Washington State adds $100 or $150 to our annual registration fee to compensate.
A plug-in hybrid would be great for many. Benefit of running on full electric for frequent short trips, and have the flexibility of gas for infrequent longer trips.
A RAV-4 plug in hybrid is said to be coming soon.
I may have missed it being mentioned upthread, but IME there is a strong correlation between being critical of electric cars and political leanings. Where I live there is a similar correlation between supporting wolf reintroduction and political party.
You would think these things have little relation to each other.
I (my wife) just bought a RAV4 hybrid. Per the car’s electronics, it is getting 40.5 MPG.
I don’t quite trust that number as there is some discrepancy between the cars listed gas tank size and how much gas is being used.
It’s like fractally wrong: it’s wrong at every length scale. The overall conclusion is false, and the sub-arguments made by each paragraph are false, and each sentence is false, and each of the numbers within each sentence are false. Also, the way it is wrong spans another axis: it is factually wrong, while also being completely misleading, while also lying by omission, while also being a completely made-up story. Somehow it lies across all possible dimensions simultaneously.
I’d be cool with that, as long as gasoline users pay their share of the health and environmental costs they impose on the public.
This is still a massive exaggeration. Just about every EV is doing 200+ miles these days. And the mid-level Model 3 does 300+.
So, 300-mile road trips are fine. 600-mile weekend trips with an overnight stop are fine. 400-mile trips with a 15-minute break along the way are fine. 500 mile trips with a 45-minute lunch break are fine. 1000-mile trips with stops for lunch and dinner and a few smaller breaks are fine.
And all of the short stops I mentioned should only be subtracted from the hours and hours you didn’t have to spend at gas stations the entire rest of the time. For almost everyone, EVs come out ahead even if you do regular road trips.
Modern steam technology like VW’s Zero Emission Engine (ZEE) is more suitable for urban roadways than internal combustion engine (ICE) propulsion. ICE’s burn fuel and emit crap when waiting at stoplights or in congestion; steamers only burn fuel (almost without emissions) to build pressure, and are as silent as electrics.
ICE’s are marginally more fuel-efficient than steamers and so are better for longer runs. But ICE’s will soon be legislated into oblivion. If the petroleum industry wants a future, it should push steamers, with a smaller carbon footprint than electrics to manufacture. Of course that industry will evaporate when nuclear fusion goes online. Then we’ll all be electrified, even our skateboards.
The cost of purchase is a barrier. The cheapest EV in the UK that can fit my family of four with luggage is £27,000. At least £10k more expensive than an equivalent ICE. Even being cheaper to fuel does not make it cheaper overall.
My own usage pattern sees 90% of the year in a 60-80 mile radius, perfectly fine for an EV. The long distances we do are in the range of 800+ miles across Europe several times a year and we can do that currently with one stop. Having noted what the EV infrastructure is like on my common route it is clear that we’d have to make a detour to recharge and still have to run the risk of busy or blocked chargers (I’ve seen that quite a lot)
So I’m unlikely to change until the situation changes to mean that EV’s are the equivalent cost of a similar sized ICE, or that the costs to operate are equivalent over a 3-5 year period. (which will come with economies of scale) Also that the range consistently allows a 4-hour run on a 30 minute charge and is available to the same extent as current ICE fuelling. (which will need to be driven by the manufacturers and is already startign to happen)
Some I’m all for EV’s and would be happpy to own one but will wait for the for the above to happen before switching, there is currently no incentive for me to do so.
That is completely fair. Entry-level EVs will come. A prices go down, the volume increases, which decreases prices further (more factories are built, mines come online etc.), which increases volumes, etc. It’s a virtuous cycle that Tesla has ridden from the Roadster to the Model S to the Model 3 (with intermediate steps on each one). And finally we can see some progress from VW and the like. As annoying as it is to wait, the progress in the past 20 years has been remarkable.
You don’t have to be rich to own multiple vehicles.
I own two, despite a recent trip through poverty and only emerging into the lower middle class in the last couple years. My spouse and I bought them back in the early '00’s (actually, one is a '99) and kept them up. Then he died, so now I’m a not-rich person with two vehicles.
