My 2013 Honda Crv that I bought used in 2016 will be paid off in six months, and while I currently have no interest in replacing it, I have been looking at newer cars to see what is available. Truth be told, I’ll probably drive it another 5-6 years until it starts to irritate me or becomes more expensive to maintain than purchasing a new one. Right now it is pretty cheap- I check the oil and put in gas, and every now and again I buy some tires. I still have never replaced the brakes, but I imagine that will be coming due soon. I don’t really brake very much, and i have been driving these roads for so long I know which curves to bank out of and would guess I probably only hit the brakes 4-5 times on the eight mile drive to and from the big city.
At any rate, I would really like to buy an electric car eventually, but I just don’t think they are there yet. Right now, I’m not sure the environmental cost of an electric vehicle…
LEMME STOP RIGHT HERE. I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON THIS, I AM JUST DOING MY OWN THINKING, AND IF I AM WRONG, CHIME IN IN THE COMMENTS IN FACT I AM REALLY NOT AN EXPERT ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN NAPPING AND ACCIDENTAL INJURIES
As I was saying, from what I understand, I’m not sure the environmental cost of producing an electric vehicle doesn’t really offset the gain to driving one. The batteries are a real pain to produce, and if you want a battery that will go a distance without recharge, you have to upsize your battery so it costs even more to produce and requires more energy to make. It’s a complex thing, from what I understand. Electric batteries require a lot of lithium, cobalt, and a whole host of rare earth materials, the vast majority of which come from overseas. And rare earth materials, despite their name, are not really that rare, they are pretty much everywhere, but the extraction process is dirty, nasty, and produce huge environmental impacts, which is why we are totes cool with letting China and India poison their citizens extracting them and not mining them in say, Wyoming or California (although that is changing).
So there is that. There is also the issue that the availability of charging stations that can charge in a speedy manner are not there yet, nor are there vehicle replacements for the kinds of cars I would like to drive in a hybrid option. There’s only one or two models that are hybrid from every major automaker, with the exception of Tesla, but those cars are complete shit with horrid production. The interiors are crap, there are gaps in every window, the consoles squeak and wiggle. Just utter shit.
On top of all that, the vehicles still require electricity, most of which is still generated by fossil fuels. For various reasons we have not upgraded to safer nuclear systems, and solar and hydro are not going to carry the load. So you are still stuck driving a vehicle that is powered by coal or natural gas, both of which have their underlying environmental costs.
On top of all this, we are in a really awkward phase right now. Since we are not allowed to do any massive governmental capital investment because socialism and tax cut jeebus and generally not allowed to do nice things, we can’t just invest in government run renewables projects and update our power grid. We’re still in the early phases of most things, including solar, and nothing is really to scale yet and the people who want to do things can’t because we’re still in the lawsuit phase to see who gets to rob the American people and who is cheating by buying from China and blah blah blah.
On top of all this, the gas issue is not going away. In one regard, we’re finally starting to get close to the price we SHOULD be paying for gas (I think $8-9 a gallon would be a target I would like to see in an ideal world), and it’s a price high enough to maybe start actually changing people’s behaviors. At the same time, that will be devastating to the vast majority of Americans. Regardless, it’s probably going to happen anyway, because we simply do not have the refining capacity that we need to supply all our domestic needs. A new refinery has not come online for like fifty years, there are none under construction, and no one wants to build or run them because… everything is changing. I read the other day that there is a refinery for sale that would create a couple hundred thousand barrels per day, and no one wants to buy it.
Refineries are big, expensive, difficult to maintain, and everything is expensive to maintain and modernize. Additionally, refineries are vulnerable to the whims of the market place, as are oil drillers. No one ever talks about it, but Trump absolutely fucked American energy producers in 2018 when he blackmailed the Saudis to produce more oil because the price of gas was going high and threatening to fuck with his precious stock market (the only thing in the world he cares about other than himself), and that in turn put tons of American energy companies out of business because prices plummeted (google how many oil production and exploration companies went tits up in 2019). Then in 2020, when the price of oil futures was plummeting because the entire world was shut down in a global pandemic, Mr. Super Fucking GENIUS Businessman bullied Saudi Arabia to cut production or we’d stop helping them kill Yemeni and might stop being quiet about the murder of Kashoggi. And so they did. And the cuts in production were part of the reason we are in a crisis right now, because that two year deal just ended two months ago.
So any way you slice or dice it, we’re just kinda fucked until things sort themselves out. And it leaves very few good options for people like me who want to do the right thing. I suppose all of this was a very long winded way of saying for right now, I think a hybrid would be the best option for me, but maybe in a few more years when there are more options available. For right now, I will just drive the vehicle I have because I can’t afford a new one anyway, and the environmental cost of building my car has already been dealt with. I’ll just drive left.
You are welcome to this look insight the twisted mind of John Cole where there are no simple answers to anything and where I am probably half wrong about everything.
Frank Wilhoit
A long time ago, I wrote up a list of about five short questions pertaining to the Earth’s lithium budget, reclamation, waste, etc. The questions themselves may be imagined, but I concluded by pointing out that their answers were opaque and that Elon Musk’s personal fortune depended entirely upon that opacity.
SiubhanDuinne
Nominated for rotating tag.
J.
What Cole said. Though good luck finding a hybrid SUV. I tried for months and finally gave up. There just weren’t any cars to be had here in SWFL. Planning on running my Ford Focus into the ground.
J.
@SiubhanDuinne: I second that.
R-Jud
That’s what it’s always been while I’ve lived in the UK (though it was as high as $11-12 recently) and people seem to drive almost as much as they do in the US. Regardless, it always boggled my mind that for most of my life growing up in the US, a gallon of milk cost more than a gallon of gas.
The Pale Scot
Well, I’d wait a couple of years until the supply chain BS sorts out. Prices are (Cue Crazy Eddie) INSANE.
The point about FF used to make a hybrid in the first place is true, same thing for nuclear power plants. Estimates about how long a plant has to run to compensate for the FF used in forging the alloys for the reactor and making cement go up to 10. yrs, for a plant designed to run for 40.
Yea the electricity production and transmission isn’t there, isn’t going to be here at current projections. IIRC the powerplants being planned are to replace aging plants currently online, nobody in the US is going to pony up 8 billion to build a nuke. In another 5-10 yrs the hydro production from the western dams will cease, those lakes ain’t filling up again any time soon.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne:
Haha, beat everyone else to it.
acallidryas
No no no no no. Here’s the thing. Electric cars are way, way better for the climate than gasoline powered cars. Even if you use fossil fuels. Here’s a report on the avg 2015 gas and EV https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cleaner-cars-cradle-grave and things have only improved as EV technology has gotten more efficient and the grid has gotten cleaner.
We should be supporting human rights laws globally around any sort of extractives, and lithium battery recycling. Batteries can be reused for energy storage in renewable systems, for instance, and are increasing in efficiency. And if we’re comparing cars, lithium ain’t got nothin’ on the direct human rights and environmental impact of oil extraction, even before you get to the whole existential crisis of climate change, which really should be front and center.
Charging infrastructure is being built out through the bipartisan infrastructure bill (Thanks, Biden and Democrats!) unless you’re in one of the red states trying to wriggle out of getting free money to make things easier on people and avoid flooded coastal cities.
“Everything’s bad so EVs are probably also terrible” is just right wing propaganda preying on our cynicism. We can actually make things better.
Jay
Here, there are charging stations everywhere, powered by hydro.
If you are willing to take a 1 hour lunch break at the peak of the Highway From Hell, ( in the summer, there are a couple of food trucks there), you can recharge at 9 fast chargers, and so drive from Vancouver to Kamloops (220 miles), just adding 1 hour to the 4 1/2 hour trip.
I drive a 2000 RAV 4, because it was what I could afford at the time, get’s pretty good gas mileage , and I need the AWD. Bought it in early Covid from a great used car dealer in Port Moody.
raven
We’ve got a paid for Kia Niro, gas and electric, that gets 50mpg on the road at 60. We get 500 miles on a tank and paid $4.49 a gallon yesterday. Interesting article in the AJC saying that prices have had no impact on crazy ass Atlanta traffic.
RobertDSC-iPhone 8
I make 30K a year working for an essential business. This kind of thinking is just gross. High gas prices affect working class Americans like me harder than they do for people who make more than me.
As it is, I don’t go out anymore because of fuel conservation. So what little free money I can contribute to the economy is held back because of gas prices.
John Cole
Read the very next sentence
@RobertDSC-iPhone 8:
MobiusKlein
My Family has one car, a Hybrid Kia with electric range of 26 Miles. So for around town (SF Bay Area), we barely fill it up. For road trips, it’s been good for 40-50 mpg, In CA, the grid is fairly green, and gas $$$, so it feels like a decent tradeoff. Was not greatly more expensive than the non-hybrid version, so I’m feeling OK about it.
Drives fine and quiet. If it’s the kind of car you need, think about it.
White & Gold Purgatorian
Agree. Just drive less.
Last year we finally replaced our 25 year old pickup, because we need a reliable pickup to haul stuff. Ended up getting a full size truck with a V8. Gas mileage is crap, but the current smaller trucks just wouldn’t work for us. We are driving less, combining errands, doing the best we can with the vehicle that was available when we needed it, not the one we wish someone had brought to market.
Black Onion
Here’s a story from yesterday’s Washington post about oil refineries.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/20/refineries-profit-gas-prices/
JMG
Have a 2018 Subaru Forester. Mileage decent, and here on the Cape I don’t drive very far although I drive nearly every day. Went to Sandwich for a charity golf tournament yesterday and it was my furthest trip in three weeks. 25 whole miles! So while I’ve noticed the gas prices, they don’t affect me too much. Getting about two weeks a tankful.
MobiusKlein
And our prior car was a 2002 Honda CRV, so I know how those can just drive for 15 years and stay solid.
raven
@MobiusKlein: Hmm, you can run it electric only? Mine isn’t like that.
Duncan
I recommend driving your CR-V into the ground before replacing it. In general if you are getting an electric SUV to replace it you will not recoup the costs. Smaller EVs have much better breakpoints. Fit and finish of electric cars has really improved and we will be seeing more and more as time goes on. The US supply of EVs is pretty shitty and the ones available in WV are not great. I just visited Scotland and I saw quite a few nice EVs that are not available stateside.
Smaller cars are going to be vastly better for the environment than the monstrosities we see today. Nothing Tesla builds is small enough and I refuse to buy from them for a multitude of reasons.
