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Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

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Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#71

Post by logicalmonster »

thethethethe wrote: post #65
logicalmonster wrote: post #18

At one time, hotels didn't offer free (or any) Wi-Fi, and now it's basically standard even at the bargain basement cheapo motels. As the market demands a feature, it will eventually come. I think time will ultimately solve the EV charging issue in many apartment complexes, multi-family homes, townhouses, and other types of residential areas as that feature gets more demanded. Property management companies are particu…

> Dense cities. It's hard to see how EVs can work in denser cities where they theoretically could do the most good. No!!! Keep your cars out of my city! Personal EVs are not a solution for cities, they just perpetuate detrimental car centric urban policies. Spend that money on continuous sidewalks, narrower streets and better public transit.

> No!!! Keep your cars out of my city!

Seems a little entitled to me.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#72

Post by ufmace »

We've also been going for a while on night charging to help the grid - usage is (used to be?) lower at night, so you can start charging a bunch of electric cars and not notice too much. For now at least. I wonder if/when we'll start feeling some pain from the grid or specific buildings/areas not being able to keep up with the power demand of charging so many cars.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#73

Post by ghaff »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #67
jononomo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My landlord has to replace a rotting front porch, and that will cost him five months worth of the rent I pay him. There is so much more cost associated with owning a home than just the down payment and the mortgage payments. In fact, it often makes a lot more sense financially to rent, and it is also a lot more flexible.

> In fact, it often makes a lot more sense financially to rent, and it is also a lot more flexible. If you need the flexibility, then yeah, sure. But if you have no plans to move or don't think you'll ever need to move, in the long term, owning is always going to win. Rent money just goes into a black hole. Mortgage payments build equity until you pay it off, at that point the asset is 100% yours and you're no longer…

>but the maintenance costs will be less than what you were paying before.

Presumably yes but especially older homes still require ongoing expenses. Some are admittedly flexible in a given year. But property taxes, insurance, utilities, and property/house maintenance can still hit $10,000 a year or so fairly easily (though big maintenance projects tend to be a bit lumpy).

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#74

Post by helen___keller »

triceratops wrote: post #41
helen___keller wrote: post #32

Depending on location, apartment hunting with any car can be difficult, and likewise house hunting without a car can be difficult. In general the infrastructure needs of apartment dwellers and house dwellers tend to differ a lot. Personally, if we're talking about upgrading legacy infrastructure in rental units, I would really like if including in-unit washer dryer combos would be the norm in my city (Boston). Althou…

No in-unit washer-dryer at $3500/mo in Boston?! Even from the Bay Area that seems absurd.

Depends on location and size of the unit. This was for a 3 bedroom 1000~sqft unit in a pretty great location (near the Charles river in Cambridge, 12 minute walk to the subway, quiet + beautiful + safe neighborhood).

Generally speaking, urban rental units with in-unit washer+dryer in boston command a $300-500 rental premium from what I've seen (makes sense because retrofitting an old triple-decker[0] with in-unit laundry isn't trivial)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#75

Post by krolden »

doubled112 wrote: post #40
krolden wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We were lucky to live in a newer building but it still only had a single third party charger that would milk you dry if you used it (still not sure why it was so expensive). Totally unrelated, but does anyone know if stealing power to charge your car has the same repercussions as stealing gas?

Theft of service is a crime in many places. Somebody could probably make a case for it.

Yeah but will they take your drivers license?

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#76

Post by xani_ »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #61
xani_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3) Their breaker apparently can't support 2 Teslas charging at once. This doesn't seem to be a problem with two non-Telsa EVs, or one Tesla and one non-Tesla, but if two Teslas plug in at the same time the breaker blows and both chargers are out of commission for 24-72 hours until maintenance gets around to fixing it. https://www.tesla.com/support/gen-3-wall-connector-power-sha... ? Or chargers are non-tesla ?

Parent comment DID mention non-Teslas charging.

...so ?

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-wall-connector...

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#77

Post by ghaff »

helen___keller wrote: post #74
triceratops wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No in-unit washer-dryer at $3500/mo in Boston?! Even from the Bay Area that seems absurd.

Depends on location and size of the unit. This was for a 3 bedroom 1000~sqft unit in a pretty great location (near the Charles river in Cambridge, 12 minute walk to the subway, quiet + beautiful + safe neighborhood). Generally speaking, urban rental units with in-unit washer+dryer in boston command a $300-500 rental premium from what I've seen (makes sense because retrofitting an old triple-decker[0] with in-unit lau…

For that kind of premium I would assume just taking laundry to a wash and fold place would make more sense for a lot of people.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#78

Post by netsharc »

gruez wrote: post #38
netsharc wrote: post #28

I wonder if a hack would be - just like a USB power bank to power your phone away from an outlet - to have a portable lithium ion battery (something like Jackery, the only name I know since I watched an LTT video about it[1]) to charge your car. You fill up the Jackery at home, and you drag it to your car when it's time to charge. Optimally you could leave it in inside your car while charging (otherwise it'd be stole…

There's no way this can work when you consider that the battery packs in cars are massive. Wikipedia says that the long range version of the tesla model 3 weighs 1060 pounds. Assuming that energy density of your "portable lithium ion battery" is similar, you'd need to lug around a 200 lb battery pack just to charge your car 20%.

Hmm, true. Plan 2: like a tanker truck (well maybe the dimensions of an F-150 truck or a U-Haul) but it's batteries . Your car park has no charging infrastructure? We place the truck there and electric cars can park around it and be charged. Just don't read the fine print about how explosive it'd be if the battery catches fire.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#79

Post by Gibbon1 »

pwinnski wrote: post #66
thethethethe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dense cities. It's hard to see how EVs can work in denser cities where they theoretically could do the most good. No!!! Keep your cars out of my city! Personal EVs are not a solution for cities, they just perpetuate detrimental car centric urban policies. Spend that money on continuous sidewalks, narrower streets and better public transit.

I'm with you in spirit, but I think this verges on letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Ideally we'd have really narrow streets, so much less parking, and many more amenities for pedestrians. Realistically, replacing a good chunk of the existing gas-fueled cars with electric cars would be a HUGE net win.

When I lived an worked in SF I put something like 6000 miles a year on my car. Probably half of that was in the city. At 6000 miles a year you'd only need to charge your car every two weeks.

One problem is the craven MBA's that run auto companies think there is big bucks to be made overcharging people for keyless entry fobs. Which blocks things like being able to hire a service to do things like charge your car for you.

Re: Think apartment-hunting is frustrating? Try doing it with an electric car

#80

Post by kcplate »

brianwawok wrote: post #34
echelon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-California resident. I have a hunch that this is what is going to slow EV adoption. I could be wrong, but I don't see this changing since the incentives aren't directly linked. Apartments can easily find other residents. Condo associations have to subsidize a few residents. I can't fathom having an EV currently. Charging at home is a must.

A huge % of Americans live in home with garages though. Even if that’s all we get to adopt EV, that’s huge.

Everyone in my neighborhood has 2-4 car garages, we are unusual in the neighborhood in the fact that we keep our cars in it.
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