Featured Will Piston Engines Get Clobbered by Electrics?

But my example used my car which on a reasonable weather day gets 40+MPG at 65MPH. So while your $6 for 72 miles of gas would buy me 120 miles of range, today on my way out of my town I could buy your $15 fast-charge equivalent 72 miles for $3.57. For your $18 I could buy 363 miles and the time-to fill would be maybe 15 minutes total. And that includes buying a lottery ticket, making a comfort stop, etc. While the two charging stops you had to make took 11 times as long (45 + 120) charging between your 2 stops.

What I'm trying to understand is, with those numbers, how are the masses of persuadables going to be persuaded. (see topic of this thread)

 

$15.75 to get 72 miles of possible distance? Holy Crap - what's the point in driving an EV anywhere if you have to use one of those pay chargers.

 

I've been watching some of Bjorn Nyland's YouTube videos and the Ioniq electric and E-Niro look like great cars. I'd love to own one some day. But I suspect it won't be practical in my lifetime (I'm a young 49) to own an EV as an only car unless I move somewhere else. There is no infrastructure to speak of in Alaska or the Alaska Highway through the Yukon/northern BC. I imagine there might be some in Anchorage in the next decade, I've seen 1-2 Teslas in Anchorage (maybe the same one?). But what good is a car in Alaska if you can't go on some long weekend road trips (or cross country trips like I frequently do?). Who would install charging stations along the Alaska Highway, and where would that electricity come from in the tiny stops? They'd probably generate electricity from burning trucked in oil, and charge a large fortune.

In Anchorage, my home electricity rate is already 0.18 per kWh, so a Prius Prime, for example, would cost about the same to run with electricity vs. gasoline. I can easily see 10x that for charging stations (look at the cost of goods in bush Alaska) in remote locations, unless they are subsidized somehow.

Side note. I saw my first and only charging station ever a few seeks ago in Edmonton, in the parking lot of the MEC. I've surely passed many more driving from CA to New England in the past(2016), but don't have the eye for them. Didn't notice any in the White Mountains area of NH where I spent most of my time since October.

If piston engines are going to be clobbered, not being made anymore I take it, they would have to make BEVs practical everywhere, including the "edge cases" like my region. Otherwise, everyone in my region will have to be driving relics in 50 years, like they do in Cuba.

 

This has popped into my head, more than once, while reading this thread, lol.

 

This is an absurd price to pay. That is 1575/72 = 22 cents per mile.
Both my PIP and Tesla M3 get about 4 miles per kwh at highway speeds (actually better). So at utility rates here in CA that is about 5 cents per mile. At the Tesla supercharger rate (26 cents/kwh in CA) that is about 6.5 cents/mile.

So where ever Bob is paying that price it isn't typical for everyone else paying for fueling an EV.

Mike

 

They must be pricing the fast charger to compete with hydrogen.

 

It's bad because these chargers are half the power of a Supercharger, at best.

Well, we need to make changes to some local codes. In some regions, only the power company can charge directly for watts used. This leaves charger companies to use some other metric to use, usually time. This leads to cases (plug in with slow charger, battery nearer to full) in which the user is paying much more than if direct billing per kW was allowed, since the charger owner needs to cover the costs for when a car can take in electricity at the fastest rate. On top of that, a parking fee may be called for the location, or to discourage squatters.

I think the actual case is the charger owner covering their rent for an infrequently used one.

 

One good thing about home charging is the cost of electricity doesn't change like the price of gas. Remember the 70's, do you think people would fall for that again?

 

I get electricity rate change letters from our Power company every so often. Rate plan designs change too. I'm lucky as I am on a grandfathered plan (meaning I was on the plan before they decided to eliminate it so I get to keep it as long as I own the house. But should I die or elect to put my wife on as the co-billing named person, the grandfathering ceases.) So while it is true there are no day to day changes, over longer periods of time there are. Like when the power company is finally told they finally have to do something about open pit storage of coal ash subject to storm runoff into our streams.

