A few questions about electric cars

[drmiller100]

I'm an old school capitalist.

To look at the environmental cost of something, you can look at the monetary cost of it as one of the ingredients.

gasoline costs about 3 bucks a gallon, and if you get 50 mpg, then you can calculate cost per mile.
Likewise, cost per mile for an electric vehicle can be figured out.

Likewise, the initial costs of the vehicles can be directly obtained, as well as battery replacement costs.

Electric is more "efficient" for short trips then gas engines. Even cheaper is public transportation.

[Ryland]

I also did some figuring a while back and found that at $3.50 per gallon the cost of buying and installing solar panels to charge an electric car would have an 8 year point to brake even at 15,000 miles per year, a while back I heard a story about a guy who's gas station offered up a deal so could pre-pay gasoline and this guy had paid for enough to last him 10 years or so, even though the price kept going up he was driving around on gasoline that he paid around $2 a gallon for, seems pretty smart right? pay for 8 years worth of fuel and you can use it for the rest of your life then leave it in your will for your grand children.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by drmiller100

Even cheaper is public transportation.

Only if you happen to live in a densely-populated urban area - and then your quality of life (or mine, at least) goes down the toilet.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Only if you happen to live in a densely-populated urban area - and then your quality of life (or mine, at least) goes down the toilet.

Even in densely-populated areas. Imagine carrying two or three bags of groceries a couple of blocks to get to a bus stop where the buses run 30-45 minutes apart, but they aren't always consistent.

[drmiller100]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Only if you happen to live in a densely-populated urban area - and then your quality of life (or mine, at least) goes down the toilet.

my point exactly.

We all agree public transportation is the "cheapest" and least convenient.

Electric can be "cheap", but is it convenient?

Pretty hard to beat the convenience of a modern car.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by drmiller100

Electric can be "cheap", but is it convenient?

Pretty hard to beat the convenience of a modern car.

True to a point, but do we all need gasoline cars? just like we don't all need pickup trucks or 15 passenger vans, of course there are time that those vehicles are great to borrow and I know a number of people who don't own a car at all but they do borrow or belong to a car share program for those times that they do need to haul a months worth of groceries or a truck to haul a new couch or bed.
A while back someone did a comparison study of how much time they spent at gas stations in a year compared to how much time they spent plugging in their electric car, it was around 11 hours a year at the gas station compared to less then an hour total per year plugging in an electric car, add to that time spent getting oil changes, mufflers and tune ups every year, sure electric cars do need some attention but it's stuff like tire rotations and washer fluid replaced that gasoline cars need as well.

[drmiller100]

Hey Ryland, great discussion!

You make some excellent points. The PERCEPTION is electric is limited in what it can do.

For example, if I own a 15 passenger van, I can't easily take it to the grocery store - it is too big to get around the Walmart parking lot every easy, which means I need to park it far away and walk in.

So, if I do decide I gotta have a passenger van/ bus/ crew cab truck/, it means I have to have ANOTHER car.

So, back to electric. Perception is my range is limited to less then 300 miles in a day. Which means if I want to go visit grandma who lives in the next state, I need to go borrow someone else's car to get there.

So, pickup/bus/van/motorcycle/ Electric Car all means I need ANOTHER, normal car.

If I am going to have a normal car, The EV becomes a bit of a tough sale.

This, IMO, is why the Insight and Prius are so successful. they are a "normal" car - they can indeed do it all.

[Photonfanatic]

Originally Posted by Ryland

True to a point, but do we all need gasoline cars? just like we don't all need pickup trucks or 15 passenger vans, of course there are time that those vehicles are great to borrow and I know a number of people who don't own a car at all but they do borrow or belong to a car share program for those times that they do need to haul a months worth of groceries or a truck to haul a new couch or bed.

Many people are like me though, and are always doing one thing or another that requires a truck bed. I'm always doing some home project, hauling the dog to get a bath, or something. But that's why I just bought an older truck that I really don't drive all that often unless I need the truck bed.

Originally Posted by drmiller100

So, back to electric. Perception is my range is limited to less then 300 miles in a day. Which means if I want to go visit grandma who lives in the next state, I need to go borrow someone else's car to get there.

So, pickup/bus/van/motorcycle/ Electric Car all means I need ANOTHER, normal car.

If I am going to have a normal car, The EV becomes a bit of a tough sale.

Yeah that is why I wonder why tesla can come up with electric cars that go 300 miles, but others can't. The tesla roadster goes something like 300 miles, but its kind of a special case cause it practicality for everyday use isn't all that great. Its just a toy. But they are developing that 4 door luxury sedan right? They claimed it would go 250 miles which is more than enough. Plenty of gasoline luxury sedans would need refueling at that point. And its a 4 door with a nice trunk. I would probably buy one if they could make it to production.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by drmiller100

So, back to electric. Perception is my range is limited to less then 300 miles in a day. Which means if I want to go visit grandma who lives in the next state, I need to go borrow someone else's car to get there.

I loan out my gas car to friends who also have gasoline cars but are not reliable enough for them to want to make long trips in them and when I go to grandmas house there are 5 of us going with 5 vehicles to choose from so we take the vehicle with the most head room and leg room, that tends to be the same case if a hand full of us all want to go to the next town for an event, we look at the selection of vehicles that everyone has and choose the one that fits our needs the best.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Photonfanatic

Yeah that is why I wonder why tesla can come up with electric cars that go 300 miles, but others can't.

Oh, that's really simple. Tesla costs $110K, Nissan Leaf costs about $30K. So figure the Tesla chassis costs say $20K more to build than the Leaf's does, and you've got an extra $60K worth of batteries in the Tesla.

The tesla roadster goes something like 300 miles, but its kind of a special case cause it practicality for everyday use isn't all that great.

It would've handled most of my everyday use just fine, before I got stuck with a second dog. (One of those "can you just keep him for a week or two, otherwise he'll have to (sob) go to the pound" deals. That was back in April.)