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

[Kent88]

I have a EVSE charger, looks a lot like Wabasto Go, that Chevrolet included with my Bolt. Having that makes it difficult to justify buying a second EVSE. What kind of ROI would I get from buying a second unit?

If I was to buy something to hardwire into my garage, it would probably be something like a Grizzl-E or a Clipper Creek unit. Solid unit that nobody needs an app to use.

I still need to get in touch with my local Qmerit affiliate.

 

[whoaru99]

I have a EVSE charger, looks a lot like Wabasto Go, that Chevrolet included with my Bolt. Having that makes it difficult to justify buying a second EVSE. What kind of ROI would I get from buying a second unit?

I don't know exactly what that is.

If 120V charging is good enough there may not be any particular benefit to a buyer. Considering, that is, the likelyhood of a 120V 15A or 20A receptacle/circuit already there.

If they/you already have a 240V L2 charger then the value of a second L2 I'd think minimal in most cases. But, a 240V 30-50A circuit available may have some incremental value if have L2 charger or desire to get one.

 

[Kent88]

My experience with a PHEV, in my circumstances 120v was fine. Now with a BEV, I'm going to need a 240v.

Maybe need was a strong word there. But it will definitely make enough difference that it makes sense.

 

[Brooothru]

My experience with a PHEV, in my circumstances 120v was fine. Now with a BEV, I'm going to need a 240v.

Maybe need was a strong word there. But it will definitely make enough difference that it makes sense.

The mix we’re looking at is owning a PHEV and an EV. My wife isn’t giving up the Prius anytime soon, but the 120V recharge time of 4-5 hours for >35 miles of range is an annoyance. A single Level 2 charger in the garage could easily handle the ‘job sharing’ duty of charging both vehicles for city driving for the hybrid and greater range for trips.

 

[Kent88]

I'm glad I didn't put a 240v 20amp line in for my PHEV. It was a pain not to be charged up sometimes, but I need more now and the electrician I was talking to didn't know what was going on.

 

[whoaru99]

Maybe I'm not following, but I'd think something along the line of "I'd like a 50A 120/240V circuit installed, with the receptacle right there (pointing to the general location)" would get the job done.

I don't know if L2 chargers take a 240V-only or a 120240V circuit, but a 120/240V covers the bases either way and should be only a small incremental cost increase for the cable and maybe the receptacle.

 

[sibelman]

On the home value question: even if a charger or high current outlet doesn't increase the resale value of a home, it could add a scale-tipping little burst of enthusiasm to the right buyer.

 

[Brooothru]

I'm glad I didn't put a 240v 20amp line in for my PHEV. It was a pain not to be charged up sometimes, but I need more now and the electrician I was talking to didn't know what was going on.

On the other hand, the electrician I’m consulting with has done several installations like what I’m wanting with regard to Level 2 charging, plus he’s an RVer and understands what they need and what they can do.

 

[Brooothru]

Maybe I'm not following, but I'd think something along the line of "I'd like a 50A 120/240V circuit installed, with the receptacle right there (pointing to the general location)" would get the job done.

I don't know if L2 chargers take a 240V-only or a 120240V circuit, but a 120/240V covers the bases either way and should be only a small incremental cost increase for the cable and maybe the receptacle.

The cost for increased capacity gauge cabling actually is more than “a small incremental increase”, plus the main box and my garage are on opposite ends of a medium-large house.

 

[whoaru99]

The cost for increased capacity gauge cabling actually is more than “a small incremental increase”, plus the main box and my garage are on opposite ends of a medium-large house.

Indeed fatter wire is more expensive and you're going to pay that if you want the higher capacity circuit. That is a given.

But the point earlier of incremental increase was about running 240-only vs. 120/240 circuit, meaning 2 wire cable vs 3 wire cable.

Yes, 3 wire cable costs more than 2 wire cable for any gauge but in the big scope of the electrician's total bill I'd think only a small/incremental increase.

 

[Airborneguy]

On the home value question: even if a charger or high current outlet doesn't increase the resale value of a home, it could add a scale-tipping little burst of enthusiasm to the right buyer.

This is more what I was getting at. Cost wise its minimal and not all that concerning when purchasing a house.

But moving into a new home with an existing EV, it sure helps being set from day 1 rather than having to get an electrician ASAP.

