Title text:
Now that I’ve finally gotten an electric vehicle, I’m never going back to an acoustic one.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3214/
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A car powered by gasoline? It’ll never take off. I mean, what will you do if it runs out of gas? Start a war in the middle east?
Also imagine the logistics! You would have to refine the oil, get it from places all over the world and distribute it to all the gas stations all over the country. With electric cars you can just tap the already existing power grid.
Not to speak of the fact, that you cannot fill up at home or every other lamp post. You have to drive to designated stations to find gasoline. Ridiculous! What if the next station is too far to reach it, before you run out?
I seem to recall that back in the day there were electric cars before gasoline ones, and that was an argument at the time. Electricity was already becoming ubiquitous and putting up more wires was pretty easy compared to the logistics needed for gas production, transport, storage and dispensing. Gas won out due to the fact that it’s energy density was so much higher compared to batteries of the time… and probably a lot of lobbying by people invested in that stuff.
Gas won out due to the fact that it’s energy density was so much higher compared to batteries of the time
Gas won out because US found huge reserves of oil and it was 3 cents a barrel . Ford actually planned for his model T to run on ethanol, which could be made free on any farm, but Standard Oil made sure that would never happen.
Yeah 100 years ago the argument may have actually made sense.
Plus, have you seen all the iron and other metals that have to be mined shipped, refined, shipped, and then made in to parts, shipped again, and then assembled, and finally shipped to the dealer for a single ICE car?
This was Jeremy Clarkson’s stupid argument against hybrids. Boomer rant.
I’ve heard it so many times, and it’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve heard about electric cars other than the guy who wanted to know how you would drive your EV at night if it charged from solar panels.
Even better…the oil is not sold on the free market of supply demand economics, they actually have price fixing cartels.
Luckily the best factorio players of the world ganged up and solved it
A car powered by gasoline? It’ll never take off.
Well, it’s a car, not a plane.
Crazy concept, fill you car with a huge tank of explosive and toxic liquid, and if you leave the car running on a closed garage the fumes will kill you! Get this, they have to drive all that liquid around in large tanker trucks.
Do they think we’re stupid?
These are the vehicles to have in the Apocalypse. Carry your own solar panels and charge it. No need to get fuel since gasoline only stays fresh for 6 months.
Personally I’d go with an electric bike since it needs significantly less time to charge given the same number of solar cells.
i had this idea only i planned to retire on the beach and eat fish. turned out to be no fun after a week camping in a jeep. Apocalypse in the basement. i wonder if there’s a siren like tornados
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EV’s are probably best for an actually realistic scenario where energy infrastructure is destroyed or there is a mass fuel shortage, both things that happen all the time around the world in times of crisis.
But as far as actually apocalyptic scenarios it’s hard to beat a bicycle which doesn’t require a global supply chain to maintain.
But you need to supply and maintain the chain
au contraire my finely dressed friend:
Well… there are things like tires, tubes and components that would be hard to create.
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It’s a valid argument if you don’t live near good charging infrastructure. I have an EV in an area with ample charging. But when we went to visit my in-laws who live in a more rural area, it was a big challenge. The only chargers around were so slow that it would take 24+ hours to charge the car. And if you run out, you can’t get someone to bring a can of gas.
In an urban area, I love the reduced maintenance and not getting gas. On a road trip with kids, I don’t love killing half an hour in a grocery store with my kids amassing armloads of candy faster than I can put it back.
EVs are great, but we can’t automatically dismiss any complaint a hesitant person has.
I have had some issues with my electric car in rural areas between FL and GA and I will say the charging infrastructure has gotten much better in the past year in that area. Especially since most cars can also use the Tesla chargers too if you need to.
