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- Hacker News
- The US does not have the same power infrastructure as China.by linzhangrun
- The overall calculation is very personal to each household.
Do you even need a car?
Do you live in a house or an apartment?
If you're in an apartment, is there car parking with charging infrastructure?
If you're in a house, do you own it or are you renting?
Do you have solar panels?
How long is your daily drive?
How often do you need to travel further than the car's range?
How much can the car recharge overnight?
Can you plug the car in anywhere to charge overnight?
What public charging infrastructure is nearby?
What rate are you charged for electricity?
I'm in a house with solar and battery and have had a 2014 Nissan Leaf for nearly two years. It costs $11k, and in that time has saved us around $2,500 in petrol. We've since purchased another EV, replacing a petrol family car, both of which have about the same range with a 'full tank', except the EV costs about $5 to go from empty to full whilst the petrol car was about $70. We've only had the new one about 3 months, so I can't speak to reliability over an extended period. Both cars are charged overnight just at 10A, 240V, no fast charge and so far they cover our normal daily usage no worries.
I'm aware that I'm lucky in that my situation seems to be a perfect use-case for EVs.
(I'm also not in the US, and so the recent EV was cheaper or at least comparable to equivalent petrol cars; someone mentioned a 'payback period', in my case it doesn't apply).
by BLKNSLVR - Hard to make an opinion when EVs are not being scrapped to any great extent.by beardyw
- > “We even did a sensitivity study to see if the range is reduced in very cold climates, and we found that, even in the most unfavorable conditions, EVs still reduce emissions by a substantial amount,” Miotti says.
the range is so bad that he couldn’t even finish the thought about range
that’s hilarious and I’m an EV driver, in warm and sunny southwest though
by yieldcrv - Unless things have changed, when I looked a couple of years ago, I couldn't make the math math. The cost difference outweighed the savings, IIRC, even if we assumed electricity to be free.
The bigger problem, though, was that the EV we were considering (a Prius) was scarce. So even though I couldn't make the alleged price make sense … well, if there's no supply, then the price may as well be $∞.
So IDK, since that lack of supply also seems to suggest other people disagree (or put utility to the ecological aspects).
by deathanatos - Electric cars face a lot of depreciation, so you can get a really good deal on a used one. Plenty of supply, low cost, and cheap to keep running.by hellcow
- But I think American drivers probably don’t care about these things.by sollawen
- You don't think Americans care about cost savings, with how much they complain about gasoline prices?by arijun
- I personally think hyping emissions as a benefit for drivers is a case in total misunderstanding of human motivations and desires. It's not a benefit for drivers. It's a benefit for everyone else who only has to breath the brake dust off the EV instead of the brake dust plus exhaust. The benefit is not captured by the driver so doesn't matter to the driver. The people that care about the concept of emissions almost universally don't care about actual emissions, they care about the flexing and social standing being able to claim zero emissions gives them in their social circle. It matters not if the car actually has zero emissions or if the manufacturer is pulling a Volkswagen and cheating to those guys.
The selling point for EVs is the much nicer ride they now produce (much quieter interior, much better acceleration, usually much better technology package) and the potentially much cheaper operation depending on your driving situation.
I am an example of the new electric car buyer. I test drove a toyota crown and a toyota bz and the bz surprised me with how much drastically better it was to drive. I then did the math on operating it and vs my 12 year old SUV it will save me between 3 and 5 thousand a year on fuel costs and probably another few hundred on maintenance because I now have 3 kids and drive 25k - 30k kms a year vs 10k kms when I bought the suv. If the battery actually last 10 years I will likely save 30-50 thousand on op costs so it was a no brainer to go electric. If the battery pricing improves and the terrible charging infra improves, when I go to replace my second car in five years I will probably go electric there too, mostly depending on the charging infra since I still do some longer inter city/province driving for which the bz will be a pain in western Canada.
- How do they account for the cost of having to rent ICE vehicles for road trips that do not suit EVs (some do, and some do not)? Do they factor in the cost of insurance, which some say is much higher for their EVs?
I have owned PHEVs and like them quite a bit, but if I'd bought them new I still wouldn't have reached the payback period. It seems that a PHEV typically costs $12k more than the ICE version, so the payback period is quite long (I think I estimated it to be 50k miles, assuming you charge for free at work, and gas is $5/gallon).
EVs and PHEVs can be great for some people, and some may even save money with them (maintenance is blessedly low). But I find it unlikely that for "most" US drivers, they would save money (and of course they would save on emissions, this is kind of a useless thing to add to the headline).
by apparent - Why would you rent ICE for road trip tho? It's so incredibly inconvenient, noisy, poor performing and constant headache of even making there due to poor reliability. With occasional chance of burning or poisoning your family with fumes.by dzhiurgis
- EVs and PHEVs are completely unrelated though: price, reliability, and mileage wiseby Faaak
- What road trips are you taking frequently enough that an EV just won’t work?by 650REDHAIR
- My experience - in the Nordics, but this is transferable - is they are also much nicer to own and drive. I don’t know anyone who went electric and then went back. The generation who went electric a few years ago is now on their second or third electric car. The makes and models in favour is changing (cue tangent on Tesla brand death in Europe) but the power source choice is not. So as more people get one, I expect their market share to just climb and climb.by wood_spirit
- > I don’t know anyone who went electric and then went back.
Seriously?
EVs have many practical advantages. Don't need to list them here, we all know.
But they are so, so, so boring. Zero soul, zero character. Perfect appliance, zero passion.
Sometimes in life, passion matters too.
I like an EV for city commuting because commuting is boring no matter what so it's a good fit.
But for when I want to feel alive and drive (cue up Red Barchetta by Rush), no EV will ever do.
by jjav - If electric lawnmowers offered the same value, operational convenience, and maintainability (compared to gas-powered mowers) as electric cars do, they'd sell like hotcakes. Two-stroke engines are a PITA.by euroderf
- EVs are great in, say, Norway. But the population of the country Norway isn't even half that of the city Tokyo. Less people means less cars on the street which translates to less cars using up charging stations.
Once things get crowded and you have to wait in line to get your vehicle charged, it becomes a bit annoying.
by BoxwoodSeed - Depends on who you ask, I suppose. One study in the last year showed only around 1% of EV owners in the US planned to go back to gas for their next car. A different study showed that number was actually 46%. Yet another said it was actually 22%.
I'm inclined to think the number is closer to the higher end, at least in the US. There's still a lot of areas where the charging infrastructure is awful, and if you live in an apartment or are traveling, that's an important consideration. Another is the insurance premium cost, due to the expense of replacing batteries.
I imagine these issues will continue to be less challenging for people over time, as more second hand batteries, recycling and infrastructure continues to expand. Even at current gas prices, though, it didn't make financial sense for my family when we traded in a car two months back.
by zdragnar - I totally agree, I went electric last year and couldn't be happier. Got a hyundai ioniq 6 which is an amazing car. Charging is simple and cheap and where I live (nw europe) the charging infrastructure is great. Did a couple of long range road trips (germany, france) and fast chargers were easy to find. Take a small break, have a coffee and the car was already full again. I had some anxiety about this before, but this has 100% better than I was expecting.
The best thing is, at least here, there are so many "small" charging spots. If you take them into account when traveling to places (even the grocery store, or the museum, or near whatever relative or friend you are visiting), you can just charge cheaply there. This is the hardest habit for me to break: no, i don't need to visit a "gas station" to fill up, just charge wherever you can find a charger, and it doesnt have to be 100%. Even a short stop on a slower charging spot helps a lot.
by plusmax1