Electric cars?

Jim colbert show on 104.1 was talking about taking their electric vehicle on what would normally be an 11 hour road trip. He is a huge proponent of electric vehicles for Urban settings however he came away from his trip totally against owning one as a sole vehicle for several reasons.

His 11 hour trip took 17 hours due to charging stops.

Their trip was to a cold weather and mountainous area. Heat drains batteries as does climbing.

Said that unless you own a tesla where charging stations are abundant, finding a charging station can be tricky since even if they are mapped out, they may not be in service.

Said charging stations for his vehicle could be in some pretty bad locations and vehicles cannot be driven away while charging in the event of an emergency or a threat.

Said that because of uncertainties with charging stations you have to plan to charge well before you run out of battery.

Stated all of these issues were based on current technology and was open to changing his mind as technology improves. He is not against electric vehicles. Thinks hybrid is best of both worlds and brought up How Toyota has done it against Elons speculation it wouldn't last.

Just found this interesting. I'd be open to an electric because he said it's a great driving experience but as it stands today it just isn't feasible to only have electric vehicles in a household.

 

Meh, I just did a 5 1/2 hour road trip a few weeks ago in one. Mostly flat land, although some mountains at the end. Stopped once each direction. Both at shopping malls. Grabbed lunch, used the restroom, etc. The whole thing cost about $3.00 each direction (as I have free charging for 30 minutes on Level 3 chargers and just had to do a few minutes at the end of each). I could see it being an issue out West with the long stretches, but, in the East, that wasn't my experience at all. Just have to do a bit of research ahead of time (took about 15 minutes or so).

 

Do you have a tesla or a different make? Part of his issue was that charging stations aren't as readily available for other vehicles as of yet. Again, I'm just relaying his experience and I don't believe he had any agenda.

 

EVs are suboptimal for true cross country road trips of the 1,000 mile+ one way type that guy did. If that's a common drive for someone, an EV may not be for them. If that's 1%of your driving, if you take a trip like like that once every 2-3 years - who cares. Buy the car that suits your needs 99% of the time, and I'd say for most Americans, a car that leaves their house every morning with ~300 miles of range will satisfy 99% of their needs.

 

This is exactly where I stand right now... great option for a second car, but don't think I'd want one for my sole car.

That said ...

I am constantly seeing these, what I will refer to, as a "hit" piece news articles on electric cars.

Nearly all have the same structure...

* Never drove one.
* Rented one for a LONG trip.
* Charging was a huge hassle.
* Don't recommend them.

Now the article you post is a bit more equal equal handed then many I've read/seen, but it definitely makes me wonder if the oil companies aren't paying for these articles.

 

Hyundai. Again, might be a regional thing, but in the Northeast, there is no shortage of chargers. Just have to make sure you look ahead of time and plan the trip accordingly. Altogether, it probably added about 5 minutes to the trip.

 

He says as much. He loves it for city driving. It isn't about making that drive on a regular basis though. His point was that he isn't ready to own solely electric vehicles at the current time. He is all about owning an electric but isn't getting rid of his ICE vehicle at this time. Maybe down the road but we aren't there yet.

 

Yeah. Plus all the "EV sales are plummeting!" articles. As if they could rise 200% YoY for ever.... Early adopters are already in. We're into more mainstream buyers now and it's still growing around ~50% YoY.

 

Fair. Keeping one ice makes sense for many at this pont. We routinely take weekend trips of a little over 300miles roundtrip with no easy charging options at our destination (Maine woods).I'll be keeping the full size truck for a while....

 

Curious how much financial incentives affect the purchase of hybrids and EVs.

I think if you have to incentivize something it’s not a great deal or product. Like sugar, etc.

Let each stand alone in price and availability.

 

One vehicle families like me and my wife need an ICE or hybrid or every situation we use our vehicle. The cost of auto insurance for a second vehicle that we barely used was not worth keeping a second. There are gas stations on every corner. I like knowing I can drop in and gas up without having to seek out a charging station. Convenience is important to me. We also keep vehicles a long time. Two of them for 14 years. The one we have now is 8 years old with only 77K miles on it. We plan on keeping this one until it just won’t go anymore. If we had a an EV I’d guess we would have to replace the battery before we were ready to move on to another vehicle. I’ve read they are expensive.

 

A plug-in hybrid is currently an excellent option. Most get 35-45 miles in pure EV range, which is more than most Americans drive in a typical day. After you run out of EV range, the car drives like a normal hybrid returning excellent fuel economy.