I live in Seattle suburbs so I can do stuff like get away with one travel and big errand vehicle and use e-bikes for a lot of normal stuff.
lee
I’ve done some limited investigating into this. I’m also 5-6 year away from a new car for me but with a wife and 2 kids a new car is never too far out in my future.
The major benefit of electric and hybrid is the reduction of tailpipe emissions. This counts a lot to their overall benefit.
Producing energy at a plant is more efficient than producing energy in an internal combustion engine. So while locally you might be producing that energy with coal, it won’t always be that way. Again the electric/hybrid ends up still being an overall benefit.
“There is also the issue that the availability of charging stations that can charge in a speedy manner are not there yet” this is currently the major issue for me. My wife and I take long trips that have sections that cross the desert of west Texas and New Mexico. So for a commuter car, electric/hybrid makes sense.
‘The Good Place’ had at least one episode of your conundrum. How do you make ‘good’ decisions with limited knowledge and everything interconnected? You can’t. You just try to make the best decision you can and learn from your mistakes.
Case in point: There are a couple of hybrid SUVs on the market. One of which is the RAV4 and it is getting really good reviews. Unfortunately Toyota is an problematic company that is still funding seditionists.
Another thing to consider is buying a used car can be a greener decision than buying a new car. I would think a used electric/hybrid would be an even greener decision.
Juice Box
I live in California where, on good days (that’s a joke, son, it’s California and they’re almost all good) we produce >100% of our electricity from renewables in the middle of the day. We have to dump some of it to Arizona. IOW, I wouldn’t say that solar is not there yet.
The newest EVs have almost the same single charge range as a tank of gas in an ICE car. Most people don’t drive long enough on a daily basis to use an entire tank of gas or have the need to find a high speed charging station. Most people just need to plug in to 110V at night to trickle charge. If you do a lot of driving, you might need to install a level 2 charger in your garage, but that would be the worst case.
Of course, here in the Golden State, chargers popped up like mushrooms after the rain.
raven
@lee: Isn’t a hybrid electric by definition?
Redshift
I used to assume that keeping my car until it dies (my usual practice) would be best for the environment, rather than wasting the energy of producing it. Then I read (either in something by David Roberts or someone suggested but him) that because most of the carbon costs of an EV are in producing it, but most of the carbon costs for a gasoline vehicle are in operating it, if your car has less than about 50K miles left, it’s better to upgrade.
Roger Moore
I think you’ve gotten to the issues fairly well. It’s probably more environmentally sound to stick with your current car that gets decent gas mileage than to buy a whole new car that’s theoretically more efficient. That can be mitigated somewhat if somebody else winds up driving your old car so it isn’t completely wasted, but there’s still no great hurry to upgrade in the name of efficiency.
That said, one of the really nice things about electric cars is that you can charge them at home. As long as you’re using one mostly for commuting, you can charge it using your own solar panels, especially if you get a home battery so you can keep running on home-generated power overnight. You may still need to rent a different car for long trips, but that’s surprisingly economical if those trips are occasional things.
I don’t know how practical they are in your neck of the woods, but if they are practical you could look at something like an electric bicycle or similar smaller than a car electric vehicle. Reducing vehicle size improves efficiency more than any other single factor. And smaller form-factor vehicles tend to be cheaper; even a very fancy electric bike or scooter is still much cheaper than even a bare-bones electric car.
Mike in NC
I noted recently that my wife finally got motivated to trade in her 2004 CR-V for something with modern features. The salesman at the Honda dealership thought ordering a hybrid version might mean waiting 6 months or more, so she settled for a 2020 HR-V with low mileage and a great maintenance package. She paid half at the time of purchase and is financing the balance. I plan on keeping my 2014 CR-V until hell freezes over. We’re retired and don’t rack up a lot of miles.
MisterForkbeard
For the blogfather, “are EVs environmentally friendly due to battery creation?” is a solved question: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth5
@J.: Volvo XC60 Recharge, John. Expensive but great on mileage, good car, and gets ~20-25 miles on a charge and another 350 or so on gas. And apparently there are a lot of dealerships with them in stock.
MobiusKlein
@raven: Yes, it goes 100% electric for about 26-ish.
Kia Niro Plugin hybrid – https://www.kia.com/us/en/niro-plug-in-hybrid
My only problem to date has been the non-EV battery draining when we go camping, and keep opening & closing the car without running it. And needing a jump in a remote campground.
TaMara
A couple of thoughts – first I have friends who bought Prius cars early on and they’re still running strong on their original batteries. And the cars are doing great, too.
I do think we need a good analysis of how long a battery actually lasts. And then of course, where do dead batteries go to die. That would help a lot of folks make the decision.
Here’s a good article on recycling electric car batteries
Second, electric cars don’t need oil – so no oil changes or other things you need to do to an internal combustion engine. Reduces overall costs and environmental impact.
At the moment, I’m driving a PHEV SUV and getting about 184 MPG with electric/gas combo, and about 55-60mpg on hybrid only (when I travel long distances and don’t charge along the way). It comfortably holds 5 adults or 2 adults and two extra large dogs.
I use electric on all my around town and down to Denver trips, usually hits the gas the last couple of miles home. I usually end up putting a couple of gallons in every two weeks to keep me at 1/2 tank of gas.
I tried to calculate my electric usage when charging, but it was so minimal I stopped. I do know my Christmas lights (and there aren’t many) cause a bigger uptick in my electric usage than plugging my car in each night.
I decided I wanted to lessen my impact, so when a good deal came along, I made the switch. I was in a position where I could do it and it seemed responsible. Now it just seems prescient.
So that’s my experience…as the kids say, YMMV
Redshift
@raven:
Yes and no. A plug in hybrid is an electric if you mostly plug it in to charge. A hybrid is an electric that uses electricity produced less efficiently and with more carbon emissions (a small gas engine.)
Motivated Seller
Any way you slice it, buying a new car is always more expensive than buying a used car. I plan on running my dead-tree model until a decent used all-electric model becomes available. Basically I try to drive less, while on the lookout for something better.
Part of the reason the planet is already burning is because of rampant consumerism. Keep that in mind when someone tells you that buying a new car is the solution to a planetary problem.
Edited
Faithful Lurker
We bought a Ford Maverick truck [$22,000} in March. It’s a hybrid. We live in the boonies and there is only one charging station anywhere near us. It gets at least 42 mpg, sometimes slightly more. I love it. It drives beautifully, feels sturdy. This is the first new car we’ve bought since the 80’s and I’m glad we did.
Mike J
You don’t need charging stations unless you take a road trip. You could easily get to and from P-burgh on 1/3 to 1/2 a charge. If you’re at home, it doesn’t matter if the charge is rapid. Overnight is fine. Every morning you leave with a full “tank.”
When you do take a road trip, try https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ . They can plan out a route that gets you to the next charger.
As far as where the electricity comes from, keep in mind it takes 8kwh of electricity to make one gallon of gasoline. An EV with an 80kwh battery and a range of 300m is going to use less electricity than a gas powered car.
Beth Chambers
Certainly at least a hybrid. Something just so satisfying when the electric motor takes over at red lights and just sits silently, never idling, never burning fossil fuels to run a motor for a car that’s not even moving.
TaMara
@Redshift: Going to highlight your comment because everyone who is interested in climate change should follow David Roberts and subscribe to his blog and podcast.
Roger Moore
@raven:
Hybrid is hybrid. Most of the time when people talk about an electric vehicle, they mean one that’s electric only.
MobiusKlein
@Redshift: Many non-plugin hybrid cars have a small battery for regenerative braking, which improves overall efficiency.
That plus stopping the engine while idle gives real benefits.
Stuart Frasier
@raven: The first generation Niro came in hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and EV flavors. The current generation can all be plugged in, either PHEV or EV.
For the original question, EVs take about a year of driving to “pay off” the extra CO2 from their manufacture and are cleaner afterwards. In 2021, the average EV emitted the equivalent CO2 of 134 mpg on the California grid. The worst grid in the lower 48 is still 41 mpg (SRMW), the best is upstate New York at 255 mpg. One cool thing is that EVs will get cleaner as the grid gets cleaner, while gasoline cars pollute more as they age.
raven
@Redshift: I’m confused, “mostly” plug it in? Then it has a gasoline engine? That’s what my Niro has.
TaMara
@Roger Moore: No, mine is a Plug-in Hybrid. It runs on electricity until that battery is discharged, then it kicks into Hybrid mode and acts like any other hybrid
I use no gas until the battery discharges – which means most days, I’m on electric only. Love it.
They are becoming more common once the technology was worked out.
raven
@Roger Moore: That’s what I thought.
raven
@TaMara: Well damn, what kind is that?
lee
@raven:
Yes. Usually people make a distinction between fully electric and hybrid.
TaMara
@raven: Like you, I have a Niro, but it’s the plug-in/hybrid flavor. I think the year I bought it was the first year it was available, before that they were hybrid only.
Elizabelle
One thing to watch for, WRT electric vehicles: they have different charging ports, as do cell phones. So, you could end up in a town with plenty of Tesla chargers (and they seem to be plentiful), but none that will work for your vehicle.
I had a lovely Hyundai Kona EV rental recently. Got stranded less than 50 miles from home, because the fast charging station I depended on was offline, out of commission. Late at night. Which was when I found out that Williamsburg VA is full of Tesla chargers. But nothing at a late hour that works for the Hyundai. Ouch.
This will work itself out as EVs become more prevalent. Do you think it’s possible regulators could insist on cross-brands charging receptacles? I see the EU is finally insisting that cell phone chargers be more compatible (takes effect in 2-3 years, if memory serves) …
Main thing at this point about an EV: you really want to have a garage or a way to charge the thing overnight at home. Because without a fast charger, it takes hours upon hours. What you save in gas, you pay for in time and convenience. If you don’t have access to a charger at your residence.
Dan B
We’ve been leasing Nissan Leafs for 5+ years. We love them and would get something future proof for our next EV. EV chargers will continue to be more numerous and hopefully more reliable in a couple years. Batteries that have no Lithium, or Cobalt / Nickel are on the horizon and they will have faster charging plus dramatically longer range. And our Leafs provide affordable EV’s when the lease is up. They’ll provide batteries for homes and businesses when the battery is less than ideal for a moving vehicle. And the difference in environmental impact of building a new internal combustion or hybrid vehicle and an EV is minimal.
Running a car on coal generated electricity is better than running on gasoline.