My Tesla trip planner did something I never would have thought of but it works. It planned for at most 20 minutes at superchargers. It meant I never had to wait long at the cost of my next leg of the trip being a bit shorter. But I imagine it does optimize overall trip time, not just individual charging time. Remember batteries can’t charge linearly: there’s always a curve and charging always slows down as it gets full. Charging to 80% or similar takes advantage of the steep part of the curve to save you time
My biggest charging delay on trips is my own fault, always looking for a supercharger rather than destination chargers
- I’ve always given up pretty fast trying to find hotels with chargers
- when visiting family I never asked to plug in because I wasn’t sure whether they would make a big deal about it
24hour charge that’s like charging at under 3kw, that’s the rate at which a standard electrical outlet can charge in the UK, that’s the same power as my kettle. The V2L function on my EV can kick out more power than that.
In Canada, a level one charger is 1.4kw
I only drive acoustic cars. They sound even better
The only real question is: does it go “wooo wooo!” ?
Every once in a while I want the sound effects for my EV. Some of the most iconic “muscle” cars are just sound effect so it’s the same thing.
- if a mustang is all sound effect, my EV should be able to sound d the same
- if a Subaru has fake shift points with its CVT to help the car bros feel more comfortable, why can’t my EV
I want to come up to a red light in my EV and out-rev the corvette next to me
MachE has a sound effect. Frankly, it’s kinda sad.
I want to be able to choose my own noise (being fully aware why that is a bad idea more broadly). Can you imagine driving through the grocery store parking lot making a TIE fighter sound?
I want Gregorian chants or Baroque mandolin music.
Solid choice.
The problem is I do think it’s a good idea (but retro “space invaders” sounds). There’s a good argument that cars moving walking speed near a pedestrian’s ought to make enough noise to ensure the pedestrians are aware of them. I’d rather be annoyed by the noisy eenvironment than run over
Once it’s intentional to do this then yes, why not pick your own?
To be clear, I do think they should make noise, yes please. Totally agreed. When they’re moving slowly enough that people can get out of the way (and the tire noise is a little less significant), they should be making an artificial sound.
Also, Space Invaders sounds would be an amazing choice; along the same lines, the Pac-Man “wakka-wakka-wakka” would be awesome, especially if you have a yellow car. Come to think of it, the Fozzie Bear “wokka wokka!” would be hilarious, too.
I just think allowing people to choose a sound that’s automatically blasted at loud volume from their car at any given time is something we’ve already had a lot of experience with, given that stereo systems have been standard on cars for decades now; and we can be certain that people can’t be trusted with it–especially when they themselves can’t hear it. There are absolutely people who will use that power to broadcast ads, or their own recorded voice shouting obscenities, or a high-pitched screech sound that harms people’s hearing.
Or, even worse, they’ll change the sound to silence or something super quiet. Maybe to be malicious, but probably more so just because they find it annoying in some niche situation (like in their garage or whatever).
Allowing people to choose from a certain subset of options, or having some sort of onboard algorithm try to detect whether the sound is an appropriate volume (and replacing it with a substitute if needed) might be a good compromise.
Too true
If you sing-a-long in them you get better milage.
In all seriousness, the transition of small devices away from AA/AAA batteries is very annoying. I always had batteries charged, now I have to constantly plug some junk in and wait?
I invested in some rechargeable NiMH AAs, and AAAs. Now sometimes I think i prefer some things with old school batteries just because of how convenient it is. Granted, that system wouldn’t work well for my headphones, or my phone. But seems just fine for the odd remote control, kitchen gadget or portable lamp.
Rechargeable AAs and AAAs have finally been perfected, I am kind of annoyed by things that have only internal batteries now, I don’t want them going to the landfill just because the cheap device died. Let me keep running the batteries for a decade in other shit.
For decades we had battery packs that could be replaced. we have lifepo4 that’s super safe to handle, i don’t know why we don’t have replacable battery packs anymore :/
The internal batteries often aren’t that hard to replace. If you can get the device open the batteries are standard sizes you can order and often just plug in. Except phones, phone manufacturing relies on pure evil
I have two sets of headphones, one older set that takes a AA and a new one that charges. I use the older ones constantly since when they die I just grab a NiMH AA out of the charger and pop it in, back in 10 seconds. New one…not so much
The headsets I’ve seen which take AA batteries were heavy af.
