Electric Cars Anyone?

[Bill Dufour]

The cooling system maintenance would not go away with an EV would it?
You'd still have a compressor to deal with, and possibly leaks, would you not?
(Wouldn't it now be similar to your "plug-in" refrigerator? )

I meant radiator and water pump plus heater cores and valves to leak. Ac system would be similar but no pulley seals to fail. That may allow different refrigerants to be used?
Bill D

[Patty Hann]

I meant radiator and water pump plus heater cores and valves to leak. Ac system would be similar but no pulley seals to fail. That may allow different refrigerants to be used?
Bill D

Oh...right..that cooling system, Sorry...my bad.
Here in AZ low deserts when some says "cooling" I think of AC.

[roger wiegand]

Wow....I have never had a car with maintenance costs of $4000-8000 A year. My last vehicle was 15 years old and nothing close to that. A set of tires or major brake job was most expensive.

Poor choice of cars on my account I suppose. The last year I had my Mini it needed to have the engine disassembled to do some process for cleaning deposits off the valves that was causing it to throw an error code that wasn't going to pass inspection (about $2000), replace some piece of the fuel injection/ignition system that was about $1500 (over time I had to do three of four-- when they went out the car ran on only three cylinders), $800 for rear brakes, plus many hundred dollars of routine maintenance stuff. I had a repair estimate in hand for about $3200 of suspension-related repair when I traded it in (for about $3500). The worst was a couple years before when a piece of road debris went through the pan and ended up with bent piston rods and other major engine damage, that bill was about $5500. I've blocked the details of what all the BMW needed, but no visit to the mechanic was ever under $1000.

If i'd been sensible and bought a Corolla I could have avoided all that, but had a lot less fun.

[Alan Lightstone]

On my second Tesla Model S. Have solar house with a surplus, so essentially free charging for the last 9 years.

Once you own a fully electric car, and assuming that you have a charger at home, plus hopefully at work or on the route home, you realize that the range issue really doesn't exist anymore. You just do things differently.

Now, the infrastructure is clearly not presently setup for everyone to have one. That's just an insane concept now. Just think of an apartment building with 300 units, and if you're lucky 1-2 chargers. Until that problem gets addressed (and good luck with delivering that much electricity), the present laws are just pipedreams.

But as far as the oft-quoted range issue. That really is old news for the vast majority of users. My present Model S gets well over 300 miles of range per charge. And can be increased if I choose to charge rarely to 100%. Study after study shows that is well beyond most people's needs. And if I need to pull into a Supercharger (which I have never had to do with my new model), who cares.

Anyway, one long-term owner's $0.02

[Bill Howatt]

I think the other problem is that according to a Consumer Report's test of 4 vehicles the cold day range can drop to <70% of the warm day range. Their "cold day test" was 16F (-8C) which isn't what we call a genuine winter cold day here. 0F and considerably lower is more typical in the January-February months.

[Tom M King]

Most of my Scientist friends have EV's, and all love them.

[Bob Borzelleri]

We bought a ‘22 VW ID.4 last year. It replaced my wife’s Suburu Outback as her daily driver and as the “best car” she has ever driven.

It is AWD and it handled our recent snowfalls including going up/down our long and steep driveway with not so much as a wiggle.

I had a Ford Lightning on order until I read a real world test on its tow capability. Pulling 12,000 lbs. sounds good until you find out that pulling a 2,000 lb. camper resulted in fewer than 100 miles range. Clearly not ready for towing even light weight (5,000 lbs gross) campers.

Instead, I bought a ‘22 RAM 1500 eTorque 5.7L 4WD for pulling the camper. When someone builds a truck that can pull my camper 250-300 mils on a charge, I will sell the hemi and jump on a capable EV truck.

Having 17.6kw of solar at home makes the decision pretty easy.

[Bill Dufour]

I think the other problem is that according to a Consumer Report's test of 4 vehicles the cold day range can drop to <70% of the warm day range. Their "cold day test" was 16F (-8C) which isn't what we call a genuine winter cold day here. 0F and considerably lower is more typical in the January-February months.

About 50% of new cars sold in Norway are Tesla's. So I assume they have it figured out. It also has to do with lots of hydropower and some government policies.
BILL D.

