Open Discussion of all Things Electric Vehicle (aka EV) for Those Pro or Con, BE RESPECTFUL!

[Jer]

We don't all have to agree but let's be respectful in our disagreements.

The goal of starting this thread this isn't to "convert" anyone against their will or spread the word of our lord and savior Elon Musk. I wanted to have an open forum where people can ask questions, get answers and challenge what people hold to be true whether that be for or against the segment. This is an emerging tech market and, as such, what may have been true last year or even last month may not be the case today. I want to have a neutral thread where people can have an open discussion about this topic w/o feeling as if they're being forced or convinced of anything.

I've been researching this for a number of years now and have been 100% EV for several years as well. Ask me anything you want and I will do my best to answer your question. If something about it sucks, I will be open and honest. I have no agenda other than making sure that people have as much information as possible before echoing untruths as "facts" or deciding something isn't for them based on these same conversations. I'm not a environmentalist and only drive these cars because they're the best I've ever driven. Prior to that, I too felt they weren't for me and I know lots of people that fit a similar description now. That only happens if you what you think you know as fact is challenged and you're open enough to at least consider it. If you aren't willing to have an unbiased conversation this isn't the thread for you.

Now that more players are coming to the arena I think things are going to start get interesting. This feels like a good time to have this conversation. Lots of cool stuff on the horizon and the consumer will benefit greatly from these advancements even if they stick with ICE vehicles. The bar has been raised and everyone will benefit as competition must adjust or business will be lost to the innovator.

I know this is a highly politically charged topic but let's do our best to keep politics out of it as much as possible. I assure you that I didn't vote Biden just because I drive a Tesla. You'd be surprised who is driving these things these days and their reasons. Here's your chance to get to know them if you're interested.

[Great-Kazoo]

If it was financially, as well as practical for our needs. I'd consider one. Till then, the price point, or limitations are not something i'd buy

[Jer]

In order to jump start things over here, I "borrowed" a post from the older thread that sort of turned into the main EV discussion thread that I wanted to address.

I think the "not practical" is a valid argument when.

1. Weather is very cold (lithium batteries are stored cold when they want to put batteries into "hibernation")
2. Long distance driving involved
3. Trailer towing or heavy loads (especially with long distances).

Gasoline / Diesel definitely has the advantage over batteries with 1) amount of energy that can be carried on a vehicle and 2) speed at which the energy can be replaced.

What I envision in my future (not immediate) is there will probably be mix of electric and hydrocarbon fueled vehicles. I could see keeping my pickup for the reasons listed above, but for a "city car" or "daily driver" electric would probably be really good.

I wouldn't say it's not valid but it's far less valid than some believe. Your points go on to speak to exactly this:

1. While it's true Lithium Ion batteries don't like cold, that doesn't mean that engineering can't overcome this shortcoming for using them in vehicles. As a result, some of the cars handle it far better than others so a common mistake a lot of people make is "well EVs this or that" and lump them all into one category. I can tell you that I wouldn't go back to owning an ICE car in Colorado, especially in the winter. If you get an EV that has provisions for BMS that regulates the cell's temperature (for both hot and cold) to keep them at am optimal state this is really a non-issue other than slightly decreased range in the winter. This last fact is far less impactful one some vehicles than others and overall, far less impactful than some would have you believe. Being able to open an app on my phone and have my cabin be 70 degrees (or whatever temperature I want) within 2-3 minutes in any ambient temp is priceless. Never waiting for an engine to heat up to make heat or pre-heating a vehicle is priceless. The cars we have are the best winter car we've ever owned for many more reasons than just that.

2. See my other posts about this topic exactly. My wife and I take regular road trips all over the country in the summer months. This is a direct result of having Teslas as we rarely did it prior to owning them and certainly didn't do it for fun. This is a continually improving metric so between ranges going up and charge rates going up along with rapidly expanding Supercharger network this has become a pretty minimal difference unless you are the type of person who pulls a horse trailer, drives 2,000 miles in a single day and pisses in bottles versus stopping. This isn't how I choose to travel though, especially since having blood clots in my lungs a while back. Getting out for bio breaks and stretching every 2-3 hours isn't a bad thing IMO. But yeah, if I just described you then an EV probably isn't practical.

3. I agree with this. Hell, even Elon aka "King battery guy" says that BEV isn't the right technology for this use. He's gone on record several times saying that it's not the right tech for long-haul truckers. Nobody is making anything else though and Tesla is a battery company so... BEV semi! lol I tend to agree though that this isn't the way but there's got to be a better way than what we currently do. Even hydrogen (once we find a way to lower the cost of production and lots of other variables to make it viable) is probably a better solution for that use. It can be done with EVs (especially the newer ones coming out engineered for it) but it's not the ideal solution for most and viability varies based on many factors.

