EV Cars/Trucks
 

Since I was banned from the Gas thread for simply saying I was glad I have a EV car now I thought I'd answer the question that was posed to me by another before I was banned.(still have zero idea why.

We have a Model 3 long range, it gets around 340 miles per charge and our all in was 50k for the car, $500 for the Wall Charger (you don't need but its cool looking)

Our previous car was a Porsche Cayenne, here is what we spent in the year we owned it. My wife is a rep and uses as her company car. ( she gets paid mileage) so we paid 40k for it. Was a year old when we got it. She drove it 50K in a year, we had to use premium unleaded gas and it got around 18 miles per gallon. We had to get it serviced 3 times with a average cost of $500-700 on each service. I don't know how much we paid in gas but lets assume we still had it today and Premium was going for 4.50 a gallon, it would be around 12-14k on gas a year, along with $1500-2000 in services so our all in each year was 13.5-16k per year in service and gas.

With our Tesla our electricity has seemed to go up $40-50 per month, so lets call it $600 plus tires rotated $100, windshield wiper fluid $5 so for the year its around $800 vs. 13.5-16k.

So the 10k cost difference was made up in less than a year and now we are saving 12k plus per year compared. Plus she loves the car much more than the Porsche.

I know compared with a ford focus the math may not ever make sense but for a nicer car its been awesome for us.

Yeah I have a Model S. I mainly charge at home but I don't really even notice my electric bill much higher. I've been doing alot of driving lately so I've just been going to a FREE supercharger at Hy-Vee and then eating a $10 lunch that I would have eaten anyway.

FREE GAS RULES

Very low maintenance on EV's but I have to admit my Model S goes through tires more quickly than most cars it's size due to how heavy it is.

The big question(s) are ... what is the cost of the battery pack, electronics etc when it goes belly up (as everything does). Do parts only come from the dealer? Are they the only ones who will work on it? Those only get answered with time, but with a conventional autos the long term costs are more quantifiable.

On the other hand, owning a car may be a thing of the past, more like a three year lease arrangement. The times they are a changin'

We don't have an all electric car but are sure thankful we got a hybrid added to the fleet last June. 52mpg is sure better than the 18 the one it replaced was getting.

If you are up for a salvage mission, there are a heck of a lot of them poluting the ocean now.


"The ship was transporting electric and non-electric vehicles, according to Portuguese authorities. Suspicion on what started the fire on Feb. 16 has fallen on lithium batteries used in electric vehicles, though authorities say they have no firm evidence about the cause.

Authorities feared the ship could pollute the ocean. The ship was carrying 2,000 metric tons of fuel and 2,000 metric tons of oil. It can carry more than 17,000 metric tons of cargo."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cargo-s...cean-portugal/

Juneau, Alaska, made one of their city busses an EV. And the cold would drop the battery range enough that it couldn’t finish the route. I live in a place that is colder than Juneau and am concerned about battery range/life. I have 2 friends who own Teslas and both of them have stated that they lost about 20-25% of their range in cold months.

The batteries in EVs are a real problem if they catch fire. The fires are not extinguishable like a normal car fire.

Here’s a warning for the Chevy Bolt:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/gm-a...ther-cars.html

Here’s a warning for Hyundai Kona:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/29/2...ery-fire-nhtsa

There is a real problem with disposing of the batteries in EVs right now. Very hard to recycle and can’t really use them for parts like you can with a gasoline engine, not to mention that many of the batteries require rare earth materials that are only available from China or countries that we do not like.

I agree the technology is promising but I am going to wait for a few of the issues to be worked out before I consider one.

I'm apparently also banned from the gas is over $10.00 a gallon forum for merely posting this:

"I just paid zero dollars for gas at the Nevada MO new Tesla Supercharger. Completely free."

Come at me bro mods. Come at me.

My wife drives a Nissan Leaf. I'm too impatient and drive across I70 in western KS too often for a full EV, but I drive a RAV4 Prime as an EV around town. You definitely get spoiled by how quiet and smooth a ride they are.

You can probably guess it wasn't me, but I think the EV talk was starting to come across like...

https://media3.giphy.com/media/l3vR9...giphy.gif&ct=g

Yeah, I'm seeing the cloud of smug starting to gather and merge into a supercell. *grin*

Not this shit again.

