Driving 1725km in an electric car in 2 days
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tbray.org
At two superchargers, I had to wait due to a crowd, which probably added a full hour to my trip. But, all the superchargers worked.
What’s not talked about are the bathroom facilities. You’d expect the superchargers to be located next to a fast food restaurant or gas station. Some place with extended hours and restrooms. Nope. Ended up peeing in bushes on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Tesla needs to fix that.
At one Supercharger in a hotel parking lot, the fellow chargers informed me that the hotel wasn’t friendly to supercharging restroom seekers. I tried crossing a busy freeway to get to a gas station on the other side, only to find they were open, but their restroom closed. Peed in a culvert.
Once I arrived at the Shamrock Texas supercharger past midnight, and the attached gas station (a Conaco used for inspiration in Pixar Cars - highly recommend checking it out) was closed. They probably have some camera footage of me peeing behind a bush. Quite opposite from the premium experience you’d get driving a BMW or Mercedes. Luckily I’m the prime demographic for mandatory late night public urination. However, my wife is not.
There is one charger in Hardee SC thats in the parking lot of a police station. I was a bit nervous to use the bushes there..
I totally get how cool EVs are, and how much fun they can be to drive. And if you're spending 90+% of your time just commuting to work, it can potentially save you money on gas.
But I would definitely not subject myself to long road trips with EVs at this point in history. One out-of-service charging station along the way can ruin your whole week.
There's no current EV that can do that.
Just read a little bit on the 330e. It doesn't get nearly as good gas mileage as a Prius, but is obviously a much peppier car.
Though if I was spending that much money, I'd try to get a Rav4 Prime, which is nearly as quick (5.7 seconds for 0-60 mph), 600 mile range, and all wheel drive. But that's a personal preference, I'm not in the market for a sports sedan.
In fact, I have a vision for modular PHEVs where the gasoline engine is on a trailer you pull on trips, and all it does is charge the electric battery to keep the electric motor running. You wouldn't even have to own or maintain the gas engine, you could rent them at u-haul or some a car rental chain.
I would actually love something like this for my Tesla.
The main issue with that is the total efficiency isn't that great.
If you're not taking frequent long trips, than it seems a pure EV makes the most sense. You can just rent a car for the longer trips.
If you are more frequently taking long trips, but your daily trips are often short enough, a PHEV can make the most sense.
Don’t try “googling” the validity of this law. The mainstream (ahem) media anti-public-disorder industrial complex seems to have polluted cyberspace with articles falsely claiming this law is a myth. Stand up for your rights and pee on your wheels.
/s
See also: British women having the right to urinate in a policeman’s helmet if they are caught short in public (and are pregnant.)
Edit to add: nope, The greatest distance between two points is 968.0 km (601+1⁄2 mi) (between Land's End, Cornwall and John o' Groats, Caithness), 838 miles (1,349 km) by road.
When it comes to Tesla superchargers in the UK, most are in service stations, which tend to be open all the time, and indeed were some of the few facilities to remain open in the strictest periods of lockdown given that good transportation was classed as essential service. There are a few superchargers by hotels and restaurants, but in my experience they're always fine with you using their facilities (the main issue seems to be a few who charge excessive parking fines if you don't register with them while charging).
No gas station built today would be exempt from that requirement. Although I can think of at least a few unattended gas pumps that also are without restrooms.
It's obviously an emerging market, but it seems like charging stations would be suited for bucee's or even truck stop style facilities, with areas to rest, eat, shower, etc. At least compared to consumer based gas stations. I'm not sure what the economics of building those would look like without selling hundreds of gallons of diesel at a time.
Anecdotally - tried to charge the car in Germany when we stopped for lunch, but found that it was impossible to start the session, the app wouldn't accept my non-german payment card so that was that. Would suck if I had to charge.
Many years ago, I was driving across Europe with my old petrol car that was converted to use LPG. I like LPG because it's cheaper, the engine makes less noise and it is more environmentally friendly(but it's bad for the car AFAIK, the car was a clunker anyway).
What I found out was that in Europe, even within the EU, LPG stations don't have the same popularity everywhere and even if you find one it may have different port, thus you may need an adapter to fit yours.
When driving In Austria, I run out of LPG multiple times because the LPG stations were more like novelty, away from the main roads with no guarantees on the working hours.
Electric chargers still feel like that. There are many of them but not everywhere and the quality and availability on the spot is non-standart.
Petrol stations are actually quite good experiences most of the time. The refuelling experience is very robust and most of the time they will provide you with a WC, a place to rest, a place to wait, a place to eat, a place to shop.
Petrol stations at remote places tend to be relaxing, revitalising experiences even when the facilities are not top-notch. Well, at least in Europe.
I would love electric infrastructure to catch up and preserve that culture.
”Since July 2010 there has been a 70% drop in the volume of LPG sales,” Mr Jeffreys said.
“The number of LPG registered vehicles has also fallen in the last five years.”
RACQ Technical Advisor Bill Reeves said the availability of LPG is set to further decrease.
“New fuel outlets simply aren’t putting in LPG bowsers and many existing stations are removing their LPG tanks when they are due to be recertified because the limited returns from the sale of LPG do not justify the expense,” Mr Reeves said.
Regional Queenslanders bear the brunt of the shortage with only one LPG bowser in 15 regional centres and no bowsers in Blackwater, Childers, Moranbah, Proserpine, Tully and Cunnamulla.
For residents of Moranbah this means a more than 270km round trip to the nearest LPG bowser at Puma Carmilla.
“Remote service stations may be less reliable because, if the LPG machinery breaks down, they have to wait a long time for parts and a technician to repair the equipment,” Mr Reeves said.
“This can cause problems for regional Queenslanders when there’s only one LPG bowser in the area.”
In addition to the shortage, no new LPG passenger cars are being manufactured in Australia and the benefits of choosing LPG are diminishing.
“LPG tanks in your car are expensive and must be recertified every 10 years,” Mr Reeves said.
