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points by aftbit 1 day ago | 0 comments

It probably does though, unless you have stockpiled gas. If the power is down to the gas station, the pumps don't work.

My experience with power outages (after big summer storms, not a hurricane thank goodness) has been that my neighborhood is impacted, but that places nearby have power. They tend to restore commercial first, so the supercharger near me is up and running before my house.

[–] jjav 1 day ago

> If the power is down to the gas station, the pumps don't work.

In places where long power outages are common (hurricane areas), many gas stations have their own generators (they also have a convenient source of fuel to run them!)

[–] sumeno 1 day ago

If the power is down to the charging station the chargers don't work, this is just as likely as the power being down at the gas station

[–] labcomputer 1 day ago

Let me know when you figure out how to refill your gas car from solar panels.

[–] solyin 1 day ago

I know you're being snarky, but the chemical process for that exists! It's called the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. You take air, CO2 specifically, and then run the process, which needs electricity, possibly from solar panels, and get diesel/gasoline/jet fuel out the other end! Isn't science amazing?

There are practical issues with it, but it's possible. The question is EROI or Energy Return on Investment. Do you get more energy from it than it took to make it, which unfortunately is not there yet. Shrinking it down to fit into your backyard is an exercise left for the reader.

[–] marcta 1 day ago

Hyperspace Pirate tried this at home, and it's horribly inefficient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRKbjT8AoJw

[–] localhost 1 day ago

it is more than possible - this is exactly what casey handmer and his startup terraform industries is doing in a pilot plant in the desert: https://blog.terraformindustries.com/2026/10/21/terraform-20...

[–] SJC_Hacker 1 day ago

Fischer-Tropsch uses CO, not CO2. You also need hydrogen. The input is not air but other hydrocarbons. Coal being the most common.

[–] sumeno 1 day ago

If you've got solar panels sufficent to charge a cybertruck then you don't need the cybertruck to power your home. Regular battery systems will work

[–] petcat 1 day ago

Charging an EV from regular household solar panels would take days....

And that's assuming they are sunny days.

[–] lanstin 1 day ago

I think your math is off some how. I have a Model 3 and two Leafs and we charge them from our 39 400 Watt panels without trouble. They are always ready to go fully charged unless one of the boys has been doing more than normal of driving to the beach with a girlfriend and then borrowing the Model 3 for a concert, or whatever fun involves using all the stored energy at the same time (e.g. not commutes to school or work).

[–] xedrac 18 hours ago

My 12 kw solar system charges my 32kwh battery in a few hours on sunny days. But to be fair, your system is even larger, and both of our solar systems are larger than average for home solar. A 5 kw system would indeed take days to charge a typical ev battery from zero to full.

[–] lostlogin 1 day ago

It takes about a 6-8 hours to charge my Leaf on a small solar install.

But yes, it needs to be sunny if that’s going to be pure solar.

[–] ryanbrunner 1 day ago

I realize the person you're replying to wasn't specific and said just "EV" but a leaf and a cybertruck are pretty much the polar ends of a spectrum.

[–] imtringued 22 hours ago

Ok but the problem with this argument is that you could come up with a hypothetical EV that can store enough energy to last a year and then take a year to charge.

And yet nothing prevents you from driving daily.

What matters is how much range you drive and recharge, not how big your battery is.

[–] imtringued 22 hours ago

There are many hours in a day and EVs are pretty efficient. You might struggle if your goal is to drive 200km per day but if all you want is to drive to work or go shopping, you'll be fine.

[–] sveme 1 day ago

What? My BIL’s installation is small, roughly 8kWp, on sunny days he easily gets 40-50kWh, if not more.

[–] rightnutwingjob 1 day ago

The Cybertruck has a 123kW battery, so charging it would take days, assuming they are sunny days.

[–] its_ethan 1 day ago

because solar panels only exist on houses?

[–] rightnutwingjob 1 day ago

Because EVs are only powered by solar?

[–] its_ethan 1 day ago

Who said they were?

[–] rightnutwingjob 1 day ago

Let me know when you invent solar panels that aren’t vulnerable to damaging winds.

[–] pmontra 1 day ago

Where I live solar panels have been smashed by hail ice balls, 3 inches diameter.

[–] scarecrowbob 1 day ago

Probably when they invent a genset that can sustain its surrounding structure being immolated in a wildfire?

I'm 100% off grid on solar in the middle of nowhere. My panels could burn up, get hit by hail, get searched by law enforcement, flooded out, eaten by mice, stolen by miscreants, abducted by aliens or buried in snow. And of course in the event of a volcano they are probably not gonna function well.

So they are of course totally unworkable in events when the power grid is down.

But I like using them and they've been reliable so far...

[–] LordDragonfang 1 day ago

> unless you have stockpiled gas

And are regularly rotating that stockpile, because gasoline has a shelf life measured in months

edit: Apparently this leans more technically-true factoid than fact, thank you replies

[–] AngryData 1 day ago

Unless you are trying to race your car at the drag strip with charged air and hit your best times, that isn't true at all and I don't know why people keep saying it. You think everybody empties their lawn mowers, snow blowers, snowmobiles, generators, etc. every year of gas or before trying to start it up again the next year? No way.

Simpler gas equipment like mowers and generators don't have enough compression to really care about anything but ancient gas, and if you run any vehicle that is multi-fuel capable it can detect and adjust compression based on a fuel's capabilities.

