Experiences with electric cars

In My Humble Opinion
41

One of the classic posts (pasted from one of those "email/Facebook forwards from grandma, presumably) from that thread. Among the false claims it makes:

  • a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service
  • the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each
  • It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery
  • I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh
  • but simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country

The author is very confused and among other things, can’t tell the difference between a plug-in hydrid (the Volt) and a full BEV (a Tesla). But even aside from that, it’s full of misinformation.

42

I’ve also heard (I hate that phrase, but can’t find a cite at the moment), that auto dealers don’t really like selling EV’s since a major profit center for them is the service department - oil changes, timing belts, transmissions, exhaust systems, and other regular maintenance. EV’s go into the service center of the auto dealer much less frequently. = less profit for them. So they actively steer new buyers away from EV’s, even if they want them.

Warning, anecdote ahead; A friend really wanted a Chevy Bolt. He had to literally fight and argue with the dealer to convince them to take his money for an order.

43

Getting back to the OP:

I bought my 2014 LEAF in 2017. Import from California to BC, $13,000 CDN (approx $10,250 USD). 24,000 km on the odometer (19,000 miles)

This year has the relatively small 24 kWh battery.
When I got the car, it had approx 86% battery capacity as measured by the Leafspy app. Currently, it shows 83% Odometer is just over 70,000 km

I charge primarily at home on a 15 amp regular plug in the driveway. Overnight charging is fine for me, since I generally don’t drive over 100km /day. I have used public chargers when needed (road trips of over 200km), or when chargers are free (because why not?)

So 3+ years down the road it seems to be holding up very well.

I need to take it to the dealer for the first time to get new tires (original on it now), new wiper blades, and I’ll get them to check the brakes, but I think they are fine. (fluid should probably be changed anyway, but it looks pristine)

Likes: It’s fun to drive - I enjoy the quick acceleration when needed - better than the other 4 banger cars I have owned.
No smell - I really notice the oil/gas smells when I get in an ICE car now.
Cost - it really has saved me a bunch of money
Environmental - our electricity is 95% hydro, so I like to think I’m doing a bit of good in not putting as much CO2 into the atmosphere.

Dislikes: I guess it would be challenging to do cross country drives, if I ever did that. Last summer we did a 2000 km road trip, but rented a larger SUV, as we had extra passengers and a full load of camping gear. With newer longer range EV’s in our future, that might not actually be a problem. Many more fast charge stations popping up on major highways now too.

So my car fits my use case for a vehicle rather well at the moment.
What gets up my nose is when others tell me that I am wrong, and use completely fabricated crapola to “prove it”.
Or when they exaggerate their own use-case to the point of ridiculousness (see above)

Sure there are folks where an EV does not make sense for them in terms of what they need. But this number grows smaller every day, with each new EV model that comes out. That’s fine. But I wish they would stop pushing bullshit reasons.

44

I bought a 2022 Tesla Model 3 LR in November. I absolutely love it. It handles well and the acceleration is stellar. The whisper quiet operation reduces the stress of driving, so I find I’m not listening to music as often; it’s nice to just hear nothing. When I do want music, the sound system is great, and there’s little running noise to overcome, so I find I’m keeping the volume lower than when I had an ICE car.

I’m stomping on the accelerator more than I used to. The instant thrust is fun, no gas is burnt, and there’s no engine roar to annoy anyone.

I used to enjoy doing oil changes. I’ll miss that, but not much.

We live in Phoenix, with a lot of sunny days, and we have solar, and a garage. So we’re pretty well set up for EVs. So far, we’re charging them (wife has a Model Y) with 120 volt outlets. This is slow, but so far, it’s enough to keep them charged, even though the breaker limits us to 1 car charging at a time.

Road trips haven’t been an issue. I can get to SoCal destinations with 2 or 3 Supercharger stops, and there’s 9 superchargers to pick from on the way. Supercharging is pleasant; I typically walk around a bit, then I read.

I’ve only encountered a full station once, on Thanksgiving weekend. There was a line of Teslas waiting for spots, but with 8 stations, and nobody staying longer than ~20 minutes, the line was moving. I didn’t even bother to charge, as I had plenty of range left to go 50 miles to the next charger, with no waiting.

45

The OEM tires come with a mileage warranty. Remember that in 25,000 miles when you need new ones! Michelin will pick up half the bill.

And pet dogs. Superchargers always have dogs that need petting.

46

How does the tire warranty work? I was assuming when they wore out, I’d just buy new ones at Discount Tire.

I haven’t seen any dog-equipped Superchargers. From now on, I’ll be using only those!

47

People at engine and transmission plants may have some worries, but the rest of an electric vehicle is pretty much the same as an ICE vehicle. I am a body manufacturing engineer at a company you’ve heard of, and that includes work on multiple current and upcoming EV’s.

48

More comments on the “Inside EV’s” facebook page. A page dedicated to news and facts about EV’s. It gets flooded with comments by folks with no experience with actual EV’s outside of google searches for crap.

  • EV batteries are toxic waste and can never be recycled
  • Salt on the roads gets into the EV seals and destroys them in a matter of two years
  • Nobody wants EV’s. It’s all propaganda.
49

Two issues for me:

  1. I have a small pickup, and I use it quite frequently as such. I know electric trucks are coming, but man are they pricey (and weren’t available when I bought the one I have)
  2. I am cheap. I don’t buy expensive cars, and none of the electrics begin to approach the price I paid for the cars we currently drive.