 

Yep, having steady electricity rates at home helps the budget, along with the powers to be at work allowing me to charge there doesn't hurt. Something I couldn't do with the gassers and TDIs.

 

I think the difference is both in the cars and charging network and what makes it seem like too much? Bob is only talking about his network of EVgo chargers in his area during limited times of charging on road trips. Say the cycle is 10% gasoline, 20% fast charging, and 70% L2 or lower charging. Also assume that his rate for L2 and lower combined at home is $0.04/mile (assuming he is charging more at home it brings the average down) and $0.22/mile on quick chargers that would mean an average of around $0.08/mile on electricity and $0.07/mile on gasoline under current rates (I'll let him fill in his own numbers YMMV). That's not too different from your number, but very different cars and duty cycles. It isn't that bad at all. I recently borrowed a subaru in new zealand which got about 20 mpg there and gasoline cost over $5 usd/gallon (12 liters/100km, $2 nzd/liter in local terms), and I didn't feel it bad at all considering the local conditions.

Locally here I pay less than $0.03/mile on my tesla model 3 when charged in my garage, L2 is $25/6 months at public chargers locally no matter how much you charge, and super charger rates are going to go up to $0.28/minute but my model 3 can charge 170 miles in 30 minutes so its around $0.05/mile. The tesla network is definitely less expensive than evgo, but we paid for some of it when we bought our cars ;-) I expect to use less than 10% of my electricity from superchargers. If you want a long range plug-in and want to charge it on the road then tesla has a superior network, but I belive bob uses a prime for his long road trips, so does it really matter.

IMHO it probably comes down to penies when you consider all the costs of car ownership ;-) The important thing is if you are enjoying your cars. I've got to say given the economics, the piston engine in the i3 seems like a better use than evgo network, but the regulatory framework that led to the small fuel tank makes longer trips pushed to other vehicles (or modification of the fuel system.

We definitely have some states that discourage electricity use for plug-in vehicles and others that encourage use. My guess is that if the congress tried to regulate everything we would be worse off. Since most of the charge in texas is helping to pay for the charger not the electricity it makes sense, and higher rates when air conditioners are on full blast makes even more sense ;-) Tesla says they will charge a fee if the car is parked for more than 5 minutes after its charged. Tesla with its super charger network and NRG with the EVgo network seem to be doing much better getting fast chargers installed than the companies california paid to do it.

 

in So Cal, EVgo is horrible when it comes to maintenance on their QC's - plus, the occasional user gets socked with high prices, which is inexplicable considering how those high prices should be able to afford at least mediocre maintenance. Chargepoint on the other hand, are pretty reasonable with their prices, both QC C & J plugs. Their maintenance is better, too.
As for whether ICE will kill off EV eventually? Don't know. But our local transit folks are doing their part to clobber ICE - replacing their buses with these EV bad boys;



I call this EV karma - for back in the early 1900's when GM bought up electric trolleys - & scrapped 'em .... just so they could sell their own diesel belchers.
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This may be regional differences, but chargepoint only seems to have only 2 - 50 KW charger locations in Texas outside of Austin, and in Austin there is the one the city's utility maintains downtown that has too many cars at it for 50 KW and since it is free for most is often occupied, and then 1 at a jaguar dealership that is often blocked by the dealer, and 3 at a bmw dealership. EVGO actually has many more that users could travel on in the state.

I'm sure bev and phev busses will be affordable to most cities 10 years from now. IIRC california's deadline for zev busses is 2040 which seems quite reasonable, but my guess is there will still be some pistons in those buses then to deal with longer routes and those areas with bad weather. Its the cars, farm equipment, and long haul trucks that will still be mainly using ices in California then.

Its in the plans to be built this year ;-) with others going on your route too.

 

Alternatively, in the old days, you could have just kept driving and driving, as long as there were wires.

 

I was thinking about that: with some standardization, urban drivers could do an end run around the battery debacle.

 

Problem is all new EVs sold today have plenty of range for city driving (yes, provided you can charge at home or work). The technical challenge is still affordable electric refueling/power for long distance even if the battery kWh size does not increase more.