I agree, for some electric cars are perfect.
But for the rest of us it is not,
Electricity is not cheap, and the more you use , the more expensive it gets. When you charge an electric car, you also waste a bit due the inefficiency.
Obviously gas engines are way more inefficient although in the winter it helps with the heating .
What I canāt justify is the extra $5000-10000 when you buy an electric/hybrid car vs a similar gasoline car or about $50-100 in monthly payments. You also need to buy a charger for your home and that is not a cheap Liitokala.
And then you canāt fold the back seats because of the battery and your trunk is smaller as well, so you might end up buying a bigger car.
Smart car as a 4th car sounds cool especially with your parking issues, is that electric or gas? They are kind of loud, so I assume gas but no idea.
Insurance is 3x times your gas bill? Wow, I guess 15 minutes will not save you 15%. on car insuranceā¦,
Looks like they are taking advantage of you.
Tesla Model 3 I converted kwh of electricity cost to $/Gal of gasoline.
You guessed it, electric. The cool thing about having a massive electric motor is that it is also a massive generator when you let off the gas. So you recharge when you slow down, upping your MPG.
Storing hydrogen is generally a Bad Idea, roundabout at best.
Anyone ever hear of hydrogen embrittlement? The little critters get into the spaces between metal atoms and do what freezing water does to cracks in concrete.
And itās ever-elusive, being able to sneak through even the smallest gaps in connectors, fittings, and the like. Leaks like a sieveā¦
It also has that nasty property of a negative JT constant, so when you release it from a container, it doesnāt get cold like, say, an aerosol spray, but heats up and can actually get hot enough to burst into a wonderfully invisible flame. Firefighters encountering H2 flames have to use cloth-on-a-stick to poke around and see if it bursts into flames, rather than walking into it themselves.
Produce it on demand if you really need it, but donāt store it.
When we finally convert over to the perfect green world of no carbon based fuel use, I will need a 1 MW battery in the basement.
Yearly, I use 12-14 megawatts normally, another 6-7 megawatts for transport, yet another 9-10 megawatts for heating. So a two week backup isā¦.1 megawatt.
About 91,000 18650 cells. That shouldnāt be too expensive.
Ohhhā¦ā¦what I wouldnāt give to live in some politicians utopian fantasiesā¦.
Maybe we should get some of those futures. Are they available to anyone, or you have to be a certain type of investor?
Water is next, I just saw 40 cents/gallon of filtered water at one of those outdoor water dispensing machines, the price doubled in the last few years,
I know quite a few EV owners and the subject of being green or our carbon footprint rarely comes up. I have either been in or driven over a dozen all electric vehicles and what is talked about is how fun they are to drive. One pedal driving fundamentally changes how you drive. And there are some very interesting things to come as well. A lot of misconceptions out there. The first 13 minutes of this video summarizes it well.
As far as gas prices go, the rate of increase between 2002 and 2008 is quite extreme. According to this cited source it was nearly $2. While causation and association are two different things, itās worth considering when thinking about the collapse of 2008. Makes me wonder what the US economy would look like if over 6 years you added $2 to todayās prices. Itās not like China and India are going to slow down their thirst for oil. Wouldnāt getting through some of the growing pains car manufacturers are having and gaining consumer acceptance be a good thing. I would rather see a slow steady change to say 10% of the cars on the road being electric as opposed to the 1% now. Might give the U.S. a buffer in case of a natural and/or man made extreme events.
IMO, most peopleās best bets to save on gas would be:
1. Use an electric car heater during the winter.
2. Try to keep a constant speed to prevent acceleration and deceleration.
3. Keep your windows open during the summer below 50mph, and closed with AC running above 50mph.
4. Try to use other types of vehicles, like bikes, walking, public transport.
5. Car sharing. Meaning you not only get to pay each less gas, you get to socialise a bit.
6. Turn off the engine/put it in neutral mode after 30 seconds for putting it in neutral, and about 2 mins for turning off the engine.
I saw the video and if one like electric and suits them fine, but once again, more nonsense about the real cost of driving electric cars. Starting from āāitās only 8 centsā which i seriously doubt that there are no other charges. Minimum billings, delivery charges, transmission loss charges, etc.
Up here, itās āonly 12 centsā but lands up costing 28 cents CDN with all the charges and taxes. Then there is the efficiency loss of charging. The comparison has to be the all in price at the plug versus the pump. For comparable sized cars, at our electricity cost, there is not much difference. Definitely not the nonsense numbers of the video.
Then there is the āaverage America goes 33 miles a dayā. Because I want to buy a Smart car, which actually has one of the lowest ranges, Iāve taken notice of our āshopping tripsā. They run anywhere from 10 to 45 miles BUT, if we go to the other side of the city, and it is a BIG city, day shopping and dinner, then we could be closer to 100 miles. So even though I like the Smart for itās convenience and not worrying about someone scratching it, it has real limitations. If the outing involved highway use or closer to the upper end of itās range, itās staying home.
The Leaf is better in both the above regardsā¦.but now itās less ādisposableā. The Tesla even more so and closer to a āno anxietyā daily driver.
Like I said in previous posts, I donāt have any problem with electric cars, just the BS that surrounds them. Real costs aside, if itās a second car AND pretty predictable use AND the ability to conveniently charge it, it IS a solution.