Here's Why My Next Car Will DEFINITELY BE an EV

Motley Fool ^ | by Cole Tretheway | Published on March 16, 2023

[devane617]

SMH when I read stuff like this insanity.

[GingisK]

Because the damn government won’t give you a choice?

[Blueflag]

You are correct. My sloppiness.

My solar system can produce up to 10kW in the sun (actually governed to that limit by GA law)

My solar battery can STORE up to 20 kWH.

My plug-in hybrid can accept up to 7 kWH of charge.

We regret the error ;-)

[WKUHilltopper]

“Here’s Why My Next Car Will DEFINITELY BE an EV”

Because you’re a cuck and put the fool in motley?

[packagingguy]

I’m going to get a nuclear powered car: the Ford Nucleon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

Just hope I don’t get in a wreck.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Electricity is much cheaper than gas."

This guy is a complete idiot. It is easy to examine the energy content of electricity and gasoline using the "Gasoline gallon equivalent" method (of course, it isn't that hard comparing BTU to kWh, either which is what this GGE method does).

Pacific Gas & Electric in California has a conventional "Tiered Rate Plan." The Tier 1 rate is $0.33/kWh; the Tier 2 rate is $0.41/kWh. You do not get many kWh on Tier 1, so, for a normal residence, most of your usage is in Tier 2. You can use the PG&E "Time of Use" rate plan which varies from a low of $0.29/kWh (winter, off-peak) to a high of $0.49/kWh (summer, on-peak).

We are paying about $5.30 for gasoline right now in Northern California. The GGE table says we would need electricity prices to be $0.16/kWh for energy equivalence. You can see that we are paying TWO to THREE times MORE for electricity than gasoline!

Where does this idiot get the notion that "Electricity is much cheaper than gas." in California?

Yes, I know you have different end-use efficiencies of ICE (36%) vs electric motor (90%) that make electricity and gasoline roughly equivalent on the road. But people can keep ICE cars 200,000 or more miles. Try changing out your EV battery just once during the life of your car and then look at the economics of the two alternatives. I guess this guy is rich enough to buy a new car every 60,000 miles and take the depreciation hit as the battery nears the end of its life.

If California were bringing on a couple of nuclear power plants every year, I could MAYBE accept a bit of his argument.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yep, we pay to support the liberal wet dream TWICE — higher taxes and sky high inflation. Just what I needed when I reached retirement. It was a nice 40 year ride of a (somewhat) stable economy (ignoring the 2000 and 2008 “blips”), but at least inflation was low. The artificially low interest rates after 2008 and the ridiculous $5 trillion give-away for COVID are killing us now and may lead to a bank failure cataclysm.

[Poser]

If you only drive locally, EVs can be a good product.

I recently had to drive a great distance to avoid a hurricane. I'm glad I had a mini-van with size and range to get me, my wife and my pets and all of their paraphernalia from SW Florida to the panhandle non-stop in the middle of a rainy night.

So, even though I normally only drive locally, I'll keep the mini-van until it withers away. An EV would make a nice second car.

Note: My 170cc scooter gets 89mpg and goes 65mph. It will easily carry 4 bags of groceries. It is so much fun that I rarely pull the Electra-Glide out of the garage.

[Svartalfiar]

So even at a cost of $.12/kW (above the national average) it only costs you only pay $8 to ‘fill up.’

Here in DFW area, we use about 150-180 kWh a week, gives us a $140 bill all-in. So after the fees and distributer charges, we're paying a solid $0.20/kWh, so $16/100mi. Truck gets ~15mpg, so it's $20/100mi. Wife's newer Pilot is around 21mpg, or $14/100mi.

So unless I'm missing something, that Audi SUV would slightly save me $$, or even cost MORE in fuel.

[Svartalfiar]

Ok, I looked it up, and one of your numbers is double: the Audi has a total range of about 200-250mi on 81kWh, so you aren’t using the full 80kWh on a 100mi trip, only about half.

So, the SUV would save some money, but for a $70M (base) vehicle vs a $18M truck, it’ll take a looooooooong time to make up that difference!

Even the wife’s Pilot (a more equivalent vehicle) was only ~$40-50M at the upper-mid trim level, so it’d take about 400,000 miles for the Audi to be worth it at these fuel costs, ignoring everything else. Closer to 500M if we went with the fancy trim on it.

[FreedomPoster]

Ford is selling a few, and they’re betting big on batteries.

What to know about Ford’s $5.8B, 5,000-job battery park in Hardin County, Kentucky
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2021/09/28/what-to-know-about-fords-new-battery-park-kentucky/5890741001/

[Celerity]

Just a week ago, and only a day or two before the SVB collapse. Motley Fool highly recommended buying Roku stock.

The blog version of Jim Kramer right there.

[Blueflag]

Comes down to what you pay for electricity ... and gasoline.

A highly-efficient small car WILL have lower *operational* costs per mile than the Audi EV SUV, but the Nissan LEAF will beat that small ICE car. You get the idea.

But these are operational cost considerations. We *NEVER* thought our ‘EV’ would cost less over the 10-12 years we’ll keep it.

[Blueflag]

FWIW, I was using the 90kW Audi my neighbor has as the example. He is only supposed to regularly charge it to 80% or so, unless you are ‘topping it off’ for a long trip.

VW/Audi published an honest white paper some years ago that pointed out a VW PAssat EV would have to be driven close to 100,000 miles (IIRC) before it actually cost less than buying diesel ... oopsie ...

As always, my harangue is “go for the plug-in hybrid!” My wife’s Fusion Energi lets her drive to work and back (12 mile commute) on battery, AND also lets us take a trip of any duration on gasoline as a hybrid. While Ford doesn’t make the Fusino anymore, it does offer plug-in hybrid versions of the Escape and the F-150 “lightning”.

I don’t see why this option isn’t talked about more often. It works GREAT.

[Blueflag]

one more thing - he paid close to $100K for it. HE retired from healthcare/surgeon ;-)

[Vaduz]

Safety perks make EVs a compelling alternative to conventional vehicles.

1.

[Big Red Badger]

I’m 5’2”—95 lbs and talk like Carl
of SLINGBLADE.

[Bonemaker]

“Would anyone buy a Ford or GM EV? I think not.”

They have been building mostly union dreck for years.

[Big Red Badger]

Slingblade is our only connection.

[Big Red Badger]

F-150 Lightning-—
Some call it a Kaiser blade.