I’m wondering how people who don’t recharge things when needed deal with completely non-routine things like changing the oil in their car. Do they just forget, and end up driving on the same motor oil for like 25,000 miles?
I’m a real person who charges his phone every single night. There’s an inductive charger pad on the nightstand, and that’s where the phone goes.
I also remember to plug my block heater in every day* during winter. I don’t do this because it really needs to be plugged in every day - plenty of days aren’t really cold enough for it to be necessary. But it is nice to get heat a little sooner, and by plugging in every day it becomes routine and I don’t forget.
I think it’s bizarre that you think home charging would be burdensome.
*Note that the block heater isn’t actually running all the time - the outlet it’s plugged into has a smart timer (Belkin Wemo) scheduled to run a couple hours on workday mornings. I guess this constitutes planning my life around my car?
The thing is - when I park my car, the last thing I see before I turn it off is the expected range left - in big numbers on the dash. The VERY NEXT thing I see when I get out of the car is the place I plug the car in. It’s right next to the door I have to go in to my house. I take my house keys out and literally STARE AT THE CHARGER.
I’m not exactly sure how I would forget to put a plug into the car socket at that point. I guess I could. I could also forget where my house keys are located in my pocket, and just stand helplessly at the door, not able to get in. But that does not happen either.
There are valid reasons that exist that mean some people should not buy an EV. Fear of forgetting to charge is not one of them.
ETA: In case it’s not clear, I’m quoting what I agree with. I’m not arguing.
Yes, this sort of spontaneous trip would be more difficult to plan for with a Tesla, take extra time, and with more risk of things going wrong (hotel charging availability at arrival is probably the biggest concern) I’d like to point out, that:
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Regarding the lack of a supercharger servicing the Charleston, SC area, it’s almost like Tesla heard your concerns, and have one with target opening in 2019!
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You don’t really have to “sit down and check” the map, since this is all planned within the car’s navigation for you, showing supercharger destinations and other destination chargers, including data on how many spots are available. I can also pull up the Tesla app on my phone which automatically lists the 4 nearest super chargers to my location and their current availability (which range from 6/6 available to 8/14 right now).
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No idea where you’re getting 3 hours of charging from. Just for reference, I have a Long Range Model 3, which per your reference, has 273 miles of range when driven at 80mph, and 417 miles when driven at 55 mph. Even assuming driving at 80mph, charging stop time at Santee, SC is going to be ~10 minutes to get enough range to make it to Charleston. Here’s a reference for the route, if you’d like to dig into the assumptions. Even padding that out a bit to avoid getting “semi-stranded” at Charleston is in no way going to total up to two 40 minute charging sessions just on the way there. Its going to be much closer to one 20 minute stop on the way there, and one 10 minute stop on the way back (assuming I found charging at the hotel and didn’t have to stop at Santee again).
I agree - yes, forgetting to plug in your car could be a problem for some people, but it is ludicrous to me to think that it is a big enough problem to dissuade people from buying a car. It’s pretty similar to forgetting to turn off your headlights - nowadays, cars will automatically turn them off if unattended, but it was well into the 90’s (maybe even 2000’s?) that if you forgot to turn off your headlights, it would drain your battery and it could become undriveable by the next day. Was the possibility of that occurring enough to dissuade people from buying cars?
Plugging in your car when you get home seems like it would be as natural of a habit as turning off lights, or closing your garage door before you go into the house - if there’s no reason why you WOULDN’T do it, it would be a pretty easy habit to form with low likelihood of it being forgotten.
Once again, I will emphasize that EV’s are not a good choice right now for everyone. But they are a good choice for a good many people, even those who have not really thought of it yet.
There are good reasons why an EV may not work for an individual. Fine. No problem.
But there are a lot of BAD reasons for not getting an EV out there. People should not use BAD reasons or fictitious reasons, or even blatantly FALSE reasons. (Nobody here has done the last).
And for you in particular Pantastic: I will recommend that you never, ever, EVER get an EV. This is not a vehicle for you. Please never consider one, now or at any time in the future. It’s just not going to work for you.
There’s a longer article here. The data comes from a forum thread, so not as scientific as one might like, but the raw data is available and appears to be collected in a reasonable manner.
That’s not right. The lavender column is the advertised range–so when people say 250 miles or 370 miles, that’s the number they’re referring to. You can look over to see how that corresponds to your desired speed. So for instance, the Model S Long Range 19" is advertised at 370 miles, but gets 355 miles at 65 mph. That’s expected–the advertised range will have slower city driving mixed in, which is where EVs do better. But it’s only a 4% loss from the rating, which isn’t too bad. At 80 mph, it’s down to 274. That’s significant if you really drive at 80 all the time, but isn’t relevant to everyone.