“The costs associated with maintaining your car’s fuel tank means LPG is no longer a cheap fuel source for Queenslanders.
Yeah in theory PHEV provide the ideal flexibility of EV for commute and ICE for long-range driving, however apparently lots of people with PHEV never charge them, mostly resulting in less efficient ICEs / HEV (because the plug-in-ability means a larger battery and more complexity, so a PHEV is heavier and more complex than an equivalent HEV).
I’ve got to think that anyone who chooses and buys their own PHEV has done so because it meets their needs and they plan to use the EV mode significantly. Most PHEV drivers that I know hate it when they have to switch to gasoline partially because of the added noise and cost and partially because it seems like a kind of failure.
Ha, that's literally me. It's like a game - you have to keep the needle in the EV range when driving normally, pushing it a bit too much and making the ICE start feels like losing. Obviously as long as there is any charge in the battery, if I'm driving long distance then it really doesn't matter, but it's cool to see the ICE shut down every time I lift my foot off the throttle.
So you might find that you'll get a fully electric Jeep but your servicing costs won't go down at all, it will still require an annual service to keep the warranty, and the dealer will almost certainly charge the same as for a normal one if not more(and I've seen dealers charge more, since EV cars can only be worked on by technicians trained to work on them, and there's comparatively fewer of them)
Interesting that other car manufacturers are requiring maintenance of their electric cars. I haven't hear that before. Sounds like legacy businesses maintaining their legacy business models.
I think I rather do the 2000 miles in a BEV and take some breaks in the driving.
"The PAINS of Living with an EV! My WORST Experience Yet"
Isn't there?
Right now for me to own a Ford Mach E, a Tesla Model 3 or a RAV4 Prime is $3400 to $3700 per year for comprehensive insurance, $1400 a year for liability only. My SUV right now costs $1100 a year to insure comprehensive, but even a 2021 Acura NSX or Jaguar F-Pace is only $1400 for the same level of insurance that I have right now.
I only spend about $1200 a year on gasoline for the SUV and another $200 for regular maintenance. So right out the gate, assuming electricity is free and tire rotations are free, I'm already looking at least $900/yr increase in operating expense.
And then there's the upfront; the above is on top of the $10,000 to $20,000 more I'd have to spend to buy an EV vs a comparably sized and equipped ICE. And an additional $1500 to $2000 to have my garage accommodate charging a car, assuming main panel doesn't need upgrading and only installing a 240V circuit.
Right now it's a detached garage with a single 120v to it, so it's retrenching and installation of new conduit and wire, installing a new sub panel in the garage, and rewiring everything. Not going to count the cost of a level 2 DC charger (Chevrolet and Kia are offering one as an incentive for purchase). Main uncertainty is whether or not the main panel would need to be upgraded.
If I didn't have a garage, I'd also have to be super concerned about charging stations though. You leave an extension cord more then once out overnight, it will get stolen; the copper in it is worth a dollar or two. I can't imagine how fast a $200 charging cable with $10 of scrap copper in it wouldn't get swiped. It's unfortunately common here, there's quite a few sections of street where the street lights have been knock out for months now due to copper thieves ripping it out of the conduit. A nearby truck depot gets the copper wire cut from the trucks battery systems sitting there overnight every few months.
So... yeah. There's my excuse. Money.
I ordered the adapter, outlet, and new wire to move an unused electric dryer service to the garage as soon as I got the car, but haven’t bothered to install them. It just isn’t necessary. (And I dislike taking the face cover off the main breaker box, nothing rational, I just don’t like being that close to the live circuits. If I need to charge a lot overnight, it’s a 30 minute job to install the service.)
For the upfront cost… I had been waiting for the little Jeep pickup truck, but when it came out and I got done adding the basic functional packages it was well up in the Tesla price range. (I’m keeping an elderly F250 out of the crushers for my occasional pickup truck needs, but I could just as easily rent one from the big box hardware store when I need it for less than I pay in insurance on the F250.)
You could do all of the work except for landing the circuit and pay an electrician for an hour to terminate the circuit for you.
So at the least I need to install a second circuit. But the cost of installation is mostly tied into labor rather then material since it involves bringing out a trenching machine out. And the cost difference between just 1 extra 120V circuit and a full blown 240V service with subpanel is significant, but not bad enough for me to think it's makes sense to penny pinch there.
Edit: Well in theory you could also have a receiver and relay that cuts off the charging to the car before initiating powering the garage door motor. That said I don't think it's worth the hassle... at minimum that's two electrical mechanical relays for the 120V lines, some sort of RF receiver for the car, a controller for the relays and to probably some way to signal the garage door itself (replacement for the button inside maybe), and way for the controller to state of the door itself so that it doesn't cut power at the wrong time. Certainly hackable but I doubt I could build it reliable without way more money and time spent on it.
Will it? It’d depend on the breaker and load rating of the wire run to the garage.
I can draw 6kw from one 240v, breaker, so about 25 amps, for a few minutes before it trips from thermal overload.
I load tested a new outlet that was wired on the same circuit, with five devices plugged in, kettle, pressure cooker, slow cooker, fan heater, and hair drier for good measure.
The breaker should trip before the wire is damaged, it did.
Bit of an aside - how is American insurance so stupidly expensive. Here in UK I have a brand new Volvo XC60 PHEV, £60k, 400bhp car, in one of the highest insurance groups(like group 45 out of 50), I'm 30 years old and my fully comprehensive insurance is £400 a year. That's including 20 million liability limit, legal cover, courtesy vehicle, key cover.....etc etc.
Yeah when I was 21 my insurance was £2000 a year on some crappy old econobox, but in general once you turn 25 the insurance falls down rapidly. On my previous Mercedes AMG I paid about £500 a year for fully comprehensive, aged 26.
But of course majority of people pay for training because they want to learn somewhere, and not everyone has parents willing to risk the family car. Surely even in US people pay for training and there's more to the cost than just the $25 test fee?
