Featured Nearly Half of [US] Shoppers See Public Charging as an EV Dealbreaker

When January rolls around she can turn it off - push the freezer outdoors during a couple months of frosty winters & she can really save energy.

 

I could easily have an EV and a hybrid in the family (to make the 2% of trips possible and convenient.) Could I have 2 EVs? well no because the EVs that match my SUV hybrid in space and carrying capacity are in the X class and priced accordingly. And somehow I elect to buy cars that are reasonably priced, functional, depreciate little, will last 8 years before I sell them and have local convenient repair facilities. And frankly, my wife wouldn't have an RV if you gave it to her. I, OTOH, lust after one because I like new and different things.

On the what benefits me side, how you gonna beat $1k depreciation over 4 years and $2k in gas costs and zero cost to me repairs (I over maintain so that would affect the total cost.)

 

How about $1k increase in value over 3 years, no cost for fuel, zero cost for maintenance?

 

Even better! But when I look at what would be my typical EV replacement I don't see anything but depreciation on vehicles with current battery technology. I sell at either 48 or 70k miles.

 

i wish i could find some well depreciated ev's around here. right now, most of them are asking more than msrp because they are available, or they get no tax credits

 

idk where you live but I found 2017 Bolts with the new battery pack for around $15-17k. Granted that's from private parties, not dealerships, so ymmv.

 

i wouldn't even know how to find a used car drom a private seller. the last time i did so was in 1980 through a paper publication that no longer exists.

my location is in my avatar under: location

 

Ah. Boston. I'm on the west coast. I found the private party Bolts via Craigslist. That's how i found my gen 2 2006.

 

use autotempest.com and it makes searching multiple sources and locations easier. It crawls craigslist locations among others.

 

The car actually has to have a buyer and be sold to know what the depreciation was.
I never heard one person complain about ac as it became more common, “oh what will that do to the grid?” Or microwave ovens, or electronics.
Las Vegas, look at it, oh my what about the grid?

 

the grid is a straw man

 

Except perhaps in Texas where I suspect it is made mostly with straw.

Bob Wilson

 

lol. We don't have a lot of coal in texas, and straw is used to feed livestock. Texas does have the most renewable energy in the country. The problem with ERCOT - the grid that covers most of texas - is population growth and lack of replacement of old non weatherized plants. Ercot's board all is gone from the last crisis, but the problem is the legislature that controls the PUC and ERCOT. Pretty easy solutions here but it means the old line utilities will end up closing their old coal and steam natural gas plants if we build enough wind and ccgt more efficient and weatherized natural gas plants. The grid was modernized for renewables and the utilities are building ev infrastructure but we need more power plants as we build things in texas. Tesla moved their headquarters and has built a bigger plant than california, Toyota moved their US headquarters and truck production here from california. That takes energy especially as the population has grown rapidly. People and airconditioning need power. Before airconditioning there were no auto plants in texas and a tiny population compared to today.

 

I understand Tesla is also building out one of the first 'virtual power plants' in Texas.

Bob Wilson

 

Yes they are in texas and puerto rico. Both have quite uneven power demands, and it will help on surge pricing that was so bad during snowpacolypse. Others are building batteries to buffer the wind so that natural gas plants have time to react if winds die down.

 

Photo cells too?

It seems reasonable to have wind generators surrounded by solar cells. Solar energy follows a predictable path and I understand still productive under cloud cover.

Bob Wilson

 

In reality Texas is disconnected from the US grid. Politicians making political decisions instead of logical choices. A couple of years ago during a statewide ice storm, the state power collapsed and many (most) were without power every day for hours or more. In Texarkana the west side of town in Texas had no power. The east side in Arkansas had no problem. Adjacent states were connected to the US grid.

 

That was big new even outside of Texas. And it was when I first learned that most of Texas was not electrically connected to other states. Yet the rest of the US is connected to Canada.

 

Texas does have a few interconnections, and they want to build another. They go AC to DC to AC across the state line to keep avoiding federal regulations for the grid in the state.

 

Just to add info , interconnections with AC to DC and back to AC does protect one grid system to the other grid system. If one goes unstable or colapses it does not pull down the other grid .This system is in effect in Québec for interconnections with neighbor provinces and the US.