Electric vehicle charging cost

drsteve wrote:

The article is misleading in that there is no mention whatsoever of the significant routine maintenance advantage enjoyed by electric cars. The author points to battery depreciation as being the big cost difference while ignoring that many conventional vehicles incur major engine or transmission repair costs within the ten year battery life span.

Hard to believe a guy who presents himself as a financial analyst specializing in the auto industry, i.e. an expert, would miss something like that.

Maybe he missed the major engine and transmission maintenance costs because it's a statistical non-issue. For my own data, I have a 24 year old car and a recently totaled 23 year old car, both with over 250k miles, plus a 9 year old car. None of them have needed any major engine or transmission maintenance. No heads or oil pans removed, and no transmission work beyond fluid changes. On the other side of the coin, the use of $0.24 per kWh seems on the high side to me. And a critical piece of missing information is that the article does not compare the Tesla to conventional cars, but to hybrids. The headline "Tesla Model 3 Costs More To Charge Than A Gasoline Car" is dishonest and misleading. With that in mind, I'm reluctant to believe anything in the article.

How dew ya put a chrome megaphone on an ev? Shucks just thought of it --- amplifier beeg speakers, and the recording of your choice. Would sound bettr'n these rolling piano toys that sound like a giraffe swallowed a harmonica.

garyemunson wrote:
Having driven electric going on 7 years (first a Volt, then a Caddy ELR) I will never go back.

No engine noise/vibration anymore. You may think your vehicle is smooth and quiet but that perception goes away once you ride in an electric car. Acceleration is like the hand of God shoving you down the road.

I'm amused at all the people with absolutely no experience with electric cars who seem to think they know so much about them.

I must admit, I’ve never driven either of those cars, but I will say the wind and road noise in either of my Tesla’s is FAR greater than it is in most of my ICE vehicles. Ditto smooth, and hands down better handling.

As for the ‘hand of God’, apparently he really does have 2 hands, because my V12 bi-turbo ICE shoves me down the road even faster than the Tesla, and sounds FAR sexier doing it.

So many people who have no real knowledge spouting nonsense on electric cars. Just one point...permanent magnets are a Faux News staple but do not exist in Tesla Model S and X cars and Chevy Volts and Caddy ELRs. Those all use induction motors. If you do not know the difference, read.

pianotuna wrote:
kerrlakeRoo,

nickel-metal hydride is a heck of a lot different from LI.

kerrlakeRoo wrote:
They use metals, a lot more rare earth metals I'm sure, and the chemicals involved in production of the batteries are so caustic that the Prius battery production had to be moved to India which was much more lax than the previous home.

Wrong, LI battery production USES many metals which are not any better than Nickle-metal Hydride batteries..

In fact, in Tesla's own battery the break down from HEREis as follows excluding the obvious Lithium..

5% Aluminum
15% Cobalt
80% NICKLE

Battery making of any type IS an extremely dirty and unenviromentally friendly process.

To get the materials, pretty much ALL require huge amounts of mining, huge amounts of WATER and huge amounts of ENERGY..

Cobalt has not been mined in the US for 40+ yrs..

Lithium processing is horrible on the environment in its' self since it typically it is processed via open brine pools..

Recycling lithium based batteries is a whole nuther mess, currently, very little of Lithium batteries can be reprocessed and very little Lithium can be extracted and reused in another battery..

I know "Pro-EV" folks like to duck their heads in the sand on this, but you simply cannot ignore the facts that making any batteries is not clean or environmentally friendly..

Another flip side besides the batteries is making those powerful electric motors requires large amounts of copper, large amounts of rare earth metals for the high power permanent magnets.. The only place on this earth that mines and processes materials for high power magnets is China..

Get over it folks, it is not free, not cheap and not environmentally clean by any means.. You have been sold a bill of goods to think other wise.

At least with a ICE engine, it CAN be fully recycled, takes less raw materials to build and many recycled materials ARE used in building new engines..

From a recycling perspective, 99.9% of a ICE vehicle can be fully recycled and reused in new products..