There are also lots of negatives to your pros of gas/diesel over EV so if you weighed them out you'd probably be surprised. That said, I know your list wasn't meant to be exhaustive so it wouldn't be fair for me to start addressing it as such.

In summary, I will say that EVs being "not practical" is a common misconception as they are not only practical but offer a significant improvement over ICE vehicles for most these days. I think lots of people checked out on them years ago based on what was true then but hasn't been for years now and kind of checked out. I'm often times guilty of the same thing though.

[Martinjmpr]

My stepson got a Chevy Volt last year and loves it. His is a PHEV which I think has more adaptability than a full EV since it can run on the ICE engine as well as the electric. He says it generally stays in electric mode until he's got 25 miles or so then the engine kicks in. For 90% of around-town commuting the ICE engine never kicks in.

I do think ICE vehicles will eventually wither away although I don't think it will be as soon as many EV proponents would like.

The one thing I don't hear about is how and when we are going to upgrade the electrical generating capacity of the country at a time when we are shutting down coal and gas fired power plants. How much juice does it take to recharge an EV each night? Maybe the same as a small air conditioner, running anywhere between 10 - 14 hours at a time?

When only one car on the block is an EV that's a piece of cake for the existing generating capacity. But when it gets to 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 there's going to have to be an upgrade. And given that the power will be needed at night when people are sleeping, we're not going to get it with solar.

Then of course, there's the problem that not everybody lives in the suburbs. Millions of people live in apartments or condos where they have to park on the street. Think about any big Eastern city, NY, Boston, Philadelphia. Lots of people live in apartments or houses that have no parking structure or driveway and still own cars. Where do those people charge their EVs?

I foresee a cottage industry of building charging station/parking lots. Imagine a large parking lot like you'd see anywhere else, but every single space has a charging station in front of it. Given that your car will have an electronic "identity" there's likely not even any need to swipe a credit card. As soon as you plug in, the charging station will "know" who's account to charge and it can bill you for the hours of parking, too.

There are some interesting privacy aspects to that, too although the prevalence of smart phones might make that a moot issue.

[Jer]

If it was financially, as well as practical for our needs. I'd consider one. Till then, the price point, or limitations are not something i'd buy

Out of curiosity, are you talking new? If someone is buying a new car and looking for advice I'm not your guy because that deprecation hit you take is just brutal on ANY brand. If you're buying a new car (given the aforementioned rate of depreciation) you have FAR bigger financial concerns than annual fuel bill versus electricity bill.

That said, if you find a good deal on used one you can find a great car for a fraction of what they cost new. In our case, I've actually bought/sold seven of them used now. Not only do we not lose money but we actually make a few bucks. I realize that not everybody will want to go through this so I'm not suggesting it's for everyone.

I tell people that they can conservatively estimate paying 1/10th in electricity than they do gas to cover the same miles. That delta is even greater now that gas prices are crazy but it's a nice round number that makes mental estimations easy. We save right around $4k per year, per vehicle. I spread sheeted this out years ago when gas prices were $2.18/gal so you can only imagine how much we save now that that price has blown up. We also drive less than average so that savings would also go up relative how many miles you put on your vehicle. Bonus, you never ride that fuel price roller coaster again.

Naturally, whatever you determine to spend on the front end to acquire said vehicle will impact that "savings" figure but it's not nothing. Sock that money away for a "rainy day" and you can have a nice repair account built up by the time the 8-year battery pack and drive motor warranty expires should you need to replace them.

I wouldn't suggest buying an EV strictly for the gas/oil savings but... it's another entry in the "for" column for sure.

[Martinjmpr]

And then there's the issue of those people who have to drive further than an electric charge can take them, and do so on a regular basis. Unless there's some kind of breakthrough in recharging technology that's always going to be a roadblock to mass EV adoption. For 95% of users, that won't be an issue.

HOWEVER, I think when you look at it that way you are committing the error of assuming that travel with EVs (or should be) exactly the same as travel with ICE vehicles.

There's no reason to think that it will. Nobody is on this board who was alive when horses were the normal means of transportation in the US. But when people went from animal-drawn travel to motor vehicles, they didn't just change what vehicles they used, they changed HOW they traveled.

