Comment by jvanderbot
1 day ago
What you've shown is that there is a crossover where a gas car + generator beats an electric car.
That doesn't mean electric cars shouldn't be considered as power backup, or that buying a nice electric car vs a nice gas car doesn't come with the added benefit of "Don't need a 10k generator anymore".
> That doesn't mean electric cars shouldn't be considered as power backup, or that buying a nice electric car vs a nice gas car doesn't come with the added benefit of "Don't need a 10k generator anymore".
From redundancy perspective, a genset + car is hands down a better combo. A functional ICE car is cheaper and goes everywhere without any trip planning around charging stations, which is another plus.
If cost is your only factor yes. But the vast majority of people pick cars they like, and EV's are great. No need to dog on them needlessly. The trip planning thing is super overblown. Now 2 years into my first EV, going to a charger that's not my house _at all_ is quite rare - couple times a year; even when I travel Portland to Seattle, I don't have to stop on the way such that outside Olympia, I don't even know where the charge stations are. And that's the worst it'll ever be.
> and EV's are great. No need to dog on them needlessly. The trip planning thing is super overblown.
I never said EV is not great and it is nice that it is working out for you, but facts are facts. Also, while EV footprint is growing around the globe, there is wide vast world beyond USA where charging issue is still true (and the repair shops).
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ICE cars are barely cheaper, almost never over any span of time due to cost of ownership, and there's no trip planning around charging. It's clear you've never done a road trip in a Tesla. Almost all Tesla owners have had ICE cars first, not sure who you're trying to convince here with your lies.
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I mean presenting one set of tradeoffs just shows that there are tradeoffs.
If you're looking at two $55,000 cars, and one has power interconnect and one does not, it's not like adding a $1000-$10,000 generator on top is somehow immediately better unless you're adding in factors that make it better (like buying a cheaper car). There's 3 or 4 superchargers within a few miles of my house, and every time I've lost power I could easily go charge my car so I never worried about that.
Not everyone lives in that situation or has the same "one or two days without local power but chargers still work" threat model. It just so happens that's been the biggest actual, real, problem that my car could have fixed for me.
Yes, the crossover point is around $5-10k more than an ice vehicle, assuming the electric vehicle powers a house just as well as a gas generator does.
The cybertruck costs roughly $82k, which is about 40-50k more than other pickup trucks.
For the same price, you could install 2 1000-gallon propane tanks and enough gasoline to power your backup generator for a year nonstop.
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