Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:37 AM UTC

honkhonkpants wrote: post #16

Retric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars can do 800+ miles a day easily with sold charging infrastructure. Sure, if you want to do a cannon ball run rent a car, but 4 hours of driving, get lunch, another 4 hours of driving, take a 30 minute break, 2 hours of driving, dinner anther 4 hours of driving get some sleep. That's an extra 30 minute break for 14 hour road trip.

There's only one car that can go 4 hours on a charge, and that's the Tesla S. If you charge it for 30 minutes, it can go about another 2.5 hours. My VW Golf TDI goes more than 750 miles on a tank at 65MPH. That's an entire days' driving for 5 minutes of fueling. Yes, the filthy Volkswageneers have to buy my car back, but it was certainly nice on the range.

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:39 AM UTC

honkhonkpants wrote: post #13

hyperbovine wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gas is what 2 minutes? Depends quite a lot on where you are. There are 12 gas stations south of 96th St. in Manhattan. SF will have lost 40% of the service stations it had 10 years ago as of 2017. Boston, same. The gas station at Divisadero and Fell has what looks like a 20 minute wait at all times. This is all due to real estate prices. Getting gas in affluent coastal metropolises is not a pleasant experience. Not…

20 minutes is still 30x faster than charging. And how many charging stations do you think there are south of 96th street?

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 3:56 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #43

kylec wrote: post #17

I was talking to my father a few weeks ago about electric cars, and I wanted to quantify how much going electric would save him so I ran some numbers. Where he lives gas is currently somewhere around $2.20/gallon. His car gets around 30mpg combined, so he's paying ~$0.073/mile. Tesla's website contains a "charging estimator" for the Model S, which estimates a cost of $12.04 for a total charge of 300 miles in a 90D. I…

I did a similar calculation (CA power is wayy expensive). There are additional considerations however, which is 'overhead gas' (or gas spent going to and from the gas station) not a lot but its something you don't buy if you charge at home, and "price fluctuations", buying gas has literally gone from $2 to nearly $5 back to nearly $2 over 5 years. My electricity has gone up slightly over those same 5 years. From a "p…

Post by mikestew » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 4:16 AM UTC

foxylad wrote: post #45

I just bought a 2014 Nissan Leaf. It's excellent and I'd recommend one (with a couple of caveats, see below). A few (hopefully) interesting comments: There's no premium for being "cool" or "green" any more. It cost 26,000 NZD for a 2014 Japanese import, which is about the same as an ICE (internal combustion engine) two-year-year-old mid-level vehicle costs (yes, NZ car prices are mad). And I'm guessing the trend will…

Post by tempestn » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 4:22 AM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #42

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had always assumed that electricity was far cheaper than gasoline As you note, in many places electricity is far from cheap. Also you need to amortize the cost difference of a Tesla vs a conventional car. That's hard to justify as long as a Tesla costs in the neighborhood of $100,000. But, perhaps generate that electricity on your rooftop! The utilities have lobbied effectively to lower the feed-in prices they must…

Unfortunately, me and my car are at work when the sun is shining on my rooftop.