I Hate Texters

I couldn't agree more. I can't see buying an electric car right now.

I haven't visited many paid charging stations here in San Diego, but I get the impression they are usually around $.54/kW. It's my understanding from posts I've read in these forums that it takes about 6.5 kW to fully charge the Prime, which gets you about 25 miles of driving. Even at $.30/kW, you'd be paying $1.95 to go 25 miles, right? But you could go over 50 miles on $3.20 worth of gas, so aren't you paying more to use electricity? Are my numbers off?

 

Select the car of choice from www.fueleconomy,gov:

• Get the kWh/100 mi, A
• Get the Gal/100 mi, B
• Look up local electrical rate $/kWh, C
• Solve: C * (A/B) = local cost of parity gasoline

So lets take an example of plugin hybrids in Huntsville AL where the my last bill was $0.091 per kWh, C:

• 2014 BMW i3-REx: $0.91 * ( 29 / 2.6 ) = $1.02 / gal (premium)
• 2018 Pacifica: $0.091 * ( 40 / 3.1 ) = $1.17 / gal (regular)
  
• 2018 Chevy Volt: $0.091 * ( 31 / 2.4 ) = $1.18 / gal (regular)
• 2017 Prius Prime: $0.091 * ( 25 / 1.9 ) = $1.20 / gal (regular)
  
• 2018 Ioniq plugin hybrid: $0.091 * ( 28 / 1.9 ) = $1.34 / gal (regular)

When gasoline is cheaper than these prices, run the car on gas. Above these values, electricity is cheaper in Huntsville AL.

Bob Wilson

 

If I read that right, it seems like those numbers are about in line with what I was saying. If you have to pay $.30 per kW (over three times what you're paying), the equivalent price of gas would be over $3.60 per gallon, so gas would be cheaper in that instance.

25 kWh per 100 miles sounds about right from what I've been reading. It would take about 4 full charges to go 100 miles, and each charge is about 6.5 kWh. You'd need electricity to cost about $.25 or less per kWh to make sense with gas prices what they are here in California.

I think you have some exceptionally low electricity rates. You're not part of the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) there, are you?

 

Yes but I'd recommend using U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

We aren't the cheapest but we do OK.

Bob Wilson

 

No I'm not. Read again. "I use the nav system most of the time because of the law ...".

 

I read that, but you said "most of the time." I am not, of course, referring to the times you are following the law. But, the rest of the time, you are risking a ticket.

 

That's an assumption. A wrong one. The rest of the time I'm on private roads.

 

Really? You travel so far on private roads that you need to refer to your phone for guidance?

 

That just gets me that it's functionality is so impaired like that on Android phones. For the life of me I can't understand why they would make something so absolutely useless. It's a simple "checkbox" in the settings on my phone that tells it to utilize Cortana and any other voice activated app to function if connected via "Bluetooth". Seems they could do that too.. or at least one would think.

If not connected via Bluetooth to something, then my phone also must be unlocked in order to use Cortana or anything else.

 

Big difference between you and him. He's from Colorado, not SoCal. Even done that myself here...

 

No, I use it to figure out when I get off the private roads (work and my flying club) what route to take. It's much easier to look at the map when I hold it up kind of like the HUD rather than have it down on the charging pad and it's safer than a fixed mount because I can hold it in an unimportant (for that moment) area of my field of view.

 

They do but my understanding is that the car will only send Bluetooth audio requests to the phone if the phone is an Apple device. At least, I can't make the car do it.

 

The unit of energy is "kWh" - kilowatt hour. Saying "my car goes an average of 5.5 miles per Kilowatt" is like saying "my car goes an average of 50 miles per horsepower".

 

Except for Waze. We need Waze to watch for the PoPo.

 

Wow, 32-35 consistently? You must drive very carefully. So the numbers do pencil out for you, but what about the charging time? Doesn't this leave you sitting at public chargers hours at a time with not much to do?

 

So we've found one small area where my iPhone offers increased functionality and compatibility. I'll take it!

 

Dubit is right. I should have looked at the city you're in (I actually attended Westminster High School for a semester). Living where I do (Southern California), it's hard to remember that there are places where private roads are, I would imagine, much more common. The only private roads I ever drive on here are in my neighborhood.