We love the inexpensive fuel – pennies per mile, near zero maintenance, absence of oil and grease, and quiet. We charge off regular 110 household current which is easier on the battery than 220.
New EV’s in a year or two should be wonderful. There are loads of YouTube videos that are informative and entertaining. They’ll answer many of your questions.
raven
@TaMara: Yea, I’d never heard of it till now.
burnspbesq
I’m an enthusiastic EV proponent. I bought a VW ID.4 last year, and loved it. Now I have a Porsche Taycan, which is the best car I’ve ever owned by a wide margin.
EVs are the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Even the ID.4, which is relatively slow for an EV, is stupid fun to drive. Because of the weight of the battery, all EVs have a low center of gravity and wide tires, so they corner like they’re on rails.
I have a home level 2 charger, which gives me the best part of a full charge overnight. While there are still some pretty big gaps in the fast-charging infrastructure, with a little bit of planning range anxiety is a thing of the past. Cars with 800v charging architecture (my Taycan, the Hyundai Ioniq5, and the Kia EV 6) can charge form 10-80 percent in the time it takes you to pee and buy snacks and drinks.
The system works now, and it’s only going to get better. Even Texas is throwing big bucks at installing more fast chargers.
Go for it. The only thing you have to lose are your preconceptions and misconceptions.
lee
@Mike J:
I tried that trip planner from my home to one of our favorite spots to go.
This was the result. I got a good chuckle
WaterGirl
I have a 2005 Honda CRV and I’m sticking with it.
NeenerNeener
I got my Kia Niro in 2018 and even when I was driving into work 4 days a week I was going 4 weeks between fill ups. Since we went to work-from-home for COVID I’m going 10 months between fill ups.
When I first got the Niro my electric bill went up about $40/month, and it cost me about $35 a month for gas. Since the CRV I had before cost me around $180 a month for gas I was still saving money. Then I put solar panels on the garage roof in Oct 2018. The panels charge the car, and the tax rebate I got for the electric car and solar panels paid off the loan for the panels.
TaMara
@burnspbesq: I love this comment so very much.
Jay
@MobiusKlein:
they make AGM battery packs, for jump starting, running laptops etc when off grid that you can recharge at home, and carry in the vehicle, about the size of a small toaster.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
There are really only two ports: Tesla and everyone else. Tesla chose a proprietary design way back when and has stuck with it ever since. The rest of the automotive industry settled on a standard that’s now used by everyone else. Tesla doesn’t want to change because it would be incompatible with their supercharger network, but at some point they’re probably going to need to put two ports on their cars. If they do that, they’ll eventually be able to get rid of the proprietary port.
lee
@Roger Moore: The last I heard Tesla was coming out with a dongle to connect their cars to standard charging stations.
Which of course caused everyone to chuckle a bit that tech-bro’s customers are going to be reduced to using a dongle.
Redshift
A lot of progress is being made in recycling lithium-ion batteries, including techniques that produce recycled batteries that work better than ones produced from raw materials. So it looks like in the long run, the environmental and supply chain risks of batteries are not an unsolvable problem either.
Tinare
I have a very dumb question. I don’t have a garage, can a charging station be outside in elements? Cold snowy winters/hot humid summers? I’m a year or two away from giving up my 2011 Rogue, and just starting to look at the hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or electric vehicle and so I’m really, really ignorant at this point…
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: Good to know re only two types. The only other chargers that night were, alas, locked until morning. Oops. And dreadfully slow, had they been available. Finally gave up hunting with 13 miles range available. Hotel time.
But I loved that EV SUV rental. Another time.
Searcher
I have been very happily driving a Chevy Volt for the last 3 years. Besides the overall decrease in the amount of gas I use, because most trips are battery-only, it also only has an 8 gallon tank, so even at current prices I rarely spend more than $20 when I fill it up.
If you’re worried about the environmental entailments of batteries — and as others in the thread have said, I’m not that sure they are as bad as some people want you to think — a plug-in hybrid is a great middle-ground. Instead of having, say, 100kWh of batteries, in case you want to drive a few hundred miles all at once, you have 15-20kWh of batteries, that you use regularly, and a gas engine you carry around in case you do end up needing to road trip. If you don’t end up needing the extra range, your car just runs your engine for a mile or two every few months to help keep everything working right.
EntroPi
@lee: “I would think a used electric/hybrid would be an even greener decision.”
With an ICE, we look at mileage on used cars. Is there an equivalent for “charge cycles left” or “battery health” for used electrics?
J.
@MisterForkbeard: Thanks for the recommendation. Just checked online. Nothing available anywhere near me — and super expensive. But I like the car.
trollhattan
I’ll see your lithium and cobalt, and raise you the rhodium, palladium and platinum in catalytic converters, the price of which will hasten the gas engine’s demise. Plenty of other exotic materials in “regular” cars, but it’s the converters that have seen the most ghoulish price increases.
Right now, on a hot-as-fvck California day when ACs are in heavy use, renewables are nevertheless the largest electricity source for CAISO, which supplies most of the state. On cooler sunny days, solar and wind are far above half the supply during daytime.
We don’t have enough EV supply nor enough charging stations. This too, will change but I’d like the feds to do more, speeding up the process.
burnspbesq
Elon announced last year that the Supercharger network in the US would be opened to non-Tesla vehicles at some as-yet-unspecified time. It’s already happening in a number of European countries, because the EU forced Tesla to put CCS charge ports on its cars sold there. In North America, it will require adaptors in the short run, but that’s an easy thing to do (they already exist in South Korea).
Searcher
@lee: You can buy third party dongles that go both ways, so you can at least buy a dongle to use Tesla non-Supercharger stations.
European Teslas no longer use proprietary chargers, I think; regulations. I think in the US Tesla would be better off modifying their charging stations to have two types of cords during the phase-out, rather than building cars that take both.
Duncan
@Roger Moore: I would say three/Four styles
CHAdeMO – Leafs and older fast charging systems, on the way out
CCS – The actual fast charging standard for the US and Europe
Tesla – Tesla
J1772 – level 2 charging (slower than above) supported by nearly everything. getting harder to find support for it as fast chargers have higher profits
There are some more styles that don’t matter in the US or are completely deprecated.
I ride a Zero DSR motorcycle with J1772 which is nice but really CCS is that style you will most likely encounter in the wild nowadays.
dmsilev
First off, now is a horrible time to buy a new car because of all the supply chain issues and shortages and so on and so forth. Second, there certainly has been a lot of work analyzing the complete life-cycle ecological footprint of EVs vs. ICE vehicles, taking into account the factors mentioned (rare-earth mining, fraction of grid power that is clean, etc.). The answer depends on the assumptions you plug in, but generally the EV comes out ahead, especially if you project forward and make some reasonable guesses about what grid power will look like a decade or so from now. There’s also a lot of work being done on battery materials, both to increase energy densities (and hence range) and also to minimize the use of the rare earths and so forth. Still a lot of room for improvement, especially on cost. So, the balance is probably going to tip increasingly towards EVs, as battery prices drop, chemistries are tweaked, charging networks get built out, solar and wind continue to increase their shares of the grid capacity.
Miss Bianca
Man, do I miss my little Honda Civic hybrid. Flipped it on black ice ten years ago. Thinking I may try to replace my current rig with another hybrid once the time comes
Dan B
@burnspbesq: Great comment!
I love driving the Leaf and have impressed friends with the torque. Leafs are wimps compared to just about every other car but they are much better than 90% of ICE vehicles.
trollhattan
Guy who you’d completely ignore if it weren’t for the fact he has a crapton of money, has a thought.
How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
burnspbesq
@Duncan:
J1772 is a subset of CCS: the five plugs on top without the two on the bottom.
Elizabelle
Just bought a new to me used vehicle this month. Thinking it is likely the last mostly gas/hybrid I will be purchasing. New technology available when its replacement time comes around.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: I wish it would be because they will both be convicted felons and unable to vote in 2024. That would be lovely.
CaseyL
I’m following all this closely. I’ll likely drive my Scion until it dies, and I expect to get a few years out of it before that happens (barring accidents). It seems that EVs are going to make some huge leaps in the next year, so by the time I’m actually shopping for a replacement vehicle there may be some great used ones to choose from.
(I have never bought a new car, and don’t particularly want to. Seems unduly expensive.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore:
If you live in a home that can support it. Many do not.
I have said this before; electric cars are the future, but they are still the province of the well-off who frequently own more than one vehicle. This means that they can easily work around the current drawbacks. The other main market segment is those who are willing to make sacrifices to be greener. I would not be surprised if five years changes things a lot.
SectionH
@Mike J: You need charging stations if you live in high-rise condo building with no plug-ins. I bought a used Volt in 2019, and couldn’t love it more. Obvsly not for everyone – I wouldn’t try it if I had a non-flex job, for instance.
Even we weren’t so crazy to pop for an all-electric. And now there’s at least 1 other Volt owner, on our parking level, and another hybrid in the garage. Yeah, the HOA board (ikr, well trade-offs) has been (not) looking into plug-in options for years… We’ve only taken the Volt on one road, but it was 5000+ miles, so of course we gas for a lot of it. But getting back to the house we still owned in LEX, and being able to plug in at home was… oh wow, so nice. I tried not to get too spoiled.
trollhattan
@Jay: My (regular gas type) car has an AGM battery and while I eyeroll at what a replacement is going to cost, the OEM battery is in year nine, which has to be five years past the life of any car battery I’ve owned. They must be good.
burnspbesq
There is a whole etiquette that has evolved for Electrify America stations.
(1) if you’re in a CCS car, don’t use the one charger with the CHADeMO plug unless it’s the only one available—or move if a Leaf shows up.
(1) If you’re in a vehicle that can’t draw more than 150kw, use the 150kw chargers. Leave the 350kw stations for the vehicles that can use them (Taycan, Ioniq5, Ev6, Rivian, and Lucid).
Dan B
@Roger Moore: There are more ports than Tesla and the rest. Our Nissan Leaf has a port that is going to be unavailable in five or ten years. Newer model Leafs will have the right ports.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: How do you like it. I am thinking of getting a small hybrid or an electric car.
schrodingers_cat
@burnspbesq: How do you like your electric VW?
Baud
I’m holding out for hydroelectric cars.
VOR
Battery EVs are slow coming to the US, aside from Tesla. Some countries push it much harder, like Norway where they want to sell the oil internationally rather than consume it domestically. Some countries have emissions limits so auto makers would prefer to sell zero emission vehicles to meet their standards. Fun fact: Tesla gets a significant amount of money from selling emissions credits to other automakers.
