Electric Cars

[Alan Lightstone]

It's a ridiculous study. First of all, my home charger was free (long story), but let's say you just wired a NEMA 14-50 outlet, which is what most people do. Typically costs $350, which is what I paid in my last house. And I could have wired it myself.

The vast majority of EV users charge their cars at home. My theoretical costs for this are about $7.00 a week at most. I drive about 12K miles a year. So my cost per mile in electricity is $0.03/mile. My wife has a sedan. We just paid $65.00 to fill it up. Doing the similar math on her car, with the price of gas in Florida (which certainly is far cheaper than California or Alaska, for example), her gas car costs $0.18/mile, or 6 times more expensive.

Oh, and I have a solar powered house, so my real cost per mile is ZERO.

[Lee DeRaud]

And the award for "Quote of the Week" goes to:

Comparing a sealed 12V lead/acid battery to a 450V thermally regulated 4860 Li pack is like comparing parallel parking to landing on The Moon.

[Alex Zeller]

Mike, that's one of the issues that EVs will have to work out. I don't need to keep my ICE's tank full because I can pull into any gas station, fill it, and be back on the road in under 5 minutes. If I'm going to work the next day I don't need a full tank. But on days off (I work a 12 hour shift so I get lots of them) I can decide at the last moment to go for a drive to take pictures. It's not that unusual for me to go several hundred miles.

But that's the real issue with EVs. Everybody is different. Some people drive 12k miles a year while others do twice that a month. Some people have a garage (like me) with a 100 amp 240v subpanel in it while others don't. Some people have no codes so they can add a 240v outlet for very cheap while others have no choice but to hire an electrician (the price of which will vary wildy depending on your location). While others will not be able to even have a charger where they live.

As for solar panels and it being "free" to charge. It's not free since the panels weren't free. They will pay for themselves though, not as fast around here since we get lots of cloudy days and plenty of snow vs you guys in southern CA. Since I work during the day I would have to count on net metering or spend more money and install batteries in the garage (which actually sounds like a good idea vs a large standby generator). Net metering is not going to last as more and more people install panels. Also, at least for me, it would be cheaper to buy a diesel vehicle and just grow a crop to convert into biodiesel.

My personal opinion is the government should be pushing plug in hybrids with 100 mile+ range. Enough range so people can get an idea of how easy an EV would fit into their lives.

[Brian Elfert]

As for solar panels and it being "free" to charge. It's not free since the panels weren't free. They will pay for themselves though, not as fast around here since we get lots of cloudy days and plenty of snow vs you guys in southern CA. Since I work during the day I would have to count on net metering or spend more money and install batteries in the garage (which actually sounds like a good idea vs a large standby generator). Net metering is not going to last as more and more people install panels. Also, at least for me, it would be cheaper to buy a diesel vehicle and just grow a crop to convert into biodiesel.

My personal opinion is the government should be pushing plug in hybrids with 100 mile+ range. Enough range so people can get an idea of how easy an EV would fit into their lives.

I have solar and my electricity certainly is not free when you consider the cost of equipment. Because I ended up spending a ton of money to move my panels to make room for a new garage/shop I will have a payback period of at least 15 years on my solar. I save about $1,000 per year on electricity. I am hoping the state of Minnesota will grandfather net metering for 20 years as they have talked about. It might be 20 years from original start date. If it doesn't happen the money is already spent on my solar and I have no loan to pay off.

The government is offering the same $7,500 tax credit for plug-in hybrids as for electric vehicles so they are promoting them in a way. I suspect a lot of people would never charge the battery while on a road trip and just buy gasoline. It makes a lot of sense for around town use. I would like a plug-in hybrid, but a new plug-in minivan is over $50,000 before tax credit. A new minivan would have a lot of luxury features I have no use for. I paid just over $20,000 new for my 2016 minivan and while the base model it has everything I need.

[Prashun Patel]

Running that wire may be beyond the capacity of many even intrepid homeowners. Not uncommon for this to be a cost north of 1000

[Mike Henderson]

Running that wire may be beyond the capacity of many even intrepid homeowners. Not uncommon for this to be a cost north of 1000

Well, a NEMA 14-50 outlet should use 6-3 wire which is a bit expensive and stiff to work with. But anyone who has done a reasonable amount of electrical wiring can do it, assuming you have space in your panel for another breaker.

If you hired an electrician to do the above - not to install a subpanel - it should be less than $1,000 unless you are in a very expensive area.

I put in a 100 amp subpanel feeding two NEMA 14-50 outlets with 6-3 and it didn't cost $1,000. I don't remember the exact cost but it was above $500. The wire was the big cost - the wire to the subpanel and the length of 6-3 to go from the subpanel to the outlets individually.

