Electric Vehicles? Towing? Hauling?

Good morning RK. All good questions and I'll do my best to answer them. I'll put in the body of your text though so there is less cutting and pasting. Ihave put my answers in Italics so it is a little easier to read. Hope these answers help. I am not an EV expert.

rk911 wrote:

Reisender wrote:


Advantages for us? A lot of it we just take for granted now. Here’s a few in no particular order that apply to us. I’m sure there are some I have missed.

agree that some advantages and conveniences are individual. but some of what you cite are either clearly not when considered in the context of cross-country driving or raise a whole lotta questions. for instance..

Absolutely. The longest trip we make regularly is about 320 KM so long range capability is just not something we would have paid money for at the time. This will change in about 3 years but we change out our vehicles every 5 or 6 years so we'll deal with it then.

Reisender wrote:
- No wasted time at gas stations. Fuel at night while sleeping.

Same answer as long range like that is not something we currently need. But you may have your charge times off. Depending on the EV you are driving 20 to 40 minutes is more the norm for that kind of mileage. We seldom use DCFC facilities. Maybe half a dozen time per year on road trips. But we have never "waited" to charge as we just time it with a lunch break or a dog walk break. We have also never had a gas vehicle that goes 500 miles on a tank and even if we had it would not have been a useful feature as we stop a lot more often than that. Usually every few hours. This was true in the Grand Cherokee and still is now. The grand cherokee was good for around 520 KM of range which I think is around 320 ish miles.

Towing range was good with our Ford powerstroke diesel but around 300 km (200 miles?) with our GMC 3/4 ton gasser.

If stuck in traffic there is virtually no draw on the battery unless you have the AC on. In 35 degrees C once the car is cool the AC draws about 1/2 a kilowatt and will sometimes cycle to 1 killowatt so it can literally sit in traffic for days and keep the car cool. Most modern EV's have 40 to 65 KW batteries. I'll post a pic at the bottom showing draw. Heads up though. For the first 5 or 10 minutes I have seen our AC draw triple that. A car is a pretty small space though so once its cool its easy to keep it that way.

one of two things need to be true before EVs can be considered for long distance driving: either the range has to be at least 500-miles or the recharge time has to be about the same as the average stop to refill gas. both would seem to be a long way off. i certainly don't want to wait 1-6 hours every ~200-miles for the batteries to recharge. question: if stuck in traffic...literally not moving...are the batteries discharging like a gasser burning gas while idling?

Reisender wrote:
- No grabbing a gas pump handle after somebody else just scratched their (fill in the blank).

well, you're still touching something on the charging stand. if someone is that squeamish then they must go really crazy at a campground. hand sanitizer does the job for those that must have it.

Thats true. And my response was meant to inject some humour. But keep in mind the vast majority of the average EV'ers charging is done at home in the driveway. I think in 2018 it was 93 percent. No smell of gas or diesel on the handle though. But yah, not a biggy.

Reisender wrote:
- Drive and forget no maintenance driving. (Well, washer fluid, wiper blades, brake fluid once in a while). No oil, filters, hoses, belts, plugs and brakes don’t get used much so very little wear.

what is the lifespan of the batteries and what's it cost to replace them? and what about battery disposal? can they be recycled? there are obviously other moving parts so what is their lifespan and the cost to maintain?

Modern EV's have only been around for about 10 years so some of those are hard questions. The early batteries in 2011 and 2012 also had some heat issues in hot climates. Batteries are typically warrantied for 8 or more years so the first 8 or so years are free if there is a failure. The batteries in a modern EV are rated to last the life of the car but range does drop off as the car gets older. Tesla batteries are showing losses of about 10 percent after 160,000 km. Nissan Leafs about twice that much although their first two years 2011 and 2012 that was much higher. We have noticed little to no degradation in ours after 4 years. A re and re on a Leaf is supposedly 8000 bucks but to date other than warranty I don't think very many people have paid for a new battery. SOme of the original madrid Leaf cabs from 2011 are over a quarter million kilometers. But although they have hot summers the climate is low mountainous.

