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I’m ready to trade in my electric car

latimes.com

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Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#321

Post by mwint »

Marsymars wrote: post #312
mwint wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I went from a fully-owned 1997 near-mint Honda Civic to a 2014 Leaf. It handles all my driving needs (and the family still has a gas car for the _very_ rare long trip). I ran all the numbers in a big spreadsheet and determined that with fairly pessimistic numbers on the Leaf for depreciation/maintenance, and very optimistic numbers on the Civic for the same, total-cost-of-ownership worked out to approxima…

Yeah, looks like a clear win there. The market wonkiness over the past few years doesn't help my scenario - for $14k (upfront, minus whatever I could sell the old car for) I could go from a 2011 Ford Fiesta to a 2011 Leaf with comparable mileage. Due to said market wonkiness the Fiesta hasn't depreciated much, but since it wasn't worth much to start, those savings are limited. FWIW my real numbers on the Fiesta over…

From your use of kilometers, I’m guessing you’re not in the US. Feels like that’s a double whammy because:

1) The insane distances in the US are what make a Leaf unusable as an only-car, reducing demand (and thus resale price)

2) I can’t do the math right now to figure out your electric rate, but my electricity is $0.1/kWh, or about $0.025 per mile (mile!) with pessimistic Leaf efficiencies.

Both of those are pretty strong headwinds vs. my situation.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#322

Post by kybernetikos »

mmaurizi wrote: post #270
kybernetikos wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the battery is one of the biggest expenses to replace when it no longer holds charge, the economics of it would be tricky. Nobody would want to swap their good battery that they've carefully looked after for one that holds much less charge. Not to say that it's not possible to solve, but it's not so straight forward. Also, I've used lots of chargers greater than 100 kw, and they really don't take that long to c…

Financially for swapping to make sense, I think you need to be renting the batteries from the swapping company, not own them as part of the car purchase. I think Renault used to do something like that?

I think you're right, but even in that situation, switching between batteries that support significantly different ranges could be very irritating.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#323

Post by vel0city »

not_a_shill wrote: post #319
vel0city wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just sharing my personal experiences. Every time I've charged at a DCFC in the past year all dispensers appeared to be working and I was able to either plug and charge or tap to pay with Google Wallet on my phone. I did not wait in a line once nor did I fail to charge on the first try. Meanwhile in the last year I've waited in lines several times to get gas, and I've pulled up to a pump only to find it out of ord…

Who is lining up at broken pumps???

I've gone to pump gas multiple times in the last year. On a few occasions, I pulled up to a pump and found out it wasn't working after I got out of my car and tried to use the pump. On other occasions, I waited in lines to access pumps.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#324

Post by Marsymars »

mwint wrote: post #321
Marsymars wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, looks like a clear win there. The market wonkiness over the past few years doesn't help my scenario - for $14k (upfront, minus whatever I could sell the old car for) I could go from a 2011 Ford Fiesta to a 2011 Leaf with comparable mileage. Due to said market wonkiness the Fiesta hasn't depreciated much, but since it wasn't worth much to start, those savings are limited. FWIW my real numbers on the Fiesta over…

From your use of kilometers, I’m guessing you’re not in the US. Feels like that’s a double whammy because: 1) The insane distances in the US are what make a Leaf unusable as an only-car, reducing demand (and thus resale price) 2) I can’t do the math right now to figure out your electric rate, but my electricity is $0.1/kWh, or about $0.025 per mile (mile!) with pessimistic Leaf efficiencies. Both of those are pretty…

1) Canada. Similar distances, I expect resale price is more affected by supply of older models. The US had 115k Leafs sold through 2017, Canada had 5.5k sold through 2017, or about 40% on a per-capita basis. Not sure why such a discrepancy. (Though from a quick check, after currency conversion, the starting price of a 2023 Leaf in Canada is 8% higher than in the US before taxes. Compare to e.g. a Corolla which is 11% lower before taxes.)

2) 17¢/kWh in AB, though current rates would be either 23¢/kWh on a fixed-rate contract or current floating rates are in the 25¢/kWh range.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#325

Post by vel0city »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #320
vel0city wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see plastic bags over pump handles way more than 0.01% of the time. In fact over the last year I've had more experiences with gas pumps being broken than EV dispensers not working.

Put a different way, although I have seen plastic bags over pump handles, I have never pulled into a gas station and not been able to fill up.

I have on several occasions. Power outages, being out of gas, having to clean tanks because of a bad batch of gas, a gas station I used to go to on road trips going out of business, credit card processing issues, getting tired of lines so I go elsewhere, and just being closed for the night are all failure modes of gas pumps I've personally experienced. Some of these way more than once.

I haven't personally experienced any failures to get a charge on CCS chargers though. I do agree if the power can't run the pumps it won't run the chargers either, but there hasn't been a similar major power outage since I got an EV and tried to charge on a public charger.

That reminds me, I've experienced bad gas require me to make repairs on my cars. I've never personally had an EVSE break my car, but I do contend it could happen.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#326

Post by noogle »

sagarm wrote: post #227
noogle wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing about cars: their real test (or importance) is not the 90% of the time spent in the "happy path" (short, planned drives after a full night charge). It's to address those edge but critical cases - long trips, unexpected drives, off-the-beaten-path routes. Another thing rarely raised is the correlated nature of traffic issues. Charging is fine now, mostly because it seems there is a huge over-provision…

What is the easy solution for ICEVs?

Gas jerrycans. Either one kept at your garage for emergencies (cost: $5), or the gas station scaling horizontally by using/selling jerrycans.

Haven't seen any solution for instantly increasing charging throughput, and an on-line power is needed, while it is more likely to fail exactly in the kind of events that require mass evacuation.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#327

Post by nikau »

barbazoo wrote: post #298
nikau wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cool in Gartner research theory land, but Prius and hybrid Camrys confirm its nonsense.

> That's cool in Gartner research theory land, but Prius and hybrid Camrys confirm its nonsense. The Prius Prime has a range of 72km according to [0] so it's clearly not "nonsense". [0] https://www.toyota.ca/toyota/en/vehicles/prius-prime/feature...

I was referring to the reliability and weight claims.

And 72km is still higher than the average US trip distance, and it will kick over to petrol to augment any occasions when you go over that.

Its literally the best of both worlds - plug in charging convenience for the bulk of your driving and fast refuelling for the times when you need to do road trips.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#329

Post by buggythebug »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #142
buggythebug wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no designated "safe areas" to run around in lol

Do you only allow children to run around in areas that someone designated as safe?

Where are most charging stations? Are they setup as kid friendly? Get out of here.

Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car

#330

Post by sourcecodeplz »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #313
avalys wrote: post #96

Yes, electric cars are not viable unless you can charge at home. Meaning, in your garage / driveway. This means they're not that useful for people who live in apartments, and most people who live in a city like SF and park on the street(*). They're also not viable for road trips. Teslas can make it work but you still have to be willing for your trip to take 20 - 30% longer than it would with a gas car. For people who…

> They're also not viable for road trips. Teslas can make it work but you still have to be willing for your trip to take 20 - 30% longer than it would with a gas car. In my experience, 5-10% longer is more accurate. Very little of my charging time is spent waiting for the car to charge. While the car is charging, I'm using the bathroom or eating.

You go the the bathroom/eat every 2 hours?
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