Poll: Do you have, or plan to get, an electric car?

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Do you have an electric car or plan to get one?

  • Yes

  • No

  • I plan to

  • Over my dead body

Results are only viewable after voting.
Brooothru said:
šŸ˜. Assuming thereā€™s a ā€˜/sā€™ implied.
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I'm being facetious but not sarcastic. I would never give up home charging for a method that in practice would likely take even LONGER than gas fill ups.

For the slight tradeoff on road trips, home charging is way more than worthwhile. It's a convenience factor gas car committed people simply can't understand unfortunately.
 
Airborneguy said:
home charging is way more than worthwhile. It's a convenience factor gas car committed people simply can't understand unfortunately.
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Which strikes me as kind of bizarre. It should be the easiest thing to understand about EVs. Especially PHEVs. What's so difficult about "you only need to buy gas when you go on a long trip"?
 
Hoochin'Fool said:
Standardized battery packs that take 30 seconds to swap in and out at a gas station would go a long way to addressing most concerns about how long it takes to recharge. Kinda like the propane tank exchanges many gas stations around here in Minnesota do.
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I answered this one in the thread... Rather than retype I'll quote myself:

betarhoalphadelta said:
Not gonna happen in passenger vehicles. The battery packs are a stressed member of the frame in order to improve rigidity. Making them a removable item means that you have to massively bulk up the frame of the vehicle to reach the same rigidity, increasing vehicle weight and decreasing efficiency. It likely means that you also have to build a much more durable frame for the battery to have it withstand repeated insertion and removal. Again more weight, and less efficiency. All that increased weight means more load on tires, more load on drivetrain, more load on the road. It's one thing to do it in a cordless drill, it's another to do it in a multi-ton vehicle. And this is largely unnecessary in a world where most EV owners charge at home and it's only the rare exception that they need to figure it out for a road trip.

It's not a cooperation problem; it's an engineering trade-off that is unnecessary and unwise to make. Charging infrastructure is the answer, not battery swaps.

I haven't really looked at it closely when you think about vehicles like long-haul trucks, though. The battery and frame weight of the tractor on an electric 18-wheeler compared to the overall combined weight of a full trailer load, along with the much bigger size of a tractor, may make it viable there. Especially since those trucks make money when they're rolling, not when they're charging. What you give up in efficiency may be regained in what you can actually earn per day.

But it doesn't make sense in a typical passenger car.
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It's a seemingly attractive concept, but it's unworkable in reality.
 
@passedpawn Not going to try to quote your post from the other thread. But some ideas:

4 EV family question: My guess would be that they'd align their charging such that not everyone charges every day. If you think Tesla ranges (~300 mi?) and typical household driving needs (for many individuals, <50 mi/day), you don't all have to get your car to 80% every single night.

Driveway vs garage question: At least here in my neighborhood, I see PLENTY of EVs which are charged in the driveway via a cord from the garage. Being in SoCal where homes are insanely expensive and therefore small, and thus need to use a garage for storage of things other than vehicles, usually one or zero cars can actually fit into the garage. But it's not an impediment to EVs here. Got a neighbor with two Rivians in the driveway (assuming it's a couple who are both Rivian employees tbh).
 
mac_1103 said:
Which strikes me as kind of bizarre. It should be the easiest thing to understand about EVs. Especially PHEVs. What's so difficult about "you only need to buy gas when you go on a long trip"?
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Donā€™t ask me.

I have people regularly trying to teach me that charging at home takes more active time than getting gas, costs more, and most of all, that the increase in my electricity cost does not equate with the drop to $0 gas spending.

Itā€™s very strange.
 
betarhoalphadelta said:
4 EV family question: My guess would be that they'd align their charging such that not everyone charges every day. If you think Tesla ranges (~300 mi?) and typical household driving needs (for many individuals, <50 mi/day), you don't all have to get your car to 80% every single night.
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Yea, I guess that makes sense, the same way one doesn't refill a gas tank every night. In my situation, all 3 kids are gone and independent. So, just two drivers here. I guess when the day comes when we are both driving EVs, I'll just install a charger in between them. Are the cords long enough to reach two vehicles like that?

I figure one will be a hybrid, just to avoid all the potential issues named above. I really like the look of that hybrid Ram :)
 
passedpawn said:
Yea, I guess that makes sense, the same way one doesn't refill a gas tank every night. In my situation, all 3 kids are gone and independent. So, just two drivers here. I guess when the day comes when we are both driving EVs, I'll just install a charger in between them. Are the cords long enough to reach two vehicles like that?

I figure one will be a hybrid, just to avoid all the potential issues named above. I really like the look of that hybrid Ram :)
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The people I see charging in their driveways have no issue with length of cord.
 
The cord on my JuiceBox 40 is long enough to charge on both sides of the driveway and both inside spots. Iā€™ve used all 4 depending on the parking situation, though I usually park facing in, right next to it, putting the charging port inches from the charger itself. My cord is usually coiled on a hook.

My cousin got a quote today to run cable from his panel, across the basement, up and out to a driveway-mounted charger (he doesnā€™t have a garage). They told him +/- $1500 total, with the charger. Not bad. Heā€™s going to try to stay on 100amp service for now.
 
Airborneguy said:
The cord on my JuiceBox 40 is long enough to charge on both sides of the driveway and both inside spots. Iā€™ve used all 4 depending on the parking situation, though I usually park facing in, right next to it, putting the charging port inches from the charger itself. My cord is usually coiled on a hook.