With electric cars, not so much, electronics are not recyclable (motor controls, ect), LI batteries are not recyclable.. That leaves the vehicle frame and body along with some plastic and perhaps wiring and motors..

Then there is another thing, Li batteries which Tesla is making an using MUST be stored, charged and used in a very well temperature controlled environment.. What this means is the battery is used to heat and cool it's self.. If you leave it unplugged from the grid for too long of time it eventually WILL run it's self down and become a huge door stop.. Something like 30 days..

Yeah, you HAVE to feed it from the grid even when not driving it..

So, tell me, how is that "saving the environment"?

At least with a ICE, it can sit for months on end and not have to be plugged in, wasting the power grid capacity.. Imagine what would happen if there where several million EV cars plugged into the grid 24/7/365 all sucking up hundreds of watts of energy..

Yeah, the power companies will love you for that..

Another issue is tax on vehicles and their energy. Are EVs enjoying immunity from these taxes that pay for roads? A good unbiased comparison of costs would be revealing. As for repair costs ICE vehicles have matured to last long with very little maintenance. Many owners could do all their own maintenance if fancy electronics could be avoided. Our 1992 van hasn’t visited a garage so far. Our 2004 minivan died suddenly in a minor crash because body repairs are higher than the value of a 14 year old vehicle. Advantage for the vehicle with reasonable initial cost together with reasonable repair cost I guess.

I expect electric propulsion will win out when solar and wind sourced electricity dominates.

What does it all mean for the owner who likes to do his own repair work? Will EV manufacturers be friendly to such customers as has been the tradition for ICE? Is there still hope that we can supply our own charging from solar/wind as subsidies end and taxes find our home solar panels? A bunch of new power lines from major new generation facilities to consumers will be expensive and annoying to many communities.

Mex,

Best use of that "wall" I've heard of. They could sell the power to Mexico.....

First we need to import 4 terawatts worth of solar panels from China then build a 6,0000,00,000 mile wall to keep the toxin fog bank from rolling in.

Australia will have the deepest open pit mine on the face of the earth
(Tourist Attraction!)

Car owners will be billed monthly by the kWh

Hyper fast charging stations will cost customers twice as much as regular charging stations.

Homes will require a five hundred dollar electrical building code variance and power companies will have two meters at each house -- kWh cost NOT set by market value, set by REVENUE NEEDS

I won't see it thank god. Did I mention the MANDATORY LAW about selling your rooftop power to the power company FIRST and prohibition against directly using the power

Oh Silly Me

I keep forgetting I am writing to utter Virgin eyeballs.

kerrlakeRoo,

nickel-metal hydride is a heck of a lot different from LI.

kerrlakeRoo wrote:
They use metals, a lot more rare earth metals I'm sure, and the chemicals involved in production of the batteries are so caustic that the Prius battery production had to be moved to India which was much more lax than the previous home.

drsteve wrote:

kerrlakeRoo wrote:

Cleaner for the environment seems a stretch, when you consider manufacturing especially the batteries and fueling, often from power provided by coal burning plants.

We must also consider the environmental costs of manufacturing an ICE--foundry smoke, mining operations, factory energy use, transportation costs for the myriad small parts that make up an ICE, all have an impact. Not to mention the significant environmental impact of oil extraction and refining operations, and transporting bulky liquid fuels to gas stations far away from refineries.

And every one of those associated cost and potential pollution sources exist in every facet of the EV. They use metals, a lot more rare earth metals I'm sure, and the chemicals involved in production of the batteries are so caustic that the Prius battery production had to be moved to India which was much more lax than the previous home.
On top of that the electricity for the charging has to be considered, Coal fired plants still produce a large portion of our energy because the greenies did not allow a single new Nuclear plant to be built for 33 years.

No, Tesla's are not "green", they are however gold for the manufacturers.

And still, I dont believe it makes enough difference either way, except to the ego's that drive the vehicle, be it a Lamborghini, Hummer, or a Tesla, ego's drive those cars, not environmental concerns.