Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

That provides redundancy. Redundancy is an insurance. Insurance is inefficient in term of resources but very useful in unforeseen situations.

Sacramento has their own utility district, "SMUD". In the neighboring counties, we have PG&E. I talked to a coworker in Sac. His highest "tier" price is about my lowest tier. Marginal cost in the upper tiers is in the 30 to 40 cent per kWh range (it has changed a bit from year to year due to some restructuring). The only people who I can see staying in Tier one would be single people who leave the house all day (with the AC off). If you have a family, fuggedaboutid.

We recently put in solar panels to at least shave the top tiers off of the bill (very cost effective vs $.35/kWh, even if not at $.12/kWh). However, I feel it's only a matter of time before PG&E lobbies for mandatory time of day based billing, in which case the panels won't help reduce the rates much for charging a car.

Sad, but true. Also, I had a used Leaf for a few days, but took it back because the battery only held about 80% of its original capacity, barely made a round trip to work (49 miles) with no A/C running, and required a special fast charge outlet to be installed if I wanted it to do a full recharge overnight. For doing short trips (say, 25 miles including some steep hills), it was great, and would recharge in about 6 hours from a standard outlet. It would have been a great car for my wife, if she could remember to plug it in when she returned from errands (not likely, alas).

Oil and gas prices are low now, but are not guaranteed to be over the next decade. You might want to use a cost number that has been averaged over a number of years.

Also the 90D is not exactly a car to be looking at if you are concerned about costs. I don't know if it allows you to choose a more efficient model.

It's even worse than that, because eventually the battery pack will have to be replaced.

While Tesla may cover that under some warranties, people who bought something like a Nissan Leaf are SOL. Their cars start losing range much quicker than a Tesla, because of the need to charge almost daily due to lower range.

Google shows the replacement cost for a Nissan Leaf battery at $5,500. Going by your calculations for 100k miles (which is Nissan Leaf's warranty range for the battery), the electricity cost will have to be $1,800 for it to make sense to buy. That's going to be nearly impossible to achieve.

The math starts to become a bit better at $4/gallon, though.

To me this sounds like Coca-Cola or Pepsi - as if those are the only two options. I prefer water. Let's take an auto analogy...

Whilst you guys with your big miles to commute are comparing costs and getting range anxiety, I am doing okay in the UK with a bicycle and a train station. Much to my bitter disappointment I had to spend a total of £22 to fit new brakes on my 'eco-vehicle'. Yep, £22. That is the total cost of everything in the six months I have had my new steed. I could easily pay that per day if I was parking one of those four wheeled planet-trasher things. I never actually time my commute as I enjoy the ride, which is on a far bigger network than afforded to other road users. In fact I travel mostly traffic free on cycle paths, with the fit people jogging and the friendly people walking their dogs.

So, as much as I aspire to own a really cool Tesla, I then think about the practicalities. I would be 'sitting in traffic', having to do the run around one-way systems and having to spend as long as my journey takes to find a parking spot at the other end. The journey would stress me out as with driving there isn't the guarantee that you can get there in a timely fashion.

So then I think about getting a 'Go-Cycle'. Designed by cool F1 engineers, in 'off-road mode' it can do 40 mph with that torque that comes with electric. £4K - not bad, almost toy level expenditure. An 'option' on a car can cost that, e.g. air-con.

But then I think again, I kind of need that exercise! If I didn't cycle then I would have to go to the gym or get a non-office job. I don't want to spend my evenings locked in some gym (why are they always next to really busy roads?). Plus I would have to pay some electricity to charge it up and most of my electricity needs are fairly undemanding, why would I want to increase my electricity bill just so my legs could waste away?

Ah, but range anxiety... I take the train. On the train I treat myself to some quality snacks and some reasonable free wifi. In fact I normally get so stuck in to what I am reading/doing that I am wishing the journey could be just that bit longer so I can finish stuff. I make time on the train productive (although I wish I could just sleep).

Ah, but what about the family, the 'big shop' and the need to take golf clubs places? Well, I am not living life like that. I don't have to live in the middle of nowhere where the nearest vitamin is a 50 mile drive away. In cities everything is on the doorstep, everything except for an unoccupied parking spot. Taxis, trains and even busses mean that I am not totally dependent on the bicycle and its awful 'range anxiety' problems. I might not have 'ludicrous speed' as Tesla sell it, but nobody in a four wheeled vehicle beats me to any office in the city centre, even if plodding along I am doing better than the 9-11 mph that motorists achieve in city centres.

Sadly I see these electric vehicles (car or bicycle) as glorified mobility scooters, and it just does not make sense for me to take one to two tonnes of extra metal and comfy seats with me to work and back every day. I have already sorted out the transport problem for myself with the 'water' option, no 'coke' or 'pepsi' needed.

There are only four petrol stations within London's congestion-charge zone. Already there are far more charging stations. Even if I still had a car the idea of driving into London, charging/'gassing', trying to park, being somewhere on time and being able to afford the whole nightmare is just not something I ever wish to do. These electric cars are not going to change those realities.