Re recycling. I think the industry is still too young to have a large recycling presence. Most EV batteries now are re purposed for off grid storage or UPS type environment. There is some interesting googling on that.

Reisender wrote:
- Very quiet ride. Model dependent though. We found bolt was a little louder.

agree that this would be great! a buddy has a Prius and has noticed that he sometimes startles people at crossings..people who did not hear him coming. maybe some low level artificial noise needs to be added to warn pedestrians?

Both our EV's have a pedestrian warning sound that is active under 30 KMh. Apparently not required in all countries. Don't know about the USA.

Reisender wrote:
- fuel (electricity) is cheap but this depends where you live of course.

I think this is a major issue. nuclear seems to be going away, at least it is here in Illinois, and with current technology i don't see solar/wind possibly bridging the gap. new power plants don't seem to be springing up and the grid in some parts of the country are suffering from brown-outs. the energy to provide power to what we all have and enjoy now plus the network of fast-rate charging stations has to come from somewhere.

I know very about the US grid other than what I read here. I have read multiple posters here indicate it is always on the verge of collapse and that the 20 percent extra load required to power a completely electric car fleet will essentially cause a national collapse. I don't understand the reasoning but apparently there are some geopolitical factors in play. Most countries utilities don't see any any unsolvable engineering problems. I'm sure you guys will figure it out. You always do.

Heads up though. Although we have a 40 amp 240 volt charger in the garage that we put in when we first switched to EV's the vast amount of our charging is done on a 120 volt 15 amp circuit and a 240 volt 15 amp circuit. The 40 amp unit cost me 500 bucks...and I probably wouldn't do it again. My point is that most EVSE's are less draw than a water heater. Most people we know plug in once or twice a week over night. Some program their timers to come on at 1201 midnight to allow for cheaper rates. For us it's always roughly 10 cents per kilowatt hour. A kilowatt takes you about 6.5 kilometers

Reisender wrote:
- We are not on a tight budget so this is relative but cost of driving is a fraction of the Grand Cherokee.

did your insurance stay about the same, go up, go down?

Our insurance went up a couple hundred bucks but it was a 7 year newer vehicle soooo.

Reisender wrote:
- We can drive in the HOV lanes although that’s only when we visit a neighbouring city which is 80 km away which is only a couple times a month.

the HOV lanes I'm familiar with...and we've been in every state in the lower 48...require at least two persons to use those lanes. are you saying that you can use the HOV lanes while driving alone?

Yep. Only EV's though. No hybrids.

like you I have nothing against EVs and maybe, one day, they will evolve into truly useful vehicles.

Yep. It has to suit your needs or you end up doing it twice. When we buy a vehicle we try to imagine it working for us for the next 5 to 7 years. By that time we are looking for new tech and new safety feature. And someone always gets a well cared for used vehicle.

Here are a couple of interesting pics.

The first shows 6.7 km per KW. This is our first generation leaf so shorter range. This number drops in the middle of the winter (maybe 5.8) and goes up in spring and fall. Summer also drops to maybe 6.3 with AC use. This car has a heat pump so th heat doesn't suck a lot of power till it gets below about zero celcius. We see a loss of about 1/3 of our range in winter. No effect on us as we don't travel far in the winter...or we fly.



This is our 120 volt EVSE. Connected to our soffitt plug for christmas lights. We don't have Christmas lights.



This is our 240 volt 12 amp EVSE. We got a deal on it otherwise I probably wouldn't have installed it. Had to run a circuit for it for a few hundred bucks. Its on a 15 amp breaker but we ran 8 gauge to future proof a bit.



Below is our 240 volt 40 amp EVSE. I wouldn't do it again but it has been handy a few times over the last few years. There is a fast charger about 10 blocks from our house so probably wasn't really necessary as in a short notice pinch I suppose we could go there. Meh. Its in now.



This pic shows the AC drawing about 1 KW so it was obviously a hot day when I took it. But once its cool maybe 1/2 kilowatt. Notice it calculates the range you loose from your remaining range (on the left)