Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think

http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-electric-cars-will-be-here-sooner-than-you-think-1472402674

by jseliger • 10 years ago

82 156 10 years ago

wsj.com

teach• 10 years ago

By comparison, the average new car in the U.S. today sells for about $33,000.

That may be the mean but I'll bet it's nowhere near the median.

gremlinsinc2• 10 years ago

yeah, and maybe they should factor in the average car bought and sold, there's still a LOT of car owners/buyers that stick to the used lots.

Gibbon14• 10 years ago

You can buy a fairly low mileage used Nissan Leaf for approximately $10,000 right now. Look on Craigslist take your pick. For the life of me I cannot imagine why you wouldn't be able to buy the same cars for $5,000 five years from now.

white-flame2• 10 years ago

I wish I had saved a link to it, but a study on affordability marked an average earning household of about $35k/yr as being able to afford an $8,000 car. In order to be able to afford the "average" $33,000 car took a $90k/yr income.

foobarian3• 10 years ago

My household income is way more than that and I still found it painful to buy a $20k car. I find it hard to understand why people buy cars at such high relative prices.

dpweb• 10 years ago

All for electric cars here, but think a minute about the convienence of gasoline auto travel, especially refueling at a gas station. They must get electric charging stations everywhere, but they also must reduce the 30 to 60 min. Recharging time. Gas is what 2 minutes? Especially in the age of tech and gadgets people will not stand for LESS convienence, only more. Replacing gas will take a while.

kalleboo• 10 years ago

If you're just commuting, an electric car has it's own convenience - every morning it's full up and ready to go as it's been charging in your garage all night. No need to even think about remaining range or if you need to fill up or what gas station to go to.

pdwetz• 10 years ago

Unless you renting and don't have access to a plug. Or want to go on a weekend trip. Electric is interesting, but nothing more as a result for me personally.

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

Couldn't agree more! When I go on a car trip I want it to be a long way away, and a long way from any thing. That's why most electric cars can't be my only car, and I don't want two cars either. For someone like me a plug-in hybrid like the Volt makes a lot more sense because I can drive it ten hours out into the desert when I want to.

The only reason we're reaching a tipping point in the American car market is because families with two cars are so common. If you have two cars it makes perfect sense to have one that can go around your city, and another one that can go anywhere.

Retric6• 10 years ago

Electric cars can do 800+ miles a day easily with sold charging infrastructure. Sure, if you want to do a cannon ball run rent a car, but 4 hours of driving, get lunch, another 4 hours of driving, take a 30 minute break, 2 hours of driving, dinner anther 4 hours of driving get some sleep. That's an extra 30 minute break for 14 hour road trip.

Grishnakh7• 10 years ago

The only reason we're reaching a tipping point in the American car market is because families with two cars are so common. If you have two cars it makes perfect sense to have one that can go around your city, and another one that can go anywhere.

This is exactly right, and I'm glad I finally see someone one these forums saying this. You're probably the first one. I find it rather sad that most people on a forum like this cannot conceive of this at all, presumably because they're all single.

fma3• 10 years ago

Also the inconvenience for those who live in apartments and condos.

hyperbovine• 10 years ago

Gas is what 2 minutes?

Depends quite a lot on where you are. There are 12 gas stations south of 96th St. in Manhattan. SF will have lost 40% of the service stations it had 10 years ago as of 2017. Boston, same. The gas station at Divisadero and Fell has what looks like a 20 minute wait at all times. This is all due to real estate prices. Getting gas in affluent coastal metropolises is not a pleasant experience. Not coincidentally, these are the same people who are buying electric cars.

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

20 minutes is still 30x faster than charging. And how many charging stations do you think there are south of 96th street?

gremlinsinc2• 10 years ago

Why can't the car generate electricity and last like 5x as long? Each wheel could probably generate quite a bit of static electricity and refuel the tank. Honestly I think hybrids will be the go-to method for the next decade or two, unless they can get batteries to 500+ miles. -- If they get the battery to 1000 miles though it's game over for gasoline cars though.

WilliamDhalgren2• 10 years ago

yeah, plug-in hybrids seem like the best of both worlds; that could still let you go all-electric for the ~90% of your commutes, but w/o the range anxiety or limits to your occasional longer trips. And the fact you end up occasionally driving it like a (hyper-efficient) gasoline car is a totally negligable quantity of emissions in your overall driving.