All else considered, I’d prioritize homes with existing charging options, then homes where the installation will be easy, then lastly homes requiring extensive work to complete the install.

Because I’m never going back to an inconvenient gas car.

 

[sibelman]

only a small/incremental increase.

For 8 gauge at home depot prices, it's $1.12/foot difference between 8/2 and 8/3 romex. Seems a good choice even with a long run from panel to brewery/car-charging location.

 

[passedpawn]

For 8 gauge at home depot prices, it's $1.12/foot difference between 8/2 and 8/3 romex. Seems a good choice even with a long run from panel to brewery/car-charging location.

I just ran 6/2 with ground 125' two weeks ago. I think that coil of wire cost me about $150 from Lowes. I think the new breakers I needed cost me another $100.

The second the wife left for church, I killed main breaker, replaced several breakers in a full panel with some doubles to make space for the 60A, climbed into the attic and snaked it all the way to back, out the wall, and down to a fused disconnect box. Power back on, and she was none-the-wiser (some clocks had to be reset).

So if you're handy, you can do these things fairly inexpensively. In image, the 6/2 is the black cable heading left, off-picture

 

[whoaru99]

How do you stretch 12 KWhr over a week? Running the coffee maker for an hour a day uses half of that alone....

Your post peaked my curiosity.

At the risk of transgression, measured our Mr. Coffee with a Kill A Watt and recorded 0.12kWh to brew a 1L batch.

Bear in mind it doesn't sit on the hot plate very long. When it's done dripping I put it in a Thermos pot and shut off the coffee maker.

 

[Thorrak]

Your post peaked my curiosity.

At the risk of transgression, measured our Mr. Coffee with a Kill A Watt and recorded 0.12kWh to brew a 1L batch.

Quit judging the man’s batch sizes. This is a homebrew forum - there’s nothing wrong with making equipment do double-duty!

 

[Agent]

Your post peaked my curiosity.

At the risk of transgression, measured our Mr. Coffee with a Kill A Watt and recorded 0.12kWh to brew a 1L batch.

Don't know about you, but using 1% of my house's available energy for a single serving of coffee is still totally worth it.

Also, I'd probably become waaay too neurotic about power usage if I had a Kill-A-Watt. And I also really want a consumption monitor for my new mini-split.

 

[stealthfixr]

Any Ford Mach-E owners here? Local dealerships have a lot of cars stacked up with low prices, incentives and low to no APRs. California Route 1 version has 312 miles of range and looks great. It's not a NACS plug car (yet), but Ford is supposedly shipping out CCS to NACS adapters to work on Superchargers. Thoughts?

 

[Airborneguy]

I came close, with the charging network being the deciding factor that drove me to Tesla 2 years ago. If I was looking currently, I’d at least consider a Lightning or Mach E.

 

[Bilsch]

Any Ford Mach-E owners here? Local dealerships have a lot of cars stacked up with low prices, incentives and low to no APRs. California Route 1 version has 312 miles of range and looks great. It's not a NACS plug car (yet), but Ford is supposedly shipping out CCS to NACS adapters to work on Superchargers. Thoughts?

If you are into the engineering of it all Munro Live on youtube has teardown videos of most all electric vehicles and then they comment on the design and quality. I know they have done quite a few on the MachE.

 

[Jonakr]

Don't know about you, but using 1% of my house's available energy for a single serving of coffee is still totally worth it.

Also, I'd probably become waaay too neurotic about power usage if I had a Kill-A-Watt. And I also really want a consumption monitor for my new mini-split.

Years ago, I was concerned and bought one. Unfortunately, mine is 110, so I couldn't measure any of my 220 appliances. But, the reality is that the big users are orders of magnitude more than the little ones, so if your electric bill is $300 a month during the summer, an appliance using $1 or $2 really doesn't make a dent in your bill.

I wanted to find all my phantom use from wall-warts and whatnot, but the reality was that chasing it wasn't worth my time. You are better off researching and buying more energy efficient appliances like your AC and washers and dryers.

 

[sibelman]

News: 2023 EV adoption continued to increase.

 

[doug293cz]

News: 2023 EV adoption continued to increase.

So, much for the EV demand is tanking BS. The current apparent inventory oversupply is just due to more capacity coming on line, from more manufacturers. Not an unusual occurrence in relatively new markets. Things will even out over time.