Last fall I looked at two EVs and both had 11 month waiting lists. The Ford F-150 Lightning had 250k people on the reservation list while they were planning to make 40k units a year. We need more production.
The auto dealers seem to be firmly against EVs. They represent change and change is bad. Tesla doesn’t use dealerships so that’s a strike against EVs too – in they eyes of auto dealers.
As for people, a reasonably large solar farm was set up not far from my house. Neighbors complained about the noise. Uh huh.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
if you have an electric dryer or an electric range, your house can support a Level 2 charger. It’s just a matter of running a line to where you need it to be.
My JuiceBox only pulls 32 amps, but it still charges my 93kwh battery overnight.
the best Level 2 chargers have associated apps and/or timers so you can charge when juice is cheapest.
Apartment and condo dwellers are mostly screwed for now—although here in Austin, if you look on PlugShare you will see a fair number of apartment and condo complexes with chargers.
Sister Golden Bear
As the owner of a Tesla 3 who likes to road trip (and doesn’t own a second car), my main regret is that I didn’t upgrade to the “dual motor” version which increases the range from effectively 200 miles to 300+ miles. (The second motor doubles the regeneration, but doesn’t significant increase the energy usage.)
It’s not an issue around town, but it is an annoyance on weekend trips, since it can mean a bit more planning, as well as obviously a bit more travel time due to having to charge my more. That said, I’ve driven up (and over) the Sierras even using off the beaten track routes (highways 4, 49, 108, and 395 for you Californians). These are among the areas of CA with the sparsest number of chargers.
Always made it with 30-40 miles to spare, even if it can be a little anxiety producing at times. The Western Sierras are a long uphill drive, so going up I have to be careful, but coming down I’ve actually had my range increase because it was mostly regeneration.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq:
Apartments and condos, plus older neighborhoods without off street parking, are what I had in mind. I am in Madison, WI, so I see the progress being made, but they aren’t for everyone yet.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Is your car a plug-in hybrid?
Geminid
@burnspbesq: I think those big bucks Texas is throwing at charging stations come from the often underrated Infrastructure bill Congress passed last November.
Dan B
I nominate for John Cole to get an Aptera* the minute they are available.
Imagine the shockwaves that would produce in West Coal Virginia!
*Google Aptera.
Imagine Cole with a somewhat** delirious look in his eyes on windy WV roads!!
**Full tilt crazed glint will do as well.
trollhattan
@burnspbesq:
We swapped out our 240V washer and dryer for a 120V pair, with heat-pump dryer, last year so have lots of headroom with our electricity supply after that. (The old washer had a pair of water heaters in it–you could have boiled a turkey in that thing.)
The ACs are the big dogs with the oven in second place.
Smart car charging will wait until the rate tier drops to the lowest, so I assume car charging mostly occurs at night. Summer between 5 and 8 is the wrong time, that much I know.
Sister Golden Bear
@burnspbesq:
While officially it’s not recommended, there’s lots of people who get a 240w extension cord and plug it into a dryer outlet. (Though if you do, you need to spend the money to get a sufficiently thick one to minimize potential fire safety issues from an overloaded cord.) I did that for awhile, although I ended up adding a dedicated charger when I had other electrical work down.
You car may also allow you to schedule when to do the charging (Tesla does).
burnspbesq
@schrodingers_cat:
Loved it. It’s a great first EV; VW determined that most potential ID buyers would be coming from small ICE SUVs, so they made it as much like a RAV4/CRV/Escape as possible. The transition couldn’t be easier, unlike Teslas which can be a daunting challenge for older drivers. To cite only one example: ID flat doesn’t do one-pedal driving. It’s like every car you’ve driven since age 16, but so much better in so many ways. And the cargo capacity is enormous.
SectionH
I checked: we spent $67 on gas last month. And that was with a lot of running around. One ~8+ gallon fill-up (tank is technically 10 gallons but we never manage to get much more than 8 in the car) which cost $42, with the Ralph’s $.20/gal. discount – Ralph’s gas is ~$6.50/gal – and a bunch of charging totaling $25. That’s at $.49/kwh.
I’ll say this about the road trips. It was lovely to discover charging stations in unexpected places. Springfield, MO, for instance. And OK City.
I don’t think I’ll ever take my sweet little car a long road trip again planning to rent a one-way truck for the one I know I need, but it did wonderfully well in general.
eta: OMG, am I a slow typer these days!
Martin
Ok, here’s Martin’s hot take.
If you run the math on *total* emissions with BEVs vs the traditional gas powered vehicles, you don’t get the level of emission savings needed, even if all of the power for the vehicle is renewable. The problem is that the road infrastructure itself is extremely carbon intensive and gets *much* worse with BEVs because so far, BEVs increase the weight of the vehicle over gas. It’s not necessarily the battery, as it is the attitude that ‘I’m driving an electric, I can drive a land tank and not feel guilty’, plus range anxiety requiring massive batteries. The battery in the F-150 can power my house for more than a week – even with the AC running.
The problem is that road wear is proportional to the 4th power of the weight per axle. So if you go from a 3,000 lb Prius to a 4,000 lb Tesla Model 3 (pretty modest by BEV standards) the Model 3 does more than 4x as much road wear as the Prius. So that’s more paving, repair – both off which are very carbon intensive – plus increased tire and brake wear which are proving to be much more substantial emission sources than we thought.
The problem is that we’ve been deluding ourselves thinking that we can address climate change without making lifestyle changes (count me in to that team as of a few years ago). But it’s increasingly clear that there won’t be any magic technologies to save us here. Yes, BEVs are still a LOT better, but they aren’t better enough if the end result is the same number of cars on the road, just with them all being electric instead of gas. The transportation sector doesn’t improve enough to get us to Paris targets even if everything else comes in on target (electricity generation, etc.)
At the end of the day, we have to either remove cars from the road and adopt more mass transit, or reduce the mass of the vehicles. Rather than F-150s (6,100 lbs curb weight, or 17x as much road wear as a Prius) we need Fourtwos (2,000 lb curb weight, or 20% as much road wear as the Prius) at least for the 2nd vehicle in every household. Sure, keep a family hauler, but make that commuter vehicle or errand runner as small and light as you can manage (50lb e-bike in my case, or 1/10,000% as much road wear as a Prius. Basically every bicycle in the United States combined does about as much road wear as one semi.) Move what you can to mass transit.
As to the question of how do I get plywood home (I do woodworking as a hobby, so this actually happens rather a lot) the cost difference from my bike to the cheapest BEV on the market pays for a lumber delivery every weekend for the next 15 years – not accounting for savings in insurance, etc.
We’re going to have to make some changes. My attitude is to choose the changes that you personally are most comfortable with and do them voluntarily, because if the government steps up and forces the changes to happen (or Mother Nature does that) there won’t be any consideration of what works best for you. Me, I don’t mind $7 gas ($6.89 across the street from me) because my bike uses none, and our Prius still only costs $80 round trip to drive up to see my son, which is half what a round trip airline ticket would cost for just one of us. But not everyone can live my lifestyle and so my solutions may not work for everyone. That’s why proper societies provide a range of options for people to choose from. But the fact that I chose my solution is important. It required a certain amount of adaptation, but I had agency over that. And I should note that I made the change before I retired. Before Covid even.
Dan B
@burnspbesq: That VW is a gorgeous car, especially the interior.
The Moar You Know
Cole: you’re not wrong and you live in a state that has no electric car infrastructure at all. I would wait if I were in your place.
I do live in a state with the infrastructure and my next car will be an electric, probably a GM small SUV or maybe the Ford Lightning. It will not be a Tesla. My parents had two, the first (2013) was far better built than the second (2020) which has some REALLY questionable design decisions. The quality of the Model 3s I see every day is abysmal.
My electric bike comes in early July so we’re going to see how that goes. Baby steps.
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA: I know you live in an area with serious winter, so you might want to spend the extra $4k for all-wheel drive. That also gives you a (completely unnecessary IMO) extra 100 horsepower.
Sister Golden Bear
@burnspbesq:
Here in CA, you’re seeing a lot of them spring up in commercial center parking lots (there’s some next to my grocery store) as well as office parks.
When I first got my car, I mostly charged it that way (plus a paltry amount from my home 120w outlet). Admittedly it was a bit of pain, due to having to plan ahead more, but it wasn’t undoable for around town. Especially if there was a faster charger available, I could stop for coffee and then shop for groceries and the car would be fully charged by the time I was done.
schrodingers_cat
@burnspbesq: Thanks! It is definitely on my list. BTW did you watch 83?
dp
Here’s something I know a little bit about.
We have owned hybrid vehicles exclusively since 2008. We’ve never had a plug-in hybrid; all of ours have been of the “charge it by driving” type. We have had a hybrid Camry, a Prius, a GMC Yukon (!), and currently have a Honda Insight and Hyundai Ioniq. The Camry and Prius were both totaled by being hit in the rear-end, but we got well over 100,000 miles out of each of them before their unfortunate fate. The Yukon was a GMC POS generally (all the problems were with the gas engine and systems), but I still nursed it to 200,000 miles before donating it to my local NPR station (and it got twice the gas mileage of the Expedition it replaced). Our current Honda and Hyundai get 52 and 65 mpg, respectively.
I will never own another car that is not an electric or, at least, a hybrid. Except for the Yukon, we’ve had literally no problems with them (other than the Toyotas’ rear-ends’ magnet-like propensities). I highly recommend a “conventional” hybrid.
You should look around. Toyota has a number of hybrid models, including a Highlander if you’re into the SUV thing.
Martin
@burnspbesq: Most of the time, yeah. But a lot of older homes only have a 100A service, and those homes will find it almost impossible to run an air conditioner and charge a car off of 40A service at the same time. Newer homes with a 200A service, it’s probably no sweat.
We have 40A charger (wife’s plug-in hybrid), a 40A service to the electric water heater (replacement for our old gas one) and a 30A service to the AC.
A lot of homes that add solar also upgrade their panel to a 200A one. We’ve been swapping out our gas appliances for electric ones, and the old panel never could have handled it.
Anyone looking to add solar should take a look at the Span smart panel. If you might add a home battery, you probably would add a sub panel to put your most critical things on the battery. The Span panel does that through software. I don’t have one but I’m currently looking at it to see if it would work for us.
