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Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

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Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#81

Post by drzaiusapelord »

Scea91 wrote: post #76
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's on top of the added cost of an electric vehicle. Worse, how does it handle the Chicago winter? I'll be running the heater 6 months out of the year, which is a drain on the battery, but on a ICE-based car, it just uses excess heat with no cost on fuel. So its tough to figure out what my real cost per mile will be in the winter. I think TCO is going to be difficult to calculate for many people, especially when y…

Doesn't the electromotor also produce excess heat that can be used in a similar way?

My understanding is that heat is generated by tapping into the battery. There's no coolant to tap into and the electric motor is fan or passively cooled. Because they're so efficient there's no waste heat for the cabin.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#82

Post by maxerickson »

Waterluvian wrote: post #62
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…

Holy crap that's not cheap. I pay about 0.08CDN here in Ontario. Which suddenly makes it a lot more feasible. Especially since gas is more expensive here than in most of the US.

People that live near recently shuttered small coal plants have it a lot worse than people that live near nuclear and hydro.

A small community nearby has had some months where their rates have spiked to $1 per kw-h. There's a lot of last mile grid per person and I guess they don't have much of a collective agreement with the provider (the town here buys roughly the same power for ~$0.10 per kw-h). The people getting huge bills don't seem to be real big on cutting their use though.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#83

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#84

Post by evandijk70 »

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 guess it makes a lot more sense to own an electric car in Europe, where gasoline prices are around 1,50 euro per liter, or $6,50/gallon, while electricity prices are around $0.20/kWh.

Still, recharging an electric car is still a lot more inconvenient than refueling a normal car.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#85

Post by WilliamDhalgren »

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?

really? I thought the superfast charging stations could charge a something like the first half of your battery in something like that time? Granted, gets rather slow as you approach 100%..

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#86

Post by epalmer »

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 live in zipcode 23233 in the Richmond,VA, USA area. Gas is about $1.90/gallon right now and my power is about $0.09/KWh. I guess you can say YMMV.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#87

Post by expression »

sitharus wrote: post #27
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…

However, a gasoline powered car also takes engine oil and transmission fluid if it's an automatic. It will also require regular servicing of the engine and eventual replacement of worn seals etc. If the fuel cost per mile is the same the electric car could still be cheaper. I can't say how much though, because that depends on the servicing cost per year vs the battery replacement cost and that depends on your local s…

Luckily you don't need to maintain electric cars at all.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#88

Post by Retric »

ProAm wrote: post #77
Retric wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$0.22/kWh is crazy high I pay under 10c/kWh, you can install solar and save a lot of money at that rate. Further, 2.2$/gallon well below average for the last 10 years, where exactly does he live? PS: There does seem to be some serious price gouging going on. "In Sacramento, a family using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity last October was charged $58." 58/500 = 11.6cents. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-e…

Do you take into consideration the cost of installing solar and future maintenance costs in an estimate like this? Im asking honestly because Im not sure if people do?

I would, if you ignore them you can get as low as ~8 cents per kwh hour before and ~6c/kWh after incentives. But, that's ignoring battery backup for night time use. Still, beating 22c/kWh TCO is easy in most of the US and your insulated from future price hikes.

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#89

Post by newscracker »

dpweb wrote: post #3

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

It will take a while, but with time the supporting infrastructure for charging will become widespread. Even better, the companies would introduce battery swapping outlets too all over, so you spend two minutes on the highway to get your run down battery swapped with a fully charged one and just drive on. The battery then is no longer a part of your car that you own, but just rent/lease with a specific performance guarantee. You pay the outlet based on some parameters they measure on your run down battery. It'd be an interesting future, and like another post here about the pre vs. post Internet generations, I look forward to seeing such widespread changes coming and changing what people think of as transport and maintenance of one's means of transport. :)

Re: Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

#90

Post by overcast »

foobarian wrote: post #38
white-flame wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had saved a link to it, but a study on affordability marked an average earning household of about $35k/yr as being able to afford an $8,000 car. In order to be able to afford the "average" $33,000 car took a $90k/yr income.

My household income is way more than that and I still found it painful to buy a $20k car. I find it hard to understand why people buy cars at such high relative prices.

People, like myself, don't want to buy into someone's problems. Sure you pay a bit less, but you also have a bit less car. 35,000 miles into a car, how long before you need to buy just another used car? I buy new, and then run it into the ground after the warranty runs out. Typically by then, normal defects have been covered. Change your own oil, filters, tires. Keep up with things like alignments, wash/wax, and keeping things clean. You'd be surprised at how long a new car will last if you take care of it. Conversely, who knows how the previous guy treated it, because most definitely do not care. This will be the seventh year with mine, and it's immaculate.
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