My cousin got a quote today to run cable from his panel, across the basement, up and out to a driveway-mounted charger (he doesnā€™t have a garage). They told him +/- $1500 total, with the charger. Not bad. Heā€™s going to try to stay on 100amp service for now.
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$1957.00 is the quote my electrician gave me last month. Itā€™ll be a 50 amp circuit that will double for RV power on those occasions when we park it in the driveway. Iā€™m also toying with the idea of an isolated circuit and transfer panel where I can back-feed from my 7,000W generator for emergency power. Thatā€™ll probably be more expensive than buying a natgas stand-alone Generex system though.
 
I had a back feed switch at my last house. I seriously regret not adding one when I upgraded my panel for the car. Completely slipped my mind at the time.

Iā€™ve recently joined the electrical union (in NY), so eventually Iā€™m hoping to do it myself. Thankfully NJ allows homeowners to pull permits for self-performed electrical work because Iā€™ll only be licensed in NY.
 
Nice. I got quoted $6800 to put a panel in my garage. It would have to be strung from the basement, but they said it would be "easy" since they can run along an existing duct and would not need to open the ceiling. Supposedly 1 person, 1 day, for the entire installation. New breaker in the basement panel, run the wire, put a box on the wall in the garage with a single outlet.

I figured $3000 on the high side. 1 person for one day at an inflated rate, a panel, some breakers and some wire and of course an outlet in its own box. I feel like they park in the driveway, evaluate the neighborhood, house and me, and then think of a number at random that they'd guess I'd be willing to pay.
 
Airborneguy said:
I had a back feed switch at my last house. I seriously regret not adding one when I upgraded my panel for the car. Completely slipped my mind at the time.

Iā€™ve recently joined the electrical union (in NY), so eventually Iā€™m hoping to do it myself. Thankfully NJ allows homeowners to pull permits for self-performed electrical work because Iā€™ll only be licensed in NY.
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Interesting story, pardon the drift.

My neighbor across the county road was an electrical engineer, in addition to an all-around handyman and mechanic. They had about 20 acres that included a huge banked barn built by Amish/German immigrants in the late 1700s, and a stone house built just before the Civil War. When the decided to live there, they had running water (well) but no central heat, only fireplaces. There also was no electrical service.

My neighbor is a hardworking individual who doesnā€™t suffer fools lightly. When he tried to pull permits to wire the house, he was refused by the county because the work wasnā€™t being done by a licensed electrician. He inquired how to get licensed. They told him he had to take a 3~5 hour written test. He asked for the test, but they didnā€™t want to give it to him since he hadnā€™t been to any electrical trade school or served as an apprentice.

He asked if trade school or apprenticeship was a requirement for taking the test, and the said, sheepishly, no. So he told them heā€™d like to take the licensing test. At first they said no because he hadnā€™t ā€˜preparedā€™ himself for the 3~5 hour test, but eventually they gave in and let him sit for the exam.

Of course you can see where this is going. He took the exam in an hour or so, and passed with flying colors, and became a licensed electrician, able to pull permits and do his own work. Safely, and to code.
 
day_trippr said:
"Battery" (or supercapacitor) tech could someday be a game changer for BEVs...

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/11/polestar-will-begin-testing-storedots-5-minute-charge-battery/
Cheers!
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Will there be chargers available with a high enough current capacity to actually charge these in "5 minutes" with same amount of energy ("gallons of gas") as a battery that charges in 25-50 minutes? Chargers would have to have 5-10X the current output (or run at higher voltages) to accomplish this. If the vast majority of the infrastructure is being put in place for LiIon batteries, such ultra high current chargers will be few and far between.

Brew on :mug:
 
Wow. Iā€™m learning just how bad non-Tesla EV life is through my cousin. He got himself into a Mercedes suv EV this week. Weā€™re heading up to the cabin today for opening weekend of rifle hunting. Easy peasy for me in my Tesla, been doing it for 2 years. Both possible routes that anyone would choose between in any car are well covered for me. We just spent 10 minutes trying to find the best charging route for him and couldnā€™t find one thatā€™s truly ideal.

Now of course overall, heā€™s still way better off with this car. Once the newest chargers in Kingston, NY open, heā€™ll be golden, and his daily driving is absolutely EV, charge only at home, friendly. He takes far less roadtrips than I do, but this is the one he does regularly make.
 
maybe we should start a thread to post all of the incidents where gasoline or diesel caused an injury or loss of property, and use those more common outliers as justification to eliminate all ICE vehicles

or post about traffic fatalities to justify that only commercial air travel should be allowed

it continues to puzzle me why so many come here to post some obscure event 'justification' as a call to cancel that type of power source for autos. if I was to think about high school level psychology classes, I'd be left believing that these people really want an EV but peer pressure is causing them to act out and over emphasize the opposite of their internal feelings as a coping mechanism for the duality they are struggling with internally
 
Rodent said:
maybe we should start a thread to post all of the incidents where gasoline or diesel caused an injury or loss of property, and use those more common outliers as justification to eliminate all ICE vehicles

or post about traffic fatalities to justify that only commercial air travel should be allowed

it continues to puzzle me why so many come here to post some obscure event 'justification' as a call to cancel that type of power source for autos. if I was to think about high school level psychology classes, I'd be left believing that these people really want an EV but peer pressure is causing them to act out and over emphasize the opposite of their internal feelings as a coping mechanism for the duality they are struggling with internally
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Trust me, this place is tame compared to city data. Must be the homebrewer inclination towards cool and new tech.
 

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