I fully expect that I’ll have electric vehicles at some point, but I’m not the early adopter type.

50

Hmmm… From context you drive Fords…

How does Toyota of America react when you park your Ford in their lot?
:grin:

51

I hear you - me too.

I have never bought a new car, and don’t plan to. So I had to wait until lots of LEAF’s were available off-lease (3 years old). Then it was affordable.

If I want an electric truck (Ford?), I will probably have to wait until at least 2026 to see a decent number in the used market.

52

That’s all I do, and let Discount take care of the warranty stuff. It’s a prorated kind of thing. The tires might have a 45,000 mile tread life warranty, but only lasted 25,000 miles, so the manufacturer will put 45% of the original price towards purchase of new tires. I don’t know if the formula they use to calculate the pro-rated amount is that simple, but it’s something like that.

I just looked, when I replaced the original Michelin Primacy MXM4 tires with Michelin Primacy MXM4 AC tires, I got an $840 credit towards the new tires, so real money.

53

I’m almost a year into leasing a Chevy Bolt. We had a car totaled by an inattentive driver in fall 2020 and went several months without replacing it due to working/schooling from home due to Covid. But in early 2021 my spouse was being drawn back into the office more and school was planning to reopen which would complicate our daily schedule. That happened to be a time when GM was offering large incentives and discounts on 2020 Bolts because 2021s would be coming out soon with a new 2022 Bolt EUV to follow shortly after. So, I was able to score a great lease deal, which appealed to me as a new EV adoptee. A trial period, so to speak.

So far it’s been great. My spouse primarily drives the Bolt to/from work during the week so we don’t use as much gas with our ICE SUV. Now that it’s winter, if the roads are dicey the SUV is the obvious choice, but once they are clear it’s definitely nice to have the Bolt warmed up and toasty in the garage. I also love the instant torque and the one-pedal driving.

What doesn’t work? The recall due to battery fires has been a bit of a bummer, but we are fortunate to not be too inconvenienced by GM’s recommended charging restrictions. The seats aren’t great, but fine for shorter trips.

When our lease is up, we may decide to keep it, but we also expect there to be a host of new EV options on the market to replace it. But I can see us definitely going with another EV, now that we know it works well for us.

54

Thanks so much for that info.

55

It doesn’t help that the combustion-engined trucks are the automakers’ highest margin vehicles. Add in the hipness of the electric and you know you’re going to get abused. As it was, I had to hunt for a low-option pickup without a supercab to keep the price where I wanted it.

56

I’ve recently bought my second EV. It’s a 2020 Leaf with a 62 kWh battery. I can drive from one side of the country to the other without needing to charge. It’s the most powerful car I’ve ever owned (214 bhp) and also has the best sound system! I do almost all my charging at home but can use the public charging network if needed.

Electric driving is just so easy and effortless, especially with the various driver assistance features, and the technology is getting better all the time.

57

I leased my first EV about 9 months ago and love it so far. I’m one of those people that the use case is not perfect for, in that I don’t have off-street parking, so I generally cannot charge at home (and when I do, it’s just a trickle of recharge). But I charge at work at an enormously discounted rate, so financially it works out splendidly for me and it’s almost as convenient as charging at home.

In terms of the pros and cons that the OP asked for, I would say that the pros are the incredible acceleration and general “fun to drive”-ness, not having been at a gas station in 9 months (woo!), quiet ride, no tailpipe emissions, and much less maintenance. The cons are…not many. Having to plan a bit more with regard to long trips. Very occasional waste of time at a fast charger? There’s definite range loss in the cold, but nothing that’s bothersome.

Unless my experience changes drastically from the first 9 months, I’ll never buy another ICE car again.

58

Ha, that was an email my father passed along to me. I posted it because I knew some of the “facts” were wrong, just not necessarily whether they had any nuggets of truth or not.

My Dad is an 80 year old retired Army general with the Corps of Engineers. I never asked him how much of that crap he passed along in his “chain e-mail friend circle” he believed, but they did just buy a Lexus hybrid SUV…lol.

59

Understood–I wasn’t really blaming you for that. I was just trying to demonstrate that this sort of misinformation is definitely out there and being circulated. I do wonder about the origins. Someone genuinely confused, or oil/auto company astroturfing?

60

I sell them for Chevrolet. Or correction, I used to and will again at some point. Every Chevy Bolt ever made has been recalled due to battery fire risk and they are not being produced and they couldn’t be sold even if we had them.

I have very mixed feelings about EV’s and this arbitrary target of 2030 between the govt and the manufacturers agreeing that that’s the year where we’ll be selling 40-50% electric cars out of all new car sales. Um, the market share right now is like 2-3%.

Please tell me how we will accomplish this in 8 short years when we don’t have enough infrastructure for a rollout of this magnitude, range anxiety exists and 400 mile batteries cost $100k or more. And since EV’s use even more microprocessors than your regular gasoline engined vehicle (which we can’t get hardly any of them, either! I have 10 new cars on a lot where we normally have 130-140 and we’re a small family store in the middle of a cornfield in semi-rural SE Indiana…and this is a global inventory situation too…Ack!..), how are we going to advance this push without the semi conductors?

I really like the technology and believe that EV’s are the future, but I just don’t think that future was supposed to be as soon as 2030. I thought that there was going to be a longer transition period. than this. And here we are about to spend all this money on much needed infrastructure of every kind.