Ive been repairing and fixing junkers of cars, mowers, ATVs, generators, and more for 30 years and not once has bad gas stopped something from running. I only remove it if it was clearly having water raining into the tank. In every other case where I couldn't start something after sitting around for 5+ years, it was from the gas gumming up in the carb or the shitty diaphragm pump, which generally means there is little to no gas left to start with.

I wouldn't even suspect gas of ever being bad unless it was atleast a few years old. If the tank was open it could have evaporated, if the tank was closed it probably ain't great gas but I bet it would still run in anything but a high compression application.

[–] dotancohen 1 day ago

> detect and adjust compression based on a fuel's capabilities.

Spark, not compression.

[–] JshWright 16 hours ago

The spark timing determines how much compression is in the cylinder at the moment the fuel/air mixture is ignited. So, while it's technically true that it's the spark timing that's being adjusted, the thing that is being controlled for is the compression.

[–] dotancohen 3 hours ago

This explanation is an excuse, and does not pass muster. I remember adjusting spark timing with a timing light flashing on the harmonic balancer and turning the distributor by hand. Cars two decades before that, which I never personally serviced but have seen, had spark adjustment controls on the steering wheel.

The term was always called spark adjustment, never compression. Compression is the thing you worry about when milling the heads or exchanging oscillating components (rods, pistons) due to changing the physical geometry of the combustion chamber.

So yes, adjusting the spark timing does technically adjust how compressed the air/fuel mixture is at the moment of ignition. But the term used to describe it has always been "adjusting spark" or "adjusting spark timing" or "adjusting timing". Nobody ever refers to that as "adjusting compression" because the term compression is used to refer to something else.

[–] Ariarule 1 day ago

You're not wrong but this is commonly exaggerated: half a year with a stabilizer is entirely doable under reasonable conditions.

[–] ljf 1 day ago

Amuses me hear this - I ran a moped from a large tank of multi-year old petrol, and it got by fine. But maybe a modern car might be more picky?

[–] ssl-3 1 day ago

Last year, I let a fairly new portable generator with low hours on sit with gas in it for 6 months and it would not fire up. It wouldn't even sputter.

That was surprising to me because it was working quite well when parked, and I'm used to doing things like leaving lawnmowers outside continuously (including over the winter) without much trouble, but that's what happened anyway.

I drained the old fuel out and replaced with fresh, and it fired up on the first subsequent half-assed pull of the starter rope.

(Which reminds me: It's been six months again already. Time to see if it still works.)

[–] timr 1 day ago

Fuel stabilizer is cheap insurance for anything that overwinters with fuel in it -- motorcycles, boat engines, etc.

You have to put in in the tank and run it for a bit to make sure that the carbs don't have untreated fuel inside.

[–] mgerdts 1 day ago

A fairly new snowblower of mine had gas left in it over the summer. Before the first snowfall of the following winter it would not start. A dissection of the carburetor revealed numerous places where small passages were completely filled with a sticky gummy substance that had to be mechanically removed. After cleaning and reassembly, it fired right up with fresh gas. Maybe the old gas would have worked just fine once it could flow. Clearly having the gas sit in there had adverse effects.

[–] ssl-3 1 day ago

The carb on this generator has a drain for the bowl. It should've been dry in there when parked. I don't know what the insides looked like because replacing the gas was easy and it worked, so I stopped troubleshooting at that point. :)

[–] greenavocado 1 day ago

I just did this as well. Fired up my moped on 2 year old stabilized gas. Runs fine.

[–] bloomingeek 14 hours ago

Be sure and use a clear liquid stabilizer! The one I used had red dye in it and it gummed up the carburetor. Also, I never use any ethanol fuel in my generator.

[–] ryanbrunner 1 day ago

We use the (inboard) engine so rarely on my sailboat I'm sure we've gone 2 years on a tank without issue before.

[–] lostlogin 1 day ago

HN is full of maintenance purists, and I do know I should do better, but... A Corolla will work fine after sitting for a year or so and it’s once-or-twice-per-decade oil change seems to work ok.

[–] bloomingeek 14 hours ago

Keep in mind that different gas "engines" have different type fuel systems. Your Corolla has a high pressure fuel pump, which forces the fuel to pressurize the injectors. The fuel is ignited by a high voltage spark system. Small engines are a "pick up" type system, which can't tolerate almost any resistance. I run my portable generator for a half hour every other month. Except for using some red dye stabilizer (which gummed up the carb), I've never had a failed start. I no longer use any stabilizer in my fuel.

[–] ssl-3 12 hours ago

Any Corolla made in the past ~35 years also has electronic fuel injection, with at least one O2 sensor as part of a feedback loop that seeks to keep the air/fuel ratio in-check. Intake air is metered and data about it is folded in for heedback.

Somewhat simplified: As long as the feedback loop demands an injector duty cycle that is within predetermined limits, it can compensate for and run reasonably well on gas that burns relatively poorly (for whatever reason it does) by simply sending more fuel into the holes.

Conditions that produce pinging are further sought to be thwarted by using a knock sensor for additional feedback.

A Corolla has a lot of stuff going for it that can help deal with fuel variations and issues in ways that a majority of small engines are completely incapable of.

It tends to resolve to: Climb in, turn key, engine starts easily, and car drives fine -- just like it has done thousands of times before.