean I am arguing "All ICE vehicles are cheaper to operate than all EVs."

I am happy that you like the model 3/Y and wish you many years of happy driving. <snark>At least until you have to sell your children to afford the replacement battery.</snark>

That's all the person you originally replied to says about cost. You emphasize ALWAYS and use the keyword operate, but you've self inserted the extreme always condition and ignore what operate means.

> all EVs are less expensive to operate than all ICE

The only comment in this thread with that language is your comment right here.

> At least until you have to sell your children to afford the replacement battery.

I guess ICE cars never have substantial drivetrain failures which ultimately result in the cost of repairs exceeding the value of the vehicle? The transmission in my 2000 Accord was starting to experience issues, how much would that have cost to replace? And then on top of that, it probably needed an EGR cleanout again along with a new water pump and timing belt. I don't know how many more years the catalytic converter would have lasted, those are cheap though right?

I guess all of those things are pretty cheap, what maybe $50 each right? Wait, rebuilt transmissions are like $2k before labor? Having someone replace the timing belt and water pump is almost $1k these days, and that's something I'm just supposed to do every 60,000mi or so? How many thousands of dollars was already spent keeping that car running?

Meanwhile the battery is practically the only real drivetrain wear item on an EV. No catalytic converter to rust or walk away, no EGR system getting clogged up, no timing belts to fail and destroy the valves, no valves getting gunked up, no piston rings to foul, any seals are under way less stress and far less prone to leak, coolant systems are practically never stressed and under way less pressure and aren't a tiny seal away from making forbidden milkshakes, etc.

If your argument about EV battery life is based around the battery only having a 10 year 100,000mi warranty, I'd hate to break it to you about ICE car warranties these days. Clearly just about every ICE car is just going to fall to pieces at about 60,000mi. Or maybe many vehicles vastly outlive their stated warranty times.

Sounds like a good reason to avoid areas served by PG&E.

Again.

If your objective is to drive around cheaply, neither a Bugatti Veyron nor a Tesla are your best bets.

The use case for swaps is small. The vast majority of trips are short. Trips long enough to require a recharge often require a long stop for the driver.

People have priced in the notion of spending some time each week pouring flammable liquids into their vehicle. If we had started with electric cars everyone would find it disgusting and far too frequent. The speed of it for rare use cases would not impress.

Swappable batteries will not change that. They are too expensive and they limit design too much. Reducing the charge time to five minutes or even zero minutes would not change the minds of people who would simply swap to their next excuse.

Also, I've used lots of chargers greater than 100 kw, and they really don't take that long to charge a car. Combine it with a meal, even a fast food meal and they've generally charged more than I needed in that time anyway.

Fast charging is an outlier anyway. >90% of the time you slow charge at home for a third of the price per mile, and it's lovely to only need to visit a filling station on rare long drives.

I think Renault used to do something like that?

Tesla tried it. There was no point Tesla building more swap stations because so few people paid the premium to get a swappable battery. It turns out that people who won't buy an electric car unless they can swap the battery will find some other reason not to buy an electric car if that reason is removed.