It varies; you can't make a categorical statement like that based on random stuff you read on the Internet.
My insurance is the equivalent of £430 and I have nearly the maximum liability coverage and comprehensive on a current year model car.
Obviously it depends on your commute, and I've always prioritized a very short commute.
Also, some people lease and have mileage limits. I have the impression that leasing is more popular in the UK, so that might affect the average.
This is the most noticeable difference between US and UK.
Cars here generally have perhaps $300,000 liability, perhaps $500,000. I have $1,000,000 but larger number is covered by an additional "umbrella" policy that includes liability for multiple cars and also my house.
I imagine there are much greater limits for the likes of Bill Gates. But not commonly for the ordinary 99%. Also, despite auto insurance being legally required, probably 10% or 20% don't have it. They don't care, they have no assets, so they're "judgement proof". There are never any serious criminal consequences for this.
Ordinary people can protect themselves against uninsured drivers by adding additional coverage for that to their own insurance policy. In effect, if you have an accident with an uninsured driver, your own policy pays out whatever liability that driver would owe you. This added coverage is not all that expensive.
The most severe damage caused so far in a single car accident in Germany is about 30 Million €: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiehltal_bridge
Fortunately, they were finally able to repair the bridge and didn't have to completely rebuild it, which would have been vastly more expensive.
https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/08/06/typesetting-markdow...
> assuming main panel doesn't need upgrading and only installing a 240V circuit.
A Load Miser can split the dryer circuit; charging happens overnight, so no usage conflicts. It was about $1,500 USD for my house to run a line from the attic. YMMV, but probably less expensive.
> You leave an extension cord more then once out overnight, it will get stolen
Vancouver is experimenting with curbside chargers.
https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/curbside-electri...
My ROI is now 7 years. The feeling of being off fossil fuels is priceless. (British Columbia is about 80% renewable.)
I'm not sure why that would make any difference.
>Vancouver is experimenting with curbside chargers.
Maybe; I'd be concerned about someone cutting the cables for scrap copper here. I don't know if richer Vancouver suburbs would have to worry about such a thing.
I haven't bought a new car in ages, but my limit was, and remains, €30k. As long as electric cars cost double what comparable fossil fuel cars cost, with half the range, I don't see any electric revolution happening.
Does it? What example do you have in mind? Because the only one I can think of is perhaps the E-Tron compared to the Audi Q5, and I'd argue that to reach the "half" mark you'd get a Q5 that has barely any options fitted in, while the E-Tron will come packed with tech. And then yes, there is the Tesla Model S which is absolutely not worth the money they are asking, but it's an exception not the rule. There's more and more EV vehicles where there isn't a non-EV equivalent for half the price.
I just don't think electric cars make financial sense at all right now. All those car manufacturers saying they won't be making ICE cars within < 5 years anymore must know something I don't, but I don't see who's going to be paying that premium in the low/middle end.
But yeah, I'm thinking more about the cars like the MG ZS EV, which I actually put a deposit down on last year(and cancelled due to coronavirus and working from home, but I test drove it and was 100% willing to buy it) - at £25k it was very affordable for a full EV, with loads of space inside.
And then remember that all manufacturers always start with the most expensive models first because that's where the money is, but more and more cars are arriving form various manufacturers. ID.3 from Volkswagen is already approaching affordable prices in lower specs, but there is the ID.2 coming. And if I were to buy a second car as a runaround now, I'd happily buy a £12k second hand e-Up, it's more than enough for driving around and will cost nearly nothing to use.
If the government passes a carbon tax (or just cuts gasoline subsidies) then the math may change and push me over.
But to avoid harming poor people, they'd have to atomically pass an increase in welfare while making gasoline more expensive for the middle class. So it's politically difficult.
However, if your personal finances suggest a used vehicle is the way to go, your options are rather limited, and will be for a few more years until the current EVs start trickling down. Current 2nd hand EV offerings mostly are Leafs and eGolfs, with a generous helping of Teslas (still rather pricey) on top.
If you need a large-ish family car and cannot afford a new EV, you'll be driving an ICE for a few more years - more if the authorities start taxing EVs to bring them more in line with ICE levels, boosting 2nd hand prices.
Hell will freeze sooner than we will be buying a new car - its just such a stupid waste of money, when the price drops so rapidly and you still get 95% of the new car. ICE cars, especially diesels, just age so well compared to electric ones. I know we will be buying our next car as used ICE, for next maybe 10 years. And so do people around us, in richest country in Europe - Switzerland.
Electric car on level to say well equipped BMW 5 wagon series is what... Tesla model S? Not really, BMW has much higher quality of literally everything that matters in car while sporting much bigger trunk (necessity with kids and active lifestyle).
One should not ignore the price point - most of the world simply can't afford buying electric cars. Its great that western democracies will lead this transition, but when considering whole human population this is a tiny sliver at the moment.
After that comes comfort, space, practicality, engagement in driving (aka fun). And somewhere after that, noble discussions about ICE vs electric vs hydrogen etc. So far its a nobrainer. Maybe in 10 years things will be different, I'll vote with my wallet then.
Yikes! Where do you live, San Francisco? /s
Only other items that are ICE specific I can think of off the top of my head is engine air filter and fluid changes for the transmission and transfer case. Most of the other maintenance is the same AFAIK.
Like I said though, the insurance difference for me kills whatever savings there are from lack of oil changes by a wide margin, even before factoring in higher upfront.
You probably don’t need to change your oil as often as you are, if it’s registering as an expense at all.
Check what the manufacturer actually says - for example my manufacturer says don’t bother changing for two years. Lots of Americans driving the exact same cars change their oil every three months for no reason.
For example, here in the UK the average cost of oil and filter change (if you pay someone to do it rather than doing it yourself) is £102 [1]. Done every other year, this amounts to £51 p.a., which is less than a typical tank of fuel [2].
[1] https://www.fixter.co.uk/blog/how-much-is-an-oil-and-filter-...