What, no. Audio-technica from about 2016, they are normal weight.
Well guess I just haven’t seen 'em then.
I’m not saying light ones don’t exist. I just haven’t seen any.
I bought a set for work that comes with 2 rechargeable lithium packs and an external charger so you can just swap as needed.
Sure but…we had that already
You clearly didn’t grow up before lithium batteries. Before lithium, batteries sucked and they sucked hard. You would spend a small fortune to buy 5 lb of batteries to put in your tape player, CD player, remote control toy, anything portable and then you would get between 5 minutes to an hour of total use time. Or, if it was you rarely used the gadget, or it was something like a remote control that were only on for incredibly short bursts as you push the button, you would leave the batteries in it until they went dead. But then you got the treat of opening it up to replace the batteries and finding that they leaked all over the inside and destroyed the device.
I have lost so many portable devices to leaking batteries that I can’t even begin calculate how much it’s cost me. Before smartphones, I had probably spent upwards of $1,000 ( in today’s money) in calculators alone. I don’t even work in some kind of math-type job or have a mathematics type degree.It never occurred to you to keep the nicad or NiMH battery bank full of charged batteries and swap them out?
You can’t even leave the lithium ion batteries plugged in when you aren’t using them for long periods, they swell. Which is bad.
I am not sure if you are making a joke or trying to troll me, but either way I laughed. So thanks for that.
Costco: 4000 pack of kirkland brand AA batteries…
You toss it out and get a new one of course!
“It said E for end, so I threw it out” - Patrick Star
I can kinda get the range anxiety comments though - it sucks having to keep daisy chaining extension leeds to go further.
Gonna get blasted for this, given the overall sentiment here in the comments towards EVs, but EVs are going to be used to monitor people everywhere they go and have killswitches, and other shit I’d not wanna deal with.
You say they’re going to, but EVs already exist and are pretty damn popular, especially hybrids. What makes you think that EVs are going to monitor people beyond what regular license plate tracking already does? What kind of killswitch? This sounds like fearmongering.
They said when cable tv started that it would be ad free, it was for a while. Then you’d own your media, now it is all streaming. Then you’d have your own software, now it is going to subscription based more and more. Why would you think the current state of tech is the way it will always be? Car companies are already going towards data gathering though it isn’t limited to EVs. It is much easier to control every aspect of your vehicle though with an EV.
Them being electric/having digital components lets companies monitor your vehicles the same way they do monitor your online presence.
You can look up the killswitch thing, it’s planned in Europe iirc. It’s being sold as being introduced so as to “reduce drunk driving”, but obviously once that’s in place it can be used to manufacture car accidents and the sort.
Any time someone says these “technological advancements” are anything but innocuous, they get rammed as “fear-mongering”.
Every car you’ve ever seen on the road is electric and has digital components. Electric vehicles just use a direct drive motor powered by a battery instead of powered by gas combustion. Your 2026 lifted F250 is just as digital as your 2012 used Nissan Leaf.
The killswitches in question would apply to all new vehicles, not just electric ones. The US version of the law makes no provisions for remote shutdown, only for something akin to a passive breathalyzer. “Obviously once that’s in place it can be used to manufacture car accidents” your brain is conspiracy poisoned and you’re listening to talking points from the likes of Ron Desantis. Please take a break from the internet and go enjoy your local park.
That’s a fallacious argument. It’s like saying using a laptop made in 2026 is the exact same as using a laptop made in 2010 for privacy standards. News flash, it ain’t.
The killswitches in question wouldn’t apply to all new vehicles, or well, they would just be EVs, because they’re planning to ban regular vehicles.
Plugable hybrids are a good compromise, when people remember to actually plug them in and run on electric when they don’t need to travel long distances.
They also have the worst of both worlds shoved together
They also have the best of both worlds shoved together, when used in an ideal general case situation. Zero emissions for urban use, emissions limited only on the very occasional when needed, and even then if it has enough stops to call EVs viable, you are going to get a significant reduction in emissions if you plug along the way.