On the other hand, if you putter around at 55 mph all the time, a number of the cars get >400 mi range.
Lots of current EV owners don’t do that stuff. They use the EV for commuting and day trips, and the family uses the other car for multi-day road trips.
Most future EV owners won’t do that, because eventually, every parking lot and garage will have chargers.
Yanno, Pantastic, you’re exactly the person the OP is bitching about. Not everything is a perfect storm every time. You’re fudging your math a bit to make it ‘better’ for your argument on all sides. A 280 mile trip in 5 hrs is an average of 56 mph. Granted there are some surface streets at either end slowing down your average but you’re still not doing 80 mph the whole way so your range degradation won’t be as bad as you’re saying.
As for your two 40 min stops to recharge, that’s an extra 1:20. Sure you need to go a little out of your way, but you added an extra 1:40 in out of the way time. :dubious:
As for forgetting to recharge, I agree with you. Someone is going to come home & have the groceries & the dry cleaning, or the baby & arms too full to plug in; besides, depending upon your garage configuration one might trip over the cord if you plugged in first & then tried to get your stuff out of the car. However, for most people, on a normal day, if they forget to plug in no biggie; they’ll just fully recharge the next night. It’s really an issue when you forget to recharge on Thurs night & you’re planning on heading out of town right after work on Friday. In that case, when you go to get your suitcase out you just make sure to double check that you’re plugged in.
I think we all agree that I shouldn’t get an EV now, the range/charging infrastructure isn’t there for my lifestyle. That being said, I’m not opposed to them & if/when that improves I’d consider one.
What I won’t consider is a Tesla, there are certain things I don’t like about their cars & certain things I don’t like about the company (& it’s leader); nor would I get an iPace, either but then I don’t own a luxury car now either. Vehicles are depreciating assets; to me, spending all of that extra is a waste of income. I would get a Chevy, or a Nissan, or a ___ assuming they come out with a model that I want, which is a mid-sized hatch/wagon/SUV; something with a large rear opening but bigger than an econobox.
[ol]
[li]It sounds like a Tesla will do your route planning, including recharging stations for you. Do the other EVs do that currently or is that a Tesla-only feature at this time? How is their route planning? I’ve seen both Garmin & Google Maps route me what I consider dubious ways, supposedly saving a whopping one minute on a three hour trip but routing me over the GWB, which is almost always backed up; taking the GWB adds an extra $15 in tolls & the way I go always gets me there sooner than their route’s predicted time.[/li][li]What percentage of the public charging stations are unavailable to me by having a non-Tesla EV?[/li][li]What percentage of Level 3/superchargers are available to non-Tesla vehicles? ie. There are 10,000 Tesla superchargers nationwide but only 1000 (generic) superchargers that one can be used by a Nissan Leaf.[/li][/ol]
To me the reason you sound so completely ridiculous is because you are not only ludicrously overstating the difficulty of “find plug, insert plug, be reminded by car to do it if you forget it”; you are doing so while utterly ignoring the fact that you literally have to do all the same stuff with a gas car. You just have to do it less frequently so you can’t get into a habit.
Seriously, the bullshit about having to look up a charger. You also have to find gas stations. What, you say you can just drive until you pass one? Like that’s any easier than just having your car tell you where to find one. Absurd.
And as a person who drives an ICE, I look at my gas gauge every damn day. It’s not fire and forget, unless you like running out of gas. I’m always aware of my fuel levels because I don’t have a choice. How is that different with an EV? Just in that when I see my levels are low I wouldn’t go to a gas station and pay $35; I’d go home and plug in. Harder? Of course not. Absurd.
Now, there are legitimate reasons not to get an EV: You’re in an apartment with unwired spaces, you regularly drive through energy deserts, you are surrounded by a meter of snow, you live in a log cabin in the backwoods that’s lit by candles. Those are legitimate reasons not to get an EV. But “I don’t know how to look at a gas gauge and my car constantly runs out of fuel durrr” is not one.
This is basically what Tesla is shooting for. The current ones are generally placed close to fast food, etc. But the big Supercharger along I-5 (the main route from LA to the Bay Area) has a dedicated lounge, coffee bar, bathrooms, etc. It’s open 24 hrs and the door has a code (which shows up on your car’s screen) to keep out the non-Tesla riff-raff. They aim to build more of these lounges over time.