It's quite possible you can have an all-electric range-extender with over 1000 miles; there was some talk Tesla was looking into current-gen Aluminium-air batteries for that purpose; afaik Al-air is currently the most mature metal-air battery with some actual deployment in limited applications. Downside for conventional aluminium-air is they can't just be recharged once you use up the charge, but the Aluminium needs to be mechanically replaced after the charge has been used up.

Practicalities of that exact scheme sound dubious, but the concept is promising; early gen of some metal-air batteries, even if rechargable could be quite limited in the number of cycles it can last, so be a poor fit for being the main battery bank of an EV car. As a range extender though, this is much less limiting, so could find first use like that, in practice giving 1000 miles range for occasional long trips.

Twirrim• 10 years ago

Some 90% of journeys by vehicle are under 100 miles, well within the range distance of an electric car, a sizeable number of those being your daily commute.

The amount you save in gas money alone would easily pay for a gasoline rental for those occasions where you really do need more and can't possibly stand to wait for a recharge.

Alternatively things like the Chevy Volt exist which get you that interesting pairing of electric and gas generator (it recharges the battery using gasoline, which gets you away from the horribly inefficient variable speeds for combustible engines). The Electric motor will do you for 50something miles on a charge which still covers a good number of journeys, and with the full tank of gas you can get some 400 more miles out of it.

msandford• 10 years ago

If it was 99.9% of all trips were under 100 miles then it'd be much easier. But I make between 5-10 trips a week. Statistically I'm going to have a range anxiety situation a few times a month, while making a car payment that's 6x higher.

jschwartzi• 10 years ago

It will happen, eventually, though. It's starting with the affluent. Anyone who can afford a house with a garage is capable of buying a charger and having it installed. As that happens, charger prices go down and they get better. As more affluent people buy electric cars, they will also get cheaper and better. Unlike Hydrogen and Ethanol, electricity and batteries are well-known technologies that most people have been using for years.

By the time apartment dwellers start buying electric, gasoline automobiles will seem like quaint relics of the past.

The only problem is that electric cars won't do anything directly to mitigate global warming, because they will still be powered largely by fossil fuel.

jeffbush4• 10 years ago

"The only problem is that electric cars won't do anything directly to mitigate global warming, because they will still be powered largely by fossil fuel."

But electrical generation is more efficient than an internal combustion engine in terms of carbon output. According to PG&E:

"Additionally, from well to wheel, electric vehicles emit approximately 66 percent less carbon dioxide (CO2) compared with internal combustion vehicles. CO2 is the principal gas associated with global warming."

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/solar-and-vehicles/opt...

jeffbush4• 10 years ago

I've had a Leaf for going on a year now and one thing I love about it is that I never need to worry about the inconvenience of stopping at a gas station. :)

But I'm with you that I don't really see the point of public charging stations. All the places I drive during the day are within my ~100 mile range (putting a charger at a grocery store, as they mention in the article, makes little sense given that). If I needed to drive somewhere that was not in my range, I sure as heck wouldn't gamble on one of the few charger stations being available.

newscracker• 10 years ago

It will take a while, but with time the supporting infrastructure for charging will become widespread. Even better, the companies would introduce battery swapping outlets too all over, so you spend two minutes on the highway to get your run down battery swapped with a fully charged one and just drive on. The battery then is no longer a part of your car that you own, but just rent/lease with a specific performance guarantee. You pay the outlet based on some parameters they measure on your run down battery. It'd be an interesting future, and like another post here about the pre vs. post Internet generations, I look forward to seeing such widespread changes coming and changing what people think of as transport and maintenance of one's means of transport. :)

Theodores• 10 years ago

To me this sounds like Coca-Cola or Pepsi - as if those are the only two options. I prefer water. Let's take an auto analogy...

Whilst you guys with your big miles to commute are comparing costs and getting range anxiety, I am doing okay in the UK with a bicycle and a train station. Much to my bitter disappointment I had to spend a total of £22 to fit new brakes on my 'eco-vehicle'. Yep, £22. That is the total cost of everything in the six months I have had my new steed. I could easily pay that per day if I was parking one of those four wheeled planet-trasher things. I never actually time my commute as I enjoy the ride, which is on a far bigger network than afforded to other road users. In fact I travel mostly traffic free on cycle paths, with the fit people jogging and the friendly people walking their dogs.