Brew on

 

[mac_1103]

News: 2023 EV adoption continued to increase.

So, much for the EV demand is tanking BS.

And yet there's an article in yesterday's Washington Post about EV demand tanking.

 

[Airborneguy]

And yet there's an article in yesterday's Washington Post about EV demand tanking.

Because anything can be spun to feed the intended audiences’ bias.

 

[mac_1103]

exactly

 

[Airborneguy]

Im the automotive section moderator on citydata because of this issue. The old mod became frustrated and gave up. I told her I’d take over since I was already heavily moderating the section anyway to help her.

 

[sibelman]

spun

Oddly, slower growth is still growth. Who knew?

I hope (but don't trust) that car- and policy-makers aren't unduly influenced by these kinds of data manipulations.

Okay, back to my echo chamber now, where the facts are manipulated the way I like 'em!

 

[day_trippr]

This seems like a balanced presentation of what's currently going on in the USA EV markets from my naive perspective.
Comments?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/cars/what-happened-with-electric-vehicle-sales-in-2023/index.html

 

[Brooothru]

So, much for the EV demand is tanking BS. The current apparent inventory oversupply is just due to more capacity coming on line, from more manufacturers. Not an unusual occurrence in relatively new markets. Things will even out over time.

Brew on

You could say the news is shocking. I wonder what sparked the current interest. It’s as if lightning struck twice to a society now well grounded, which was once insulated and poles apart. Time to plug-in to the future and shunt the power of oil producing dictatorships from generating more flow. I’m sure amped.

I’ll stop now.

 

[Airborneguy]

This seems like a balanced presentation of what's currently going on in the USA EV markets from my naive perspective.
Comments?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/cars/what-happened-with-electric-vehicle-sales-in-2023/index.html

The EV market is tracking with just about any new technological product: an initial burst, slow growth, another burst, then integration. We're probably in the early integration phase now. Everyone who "had to have one" got one, the companies grew somewhat, everyone who "wanted one" got one... now the companies will adjust to becoming more mainstream and convincing those who are indifferent to switch.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

The EV market is tracking with just about any new technological product: an initial burst, slow growth, another burst, then integration. We're probably in the early integration phase now. Everyone who "had to have one" got one, the companies grew somewhat, everyone who "wanted one" got one... now the companies will adjust to becoming more mainstream and convincing those who are indifferent to switch.

I think it's a little more complex. Again, I come from the world of data storage, particularly the device (SSD & HDD) side.

For personal computing, go back a decade and SSDs at the capacities most users needed were ridiculously expensive compared to HDD. Those who absolutely needed and prioritized the performance advantage (gamers, software developers who needed them for faster compilation times, people who did heavy video/image editing, etc) and those who just had money and wanted "the fastest" had SSDs... Everyone else didn't because they were just too expensive. Fast forward to today, and just about every PC has an SSD. NOT because they're superior for personal computing, but because they're superior AND they are at a cost parity for the sort of capacities average users need (and in some cases, like Chromebooks, they're the cheaper option to HDD b/c the capacity need is small).

BEV's are still expensive relative to ICEVs. That is still a market limiter. You want 250+ mile range, it's gonna cost >$40K. It's the reason that automakers are still positioning BEVs in "luxury" price points. When you get to a point where the battery cost for a 250-300mi range is attainable at or slightly above parity for a comparable ICEV, BEV adoption will skyrocket. This is ESPECIALLY true for those who can't charge at home--for those people the cost advantages of BEV largely disappear if 100% of their charging is at public chargers, and the "inconvenience" factor then goes UP, not down, with a BEV.

It's cost. Cost has to keep coming down for adoption to go up.

(BTW part of this is also slow adoption because of the number of people, like me, who don't buy new cars. When the BEV early adopters largely start retiring their cars into the used market and replacing them with another BEV, it opens up BEVs to buyers like me who will let someone else take the "drive it off the lot" depreciation hit. That's probably 3-4 years out before that really takes off with any manufacturer not named Tesla.)

 

[AzOr]

You could say the news is shocking. I wonder what sparked the current interest. It’s as if lightning struck twice to a society now well grounded, which was once insulated and poles apart. Time to plug-in to the future and shunt the power of oil producing dictatorships from generating more flow. I’m sure amped.

I’ll stop now.