And in general, this is the attitude one should take towards the charging stations. They’re placed on the major arteries. Plug in, get out, grab a snack, take a leak, etc. 20-30 minutes later you’re back on the road and refreshed.
Charging stations aren’t quite prevalent enough in all parts of the country that this is the universal experience, but this is how it works in some places already, and for the rest it’s just a matter of time.
What do you think of Ford? The new 4 door crossover/hatch/small SUV (whatever it is), isdue for a reveal on Nov 17 300 mile EPA range.
Ford also announced FordPass networkwhich is a partnership with private companies with existing and new charging stations. It will include more than 12,000 charging stations with a total of 35,000 plugs in the United States. (compared with Tesla’s 4,375 public charging stations with about 15,000 plugs in the US)
More EV’s to come from Ford in the next couple of years as well.
And that’s just one company.
Dunno about the nav question, but plugshare should be able to help answer your other questions.
For instance, if I zoom to my state, filter to “Supercharger, CCS/SAE and CHAdeMO” only (i.e, level 3 charging), and set the minimum power level to 50kW, I get 106 charging locations. 31 of which are Tesla superchargers.
However, setting the minimum power level to 70kW, I only get 41 charging locations. (31 of which are superchargers, the other 10 are CCS/SAE only). I think something like a Nissan Leaf uses CHAdeMO for DC fast charging, so I think you have zero options in my area above 50kW.
I don’t get the impression that the in-car route planning is very good among Tesla’s competitors. However, A Better Route Planner looks to work pretty well and has options for the I-Pace, etc.
That would be true of pretty much any car. I see a lot cars with oversized wheels that are visibly difficult to handle. The front end becomes twitchy and wants to snap in the direction you’re turning. I would imagine the crossover EV’s will have more clearance.
A Better Route Planner is a pretty slick tool. It does nice work with templated car data, and accounts for terrain and temperature impact. Additionally, my understanding is that if you go further and pair with a Bluetooth OBDII scanner, it can also make real-time adjustments to compensate for ‘burn rates’ that may not match the default Kwh/mi numbers it already knows. I’ve not done that yet myself, but I may one of these days.
Chevy includes an app that also does the route planning and provides charging advice. It might be good, but I wouldn’t know, as it broke in this summer’s round of iOS betas and as far as I know, hasn’t yet been fixed.
Which is precisely why ICE vehicles will never take off: Who is going to plan their day around finding a fueling station for their ride? Who is going to remember to top off the tank every single time, and perhaps fill the oil and check the air in the tires? Is there ethyl involved? Is the octane rating correct for make, model, and temperature? Is there icing conditions such that I’ll have to adjust the tires? Will my windshield wipers need adjustment and truing as well?
What if I have to drive from my home to New Mexico? I might. I have family in New Mexico. Will I be able to find sufficient pumps for the range? Will the fuel be at all compatible? There’s changes in elevation, after all. No, I would need to sit down with a map (a map, mind you!) and figure and cipher to ensure I have one route available to me such that I will not end up stranded in some town where they do not know their ethyl from their elbow.
If you think internal-combustion engines are piston-powered miracles, far be it from me to dissuade you by injecting some reality.
Yet again you’ve exaggerated your case.
Let’s assume you’re driving a Model 3 SR+. Let’s also assume you drive at 65 mph. I know you like to drive 80, but that’s to save time. But in an EV, driving faster doesn’t necessarily save time. So let’s stick to 65. You might even avoid a ticket!
You start with 253 miles according to the teslike.com chart. You drive to Santee, SC, where there is a Supercharger. That’s 215 miles from Raleigh, so you’re down to 38 miles.
You spend 30 minutes there and add 200 miles of range, bringing you back up to 238. You drive to Charleston (67 miles), do 20 miles of miscellaneous driving there, and then the 67 miles back to Santee. Note that you didn’t have to pick a hotel with charging stations. You’re down to 84 miles range.
You spend another 30 minutes charging in Santee. Because you’re at a higher state of charge, it goes a bit more slowly, so you only add 150 miles in the same 30 min. But that’s fine; you’re back to 234 miles range.
That’s enough to get back home. You plug in and have a full “tank” the next day.
Total distance is 584 mi, or 9 hours at 65 mph. Add an hour of charging time and you get 10 hours.
I did cut some of the margins a bit slim, so maybe you want to add another 20 minutes of charge time to give more wiggle room, or if you need to drive more in Charleston. Still not a huge deal. But on the other hand, this is the lowest-range Tesla–a Model 3 LR would need less charge time and have wider margins.
The trip wasn’t hard to plan; all the info comes up on the Tesla in-car maps. It took just a few minutes to work out.