So, as much as I aspire to own a really cool Tesla, I then think about the practicalities. I would be 'sitting in traffic', having to do the run around one-way systems and having to spend as long as my journey takes to find a parking spot at the other end. The journey would stress me out as with driving there isn't the guarantee that you can get there in a timely fashion.

So then I think about getting a 'Go-Cycle'. Designed by cool F1 engineers, in 'off-road mode' it can do 40 mph with that torque that comes with electric. £4K - not bad, almost toy level expenditure. An 'option' on a car can cost that, e.g. air-con.

But then I think again, I kind of need that exercise! If I didn't cycle then I would have to go to the gym or get a non-office job. I don't want to spend my evenings locked in some gym (why are they always next to really busy roads?). Plus I would have to pay some electricity to charge it up and most of my electricity needs are fairly undemanding, why would I want to increase my electricity bill just so my legs could waste away?

Ah, but range anxiety... I take the train. On the train I treat myself to some quality snacks and some reasonable free wifi. In fact I normally get so stuck in to what I am reading/doing that I am wishing the journey could be just that bit longer so I can finish stuff. I make time on the train productive (although I wish I could just sleep).

Ah, but what about the family, the 'big shop' and the need to take golf clubs places? Well, I am not living life like that. I don't have to live in the middle of nowhere where the nearest vitamin is a 50 mile drive away. In cities everything is on the doorstep, everything except for an unoccupied parking spot. Taxis, trains and even busses mean that I am not totally dependent on the bicycle and its awful 'range anxiety' problems. I might not have 'ludicrous speed' as Tesla sell it, but nobody in a four wheeled vehicle beats me to any office in the city centre, even if plodding along I am doing better than the 9-11 mph that motorists achieve in city centres.

Sadly I see these electric vehicles (car or bicycle) as glorified mobility scooters, and it just does not make sense for me to take one to two tonnes of extra metal and comfy seats with me to work and back every day. I have already sorted out the transport problem for myself with the 'water' option, no 'coke' or 'pepsi' needed.

There are only four petrol stations within London's congestion-charge zone. Already there are far more charging stations. Even if I still had a car the idea of driving into London, charging/'gassing', trying to park, being somewhere on time and being able to afford the whole nightmare is just not something I ever wish to do. These electric cars are not going to change those realities.

fma3• 10 years ago

I was looking at buying a new car recently. I wanted a commuter car while my wife kept the utilitarian Rav 4. I wanted to buy the GM Spark, the electric version.

http://www.chevrolet.com/spark-ev-electric-vehicle.html

The irony being that a car named Spark originally isn't electric, but only in certain markets.

haddr• 10 years ago

Spark is somehow crucial in traditional car engines...

foobarian3• 10 years ago

...and doesn't exist in electric cars.

secabeen3• 10 years ago

You should! The Spark EV is awesome.

fma3• 10 years ago

"Available At Participating Dealers In California, Oregon And Maryland In Limited Quantities"

I don't live in any of those 3 states :(

kylec5• 10 years ago

I was talking to my father a few weeks ago about electric cars, and I wanted to quantify how much going electric would save him so I ran some numbers. Where he lives gas is currently somewhere around $2.20/gallon. His car gets around 30mpg combined, so he's paying ~$0.073/mile.

Tesla's website contains a "charging estimator" for the Model S, which estimates a cost of $12.04 for a total charge of 300 miles in a 90D. In the fine print, they state that the calculation is based off of the assumption of $0.12/kWh cost for electricity, which works out to a total of 100kWh to fully charge a 90D to 300 miles of range. However, he pays far more than $0.12/kWh - he actually pays $0.22/kWh. This means that the fuel cost of the Model S for him is exactly the same: ~$0.073/mile.

I write this to say that I had always assumed that electricity was far cheaper than gasoline, and I was surprised when I ran the numbers and saw that it wasn't. It seems that articles like this assume that of course people will switch to electric cars in droves once the cars get cheap enough and the range is good enough, but unless electricity becomes cheaper or gas becomes more expensive, many people, like my father, will choose to continue to drive gas-powered cars.

tjbiddle• 10 years ago

But of course, this is specific to your father's scenario. A quick Google search shows the average cost of electricity in the US actually is $0.12/kWh.

kylec5• 10 years ago

Of course, but I would encourage anyone that's thinking about getting an electric car to figure out what they're paying for electricity and run the numbers to understand what the cost impact is.