Whatever you need to tell yourself.

Synthesis just crushed a humble brag.

I've also driven a Porsche Cayenne Turbo for 11 years. I absolutely love it. I do all of my own maintenance, and have already replaced most of the parts that go bad over time. (Fuel pumps, Coolant pipes, Air struts, water pump,. serp belt, throttle body, etc) so it's not that costly to maintain anymore. It does get 17MPG highway on Premium.... so that sucks, but I don't commute much anymore as I work from home 4 days a week.

however... I've had my eye on a Tesla Model S for awhile now.

I REALLY want a Plaid, but I just can't justify spending that much money on a car right now, but If I come across a Model S P100D for a steal, I'd do it.

And I am one of the few who LOVE the Cybertruck. I think I may actually go for one if they ever get close to actually releasing it...



To answer someone else's question above, I think battery replacement in a Tesla is around 10k job for Tesla to do it. It can be cheaper at alternative shops (if you are willing to ship it).

The city being walkable and a hybrid has made a big difference

I still wish we were trying to push hydrogen cells more.

Evs are great until states and federal tax regulations eventually hit you for new taxes that will need to be created. I assume you will eventually be charged a mile tax per year. What is the cost to replace the batteries? Do they have memory problems after so many charges? The fact they may be more hazardous to the environment than gas, From mining, recycling, disposable.

Good step forward. But a hybrid is the way to go for most of the country that has winters.

Now I know everything comes with a caveat and nothing is 100% but Tesla said that the batteries on 2020 and newer should retain 90% of their charge at 160k miles. Said they should last 300k or more.

Now I know that there will be cars that are lemons etc but if that's true it should be a very inexpensive car to own. We have owned one for 3 years total now and only spent around ($500) give or take over those three years.

Dealing with Tesla has been really easy as well, when you want your tires rotated, ( I think it was $80 or so) you just plug it in the app and they have someone come out to your house and do it in your driveway, they are in and out in about 10 minutes.

Your right if the battery pack is a lemon then I get it , might be a lot of money .

And if your comparing a prius or a inexpensive car that gets great gas mileage then it may not make much sense but if you want premium cars/trucks that take premium unleaded etc it will save you a ton of money, but my wife loves it because its just an amazing car.

The local electric coop said that the infrasturcture wouldn't support a charging station and they'd have to run wire a long way to get it there.

I'm no electrical engineer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but that does not bode well for the local infrastructure if the entire town gets EVs and plus them in at night.

DC fast chargers might require some infrastructure development, but typically that's centralized and is more for people passing through. Home charging typically tops out at 50 amps (mine is 30), which is about what an air conditioner uses. If people all charge at the same time during the day in the middle of the summer while everyone's AC is running, it could cause some issues, but it shouldn't be a huge issue at night.

I'm not sure which number you're referencing (30 vs 50 amps), but even 30 would be massively inefficient for a modern AC. For instance I just went & looked, the 4 ton unit at my work's minimum circuit ampacity is 16.7. The unit probably actually draws less than 15. That's a 20 year old 4 ton unit (the biggest residential unit is 5 tons) hardly the most efficient thing you'll find now days.

So you could basically run two 4 ton AC's for what you use to charge your car, now if you're wife wants one to that's 4 AC's & god forbid you get the 50 amp version, no the two of you are using the equivalent of like 6 AC units just to charge your cars.

Also adding 2 cars at 50 amps a piece is a massive electrical upgrade. Most people with gas appliances have 100 Amp service running their entire house.

Eh I don't know. Like I said, I know nothing and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn, but my stove requires a 50 amp breaker, and both this house and the last one I had both had 50 amp service to the stove. So IDK what my total service is, but it's probably higher than 100.

But yeah, if you have to get new circuit runs through a finished house (if some dumbtard doesn't put the breaker in the garage), or God forbid have to run new copper to the pole, that's tougher.

DC fast chargers such as the Tesla superchargers would take some development but as you say, they are mainly for people passing through.

