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I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#631

Post by WalterBright »

crote wrote: post #511
motorest wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I paid over $50 USD for parking a bit over two hours in Cambridge Massachusetts when visiting MIT. Parking in the Boston area is atrocious. The two are related. The whole point of charging for parking is to leverage scarcity to convince people to not make the problem worse and just find alternatives to driving to the doorstop that work well for them.

Don't forget the opportunity cost. Urban land is extremely valuable, so if you're using it for car parking instead of shop, restaurants, homes, or offices you're missing out on a lot of potential income. This goes doubly so for all the additional roads you need to get the cars to their parking spots.

In Tokyo there are parking garages that are a multistory cylinder. The car is driven onto a platform in the center, which is an elevator that goes up, and turns like a railroad turntable so the car lines up with a parking spot arranged like spokes on a wheel.

It's one way to put a lot of cars in a small space. Much of the space in a conventional parking garage is lost to the driveways.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#632

Post by WalterBright »

b112 wrote: post #539
b112 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the pojnt of charging for parking, is for a company somewhere to make a fat, juicy profit. The company would prefer more people drive, and therefore, need to park.

Wow. Look at the downvotes. Yet almost every parking lot is privately owned, and many cities have even sold management of street parking to private companies. Do people seriously think that these companies want to charge more, for environmental reasons? Of course not. They care only for profit. https://news.wttw.com/2025/05/21/final-tally-chicago-taxpaye... The parent says that the reason the price is high, is becaus…

> If someone is saying it's for environmental reasons, likely they're lying to make more profit.

And they lie because they get vilified otherwise by people who can't stand the idea that they make a profit.

BTW, whenever someone gives you a reason why they do something, odds are pretty good that you're given the palatable plausible reason, not the actual unflattering one.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#633

Post by pojzon »

I was super in favor of EVs in EU to the moment I visited Germany to notice that 3/4 of all cars were disel cars and getting pushed to green laws is a scam.

I enjoy driving good cars that roar nice, so bought a new disel car that can drive 180/h without sweating much.

I value my time more than anything else.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#635

Post by kelnos »

b112 wrote: post #500
motorest wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I paid over $50 USD for parking a bit over two hours in Cambridge Massachusetts when visiting MIT. Parking in the Boston area is atrocious. The two are related. The whole point of charging for parking is to leverage scarcity to convince people to not make the problem worse and just find alternatives to driving to the doorstop that work well for them.

No, the pojnt of charging for parking, is for a company somewhere to make a fat, juicy profit. The company would prefer more people drive, and therefore, need to park.

It can be both, though. People who own land and build parking lots and structures on it will charge however much they can, based on what people will actually pay. If parking is more scarce, and the demand is there (as in, it's a popular place to visit), they'll be able to charge more.

And sometimes city councils restrict the amount of parking that can be built because they want to create that scarcity to encourage people to take transit instead of driving, because they know that the owners of the (fewer) parking areas will charge more, making it less desirable to drive and park.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#636

Post by shrubble »

marcusb wrote: post #274
shrubble wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not an outlier for a lot of people in the USA or the western part of Canada.

Citation please. It takes over seven hours to drive 500 miles non-stop at 70mph. I’d love to see a credible source that documents “a lot” of people are routinely driving this far in their personal vehicles.

First, the quote from the parent post is "people bring up the most extreme, outlier situations (500 mile trips) as a cudgel against EVs"

There are plenty of people, myself included, who routinely take trips in excess of 500 miles.

Next weekend I will be visiting family 1100 miles away - I will drive, stay 2 weeks, and then drive back.

I can fill up in about 15 minutes and drive 350 to 400 miles, so, over 1200 miles my total "recharge" time is 45 minutes.

The Leaf gets ~212 minutes and then takes 35 minutes (minimum) to charge to 80%.

To go 1100 miles will take at least 5 stops at 35 minutes each = 165 minutes; realistically, longer because you have to find your charging stations and drive to them; plus that only takes you to 80% instead of 100% (which I get when I fill up with gas) which reduces range. So I am being generous to the Leaf in my estimates.