To add another anecdata point, I live in the San Jose area and I just checked my latest PG&E bill; It's kind of complicated because there's a weird tier system, but I paid a weighted average of $0.2095/kWh last month. However, if I were to get an electric car, the additional electricity it would use would come from the top tier, which is $0.2409/kWh. Then again, gas is ~$2.80/gallon, so electric would still be cheaper, but not by much.

sitharus• 10 years ago

However, a gasoline powered car also takes engine oil and transmission fluid if it's an automatic. It will also require regular servicing of the engine and eventual replacement of worn seals etc.

If the fuel cost per mile is the same the electric car could still be cheaper. I can't say how much though, because that depends on the servicing cost per year vs the battery replacement cost and that depends on your local service department.

kharms• 10 years ago

The battery in a Tesla costs $12k-40k to replace, though it's under warranty for 8 years.

expression• 10 years ago

Luckily you don't need to maintain electric cars at all.

PhantomGremlin2• 10 years ago

I had always assumed that electricity was far cheaper than gasoline

As you note, in many places electricity is far from cheap. Also you need to amortize the cost difference of a Tesla vs a conventional car. That's hard to justify as long as a Tesla costs in the neighborhood of $100,000.

But, perhaps generate that electricity on your rooftop! The utilities have lobbied effectively to lower the feed-in prices they must pay, so it may increasingly be cheaper to use that solar power yourself. I not up on the details, but perhaps this is one argument Musk is using to support Tesla's proposed acquisition of SolarCity?

many people, like my father, will choose to continue to drive gas-powered cars

I agree with you. I don't think the article made a very good case for electrics cars. The "gadget" market isn't that large for such an expensive item.

That said, I think I'd buy something like a Tesla once the pioneers have endured all the arrows in their backs and the bugs are worked out. So maybe 2025 might be the tipping point, as the article posits?

euroclydon• 10 years ago

Unfortunately, me and my car are at work when the sun is shining on my rooftop.

l0neranger• 10 years ago

Wouldn't the increase in demand for electricity also increase the price? Also, if the majority of consumers start switching to electric, I'm pretty sure the automobile and oil companies will respond. Not that that's a bad thing or anything.

kylec5• 10 years ago

It's hard to say, utilities can't just jack up their prices whenever they want. However, it's possible that there might be capacity issues, where there's more demand for electricity at peak times than can be generated.

Spooky23• 10 years ago

I disagree. Fuel is only one part of a car's cost. The capital expense, maintenance and insurance are other costs.

You pay a really high premium for electrics. If you insist on buying a new car, the TCO of a Honda Fit or similar car will be lower than an electric, and you avoid whatever bullshit that you need to deal with from the vendor (i.e. Using the dealer for all repairs) and dealing with charging stations and carrying the various adapters.

m3500• 10 years ago

To wit: the 12V battery in a prius (the one that fills much the same role as the battery in a gas-only car) "repaired" at the dealer, using OEM parts, in 2016, is pushing $300

this post is from 2012, OEM battery was $235 at the time:

http://www.priusonline.com/242-prius-battery-charging/20810-...

mixmastamyk2• 10 years ago

Also maintenance costs are lower for electric cars.

jeffbush4• 10 years ago

My electric bill went up by about $80 the first month I got my electric car. Computing the cost is a bit tricky because I have tiered billing and I'm hitting the next higher tier since I got the car. My electric company (PG&E) does have an time-of-use billing plan tailored for EV, but, by my computations it didn't help a lot because we use A/C during the day:

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/solar-and-vehicles/opt...

If you charge at night and aren't home during the day, and your electric company has an EV plan, this might help.

aschobel• 10 years ago

Many utility companies have special rate plans for EV charging. Electricity is incredibly expensive in San Francisco but PG&E has a special rate plan that is only $0.11/kWh if you charge after 11pm.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf

Does the utility that serves your father have a similar EV plan?

kylec5• 10 years ago

I doubt it. I checked their website (http://www.emeramaine.com) and I couldn't find anything about a special EV rate.

dmoy• 10 years ago

Other utility companies just always offer off-peak rates to everyone, e.g. depending on time of day or season.