Range extender hybrids are the goat
The combustion engine can always run at optimal rpm for torque and the drivetrain is 100% electric
A LOT simpler to construct too, it’s basically an EV with a built in generator
They’d be the best compromise for me. I usually drive short distances in the city, but maybe once or twice a year I want to do the 800km journey back to my home city in the next province. Train travel isn’t an option.
I have a similar situation and I just rent a car for those twice a year trips 🤷 Still cheaper than paying for gas
Literally impossible, given you have to pay for the gas of those rentals plus however long you keep them until you get back.
I pay 0€ for gas all year long, electricity is currently 0,0187€/kWh
The money I save from that equation easily pays for a rental twice a year.
You’d be paying even less with a plug-in electric hybrid.
How? Mind you that gasoline is 2€/litre here and electricity costs next to nothing.
I’d rather not have to deal with a petrol/diesel engine than go long distances, but saying that is a bit of a non issue to go a long distance in an EV in Europe.
That’s called privilege.
I’m sure charging stations exist, but I’ve only ever seen one with my own eyes once (Brazil, major city)
Drove home today from the countryside in Finland. A station every 30km at least.
Gas costs ~2€/litre.
Meanwhile in Europe I take off for road trips with my EV that has very mid range, fully trusting there’s gonna be a station when I need one, at first I used to plan the trips around charges but quickly figured out it’s not necessary. If you have a newer model with big range then it’s really a total non-issue. Sucks to hear Brazil isn’t there yet but I’m sure the infrastructure will catch up soon.
In South Africa, I have seen plenty in the big cities, but nothing on the countryside.
I saw BYDs everywhere when I was there, but I don’t recall seeing stations, now that you mention it
Charge at home. I think most people do that. A quick unscientific stat looked up seems to indicate 80% charge at home in the US. Probably similar in other countries?
That’s something I’ve noticed in the US as well; gas stations are all over creation, easily visible, they have giant signs along interstates. I’m familiar with several long stretches of major highways and interstates, I could not take you to a charging station off the top of my head, nor do I think I could find one by highway signage like I can a gas station. I’m sure they exist but they haven’t called my attention to themselves.
As far as I can tell, car chargers are all over the place but often hidden away in the back of parking lots. And a lot of chargers require you to make an account or download an app.
I’m hesitant to get an electric vehicle because I don’t currently have anywhere to charge near my condo. My condo parking spot isn’t near a building, so it would probably be a pain to charge from there. I’d be interested if my office had some charging stations.
Until then, I’m quite happy with my old Prius. It goes, stops, and steers as needed, no complaints. Catalytic converter has only been stolen once.
A friend of mine did it. Parked at his condo then went to a supercharger every weekend. It can be done. I’m not that dedicated but some people are.
Unfortunately charging at work may not be the answer if there are not enough. My office has 8 chargers, so I can charge for free. However there are more than 8 people who want to use them. In theory we can share so 16 cars get half a day each but it can be tough to get a turn.
Chargers, both high speed and destination, really need to scale a lot for this to become convenient and reliable. It’s unfortunate that this also has become political and attempts to improve this have been blocked
Being able to charge at home is a game changer, and I live on the east coast where superchargers are commonly available but sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged at this infrastructure being so delayed
Well if you run out of power it is easier to get someone to bring a container of gas than to get a truck filled with batteries to come and charge you for 30 min. The US has LOTS of large, rural areas with very poor EV support. Half the time the EV lots near me have some sort of problem and are shut off. They make more sense for dense, urban areas where you do lots of short trips and have access to high speed chargers.
He was one of that day’s lucky 10000
had a regular 110 plug adapter and extension cord. plug in anywhere but takes longer than charge station. never used it in 20,000 miles. about same as a gasser. hit 1/4 tank stop and fill up. imagine the switch from horses to gas was hard to figure out for a while.