Take a look at the Western immigrants: The Oregon Trail followed generally along rivers. It had to because they needed the water and the grass for their draft animals, and they needed the route to be relatively flat, as flat as possible. But then when they built the transcontinental railroad, they went straight across the desert. With no draft animals there was no longer any need to follow the river or to stay on flat ground that wagons could roll across.

I can foresee a few different ways around the long-distance issue. We may see, for example, a resurgence of rail travel where people put their electric vehicles onto a train and ride there, unloading when they get to their destination. This was actually not an uncommon way of traveling in the early part of the 20th century when the modern road system didn't exist and roads between cities were often impassable, especially in bad weather.

Or, we may see it become common that there will be fleets of ICE or hybrid long distance vehicles that people can rent when they need to do a long distance trip.

Finally, people may simply plan longer trips to have shorter "legs" so they can recharge along the way.

My point is that a major shift in technology like this often requires us to consider that it's not just one technological thing (the automobile) that is changing; rather the whole WAY in which we think of personal vehicle travel will likely change as well.

[MrPrena]

Environmentalist, Mercedes-Benz EQS, Coolness of EV, Carbon Monoxide danger did NOT change my mind.
The Tax/Accounting+ cost efficiency + rebates + time saved at a COSTCO gas station+ use car trade-in allowance got me to change my mind to buy an EV.


PROS:

1. No Gas, No Squeezee! - No gas $. Yes I do charge at home, but I take whatever opportunity to get a free Level 2 charge at a mall or business for FREE. One hour of free charge equals to ~35 miles.
(that is 1.5 gals for Tacoma range $$$$$$$$).

2. Less maintenance- Regen Braking (KERS) paddle shifts to use less actual brake. No oil change, no transmission fluid change.

3. Time- I spend about 5 min wait to gas at Costco gas station, because they have the cheapest 91 octane. I gas once a week, so 5min/week x 52week = saved. I can always use the hell out of EV, and charge it when I sleep.

4- Tax rebate and other rebates (if purchased or leased NEW)- Yes, Tesla and GM no longer have that 7500 but other manuf do.
7500 is a tax credit. Yes, Let's assume that you normally report 400k/yr, but you only decide to take home 5k due to heavy writeoffs this year. You are MOST LIKELY NOT qualified for 7500 tax credit if you purchase. However, if you are leasing (and if manuf is putting 7500 for cap reduction to lower the price) the vehicle, govt gives 7500 to manufacturer and will put $ down for you.

Yes, you do need to pay for that 7500 tax credit TAX too.

Example, I got $10,400 total rebate, and I had to pay $10400 rebate x 0.085 tax= $884 in tax.
You probably do not even need tot talk to your tax advisor, but talk to your tax advisor to make sure about this prior to Purchase vs Lease.



CONS:

1. infrastructure- I know this does NOT applies to Tesla, because they have a great infrastructure for fast DC Charging station.
I need this to travel long distance out of state.
I need to sign up for FREE on app/acct to get acct for fast charging DC station to use those. Only 5 min hassle, but it is like trying to use Shell or Sinclair gas station and I need to make an account first.

2. Time to refill energy content- It takes ~10min to gas and go for long distance trip. It will take EV about 30min-60min to do so. (only applies for long dist trip).

3. after 100k battery warranty, you need to get extended warranty. It is more $ invested if you are keeping it over 100k.
Yes, engine and transmission can fail too, but engine and transmission will last longer with proper maintenance.
However, I am not planning to own it for over my lease period.

[DDT951]

Also not [much of] an issue in the USA.

But EVs don't do well with range at high speeds.

The strangest feeling I had was riding in a P100 on an Autobahn. It accelerated very well and got going. Then at 130mph. Boom. The thing hit a brick wall and would go faster. Having to be scared of a VW Polo passing you while you have to hang out in the right lane is not a fun feeling (j/k...a Polo isn't that fast.... only the Polo GTI will hit a 142mph).

The batteries deplete fast when running them at high speeds. To be fair, driving a gasoline car at 155for any distance uses a lot of [expensive] gasoline. Its just quick to refill and get going again.

[DDT951]

The first pro i saw..

A Tesla roadster at bandimere laying waste to all manner of corvettes, mustangs, Camaros, etc.

When a 12.X pops at bandimere for real street car, that is quick.

[SideShow Bob]

When you can buy a ?Beater? or ?Hooptie? EV at gasoline ?Beater? prices and that will last you 3 - 5 years and can make it a work week at 60 + miles a day and a few side trips without charging and cheap on maintenance, I will consider buying one. Until then, gasoline it is.