ChuckMcM• 10 years ago

I did a similar calculation (CA power is wayy expensive). There are additional considerations however, which is 'overhead gas' (or gas spent going to and from the gas station) not a lot but its something you don't buy if you charge at home, and "price fluctuations", buying gas has literally gone from $2 to nearly $5 back to nearly $2 over 5 years. My electricity has gone up slightly over those same 5 years. From a "predictive" point of view, it helps that it doesn't fluctuate as much.

Under the category of 'hacks' is the story of the guy who uses heating oil from the house boiler to run a generator which charges his electric car. Heating oil is generally sold without any of the associated gas taxes and so cheaper per gallon than #2 diesel at the pump.

Waterluvian• 10 years ago

Holy crap that's not cheap. I pay about 0.08CDN here in Ontario. Which suddenly makes it a lot more feasible. Especially since gas is more expensive here than in most of the US.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

People that live near recently shuttered small coal plants have it a lot worse than people that live near nuclear and hydro.

A small community nearby has had some months where their rates have spiked to $1 per kw-h. There's a lot of last mile grid per person and I guess they don't have much of a collective agreement with the provider (the town here buys roughly the same power for ~$0.10 per kw-h). The people getting huge bills don't seem to be real big on cutting their use though.

LoSboccacc2• 10 years ago

All that assuming residential recharge. Power stations with fast revharge will need a profit, so expect energy there cost more.

lostapathy• 10 years ago

Not necessarily. Often, large commercial electric consumers pay less per kilowatt than you'd pay at home.

Retric6• 10 years ago

$0.22/kWh is crazy high I pay under 10c/kWh, you can install solar and save a lot of money at that rate. Further, 2.2$/gallon well below average for the last 10 years, where exactly does he live?

PS: There does seem to be some serious price gouging going on. "In Sacramento, a family using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity last October was charged $58." 58/500 = 11.6cents. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-electric-bills-d... That same 500kWh would be 47.07$ from vernon or 116.42$ from SDG&E.

ProAm3• 10 years ago

Do you take into consideration the cost of installing solar and future maintenance costs in an estimate like this? Im asking honestly because Im not sure if people do?

yawz• 10 years ago

Here, around Denver, CO, I'm currently paying somewhere between $1.99 to $2.19/gallon.

Roboprog3• 10 years ago

Sacramento has their own utility district, "SMUD". In the neighboring counties, we have PG&E. I talked to a coworker in Sac. His highest "tier" price is about my lowest tier. Marginal cost in the upper tiers is in the 30 to 40 cent per kWh range (it has changed a bit from year to year due to some restructuring). The only people who I can see staying in Tier one would be single people who leave the house all day (with the AC off). If you have a family, fuggedaboutid.

We recently put in solar panels to at least shave the top tiers off of the bill (very cost effective vs $.35/kWh, even if not at $.12/kWh). However, I feel it's only a matter of time before PG&E lobbies for mandatory time of day based billing, in which case the panels won't help reduce the rates much for charging a car.

Sad, but true. Also, I had a used Leaf for a few days, but took it back because the battery only held about 80% of its original capacity, barely made a round trip to work (49 miles) with no A/C running, and required a special fast charge outlet to be installed if I wanted it to do a full recharge overnight. For doing short trips (say, 25 miles including some steep hills), it was great, and would recharge in about 6 hours from a standard outlet. It would have been a great car for my wife, if she could remember to plug it in when she returned from errands (not likely, alas).

drzaiusapelord2• 10 years ago

That's on top of the added cost of an electric vehicle. Worse, how does it handle the Chicago winter? I'll be running the heater 6 months out of the year, which is a drain on the battery, but on a ICE-based car, it just uses excess heat with no cost on fuel. So its tough to figure out what my real cost per mile will be in the winter.

I think TCO is going to be difficult to calculate for many people, especially when you're on tiered electric pricing that punishes heavy users. Electrics may have an uphill battle to popular adoption if the PR narrative is 'save money' instead of the other benefits of electric. I can't imagine the Model 3 edging out the Civic or Fit and other cars for TCO-minded consumers.

