But a golf cart saves many hundreds of dollars a year by not requiring registration and insurance, which can destroy the savings potential of having a second limited-range electric car. They solve a problem that is social rather than a technical.
I don't know about the hidden cost but, the Prius battery is under warranty for 100k miles, IIRC.
Here is a interesting article about the life of the battery.
We had a Prius for about 50k miles. Great car with great mileage. We sold it to my niece who loves it too. My wife bought a Sonata Hybrid. Nice car, but expensive and doesn't get as the gas mileage of the Prius. Personally, I'd have kept the Prius but it is important to find a good mechanic to do any repairs. The dealer will soak you. Fortunately I know a guy that used to work for Toyota and does repairs for a fraction of what the dealer will. Not that it needed many repairs. The video display went out and the replacement cost at the dealer was outrageous. I ended up paying less than $275 for a used display. I think my guy charged me about $25 to do the replacement. To do the repair at the dealer would have cost around $5000.
Yeah, if as I said, you're not paying some $50 a month "connection fee" or similar. If you are, then you've overestimated the cost of charging an electric car.
Which was my point. I don't know how their technology choices for a high-end $100K+ performance car effects their use of electricity. So, Tesla is not a car I'd focus on when there are other, more mainstream cars.
As I said, instead of winging it on assumptions and purely theoretical calculations, it would be better to find some real, measured data:
"The pure electric Nissan Leaf costs just 3.5 cents a mile based on the national average of 11 cents/kWh of electricity. Thats less than half of what it costs to drive the most fuel-efficient four-door car weve tested, the Toyota Prius. (This calculation doesnt include other costs such as maintenance or depreciation. But maintenance on an electric car is theoretically miniscule compared with gasoline cars. And depreciation is unknown for such a new technology.)
The Chevrolet Volt, which runs on electricity for the first 35 miles, is heavier and therefore costs a little more to runabout 3.8 cents per mile on electricity. "
Even allowing for 2X electric rates, if what CR is saying is correct, the electric cars still cost substantially less per mile than using gas. Not enough to make up for all the other drawbacks though, but not nearly as bad as you claim either. I'm sure there is plenty more real world data out there. It's not like these cars have not been thoroughly reviewed, analyzed, tested.... ===================================================================
OK, that's fine. But you are assuming THEY calc'd it correctly. Is that 11c REAL WORLD electric rates, or some bullshit avg of what utilities CLAIM they charge?
And let me tell you sumpn about CR -- I luv'em, but they are often totally in the clouds when it comes to basic math, science. Sometime back, they made the claim that trampolining can burn as many calories as running. Since their corp hq are right by me, I offered to take them running in a local park, to see just how absurd that statement was. Heh, they didn't call back.
But back to the point: Even at 11c, which when all is said and done would be half of my calcs, that is still a range of 5-10c per mile, and if it is indeed the 10c, that's perilously close to the 13c of a (mere) 30 mpg gas car.
The fact that CR did not give a RANGE of costs per mile, AND are calculating dat shit to the TENTH of a mile on top of it all, indicates that they do not understand statistics or plain ole "significant figures" -- which is beyond the likes of krw, but shouldn't be beyond CR. But then they think trampolining burns boucou calories..... go figger.
And,. btw, my calcs are not "winging it".... they are (likely) a BEST CASE SCENARIO for electrics. Shit just gets worse in the real world. As my calcs show, CR is WAAAY off, even accounting for cheaper electric rates. kWhrs is kWhrs.... If you have a 50 kWhr battery, it's HS math to figger out the *minimum* it will cost to charge it up.
Which dudn't mean I haven't made a mistake..... but show me the error in MY calcs, before you go off lauditing CR....
Heh, mebbe CR winged it!! Do you think they REALLY factored in the real cost of electricity, tiers and all? Do you think they took the article link I posted earlier
into account? Heh, they likely did just like they did with that trampoline fitness bullshit, massaged some press-released data,and forgot about the physics of simple harmonic motion (springs). And it's not the first time they've fallen conceptually short. Still luv'em, but still.....
And dood, I'm HOPING I'm wrong!!! I still want my Volt...... but.....
... and guaranteed to get worse.
If you're genuinely stuck in a 'flood zone' then you have my sympathy. Maybe you could stave off the doom by taking advantage of TOU rates. Here are some samples and discussion.
This might also interest you.
You don't need incremental cost per se.... too complicated to explain to you, since you can't even follow a post. I'm so dumb, you're so smart, yet you can't follow my calcs enough to point out the """lies""". Why is that? Don't you have some family members you can abuse and berate?
I pay a lot less for power than $0.25 kwh. Mine ends up being $0.139 bottom line. I still had problems justifying an electric. I was looking at a Honda kit conversion and the batteries alone killed the deal (based on a 4 year replacement of 14 golf cart batteries) , even if the power was free. You are also limited in how far you go unless you have dual power like a Volt. A pure plug in electric is a notch car. You have to drive far enough to amortize the fixed costs but you can't drive farther than a single charge will get you. Most people will still need a "gas" car.
I have a golf cart but I can't drive it on the road without tags and insurance (plus having all the street legal equipment). There may be places with cart paths to shopping but that is a rare place. I break the law, just driving around the neighborhood and the cops usually let us get away with it but actually getting up on the county roads would get me arrested.
