bidens incredible transition to electric cars

Running an electric car is twice as expensive as a petrol one

This is a typical media story with cherry-picked data and false headline. An honest headline would be "Fuel cost for an electric car could be twice as expensive as for a petrol car".

Yet it brings to light a couple of truths:

1) As with many corporation and government programs, it's a bait-and-switch with attractive introductory features eventually going away and leaving the consumer worse off. Will there be any "free" charging stations left in a few years? Plus, electric rates are trending up pretty much everywhere.

2) An EV owner who can't charge at home and obediently buys an EV without doing the research, will end up paying a lot more for the charging than if fueling an ICE vehicle.
 
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Here's a decent sounding UK article about a long trip in an EV, a Ford Mustang Mach-e Premium RWD, cost £63,030.
I drove an electric car over 3,000 miles in three months. It tested my sanity

A quick summary: Claimed range is 372 miles, actual range 274 miles, need to plan charging every 200 miles to be safe. Many public chargers broken, working ones had waiting lines, and most didn't supply the claimed charging current to the car. Public chargers very expensive. He reports getting 2.8 miles per kWh. With 10 cents per kWh rates (pretty low these days) 200 miles would cost $7.14 for the 71.4 kWh. At $3/gallon gas, that would be the cost equivalent of about 84 mpg. So if you charge at home and have cheap electric rates, it's a winner, fuel cost wise. He implies that a typical public charger cost is 85 pence per kWh, or $1.13 per kWh. That makes the cost equivalent about 7.4 mpg.

The lesson is once again if you can charge at home with reasonable electric rates, it's a fuel cost winner. It looks to me like the breakeven point with $3/gallon gas is around 30 cents per kWh. With electric rates above that, or with public chargers, you're losing money on the fuel cost.
 
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My wife has just had her Mach-E for a year now. Its been a year since she's stepped foot in the gas station. No more stopping on the way to work, and no more bums approaching her

Win win!
 
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IReallyLikePizza2 said:
My wife has just had her Mach-E for a year now. Its been a year since she's stepped foot in the gas station. No more stopping on the way to work, and no more bums approaching her

Win win!
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It is nice to be able to fuel up/charge at home. For those who have to stop to charge, I question the long charge times and from what I have seen, no cover over the charge stations, just thinking of rain. Being able to stop, get gas and go in a few minutes is nice.

Pretty sure bums will end up at the charge stations with much, much more time to beg.
 
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David L said:
It is nice to be able to fuel up/charge at home. For those who have to stop to charge, I question the long charge times and from what I have seen, no cover over the charge stations, just thinking of rain. Being able to stop, get gas and go in a few minutes is nice.

Pretty sure bums will end up at the charge stations with much, much more time to beg.
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I've already seen this ..

The biggest issue will be getting permits and money to redo the electrical in some older homes, as well as apartments and rentals some which only offer street parking
 
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I saw a Cyber truck pull into the quickie mart last night. Funny, he lowered his tail gate and filled up 3 gas jugs. Guess he hasn't made the move to electric yard tools yet. It just really looked strange.
 
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Here is a car from China that does 600+ miles per charge and one can swap the battery at swapping station. Currently the long range pack is only available as a rent not for outright purchase because its one of the first cars to have a semi solid state battery and the battery alone costs as much as the regular variant of the same model car. The idea is that use the smaller battery pack for every day use and when you want to hit the road you rent out a fully charged long range semi solid state battery. It will eventually drop in price and become mainstream.
 
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I love technology. Its fantastic. But I will only participate in the EV program when they become affordable. I'm 61, not for sure how long that will be.
 
