jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

In August, the Tesla 3 outsold the entire BMW line. That's impressive. I live in a rural area, yet every time I drive, I see at least one Tesla.

cdayton

I’m waiting for the roadster - I need 0-60 in 1.9 seconds and 250 mph top speed. It’ll cut my commute time to Costco.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Me, too. I need one that is much faster than the current models. : )

Sirsnapalot Loc: Hammond, Louisiana

Got this in an email.

Interesting Take on Electric Cars



This is for Engineers out there, surely there should be a rebuttal to this article. Say it isn't true!

As an engineer I love the electric vehicle technology. However, I have been troubled for a longtime by the fact that the electrical energy to keep the batteries charged has to come from the grid and that means more power generation and a huge increase in the distribution infrastructure. Whether generated from coal, gas, oil, wind or sun, installed generation capacity is limited. A friend sent me the following that says it very well. You should all take a look at this short article.





INTERESTING - ONE OTHER QUESTION. IF ELECTRIC CARS DO NOT USE GASOLINE, THEY WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN PAYING A GASOLINE TAX ON EVERY GALLON THAT IS SOLD FOR AUTOMOBILES, WHICH WAS ENACTED SOME YEARS AGO TO HELP TO MAINTAIN OUR ROADS AND BRIDGES. THEY WILL USE THE ROADS, BUT WILL NOT PAY FOR THEIR MAINTENANCE!

In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car:



Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it . This is the first article I've ever seen and tells the story pretty much as I expected it to



Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things yet they're being shoved down our throats. Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.



At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS...!' and a shrug.



If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine ." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.



It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned , so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.



The gasoline powered car costs about $20,000 while the Volt costs $46,000-plus. So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

rplain1 Loc: Dayton, Oh.

But you are talking electric cars with gasoline as a backup. My hybrid is self charging, has an 11 gallon tank, never has to be plugged in, gets over 60mpg and has a range over 650 miles. The worst mileage it gets is in town in the winter. Then it plummets to only 56. On the highway I have gotten close to 70. And it only cost 21k and came with a lifetime warranty on the battery.

fourg1b2006 Loc: Long Island New York

Wow...that's an eye opener....i'm canceling my order now. lol.

kodiac1062 Loc: Sarasota, Fl

Very interesting, thank you for posting this. A completely new energy source needs to be discovered. Maybe those guys in the UFO's could share some information with us. Since Area 51 or (wherever they moved it to) allegedly has alien spacecraft, I bet the government knows of another energy source but doesn't share it because it would disrupt the world economy.

IDguy Loc: Idaho

I can’t imagine electric prices of $1.16 per kwh. Try $0.116. So the electricity cost for the volt works out to $0.074 per mile compared to $0.10 per mile for the 30 mpg gas auto.

I also don’t buy that you get only 25 miles from a Volt battery charge. Most reports say 53 miles. That cuts the Volt’s MPG cost to $0.037 on pure electric.

On the other hand, charges at remote charging stations can be much higher. But still far less than your number.

And with 240 V chargers the charge time is 4 hours.

Here’s some accurate data: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1091747_chevy-volt-how-it-really-works-vs-common-myths-misconceptions

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

Where the heck do you live that you pay $1.16/kwh? I pay 13 cents/kwh in SW Ohio.

spaceylb Loc: Long Beach, N.Y.

Did anyone see the Elon Musk "potcast"?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

We have six Toyota Priuses in our extended family — four in mine. These are THE LOWEST cost per mile cars we have ever owned, including purchase price, financing, maintenance and repairs, gas, taxes, insurance, everything. They are also the most reliable!

Power costs about 14 cents per kWh where I live. Where in hell does it cost $1.16???

The infrastructure and road tax models will change to accommodate EVs. Petroleum is a short term (50 more years at best) energy source. Get over it!

Every new technology faces challenges of acceptance, resistance, and change. You may think EVs are an Elon Musk joint dream. I say, thank God for dreamers!

jzehaz Loc: Pleasantville, NY

I pay 22.29 cents per kwh (all in - supply, delivery charges...) here in Westchester County, NY. I thought my rate was high with ConEd!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Too many incorrect and misinterpreted data in this post to even begin to refute, but let me just address one of the glaring ones. There is nowhere in the US that electricity costs $1.16 per KWH. That is off by an order of magnitude. Here in NC, it averages just over $0.10 per KWH which is fairly typical. The most expensive state (for obvious reasons) is Hawaii at $0.33. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state

In the event you missed it, natural gas and oil is a non-renewable resource - when it’s gone, it’s gone. We should be saving it for those applications such as aircraft that are difficult to power from alternative energy sources and moving to solar, wind and yes, nuclear (for base capacity). The alternative is freezing in the dark at some point in the future.

Bill MN Loc: Western MN

You guys are nuts, a squirrel said that.

Alafoto Loc: Montgomery, AL

Now that they have ended the $1.50 Polish sausage sandwich specials, I only go to Costco when I need a four gallon container of ketchup or or a 12 pound package of frozen broccoli.

The Tesla will eliminate waiting in line to buy gasoline, though.