My PRIUS gets 52MPG in the summer, 46MPG in the winter (longer idle time for the engine to warm up before turning off when not needed by the hybrid system and I make a lot of short city driving trips. I get 52 MPG in the summer and about 46-48 MPG in the winter (longer initial idle time in winter to warm up the engine before it turns itself off when not needed by the hybrid system). The 10 gallon tank gives me a typical cruising range of 480 - 500 miles. There is negligible difference in mileage between city and highway driving. It cost me $4-5K more than a gasoline only economy car that would get at best 38 MPG or so city dirving. Over the expected life of the car (>7 yrs) and gas at least $3.50/gal, I certainly expect to save money by the time I'm ready for my next car. The emissions are fewer and less toxic than those produced by our coal fired electric generating plants. Not a perfectly "green" solution, but probably the best compromise currently available among cost, convenience, and "green" considerations.
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Assuming they calculated what correctly? The Kwh it took to charge the cars or the cost of the electricity? I would certainly think CR Labs could meter the energy usage of the charger. And they just gave the electric rate at 11c. Put in your own rate, if you want. The point is even if the rate is double that, ie 22c then those electric cars still have a substantial cost per mile advantage over a conventional car. And most people aren't payin 22c. NJ here has one of the highest rates in the country and last month's bill it was 15c.
But they ran actual tests, as opposed to your calculations based on theoretical battery charging.
I'll bet they aren't the first either.
CR reported around 3.5 cents per mile with electricity at 11c/kwh
I'd say since they actually tested the cars and did real measurements, they have a lot more credibility than your musings based on theoreticals and assumptions.
Look. I'm not lauding CR. I just did a bit of googling and they popped up. They tested several electric cars. They reported the results. They say that with electric at 11c/kwh, the cars cost 3.5c a mile to run. That has a lot more credibility than your theoretical musings based on battery capacity. As I tried to explain to you, one thing your assuming is that the full battery charge is depleted to go X miles. How about if it's actually only 70%?
These cars have been out there and have been extensively tested by all kinds of groups, not just CR I'm sure you could find what RoadnTrack, Motortrend, Car/Driver, etc have to say about equivalent fuel economy. Are you that lazy that you'd rather continue pontificating on hypotheticals instead of seeing real test data?
I pay .30kwh here in California
Gunner
The methodology of the left has always been:
Might have been over 10 years when I googled battery replacement and I recalled 7,000 Australian dollars. Still a lot of money today. Doing cost of car repair, if repair exceeds Blue Book value is is time to trade in the car.
I'm retired and both wife and I only put about 6,000 miles per year on our cars. We'd be wasting money on hybrids.
OP's calculation based on electricity cost - I haven't done it but our electricity is expensive in part due to Democratic administrations that put green energy programs on the backs of electricity consumers.
Do they charge more for insurance on an electric car than a gas car? If yes, then that's an added yearly cost too just to own this car. I don't know about your calcs but I did read an article that said it would take 7 to 10 years to break even. If true and knowing what the average age of car ownership is, you can figure out what the projected savings (or costs) will be.
Another thing I worry about if I bought this car is that if you have a car problem, how many will know how to fix it unless it's strictly a mechanical issue. In other words, can you trust an independent repair shop to know how to fix them or are you forced to go to the dealership for repair. Obviously I have a lot to learn before I'd consider an electric car.
the-ev-highw...
It is not an 85 Kwh battery it is around 12Kwh.
So everything you have written is completely wrong. This will take you about 20 miles and then the petrol motor kicks in.
Thereafter you pay for petrol. So if you are doing journeys of 50 miles or less between charges you will not buy any petrol.. if your normal journeys are more you obviously save lessmoney.
If you are charging it on 120volts, it will take a while to charge to (around ten hours I believe)
I have an I-miev but it is purely electric, it has a 16Kwh battery.
80 miles range and 8 hours to charge (on 230 volts)
-on-the-ev-highw...
Towing is not recommended on most EVs.
It's a good thing for us that folks who said that the infrastructure was not in place and that the moonbats were trying to replace horses and buggys with new-fangled automobiles were unable to convince the citizenry of their anti-progressive ways. What model carriage do you drive, sir? :-)
I charge my EV off my solar panels on sunny days. Zero petrol costs then but not always available.
It is not an 85 Kwh battery it is around 12Kwh.
So everything you have written is completely wrong. ==============================================
Mebbe, but not for the reasons you are giving. The 85 kWhr batt is Tesla'a largest battery, and the one the NYTimes article was based on, in jb's thread. The Leaf has a 24 kWhr battery, good for, sposedly, 60-130 mi, depending depending depending. The Volt has a 16 kWhr battery for it's 30-40 mi electric-only range -- already some disparity in the above batts.
Accelerations notwithstanding (subject to car mass), and factoring in CdA's, the range of an electric car should be linearly proportional to the battery size. The fact that this appears not to be the case suggests people are plucking numbers out of the air, or tests are not being properly standardized.
How YOU get 80 miles on a 16 kWhr batt would be an inneresting discussion. Mebbe driving around 10-15 mph, like a golf cart?
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Depreciation IS known. These cars have been around for a while. I go mine less than a year old with 152 miles on the clock for nearly $10,000 dollars off the new price. It was an ex-demo car. There is 2 years remaining warranty on it.
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You can buy such a car with all that built in. Called a Chevy Volt (or a Vauxhall Ampera over here.)
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