Lots of my coworkers, who are no better off than I am (and some worse off) often have more than one vehicle per family. They aren’t really fancy or new, but they are working (or, sometimes, “working”).
That said - an electric car really would fit my current commuting situation if I was looking another car AND I had the money to purchase an electric (not a lot of cheap used ones on the market). OK, I must be honest - a bicycle could fit my current commuting situation as it is only 7 miles each way, except that I don’t have a route I feel safe biking and there’s no place to park my bike where I work.
Last time I took a 200+ mile trip I rented a car - because while my vehicles work, they are quite old and have had sudden breakdowns. That’s inconvenient in the area where I live, on a long trip in unfamiliar territory that’s more of a problem. So some of us rent a vehicle for long trips anyway, for reasons other than “my electric car doesn’t have that long a range”.
I think the VW announcement has the potential to be the real game-changer. If you are placing your EV at a price-point and with the size/features of the Golf and from a legacy manufacturer, you get far more people saying “sure, why not? where’s the risk?” If in parallel VW push their charging infrastructure out more widely then you do indeed get a virtuous cycle ongoing.
My intention is to go ICE for my next 3-5 year car ownership and jump into EV ownership in that slightly more mature environment.
Yup. It’s October 25th, and we have had 22 inches of snow so far this year. We are the only full time residents on our road, so we are the last on the list for the county to plow. Last year we got 30 feet of snow.
Sure there are 4 wheel drive EV’s. But how’s that ground clearance?
When they make an EV with the abilities of say a Toyota 4runner Off Road. I’ll think about it.
“Rich” is relative. Many families can’t afford multiple vehicles. On the other hand, how many of them also take extended road trips? And how many of those also own a house with a garage instead of renting an apartment? For those families who have to make a choice their choice should indeed be a non-electric vehicle. They could simply rent a car when they go on a road trip, but that’s a hassle.
On the other hand there are single people for which multiple vehicles wouldn’t make sense at all unless you were indeed rich. I myself am not only single but also am in an apartment and I also take long road trips, so I own a regular Prius. If I were married and had multiple vehicles and a not-extremely-large family and a house, our second car would either be electric or a plug-in hybrid, since the Prius is just barely large enough for a road trip for 4 people.
Our next car will be electric. On the occasions that we drive out of town it’s dirt cheap to rent a car.
I think the Bollinger B1 pretty much beats it in every category except range and price, which are the two bugbears of pretty much every other EV.
Keep in mind, the B1 is meant as a working vehicle much like the original Land Rovers and Jeeps were so it’ll lose out on amenities like 10 way power leather seats.
I do wonder about this. I haven’t ever lived anywhere as an adult where I could charge at home. But I don’t know how common that is. The pay chargers at my office cost more than gasoline, last I checked.
I think many people overestimate their need for range. When my car got decrepit I started renting cars for long trips. Obviously YMMV. Based on my travel history, an EV with supplemental rentals makes sense for me. I don’t drive to work, so it mostly gets used for errands and trips. But I’m still likely to replace it with an ICE because charging an EV would be a logistical nightmare for me.
Could buy 3 4Runners for the current cost of one B1. But yep it looks capable. Doubt a 3000 mile road trip would be much fun in it. (The last long road trip my Wife and I made was 4000 miles)
Yes.
Also, as time marches on, more and more EV’s will enter the used market. That’s how I got my LEAF for under $15,000 CDN. 3 years old and only 22,000 km on it. I have never bought a new car in my life, and may never do so.
Apartments only need to put in 110v, 15 amp plugs for overnight charging. Many apartments already have this kind of infrastructure in their parking areas.
Sorry I was not clear. I meant an additional car per person. We are a two car family but we can’t fit the whole family in my wife’s car for vacations it is barely large enough for her to pick the kids up after school (Ford Focus) any thing we do as a family requires my car (Jeep Grand Cherokee) in order for us to swap to electrics we would have to own at least a third car for long family drives. Most people I know who own more than one car per driving adult I’d consider rich unless it was some one like my in laws who own 7 cars but only 1 runs at a time.