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Another way to think about it is owning an electric as a primary vehicle (most trips are under 50 miles or whatever) and the gas car as as secondary, long range vehicle. This makes way more sense than hybrids for two car families. We own a Nissan Leaf and its definitely our primary vehicle, it gets 10x the miles/day as the gas car at a fraction of the maintenance cost. We pull the gas car out for the weekends or trips to Canada. The drive train on either vehicle is comprehendible, I dare you to look under the hood of a hybrid and say the same.



At which point just renting a gas vehicle for long trips starts sounding really good.


It sounds good until you want to rent a gas vehicle on the same holiday weekend as everyone else and there are none available.


Luckily, the value of gas vehicles will be driven down with EV sales to the point where everyone could have a spare gas vehicle if they wanted one.


Parking lots are a scare resource. At least for me.


Except for the hassle of renting a vehicle. And, what do you do in a natural disaster?


100 miles is enough range to get out of the way of worst effects of most natural disasters, and plenty of people get by without a car at all.


100 miles would not be sufficient to get out of the path of Hurricane Florence currently on the US eastern seaboard (although Tesla has done of the honors of lifting any restrictions on their software range limited models, as well as providing free SuperCharging to get folks to safety [1]).

[1] https://electrek.co/2018/09/12/tesla-releasing-more-battery-...


It's enough to get far enough inland that it's no longer that dangerous, which is why I said "worst effects."

I've never heard of an evacuation order 100 miles inland.


I agree I probably didn't use the right language. You'll need more than 100 miles to both get out of harm's way, and also to ensure you're able to make it somewhere with accommodations available considering everyone else evacuating.

Family in South Carolina are going to Atlanta to ensure there isn't an issue getting a hotel room.


I was thinking more immediate life threatening danger with 100 miles. If you leave early enough so that power outages aren't an issue, finding a place to charge shouldn't be too much of a problem, even if it's a slower charge that adds hours to your trip.

That could be a problem once electric vehicles are much more popular, but then again, fast charging stations should be more popular by then too.


100 miles into a rural area isn't equipped to support a million people driven off the seaboard.

My sister lives in the hillbilly sticks of the Virginia/North Carolina border, about 100 miles inland. She has to drive 45 minutes to get to a doctor. That area isn't going to take thousands of refugees for a week or two. Can't feed them or provide sufficient sanitation. That's how you get cholera.


And how many people live in hurricane prone areas with no decent sized non-coastal towns within 100 miles?

They might want to consider buying something else. Or society might have to add more rapid charging stations and buses if shorter range electric cars become the norm.

Big coastal cities are already nearly impossible to evacuate by car on short notice, and they already have tens of thousands of people without cars.


The point is, "100 miles inland" isn't an answer. It's a separate issue from the problem of impoverished people living in low-lying coastal areas who can't afford cars or other means of leaving at all (there are hundreds of thousands in the path of Florence).

If you're gonna leave the North Carolina coast for the hurricane and you can afford to leave at all, there's little financial difference to whether it's winding up in inland rural areas, or simply heading to a major city anywhere else in the country. Drive to Nashville, or fly to Chicago.


>If you're gonna leave the North Carolina coast for the hurricane and you can afford to leave at all, there's little financial difference to whether it's winding up in inland rural areas, or simply heading to a major city anywhere else in the country. Drive to Nashville, or fly to Chicago.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here?




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