[2] https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/full-tank-of-...
But that was the point - the requirement to change your oil that often is not real, and so it does not add up.
I doubt regenerative braking is any stronger than that.
And for that price I was sitting in the most uncomfortable seats I've ever sat in for a personal vehicle; thin, hard and not well sculpted for my back. The only positive I recall was the excellent throttle response.
Lease explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28096813
Seats are bad, but you can add aftermarket pad. Quick for its class (6 sec 0-60), fun to drive, virtually free with solar panels.
Broker sources online leads for lower price, because buyer’s knowledgeable and ready to sign.
So at 110km/h, less than 2 hours of driving for every hour spent charging? In what world is that close to "enough"? My next car will likely be an EV, but the evangelists hand-waving away limitations like this do nobody any favors.
That said, there are electric cars far better for road trips than the Jaguar mentioned in this story.
A long range Tesla Model 3 will easily do about 350km within its 10-80% state of charge bounds and the charging stops can be limited to 20-30 minutes each.
Experienced EV drivers with good EVs can achieve 100km/h average speed INCLUDING stoppages for charging.
The 30-40 minute stops every couple hours that I have experienced in my older Tesla (60kwh, later upgraded to 75kwh), is nice to nap, visit attractions, eat and use restrooms, walk the dog... It definitely makes for a different trip than screeching to a stop at the pump, running in to pee while the pump is running, and then lighting the tires up on the way out of the station. I've done that plenty of trips in the past. It's kind of brutal TBH.
>running in to pee while the pump is running anyone doing this deserves to be ripped off for leaving an authorized pump to do whatever someone wants to do while you're not there. no different than leaving the keys in the ignition and the car running while you "run" in for a sec. you're also being rude to the next person in line.
anyways, back to my original point is that an EV is great for in town day-to-day use or maybe shorter hops. cross country trips would make me consider renting ICE powered just do i don't loose more days than i already am for driving vs flying.
Again, it really depends on the individual. This works for me.
As far as leaving the pump goes, I was painting a picture of some of the "death march" drives I've done, didn't necessarily say I was solo. I, personally, wouldn't leave the pump while pumping, not because of theft but because, you know, of the spewing of gasoline if something went wrong.
As far as your original point... I've done that math multiple times, I have 2 gas cars and the EV, and continue to pick the EV over the ICE. But, again, that will vary by individual. My personal experience, coming as a gearhead who has taken quite a few non-stop road trips both solo and with others, is that the EV for long trips (I've done 5-6 1,800 mile trips in it), are better in my EV than ICE cars, and that's with 5 year old tech. A current Tesla will have fewer, shorter stops.
Your speculation is perfectly valid, of course. Doesn't sound like you've had an EV, which is why I call it speculation. The point I'm making is that I've actually had that choice, 1,800 mile trip where I can take a EV or a ICE, and I've chosen the EV on multiple occasions.
This is theft. Plain and simple theft.
I dream of a world where everybody can leave the keys in the ignition and the doors open because nobody steals. Thieves are caught and are given a stern warning and therapy. It's an utopia.
I'd play with https://abetterrouteplanner.com and test your potential road trips with the type of car you're interested in. It'll plan out where you'd need to stop, for how long, etc. Pretty cool way to alleviate (or confirm) your fears.
So 30 minutes charging on a road trip is probably less then the sum of the time you would have spent filling up and getting oil changes.
The experience and emissions differ pretty dramatically. Intuitively you might think the total emissions would be lower for the Baltic route because of the significantly shorter ferry trip, but this is more than negated by how dirty the grid is in Poland and Estonia. Polish electricity production is about 100x as polluting as Swedish electricity.
The Nordic route also wins in terms of infrastructure. There are plenty of Superchargers as well as non-Tesla charging stations, located at highway rest stops with good services. Making the 1000km+ drive in one day isn't a big deal at all, and I find that plugging the car in for the time it takes to go to the restroom and grab some food is enough to continue the trip.
Well technically not on the Sweden route but it would be crazy to drive the extra to go all the way north to Tornio and then drive back south to Helsinki instead of just taking the ferry from Stockholm (this adds around 1300km to the trip)
... What would be really nice on that route would be a sleeper service, once that tunnel between Finland and Estonia and rail Baltica is built.
I'm getting old. The thought of driving 600+ miles in a single day sounds like hell.
My main takeaway from the experience is that charging wasn't actually "painful" at all. On the contrary, it was a welcome break every time. Most times we even exceeded the charging time the car was asking for, because we found something interesting to do (like eating dinner in a nice restaurant).
When I was on the marked earlier this year, I really wanted to get an EV, but there aren't any that comfortably seat 6 (I have 4 kids). We ended up with a PHEV (Chrysler Pacifica), and I love it. Next car is going to be an EV, though.
However... Add up all the time a gas car spends at the pump, that an EV does not (charging at home), and I'd guess most people will spend less time waiting for the EV than for gas.
And the charging time is coming down. My older Tesla is limited to 100kwh charging, the modern ones can use chargers in the range of 250kwh.
What does that mean? kWh is a measure of energy not power. Does the charge stop after delivering 100kWh? How long does it take to do that?
Optimal tax is closer to $126/ton, so my “shooting from the hip” was a bit low.
Carbon credits in Europe are trading for 50EUR/ton ($58 USD) currently.
(nobody is currently paying anywhere near the true cost per ton of emitted carbon)
Right now european gas prices range from 1.2 to 1.6 euros per liter depending on the country (eastern europe tends to be cheaper and western more expensive). And that's for 95, 98 tends to be a few cents higher.
That's 5.3 to 7.1 USD/gal. 90c/gal would be a significant but at the end relatively minor increase: it's less than the increase in gas prices since the start of 2021.