The only Telsa owner I know here in Chicago told me that his electric bill went up about how much he was spending on gas before. I suspect this is going to be the case for many.

Scea91• 10 years ago

Doesn't the electromotor also produce excess heat that can be used in a similar way?

evandijk70• 10 years ago

I guess it makes a lot more sense to own an electric car in Europe, where gasoline prices are around 1,50 euro per liter, or $6,50/gallon, while electricity prices are around $0.20/kWh.

Still, recharging an electric car is still a lot more inconvenient than refueling a normal car.

cfreeman• 10 years ago

Only on road trips or if you have an extremely long commute. The vast majority of the time with an electric car it's much more convenient because you charge overnight. You never have to go to a gas station again.

kristianc• 10 years ago

Taken to its logical conclusion (a hired fleet model for cars rather than individual ownership), the charging becomes someone else's problem and they get to leverage economies of scale that you as an individual wouldn't.

woobar• 10 years ago

I think it makes a lot more sense to switch to electric car right now. But taxes contribute to more than 50% of the retail gas prices in Europe. So what would happen when majority of drivers switch to electric cars? How european governments will recoup lost tax revenue?

petra• 10 years ago

But the tax difference is just temporary - if EV's become popular - charging will be taxed too.

epalmer• 10 years ago

I live in zipcode 23233 in the Richmond,VA, USA area. Gas is about $1.90/gallon right now and my power is about $0.09/KWh. I guess you can say YMMV.

Quanticles• 10 years ago

Bigger issue seems to be people overestimate how much they spend on fuel. You buy the car once, but you refuel it hundreds of times over its lifetime, giving the impression that fuel is a big expense.

For example, if you assume $0.073/mile, for 100,000 miles, that is $7300. If going electric cuts that in half, you save only $3650, which is only ~10% of the cost of the vehicle.

Looking at total cost of ownership (car + maintenance + fuel) makes much more sense than just fuel.

antisthenes2• 10 years ago

It's even worse than that, because eventually the battery pack will have to be replaced.

While Tesla may cover that under some warranties, people who bought something like a Nissan Leaf are SOL. Their cars start losing range much quicker than a Tesla, because of the need to charge almost daily due to lower range.

Google shows the replacement cost for a Nissan Leaf battery at $5,500. Going by your calculations for 100k miles (which is Nissan Leaf's warranty range for the battery), the electricity cost will have to be $1,800 for it to make sense to buy. That's going to be nearly impossible to achieve.

The math starts to become a bit better at $4/gallon, though.

poulsbohemian• 10 years ago

For what it's worth, between CA, OR, and WA I haven't paid less than $2.59 anytime this summer. Where I live in eastern Washington state, it's been approximately $2.89 much of the summer.

gtk40• 10 years ago

Whereas where I live it's just starting to get above $2/gallon again. It's something that varies a lot by region/taxes.

ebbv• 10 years ago

$0.22/kWh is very high. I pay like $0.09/kWh. On top of that in my LEAF I average ~4 miles per kWH, which gets me to a cost of $0.0225 per mile. Considerably cheaper than gas, even at $2.20/gallon. The last year or so has had abnormally low gas prices in the US, I don't expect them to stay that low.

I don't know why your dad has such incredibly high energy costs, but there may be ways he can cut that significantly such as having the car charge over night.

For 99.9% of people in the US and Europe, an EV is a lot cheaper than driving any gas burning car.

mixmastamyk2• 10 years ago

Oil and gas prices are low now, but are not guaranteed to be over the next decade. You might want to use a cost number that has been averaged over a number of years.

Also the 90D is not exactly a car to be looking at if you are concerned about costs. I don't know if it allows you to choose a more efficient model.

castratikron• 10 years ago

The cost of driving is more than the cost of fuel alone. You also need to include wear and tear on the vehicle, the cost of insurance, and of course the cost of putting that CO2 in the environment, which is currently not a part of the price of gas.

The cost of driving is closer to $0.50/mile:

https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/2016-standard-mileage-rates...

robinson7d• 10 years ago

Is there a substantial difference in this cost when comparing an electric vehicle to a gas vehicle, though?

