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 ...
Yes, THAT one... the one that's made from materials we get from China - rare earth elements we could have gotten from Afghanistan if Biden hadn't been a stupid fool.
Or 3.5 years if driven 60,000 miles per year.
WHOA... that said, Elon IS working on creating better longer lasting batteries. If anyone can do it he can... he’s about 10 years ahead of where our technology is at... common with geniuses. Remember how useless the early computers were? Without our buying and supporting them we we wouldn’t be where we’re at today.
The trillion dollar new grid?
Now you are starting to figure it out...
Sorry I misread your post. Battery life is an issue after the warranty runs out because of age or miles driven. Buyer be ware when purchasing a used EV.
Lol yup. I bought many “powerful computers” only to have them be kutmof date in very short order. Always paid way too much too. Paid over $3000 for a 700, with I think it was a 500 Mb hard drive (not gig, but mb). Was a le,to get a bu. H of games on it too, but soon games started getting over 1 gig, then we’ll over a gig. So,off to,the store to sink another few grand into faster computer.
I should waited and bought when prices dropped, but like,a dummy, I had to buy right away.
Imagine the 3 days wait at Costco to charge up on the cheap.
Conversely, Musk already saw the opportunities at charging stations and has invested heavily in land in the middle of nowhere, land which is speculated to have ‘oases’ pop up as ‘EV Travel Centers’...including overnight rooms and restaurants, as increasing numbers of travelers hit the bottleneck.
Can you imagine what will happen as the supply chain is regulated into EV transportation? At least there won’t be higher risk due to lack of sleep of truck drivers. /s
If it weren’t for people like us the computer industry would never have taken off... And yeah, it’s a little embarrassing.
My sister gave me her used TI (yes, Texas Instruments made a computer - late 70’d or early 80’s) that had a five Mb HARD DRIVE (no floppies). WOW - was that amazing. Original cost: about $10,000. So, we were all there - being happy idiots. And hopefully the folks buying electric cars today realize they’re helping to build a better tomorrow.
Why would one drive though Alabama from Texas to Louisiana? There are superchargers on I20 East, then on I49 South directly than more on I10 into New Orleans.
A model S has more than enough range to get from DFW to Alexandria LA stop 15 min and then roll direct to New Orleans with charge to spare which is irrelevant as every hotel or casino I stayed at had at least AC level 1 most level 2 chargers. No one drives at night in N.O. You uber or get thrown in the clink after the first night your pack is back above 90% and by day two even taking it out for day use in the city for lunch and whatnot by the morning after night two You are at 100% even with a 15amp 120v charger. A level 2 does 50% to 100% in a single night.
Here is a dynamic map of superchargers play around with it Alabama has plenty to get from Texas to Florida Mobile Al is a good stop or Pensacola. Telsa built out a network on all the interstates at a hundred miles or less between them 80% of a Model S LR is 320 miles you should pass three supercharger in that distance it’s better to run the pack to 50% which is 200 miles and three hours in the seat then stop for 15 to 20 and repeat. DFW to New Orleans my favorite trip is direct to Alexandria from my garage which is 4.5 hours and 320 miles. Take on 200 miles of charge which added to the amount still in the pack gave 250+ miles it’s 190 to the casinos you show up with plenty left for milling around town till you charge up over night at the hotel. A level 2 240v will put 41 miles per hour of charging in the pack. Which means in 8 hours you add 328 miles that’s a full pack with what you brought with you from Alexandra I have done this trip a half dozen times in the year I leased my Model S.
I’ll stick with my 1988 Rolls Royce Silver Spirit.
Here is the reason gas prices are going up. Electric cannot compete. Also note that your electric price has gone way up and is double or tripled here in California to pay for the solar power which cannot compete against natural gas, coal, nuclear power so the democrats ban every other power source but electric. Electric is 20 to 30 cents a kw while most other places in the USA it is much much less.
“Los Angeles area households paid an average of 25.1 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity in April 2022”
“Louisiana has the lowest electricity rate (7.51 cents).Jan 26, 2022”
“The most expensive of the Asian countries is Japan (USD 0.211)” <-— WOW! are we being ripped off!