Another Scott
I’m also thinking about what my next vehicle (after my 2004 TDI) should be. Though they’re still selling ~ 1.x M cars and trucks in the US every month, the market is still weird from the supply-chain challenges. Used cars are still too spendy.
How much do you drive? Would an electric bike make sense for commuting and stuff in town, while only using the CR-V for shopping and longer trips? Electric cars are great, in principle. But they’re big and heavy and ultimately we need to figure out how to move single humans around in devices that don’t weigh 5000 pounds and cost tens of thousands of dollars… Not making a trip is even better than using green electricity.
Happy hunting.
Cheers,
Scott.
Duncan
@burnspbesq: yes, though it preceded CCS and using J1772 only on a CCS charger is not something I have been able to work out in practice.
trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
Compared to the complexity, including safety and environmental equipment, then maintenance and inspections, etc. of a typical gas station, an EV station is dead simple and cheap. They can become commonplace with adequate support for doing so.
For commuters, having them at the workplace and school, is the obvious resolution for apartment dwellers.
Sister Golden Bear
@burnspbesq:
To reiterate what I said earlier, all-wheel drive may also give you extra range, due to the second motor that can be really useful. Unfortunately, I passed on it for my Tesla because I don’t really need 4WD for winter, and nor the extra horsepower. Didn’t think that one all the way through.
Mo Salad
I ended up having to buy my 2018 EcoSport at lease end. The buyout was $14,200 and the trade in value was $20,700. And I was under about 15,000 miles due to a year and a half of WFH.
Took a 4 year loan knowing that I will be at least $6,500 above water on any trade-in and even more on a direct sale at any time during the loan’s life. It will get me through the next year or three and will be my last ICE.
SectionH
@SectionH: @91 – we spent the total $ on transport using the car. Not on gas. Mostly drove on electric.
Martin
A pitch for plug-in hybrids. We have one with about a 20 mile range, and apart from our trips to see my son, we’d probably put gas in it about once a year. 60% of all trips in the US are 6 miles or less. So even though it has 8% as much range as a full-tilt BEV, almost all trips are much shorter than that. So if you don’t have a lot of infrastructure and still need a jack of all trades vehicle, find a plug-in hybrid with a battery large enough for your most common trip length. If it’s 20 miles each way to work, look for a 40-ish mile range one. You’ll cut your gas usage by probably 90% or more and still have the flexibility of gas.
Give serious consideration to whether you can downsize your vehicle, because that will have more of a long-term impact on your costs than anything. Remember, oil prices hit $140/bbl in 2008 ($190/bbl adjusted for inflation). They’re only $115/bbl now. This isn’t even remotely how high prices can go from past experience. We’ve had 14 years to internalize this knowledge and adjust our buying habits and for the most part everyone did absolute dick. Every improvement to mileage standards since 2008 was met by car buyers buying larger cars to wipe out those benefits, which is why everyone is freaking out now.
catclub
This sounds like all the rightwingers who think California is terrible, but does not explain why over 40million people live there. Similarly electric car prices are UP. This indicates strong demand.
burnspbesq
@schrodingers_cat:
Havent seen it yet, but it looks interesting. I have a subscription to willow.tv, so I get to watch a lot of cricket.
kindness
I’m a fan of Tesla’s vehicles but now would refuse to give that asshole Elon any money at all. Last weekend I went to Dead & Co at the Shoreline Theater and a buddy came with a friend in a new Ford Mustang EV. They’re kinda mini SUV, not like the gas cars. 320 mile range. I was impressed. I’d consider that one.
Fair Economist
@RobertDSC-iPhone 8: There are certainly poor people in this country, but by far the economically rational choice is to raise gas prices and give greater income supports to the poor. We have to use a lot less fossil fuels, starting yesterday.
As Paris is showing, it’s possible for society to move away from car dependence *fast* once the decision is made.
RaflW
“I think $8-9 a gallon would be a target I would like to see in an ideal world. It’s a price high enough to maybe start actually changing people’s behaviors. At the same time, that will be devastating to the vast majority of Americans” who just trotted out like good ‘Mericans and bought massive, 5000-6000 lb vehicles to drive to Target or their jobs in over the past decade, ignoring all warnings of climate change, peak oil, etc.
I have sympathy for the working poor who do have to shoulder an undue burden in that our transit systems mostly suck, working swing or graveyard and riding a bus is nigh on impossible except in maybe a tiny handful of cities, etc.
But jebus Americans sure did want ducking insanely large, gas hog vehicles. It’ll take 10-15 YEARS of high gas prices to get that shit crushed and recycled.
catclub
Creedence Clearwater Survivor?
Sister Golden Bear
@trollhattan:
Interestingly, I’ve seen several EV stations that appear to be on the edge of property owned by gas stations — mostly rural areas where there’s room to do so. Not sure how much money the gas station makes off leasing the land, but it’s an interesting additional revenue stream for them.
The lease money is also essentially free money to shopping centers, with the added benefit that some people may visit the shopping center while charging (Tesla seems to mostly place their chargers in shopping centers with a coffee house and/or restaurant.) Albeit often the chargers are inconveniently at the far end of the parking lot.
schrodingers_cat
@burnspbesq: I saw it on Netflix. Brought back memories.
GrannyMC
I am not an expert either, but I pay attention. Just about everybody who does know this shit (and I mean actual scientists and engineers, not Elon Musk) is saying that lithium-ion batteries will be obsolete in a few years, and are arguably so already. The show-stopper problem with sodium-ion batteries appears to have been solved by at least two different research groups, and there are promising developments in other technologies. I can’t predict the future, but this seems like a good time to wait and see.
Sister Golden Bear
@burnspbesq:
The VW wasn’t out when I bought my Tesla, but seeming similar approaches by other car makers were one reason I ended up buying a Tesla (although I wouldn’t do so today). I really didn’t like the look of the small SUV or hatchback EVs, I wanted something similar to the Mazda 3 that I drove into the ground, i.e. more stylist and sporty. Hoping that there will be more options along those lines when I eventually drive the Tesla into the ground.
dp
@dp: And to the extent this thread is about electric vehicles, I cannot miss the opportunity to brag on my son, who is a Nissan engineer, who early next year will begin a two-year posting to their design facility in Yokohama, to return as Nissan North America’s “expert” on electric vehicles!
Baud
@dp:
schrodingers_cat
@burnspbesq: No one thought (me included) that the Indian team would make it to the semi-finals let alone bring home the World Cup.
burnspbesq
@Sister Golden Bear:
Because of where Electrify America has chosen to put its stations, road-tripping a CCS car has been described as “seeing America one Wal-Mart at a time.” They do generally have clean restrooms, though.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
And, of course, the changes you’re personally comfortable with depend on your circumstances. City dwellers can more easily switch to public transit than country dwellers, for instance. But city people would have an even easier time making that switch if we had better public transit options.
I look at my personal circumstances, and I think they’re kind of the general problem in a microcosm. I have commuted primarily by public transit since a stop was built across the street from my work about 6 years ago. I mostly walk to the station, but it’s a 2 mile walk, so it’s not practical for most people. When I didn’t feel like walking- mostly because of uncooperative weather- I could take the bus until about a year ago, when our metro system cancelled the bus routes in the neighborhood and replaced them with an on-demand system of individual rideshare-like vehicles. It almost works, but a regular bus service would be better. The problem is the bus service we had before wasn’t frequent enough for anyone to depend on it, so nobody took it. If they had switched to buses every 15 minutes, they probably would have increased per-vehicle ridership even though it would mean more buses on the road.
The really frustrating thing to me is that the main thoroughfare those buses drive on has a huge median that used to be the right of way for one of LA’s famous Red Car lines. When they shut down the trolleys, in many places they just turned the rights of way into oversized medians for the streets that had replaced (and in some cases doomed) them. If we really wanted to, we could revive the trolley lines in the very same rights of way they used to use. It would be a fantastic way of extending our public transit system, but it’s very unlikely ever to happen.
Butter Emails
@Martin:
By your metrics, is the road wear and tear of a standard passenger vehicle even relevant for many roads given the existence of loaded semi trucks clocking in at around 80,000 lbs? That’s 40 times the weight of a standard passenger car or 2,560,000 times the wear and tear.
In addition, what percentage of the wear and tear on roads and infrastructure is attributable to the traffic, and what is weathering?
burnspbesq
@schrodingers_cat:
And 39 years later, broadcast and streaming rights to the IPL went for USD 6.2 billion. With a B.
BretH
2011 Prius, bought maybe 5 years ago for about $7000, zero problems, 50mpg, I love never having to think about anything, I just drive it wherever I want, as far as I need. Only issue was needing to add a catalytic converter guard as my neighbors was removed one evening while we must have been out.
I bought it after seeing thousands of earlier generation Priuses just chugging away day after day. Will run it as long as possible – maybe then the EV choices will become clearer.
Kent
I have a 2016 Prius with near 100,000 miles on it that has been giving me a reliable 50 mpg here in the Vancouver WA area. I’ll drive it until it is no longer reliable, or pass it off to my 11th grade daughter when she goes to college if she goes to a school where she will need a car. But this is my last ICE car for sure.
Right now I’m facing a ridiculous $2000 repair job for a new catalytic converter that I’ve been putting off. Toyota did a stupid thing and routed a coolant line into a heat exchanger built into the catalytic converter for the purpose of warming up the coolant faster in winter so that the cabin heater would warm faster. But these heat exchangers have turned out to be unreliable and when they fail you get coolant squirting into your exhaust producing large plumes of white smoke and making the car undrivable. Looks just like a blown head gasket.
The problem is that Toyota has no new catalytic converters available for these cars anywhere in the country due to the dual problems of catalytic converter theft and supply chain issues. So I can’t get it replaced no matter what and when they do come back in stock at some unknown point in the future it is a $2,000+ repair job. As a temporary hack I climbed under the car and rigged up a bypass coolant hose to route around the catalytic converter (which is still perfectly fine other than the coolant heat exchanger). I might just leave it like that forever. But it illegal to buy a used catalytic converter and no shop will work on the car until I can get a new Toyota provided one.
At this point I’m done with the stupidity of internal combustion engines and the next car will most certainly be 100% electric. But hopefully not for a few more years at least.
Kent
I have the Nissan Ariya pegged as our next car. But hopefully not for a few more years. Looks like a very sweet electric.
Nissan has absolutely been kicking both Toyota and Honda’s ass when it comes to electrics.