Sometimes I feel like these discussions about EVs are strangely divorced from most people's lives. We will likely make our next purchase an EV purchase, and I think the cost of waiting on long trips probably has to be considered against other annoyances of ICEs, but the economics of this are a major reason more people don't switch to EVs. Even the cheapest ones still cant compete against the ICE market as a whole, especially when you consider the used vehicles that will be in circulation for some time.
Adding costs will just make it more difficult for people to afford anything.
If people want EVs to take off, they need to incentivize purchasing them, not tax the ubiquitous alternative. If the carbon costs are real, manifest it in decreased costs for the alternative. Otherwise it's all theory.
We're a long ways from that, or even having the political will to start planning, let alone construction. It would do wonders for vehicle cost and weight, though, if people could get by with a 100-mile battery and still be able to make cross-country trips. And the environmental and cost benefits of electrified trucking would be huge.
Maybe your kids are all too big for those rear-facing seats?
There's no way 7 can fit in an S (and be safe!).
Sort of like the 7 seater option for the Model Y, yeah it technically exists but it sounds uncomfortable...
See: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-discontinues-two-colors-rais...
Bear in mind that at home with the Level 2 charger in the carport, charging feels close to free.
You are primarily paying rent to take up a charging spot vs. buying electricity. If it took some vehicles 45 minutes to pump 20 gallons of diesel, I guarantee stations would start charging per minute.
Nothing more annoying than arriving at a charger on a roadtrip and having to wait 45 minutes just to start your charge because all the spots are full. And don't even get me started on the people who just leave their EV on the charger for hours at a time even after fully charged.
I wouldn't be so sure, not in the US anyways. It sounds like a captive audience, and convenience store+gas station combos are already known to generate more profit from the overpriced crap inside than the gas since gas prices are so cut-throat competitive. There's already a few gas stations around me that I explicitly avoid because their pumps are notoriously slow to pump. If gambling were legal here, they'd have video slots in the convenience store.
Except of course there aren't nearly enough electric vehicles to make this a possibility, and if they did the grid capacity wouldn't be there.
And Greece is a EU member with a resonably well functioning economy (ignoring the financial crisis from a decade ago), I fail to see how poorer countries will be able to make all this work.
That said, someone mentioned to me once that it's about 7 years from the time a power company to notify the government of intention to build a power plant to completion. At least for natural gas plants. So it's plausible for the necessary capacity to be built over the next 15 years.
Here in Germany, even changing all cars to electric would increase the total electricity consumption by less than 20%, not counting in the elektricity savings by no longer providing gasoline. This would probably doable by todays grid and the transition to electric cars will take 15 years even in the best circumstances, just by comparing the 45 million cars owned with the 3 million cars sold every year. Enough time to do adjustments to the grid where needed.
One also needs to consider how much electric cars can be beneficial for the grid. With charging of parked cars remotely controlled, they can help with stabilizing the grid.
An electric car in Germany uses about 8kWh/day - that is probably less that the AC unit now use in Greece. And if Greece doesn't have ample solar yet, it would be about time to change that urgently.
You can use the train trip to read (or sleep if you can do that, I can't) but you also can't really put your music or podcasts and you have to deal with other people. The train changes can also be very stressful.
Then there's traveling at your destination, if you need a car at your arrival the advantage of the train plummet, whether you need to rent one (which is expensive) or borrow one (which imposes on your hosts).
FWIW that's exactly why despite being in europe after years of taking the train when I go back to see my family I ended up now renting a car instead (I usually live car-free):
* both my own home and my family are a bit out-of-the-way, there's public transport (though not ideal) around my own home but none at the destination so I'd need to impose e.g. be fetched at the train station, with regular issues of delays and friends
* by train the entire trip takes about 8 hours, with 6 transport changes (some rather annoying / stressful), by car I can take a more direct route so it only takes 0530, and I can stop when I want (I usually end up stopping twice and taking between 0600 and 06:30)
* by train there is no real independence unless I rent a car anyway, I just end up bothering to go see the rest of the family, meanwhile renting a car lets me more actively help
* even if I don't rent a car at the destination, the financial gain of the train is basically nil, the train is rather expensive unless I take a slow train and basically need two days to make the trip
* and finally carrying shit in the train is a pain in the ass, both ways, I can easily load presents or stuff in a rental car, and bring comfort food or whatever back, there is no space premium of any sort
My wife, on the other hand, being a passenger for such a trip, she arrives and then is wasted for 2 days.
But if you really want to be miserable on a trip... Take a train. My wife and son did that same trip by train a few years ago and: was delayed a solid day by flooding, lost power, had to suffer with malfunctioning toilets for part of the trip, and it cost more than flying or driving (counting hotels).
https://blog.orbcomm.com/tachograph-rules-european-drivers-h...
but when they are caught exceeding the limits they are hit very hard (possibly including confiscation of the vehicle & cargo, as well as massive fines and possibly loss of drivers license). And that's good for everybody, the lorry drivers included, it gives them the expectations of a reasonable work day as well as the improved safety for everybody else and a level playing field. Fraud with these devices used to be rampant, it is getting a bit better now with the digital generation which is more tamper proof.
Not much more than $120 spent on charging. For a car that is much less expensive than the Jaguar.
Environmental considerations aside, this is a tough sell for most consumers.
They talk a lot about the pros/cons of going electric, and there are issues with like cold temperatures affecting battery performance at the start.
But I also found that I just really enjoyed the show even excluding that.
I have my doubts that everyone can switch over to a (prices starting at) $70,000 electric car like the author can.
I suppose I could run a charging cable from the house onto the street (across the pavement), but that doesn't seem like an ideal long-term solution.
There's a process for an EV owner to ask the council to install a public charging point close to their house, but I've no idea how well that process works. And again, if they don't reserve the adjacent parking space for EVs, it'll likely also be quite useless.
I've frequently championed my Chevy Bolt. Caveat being the recent recall on the battery fires, but ignoring that...My 2017 Bolt, bought used with ~35k miles was ~$16k USD. 238 mile advertised range, 50kW "DC Fast Charging". My Bolt (and I believe all of the new ones) still have the pathetic 50kW "fast charging" which is pretty shortsighted, but I still think a used Bolt is the best entry into the EV world.