The parent's post was about cost of fuel (per mile), not the overall cost of driving.

evgen3• 10 years ago

An electric car has all of those same costs. The CO2 cost will be slightly higher, but 90+% of your electricity comes from CO2 generating facilities. Not sure where battery replacement will net out in terms of dollar and CO2 cost, but it is unlikely to be cheap.

jjtheblunt• 10 years ago

His electrical rate is terrible, however. And, Tesla is not particularly efficient compared to, for instance, the BMW i3...

bitL• 10 years ago

"Sooner" - I thought it would happen in 2012 when in Germany one of their largest energy provider "secretly" built a network of chargers which are more-less unused today.

Also, Lithium is a finite element, battery production causes quite a lot of environmental damage during extraction, manufacturing and disposal (of course not amortized to future necessary environmental cleanup, but who cares about a remote place in Zimbabwe?), all of them energetically demanding as well and the proposed scheme of paying $80/month flat fee for a battery swap as well as electricity costs might not come cheaper than fossil fuels...

PhantomGremlin2• 10 years ago

battery production causes quite a lot of environmental damage during extraction

Do you have a link to more info about this? My idealized view is that Lithium is more-or-less there for the taking.[1] E.g. here is what SQM says:

Salar brines are pumped from beneath the saline crust in two different areas of the salar. In one of them, extracted salar brines contain unprecedented concentration levels of potassium and lithium.

salar brines are located in SQM's solar evaporation ponds that cover 1,700 hectares approximately. Atacama Desert is the driest place on earth, with a solar evaporation index of 3,200 millimeters and average precipitations of only 15 millimeters per year. This results in an extremely efficient process of solar energy concentration

Neither "pumping" nor "solar evaporation" seem to be so environmentally damaging. But the devil is in the details, is it not?

Also, lithium will eventually be recycled, much like current lead-acid car batteries are.

[1] http://www.sqm.com/en-us/acercadesqm/recursosnaturales/salmu...

andykellr• 10 years ago

Unless Tesla goes out of business and nobody manages to produce a similar electric car, I will never buy a gas car again. Electric cars are quick, fun, quiet, clean, safe, and convenient. It would feel like a big step backwards for me to buy a gas car again.

They're not for everyone right now and I think it will take a long time to reach significant penetration, but more people will try it and many will never go back.

thinkcontext• 10 years ago

The Chevy Bolt will beat the Model 3 to market and have similar specs, ~$37K and 200 mile range.

james-watson• 10 years ago

The BlackBerry was also the first widely adopted smartphone. Many experts laughed at Apple's attempt to enter the phone industry.

nicky0• 10 years ago

Good to see there's going to be more choice at a lower price in the near future.

deelowe2• 10 years ago

The maintenance sold me. As in, there is none. It's freaking awesome.

foxylad2• 10 years ago

I just bought a 2014 Nissan Leaf. It's excellent and I'd recommend one (with a couple of caveats, see below).

A few (hopefully) interesting comments:

There's no premium for being "cool" or "green" any more. It cost 26,000 NZD for a 2014 Japanese import, which is about the same as an ICE (internal combustion engine) two-year-year-old mid-level vehicle costs (yes, NZ car prices are mad). And I'm guessing the trend will continue and they will soon be significantly cheaper.

The real savings will come from maintenance. Apart from battery chemistry, an EV is far simpler than an ICE. You don't need to pump noxious fluids around, no oil, no complex transmission... just an electric motor connected directly to the wheels. Not even any brake pads, thanks to engine braking. If you know a mechanic, tell them to start pivoting to ICE car rental for EV owners wanting to take long trips; EV battery replacement; charging station installation; and providing a mobile EV fast-charging service.

It's just a car. If you buy one expecting a radically different experience, it might be an anticlimax. Yes, it's cool the first couple of times you roar off (great acceleration, BTW) without any roar, but you quickly realise it's the exact same thing you've done thousands of times before. Your granddad won't have any difficulty the first time he drives one.

Caveats:

You need off street parking. I don't think it's ever going to be acceptable to run electric cables across footpaths, so unless you can park on own your property you'll need to figure out how to charge the darn thing. Maybe chargers will become a perk of working in an office one day, and there is probably a good business in installing charging stations for employers and shopping destinations.

