New Poll: Americans Shun Electrics

no harm, no foul. After over a half dozen years of reading here on PC, you'll see it's quite common that posts end up in the 'less-appropriate' sub-forum. It keeps the mods busy, but what the heck, they've got nothing better to do anyway.

That said, the article seems to have been proven false, in that sales of EV's are brisk ... so ... so much for the hand wringing and drama.

 

I don't know, They have only sold what 7,000 or so Leafs so far. That is a miniscule fraction of the total cars sold in the same time period. On the other hand, they have sold ALL of them. Really too soon to tell.

It is my hunch that electrics will sell slowly until they reach a critical mass, and then you won't be able to give away a gas powered car. Gas cars will be all of a sudden be like record turntables; of interest only to the fanatics.

 

My parents wanted to buy an EV recently. Except, we live in Chicago. No kind of EV is available that costs less than $50,000. I'm shunning EVs because I can't get one even if I want one.

 

Well, at least 2 or 3 of those 7,000 are regularly spotted in the parking lot at my office... I watch every time I walk by the windows in the morning and evening to see if I know the person that drives one of them. And a couple weeks ago, I saw a whole car carrier full of Leafs (Leaves? ) on the highway. I suppose that means that the car carrier was a Nissan Tree.

 

therein lies my point. As soon as the EV's get to the show room, they're either immediately picked up or (in the case where the ordering party chooses not to buy) they're sold to a secondary buyer ... often for (sadly) above MSRP. A good part of the reason EV sales are still small, is because supply is out stripped by demand. Which ever company can ramp up first (imo) is going to make a killing.

 

oops

 

5 Orphaned Leafs in WA State that i know of, sold at MSRP. so no markup yet, but at the same time, i got a $2000+ discount from MSRP.

but minimal gouging yet. once again, its all depends on the integrity of the dealer and Nissan has their share of crooked ones

 

So if I may be so bold.. how much was your OTD price on your leaf?

And if you could give the pros and cons of the vehicle so far???

 

$33,872.88 with the benefit of a sales tax waiver in WA State for EVs which basically took nearly $3,000 off. if including $7,500 tax credit

my $34,000 car cost about the same as any other $24,000 car i would have both in WA. not a bad deal...but then again, that would drop to about 22,800 after a year due to fuel savings, $21,600 after two years...

pros are easy; ZERO refueling efforts. i refuel the Prius at Costco, which is about a 200 yard detour from my daily commute. problem is, it sits in a shopping complex on one of the busiest intersection in the area.

when crawling thru the intersection at 5 pm, it takes me about 25 minutes to drive home (it takes about 13 minutes at 6 AM to get to work. its only 6 miles) and most of the slowdown is the first 2 miles from work.

when i stop to get gas on my 200 yard detour, it usually takes me 20+ minutes to get gas if the line is not too long (Costco has a lot of pumps so wait is almost always less than 5 minutes)

fact of the matter is. getting gas is a major pain in the A**. charging my Leaf is not. worrying about the 80-110 mile range (when i expect to drive 25-65 miles a day) is DEFINITELY not an issue.

its simply a very cool thing to do!

 

Dave,

I was wondering about your charging. I presume you have a 240v charger at home. Do you get to charge at work or use a 110 v charger for opportunity charges? If so what kind of miles per hour of charging do you get on it?

One of my main hurdles to getting a BEV are my trips to Wilmington, but the courthouse lets me plug into some 110v outlets I found in the garage. I'm just wondering how much range I might be able to reliably add if I had say 4 hours to pick up some extra juice.

[I think you know me but I drive a Volt, charge at 240v at home and 110v at work or whenever else I can]

FWIW I get 10 miles per hour of charging on the 240v and 4 miles per hour of charging on the 110v.

 

at 120, i go 4½ miles per hour of charge

up until i moved into my current house (3 weeks ago) i charged at 120. i got Phils (peef here) EVSE mod to charge 240 volts at 12 amps and that is what i charge with now.

as far as charging away from home the Seattle area is putting up several a week now so the places to charge are getting to be pretty common, but have only had to charge away from home twice which was not a big deal as i was meeting other Leafers and so sitting somewhere for a few hours was not that big a deal.

but we now have many major malls with charging so it would not be unheard of to go to Seattle charge a bit and come home. Seattle is only slightly outside the Leafs range so not much would be needed to make it back home.

now, we do get up in that area maybe 5-10 times a year, but have not yet...(will be going to Snoqualmie for Thomas the Train ride on the 9th. will take Prius for that although we could have charged in Redmond during their "Eco Fair" but decided against it)

but Tacoma, South King County and Lewis County are all in reach and that is where we normally have gone, so it works well for us.

we will always need two cars so if we have to, we take the Prius, but in 5 months we have not had to yet

 

Even though the LEAF is my family's only vehicle, we still have our Zipcar membership. We were without a vehicle for two years and used Zipcar about once per month, when it came time to decide what type of vehicle to get we decided to get one that served our primary purposes 99% of the time and then keep our $50 per year Zipcar membership for that 1% of the time.

I've found most families buy a vehicle for that 1% of the year and complain about high gas prices the other 99% of the time...

 

Take a listen at the beginning of the story where the reporter said when Chevrolet built the extended range electric Volt, they developed a powertrain like nothing that existed on the road. He then went on to say by putting a larger battery in a hybrid, you developped a semi-electric car(Prius PHV), as if Volt is a full electric car, not a plug-in hybrid.

Toyota Unleashes the Super Prius - Fox News Video - FoxNews.com

 

NICE!

Gas prices not scaring car buyers as much this time around | Auto Green Magazine

 

And all it took was the global economy crashing. Let's hold out hope for that to happen again, shall we?

 

I hope this guy does not write for a living and reason enough to pour money into education!

Journalism for Dummies!

The Electric Range Of The 2012 Plug-in Prius: Toyota's Excuse