The 2024 Prius Prime, a really nice looking car, gets 39 miles of range in EV mode. In hybrid mode it gets 50 MPG city and 47 MPG highway. Upper trim models have solar panels on the roof to charge the HVTB when the car is parked. When being driven, those panels help power electric accessories such as the AC system. The Prius Prime also does 0-60 in 6.7 seconds. Not Tesla Plaid territory, but more than adequate for normal driving. As a bonus, you get Toyota build quality which far surpasses anything Tesla is currently capable of producing.

2024 Toyota Prius Prime Review, Pricing, and Specs

 

No, those incentives are also in place to make it easier for people to adapt to new, more expensive technology that ultimately benefits society. I've owned 4 hybrid vehicles and currently drive two. When I purchased a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid, the second year they were out, my tax credit was in the range of $3000, if I recall correctly. If I had purchased a Hummer 2 that same year and claimed 51% of its use was for business, my tax credit would have been 50% on a $54,000 vehicle or $27,000.

Hybrid and EV batteries, by law, have to be warrantied by the manufacturer for a minimum of 8 years/100,000 miles. In a handful of "green" states it's 10 years/150,000 miles.

I have a 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid with 78K miles. It was running fine, but if the vehicle went undriven for too long, the HVTB would self-discharge to a level where the computer would not allow it to start the car. The vehicle does not have a starter, the electric motor starts it using power from the HVTB. I would have to hook a special charger to it to get the HVTB back up to 300-315 volts to start it

Remanufactured batteries cost $2,000 to $6,000 and they are using harvested battery sticks from used vehicles, not using new batteries. For my car, that means a reman battery would be using cells manufactured between 2005-2012. That made no sense to me unless my HVTB failed completely and I had nothing else to drive. The battery is NiMH technology and the pack has 50 sticks of 5 D cell size batteries in each stick. I found a company in China manufacturing new sticks with more capacity than the originals. 50 battery sticks weighing approximately 45 lbs cost $2450 with four day shipping from China. I have several mechanic friends and one spent a large portion of Thanksgiving weekend with me rebuilding the battery. It was a bit of a daunting task and you have to be careful as 350 volts DC will definitely kill you, but the car now runs like new and my gas mileage is up over 10%.

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I want my next car to run on red meat.

 

Here's a couple of EVs that caught on fire after launching watercraft at boat ramps. Salt water got into the battery pack resulting in thermal runaway. Li-Ion battery packs don't require oxygen to burn. The fire department at the Model X fire decided to just let it burn itself out in the water, but then still followed it to the scarp yard in case it caught on fire again.

Again, this was nothing but salt water intrusion into the battery packs that caused these cars to ignite.

 

Congress provided $7.5B for electric vehicle chargers. Built so far: Zero.

 

Did you actually read this article? The first station just broke ground in Ohio in October, and the red state Governor sounds on board with it as do other red states. The issue is more the long approval process and choosing appropriate locations, it’s not like the money disappeared with zero to show for it.

The efforts by some to sabotage seem like nothing more than vice signaling or nihilism (and don’t ignore that gas stations and convenience stores are huge lobbying interests that see EV’s as an existential business threat). The whole concept of EV’s is a HUGE threat to 7-11 and the entire gas filling station supply chain, they will spend big money to make sure you keep filling up gas and buying Big Gulps. People charging at home might never set foot in a gas station convenience store again.

Fed govt should in no way be funding a national utility, but $7.5b seems reasonable kickstarter. If it’s used mostly to build out chargers at highway rest stops and in public spaces that seems like a good idea. I’m sure in the end some chargers will be well placed and highly utilized, and some will be poorly placed and underutilized. That tends to happen when the govt is involved, but at the end of the day seems like a modest kickstarter to address one of the main “early adopter” issues with EV’s. I see it very much like the buildout of broadband into rural areas or the national highways, fed govt is needed as a kickstarter and/or to fill those gaps in the charging network. The only real issue I see, is that this tech is still evolving. So if they build something now, could be obsolete in 10 years. Perhaps that’s also part of why so much is “pending”?

 

I can’t count the number of deliveries we get from ev vehicles. Most govt vehicles including mail trucks should be ev but our underwear stain of a last president appointed a guy who chose the absolute least efficient product.

 

I rented a little gm electric car while traveling. Don’t recall if it was a volt or a bolt. It was nice gave us plenty of usage but it wouldn’t use Tesla chargers so charging was difficult. I won’t be buying an ev until all cars come with Tesla chargers.

 

The Bolt is an actual EV. The Volt was called an "extended range EV," but it was essentially a hybrid with a gasoline engine to run a generator after the 53 mile EV range.