They aren't good for long distances. Duh. Unless you have a Tesla, in which case I hate you! You will probably be able to use an EV for 95% of your driving, but you will have to have a contingency plan for any long trips you make. Currently we find neighbours are more than willing to swap their ICE car for an EV for the weekend, but I think there is potential for a very local car hire service to handle this requirement.

mikestew2• 10 years ago

One small correction: your Leaf has brake pads.

tempestn4• 10 years ago

Perhaps he meant you don't need to change the brake pads (often).

foxylad2• 10 years ago

Thanks for your undeniably better-informed comment.

Would I be right that regenerative braking should substantially reduce brake pad wear?

Grishnakh7• 10 years ago

You're overstating how much maintenance a modern gas car needs, and understating how much long-term maintenance and repairs an EV will need.

A modern car with automatic transmission needs the fluid changed maybe 100k miles, and oil change intervals have gone up too; 7500 miles is more normal, and many cars with computers telling when to change the oil (based on actual driving conditions) are giving intervals of 10k. These are generally pretty easy to do yourself too. Most other service intervals are similarly long, usually not until 100k miles: coolant, brake fluid, etc. Brake pads usually last 50k-100k miles, but this depends a lot on how you drive. Modern spark plugs last 50-100k. Cars don't have distributors any more so you don't need to replace the cap and rotor and wires like you used to.

On your EV, you probably won't need to change the brake pads as often because of regenerative braking, but they are still there. However, some things will not change: it'll still need tires just as often as a gas car, and anything related to the wheels, tires, and suspension is no different than a gas car. You may still need to replace a wheel bearing at 125k, for instance, or a ball joint (these things usually wear out faster if you drive on rough roads). Your windshield will still get cracks from rocks and need to be replaced. Your brake fluid will still need to be replaced (100-120k probably), even though you aren't using them as much. Your A/C will probably need recharge or repair or even a new compressor after 100-150k miles or 10 years. And worst of all, you might need to replace the battery pack after 50-100k miles (we really don't know that much about how long these last yet, and it probably depends on the model; Teslas seem to last longer because they don't get discharged as much in regular usage).

deelowe2• 10 years ago

Leaf tires tend to last a little longer than ICE tires b/c they are over-inflated, low rolling resistance tires. Handling suffers of course and an educated ICE driver could get similar results pretty easily.

SamPhillips• 10 years ago

One interesting development is that I see the small "Nissan Leaf" style electrics competing against electric bikes now for the "second car / commuter car" role. For 1/10th the price ($4000) you can get a very top-of-the-line electric bike which is free to park, doesn't get stuck in traffic, has no regulatory costs, more flexibly to charge (removable battery), etc, etc. Of course it also has downsides (weather, exercise, safety), but I see those bikes more and more around Cambridge and they seem to make a lot of sense.

clarry2• 10 years ago

I mostly commute by cycling, and would like to consider an electric for longer commutes. There are a few problems, but the biggest one I'm concerned about is theft. It's so darn easy to steal a bike and get away with it.

rob74• 10 years ago

So, a plug-in hybrid will be lugging around a gas engine and (probably full) gas tank which it won't be needing for 90% of all trips. Am I the only one who thinks this is terribly inefficient?

sremani2• 10 years ago

This purist talking point infuriates me, but aren't you lugging those 50kw battery when you are not traveling 200 miles and only 30 miles. PHEVs are not your enemy. I see the criticism and some of it is fair, but most of it is not.

privateersman• 10 years ago

There's lots of different hybrids out there. You can get buses that only use the electric part when moving from a stop. In that case, you get the main advantage of electric (torque) and then combustion takes over for normal running conditions. I think something like that is more sensible.

ww520• 10 years ago

That provides redundancy. Redundancy is an insurance. Insurance is inefficient in term of resources but very useful in unforeseen situations.

antisthenes2• 10 years ago

Not as inefficient as using a 1.5 ton vehicle to move 1 person around.

It's somewhat ironic to see that question posed as a genuine concern, when presumably you already made the choice to travel by automobile, the least efficient form of transportation.

loco5niner• 10 years ago

Least efficient in economic/environmental terms, not necessarily in time/safety terms.

cloudjacker• 10 years ago

Because it's already late 2016 and we always expected them by 2018?

mac01021• 10 years ago

In part, this is because electric cars are gadgets, and technological change in gadgets is rapid.

Does anyone take this to be valid logic? It doesn't seem like a very useful analysis to me.

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