I count 15.

 

[tracer bullet]

The EV market is tracking with just about any new technological product: an initial burst, slow growth, another burst, then integration.

Agreed it's certainly something like this. The reconciliation between the articles indicating how much they are growing vs. all the things the automakers are quitting on is, I think, that EV's are still selling and becoming more accepted, simply not as quickly as had been expected and planned on.

 

[passedpawn]

I think it's a little more complex. Again, I come from the world of data storage, particularly the device (SSD & HDD) side.

For personal computing, go back a decade and SSDs at the capacities most users needed were ridiculously expensive compared to HDD. Those who absolutely needed and prioritized the performance advantage (gamers, software developers who needed them for faster compilation times, people who did heavy video/image editing, etc) and those who just had money and wanted "the fastest" had SSDs... Everyone else didn't because they were just too expensive. Fast forward to today, and just about every PC has an SSD. NOT because they're superior for personal computing, but because they're superior AND they are at a cost parity for the sort of capacities average users need (and in some cases, like Chromebooks, they're the cheaper option to HDD b/c the capacity need is small).

BEV's are still expensive relative to ICEVs. That is still a market limiter. You want 250+ mile range, it's gonna cost >$40K. It's the reason that automakers are still positioning BEVs in "luxury" price points. When you get to a point where the battery cost for a 250-300mi range is attainable at or slightly above parity for a comparable ICEV, BEV adoption will skyrocket. This is ESPECIALLY true for those who can't charge at home--for those people the cost advantages of BEV largely disappear if 100% of their charging is at public chargers, and the "inconvenience" factor then goes UP, not down, with a BEV.

It's cost. Cost has to keep coming down for adoption to go up.

(BTW part of this is also slow adoption because of the number of people, like me, who don't buy new cars. When the BEV early adopters largely start retiring their cars into the used market and replacing them with another BEV, it opens up BEVs to buyers like me who will let someone else take the "drive it off the lot" depreciation hit. That's probably 3-4 years out before that really takes off with any manufacturer not named Tesla.)

When the Chinese BYD Seagull hits the US marked for a little over $10k, it's game over. I read somewhere that BYD is building a factory in Mexico to avoid tariffs on the vehicle imports (per NAFTA / USMCA).

 

[sibelman]

not as quickly as had been expected and planned on.

Is funny how we measure things against predictions, instead of just measuring. Stock prices plummet when profits are lower than expected, even if profit is still good. EV adoption growth is evaluated against predictions, even if growth is still good. We seem to give a lot of power to predicters and other pundits.

 

[mac_1103]

When the Chinese BYD Seagull hits the US marked for a little over $10k, it's game over.

If US consumers were willing to drive 74 hp vehicles to save money and fuel, then somebody would already be selling 74 hp ICE cars for under $10k and making a killing. But I'm sure BYD will hit the US market with a version of the Seagull/Dophin similar to the one they just launched in Brazil for a little over $20k and the impact will be similar.

 

[mac_1103]

Is funny how we measure things against predictions, instead of just measuring.

Especially when the difference is basically a rounding error.

 

[tracer bullet]

Stock prices plummet when profits are lower than expected, even if profit is still good.

Oh, I know it. My Target stock plummeted when they didn't meet forecast. They made an nostrilsload of profit, but not as much as people wanted, and so the companies value dropped 1/4 = 1/3 or something darn near overnight. I was of course wondering WTF happened.

 

[Agent]

If US consumers were willing to drive 74 hp vehicles to save money and fuel, then somebody would already be selling 74 hp ICE cars for under $10k and making a killing. But I'm sure BYD will hit the US market with a version of the Seagull/Dophin similar to the one they just launched in Brazil for a little over $20k and the impact will be similar.

The 90hp VW TDI was (still is?) fairly popular for exactly those reasons.

However, I don't think any manufacturer could field a $10k car in the US without serious subsidies.

 

[mac_1103]

The 90hp VW TDI was (still is?) fairly popular for exactly those reasons.

The 89 hp TDI Beetle was manufactured from 1998-2003. I don't know what the market for 20 year-old TDI's is like, but I'm talking about US new car buyers in 2024. VW hasn't sold TDIs (in the US anyway) for almost a decade now. The 2015 model came in 170 and 210 hp versions. The 2015 Golf TDI had a 150 hp engine.