Cmorenc
I have a 2019 Toyota rav-r4 hybrid that has consistently averaged 42 mpg over the 45k accumulated more led, both city and extendef interstate highway. The hybrid version of the rav actually has more useful power than the gas/only version – 1750 lb towing capacity vs 1500 for the gad-only version, and i have actually used it to tow a 9×5 trailer loaded to the gills with brush. Over 400 miles on tank of gas. Very solidly, well/built, well-thought out, both inside and out –
i would highly tecommend it – if you csn find one.
KM in NS
I have a Ford Mach-e and I LOVE it. I get ~400 kms in summer and ~330kms in a Canadian winter. It’s good for commuting to downtown Halifax and for day trips in the surrounding areas.
No emissions and plenty of torque. Fun to drive and stylish.
I let NS Power decide when to charge so I can take advantage of time of day rates, which is in the middle of the night.
If on a long trip I can do a fast charge which will give me 80% battery in 40 minutes. Even a gas engine needs a fill up after 4-6 hours. So, I can charge in about the same time it takes to refill and take a bathroom break.
There are EV charging stations at Petro Canada stations along the trans Canada highway. Although I haven’t tried it yet, I feel confident that I will be able to take a major trip with a normal amount of planning.
I’m hooked! I’ll not go back to gas powered.
Stuart Frasier
@Martin: Damage to the roads is proportional to the 4th power of axle load. That means that nearly all road damage comes from commercial vehicles. The difference between an ICE vehicle and a 1,000 lb heavier BEV is not significant. A single garbage truck will do as much damage as several hundred thousand cars.
dp
@Kent: Yes, Toyota invested a ton in hybrids, while Nissan took the alternate approach of moving to pure electric. I think it’s going to pay off for them, and Toyota kind of got caught with their pants down.
Chief Oshkosh
All is answered here (and Fully Charged is a lot of fun!):
https://youtu.be/mk-LnUYEXuM
trollhattan
@catclub: One place hippies and rednecks merge is hatred of the electric company. They’ll both put up panels to “stick it to the man” but I wonder if buying an EV is capitulating to that same man, for rednecks? BP is their friend, naturally (with the handy distraction of “if it weren’t for the TAXES gas would be cheap again”).
Cmorenc
@MobiusKlein:
my now-38yo daughter got a 2000 honda crv for her 16th birthday, and still drives it daily as her work/shopping/toting kids car. And she could easily afford to replace it if she wanted – she is an anesthesiologist.
trollhattan
@dp: Toyota’s still kinda distracted by hydrogen and fuel cells, which Honda seems to have ditched. Maybe they know more about green hydrogen than I do. I haven’t seen any schemes for scaling that up.
KM in NS
I forgot to mention that an all electric has fewer moving parts and way less service needs. My first service will be at 16k for a tire rotation. No oil changes or any other regular maintenance. The price of the car outweighs the maintenance costs by a lot.
The only issue is that it’s so new the “business managers” haven’t kept up and tried to sell extended warranty for oil changes, exhaust, etc. I wasn’t impressed!
Stuart Frasier
@Stuart Frasier: Math fail, a single 32 ton garbage truck causes about as damage as ~40,000 3,000 lb cars.
katdip
@MobiusKlein: Amen, have a Kia Niro PHEV with electric range that covers 90 percent of our in town trips, and 40 -50 mpg if we go further afiled. Have the 100 percent green power plan in SF, so charging is climate friendly. The drivetrain isn’t the smoothest, but fit and finish are good and I like to small-stationwagon form factor a lot.
Kent
@KM in NS:
Exactly. If we were starting from scratch today, and designing personal mobility vehicles we would never dream of going with gasoline over electric. Gasoline is just worse in every way from complexity, maintenance, pollution, fuel storage needs, danger, etc. The only reason gasoline cars are still dominant is just legacy issues and inertia.
The one exception is probably urban folks who don’t have their own parking space and have to park on the street. But that is a solvable problem.
Roger Moore
@Butter Emails:
The road wear potential is actually proportional to weight per axle, not total vehicle weight. Since a typical semi has 5 axles to 2 for the typical passenger car, the weight per axle is “only” 16 times higher and the road wear is “only” 65,000 times higher. But the wear and tear is obviously massively greater for a truck than for a car.
It obviously depends on the road and the traffic. A lightly used road in Minnesota probably gets the majority of its damage from weather, while a freeway in Southern California gets it almost exclusively from traffic. But there’s a combined effect that’s really important; weather can do more damage to roads that are already damaged than to ones that are pristine.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I think a lot of the stuff about electric vehicles is fear of the new. Once EVs get to be a regular person option, especially when there are electric versions of nearly every vehicle type, the people who used to fear them will discover they have some real advantages. People who actually use their trucks for truck things rather than fancy daily drivers will appreciate the massive torque and ability to power all their power tools from the truck battery.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Agree. In NorCal Tesla seems to have done for electrics what Toyota did for hybrids, which is to put enough of them on the road and more importantly, in driveways (NB it is illegal in most of California to put a car in your garage, you could look it up), that they have become utterly commonplace.
Visibility is important. Priuses/Prii are identifiable at a glance. Teslas are identifiable at a glance. Lot’s of new EVs look “just like cars” and don’t communicate what they are, same for hybrids but nobody thinks that technology is weird and suspect anymore.
We’ll get there.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Gasoline does have some real advantages. It’s much faster to refill a gas tank with fuel than to recharge a battery, even with the best battery charging tech. And if you want the greatest range, gas is a better tradeoff. Basically, electric vehicles have lighter engines and heavier energy storage, while ICE vehicles have heavier engines and lighter energy storage. If you’re mostly going to take short trips, electricity wins. But if you want to travel a long way, or if you need to haul heavy loads, batteries are just way too heavy compared to ICE fuel. Hybrids are an interesting middle route, which adds some weight and complexity from the battery system but gets better fuel economy in exchange.
Ruckus
There are other, seemingly far better battery designs being brought to fruition, that use far more available and cheaper chemicals, that have far more capacity density that will make better car batteries. There is a tremendous amount of research going on that will come to an end one way or another. Because we simply can not continue to go in the direction of burning stuff to get around, to spend huge sums using relatively dangerous chemicals to get around, when there is an alternative that is functional.
Is it a big change when we have been using petroleum for a rather long time? Sure it is. But not a lot more than 100 yrs ago it was a big change when many people could even get a car. 104 yrs ago my dad was brought west to CA by his parents in a horse drawn wagon. Now look around. And look at the air we breath. 50 yrs ago we used to measure how bad it was by how far we could actually see in LA. Mountains 25 miles away was very rare, some years you could count the days on your fingers. Tall buildings 3-4 miles away were often not visible. While in pre med 50 yrs ago I saw a cadaver lung where the bottom 25% of it was gray/black rather than pink and someone asked if it was from smoking. The answer was it was just a normal lung from an LA resident, if it had been a smoker it would have been all black. We have done better, as one can see any day, but that better is not good enough. Besides the cost of petroleum is getting past being affordable. I just filled my tank 2 days ago, it was $60 at the cheapest station for less than 10 gallons and my car gets 24mpg around town and up to 45 mpg on the highway. If I lived in Europe or most places in the world it would be more. We can’t keep doing this, it is bad for the air we breathe, it is bad for our wallets and it is bad for the future of, well everything. The only reason vlad has the money to rein terror and bullshit upon Ukraine is the cost and use of petroleum.
We have possibilities. I use the LA Metro system of electric trains/subways powered only by electricity. It works. 50 yrs ago in Europe I traveled once or twice on similar trains. All trains today are electric and have been for decades, it’s how the electricity is supplied that is different. Diesel/electric or overhead/subway third rail are the 3 ways and overhead/subway rail are far more efficient and don’t burn stuff. Like a lot of things in our lives, past, present or future, things change. They often change like it or not. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. We have seen worse than we currently have in personal transportation, much of it in my lifetime. We have and are seeing better as well and have little possibility of continuing the “old” ways. Such is life. Take it from a geezer that has years left, it’s past time.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Gasoline (and diesel) energy density is very hard to compete against. One reason ethanol/methanol can’t replace it easily. Also why aviation will lag behind surface transportation in converting to non-carbon fuel.
Odd to think gasoline was an unwanted and very dangerous byproduct of refining crude oil.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I think Tesla has done something beyond just putting vehicles in the hands of drivers. They’ve succeeded in making electric cars into a status symbol. People want a Tesla to show they’ve made it. That was never going to happen as long as car manufacturers focused on EVs as a symbol of environmental consciousness.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
This is rapidly changing.
Gasoline has the advantage of being here for decades. The vehicles reflect decades of improvement to be where they are and while electric has drawbacks (what doesn’t?) we are at the start of the evolution rather than the end. And to continue that evolution there have to be steps taken – all evolution has steps. Current electric cars are about step 3. They are some pretty big steps but the product actually does currently work more than well enough. It is different for sure, but it is better in so many ways and the drawbacks are minimal. If the current rate of development continues anywhere near the rate it is at, this will make gasoline look ridiculous before long.
WB Clark
An extended-range electric like the Chevy Volt still seems to me to be the best bet. However that is changing fast. Everyone seems to be making full electric vehicles these days so that means the charging infrastructure we’ll have to grow among other things. One good thing is that batteries are often useful in other ways after they’re no longer useful for the vehicle. Battery Technology is also changing rapidly. One thing that is still in the research phase is lithium sulfur https://drexel.edu/news/archive/2022/february/lithium-sulfur-cathode-carbonate-electrolyte.
Kent
Yes, but gas has a 100-year head start. If we were starting from scratch right now there is no way we would be going with gasoline any more than we’d be building steam-powered vehicles powered by coal.
You give gas and electric equal investments in technology and infrastructure development over the past 100 years electricity wins easily.
Kent
That is also why Elon makes those super high-powered Plaid Teslas that do an insane 2 second 0-60 and top out at 175 mph. Barely anyone ever buys them or can afford them. But regular Tesla Model 3 drivers still have that aura of performance.
No one, for example, talks about the acceleration or top speed of a Prius or Nissan Leaf.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
A portion of the Metro train system is the old red car right of way.
I ride the Metro train system a lot because I have to drive 45 miles to the VA and the Metro system is normally as fast as driving at about 1/4 the cost. I’ve done the drive before and it has been faster one time out of a lot. Normally it is the same – or slower. Now that gas is over $6/gal it is a lot cheaper.