Another point I'd like to make is that even with the slow "fast charging" on some of these EVs, the use case of long road trips is very infrequent, and often biased online by users presenting their edge case commutes or 'frequent' roadtrips. According to https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips 95% of trips are < 30 miles.
By contrast I would drive my Tesla without hesitation to anywhere in the continental US. I am increasingly finding that I don't even bother to plan the drives anymore or micromanage the charging-- this is a significant difference from when I first started doing >1k mile trips in the car 4 years ago.
I am sure that we will see strong opinions come from both the tesla and non-tesla EV camps in discussing this post, so hopefully my dual perspective will be of some value.
Is that you, Robert Dunn of Aging Wheels? (I don't think he owns either a Tesla or a Bolt, but he owns a lot of weird cars so I wouldn't be surprised, and you're aping his speaking style almost perfectly.)
You gotta get off the interstate and away from major cities more! Plenty of places worth visiting that are far away from a supercharger.
If it doesn't plug into a supercharger it's pretty much defective on arrival.
Is it? Then why is it that these cars charge faster than a Tesla Model 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxcukAhIAU
And why is it that Teslas charge faster on CCS chargers than on Tesla chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-fast...
And why is it that the fastest EV cannonball run was done with a CCS car:
https://insideevs.com/news/464763/porsche-taycan-beats-elect...
What would be best is if Tesla just went ahead and put a CCS inlet on their North American cars, like Tesla already does in Europe. The European Teslas are better cars purely because they support the open charging standard and can plug into more chargers with no need for an adapter.
Tesla's proprietary plug is a dead end. CCS Teslas in North America would gain access to an additional 4,566 charging locations with no need for an adapter:
I have no idea how Superchargers work, but I assume there's some sort of active electronic handshake going on over some control pins to authorize power delivery — perhaps even something cryptographic, e.g. the "pump" and the car both having Tesla-signed TLS certificates and peer-verifying one-another.
If so, spoofing a Tesla might involve cloning a cert from a real Tesla vehicles, possibly from the car's TPM. Full-on DRM-breaking stuff. Stuff I would expect from the kind of teams that present at DEF CON.
The 2022 Nissan LEAF 40kW (149 mile) model can only charge at 50kW, the 60kW (226 mile) model pushes that to 100kW. The marketing says that's 45 minutes to 80% capacity. The 2022 Chevy Bolt is similar. If you are just commuting to and from work, then these cars are fine, but for a long trip you definately want an EV that can charge faster.
Maybe you just want to charge the gigantic custom-built battery bank you use for accessories power in your RV! Or maybe one that’s just a hacked Tesla Powerwall or five. (That’d be the “white-hat” use-case.)
Or perhaps a portable (towable) hydrogen generator, to fill bottles for hydrogen-powered cars. Still an “adapter”, technically, though doing it at the substation-level rather than the near-power-generation HVDC level is probably horribly inefficient and wasteful.
Or perhaps a mobile Bitcoin mining rig consisting of server racks installed in a air-conditioned shipping container on the back of a semi-truck…
Or the lighting and sound for a pop-up roadside rave event!
Considering even with a Prius most people would still be paying ~1,000$/year on gas, old EV’s will likely be more affordable.
You're in luck though. The median appears to be about $38k, so the difference in this case is not that great.
[0] there's the old joke about (Gates|Bezos|Musk|...) walks into a bar, and the bartender says "hey! thanks, on average we're all millionaires in here now!"
And who knows, at the rates range and charging speeds have increased over the past few years, we might be pretty close to apartment dwellers being able to buy one and use it exactly like their ICEV -- charge it up once a week.
If you're buying a new sedan, electric is the way to go.
Also, most people who are unable to buy this kind of car aren't polluting a great deal anyway. A huge share of pollution is caused by wealthy people jetting around every few days on planes.
I have an ICE car, it cost something like $4k, it does 50+ mpg, I haven't taken a plane or boat in something like two decades, I do at most 5k miles in my car per year...sorry, I don't really think I should be forced to buy a car that costs 10x, probably pollutes about the same amount, and is only being suggested because some rich person had a "come to Jesus" moment (after polluting as much in a year as much as I do in a decade). It is the worst kind of puritanical grandstanding.
> A huge share of pollution is caused by wealthy people jetting around every few days on planes.
This is true, I'm not really into Tesla for the environmental aspect, I like them because they're fun appliances that break less.
Okay, maybe. But lots of ICE manufacturers have 10-year warranties...they don't break down a lot. I also think that whilst a car is a "fun appliance" for some people, for most people it is how they earn money. They can't live closer to their work because property is too expensive. It is practical, it is how they feed their kids, not fun. Making everyone pay the luxury price because people without your "fun appliance" are morally inferior is...questionable.
Edit: I also said "If you're buying a new sedan". That is a qualifier on my recommendation, which is Tesla.
And if you're only doing 5k miles a year, you're not part of the problem.
The median household income is somewhere north of $60k.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_Unit...
The median personal income is about $36K [0], so $40K is about 10% more. The median full-time worker is about $50K. [1] Households frequently have more than one earner.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
[1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/industr... [XLSX]
[0] https://carsdirect.com/deals-articles/2022-nissan-leaf-gets-...
The two largest sources of direct personal CO2 emissions are transportation and heating and/or cooling our homes.
For personal transportation, EVs are a great replacement for ICE. They allow you to stop burning fuel directly and instead buy electricity. They're improving really fast, to a degree they're getting usable even for 1000 mile trips. And they use less energy, about a third of an ICE.
For heating and cooling homes there's heat pump, which uses electricity to pump the heat either into the house when in heating mode or pumping heat out of home when in cooling mode. No more dealing with soot, ash, and chimneys, and they're so efficient that you get more heat if professionals burn gas in power plants to power your heat pump than you would get if you burned the gas directly.