I know it’s different depending on the region of the country, but where i live, the biggest load is peak AC usage in the summer. Most of the heating is from natural gas and it doesn’t get that cold here. So a typical load curve in the summer is a steady climb until around 5-6 pm. The local utility (where I also work) is very aggressive with load peak management, using time of use pricing to encourage people to charge their EV’s when load is the lowest.

In my house I have a Tesla charger but I could have easily installed a NEMA 14-50 RV style plug and used that as well. Because of the pricing breaks for EV owners, I set the charge to occur between midnight and 6 am, at a price of around 8 cents / kWH.

I love the Model Y Performance. If anyone is interested in geeking out over any aspects of it, I would be happy to build an even bigger wall of text.

EV's are so amazing! well until is a natural disaster and a power outage..... But honestly some states can't keep up with power generation demands right now. What makes you think adding a tens of millions of EV's will help with that.

Made sense when you had base-load coal fired plants that had virtually no load at midnight. Well we'll just add one of those to deal with the increased demand.......... oh wait............ gas fired peaking turbine anyone?

If you have a 50 amp running to your stove you have an electric stove & probably electric furnace water heater etc. & will have a 200 amp panel minimally. Electric houses need at least 200 amps because your electric furnace can easily draw close to 100 amps alone, plus 40 for your stove, 30 for the water heater & probably another 30 for the drier. Then you still have all your lights & outlets. Most houses aren't in a position to add 60-100 amps that 2 cars would require.

And that doesn't get into the power feeding the houses, which in most cases wouldn't accommodate more than a couple houses in a given neighborhood adding 60-100 amps of service. I've had a couple customers look at replacing a gas furnace with electric, knowing they would have to replace their 100 amp panel with a 200.

However when they contacted the power company to confirm the service providing them will handle it they were told that the transformer feeding their area would have to be enlarged & it would cost them about $25,000 to upgrade. That's one house adding 100 amps of service, what's going to happen when multiple people start trying to add 60+ amps to their current setup? We have a ways to go infrastructure wise before wide scale use of electric vehicles is possible IMO.

The goal is to get almost everybody in the country to have solar panels. Sure it doesn't make sense for everyone but the majority of the country could have solar panels to create a large amount of their power each month. They are becoming more efficient and affordable everyday.

Or you know, we can just continue to be reliant on foreign oil.

I would think any way to lower our reliance on oil would be a cause for a celebration for your no government types. You can control your estate better without the help of the government.

Agreed on the Solar Panels, that would be our next big buy.

But having a all electric car sure makes things easier on the wallet now.

We would be spending around $200 a week with our old cars, my family out in LA said gas prices are out of control.

Honestly solar is the only realistic way to adopt EV's on a wide scale in the relatively near future. It removes the issue of creating & distributing all the additional power necessary to do it. We really need the technology to advance to the point the cars could be powered by their own solar panels, would do wonders for range & a lot of the recharging issues as you would really only need to charge the vehicle after dark.

For people saying our current grid can't handle more electric cars or joke about the apocalypse and being ****ed, you should hang out in Vermont for a bit. I work there off and on during the year and see tons of Teslas and other EVs. I believe Vermont is in the top 5 EVs per person. Vermont is also top 10 for most solar panels per person.

I mention all that because it's some of the most shit weather in the country except May-September. Mud season is shit and winter is really shit but pretty. A lot of people out there are dropping their traditional electric service and going with solar panels plus battery walls and a traditional propane generator for emergencies. Of all states, it might be one of the safest for hiding out during an apocalypse or the water wars in 2050. I've looked into having my farms converted to solar fields, which might be a viable option in the next 10 years. I'd do it now if I were closer to St. Joe or KC.

They're not paying enough.

We have more than enough oil in our own country that we do not need to rely on foreign oil. We have a ton of natural gas, too.

Right now, there are 2 zero-emissions power sources that make financial sense: solar and nuclear. The big issue with nuclear is the tremendous amount of regulations necessary before building a reactor. A 4th generation, liquid salt reactor would have the following benefits: 1) zero emissions; 2) fuel that could be re-processed, i.e., no 1,000 year radioactive toxic waste); 3) proven safety record; and 4) substantially lower cost.

