(January 27, 2019 at 12:19 pm)Cathooloo Wrote:

(January 27, 2019 at 10:50 am)onlinebiker Wrote: The big downside of EVs is replacing the batteries - which will likely last til just shortly after the warranty runs out.

Be ready for a five figure repair bill.

I own an EV.  I am fully depreciating the value of the car over the lifetime of the battery pack.  Including maintanence and fuel costs, it blows away even our gas powered Kia in terms of TCO and $/mile.  Even accounting for a battery pack replacement at around 100k miles it STILL blows away our Kia.  Also, battery pack replacement is nowhere near 5 figures. Maybe in a Tesla...

The 5 figure is for Tesla.

I priced the battery for a Leaf a while back. It was $5500 plus labor.

I can buy a whole lotta gas with that.

Plus - a big consideration is where you are driving. If you are in a climate that gets snow in the winter - the practicality of EVs goes right down the toilet. Batteries have less capacity in cold - and heating the cabin sucks up a fair share.

Electric cars (even more than Hybrids) take benefit mostly by drinving in urban environments, rather than on highways, compared to (purely) combustion engine driven cars. That is where the limited range and charging/battery life issues dont play that much of a role as well.

This is due to recuperation, aka. converting kinetic energy back into electric energy in the batteries, instead of just uselessly heating up brake disks.

On highways however (aka. constant speed scenario) it doesnt matter much. If you drive (alone!) a 1t Vehicle, powered by combustion, hybrid, electric, or hydrogen, you are wasting lots of energy. The efficiency of the given propulsion (ok, and availiability of fuel) based on releasing chemical energy will only change this within given limits. Only with stuff like thermonuclear fusion which is insanely more fuel efficient, and where fuel can be availiable in abundance (hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and can be gained by fissioning the most abundant stuff on the surface of the earth, water) this can be changed funamentally.

You may however work on the carbon footprint, by chosing a propulsion which is most advantageous, but still....you are wasting heaps of energy moving your 150lb body and some baggage around with 1-t vehicles.

Individual traffic as we know is the problem in itself, which should be replaced with something less wasteful, in the long run. Live long and prosper!

For sure. We need better options for a lot of things. In the meantime, I'll drive what I like and at least try to cut down on my fossil fuel use.

(January 27, 2019 at 1:31 pm)onlinebiker Wrote:

(January 27, 2019 at 12:19 pm)Cathooloo Wrote: I own an EV.  I am fully depreciating the value of the car over the lifetime of the battery pack.  Including maintanence and fuel costs, it blows away even our gas powered Kia in terms of TCO and $/mile.  Even accounting for a battery pack replacement at around 100k miles it STILL blows away our Kia.  Also, battery pack replacement is nowhere near 5 figures. Maybe in a Tesla...

The 5 figure is for Tesla.

I priced the battery for a Leaf a while back. It was $5500 plus labor.

I can buy a whole lotta gas with that.

100k miles @ 25 mpg and $3.00 / gallon = $12,000
100k miles at 4kwh / mile and .08/kWh = $2000
(Priced according to local conditions - electricity is dirt cheap and gas is fairly expensive)

That ten grand difference easily buys a battery pack and quite a bit more. (2014 leaf battery is $5500 + 3 hours labor).

We can conpare maintenance costs over 100K miles too, if you like. Wipers and tires here, and maybe brakes far after 100K.

Sure you can throw out use cases where EVs don't work well but total cost of ownership is not one of them, even with a battery pack replacement

(January 27, 2019 at 5:06 pm)Cathooloo Wrote:

(January 27, 2019 at 1:31 pm)onlinebiker Wrote: The 5 figure is for Tesla.

I priced the battery for a Leaf a while back. It was $5500 plus labor.

I can buy a whole lotta gas with that.

100k miles @ 25 mpg and $3.00 / gallon = $12,000
100k miles at 4kwh / mile and .08/kWh = $2000
(Priced according to local conditions -  electricity is dirt cheap and gas is fairly expensive)

That ten grand difference easily buys a battery pack and quite a bit more.  (2014 leaf battery is $5500 + 3 hours labor).

We can conpare maintenance costs over 100K miles too, if you like.  Wipers and tires here, and maybe brakes far after 100K.

Sure you can throw out use cases where EVs don't work well but total cost of ownership is not one of them, even with a battery pack replacement

We get 35 mpg on average - gas is $2.18 a gallon - and I didn't spend anywhere close to what an electric or hybrid costs.

If you like them, fine. They do have a certain cool factor. 

I' ll stick to something I can work on. I don' t like making rich dealerships richer.

Edit to add.

Gas just went lower. $1.85 a gallon.

I would like to point out that I didn't discuss depreciation as a monetary cost of ownership issue, but as a carbon footprint issue. For example, let's say that the manufacturing footprint of a gasoline subcompact and an EV are roughly equal. Let's say the EV depreciates at twice the rate of the gasoline subcompact. Then the EV has twice the manufacturing footprint.

A wrecked RWD Mazda MX 5, as long as the drive train works.

Electric cars are the future. They are only going to get greener - especially as more and more coal plants are phased out.

What would opponents have us do? Continue to produce an ancient technology who's time has past? Idiotic.

Electric cars also have a heck of a fun factor as a result of the physical properties of induction motors. Induction motors have tremendous torque. Electric cars are capable of acceleration which will embarrass all but super sports cars. And if you have some money to spend, there's ludicrous speed.

Tesla is green, nerdy cool and bad ass.

As always - when you want to see what works best - look at what the cops are driving....

V-8s and RWD still rule the road...

(January 27, 2019 at 9:16 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Electric cars are the future. They are only going to get greener - especially as more and more coal plants are phased out.

What would opponents have us do? Continue to produce an ancient technology who's time has past? Idiotic.

Electric cars also have a heck of a fun factor as a result of the physical properties of induction motors. Induction motors have tremendous torque. Electric cars are capable of acceleration which will embarrass all but super sports cars. And if you have some money to spend, there's ludicrous speed.

Tesla is green, nerdy cool and bad ass.

What opponents? I don't see any opponents around here. There has been some discussion of facts concerning monetary costs, environmental costs, strengths, weaknesses, and virtue signaling of EVs. EVs probably aren't quite green, yet. They're getting there, though.

And Tesla isn't nerdy. Nissan Leafs are nerdy.