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SJGUSMC21 said:
I love technology. Its fantastic. But I will only participate in the EV program when they become affordable. I'm 61, not for sure how long that will be.
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Same here.
I got a used '18 F-150 in '21, suits me just fine, does what I need it to do and I really like it.
But if I was in the market for anything right now, I'd go hybrid.
I'm 75 though so my F-150 should be the last vehicle for me. :cool:
 
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TonyR said:
Same here.
I got a used '18 F-150 in '21, suits me just fine, does what I need it to do and I really like it.
But if I was in the market for anything right now, I'd go hybrid.
I'm 75 though so my F-150 should be the last vehicle for me. :cool:
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I fully agree, actually, I just don't get the EVs. Hybrid's make more sense to me. Funny part of the Green people, their EVs run on Gas!!!. Yes, their Electricity is from burning Gas. LP for the new power plants, coal for the old, Fire for both...Gases :)
1727613986801.png

Gas, Gas, Gas LOL
 
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My solar covers 80-85% of my EV electric cost. The remaining comes from a combination of other solar, hydro and NG. Maybe a small part geothermal from Sonoma and nuclear from San Luis Obispo.
 
anijet said:
My solar covers 80-85% of my EV electric cost. The remaining comes from a combination of other solar, hydro and NG. Maybe a small part geothermal from Sonoma and nuclear from San Luis Obispo.
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How much for your Solar panels? Just curious...
 
David L said:
I fully agree, actually, I just don't get the EVs. Hybrid's make more sense to me. Funny part of the Green people, their EVs run on Gas!!!. Yes, their Electricity is from burning Gas. LP for the new power plants, coal for the old, Fire for both...Gases :)
View attachment 203971

Gas, Gas, Gas LOL
Click to expand...

You know that if an EV is powered by 100% coal power plants, its STILL more efficient than a gasoline car and produces less Co2? And even more importantly, moves the pollution away from the streets and houses

The US Grid is getting more and more green every day

Check this out to see the fuel mix. At the current moment the entire of Texas is 30% solar, and it was as high as 40% earlier today. Not much wind today, but a windy sunny day? Oh boy! Now we're talking

www.gridstatus.io

Home | Grid Status

National overview of the US Electrical Grid
www.gridstatus.io www.gridstatus.io

I still don't understand how EV's have become political for either side.
 
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TonyR said:
^^^^ Interesting......

From Feb. 2024:
www.texaspolicy.com

When Texas needed power for winter, guess what delivered? Hint: It wasn’t wind, solar - Texas Public Policy Foundation

Wind and solar power deserve a frosty reception after last month’s freeze in Texas. Since the fatal winter storm in February 20201, Texans have been apprehensive about the state electrical grid’s reliability in extreme weather. The grid primarily relies on coal and natural gas, but new...
www.texaspolicy.com www.texaspolicy.com
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And hint, it wasn't natural gas that delivered either! The Texas grid AT THAT TIME was massively reliant on Natural Gas and used wind with almost zero battery to curb pricing. The entire reason they needed Wind was because the entire NG supply went to crap

Plenty of much, much, much colder countries have Wind power and don't run into issues

Since then, Texas has invested massively into battery, to soon overtake the rest of the country combined in battery storage, to mitigate that problem of not being able to use Wind when its not windy
 
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We charged my wives EV on generator power (Natural Gas) when it was out for 6 days during Beryl, was great driving past all the lines for the gas station knowing we can just "gas up" in the garage
 
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TonyR said:
^^^^ Interesting......

From Feb. 2024:
www.texaspolicy.com

When Texas needed power for winter, guess what delivered? Hint: It wasn’t wind, solar - Texas Public Policy Foundation

Wind and solar power deserve a frosty reception after last month’s freeze in Texas. Since the fatal winter storm in February 20201, Texans have been apprehensive about the state electrical grid’s reliability in extreme weather. The grid primarily relies on coal and natural gas, but new...
www.texaspolicy.com www.texaspolicy.com
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This reminds me what happen to Germany and why they had to go back to Coal Plants. Not against Renewable Energy, but it is not a replacement, IMO, nor is it reliable source. But what do I know, spending more money to save less money does not compute to me.
 
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Nuclear is my vote, clean energy...
 
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