- Jun 29, 2013
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1.) It's not cheaper than gas.
It is for me because I have free charging at the dealership that's 2 miles down the street and free charging at work. Very few people are going to have those options. The commercial charging stations are all right around $0.30 a minute. Now EV batteries have what you call a cumulative resistance to charging which means the higher the charge the slower the charging takes place. So if you drive into the charging station at roughly 5% your first 40 or 50% will happen very quickly. After that it slows down. By the time you hit 90% you're spending up to 5 minutes for 1% of charge.
I've learned to do different things while I'm waiting at the charger since you really can't walk away from your car trusting that somebody else won't unplug it. ( Something I never thought of until it happened to me). I'm currently working on my next degree in mechanical engineering and I find that down time an excellent opportunity to catch up on course work. But it is very time consuming and you do have to plan differently than if you were just going to the gas station for a quick fill up. With the current pricing at the commercial charging station even with the high price of gas right now it's pretty much a wash. And you're definitely better off with a little four cylinder turbo diesel that gets 50 to 60 miles a gallon.
2.) Total cost of ownership is another way to look at an EV. I don't need oil changes, I don't need antifreeze, I don't need transmission fluid, I don't need to be bothered with emissions testing or all the very expensive fixes that follow failures. I do still need tires now and then but I'm still working on my first pair of course.... And the automobile will need brake maintenance and drivetrain maintenance although it does not have a transmission.
3.) I don't miss the smell of spent exhaust. I can sit in the William's tunnel during a traffic jam and use absolutely no energy while sitting. It's very quiet.... So was my Maxima but this is even more quiet than the Maxima. The automobile itself has plenty of horsepower though I'm not sure exactly what it is it's very responsive to the accelerator.
4.) Heat in the winter is a problem... it probably decreases the car's range by up to 15% which is considerable.
5.) Having said that I expect that air conditioning will also do the same thing.
6.) Most information available right now indicates that EV's actually have a larger carbon footprint than the gas powered alternatives. Not sure where all of this is going but it looks like everyone's bought into the circle jerk so we're heading into EV land like it or not. Carbon footprint be damned!
Just a side note here I hope everyone realizes that there's only one way to make steel and that's with Coal. The simply is no other way to do it. So the more electric vehicles we need the more coal burning we will have to do to create the steel unless we begin to build them out of something else.
Jo
It is for me because I have free charging at the dealership that's 2 miles down the street and free charging at work. Very few people are going to have those options. The commercial charging stations are all right around $0.30 a minute. Now EV batteries have what you call a cumulative resistance to charging which means the higher the charge the slower the charging takes place. So if you drive into the charging station at roughly 5% your first 40 or 50% will happen very quickly. After that it slows down. By the time you hit 90% you're spending up to 5 minutes for 1% of charge.
I've learned to do different things while I'm waiting at the charger since you really can't walk away from your car trusting that somebody else won't unplug it. ( Something I never thought of until it happened to me). I'm currently working on my next degree in mechanical engineering and I find that down time an excellent opportunity to catch up on course work. But it is very time consuming and you do have to plan differently than if you were just going to the gas station for a quick fill up. With the current pricing at the commercial charging station even with the high price of gas right now it's pretty much a wash. And you're definitely better off with a little four cylinder turbo diesel that gets 50 to 60 miles a gallon.
2.) Total cost of ownership is another way to look at an EV. I don't need oil changes, I don't need antifreeze, I don't need transmission fluid, I don't need to be bothered with emissions testing or all the very expensive fixes that follow failures. I do still need tires now and then but I'm still working on my first pair of course.... And the automobile will need brake maintenance and drivetrain maintenance although it does not have a transmission.
3.) I don't miss the smell of spent exhaust. I can sit in the William's tunnel during a traffic jam and use absolutely no energy while sitting. It's very quiet.... So was my Maxima but this is even more quiet than the Maxima. The automobile itself has plenty of horsepower though I'm not sure exactly what it is it's very responsive to the accelerator.
4.) Heat in the winter is a problem... it probably decreases the car's range by up to 15% which is considerable.
5.) Having said that I expect that air conditioning will also do the same thing.
6.) Most information available right now indicates that EV's actually have a larger carbon footprint than the gas powered alternatives. Not sure where all of this is going but it looks like everyone's bought into the circle jerk so we're heading into EV land like it or not. Carbon footprint be damned!
Just a side note here I hope everyone realizes that there's only one way to make steel and that's with Coal. The simply is no other way to do it. So the more electric vehicles we need the more coal burning we will have to do to create the steel unless we begin to build them out of something else.
Jo
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