Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations

stickguy

It’s early in the adoption process. All that evolves. And 30% means 70% of people will not change a thing.

That last question though I saw something recently that some big gas station chain will be putting in something like 3,000 chargers soon at their gas stations.

Those people all get gas someplace already. So really, the answer is for anyone that does not have home charging, and wants to have an EV, they would go to a fuel station and fill up when they need it (just like current EV owners do when away from home)

kyfdx

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

jmonroe1

dino001 said:

snakeweasel said:

driver100 said:

@tjc78
So kind of like this;




If that is it, then it looks great. My friends are mostly 60+ and though they know the future is electric, about 75% of them aren't ready to switch over yet. I'd say mileage anxiety and learning something new are the biggest problems. But, if you know it will suit your driving needs then it is an amazing vehicle.......and looks beautiful.

Don't forget to add it to your signature, and which one is coming off?

While electric is the future the future isn't here yet. There are a lot of issues that have to be addressed as of the present.

"Electric is the future" ... Make a thought experiment - replace 30 percent of ICE vehicles with EVs. Here are the questions:
1. What is net percentage increase of electrical energy demand generated by these vehicles?
2. How does it compare with current average household allocations?
3. How is this energy going to be generated?
4. How is it going to be distributed?
5. How long does it take to permit, design and build a new power plant?
6. How much does it cost?
7. What is a result of insufficient power supply in the meantime.
8. Is current wire gauge sufficient to distribute this power to all households in new need?
9. Are all transformer stations sufficient?
10. If not, how long would it take to upgrade them and how much would it cost?
11. Where is the lithium going to be extracted and processed.
12. What is the plan for disposal of these vehicles of the future after their useful life?

Seems to me that manufacturing and selling new EVs is probably the easiest challenge with electrification in the transportation.

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Geeze, that sounds kinda gloomy. Do you also have an axe to grind with folks that have extension cords? Like hire your electrician brother to install more receptacles in their homes.

jmonroe

driver100

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

kyfdx

driver100 said:

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

If you don't know how charging a battery works, then please don't get an EV.

roadburner

kyfdx said:

driver100 said:

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

If you don't know how charging a battery works, then please don't get an EV.

That's an extremely low bar to set...

mjfloyd1

@driver100 said:
Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

Hmm. A super charger in your garage? DC charging in your garage? 🙄

oldfarmer50

jmonroe1 said:

stickguy said:

same amount of work to get to it. If the reason is to not do it as often, I probably won't put more than 4k miles per year on the car, so I probably only have 1 more change in the future! only 22k on the car now, in 3.5 years, and I am curious what it is going to look like.

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If I had to guess, at 22K miles, it won’t look too bad unless you’ve driven down dusty roads for around half of those miles but you’re right at the recommended mileage change interval.

Coincidentally, I’m in the process of changing my home HVAC filter (6X16X25). So I ordered 4 of that size online. Turns out those are the nominal dimensions so the filters won’t fit. The actual size I need is about 1/2 inch less all the way around. I called the company about returning them and they already emailed me 2 free UPS shipping labels (they were shipped 2 per box). I didn’t expect the returns to be free so that was a pleasant surprise but still a pain. This is why I don’t buy online too much. Yet i know people who buy shoes on line. I’d never even think of doing that.

jmonroe

How about people who buy cars that way?

oldfarmer50

mjfloyd1 said:

@driver100 said:

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

Hmm. A super charger in your garage? DC charging in your garage? 🙄

That’s assuming that your house has sufficient amperage. Older homes may incurred a sizeable capital expense.

roadburner

My wife and I buy quite a bit online- including shoes. I’d say at least 90% of my automotive purchases are made online.

mjfloyd1

@oldfarmer50 said:
That’s assuming that your house has sufficient amperage. Older homes may incurred a sizeable capital expense.

You would need about 500 amps just for the super charger and Tesla does not sell superchargers to the public

https://www.effortlesselectric.com/can-i-install-a-tesla-supercharger-at-home/

I think he means level 2 chargers but most of those can be set with scheduled charging start and stop times.

stickguy

the whole point of the super high speed chargers is minimizing time spent at a public charger when you are travelling. for a home charger, the car would charge slower anyway for battery health since normally there is no time crunch. so taking 3 hours instead of 30 minutes, does not hatter.

driver100

kyfdx said:

driver100 said:

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

If you don't know how charging a battery works, then please don't get an EV.