The difficulty is that in the US, any nuclear reactor has to follow the one model that has been approved. And it's an outdated model that was purposefully inefficient so that the reactors could also process fuel for atomic weapons. 4G liquid salt reactors do not do that. The current approved model has safety mechanisms to slow down a reaction to prevent a chain reaction. 4G liquid salt reactors siphon off some energy from the reaction to sustain the reaction. So, old reactors need a break or the engine just keeps going. New reactors need a gentle foot on the gas or else the engine will slow down and stop.

for those of you who have EV's now does it not feel great to not have to pay what others are paying at the pump?

We have two cars, a tesla and my work car, I get a gas card so its sort of free in a way, but typically to fill up my car it was $28-32, now its $55 plus, just crazy.

With the tesla looking as how much our electric bill has gone up since having it its only $20-30 a month total and she drives the car 25k plus miles per year so I think we are saving 80% now compared with gas cars.

I know you can get cheaper EV's in the 20k range, I wonder why others are not switching faster?

***FREE*** DC Fast charging in Topeka at Sharp Honda though Charge Point.

https://i.imgur.com/FbbEWM5.jpg

Had to drive back home from Wichita and a trip that normally would have cost $60 in gasoline plus $11.50 in tolls cost me $13.18. It would have only cost me the tolls had I not had to charge the car a bit before heading out.

We have enough oil to supply the world right here in the United States. Now, tell me, where do we get the batteries that power the electric cars? We don't have the minerals here to produce them. The argument of going electric to become "energy independent" is nonsense.

I like it as much for avoiding gas stations as the cost itself. I don't really think about the savings side since I don't often buy gas, though it's obviously a nice benefit in the long run.

As for not switching faster, it still just depends on your use case. And the ones down at the $20k range will get you from place to place but aren't exactly luxury cars.

That's right. We could supply the entire world with bountiful oil, cheap gasoline for everyone, entirely produced from the good ol' USA, if only, if only, um..., what's the current conspiracy again?

I'm 100% ready to buy an electric car, but for it to make sense for my family, it must have 6 seats and plenty of cargo space. I'm hoping that the Kia EV9 doesn't come with huge dealer markups.

We test drove a Tesla Model Y Performance today. Been looking at one for a few weeks. Wife’s current car is a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT that takes premium and gets 13 MPG. Premium was $5.15 today.

How’s the insurance on these Teslas?

Consumer Reports trashed the Model Y. The Mustang EV has been getting great reviews.

Because the range and time to recharge is still dogshit.

300 miles per day is plenty for us and when we do have to recharge we just use a fast charger , go into store and when you come
Out it’s about 70% full , had one for 3 years not one luck of problems and zero maintenance

Insurance was a concern for me as well. Through Geico my rates did go up but not as much as I had heard. I think it was around a 20% increase from the MDX to the MY performance.

That being said, I hit a highway cone at 4 AM on the way to work one morning. It was in the middle of the exit ramp and had been hit previously to where the black side was facing me so I didn't see it in time. Currently the parts for the Tesla have to come from Tesla so the total damage for a bumper, trim piece, and a bent "impact diffuser" was close to $5k. This was for damage that was barely noticeable. So I don't know how the insurance rates my adjust over time due to the high cost of repairs.

I love the car. I am not preaching green anything but I charge almost exclusively at work ($10 per month on employee plan). It's a bubbly, plain crossover family car that even my wife can drive, and it isn't a slouch if I want to go fast.

That and the fact automobiles/big rigs/cruise ships amount to roughly 16% of the total ozone depletion.
But we're saving the earth, lol.

Why not clean up the main culprits, industrial, foreign countries, plants producing electricity, etc., that contributes to destroying almost 50%, lol?


There's gotta be a balance. One dirty solution being replaced with another isnt, lol.

People seem to get hung up on the "green" stuff a lot (see: this thread). But the reality is that, unless you are the type to wax nostalgic about the loud engines of the past, most people pretty quickly come to love EVs because they're just a super pleasant driving experience. They're quieter than a lot of luxury vehicles, often at far lower costs. Even the cheapest EVs will beat most muscle cars off of the line. Similarly, the instant torque makes it a dream to move around in traffic since you can quickly zip ahead of someone when you need to. And then you realize you haven't gone to a gas station or had to get an oil change in years...

