Gas Prices

I'd rather give you a beautiful scenic route, similar to what we did three years ago: cross-continent on Washington State's SR20, then US2 in the other states. According to Tesla's Supercharger Map, that is over 1700 miles between the supercharger near Burlington WA to the next one in Duluth MN. And that doesn't include any side trips, such as to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park North Unit, or through Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

Though to be a bit more fair, the supercharger at Baxter / Brainerd MN is very close to the Paul Bunyan Trail where we spent a full bicycling day. That shortens the gap by about 25 miles

Though this is an extreme case, it is still representative of my household's domestic travel style. And many of those 'planned stations' were already showing up as 'planned' back then too, but just are not filling in as quickly as suggested. And there are plenty more similar examples.

 

we need a national charging initiative, like the old highway push

 

Once business sees enough demand and they can profit from it you will see more charging stations.
Like bisco says without the government getting involved like the Interstate Highway System it will be spotty.

 

Checked this morning. $3.59 at the corner gas station. (Anything under 5 bucks is good! )

 

Have I seen this debate on prevalence of supercharger on other threads? People who drives BEV now think there are plenty of them, and others think there aren't enough of them yet. Maybe people who do not drive BEV are missing some hidden charge stations, but I am sure they are not as prominent as gas stations for sure. I have not seen a single public charge station yet in my life.

 

'other threads'

 

Good point, staying roughly on point.
I am currently paying 25 cents/gallon fueling up in my garage

 

You measuring electricity by the gallon is as bad as @bisco measuring by electron count.
You need @jerrymildred our resident electrician to give you a lesson in electrical units.

 

This thread was about fuel prices. I just converted into a format for comparison purposes.
25 cents a gallon is a lot easier to compare in this context.
The price per kWh (if you want to do your own conversions to $/gallon) is 1.5 cents/kWh (and wont go up for the next 35 years).

 

Cost per mile makes it way easier to understand than messing with converting cost per kWh to equivalent gallons.

 

You probably have solar so that's not a fair comparison. You need to have an * saying your upfront costs were this much, and it's going to take this long to payoff.

And stop it with taking an EV on trips. How many times have you guys rented a car/SUV/minivan to go on a trip? That's nothing new. Save the wear and tear on your car and don't worry about where the next charger is located.

 

In the past 35 years I have done it exactly once. Once I rented a van to get a dog in a crate when my vehicle would not handle it. All our other long trips over the years, including visiting relatives in Canada, were done with our vehicles.
In fact, 2 weeks after purchasing the Prius, it went on an unexpected 2000 mile trip to pick up a rare dog breed. Not everybody is rich enough to rent for long trips.

 

Yup.

Of course, because there is a selection bias. The BEV adapters are heavily weighted towards customers on whose routes are adequately equipped.

I'm assuming that Tesla's map is not missing them, and that the lengthy white spaces are real. And that the people who don't see those unserved areas, have very different travel patterns than I do.

I've seen many, both domestically and abroad. But they are simply not built out anywhere near enough to address my post-commuting (i.e. retirement) needs. If I was still commuting, I'd charge at home and still not need public chargers.

Now that I'm no longer commuting for wages, 'trips' are the great bulk of my vehicle miles. Renting that frequently doesn't make sense. Leave that to people who are still working, thus have a very limited time budget for trips.

 

Re: gas prices, I wonder what the "true" dollars/gal people are paying these days? What I mean is we are usually getting 30-40 cents off for grocery credits and other credits. So $2.70 today is not the same as the old days. But I have never heard any statistics on average discounts people are getting.

 

we pay the pump price, no credits that i know of. am i missing something?

 

A nice deal Fiat-Chrysler had on the 2015 Fiat 500e was 12 “free” car rentals per year. I took advantage this only twice, but was nice to have had the option.

 

Doesn't your Shop and Stop Grocery (same as our Giant Grocery) give you Shell credits?

 

Yap, even though there are absolutely no public charge station within 200 miles of my home, if I can find an affordable BEV with 50 miles range (or more) and big enough cargo space, it would fit the bill for our second car needs. But if I am to have only one car, no BEV is suitable for our current needs. PRIME has deficiency, but seems to be the best ONLY car to have for us now.

 

not sure. last time i was there, they only gave 10 cents off on the back of the store receipt if they had their own pumps.
maybe we should check it out.

 

It means you aren't spending anywhere near enough on your groceries to build up the gas credits. No worries, because the gas credits aren't big enough to cover the extra grocery spending.

While we do build up some such credits, our average is much less than the level he mentions. And the first $0.10 is nearly always wasted by the higher gas prices at the applicable stations. Fairly frequently, even $0.20 is wasted, so I've let numerous credits expire unused. And under the current pricing pattern, today's gap is a wide $0.32-.36.