I read that people who own hybrids don't bother plugging them in every night....they'd rather just buy gas once a week.

driver100

roadburner said:

kyfdx said:

driver100 said:

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

If you don't know how charging a battery works, then please don't get an EV.

That's an extremely low bar to set...

Unfortunately, some people don't know everything like some people think they do

stickguy

you seem to think that EV drivers have to charge every day at least once. if you drive a normal amount of miles, might only need it once a week. Heck, plenty of weeks I don't drive either car 100 miles and mostly local, which is good for EVs, so I might not have to plug in more than every other week. Kinda like getting gas!

Michaell

stickguy said:

you seem to think that EV drivers have to charge every day at least once. if you drive a normal amount of miles, might only need it once a week. Heck, plenty of weeks I don't drive either car 100 miles and mostly local, which is good for EVs, so I might not have to plug in more than every other week. Kinda like getting gas!

True. When we had the ID.4 on order, the use case would have been to charge the car once a week. 22 miles round trip from the home to the cooking studio, so 110 miles (plus, say, 10-15% for incidental driving) would have been, at most, 130 miles a week. The ID.4 had over 200 miles of range.

tjc78

Based on the range of the EQE 260-300 miles a charge, we will only charge 2 times a month. No different than getting gas. There is a supercharger only a couple miles away (in a busy shopping area) and it is free for two years. It has me on the fence of even installing the $600 home charger right away.

driver100

Sounds good......unless you have to go on a 350 mile trip.
I have limited knowledge but my Tesla friend said you should only charge the car to 80%. That brings 250 miles down to 200. Also, it shouldn't go below 5%, that knocks off another 12 miles, now we are below 200 miles. And are you going to wait until you are almost empty, so you should maybe leave 20 miles to get to a charging station and hope there is a charger available and that is working. And you might use more electricity if you are caught in traffic jam, or need a/c, radio, wipers, heat, plug in cooler etc.

Charge once on the way, charge when you arrive, charge on the way home, charge up when you get home.
But what do I know? Oh, and people say charging isn't a problem, just get something to eat while the car is charging. I'll gain 50 pounds and I'll spend more on food than I would on gas.

Once again, good if it suits your needs. Hybrids go about 20 to 55 miles. A guy goes to work 25 miles from home, round trip 25 X 2 = 50 miles....he'll need a charge every night to get to work and back. When those people were surveyed they said they don't plug her in every night, they would rather buy gas once a week.
Just trying to find answers. You don't learn unless you ask.

stickguy

I go on a 350 trip maybe once a year now. But likely not.

250 I think to our shore vacation is max.

But like Tom I have a truck to take when doing that so an EV intended for local (IOW non road trip) use won’t have that issue. But if you have a Tesla, or other car using that high speed network, you are likely talking about a 20-30 minute stop each way at a supercharger right off the highway. Longer than a gas stop? Yes. But not some earth shattering problem.

qbrozen

As long as a charger is available and working, which I hear is a rather common issue.

stickguy

Some areas better than others. And that’s really only an issue if you aren’t using the Tesla network. The non-Tesla networks need to be managed better.

oldfarmer50

driver100 said:

kyfdx said:

driver100 said:

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

If you don't know how charging a battery works, then please don't get an EV.

I read that people who own hybrids don't bother plugging them in every night....they'd rather just buy gas once a week.

LOL, I think that’s the case with my company’s hybrids. They usually go into service with zero charge, gas only.

ab348

stickguy said:

you seem to think that EV drivers have to charge every day at least once. if you drive a normal amount of miles, might only need it once a week. Heck, plenty of weeks I don't drive either car 100 miles and mostly local, which is good for EVs, so I might not have to plug in more than every other week. Kinda like getting gas!

I would assume that if someone buys an EV that they are also going to either take advantage of incentives to have a charger installed in their garage/driveway or eat the cost themselves as part of the purchase price of the vehicle. In either case, why would you NOT plug it in as a matter of course when you get home to charge overnight? Just like my iPhone, when I'm not using it the thing can be found on the charging pad.

driver100

ab348 said:

stickguy said:

you seem to think that EV drivers have to charge every day at least once. if you drive a normal amount of miles, might only need it once a week. Heck, plenty of weeks I don't drive either car 100 miles and mostly local, which is good for EVs, so I might not have to plug in more than every other week. Kinda like getting gas!