How come it is almost 4 times cheaper in Louisiana then Los Angeles let alone the Japan price?!
Did you know the democrats want to ban natural gas use in Los Angeles. All restaurants use natural gas and the price of a meal will go way up.
Gas was under $2.00 in most places outside of California when Donald Trump was president.
My Honda gets 26 city / 35 highway.
At $2 dollars that would be $34.40 a fill up a 17.2 gallon tank = 447 mile range at 26/mpg then 5 stops = $172 for the trip.
If I use 35/mpg = 602 mile range then 4 stops (3.34) the cost is just over $137 (114.90)
The owners also are subsidized by the state and federal gov’t. We all pay higher prices for everything because of this.
BTW the electricity for the electric car comes from a power plant that uses natural gas or coal or nuclear.....
FTA: “Over four days, we spent $175 on charging. We estimated the equivalent cost for gas in a Kia Forte would have been $275, based on the AAA average national gas price for May 19. That $100 savings cost us many hours in waiting time”.
.....our dashboard tells us a full charge, from 18% to 100%, will take 3-plus hours.
We pull into Chicago at 9 p.m., having made the planned 7½-hour trip in 12 hours. Not bad, we agree. <— almost double their planned time and they are happy....!
Bwahahahaha,
but, but, 0-60mph times are teh fastar....
Plenty of Teslas have gone past 300,000 with first and second gen packs.
The new LiFePO4 packs will triple that it’s superior chemistry but slightly lower density. And fourth gen packs will be high density and 15,000+ cycle lifetime it’s coming they already have the cells in testing. The future is EVs there is no way to stop it now. Tesla will cross $80 kWh in pack costs this year if they haven’t already and that price will keep dropping. Boomers gonna boomer but the rest of the world is moving forward into the 21st century. Soon y’all will be dead and no longer a impediment to progress in technology like,nuclear power, Evs , stem cells, and AI.
Not to mention the huge wait times just to get plugged in. Anyone who has made long trips has experienced the long lines at gas stations during tourist season. Imagine the wait times if everyone is driving an EV.
I don’t live in crappy snow country and never will. I am debating Costa Rica, Italy the Southern part or Panama for my next ten years. But even if I had to go to snow country your EV in the right mode would keep you warm they don’t idle like a petrol car you can just heat the seats and be toasty warm with the rest of the car in stand by.
Look this is largely an urban fad. Examine global oil consumption. It rises. It fell only during the virus, which will return of course and erode consumption, but last year consumption was up from 2020.
Despite the alleged inevitability of EVs.
Why does gas consumption rise? Because the people buying EVs are from urban or urbanish areas and never drove much anyway. Their elimination from oil consumption doesn’t affect it much.
In the end it all comes down to refrigerated trucks bringing food to shelves. It’s just like the cattle cars pre oil. Steers are substantially inedible so useless mass was being transported, but they needed to transport live because it was so hard to cool trains over long distances because steam engines didn’t have the power.
Oil made that happen. You can’t recharge a truck every 100 miles and get anywhere before the food spoils. You can’t plant 5000 acres recharging your tractor every 100 acres or planting season expires.
Now here’s the big problem. Diesel. You have to refine a barrel of crude to get x gallons of Diesel. Gasoline is also produced along with asphalt and kerosene etc. You MUST have diesel to eat. So, where do you put the gasoline? Gasoline is produced when producing diesel. In larger amounts. Did you want to flare it just so you can waste time charging EVs? Why not burn it, since you MUST burn diesel.
My 2019 Musrang has a 5 year drivetrain warranty. Two more years and then to the junkyard.
The exact opposite is occurring. They just shut down another nuclear power plant, this time in Michigan. The insipid Governor there was whining about getting some type of "Biden funding" to fix and improve the plant before it was turned off but from what I have noticed the whole program that is supposed fix nuclear plants is smoke and mirrors and nothing but fake bluster from the Dems while they turn off all of our power.
Longer than that and the gas and maitentenance savings pay for it.
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