As I've said all along, I get the hesitation if you regularly drive hundreds of miles, but if you mainly need a commuter car, they're starting to hit "no brainer" territory.

What does it cost to use someone's fast charger?

Perhaps some of us are fine with our old vehicles and don't want a new car payment.

The other thing is the fact that our morons in the federal gov't are trying to force everyone to switch rather than letting this happen naturally through markets. :cuss:

I agree to each there own for sure, I guess my point was that its not just a fun car to drive but its very cost effective.

I don't know what kind of car you have but lets say you have a car that gets 20 miles per gallon ( again I have zero idea what you have) and you drive it 500 miles a week, again just a wild guess. if you buy standard unleaded at $4.50 a gallon, call it $112 per week for gas or $400-450 a month in gas. Then you add in maintenance per year of $1000-1500 a year in oil changes and other things that EV does not have to deal with. your average per month to drive a paid off car would be around $500-600 per month vs. $30-40 per month is electricity to charge. No oil changes, just a tire rotation which set up back $40. Say a Nissan leaf with 226 miles per charge with a net under 20k with tax breaks.

So if you say you can get a good range EV for 20k, and your monthly payment is $250 per month wouldn't you think you would come out ahead each month money wise compared with a paid off car? Again if you don't drive much it does not matter but it the above senerio it would seem to be looking through the googles of no monthly payment but paying so much in gas and maintenance vs. a car payment but so much less is power that you come out $150-200 ahead each month.

Heard Tesla is raising prices in the next few weeks... uhhhh. Hope they keep the Cybertruck at the price we put the deposit on.

Congrats

I've never driven an electric vehicle. My luxury car of choice is Audi and they are switching to all electric.

I have a question for those who have driven them, do they all have that drag when you let off the gas that feels like your emergency brake is on? I absolutely hate that. I want zero drag when I coast. I once test drove a CX5 that gets great gas mileage and that's one of the reasons why apparently. It was awful and I went with a Rogue instead.

I would hate that if they all do that. I can't imagine that being the case though

Depends on the manufacturer and how they chose to program their cars. Most of them do WANT a tiny bit of drag since that's how you recapture a bit of power (regen braking). I don't personally find it to be significant, but you might.

You'd think Audi would have a mode that would minimize it, though, given their brand. Probably best just to take some test drives and play with the driving modes.

That's a easy question, you can turn it off.

It has a option where you can switch it off with the touch on the screen and it will act like a normal car when cruising. But if you leave it on it will regenerate power from the breaking when your foot is off the gas, you also don't need to end up using your brake 98% of the time so its supposed to save your breaks where you don't need to replace them for 180k miles or more. but once you get used to it, takes about 100 miles of driving, you end up liking it more. or at least myself and my wife did.

Spent an extra $14 last month is electricitly vs. $300 in gas, they are freaking amazing!!

Truck gets about 15-20 mpg. It is mostly only driven to and from work (11 miles through town one way M-F) and occasionally other places like Lowes (maybe 20 miles round trip). Not sure where you get $1000-$1500 yearly oil and maintenance but mine is not anywhere near that.

Other vehicle is a Kia Optima. It gets about 28-32 mpg. It is driven to and from work (about 9 miles one way through town, M-F but there are some days the wife works from home) and anywhere else we go that doesn't need a truck to haul stuff. Still think your oil and maintenance estimate is way high.

And, of course, I ride a motorcycle as much as I can during the warm weather months.

Yeah, no, still cheaper than buying a new electric vehicle, especially when you add in the insurance and property tax. And really, where are you going to find a EV for 20k?

Wait about a decade. The US will develop a gold source of lithium.

And most of the lithium is refined in CHINA.

I remember when air was free at the gas station, too.

You think the rate for electricity will remain static?

LMAO

We get screwed one way or the other.

I don't know why they are forcing the issue. As soon as electric becomes a better option than diesel with pickups I'll be all over it.

Like a broken record. Where we getting all this extra electricity?
Just about all single blocks of neighborhood homes in north America can only support three homes of full rip 90 amp Tesla superchargers homes.