I would assume that if someone buys an EV that they are also going to either take advantage of incentives to have a charger installed in their garage/driveway or eat the cost themselves as part of the purchase price of the vehicle. In either case, why would you NOT plug it in as a matter of course when you get home to charge overnight? Just like my iPhone, when I'm not using it the thing can be found on the charging pad.

You have to ask the owners. They did a survey and a large percentage did not want to be bothered plugging in their car every night. I thought about it. I come home from tennis, I have my tennis equipment in one hand, I have a few bags of groceries in my other hand.....I put my water bottle in the recycle bin, put a new bottle of water in my tennis bag....now do I want to run around and plug in my car.....and hope that I am not in a big rush the next morning and have time to unplug it.....if I even remember to do it?

driver100

stickguy said:

I go on a 350 trip maybe once a year now. But likely not.

250 I think to our shore vacation is max.

But like Tom I have a truck to take when doing that so an EV intended for local (IOW non road trip) use won’t have that issue. But if you have a Tesla, or other car using that high speed network, you are likely talking about a 20-30 minute stop each way at a supercharger right off the highway. Longer than a gas stop? Yes. But not some earth shattering problem.

Under ideal conditions....that is fine. I told this story before but.......
I had a flat tire and I couldn't get a new tire put on until later the next day.
We had a family emergency to get to that was 200 miles away.
Fortunately MrsD100s car was ready to go. We made it with no range anxiety.
If she had an EV we'd probably have to stop and charge up on the way....it would be close. That could cost us a lot of time, which we did not have.
Sure, under ideal conditions and if it suits you an EV is fine, but I'll have a better chance in these cases if I have a gasser.

stickguy

Those 15 seconds to unplug the cord and hang it up, definitely going to make you miss your pickle all game. Though you make it back because an EV does not have to warm up like a gas engine!

And I think the reason to not always plug in is battery health. Better to drain to that 20% or so and charge it back up than to always have it on a charger.

stickguy

Actually if you charge at home, another huge advantage is not having to gas up in winter. Nothing is worse than having to stop when it is 10 degrees out and stand outside holding the hose handle. Double so in the windy rain. Not something I cared about in NJ but since NY is pump your own, I care!

roadburner

@driver100 said:
You have to ask the owners. They did a survey and a large percentage did not want to be bothered plugging in their car every night. I thought about it. I come home from tennis, I have my tennis equipment in one hand, I have a few bags of groceries in my other hand.....I put my water bottle in the recycle bin, put a new bottle of water in my tennis bag....now do I want to run around and plug in my car.....and hope that I am not in a big rush the next morning and have time to unplug it.....if I even remember to do it?

It takes all of about 15 additional seconds to plug in/unplug an EV or PHEV- but there are always those individuals who find the entire process to be too arduous to even attempt.

roadburner

4xe owners are definitely atypical.

dino001

mjfloyd1 said:

@driver100 said:

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

Hmm. A super charger in your garage? DC charging in your garage? 🙄

House chargers are not superchargers. Those do it in less than hour, not overnight. Nevertheless they still draw a decent amount of energy.

tjc78

When I was at the electron pump the other night… I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who had a fully loaded EQS sedan and had just bought his wife an EQE 450 SUV (both cars 100K+).

They have driven the EQS all over including 1000+ road trips. Never an issue.

Considering Mercedes is giving 2 years of free charging and this is a car that will barely see 100 miles a week average I’m going to roll without a Level 2 charger in the garage for now.

If it was a commuter car that saw 50+ miles a day I’d probably go for it immediately. Quite frankly if you are that lazy you can’t plug a cord in once a night … wow

Like Stick said it’s easier than pumping gas.

I’m not saying that electric is for everyone, but in my family’s case where we both work from home and just want a nice vehicle for a night out or to run the kids to sports, CCD etc it fits the bill. On top of it the price I leased it for was cheaper than cars with 20K+ lower MSRP.

stickguy

I’d consider one to replace the RDX if we needed to. Just in case in the new house I plan to have a 220 plug (or 221, whatever it takes) outlet installed in the garage. If I don’t get an EV can always get a welder!

