EV Charging Station Costs

[Drjones]

https://www.evgonetwork.com/Charging_Plans/

So much for those EV zealots assurances that we'd all be paying for our EV "fuel" costs with just loose couch change.  Reality is a pregnant dog init it.

[zooom]

kinda like saying that Hybrids are greener when they actually take up a bigger carbon footprint...

reality is the downside of PR hype when it comes to automotive technology nowadays!

[Latinbalar]

There are two sides to this argument.
First we are so behind on battery tech that its pointless, batteries only last a few years and then have to be "thrown out" but they have so many chemicals that disposing of them is a challenge.  Unless we come up with a battery that stores large amounts of electricity and have a life of over 20 years EV vehicles are pointless.

Second if we can fix the first issue of batteries then EV vehicles do become reasonable.  We can produce large volumes of electricity very efficiently such as coal and natural gas plants. Then there is Wind, geo-thermal and hydro-electro power plants that leave little to no carbon footprint.

Trust me I want to run cleaner but we need to focus more on tech before going EV. As of now having an EV is just a novelty.

-stepping off of soap box.

[Triple J]

While I agree that battery technology needs to advance...

...the current batteries last longer than a "few years". Here's a Consumer Reports article on 2 10-year old batteries which were still functioning well (one of them very high mileage).
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/02/200000-mile-toyota-prius-still-performs.html

200,000 miles is failry common apparently.
http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-batteries-none-the-worse-for-wear-cga.htm

...second, while the power may not be as cheap as originally advertised, I'd be very happy if I could get by with putting fuel in my car for $89/month. That's pretty reasonable.

...and no, I don't own or have plans to buy an EV. However, I do recognize that we're still early in the development of electric vehicle technology, so obviously nothing is perfect and there is still a long way to go.

[Speedbag]

Lots of validity to the posts above.

I'd love to do some real-world testing of an EV here in Minnesota. In other words, leaving it sit outside during -20* periods overnight, slogging to work in the same temps plus heavy snow. Then on to 100* temps in the summer with like humidity percentages. It would be interesting to see how one would hold up.

There are a lot of Priuses ( ) around and I wonder how they fare as well, although they have the gas engine to help. (I personally don't see hybrids being The Big Thing)

[Drjones]

. . . We can produce large volumes of electricity very efficiently such as coal and natural gas plants. Then there is Wind, geo-thermal and hydro-electro power plants that leave little to no carbon footprint. . . .

Wind screws up wildlife habitat, hydros screw up water sources, geo's can possibly screw up water tables if not done correctly.  The company I work for is involved in the latter of those three since we're good at drilling holes in the ground and evaluating what be down in them thar holes.  It is safe to say that all power generation techniques have negative affects.

We'll need more power generating capacity regardless of whether thar be carbons or not.  As it is now we're getting constant warnings about not flicking on our AC's at 5pm when everyone comes home from work or face rolling brownouts during the hottest days of the year.  If the current power generating infrastructure can't handle that then it sure as hell can't handle 20 million plus EV's being plugged in every night.  EV's are a niche market and will remain so for a looooong time.

[superjohn]

The oft overlooked advantage to any EV or hybrid is the capability to recapture kinetic energy from the vehicle and store it for later use. With the thermal efficiency of a reciprocating motor being roughly 30% and all of the forward momentum being wasted as heat energy from the brakes on a conventional vehicle, there is a lot of energy produced that is going to waste.

I agree a pure EV vehicle is probably only viable if it can be a second car used for short trips and the like (sort of like a motorcycle) but with hybrids, you can start to use energy recovery to make use of exhaust waste, brake heat waste, engine heat waste, etc and take the thermal efficiency of the motor from 30% up to maybe 60%. Or using a Chevy Volt like approach with a micro turbine converting gas/diesel/E85/etc to electricity at 65% to 75% thermal efficiency and the everyday car can be much quieter, smoother and more efficient.

The hype is annoying, but the engineering is pretty darn cool.

[ducatiz]

Well, let's look at the numbers..

$89 for an unlimited, charge anywhere plan..

I spend about $50 to fill up my Golf TDI when diesel is about $4/gal.  that takes me about 500-600 miles with mixed city/highway driving (about 60/40)

That's about 2 weeks of driving for me, so that means I fill up more than twice a month (4.3 weeks/month), which means about $115/month in fuel costs for me.

