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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • They can’t shut down the satellites over Iran. That’s not how GPS works. They aren’t geostationary with tight beams like comm satellites. Every GPS satellite goes around the earth twice a day and has a beam that covers the entire earth plus something like 10 degrees on the sides out into space (circular, not actually side to side). While the US can turn off broadcasting while directly over very large swaths at a time (like, say, China and Russia), it isn’t actually turned off on the ground because there will still be satellites over Europe or northern Africa that will be on and sending data at a higher angle to that large swath. It will be lower powered in that region because the signal power is lower at the edges, but it isn’t off. Also, Iran is in the same region as US allies and US military bases: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc; so the US would be unlikely to want to lower GPS power in that region.

    Starlink is very different in how it sends signals to the earth, which is why it can shut off services to areas.





  • So when I get home from a 200 mile round trip to the desert on Sunday night, I have roughly 20 miles of range on the Bolt. If I can add 40 miles of range to my car overnight (10 hours of charging at 4mph), that gives me 60 miles of range to do a 20 mile round trip commute. But what if I want to go to the Dodgers game after work? Or if I need to run a bunch of errands after work that I skipped while in the desert? People want their car to be able to go places when they want to go places.

    You are talking to me as if you think I didn’t own multiple full EVs as my only car for over 6 years. I lived with a 90mile range Toyota Rav4 EV without DC fast charging and took it on road trips. I also lived with that car without L2 charging for a month. That month was miserable, and I would have never kept that car if I didn’t upgrade to L2.

    If you have a second car, then you don’t need a 300 mile range EV and also don’t need L2. If you have a very short commute and don’t do anything after work or on the weekends, then you don’t need L2.


  • That depends on what is meant by usually. You seem to think it means “most daily situations,” but I think it means “most house installations.” Yes, a usual day in a person’s life does not require L2. But the usual person does require L2 if they want to use their car like most people prefer to use their car. Once a week I need L2 charging because of all the stuff I do that isn’t commuting. That is 1 day in a 7 day week, so usually I don’t need L2. But I would not be able to have an EV if I didn’t have L2 unless I had a second car (which I don’t have). I think most people fall into this category, so the usual person needs L2 even if they don’t usually need L2.


  • Congrats on finding a solution that works for you. I have a short commute (16 miles round trip) and was OK to use L1 charging on a “usually” basis. However, I do more things in my life than just going to work and back. After work I might drive another 90 miles round trip to meet some friends at a brewery. Or I might drive only a couple miles to a buddy’s house and not get home until 11pm, so I now only have 7 hours to charge at L1 instead of 12 hours. And on weekends when I’m maybe driving a couple hours to hike in the desert and come back, I now have 16 hours to charge for work on Monday after driving 210 miles round trip.

    Switching from L1 to L2 charging at home made driving an EV go from a daily chore to something I almost never thought about.




  • It seems to be mostly a euro thing. BMW stopped using oil dipsticks nearly 2 decades ago.

    I was about to make this joke: “That’s just not true. My 2008 BMW had a… holy shit, that car is nearly 2 decades old now.” Then I went to confirm, and that car did NOT have a dipstick. The car came with 5 years of “free” service and never gave me a day of trouble, so I never realized it didn’t have a dipstick. That’s probably a major reason it was removed, since even a DIYer like me who likes to work on things myself never even tried to use the dipstick in 4 years.