The annual shore vacation I take the truck anyway, and can use that if we need a longer road trip, so the 2nd car is almost entirely around town use. And not much of it. If anything an EV is a better choice since I don’t have to worry about not using the gas engine often enough!

driver100

dino001 said:

mjfloyd1 said:

@driver100 said:

Like, go out to the garage at 11.p.m. and plug your car in to your super charger, and wake up at 6 p.m. to unplug it!

Hmm. A super charger in your garage? DC charging in your garage? 🙄

House chargers are not superchargers. Those do it in less than hour, not overnight. Nevertheless they still draw a decent amount of energy.

I don't know the official names, and I was passing on what I was told by my Tesla friend. At first he used an extension cord, but said it took about 3 days to charge....he said he was exaggerating but about 24 hours IIRC. So then he spent another $2000 to get a Stage 2 charger I guess is the official name.

I just know what I know, my life is too busy to with pickleball and tennis to learn the terms....life is short.

driver100

stickguy said:

Actually if you charge at home, another huge advantage is not having to gas up in winter. Nothing is worse than having to stop when it is 10 degrees out and stand outside holding the hose handle. Double so in the windy rain. Not something I cared about in NJ but since NY is pump your own, I care!

That's why I go to Florida!

driver100

FYI I don't know how much work it is to unplug or plug the car in.....I said most people who did a survey didn't want to be bothered plugging in their car every night, they would rather buy gas once a week. Those are REAL users who actually OWN a hybrid!

dino001

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

It's off peak now. Multiply that demand times about 100 or perhaps 1000 (since politicians seem to think we all should get one in next 10 years), it's no longer off-peak - it's very peak, especially somewhere in the middle of the summer in the South with AC running whole night in every house already. Oh, by the way, the same politicians seem to think that solar power and wind is way to go to supply energy to the houses.

The problem with EVs is not upper and upper-middle class people buying electric cars to signal their virtue to their neighbors and coworkers, enjoy incredible acceleration of their vehicle, save on gas by paying surcharge upfront, or because they like new technologies (or whatever their motivation is, they can certainly afford it). I'm talking EVs reaching price point when they are now parked in every other garage and parking stall in middle-class neighborhoods that were built 30-50 years ago with energy usage in mind that didn't even include bunch of electronics in the house, let alone charging 50-100 kWh say every other night. If somebody charges once a week, they clearly didn't buy EV to save on gas. I'm talking people who have 20-50 mile commutes one-way, i.e. need to charge every two-three days - typical case for suburban middle class in sprawling cities of the South or West.

The numbers simply don't add up for wide adoption of EVs at pace that politicians are pushing. Same politicians that also want to close coal or oil power plants, can't stand the thought of nuclear energy, even natural gas energy is somehow against their grain. Same politicians that don't even understand where lithium and rare Earth metals are coming from (I mean who produces and processes them and how that actually physically looks, and are OK with it as long as it's not happening in their voting districts), same politicians who think that couple of billions would "fix" the infrastructure and magically make it ready to switch, so they can ban ICE vehicles in 2035 based on nothing but waving hands when faced with actual data.

mjfloyd1

@dino001 said:
House chargers are not superchargers. Those do it in less than hour, not overnight. Nevertheless they still draw a decent amount of energy.

Agreed. Apparently some posters think you can have a DC supercharger in your garage when the best that you can get is a Level 2 charger. Notice the 🙄emoji

oldfarmer50

Oh oh, not to be a buzz kill but…….

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/money-report/hertz-pulls-back-on-ev-plans-citing-tesla-price-cuts-high-repair-costs/3371055/

dino001

BTW, I love the idea of EV, I like how some of them look and perform and would like to get one when all these problems are addressed. I just can't stand politicians pushing mandates based on nothing but their ideological zeal, including bullying car manufacturers to oversupply product that's not ready for mass adoption. When I see a pretty face that lectures us about saving planet, but can't tell the difference between million and billion (or trillion), or thinks that Amazon not opening their headquarters is somehow saving the city billions of tax dollars that can be then used for schools - that's where I check out.

driver100

dino001 said:

kyfdx said:

90% of vehicle charging is done during non-peak hours. The capacity is already there for that.

It's off peak now. Multiply that demand times about 100 or perhaps 1000 (since politicians seem to think we all should get one in next 10 years), it's no longer off-peak - it's very peak, especially somewhere in the middle of the summer in the South with AC running whole night in every house already. Oh, by the way, the same politicians seem to think that solar power and wind is way to go to supply energy to the houses.