Both these allow you to drastically reduce your direct CO2 footprint, also known as scope 1 emissions.
A lot of electricity is produced by burning stuff, that's where it makes sense to get solar panels to try to produce most of your consumption or at least offset your use. Those are a modern miracle - getting 20% of sun's energy into usable form is far better than photosynthesis, which gets few percent at most.
While Tim says "everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles now", I acknowledge that it's logistically impossible to replace all the vehicles overnight. But the car market in the USA sells about 4 million of new cars every year, and those really should be electric if at all possible. Buying an ICE is essentially buying a 10-year subscription to fossil fuels and CO2 emissions.
I had no idea the range of electric cars was so short. I expected that they'd do better at cruising speed on the highways, because the mpg in my car goes up as I get up to 70 MPH. Apparently a Tesla Model 3 is only good for 289 miles at that speed before giving up the ghost.
13*40 --> 520 miles is what I'd expect to get out of our car.
>And everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now. [ ... ] There’s no excuse not to.
Admirable sentiments, but can anyone point definitively to the net gain/loss in CO2 terms of actually ditching a fossil fuel based car and replacing it with a new EV? And how does that look if the FF car is something like a Honda Fit (good mileage, lower than typical emissions)?
I'd be willing to dump our Fit for some sort of EV, but I'm really not convinced that it's helping climate change to do so.
Change my mind?
> [EV and ICE vehicles were] comparatively analyzed by dividing into five categories: raw material production, vehicle manufacture, transportation, operation, and decommissioning. The analysis [...] revealed that electric vehicles have a markedly lower impact in both categories, especially in regions with clean power sources like British Columbia. This conclusion is reached after consideration of the higher environmental burdens of raw material production and decommissioning inherent to electric vehicles. The significantly lower impacts from the operation stage had the strongest effect on the results. Sensitivity analysis showed that a longer lifespan shifted the efficiency balance further toward the electric vehicle.
1. I'm never going to live in Vancouver, so my electricity is probably never going to be near as clean, even though it is relatively low carbon by US standards.
2. I'm never going to own a Ford Focus - my car gets much higher mileage, around 50 mpg, which is a big reduction in CO2. There are a few different options with similar mileage, too.
3. I'm never going to own a clown-car Mitsubishi EV; at present, I think the plausible choices are a Nissan Leaf, a Chevy Bolt, or a Kia/Hyundai (I forget the models). I don't know these would increase the CO2 from manufacturing a lot, but it wouldn't surprise me.
No, it doesn't. This is a popular thing to say, but I wish people would think about it for a minute.
My car has a ~1.2 kWh battery. A Bolt or a Leaf has 40-60 kWh.
I don't understand why people don't get this. With a gas engine, you have 98% less battery. So you are not just adding complexity for super long trips. That's not the equation at all.
If batteries get better, it doesn't change the proportion of 50:1.
And batteries also become harder and harder to get perfect the larger they get. So there's no question in my mind of more chance of a defective one on an EV.
https://insideevs.com/news/342671/my-chevy-bolt-is-on-third-...
At current prices, renewables are the cheapest energy sources, any increased demand for energy will bias the electricity mix greener.
But for it to get done, we essentially have to junk all current IC vehicles, and build replacements. My question was whether or not that actually puts us ahead CO2/climate-wise.
The reverse is true - you can make electricity from fossil fuels, if really needed.
I interpret Tim Bray's "everyone should stop driving fossil vehicles starting now" as a conclusion, that EVs are usable enough for most personal transport needs and if buying a new car, make it an EV.
https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-...
If you want to test with your own car, and custom data, this tool is great :
If you include the upstream costs, that's another 56 grams of CO2 per mile.
The Prius is 158 grams of CO2 per mile and an upstream of 33 grams.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=42810
For a 3 way compare with the Fit, an Insight and a Prius - https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=42810&...
Select the "Energy and Environment" tab.
Note that the Prius has a function grid sources. https://www.miloslick.com/EnergyLogger_files/State_Electrici... . 1 kWh in Wyoming is 2.278 lbs of C02 while its 0.456 lbs of C02 in Oregon.
Based on https://www.novatotoyota.com/blog/how-many-miles-does-the-20...
> The plug-in hybrid car also has an electric-only range of 25 miles in EV Mode
with an 8.8 kWh battery.
That gets us to 2.84 miles/kWh.
Going back to the lbs/kWh with a US average of 1.363 lbs/kWh that gives 2.84 miles / kWh * 1.363 lbs / kWh which gives us 2.084 miles/lb which is 217 grams per mile... and that's in the ballpark of the Primus value given on fueleconomy.gov
Lets assume that fueleconomy.gov is correct for the US average and use an adjustment of x0.72 to get the value.
Taking this to Wyoming and you've got to increase that number by 1.67x (just using the ratio of US average to Wyoming)
Prius at 158 * 1.67 brings it to 263 grams/mile in Wyoming... which is the same as the Honda Fit.
But that isn't the point. We should stop buying new ICE vehicles as soon as possible. So instead of buying a new ICE vehicle, which might be on the roads for another 10-15 years, rather drive your existing one a bit longer and then switch to an electric vehicle. Currently the manufacturing capacity wouldn't be high enough to go to 100% electric vehicles for new cars anyway.
Well, I agree entirely with that. But TFA said we should all stop driving them now, and that's what I was asking about.
EDIT: just to be clear, I am not a "climate change denier"...although always interested to have lots of random people attempt to diagnose me. I worked in equity research, I have seen mountains of reports on this topic: lithium and cobalt production are terrible for the environment (ignoring issues with forced labour and human cost at mines, most people who mine this stuff won't make it 50), this is why Tesla is acting (onshoring production, attempting to alter their supply chain, focusing on increasing battery life)...but if you buy one today, the effect on the environment is going to be pretty negligible...relative to people taking their PJ every two days, relative to coal-powered electricity, and even relative to ICE cars with good MPG. This has nothing to do with my views on climate change, and everything to do with how electric batteries are produced. And personally (I will take my turn diagnosis), my view is that people buy the car, and then go about judging other people...because people, particularly wealthy people in my experience, like judging other people...climate change is a way for wealthy people to feel less guilty about being wealthy when they drive past a homeless person in a tent. If you are concerned about climate change: there are still coal mines in the US, still coal mines in China, coal consumption isn't going to peak until 2030...it is just madness to suggest what we really need is for poor people to go out and buy a $40k car because wealthy people said so.
