Posted on 06/05/2022 8:19:50 AM PDT by American Number 181269513
I thought it would be fun.
That’s what I told my friend Mack when I asked her to drive with me from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric car.
I’d made long road trips before, surviving popped tires, blown headlights and shredded wheel-well liners in my 2008 Volkswagen Jetta. I figured driving the brand-new Kia EV6 I’d rented would be a piece of cake.
If, that is, the public-charging infrastructure cooperated. We wouldn’t be the first to test it. Sales of pure and hybrid plug-ins doubled in the U.S. last year to 656,866—over 4% of the total market, according to database EV-volumes. More than half of car buyers say they want their next car to be an EV, according to recent Ernst & Young Global Ltd. data.
By the Numbers
Our reporter’s four-day, three-night EV road trip included many charging stops, little sleep—and less junk food than you might expect
• Miles driven: 2,013
• Number of charges: 14
• Total charging cost: $175
• Hours spent waiting to charge:18
• Hours of sleep:16
• Calories of junk food consumed (estimated): 1,465
• Giant chicken statues passed: 1
Oh—and we aimed to make the 2,000-mile trip in just under four days so Mack could make her Thursday-afternoon shift as a restaurant server.
Less money, more time
Given our battery range of up to 310 miles, I plotted a meticulous route, splitting our days into four chunks of roughly 7½-hours each. We’d need to charge once or twice each day and plug in near our hotel overnight.
The PlugShare app—a user-generated map of public chargers—showed thousands of charging options between New Orleans and Chicago. But most were classified as Level 2, requiring around 8 hours for a full charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at vigourtimes.com ...
“Sitting third in line at Sams Club to save a dime a gallon of gas was more than enough for me yesterday.”
How will you feel when government raises your electric costs a dime per kilowatt hour and you have no choice in the matter?
Thanks, I had never heard that term before.
Thanks I had never heard that term before.
Teslas new LiFePO4 cells are good for 12,000 cycles to 20¡ Depth of discharge or DOD. A model 3 LR with those cells goes 330 miles so 80% of that is 264 miles. 12,000 cycles is over three million miles even adding in 20% pack loss over that 12,000 cycle lifetime would be a end of life 20% DOD range of 194 miles and with 12,000 cycles is still well over 2 million miles. So the actual pack lifetime is between 3 million and two million miles. Tells themselves expect the packs to be million mile packs. They have a new pack that’s 4 times better.
Welcome to the 21st century boomers your coming kicking and screaming if we have too. Gas will be $10 in a year or less due to refinery capacity not oil supply.
Every major automaker is ending ICE engine production by 2030 or shortly after why because no one can touch the P&E of Tesla other than the cells an EV is crazy easy to manufacture the motors have one moving part vs 4000+ for a ICE engine. Once you vertically integrate your own cell manufacturing and raw materials sources there is no way to touch the P&E ratio of a EV. The motors and single moving part in a EV will last for half a century or more there are electric motors still running today for Thomas Edison’s time and those didn’t have modern alloys in their bearing packs. Cars will be sold for a period of ownership measured in decades as in 30 to 50 years much like a home they will be a asset with a mortgage term of 20 years or more at those term lengths $100,000 plus makes sense. The auto makers will sell replaceable body shells to put on the main skateboard platform with the cells and motors being carried over from body upgrade to the next just like remodeling a home. It a coming like it or not. The momentum has already happened.
“Also, the range quoted in the article is not particularly lower than the Tesla at a reasonable rental cost. They max at 400 upscale?”
Author says they may have had 232 mile range model.
“This is not an engineering problem. It is physics. Only so many ampere hours can be put into a battery in such and such number of minutes.”
kwhrs, not amp hours.
Seems engineering is putting in the kwhrs faster and faster every day!
“Sitting third in line at Sams Club to save a dime a gallon of gas was more than enough for me yesterday.”
Only third?
Bob’s your uncle means and there it’s is, or there it goes.
In ‘merican I guess I could have written.
it was plug and go the charger immediately recognized my VIN number and it just started charging right off.
How could anyone pass up a giant roadside chicken statue?
Americana, for better or worse!
It can stand for “done deal”, and “mission accomplished” “all’s well thay ends well” too, and things of that nature. Just an all around term which basically means everything turned out alright, or was successful
I read the article before commenting and perfectly understood that. If you’d read my comment, you would have understood that my point was he is very quick to defend EV technology in general. He just happens to drive a Tesla and my use of that reference was all about the alliteration. I was not attempting to make an equal comparison of a Tesla to any other EV.
This article is nonsense. I’ve been on road trips in a Tesla; the superchargers were great, and there were plenty of them.
Also, autopilot makes it easy to drive, and I love the large screens. There are things I would do differently, but it’s a great experience.
“Of the effect on car resale or trade in value if the next owner knows YOU drove the car for five years - and in three years he’ll have to shell out $12,000 for a new car battery.”
Consumer Reports estimates the average EV battery pack’s lifespan to be at around 200,000 miles, which is nearly 17 years of use if driven 12,000 miles per year.
Thanks. I guess things can get lost in translation, even if we all are speaking English.
Everyone concerned about the planet should switch to electric vehicles. I figure that will make my gas powered baby much more affordable.
Sounds like a one-trick pony who doesn't live in the Real World.
The author was driving a KIA not a Tesla that’s like Ferrari vs Chevy. The long range model 3 Tesla goes 330 miles and the Model S also goes 405 miles, with a zero to 60 of 3.2 seconds and 600+ hp supercharger rates of 250kw or 200 miles in 15 min. The ratio then is a 15 min stop every 3 hours of drive time at 75mph avg speeds.
Oh and with a higher density pack a Tesla S has gone 752 miles that’s twice as far most ICE cars can go my S60 goes 360 before the fuel lite comes on.
https://electrek.co/2022/01/05/tesla-model-s-752-miles-range-one-energy-dense-battery-pack/
Agreed—the article is total crap. Sounds like that Kia is a P.O.S…I have done many road trips in my Teslas, and they are excellent and the Superchargers are fantastic and fast.
We feel defeated pulling into a Nissan Mazda dealership in Mattoon, Ill. “How long could it possibly take to charge the 30 miles we need to make it to the next fast station?” I wonder.
Three hours. It takes 3 hours.
—
Great car to have if you have nothing to do but kill time.
The only way electric cars will become useful is if they are designed along the same lines as the diesel electric locomotive....generating their own power. My neighbor has a Toyota that generates its own and she loves it.
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