Great post, it should be read by every politician.
In Canada we have a new carbon tax that is supposed to lessen the impact of fossil fuels. It isn't working, in fact it has a lot of detrimental affects, it just seems to be a way to collect more tax money but make people think it will help save the planet.

dino001

oldfarmer50 said:

Oh oh, not to be a buzz kill but…….

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/money-report/hertz-pulls-back-on-ev-plans-citing-tesla-price-cuts-high-repair-costs/3371055/

Yeah, high price of Tesla repairs is definitely a secret nobody wants you to know. They don't break down a lot, but when they do the costs of out of warranty repairs can be catastrophic. ICE vehicles have a lot of moving parts, hoses and other things that break, but there is infrastructure to repair it economically. EVs seem to be "black boxes" that basically work well until they don't and when they don't you're stuck with a bill that's out of this world, sometimes because they just use "Apple" method, i.e. "we don't fix, we replace the whole thing". That's probably not EV issue, it's more greedy tech corporations issue than anything else. Same nonsense is creeping into rest of the market, like inability to fix a Deere tractor outside of dealership, even if it's a simple gasket replacement, or push toward subscription of the features that are already installed (i.e. you may own the vehicle and its seat warmer, but BMW owns the code that turns it on and off - or so they tried and fortunately failed).

stickguy

Keep in mind that ICE has had a century for the infrastructure to mature. Mainstream EV is what, a decade, and it is still a niche market really. Progress takes time, but that doesn’t mean you should never strive for it.

Early days of ICE there weren’t many gas stations. Or people to fix them. Or readily available spare parts. That all developed to fill a need and make $.

Battery tech is also developing. Once a couple of breakthroughs there happen (out of the many interesting concepts being worked on) a big hurdle will be overcome.

I agree that there are practical limitations still on full EV usage (and think a PHEV Stepping stone would have been smarter) but functionally, EVs are much better suited as personal cars than gas engines.

dino001

All correct. The difference is there were no politicians back then powerful enough to outlaw horse and buggy due to manure problem (to name one) at some arbitrary date. The proliferation and replacement was a result of assembly line technology lowering the price of the vehicles, portability of the energy provided by the oil derivatives and certain inventions like starter motor that made a motor vehicle easy to own and operate.

explorerx4

This was a new one for me. A truck from a place called Bin & Bath pulled up the neighbors and cleaned their trash bins.
Edit. Wife told me there is more than 1 company that comes around to clean bins.

stickguy

I would never pay for that. I own a hose and way too many cleaning products thanks to my wife.

explorerx4

I just get out the hose and some Simple Green.

tjc78

@explorerx4 said:
This was a new one for me. A truck from a place called Bin & Bath pulled up the neighbors and cleaned their trash bins.
Edit. Wife told me there is more than 1 company that comes around to clean bins.

Yeah apparently it is a growing thing now.

Down the shore there are also companies that will take you trash out on the scheduled day and bring the cans back the next. Great for those who only come on the weekends.

I’d wager you could pay someone to plug your EV in at night too. 😎😎

roadburner

dino001 said:

All correct. The difference is there were no politicians back then powerful enough to outlaw horse and buggy due to manure problem (to name one) at some arbitrary date. The proliferation and replacement was a result of assembly line technology lowering the price of the vehicles, portability of the energy provided by the oil derivatives and certain inventions like starter motor that made a motor vehicle easy to own and operate.

I agree; I like EVs- what I object to is manipulation of the market.

jmonroe1

tjc78 said:

Based on the range of the EQE 260-300 miles a charge, we will only charge 2 times a month. No different than getting gas. There is a supercharger only a couple miles away (in a busy shopping area) and it is free for two years. It has me on the fence of even installing the $600 home charger right away.

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For convenience alone I’d still install it. As I’ve gotten older I like convenience more and more.

jmonroe

roadburner

driver100 said:

FYI I don't know how much work it is to unplug or plug the car in.....I said most people who did a survey didn't want to be bothered plugging in their car every night, they would rather buy gas once a week. Those are REAL users who actually OWN a hybrid!

That would be me; and I plug my PHEV in every night. As I mentioned above, it takes about all of 15 seconds- but then I don't need to hire a guy to do it for me.