Fear Mongering About Range Anxiety Has To Stop — CT Governor Calls Out EV Opponents::Several state governors are fighting fear mongering as they attempt to reduce transportation emissions in their states.
Fear Mongering About Range Anxiety Has To Stop — CT Governor Calls Out EV Opponents::Several state governors are fighting fear mongering as they attempt to reduce transportation emissions in their states.
This article doesn’t really touch on the biggest issue of getting into an EV - the price tag. I mean, $26k to get into an entry-level model? I paid $11k for my SUV, and the only reason I could afford that was due to a pay-out from the company that totaled my previous vehicle. Show me a used EV with towing and storage capacity more in the range of $6k that I can expect to drive for twenty years with basic maintenance and you might get me interested.
Beyond that, they claim that an EV is cheaper to maintain over the years? OK I’ve been driving my used SUV for 15 years now and I’ve spent less than a grand on replacing parts (not including stuff like tires that are going to be replaced on any vehicle). My previous vehicle was driven for 24 years and cost even less to maintain because it didn’t have 4WD. It looks like within these time periods I would have expected to replace EV batteries several times (most estimates put battery lifetime between 8-15 years), and how much would that have cost? I understand that most people can’t be bothered to learn how to perform even the most basic maintenance tasks and believe that you need to buy a new car every 5 years, but I would like to see realistic maintenance estimates for those of us who don’t treat our vehicles like a piece of disposable tupperware.
A used market is mostly a matter of time. There just hasn’t been enough EVs available for long enough to have much of a used market
The older EV models currently in the used market should be avoided. They are mostly compliance cars like the original Fiat 500e and the VW eGolf — slow charging only, small worn out batteries, and little range. Or they are first generation Leaf EVs with failing batteries that are out of warranty or cannot be replaced due to eternal back order at Nissan.
The 2017-2019 Bolts can be a good buy if they’ve already had their batteries replaced under warranty/recall. Decent range and amenities, though some find the earlier model seats uncomfortable.
This next generation of used EVs (cars shipping as new right now) will be great — longer range and faster charging.
Related…
https://electrek.co/2024/01/04/top-ten-most-popular-used-evs-2023/
Agreed, and there’s a LOT of usage in my area so I would expect there to be a decent used market. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be there yet. I know in time EVs will be as cheap and common as ICE vehicles are today, but personally I feel like currently they are still only available to people with a LOT of disposable cash.
You got your current car for 11k but expext an EV to cost you 6k. Why is that? Shouldn’t you expect the EV to also cost in the same range as 11k to make it a fair comparison?
In terms of battery replacement, have you calculated after how many miles the battery replacement becomes “free” because of gas savings? This changes for everyone based on their electricity prices and whether they have solar.
Because I got the current SUV from a dealership with all the attached mark-ups and fees, at a time when similar models were selling used for about half that cost. However because I had the money available I was willing to splurge on getting exactly the one I was looking for. Also, an EV is not an SUV, and certainly not 4WD with the stronger frame to support off-road use, so it shouldn’t cost as much. I actually bought my wife’s car, a 2006 Murano with 4WD, for $6000 from a dealership, so even that has more capability and probably more cargo space that a typical EV. My baseline is how much vehicle I can get for that price range.
[Edit] Sorry… as far as “free” is concerned, well that never really happens, does it? Yes I could get solar installed on my house, but that costs as much as the car and wouldn’t likely get paid off before the car itself fell apart or was hopelessly obsolete. Since COVID I only have to drive in to the office two days a week now, so I’d be lucky if I even put 3500 miles a year on my SUV now, which is around $750/year in gas. A conservative estimate on solar installation is around $15,000 which means I would have to drive the EV and be completely powered by my own solar charger for 20 years to pay off the solar panels, and in that amount of time the solar panels themselves would likely fail from age or hail and need to be replaced (although hopefully the technology would have improved by then). Also note that because of the dense trees in my neighborhood, I’m not even confident I have enough of my roof in direct sunlight to power the house itself. Yeah it’s something I’ve looked in to, and while I could save a lot of money by building the solar installation myself, I’m still not sure I could get enough power even if I cover every inch of roof that sees Summer sunlight for more than a couple hours. Free ‘gas’ just isn’t going to happen unless I cut down my own trees, and convince several neighbors to also cut down theirs.
You have not considered some aspects. You have concluded that solar is only used for charging the EV and that it doesn’t power your house. Realistically nobody does that. Your solar beakeven should be converted to calculate how much time it takes to save 15k from both your electricity bill + gas savings. Then the whole equation becomes,
battery replacement cost + solar cost = (annual electricity bill + fuel cost) * x number of years
Only then can you know if the breakeven period is a save or a loss.
Ignoring solar, what’s the breakeven like when you charge the vehicle from grid? (With night time prices if you have such a tarrif/discount)
Actually solar powering my house was my first consideration. I’m already dealing with an electric company that didn’t think it was odd when they turned off the power to my house and the meter kept running (my typical monthly usage is around 4000kWh which breaks down to over 5000 watts of solar panels and roughly 300 square feet of roof space that isn’t blocked by trees) so I’m trying to find an electrician to replace the wires between the meter and the house. The assumption here is that the wiring has a ground leak – the more power I pull, the faster the leak, which ramps up my bill quickly. Meanwhile I’ve been considering installing solar panels on my house to offset some of that usage. Even if I’m really only using half that amount of power, that’s still a LOT of required solar panels and as I said there’s not a lot of exposed roof space available. My calculations weren’t including trying to recharge an EV because I don’t have any numbers on how much power that would pull.
Basically where I’m sitting, about 2/3 of my roof is blocked from sunlight by trees on the East and South which is great for keeping the house cool, but not so great for solar panels. If I was trying to supply half of my current electrical usage I would need roughly 12 square feet of good sun throughout the day, but my Southern roof only has that much exposed for 4-6 hours in the middle of Summer. In the Winter one of the trees to the South of me will lose its leaves, but the other tree to the South and all the trees on the East side are massive evergreens that block the sun all year. I’m having a hard time getting the numbers to add up just to supply my house with power, I just don’t see any way to also recharge a vehicle (let alone two). It’s still a project on my radar though and something I really want to get in place since I do use quite a bit of power here.
Oh, and that $15,000 installation price was for more typical homes that use less than 250kWh/month. Obviously I am nowhere near that.
And to answer your last question… I can’t find any info on whether the city offers discount for at-home charging, but they do provide several level 2 chargers around the city at a rate of $1/hour, which seems fairly reasonable? Hard to say as I have no idea how long an EV take to recharge or how far you can drive on a 1-hour charge so I don’t have enough info to make a reasonable comparison there.
Yes they aren’t cheap up front but the ROI is good.