This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Have a 2011 Lexus ES350 (gas, V6), and a 2013 Nissan Leaf (EV, ~60 miles of range). Both my wife and I prefer driving the Leaf around town because it's just plain fun. We keep the Lexus for long trips, but could honestly get by with a rental if we ever needed to.
We know they’re better, we just can’t afford them.
Better analogies would be automatic vs manual transmission, power steering vs not, and CarPlay/Google Maps vs a paper atlas.
I think a lot of people know you have to pay to charge and that charging can take nearly an hour and they don’t see the point. I didn’t know what it cost to charge an EV before. I saw an article yesterday where someone charged, if I read it correctly, 89% of their capacity (they were down to 11%), for $13.99. Get a petrol driver to figure out their capacity, multiply it by 0.89, then multiply that by the cost of petrol in their area. Then convert to US Dollars and see which is cheaper. Guarantee it’s electric.
Of course, that leaves another variable. Batteries, being consumable devices. How much is the EV’s battery to replace (including labour) and how long does the OEM part last?
If you're looking at fast charging (1 hour or less) on a regular basis, you're doing it wrong. The vast majority of charging should happen while the car is already parked, using level 2 AC charging. This means when you park at home, with, etc, you take just a few seconds to connect a charger, then walk away. When you come back ~8 hours later, you take a few seconds to unplug before leaving. This approach, believe it or not, means I spend less time dealing with fuel than if I had a gas car.
Plus, AC charging is much cheaper, and more reliable. These chargers are very simple devices, that just do a bit of monitoring and negotiation. They deliver raw 240v to the car, which has its own AC-DC converter.
DC fast charging is much more expensive - $14 for a full DC charge is very unlikely. That's because DCFC stations are very big, complex installations. As such, they also have parts fail on a regular basis. DCFC is often more expensive than gas, but again should only be used on rare occasions.
As for batteries failing, it's about as often as a gas engine fails. IOW, it's extremely rare until the car is EOL anyway. Battery degradation is typically 85-90% health remaining at 100k miles.
This is a new kind of propaganda. Most of that is reasonable except 15 minutes is not "close to an hour" to charge.
Your hour might apply to one model that's more than a decade old. It has never taken a Tesla that long to charge, and it doesn't take that long for any other modern model to charge.
I got my first car 24 years ago. A hand-me-down that my grandpa bought with 87kkm on it, that my brother crashed. It took a lot of welding to get that car to pass inspection.
Four cars later I still have never owned a new car. I aim to buy 10yo without a loan. My current one no longer gets updated maps for its built-in infotainment system.
If I buy a 10yo EV it'll definitely need a new battery pack. That changes the economy completely. I guess it's cheaper to drive so I'd shell out for 10yo of driving in advance.
Not at all a very convinient opinion for him as he maneuvered his company into a dead end doubling down on the combustion engine.
As much as I love my EV I’ll keep my horse au naturel…
The Car & The Horse:
A Short Tale a Djin Once Told Me (VOL I)
Once upon a time there was a human with a horse. It wasn't a poor human, but it was a simple one.
One day whilst plowing fields, forcing a horse to plow a course...("Jim", we shall name horse) thae human stumbled upon a brass lamp, ornately carved & brilliant to witness.
As the human was furiously rubbing the lamp with it's sleeve, Jim noticed some text on the bottom of the lamp and imagined what it might sound like..
"Neigh..", the human heard, curiously
BUT this isn't a tale of humans. It is a tale of horses and electric cars. The last of my tales dwarfed the original story, thus causing OP to delete the entire post. However, that story isn't gone forever. I still have it. This is simply a different one.
And this is a story about a horse.
FOR MORE HORSE STORY, INSERT COIN
FOR MORE HORSE STORY, INSERT COIN
Oh great, the coin judt scratched my phone screen. You owe me a horse story!
The scratch is simply a metaphor.
This is a horse story...
....A found letter story, in the form of a Ken Burns documentary!!
POOF
"Dear Bobert,
I have stumbled upon a majestic lamp & read the text of lamp. A genie... neigh..a Djin then appeared. When asked for my first I gurfawed "Apple", but sadly it was an apple of knowledge. Damned Djin. Now I am on my second wish, which I have decided is "Replace horse with car".
Please, if this is a bad wish, alert me within the next few minutes. I realize now that it is too late, as you have already received this and I have made my wish.
Alas, I lovingly await your sheep words..
Car love you, Jim The Horse The Car"