Ruckus
@GrannyMC:
There is a very recent breakthrough in sulfur batteries that if it holds will also be a game changer. Cheaper – sulfur is far more available/cheaper than lithium, a higher storage capacity/battery cubic inch, faster charging, cheaper by a bunch.
NotMax
Remain giddy over the Maverick hybrid. Understanding that while a pick-up isn’t for everyone, the bare bones base model price of around $20k blows the competition out of the water.
Feel fortunate that mine got built, even though that entailed a lengthy wait from the time the order was placed, as (like ALL auto/truck companies currently) Ford has been struggling with constrained or sluggish production due to supply chain and chipset hiccups.
Don’t need to drive all that much anymore, so only 175 miles clocked thus far, three months after delivery. On track to reach or better 600 miles on what is still the inaugural tanks of gas.
BottyGuy
Here is my experience and what I know of the current state of EVs.
Break even point for energy used to build an EV vs an ICE depends mainly on your electricity generation mix. For WV that’s about 88% coal and would like 60-70k miles. The U.S. on average is about 25% coal and the break even is about 13k miles.
Every object you see is either mined or grown, raping the land in some way. I don’t see how lithium or nickel is worse than copper, aluminum, iron or nickel. The biggest issue for EVs right now is the supply chain, it’s just not mature enough to make a lot of EVs. Also there is a lot of work going on to get rid of things like Cobalt which are both expensive and questionable.
EV batteries seem to last longer than previously expected.They are also very reusable for grid storage, and very recyclable. Presumably once everyone has an EV the need for incremental Lithium, etc mining will reduce. The major recycling issue today is that there aren’t enough end of life batteries to make it very profitable.
I very rarely use a DC fast charger, probably 8 times over the last year. My VW gets about 250 miles fully charged, level 2 charging at home or work handles most of my needs. I find the DC chargers are pretty available between larger cities in NC, but nowhere to be found on the coast or mountains (even Tesla).
If I need to take a longer trip I do need to plan for DC chargers, I also plan for backups. This works for me, but it is a non starter for my wife. A lot of people can’t even plan ahead to get in the right lane for the exits they need to take, so a lot of people aren’t capable of managing an EV. The number of DC chargers has been growing, and I suspect it will speed up.
buying an EV right now is a lot like buying a PC in 1995. There is always a much better one coming in 6 months. Your EV today will be less capable than a new one next year. I expect battery tech will improve tremendously in the next 5 years. I bought an EV because my last car was on its last legs.
I really enjoy my EV. Overall it is a much better experience than a gas car. I charge at home, and I am fortunate to be able to charge for free at my work. My VW averages 3.5miles per kWh, electricity rate here is $0.10 per kWh, that’s 2.8 cents a mile, equivalent to $0.86 per gallon in a 30mpg car. DC charging is about $0.35 per kWh which would be $3 per gallon equivalent.
Ruckus
@RobertDSC-iPhone 8:
Wait till you retire if you want to think about high gas price. The only benefit is that I don’t drive all that much. For me a hybrid would likely be OK, if I didn’t think that any gas powered vehicle is wrong. But. I likely won’t ever have an electric car because I have a going on 6 yr old car that has less than 15K miles under it’s belt. The last 3 yrs I’ve lived 1 mile from work – I walked unless it was raining – this is LA so not that often. As I said above I just filled up, over $6/gal cost me $60. Gets decent mileage and is paid for and I’m retired with a decent rapid transit system here in LA County.
BottyGuy
@BottyGuy: also I”ll note that over the last 10 years coal generation has been cut in half, replace with equal amounts of natural gas and renewables. Now renewables are less expensive than gas. As an economic matter replacing coal plants will happen, even in WV.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: I agree that, unless people in the developed (& rapidly developing) world are prepared to make significant changes to their lifestyles that involve consuming much less & tolerating much lower creature comforts, as well as people in the underdeveloped world are prepared to give up the dream of living the developed world lifestyle, humanity will continue to face trade offs between different kinds of environmental damage. It is not just the process of making batteries that is environmentally unfriendly (not to mention their disposal), but the mining & purification of rare earth metals that go into batteries, solar panels & wind turbines are even more environmentally damaging.
I am not in a position to grandstand here, since I am not really prepared to give up the modern creature comforts.
Ruckus
@Searcher:
Much if not most of the EU only allows CCS charging ports, Tesla has proprietary ports here but has to put the CCS ports in European cars. Also I’ve seen Supercharger stations in Pasadena with non Tesla cars charging so they may have already started adding non Tesla charging there. However they charge almost twice as much to charge a non Tesla.
Ruckus
@SectionH:
Pasadena, you know home of the Rose Parade, passed a law a few years back that apartments/condos with provided parking (all of them I think) had to provide on site charging. The building I lived in over 3 yrs ago had them installed/operational before I moved.
dp
@Kent: I think gasoline’s intense energy density has disguised a lot of the problems of the inherent complexity of reciprocating engines, even before you get into emissions issues.
JKC
I bought a Ford Escape hybrid in January 2020 right before things all went to hell on us. I originally picked the hybrid power train for reliability. The system used by both Ford and Toyota is simple, and based on what I’ve observed with various Priuses, is damned near indestructible. Now that gas prices are up the fuel economy ain’t bad either.
If I were to do it again, a Toyota RAV4 Prime would be my first choice.
Ruckus
@dp:
One also has to put in the 100+ yrs of manufacturing and chemical production since the start of the majority of the automotive market. Even in my lifetime gasoline cars were crap because of manufacturing limitations and the electrical grid. I remember the electric buses in LA, which were far better than the gas/diesel ones, overhead power lines for the buses used to be normal in all major LA streets. Their limitation of course was the overhead lines limited their routes. But by the end of the 50s most of those buses were gone, replaced by petroleum power.
Matt McIrvin
The question of total environmental cost of EVs is complicated, but the Union of Concerned Scientists did the math some years ago and found that when it comes to climate specifically, unless you’re in a place where the electric power mix is heavily dependent on coal (but Cole may well live in such a place), EVs come out ahead of even very efficient gasoline-powered vehicles. It’s good enough for me.
That said– when I last needed a car I bought a hybrid instead, myself, because the charging situation is still very inconvenient if you don’t own a house with a garage. I still feel nice and smug getting my 50 MPG when everyone else is grumbling about filling up their Chevy Suburbans.
I gotta say, there are some damn good hybrids out there and if you are worried about range, they are the range KINGS. I like the hybrid Hyundai Sonata (which I bought) and the hybrid Toyota Corolla too.
soapdish
Here’s a term no one has used in over a decade.
Hypermiling.
Because it’s mostly bullshit; it’s less about the prices and more about being able to bitch about something.
Seriously, if your life is entirely dependent on being able to pay $2.50/gallon for gas vs $5 you’ve got bigger problems than gas prices.
Matt McIrvin
@WB Clark: Those Chevy Volt-type vehicles– plug-in electrics with ICE range extenders– seem to have pretty much disappeared from the market. I think it was just too hard to explain what they were, how they differed from other hybrids and why they might be preferable. A pure electric is easy to understand; so is “it’s just a gasoline powered car but it gets 50+ miles a gallon”.
dp
@Ruckus: Absolutely. That 100-year head start allowed intensive engineering of both reciprocating engines (turbines, while much simpler, aren’t sufficiently efficient for individual transport) and petroleum refining that has to be made up by EVs. But the leaps we’re seeing in battery technology, while not making me optimistic, somewhat quell my pessimism.
Matt McIrvin
@raven: To some degree. But there are different varieties of hybrid. Not all of them can plug in. Mine is functionally just a gasoline-powered car, but a very efficient one because of the tricks it pulls with electric power storage and recovery.
Most hybrids have a mode in which they are just operating like a conventional car with the ICE mechanically driving the wheels. But they’ll only do that when it is the most efficient mode available. And they will recover kinetic energy through regen braking and use that to get up to speed later with the electric motor. They can also use electricity to spin up the engine to any desired RPM, so it doesn’t waste gasoline getting itself going at low speed (which is inefficient). The systems get pretty complicated.
Matt McIrvin
@soapdish: “Hypermiling” was always more of a hobby. All cars still are more or less efficient depending on how you drive them, because of basic physics, but a modern hybrid or EV will make it a lot less important unless you have a real lead foot.
NotMax
‘@soapdish
Hypermiling to coax the most from electric running miles and from regenerative braking comes up frequently as a topic in forums about electric/ICE hybrids.
Chris T.
Worth mention: while EV batteries do have some rare-earth elements (REEs) in them, that’s because they have electronics in them. The REEs are part of the electronics, not part of the batteries proper. Your computer, keyboard, phone, TV, etc all have REEs too.
(Permanent-magnet motors have big honkin’ neodymium magnets, and neodymium is a REE. Telsa used to use AC induction motors but apparently they have new designs using PMMs now in the Model 3. See https://electrek.co/2018/02/27/tesla-model-3-motor-designer-permanent-magnet-motor/ for details, for instance. For more about REEs, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element.)
BTW I drove my EV to get pizza the other day, and the charger (which is approximating $.12/kWh, which is close enough where I am) says that it was about 90 cents. In the gasoline powered vehicle (spouse’s car) it would have been over $4. (We’re not that far away from town as the crow flies—or maybe the bluejay, we see a lot more bluejays than crows here—but there are lakes and mountains in the way so it’s a long drive to town.)
Chris T.
@Roger Moore: The Nissan Leaf still has, or had, their funky CHAdeMO connector (last checked a few years ago, have they gone to CCS?). The EVGo and EA stations around here have both CHAdeMO and CCS.
Chris T.
@Tinare:
Yes—or more precisely, “yes if you buy the ones that are outdoor rated”, which are more expensive of course.
A lot of the EVs now have a “prepare for drive” mode as well, so that you can pre-heat or pre-cool them while they’re plugged in at home.
There’s a downside to having an outdoor rated charger outside: some people who steal copper wire (e.g., from the street lights) or vandalize stuff may attack yours. Same sort of problem as catalytic converter thievery, really.
Another Scott
DoE Interactive Timeline – History of the Electric Car:
The advantages of electric cars have been recognized for almost 200 years. The problem has mostly been the batteries. DoE investment in battery research has helped improve things (e.g. the batteries in the 2010 Chevy Volt), but much, much more work needs to be done (gasoline has about 500x the energy density as lead-acid batteries). US (and the world) investing more in battery research would help accelerate progress. We’re getting there, but it will take time. Remember what the first IBM PC was like… ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris T.
@VOR:
Well, it makes the sun roar all day long, doncha know!
