Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

marketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 298 posts

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#131

Post by jseliger »

hwillis wrote: post #113
bogomipz wrote: post #102

I am curious how does one go about disposing of an electronic vehicle like this when the time comes - whether from an accident or just EOL'd? Is that included in this price? Or does one need to factor that into the TCO of the vehicle? Given the batteries I'm guessing this requires special attention compared to a combustion engine car.

Well right now most Teslas go to salvage by a third party and some go to Tesla recycling. I assume some number just go to normal scrapyards. It's profitable to recycle the batteries so it isn't really a problem, and isn't likely to be a problem, and there are existing paths to recycle vehicles at EOL. For instance 90% of lead-acid batteries are recycled[1]. Again though batteries are most useful simply as salvage, an…

This is a good answer, and I'll add that some projects are already active: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/business/gm-and-nissan-re... or https://thinkprogress.org/why-used-electric-car-batteries-co... .

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#132

Post by usaphp »

bzbarsky wrote: post #115
usaphp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $7500 federal tax rebate, most people can't take full advantage because they don't owe that much I am pretty sure most of those who can afford to purchase a 35k+ car are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes, unless I am not calculating something right

There is no way you owe $7500 in federal taxes on a $40k/year salary. In the worst case (single or married filing separately; in this range the numbers look the same), the standard deduction is $6350 and the single personal exemption is $4050 in 2017. So your taxable income is $29,600 assuming you aren't putting any pre-tax money into retirement savings. The 10% tax bracket for those filing statuses goes to $9325 in…

> To get to $7500 in tax you have to have about $47k of taxable income, and hence about $57k of gross income

The OP said “most people don’t pay $7500...” which is not true since I said you have to have “at least 40K+ salary in order to afford that $35k+ car. I did not say you have to have 40k salary to pay 7500$+ in taxes

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#133

Post by compsciphd »

bzbarsky wrote: post #115
usaphp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $7500 federal tax rebate, most people can't take full advantage because they don't owe that much I am pretty sure most of those who can afford to purchase a 35k+ car are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes, unless I am not calculating something right

There is no way you owe $7500 in federal taxes on a $40k/year salary. In the worst case (single or married filing separately; in this range the numbers look the same), the standard deduction is $6350 and the single personal exemption is $4050 in 2017. So your taxable income is $29,600 assuming you aren't putting any pre-tax money into retirement savings. The 10% tax bracket for those filing statuses goes to $9325 in…

if you are buying a $35K car, I sure hope you are making at least $56K.

And if not, lease it. The Bolt is leasing insanely well right now - https://leasehackr.com/blog/2017/10/16/bolt-ev-never-been-be...

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#134

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bzbarsky wrote: post #117
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That number is deceptive: a married joint-filing income would be around $60k, so they would qualify if they only bought one of these.

For married-filing-jointly you need a gross income of at least $76,800 in 2017 to owe $7500 in federal taxes.

What table are you using?

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#135

Post by CaliforniaKarl »

greglindahl wrote: post #67
CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #42

The question I have to ask: Has anyone here gotten an EV and successfully gotten a charger setup going in an apartment garage? For where I live, I'd say we have 100-150 parking spaces, all underground. There are two spaces that have chargers, which are first-come-first-served, I don't count them. So, the idea would be to get my own charger. I already have a safe place to put it: There is a wide-but-not-deep storage u…

Yes, I live in Palo Alto (near you) and I convinced my apartment complex to install an EV charger: 2 chargers, and conduit for 4 more. I'm mystified why you aren't counting the 2 chargers that your apartment complex does provide. For all I know we live at the same place. I'm happy, you're unhappy. Given the large battery in a Bolt, do you really need to charge every day?!

Yes, it sounds like you live not too far away. I'm either south or south-west of you.

Congratulations on doing the planning for additional capacity! From what I can tell, there were no such provisions made for future expansion of the two spots available to me.

Also, to be clear, I'm not unhappy, I'm thinking ahead. Right now I do not have a car, and I don't anticipate needing a car for some time. So this discussion is theoretical right now.

As for not needing to charge every day, no, I probably don't. But, I would prefer to not have to think about it. I can understand why people harp on battery exchange: If I was running low on gas on the way into work, there are multiple opportunities for refueling on the way in to work, at the expense of not taking the time to find the best price nearby. With an EV, my options would be more limited: Hope that a charging spot is available at work; or turn around, start charging at home, and take the bus into work. There are times when it would become kind of a Russian roulette game.

