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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

#91

Post by cfreeman »

evandijk70 wrote: post #84
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.

Only on road trips or if you have an extremely long commute. The vast majority of the time with an electric car it's much more convenient because you charge overnight. You never have to go to a gas station again.

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

#92

Post by Quanticles »

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…

Bigger issue seems to be people overestimate how much they spend on fuel. You buy the car once, but you refuel it hundreds of times over its lifetime, giving the impression that fuel is a big expense.

For example, if you assume $0.073/mile, for 100,000 miles, that is $7300. If going electric cuts that in half, you save only $3650, which is only ~10% of the cost of the vehicle.

Looking at total cost of ownership (car + maintenance + fuel) makes much more sense than just fuel.

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

#93

Post by kristianc »

evandijk70 wrote: post #84
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.

Taken to its logical conclusion (a hired fleet model for cars rather than individual ownership), the charging becomes someone else's problem and they get to leverage economies of scale that you as an individual wouldn't.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

hyperbovine wrote: post #8
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.

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by poulsbohemian »

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…

For what it's worth, between CA, OR, and WA I haven't paid less than $2.59 anytime this summer. Where I live in eastern Washington state, it's been approximately $2.89 much of the summer.

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

#96

Post by WilliamDhalgren »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #11
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.

Why can't the car generate electricity and last like 5x as long? Each wheel could probably generate quite a bit of static electricity and refuel the tank. Honestly I think hybrids will be the go-to method for the next decade or two, unless they can get batteries to 500+ miles. -- If they get the battery to 1000 miles though it's game over for gasoline cars though.

yeah, plug-in hybrids seem like the best of both worlds; that could still let you go all-electric for the ~90% of your commutes, but w/o the range anxiety or limits to your occasional longer trips. And the fact you end up occasionally driving it like a (hyper-efficient) gasoline car is a totally negligable quantity of emissions in your overall driving.

It's quite possible you can have an all-electric range-extender with over 1000 miles; there was some talk Tesla was looking into current-gen Aluminium-air batteries for that purpose; afaik Al-air is currently the most mature metal-air battery with some actual deployment in limited applications. Downside for conventional aluminium-air is they can't just be recharged once you use up the charge, but the Aluminium needs to be mechanically replaced after the charge has been used up.

Practicalities of that exact scheme sound dubious, but the concept is promising; early gen of some metal-air batteries, even if rechargable could be quite limited in the number of cycles it can last, so be a poor fit for being the main battery bank of an EV car. As a range extender though, this is much less limiting, so could find first use like that, in practice giving 1000 miles range for occasional long trips.

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

#97

Post by gtk40 »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #95
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…

For what it's worth, between CA, OR, and WA I haven't paid less than $2.59 anytime this summer. Where I live in eastern Washington state, it's been approximately $2.89 much of the summer.

Whereas where I live it's just starting to get above $2/gallon again. It's something that varies a lot by region/taxes.

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

#98

Post by Johnny555 »

msandford wrote: post #46
Twirrim wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some 90% of journeys by vehicle are under 100 miles, well within the range distance of an electric car, a sizeable number of those being your daily commute. The amount you save in gas money alone would easily pay for a gasoline rental for those occasions where you really do need more and can't possibly stand to wait for a recharge. Alternatively things like the Chevy Volt exist which get you that interesting pairing…

If it was 99.9% of all trips were under 100 miles then it'd be much easier. But I make between 5-10 trips a week. Statistically I'm going to have a range anxiety situation a few times a month, while making a car payment that's 6x higher.

If you regularly need to make 200 mile round trips without charging facilities on both ends, then you're probably not a good candidate for an EV at all. A plug-in hybrid is probably your best bet until there's more charging infrastructure.

My household has 2 cars, and one of the cars stays under 50 miles for 100% of trips since we only use it for commuting.

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

#99

Post by yawz »

Retric wrote: post #71
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…

$0.22/kWh is crazy high I pay under 10c/kWh, you can install solar and save a lot of money at that rate. Further, 2.2$/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…

Here, around Denver, CO, I'm currently paying somewhere between $1.99 to $2.19/gallon.
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