Chris T.
@Omnes Omnibus:
There are a bunch of ways to deal with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGbGP5u588Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjiR-Wz_Z8s
(There are many more like this, but if there are none in your city, well…)
YY_Sima Qian
The dilemma that John C. described is really just the transition phase from a hydrocarbon based economy to one based on something else. If completely relying upon the private sector, that transition phase will be quite drawn out. To address the immediate threat of AGW, state intervention is absolutely necessary to shorten than transition as much as possible.
I will give a quick summary of the developments in China, the other extreme from the US as far as a large complex economy is concerned:
The CCP regime pursued these strategic endeavors to reduce China’s energy dependence, to reduce air pollution, to reduce the damage AGW will have on the ecosphere in China, & not the least to ensure China takes the commanding heights of Industrial Revolution 4.0, much as Europe, North American & Japan did for Industrial Revolutions 1.0 – 3.0. There are a lot of bads & uglies associated w/ the CCP regime’s hard authoritarian rule, but the embrace of energy transition & realistic plan of implementation, by a science & engineering literate leadership, has been one of the goods. One of the more immediate benefits has been the dramatic improvement in air quality. Particular air pollution in China has dropped by > 50% on average over the past 14 years. Air quality in most cities are still not consistently good (though often decent the majority of time), but they are no longer “airpocalypse” bad.
The energy transition necessary to address AGW will need to happen on multiple fronts simultaneously, & will substantial state investment & intervention to push things along. What China has done is an extreme example, but most of Europe & East Asia are taking similar steps, if to lesser extents. Unfortunately, this level of state intervention & industrial policy is anathema to the politics in the US.
Chris T.
@kindness:
Interesting … I saw one charging at an EA charger while I was charging my own EV (coming back from SeaTac airport) and it looked nice from the outside, but looked sports-car-esque to me.
YY_Sima Qian
How did my post end up in moderation?
Chris T.
@burnspbesq: EA stations here seem to be at Target and Fred Meyer (local supermarket, owned by Kroger, very similar to Albertsons, Safeway, etc). I kind of like stopping at Tar-zhay.
Chris T.
@Kent:
Wow. Um. That’s actually pretty clever as the engine in the Prius takes quite a while to heat up significantly. Who would have guessed, in 2016, that Pt / Pd prices would lead to the kind of theft problems we have in 2022…
(Given that it doesn’t really get that cold here, your bypass hack is the way to go. I really love that my EV heat comes on immediately though!)
Original Lee
@Roger Moore: Co-sign
SectionH
@Ruckus: I know dead thread, but sadly, San Diego hasn’t gotten that far yet. I think are a LOT of ppl in our buildings who might pop for at least a hybrid are waiting for I guess some of us to make noise. I’m almost as old as you are, and I’m not ready to lead the charge, except it’s my car and damn.
It means taking on SDGE. Because it does. And being creative. That Blink has bought SemaConnect is kind a wildcard. Because SemaC seems to be inna LOT of condo buildings, so, watch this channel.
Cheers.
New Style in Parsons
I am a proponent of EV for several years now, and a lot of it is from personal experience, which has been very good and is quite different from what JC writes about Tesla cars. I bought my Tesla Model S just before COVID19 came along and have had a great experience. It’s an excellent car to drive and unlike the original Tesla cars from years ago, the interior workmanship is fine. It’s primarily a local commuter car to get me to work and back, and including round trip 100 minutes or so drive to Portland OR on Tuesdays. I charge it in my garage at home, and free re-charge in a parking garage in Portland while I am working. Road trips north on I-5 to Seattle are easy and at most I will do a brief re-charge on the way home at a charge station right off the interstate. I have never had any issues with running out of charge, and with hydropower-driven electricity prices financially I come out well ahead compared to an ICE car.
Very little maintenance is required compared to any ICE vehicle I have ever owned.
I expect to continue in the EV market, given my experience with Tesla. We just donated our old breaking-down, > 200K miles Subaru to the local junior college auto tech program and are on the list for a Rivian R1S.
Relatively few people can afford to lay out that much cash for cars, so yeah, I am highly unrepresentative of average-income Americans. I hope that, notwithstanding Elon Musk, lots of higher-income folks will support the high-end EV’s and help drive the market reputation and acceptance of EVs as more lower-cost vehicles come to market from the legacy Detroit auto companies.
YY_Sima Qian
@WaterGirl: Can you check if my 2nd comment in this thread went to SPAM?
Ruckus
@SectionH:
I just checked, there is no law, but having a charging station in a building, in say Old Town Pasadena could be considered a real plus in a rental situation, which is where I lived. I’d bet the management/owner got questions about charging because we went from 1 Tesla to 3 owned by renters as soon as it was announced. That was over 3 yrs ago, I’d bet there are more now.
Ruckus
@dp:
Electric autos might have made a difference over 100 yrs ago as they were much easier to build that an internal combustion engine, and gas or electricity was about as available. The batteries were the issue but a lot of delivery trucks were electric. Of course they had to be ridiculously over built because of the weight of the lead acid batteries. I think we have to remember that over 100 yrs ago the building of a machine as involved as a car was hard as it was all done manually, with tools not much more precise than a ruler and pencil. It was far better when I started learning machining, 60 yrs ago, but the difference between even then and now is hard to understand.
Jørgen
@Tinare: Yes. Of course the charger has to be rated for outdoor use. Mine is. The only issue I have had is snowfall while the temperature drops below freezing. The car charges just fine, but I can not always close the cover to the charge port because there is ice in the latch.
cleek
this is absolutely not true.
first of all: fuck Musk, he’s garbage.
but my buddy and i both have model 3s, and neither of us have seen anything like what you describe. we’re both very happy with our cars. sure, they aren’t anywhere near as posh as my wife’s Acura, and they do have some quirks, ex. the key fob sucks. but “utter shit” is utter nonsense.
and again, Musk is fucking garbage. and given how he’s gone full nutball in the past year or so, i probably wouldn’t get another Tesla just because of him.
fancycwabs
Um, gas shortage?
feebog
In 2016 we leased a Toyota Prius for my wife. I was driving a Ford Explorer and was thinking seriously about a Tesla S. Instead, I leased a 2017 Lincoln MKZ hybrid. Several reasons for that in 2017; (1) the Tesla S was outrageously expensive. The top of the line MKZ was less than half the cost of the S. (2) Charging stations; just not enough of them 5 years ago to make a road trip practical. (3) I wanted to see what the Tesla III looked like and stacked up to the S (not well). When the lease on the Prius was up in 2019 we bought a new 2019, my wife loves it and gets over 50 mpg. In 2020 I bought the MKZ, The car is super comfortable, mid-size, still looks great, and gets 37 mpg. I’m sure we will eventually buy EVs, but right now we are more than satisfied with our hybrids.
way2blue
John, I have a Tesla Model 3 & it works fine. No lame production issues. Have a wall charger, solar panels & powerwalls at home, so pull very little electricity from the grid. Long road trips require seeking out supercharger stations, but that’s not been difficult on the main highways in the west. In fact, the huge Tesla supercharger station on Hwy 5 in the Kettleman Hills is shaded by roofs made of solar panels. Which I found ironic, as the Kettleman Hills are anticlines covered with oil derricks. Yes, Elon Musk seems to be melting down, but… I think petroleum drives a lot of the conflict in our world. I’m for smart, innovative ways to lessen its grip.
CorgiMum
Do those with home chargers charge inside a garage, or outside? I have seen scary stories of peoples’ garages going up in flames which concerns me about recharging EVs, not sure if that is actually a common enough phenomenon to say “always charge outside” or if it is just played up sometimes in the media.
Jaybird
@MisterForkbeard: You can (or could, 8 months ago) order an XC40 Recharge online and have it delivered to your local Volvo dealer. We bought ours that way, and the dealer was so new to the process they couldn’t even figure out how to jack up the price, so we paid sticker. Very nice car.
J R in WV
@lee:
OK, thanks for posting that image. Really funny! Coulda used a ruler for that plan !!
J R in WV
@YY_Sima Qian:
The number of interesting links you provided. I think 7 or 10 is the limit you can post w/o moderation. Great post, V educational!!
Emily B.
My partner just took the plunge and bought an EV, a Hyundai Ioniq with a range of just under 300 miles. His feeling is that EVs will probably improve drastically in the next few years, but his previous (gasoline-powered) car was more than ready for the scrap heap—the transmission was getting scary—and he didn’t want to buy another carbon-emitting automobile again, even a plug-in hybrid. There are also some decent tax breaks available on EVs, depending on the model.
Looking forward to seeing how this new car performs.
J R in WV
@CorgiMum:
A great question. When we were working with an architect on our house plans, his first draft had a garage on half of the first floor. We had him design the garage out, as I didn’t want an ICE vehicle in the house — one of the most common causes of house fires is a vehicle self-immolating in an attached garage. The cars park outside in the woods.
way2blue
@CorgiMum: The wall charger is hooked up to 220V in the garage. People worry about the powerwalls (i.e., batteries; also in the garage) catching fire, but my *understanding* is that it’s not an issue. Albeit, the fire district had us install a BIG red solar PV shutdown switch outside the garage…
YY_Sima Qian
@J R in WV: Ah! That explains it. Thanks!
UTLiberal
I lease a Chevy Bolt. I leased because 1) technology is evolving fast in the EV space and 2024 when my lease is up there will have been improvements 2) Range anxiety, I wasn’t sure how it would fit within my driving requirements. Turns out, its dominated my driving time because I love it. Its quite, acceleration is incredible – if I’m going 70 and want to pass a car it just goes, not like my gas car that has to think about getting up to speed and wonder if it can do that – its fun to drive.
Environmentally, its a wash. I use coal powered electricity. I have a plan to update the house to solar and charge off solar power but I’m not there yet.
Economically it is a huge win. The lease price was great $202 per month (almost 1/2 of my gas vehicles monthly loan cost) I don’t pay for the coal power, I just use it. My employer charges my battery for free so I have no cost to commute in the car. It can be as expensive as gas to use a public fast charger, level 2 public chargers are about 1/2 of gas prices, per charge cycle, in my area. Maintenance is almost negligible. I’ve rotated tires, that’s it. No oil changes, no tune ups, no coolant or winterizing. Since January I’ve spent $157 on gasoline for the regular car, so gas prices increases have not hit my wallet.
100% of doubts about electric cars have been solved for me having owned one for 15 months now. Will definitely do again in 2024.