Am I being alarmist? Yup! But for me right now, I would own a car because I want more flexibility than what I get using the bus. VTA's Route 22/522 schedules & delays are already variable enough that if I HAVE to be at work by a certain time, I need to either leave much earlier, or take a Lyft. I don't want to substitute one set of stresses for another, which is what would happen if I did not have a confirmed charging point on one end of my daily commute.

Finally, to head off one set of comments: I've noted the approximate for the different commute modes available to me: By bus regularly takes 45 to 60 minutes, with the data points (actual travel times) being all over the range. By car would be more around 30 to 45 minutes. By Caltrain would be 50-60 minutes, with little variability.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#136

Post by bbarn »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #42

The question I have to ask: Has anyone here gotten an EV and successfully gotten a charger setup going in an apartment garage? For where I live, I'd say we have 100-150 parking spaces, all underground. There are two spaces that have chargers, which are first-come-first-served, I don't count them. So, the idea would be to get my own charger. I already have a safe place to put it: There is a wide-but-not-deep storage u…

That's the real rub for me with limited range EV's. It's all but impossible to own one for your average street parking city dweller. I rent a garage, but it's non powered, so basically it's just a nice place to lock a vehicle and keep it out of the elements (and because even street parking is tough in my neighborhood).

I'd love to own an EV - it makes perfect sense for about 95% of the car trips I take, but I'd have zero way to charge it. Seems like people like me are almost the perfect market for these sub compact limited range vehicles, except for that.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#137

Post by tehwebguy »

einarvollset wrote: post #72
tehwebguy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI leases on these just went from like $300+ / mo with a substantial down payment to sub $150 / mo with effective 0 down in California with incentives.

Link?

https://leasehackr.com/blog/2017/10/16/bolt-ev-never-been-be...

This site is rarely updated unless there is a significant deal but the forum is usually popping.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#138

Post by hedora »

BuckRogers wrote: post #108
hedora wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sucks. Our GM dealer installed some counterfeit electrical parts (I bought it new!) and then it developed electrical issues — if you left it off for 8 hours it would sometimes drain the battery and fail to start. At that point, other GM dealers refused to look at it without taking a large up-front deposit. Corporate didn’t actually use the words “pound sand”. It would have saved me time if they had. Eventually,…

1,000 miles, you're probably covered by the lemon law on that if you just want to return it. I can't say at 1,000 miles I'd not be fuming about a large up-front deposit being asked of me. Amazing. Well, I wasn't going to hand GM any money again anyway, but my slight admiration I had of their Bolt is now gone, so thank you for that. GM is pulling their usual cheap Android vendor that wants Apple prices method I suppos…

I actually could have lemon-lawed it, but once it crossed that line it didn’t have any more trouble until the warranty expired.

A few months after that, the driver-side heater went out, and the radio started to fail.

The fact that so many things failed makes me think there are significant systemic issues with GM vehicle platforms (and not just individual components).

The more I think about the regenerative braking issue on the Bolt, the more I think my car had the same root-cause problem, which makes me wonder if it impacts their whole line: Traction control sporadically engages on a regular basis.

That’s not a big deal on ICE cars, but if they really disable regenerative braking when traction control enganges, it’ll eventually kill or severely injure a pedestrian. One of the worst things a vehicle can do is have an intermittent braking system!

Anyway, I no longer own the vehicle. Getting rid of it was worth every wasted penny. :-)

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#139

Post by hedora »

Aloha wrote: post #118
BuckRogers wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000 miles, you're probably covered by the lemon law on that if you just want to return it. I can't say at 1,000 miles I'd not be fuming about a large up-front deposit being asked of me. Amazing. Well, I wasn't going to hand GM any money again anyway, but my slight admiration I had of their Bolt is now gone, so thank you for that. GM is pulling their usual cheap Android vendor that wants Apple prices method I suppos…

Yes, I'm sorry you got screwed,, but every manufacturer has a story just like this one - I'm not really a 'GM Guy' but I don't think this is a fair brush to paint them with.

So many things went wrong that it’s hard for me to think I’m a huge outlier. Though, CR does currently rank Chevrolet (but not GMC) above Tesla for reliability:

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...

And the Bolt is their most reliable car, apparently.

Perhaps I am being unfair, or perhaps they improved. Still, given the nature of the issues I hit and continue to hear about, I’ll continue to avoid them.

Re: Chevy Bolt: the First Practical, Mass-Market Electric Vehicle

#140

Post by plorkyeran »

kbenson wrote: post #126
Aloha wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's made of metal, its going to corrode in some way - I don't think stainless steel has the properties you'd want in a brake rotor, either.

Well, it could be ceramic, which is what some competition cars use, and that wouldn't rust. But I doubt it.

There are <$100k cars that have had ceramic brakes as a factory option, but it's not a good option.
Post reply on HN