So for 7.5 hours of actual drive time, I have to add in 2 hours (165 minutes minus 45 = 120 minutes) additional because of the EV. That's adding about 25% more time on the trip.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#637

Post by bookofjoe »

WalterBright wrote: post #632
b112 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Look at the downvotes. Yet almost every parking lot is privately owned, and many cities have even sold management of street parking to private companies. Do people seriously think that these companies want to charge more, for environmental reasons? Of course not. They care only for profit. https://news.wttw.com/2025/05/21/final-tally-chicago-taxpaye... The parent says that the reason the price is high, is becaus…

> If someone is saying it's for environmental reasons, likely they're lying to make more profit. And they lie because they get vilified otherwise by people who can't stand the idea that they make a profit. BTW, whenever someone gives you a reason why they do something, odds are pretty good that you're given the palatable plausible reason, not the actual unflattering one.

"The answer is always 'It's the money.'" — Tony Kornheiser

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#638

Post by smoovb »

incanus77 wrote: post #600
rsolva wrote: post #312

Small, cheap electric cars are the best! Fun to drive, easy to maintain. I own an VW eUP 2015 model which costed me €4000 used. I do not know if they where for sale outside of Norway (I only see them here!), but it is the perfect car for 95% of our mobility needs. I drive it to work every day (where I can charge it for free). I drive it to Oslo and can park/charge almost anywhere around town for really cheap, about €…

Agree! We got a used 2015 Fiat 500e for $8k 2.5 years ago and it’s been great as an around-town car. Don’t have kids, but can take a passenger or two in the back if need be (it’s tight) but for two people and errands, it’s been a fantastic value.

Just got a 2014 500e for $5k - 50k miles. What a great city car! We also have Model Y, and so the Fiat's 2 pedal driving, lack of good regen, multi-step lock/unlock process can all be forgiven for the price.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#639

Post by epolanski »

j1elo wrote: post #623
epolanski wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would 30 minutes by car become 1.30 hours by public transport. My (European) experience is the opposite: it takes longer to go to work by car, you're sitting in traffic whereas subways and trains take a fraction of the time as they are not impacted at all. I live in Rome, which isn't known for great public transport. Yet I've seen multiple times people going from Rome suburbs to Naples downtown (a completely diff…

> Why would 30 minutes by car become 1.30 hours by public transport. My city has "great" public transport. It's been appraised multiple times, which I guess means that average public transport must be worse than what I've grown up with. I take 20 mins by car from home (in an outer neighborhood) to my workplace (in a central area), 55 mins otherwise. When you consider roundtrips, it adds up (and if we add a middle sto…

How praised the public transport of your city is irrelevant. What matters is how close/connected you are to it, and it to your workplace.

Trains don't have stop lights nor traffic. They don't care about rush hour. They are always going to be the fastest connection to a city center.

I live 4 minutes by foot from the Colonna Galleria train station, in a village 30 kilometers outside Rome, Italy. The train to Termini (Rome central station) takes 28 minutes, and Termini is the crossway of the 2 main metro lines and the most important city bus lines.

It's 33 minutes at night with empty streets and it's 1:15 at rush hour. Leaving work at 5:30 can easily cost you 2 hours in your car.

But sure, put me 3 miles from the train station, put my office in a place that is just 10/15 more inconvenient from metro/termini and it's drammatically different.

Re: I bought the cheapest EV, a used Nissan Leaf

#640

Post by WalterBright »

bookofjoe wrote: post #637
WalterBright wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is saying it's for environmental reasons, likely they're lying to make more profit. And they lie because they get vilified otherwise by people who can't stand the idea that they make a profit. BTW, whenever someone gives you a reason why they do something, odds are pretty good that you're given the palatable plausible reason, not the actual unflattering one.

"The answer is always 'It's the money.'" — Tony Kornheiser

Most of the time, sure. But sometimes it's to save face.
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