What would you reply?

It'll be long gone before it ever gets to an EV by HVAC, refrigeration, lighting and computing. But why, since it's much, much cheaper to use natural gas.

 

Looks like crypto fuel

 

Guess you don't use air conditioning.

 

Coal Too Valuable To Burn … – American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (americanmcc.org)

‘Too valuable to burn’: Ramaco to turn coal from Wyo. mine into car, plane parts - Energy Policy Network

 

that's a lot cheaper than our 24 cents per kwh

 

Is that TCO or just "fuel."

My total car budget is no more than 20% of my income but would prefer it to be 10%. I don't make a lot. Even with $180 car payments, $100 in fuel and $150 car insurance per month plus $90 in savings per month for maintenance and tires I'm already at 17% of my income. A $500 per month car payment would put me and my family on the street, especially when the cheapest rent I can find is 50% of my income.

The cheapest car I owned was a 1985 VW diesel Golf. I'm tempted to go get it (the buyer never put it in his name and no longer wants it). That car cost me $600 and got over 50mpg on the highway. It never once had a major issue in the 7 years I owned it. It may have over 700,000 miles on it, but it is immortal.

 

A $10,000, 5 year loan cost me over $180 per month. I'd imagine a $20,000 loan would be double that ($360), and a $30,000 loan triple ($540). Of course I could get a pretty penny for the Avalon right now, so selling it would potencially shave several grand from loan price.

However, that also doesn't address the fact that I'd be downsizing. The Avalon is a full sized family car with a trailer hitch. Trading it for a smaller car might be cheaper, but more crowded. I want a minivan... | Page 4 | PriusChat

Ideally I'd have a smaller, old EV for around town and a bigger, nicer, newer car like the Avalon for out of town driving. But I can't justify buying a vehicle that's twice as expensive as the family car just for a work vehicle.

 

Another thing too is that I'm not driving as much as I used to. I have $100 per month budgeted for fuel and we don't even use all of that. Even if an EV cut that down to zero (charging only at free charging stations and/or at work for free) The EV could still be potentially more expensive.

There is a lot to think about here (Where would I charge regularly? Where would I charge on road trips? What about our long, mountainous, snowy roads? Tire chains? Would we fit? Would towing be possible? What about installing an amateur radio? Etc.??). So keep throwing reasons for getting an EV out there as maybe there's something I'm just not understanding that could convince me when I finally do.

All I know is the Nissan Leaf we had for a year did not work out. Once we were stranded between towns in -15°F weather and no cellphone service I decided to sell it and a bunch of other stuff so we'd have enough for a down payment on a car like the Avalon.

EDIT:
On paper, the Bolt doesn't see that small. I see a 2017 Bolt for $20,900 with 32,000 miles.

Compare: Avalon/Bolt
Cargo: 14cu.ft./16.9cu.ft.
FtHead 37.6in/39.7in
FtLeg 42.1in/41.6in
FtShoulder 58.2in/54.6in
RrHead 37.9in/37.9in
RrLeg 39.2in/36.5in
RrShoulder 56.5in/52.8in

I don't know though. I'm not sure I want to risk having another Leaf experience.

 

bev's still take careful planning and thought before leaving

 

I've been down that route when we had the Leaf. Twice I thought we could charge up near a mall so we could see some things only to find out both malls were closed. A few times a charging station was offline and put us in a pickle. I had to sit down and calculate down to the last mile of range in that car for every trip out of town.

 

i would like one, but only for wherever an overnight charge at home would take me and back, under the most severe conditions.
further than that would be too stressful to mrs b.

and when we travel, it's to travel, not plan on charging, and what we're going to do while waiting.

yes, we've been spoiled by a 600+ mile range hycam, and ubiquitous gas stations.

 

Exactly!

The way I figure it, the EV would need a 500 mile range to cover 100% of our driving needs. That's because there are highways we take with an EV charging station every 200 miles, and I've had my range cut in half just by cold weather alone. Driving through slush really eats up the electricity too, so maybe even more than 500 miles would be necessary for 100% of my driving situations.

If it's any less I want to have the ability to drive an ICE, be that a plug-in hybrid or two separate cars. Renting an ICE for those occasions is no longer an option where I live.