“Even if you live in a heavily urban area with access to rapid chargers it’s just not worth it practically or financially in the long run.”
I don’t live urban far from it. I live 40 miles one way to downtown Dallas. My model 3 Tesla is five times cheaper per mile vs $3.09 87 octane from the plug at retail power rates. I don’t pay retail I have solar panels that already paid themselves off so even less per mile. My S60 T5 AWD was $58,000 new a model 3 is 37,000 new both seat 5 and both are within an inch of each other in footprint size. The S60 is 200 lbs heavier curb weight both on 18” low pro tires both wesr P4 Pirelli of.identical sizes.
So in this case you are wrong. The Tesla has less capital costs up front, and drastically lower fuel costs even with retail power rates. I avg 180wh per mile in the Tesla. My S60 gets 28 mpg suburban areas and 25 city. One gal of E10 is 110,000 btu at 28 mpg that’s 3,928 btu per mile or 1115 watt hours per mile vs 180 watt hours per mile. 110,000 btu of 87 octane costs $3.09 at the pump down the road today I just drove by it. 1000 watt hours costs 12 cents retail and zero for me off my panels. Even at 12cents per kwh 28 miles of range would cost 60 cents worth of retail electricity vs $3.09 in gasoline. You are wrong it is significantly cheaper for EVs charged at home ever with retail power rates.
Electric battery cars are not ready for normal driving. They have undergone 120 years of development and their shortcomings are obvious to a child.
Plus, the public charging infrastructure is woefully inadequate.
You need to spend thousands to get a stage 2 charger installed in your house.
Electric battery cars are buggy, and the battery life will continue to drop
Below, Scotty evaluates a used BMW i3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUv0QsDJr3o
I’m doing my part in keeping electricity rates down by not buying one. If everyone had one, electricity would be unaffordable.
Like you I too have home solar. But without net metering our power isn't 100% free. Over the past 365 days, 82% of our power is from homemade power, including charging the EV. We have to pull the other 18% from the grid. That's mostly in the winter. I'll say this: it's nice to go through hot summers and run the A/C as much as I want and charge the EV for over 1,200 miles/month without adding to my power bill for 8 months out of the year.
I like it when folks present a technical case with some math to support their argument... which you have done. There is something with this though that is not making sense to me and I’m wondering if you can straighten it out....
When you broke it down to a per mile basis, you indicated that your S60 takes 1,115 Watt-hours/mile while the Tesla takes 180 Watt-hours/mile. In other words, it takes 6.19 times as much energy per mile for the S60 as for the Tesla. Here is what I’m stumbling over with this…. and I suspect it has to do with this not being a proper comparison.
I couldn’t find the numbers published for the S60 but the average efficiency of a gasoline powered engine is approximately 25%. …. That is the ‘tank to wheels’ efficiency (excludes everything upstream of the fuel being delivered to the tank). For the record, Toyota say that the fuel to wheels efficiency of their hybrid is 36%.
Electric cars have higher efficiency… the motor efficiency may be in the 85% to 90% range but the ‘electric cable into the charger to the wheels’ efficiency is a bunch lower due to all the other losses such as the battery load, battery discharge, energy transfer and conversion efficiency etc.… the ‘all in efficiency’ may be as high as 75% and is likely lower but let’s assume 75% (excluding everything upstream of the electric cable plug).
Bottom line based on the above, the electric vehicle is about 3 times as efficient as the gas vehicle…. and yet your math suggests that the S60 takes 6.19 times the energy per mile. As you have pointed out, the vehicle weights are similar so it is not as if that is part of the explanation. What do you think accounts for this difference?
Oh, I can understand that a Tesla may be practical for some people. It’s always down to an individual’s personal situation. But I just think overall EVs can’t possibly replace internal combustion engines. Not at this stage.
Plus, at some point a battery will go bad. And then you’re looking at between $10K and $20K to replace it. The idea of having to spend $20K to fix my used car just hurts my feelings. Even replacing the battery pack in a hybrid vehicle is around $3K to $5K. But at least it has the IC engine to rely on. An EV is battery power or nothing. And if it’s extremely cold? Good luck.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Teslas are awesome pieces of technology. I just can’t see myself relying on an EV at this point. They’re just not reliable enough for me.