The biggest mistake you can make if you believe that climate change is caused by humans and a looming catastrophe is ostracising people like OP who have a healthy dose of scepticism and actually put down data-based arguments.
You can disprove the data OP has put out, but simply downvoting him means you are passing up on your last chance to convince the part of the so-called "climate change deniers" that can actually be convinced (which I assume OP is part of).
We can only win this if all people pull together, and downvoting a portion of "all people" instead of talking to them and convincing them means we automatically fail.
1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
2: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/may/11/viral-imag...
The battery has a life of ~120k miles, constructing the battery (and often, but not always, the electricity used to charge it) is so polluting that ICE cars will typically pollute less over that same period of usage. That is what I am saying: nothing about stocks or flows. The difference in pollution is, if it exists, very marginal.
EDIT: I will add, look at how cobalt is mined...it is a slave commodity from the Congo, no rules, no environmental laws...same for many other constituents of the battery.
This appears to be untrue. High-mileage Teslas are showing about 10% range degradation after ~250kms on the odometer: https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-degradation-rep...
Notably, this isn't about Tesla specifically — the broader point is that the technology exists for mass-market car batteries to support many hundreds of thousands of miles/kms within a reasonable lifespan of the battery.
How is this not real? This is literally something I can observe myself. I bought a new Model 3 LR AWD in 2019, and when I look for used listings for the same model right now, the exact same models from 2019 with about 22-30k mileage on them cost as much as what I paid for the new one 2 years ago.
Sure, you might say it didn't appreciate since it costs just as much. But imo, when a used car with solid mileage 2 years later costs as much as the new one with zero mileage did 2 years ago, I would definitely count it as, at least, "doesn't depreciate in value nearly as much as cars are expected to".
But, re "there is so much misinformation about Tesla it is unreal" — I agree, but that doesn't mean you can just categorically ignore _all_ information about Tesla.
So it's hardly nothing - it puts them roughly in the same league as steam trains per passenger-mile.
Last time I checked France was the best place since they accidentally have a very climate friendly power grid. Then you're left with just the embedded emissions from battery construction and the rest of the car.
Edit: this is wrong
Another fun fact is that short haul flights have fewer emissions per mile than electric vehicles for many current energy mixes.
Edit: wrongness ends (I hope)
It's hard to beat mass transportation no matter what you stick in the engine - it's just physics that power requirements scale mostly with cross sectional area, so it's more efficient to increase length and volume.
Edit: I'd remembered a per km figure and a per mile figure and forgot that the units were different. In reality, fossil fuel cars are about 35% better than short haul flights, so electric cars emit about 1/3 as much as short haul flights.
("Necessary" being aimed at people doing the school run, where the parents wouldn't need to be there if the children got collective transport instead).
There is no reason this should take twice as long.
It's cheaper, autopilot is pretty great, has a vastly better charging network, charges vastly quicker...
I guess it means you can write blog posts about bad experiences with an electric car...
One of the YouTubers I follow (Out of Spec Motoring) frequently takes road trips in non-Tesla EVs and vlogs about them. As a Tesla owner, I frequently watch his vlogs and feel a huge amount of schadenfreude. His trips are much more "interesting" than my own experiences road tripping using the Tesla network. He frequently encounters slow charge rates, failed chargers, and even entire stations being offline. In fact, he talks about how Electrify America shut down its entire network in the I95 corridor for upgrades, leaving non-Teslas stranded.
I've got about 36K on my Model X, about 50% of which came from road trips on the east coast. I've encountered 2 failed chargers, and had to wait to charge once.
Non-tesla chargers in my city are blocked by careless ICE drivers about 20-25% of the time, and the rates some of them charge are more expensive than gasoline.
the Y on the other hand, its like impossible to run out of juice, and not even a problem i have to think about unless i really want to. For non-tesla drivers: it navigates you where to go for charging when you need it, optimizing your route for the fastest charging experience.
Price, practicality, exterior styling, interior styling. All the usual reasons.
> has a vastly better charging network, charges vastly quicker
As a driver you should be demanding an open charging standard so all cars can charge at all chargers. Why meekly settle for less?
Here are three EVs charging faster than a Tesla Model 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxcukAhIAU
Amusingly, Teslas charge faster on CCS chargers than on Tesla's proprietary chargers:
https://insideevs.com/news/507489/tesla-model3-charging-fast...
But the good news is Tesla will supposedly open their chargers to all EVs soon, mostly to get the benefit of government subsidies. Governments aren't going to fund chargers that only charge one brand:
https://insideevs.com/news/521623/tesla-superchargers-open-o...
They'll probably start in Europe first because Teslas already use the CCS Type 2 Combo inlet in Europe.
This isn't surprising. It's a direct consequence of other automakers ramping up BEV production and selling more BEVs.
I feel like my XC40 P8 charges much faster
Total trip time: 17h42m.
Driving time: 11h18m (64% of the total trip time).
Charging time: 6h24m (36% of the total trip time).
I imagine that's because it takes so long to recharge.
750 miles a day is my usual but 1000 a day is doable.
The charging time was somewhat inflated, because my friend does not have destination charging at her downtown condo building. That meant that on the outbound leg, I needed to stop at a close by, but slow, urban supercharger and top my car up. And on the return leg, I was not starting with a 100% charge.
This was especially frustrating, because there are chargers in the garage they share w/a hotel, but the chargers are for hotel guests only...