And that's in my super efficient 35 city/50 highway TDI.

$90 is a good deal for fuel costs.

And I hate electric cars, don't get me wrong.  They are a bad idea until batteries become far far better.

but do the math and it's not a terrible cost.

[Mother]

I would kick babies into traffic for an 89 dollar a month fuel bill

[Speedbag]

+1

[Drjones]

a Jetta TDI is $22.5k.  a Nissan Leaf is $35.2k.  How many years will it take for you to break even on the purchase price with $26 in fuel savings per month? How about for a $39.1k Chevy Volt?  Hell, even throw in oil changes, spark plugs and other IC related maintenance costs.

One can do better in lowering their monthly fuel costs by car/vanpooling.

[ducatiz]

a Jetta TDI is $22.5k.  a Nissan Leaf is $35.2k.  How many years will it take for you to break even on the purchase price with $26 in fuel savings per month? How about for a $39.1k Chevy Volt?  Hell, even throw in oil changes, spark plugs and other IC related maintenance costs.

One can do better in lowering their monthly fuel costs by car/vanpooling.

It's a good question.  What service does the Leaf need?  I have no idea.

Assuming the expenses are the same, you can look at the other plans offered -- as low as $50/month for a home plan.

Potentially, that's a $65/month advantage to my situation, assuming diesel remains at its current level of $4/gallon for me.  I was in Nor Cal last week and I see people pay about $4.50/gal there.

At that difference (65/month), that's 200 months to recoup the difference.

However, there are other advantages which may be available.  Hippy chicks are more likely to put out for you.  Many states offer some tax benefits for buyers of electric cars, not to mention the federal tax credit.


http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/09/2012-mitsubishi-i-electric-car-has-a-price-increase-before-it-goes-on-sale.html

Mitsubishi i electric car:  $31,125 ($23,625 after the tax credit).

[Speedbag]

a Jetta TDI is $22.5k.  a Nissan Leaf is $35.2k.  How many years will it take for you to break even on the purchase price with $26 in fuel savings per month? How about for a $39.1k Chevy Volt?  Hell, even throw in oil changes, spark plugs and other IC related maintenance costs.

One can do better in lowering their monthly fuel costs by car/vanpooling.

Yes, until EV vehicles get more competitive cost-wise to their IC-only counterparts, I'm not terribly interested.

[il d00d]

I have discovered something interesting on this forum.  Math doesn't work on EV problems.  No matter how you compute it, 1+1 = EVs are the worst thing ever.  They're just horrible no matter what.

Wind screws up wildlife habitat, hydros screw up water sources, geo's can possibly screw up water tables if not done correctly.  The company I work for is involved in the latter of those three since we're good at drilling holes in the ground and evaluating what be down in them thar holes.  It is safe to say that all power generation techniques have negative affects.

Yes, negative effects.  The possibility of screwing up water tables is pretty much the same as dumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, trillions of metric tons of carbon emissions deposited in the air yearly.  The environmental impact of fracking (drilling holes in the ground to extract petroleum, leaking some of in to the ground water) is about the same as geothermal (drilling holes into the ground to extract water, leaking water into the ground water).  This argument is absurd.

By this argument, I mean suggesting a false equivalence between a very slightly bad thing that shows promise of being a sight better than a really make the beast with two backsing bad thing, and that really make the beast with two backsing bad thing.  They're both bad, right?  Or comparing "greener" technologies to some theoretical technology that results in no environmental impact.  Solar panels?  TOO MUCH SHADE.  Wind farms?  TWIRLY NOISES.  Portable nuclear fusion reactors?  I DIDN'T LIKE BACK TO THE FUTURE II.

This is a fun game.  For you. 

Enough with the trolling. 

[Triple J]

a Jetta TDI is $22.5k.  a Nissan Leaf is $35.2k.  How many years will it take for you to break even on the purchase price with $26 in fuel savings per month? How about for a $39.1k Chevy Volt?  Hell, even throw in oil changes, spark plugs and other IC related maintenance costs.

While you do make good points about the cost benefit of EV or hybrid vehicles (which is exactly why I still drive my 13 mpg Xterra)...

...you do realize that you're essentially the same as the "EV zealots" that you ridicule, right? You just have the opposite view as them. You refuse to see any benefit to, and continually focus on the negatives (sometimes grasping at straws as il dood pointed out) for, alternative energy sources.