With an electrician it might have cost $1,000 or more.

Mike

[Ronald Blue]

I do like the "my cost is 0 because I have solar panels" comment. Free solar panels too apparently. Hmmmm. Since the majority of vehicles are parked overnight and that's when the charging occurs the solar is only marginally beneficial. I worked with a guy who had an acreage and added solar panels. While it greatly reduces his electric bill at least here the credit on the bill doesn't match the cost per kwh and that makes some sense. Electric coops have to maintain the network too. I'm not sure everything mentioned in the article is correct but I also think those who claim that there is no cost's associated with an EV after the electric cost aren't necessarily realistic either. More to come I'm certain.

[Jim Becker]

Ronald, many folks using Solar to generate also have storage battery walls for "when the sun don't shine"...if they are feeding excess back to the utility, they also gain credit for that against what they might use off the grid at night.

[Mike Henderson]

In the "old days" when everyone had mechanical electric power meters, the meter would run backwards when power was fed back to the grid. Then, when you used power, the meter would run forwards. In that situation, you were using the grid as a "battery" - you were putting power in at one time of day and taking it out at another time of day.

Now, most people have electronic meters and the electronic meters can detect power direction. In some places, the power company will pay a certain price for power you put into the grid, and charge you a different (higher) price when you take it out.

In other situations, the power company is required to pay you the same price as they charge. In this case, it's just like the old electric meters. However, the power company may charge more for electricity when the sun is not shining, making it more expensive to use power at night.

In any case, it's fair to say that if you have solar you are using solar power to charge your car, no matter what time of day you charge it.

Most people do not install enough solar panels to zero out their electric usage so some of their power usage, whether to run the home A/C, or to charge the car, comes from the grid.

Solar panels significantly reduce the total amount of power you take from the grid.

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

Ronald, many folks using Solar to generate also have storage battery walls for "when the sun don't shine"...if they are feeding excess back to the utility, they also gain credit for that against what they might use off the grid at night.

The number of solar users who are tied to the grid and have batteries is very few. Batteries just don't make financial sense if you have grid access in most cases. Right now, the people who have batteries typically want backup power that doesn't require a generator. Most solar users who are grid tied simply pull power from the grid when the sun is not shining. I have enough solar power to cover 150% of my total usage. The extra goes to cover the $20 a month in fees and anything remaining after that I get a check from the utility. I have been getting $300 to $400 every year from the utility.

[Brian Elfert]

Some analog meters would actually charge the customer for electricity sent to the grid. Other analog meters would simply do nothing if power was sent to the grid. My utility had special bi-directional analog meters for solar customers. My utility was very clear I should not run the solar except for testing before my new meter was in.

I was the very first customer in my area to get a smart meter when I got solar. The utility didn't want to replace my meter twice. The advantage for me was they didn't charge me $189 to put in a bi-directional meter since they had to replace the meter anyhow.

[Scott Clausen]

And the award for "Quote of the Week" goes to:

I did like that. I had no idea that EV's had 450 volt batteries in them, I guess I need to do some research on this topic.

I hear that fire departments are having to do some training on how to deal with EV's after a bad accident, that old get a hose on it doesn't work well for a battery fire.

[roger wiegand]

FWIW, Hertz announced this morning that they have ordered 100,000 Teslas to be available starting on November. Once delivered they will make up about a quarter of Hertz' worldwide fleet.

[Brian Elfert]

FWIW, Hertz announced this morning that they have ordered 100,000 Teslas to be available starting on November. Once delivered they will make up about a quarter of Hertz' worldwide fleet.

I wonder how this will affect rental car pricing? I wonder if Hertz is doing this in part because they simply need more cars to meet rental demand?

One article stated this is one time Hertz is paying full retail for cars. However, they are getting at least a 10% discount if they are paying $40,000 per car.

[Edwin Santos]

I wonder if Hertz is doing this in part because they simply need more cars to meet rental demand?

That may be part of it, but another big part may be the marketing advantages. To associate the Tesla brand with Hertz puts Hertz on the leading tech edge from a perception standpoint.
I wonder if there was exclusivity built into the deal that effectively cuts off other rental car companies from accessing Tesla. Hertz and Tesla are two names that go together very well ironically.

Last month I flew into Vancouver BC and rented a car from Budget who had some prominent signage that they were offering the electric Volvo SUV. I asked about it and the guy at the counter told me there was way more demand than they expected and the few they had were always booked out. Coincidentally, the AirBnB I was using offered EV charging as one of the amenities. I don't recall the exact rental price of the Volvo but it was definitely higher than the ICE vehicles.