this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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xkcd

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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

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[–] Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I make a 9-10 hour drive to see my family multiple times a year. I normally stop twice to get gas and use the bathroom, and that's it. Sounds like you'd be adding most of an hour to my travel time each way. I've tried stopping longer and grabbing food, it's not worth it for me.

With that said, I drive 25-40 miles a day the other 360+ days of the year, so it'd really make much more sense for me to have a short range EV and rent something for travel when I have too much luggage to fly.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Maybe don't do that? Catch a train it's significantly cheaper anyway.

[–] ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No passenger rail. It's car or a once a week bus that doesn't even stop in the town my family lives in.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago

That's an infrastructure problem you can help solve and regardless going on long trips for most people is 100% optional.

[–] Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

That would become a 15+ hour trip then...

Edit: On further investigation, it's also not significantly cheaper than flying, and is much more expensive than fuel for driving.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

But much better for the environment, sometimes others matter more and when more people use rail it's more likely our country will catch up and build hyper train networks.

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Sadly, yes. I live in Germany, and here you need a BahnCard50 (or better) for the train to be cheaper than the gas for driving.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 months ago

you really ought to be stopping a few more times, i don't understand how so many people are just completely fine with driving for 3 hours nonstop