O, yeah, coal & natural gas power plants pick up the slack, lol.

BFD, what's your point? All cars beat me off the line, lol!
If I'm so inclined, mine eats on the big end when I want.


It's not only torque that gets you outta problems. Disc brakes, lol.

If you're only driving 6~7 thousand miles in a year, that's only half the American average. So that would explain part of it. And most years maintenance isn't that high, especially for new vehicles.

But of course always having a new vehicle is expensive. And if you keep a vehicle long enough, you eventually will get expensive repairs that will bump up the long term average.

A lot of drivers tend to under estimate just how much it costs in the long term.

Until they do something like try and make a living driving for Uber.

Hardly need super chargers at home when most homes can spend most of the night (when the grid isn't that heavily taxed) re charging.

But the US electrical supply and grid does need major, sustained investment.

Yea, and almost nobody can build a damn car without computer chips that are manufactured (or not manufactured as the case may be) in southeast Asia. So what difference does it make?

:shrug:

I have solar so in the end don't end up paying anything for electricity, maybe in the middle of summer it might go up to $30-50 a month but most months are zero so not worried about electricity.

You can get a Nissian Leaf for $27-28k and with tax incentives its nets you down to around 20K. so easy to find and saves lots of cash.

The Sun

Not in the Pacific NW.
Rain starts daily around November and doesn't stop until July, lol.

The batteries still need work if they lose up to 25% in below freezing temps.

ya, cue the pics of thousands of new vehicles sitting in parking lots useless.

Chip shortages do not equal shipping lithium to China to be refined.

if you think the cost of electricity isn't going to rise, more power to you.

Electric Police cars aren't working:

https://www.the-sun.com/motors/57100...ing-out-power/

If you can find one.

I seen on the news where a dealer said they could sell 60 @ month if they weren't only getting one or two a month from factory.

I would be happy to see the US economy decouple from China, but that is obviously a discussion for DC.

Switching from ICE to electric vehicles at any sort of scale is going to require investment in infrastructure.

Retiring coal plants and replacing them with something else requires investment.

High capacity, long distance transmission lines would help, but I don't think the country has the political will to overcome the opposition and NIMBYism (and again topic for DC).

Industrial scale battery storage, whether it is traditional batteries or something like pumped hydro, is viable politically. It is a question of getting the costs down.

No, I don't think things are going to be rainbows and unicorns.

I'm not actually very optimistic about this situation.

There are some types of investment the country generally does a poor job of. Again I don't want to get myself or this thread booted but I think Texas and California represent two extremes and I think both have left consumers in bad shape.

A system in Seattle would produce about 20% less than one in Missouri.

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php

Let's not kid ourselves.

This is going to come down to having large battery banks charging solar at every house that owns an Electric vehicle.

They'll develop a way to dump a lot of juice quickly from those banks into the car.

Or a quick swap battery stock at every "gas" station.

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nissan leaf is great if all you do is run around town. Won't help me much when I need to drive 400 miles for a trip

That pickup comparison video shows how abysmal range is now.

Maybe I’ll get a usable electric truck by the time I’m 80.

The cybertruck trimotor will get 500 miles plus range, even pulling should get 400 miles or more.

we have a decent size house and our electric was $300-400 a month and now is $30-40 a month with the Tesla charger at the house. During the fall , winter and spring I would expect zero electric bill. virtually feels off the grid in a way.

That's a good point.

If people understood how charging works with fast chargers and how quick you can fill up they would rethink electric. I was the same way before I purchased our Model 3, I believe with the Leaf you can drive 200 miles , then find a supercharger (all over the place) and spend 10-15 minutes filling up and then go on your way, only spending around $5-8 for a full tank.

I'm generally "on your side" when it comes to all of this, but you constantly exaggerate in the positive direction, which undoubtedly causes a lot of people to discount you. There's no way you're charging a Leaf in 10-15 minutes, and if you're charging at a public charger, it'll cost you at least twice that. And that's if you can even find a CHAdeMO charger, which are relatively uncommon. They're great around town but a pretty big PITA for a road trip.

(Source: I own one.)