[Bill Dufour]

Caterpillar makes huge Diesel electric mining trucks. They have an option of a double catenary hook up for more power on up hill portions. Just like an electric buss using two overhead wires.
Bill D.

https://caterpillar.scene7.com/is/co...30-dba70-c067f

[Lee DeRaud]

Poor choice of cars on my account I suppose. The last year I had my Mini it needed to have the engine disassembled to do some process for cleaning deposits off the valves that was causing it to throw an error code that wasn't going to pass inspection (about $2000), replace some piece of the fuel injection/ignition system that was about $1500 (over time I had to do three of four-- when they went out the car ran on only three cylinders), $800 for rear brakes, plus many hundred dollars of routine maintenance stuff. I had a repair estimate in hand for about $3200 of suspension-related repair when I traded it in (for about $3500). The worst was a couple years before when a piece of road debris went through the pan and ended up with bent piston rods and other major engine damage, that bill was about $5500. I've blocked the details of what all the BMW needed, but no visit to the mechanic was ever under $1000.

If i'd been sensible and bought a Corolla I could have avoided all that, but had a lot less fun.

Ah. As a sanity check, my total is just a tick under $3000 since October 2015...2016 Honda Accord 4D. Yes, less fun than a Mini, but more than you'd expect given V6 and wider than stock tires. (My previous two cars were a 2004 Corvette and a 2000 Boxster S, so I do know a bit about both fun and inflated service prices.)

The valve-deposit thing struck my eye. It's the downside of direct injection, and I suspect it's starting to bite people in the wallet as more cars use it. I doubt the gas savings of such a system come anywhere close to covering the price of a cylinder-head rebuild.

[Bill Howatt]

About 50% of new cars sold in Norway are Tesla's. So I assume they have it figured out. It also has to do with lots of hydropower and some government policies.
BILL D.

I should have been more specific since my concern is about range because I'm rural. The max warm temperature range of most EVs is what I need for a return trip to the big city closest to me. In the colder weather I couldn't do it without a recharge - big deal? Maybe, maybe not depending on my reasons for the trip.
I also think that one needs to be careful comparing European driving distances and habits with N.A.
Maybe EV drivers are going to gain a lot of weight since they are probably eating doughnuts and burgers each time they wait for the car to recharge . I notice our local doughnut shop has a charger.

[Greg Funk]

I think the other problem is that according to a Consumer Report's test of 4 vehicles the cold day range can drop to <70% of the warm day range. Their "cold day test" was 16F (-8C) which isn't what we call a genuine winter cold day here. 0F and considerably lower is more typical in the January-February months.

The range certainly goes down in the winter but most EVs still have way more range than needed for daily commutes. I only use about 25-30% of the battery on a typical day so if the capacity was reduced by 30% it wouldn't make a difference. I have a Tesla and I don't typically use it for long trips.

[scott lipscomb]

when ford announced their lightening pickup, they mentioned that they would be offering a gas generator that mounted in the bed. I thought that is a great idea. Leave the generator at home when you are just driving local. For long trips, load up the generator and off you go. Or…rent the generator when you need it.

I heard that-anyone know what happened to this idea?

[Doug Garson]

Now, the infrastructure is clearly not presently setup for everyone to have one. That's just an insane concept now. Just think of an apartment building with 300 units, and if you're lucky 1-2 chargers. Until that problem gets addressed (and good luck with delivering that much electricity), the present laws are just pipedreams.

I agree upgrading the infrastructure is a big challenge, but what "present laws" are you referring to?

[Alan Lightstone]

I agree upgrading the infrastructure is a big challenge, but what "present laws" are you referring to?

The push by the present administration to essentially have mostly/all electric cars by some future date. The infrastructure challenge is huge in making this happen, and I'm really not sure how getting multiple electric car owners in an apartment complex to have their cars conveniently charged (or charged at all) can happen. To me, this is an insurmountable challenge that just isn't being discussed. The current requirements to have, lets say, 100 cars charging at the same time would be (if my math is remotely correct) approximately 0.96 MW. And that's for each moderately sized apartment building. How is this remotely possible? For single homeowners, charging infrastructure is easy, and really not very expensive to implement. But for more dense housing???