In reply to Keith Tanner :
Yeah, not sure if my parents will do an EV. Not that they're against the idea, but they have a Miata and a BMW wagon. Kinda hard to step away from that pairing.
Hopefully their town gets a fast charger. I'm a little surprised that it doesn't but, at the moment, both Tesla and EA miss them. And, yeah, this is all growing so quickly. How far it's come in less than five years.
Keith Tanner said:The Tesla SC prices have been going up. The first time I stopped at the Glenwood Springs SC in October 2019, it was 24c/kWh. The last time, last May, it was 39.6c/kWh (both of these are without tax, which bumps the total by about 3c). That puts my cost per mile at about 12.5c, or 30 mpg on regular.
It's interesting to note that pretty much all journalists are testing EVs in the "cannot charge at home" mode. They're all apartment dwellers in this use case. Rarely do they have a car long enough to get a feel for day to day use, because of course the first thing they want to do when they get an EV is plan a road trip to test the charging network. So from that viewpoint, the state of the charging network along their chosen route becomes all-important and every stop is momentous. You can certainly pick up some good observations from doing this, but it's really not a good indication what what normal use is like. It's like doing all your supercar test driving on a track when most supercars rarely go near one.
Tom's viewpoint, having lived with an EV, is a good counterpoint to this. To properly get a feel for what it's like to live with an EV, all journos should spend a month or two with one, preferably with a home charger. That way they can learn more about the fundamental differences about the mode of propulsion and can then review the cars on other aspects taking the charging experience as a constant (for everything not a Tesla).
I think a lot of them are doing apartment dwelling mode, because it IS the most common parking situation. Not necessarily living in an apartment itself, but the lack of a having a garage.
Stats show roughly 70% of the Population lives in a single family or type dwellings. Of those, only roughly 63% have garages. That is a miniscule 42% of the population. Not saying *some* apartments dont have garage space you can rent, but odds are those will have a 110 only hookup and not be wired for a 220v drop by your car.... nor is that something most places may be willing to do.
Honestly, for the time for the "average Joe / Jane", it probably is the most realistic vantage point.
GaryC83 said:Keith Tanner said:The Tesla SC prices have been going up. The first time I stopped at the Glenwood Springs SC in October 2019, it was 24c/kWh. The last time, last May, it was 39.6c/kWh (both of these are without tax, which bumps the total by about 3c). That puts my cost per mile at about 12.5c, or 30 mpg on regular.
It's interesting to note that pretty much all journalists are testing EVs in the "cannot charge at home" mode. They're all apartment dwellers in this use case. Rarely do they have a car long enough to get a feel for day to day use, because of course the first thing they want to do when they get an EV is plan a road trip to test the charging network. So from that viewpoint, the state of the charging network along their chosen route becomes all-important and every stop is momentous. You can certainly pick up some good observations from doing this, but it's really not a good indication what what normal use is like. It's like doing all your supercar test driving on a track when most supercars rarely go near one.
Tom's viewpoint, having lived with an EV, is a good counterpoint to this. To properly get a feel for what it's like to live with an EV, all journos should spend a month or two with one, preferably with a home charger. That way they can learn more about the fundamental differences about the mode of propulsion and can then review the cars on other aspects taking the charging experience as a constant (for everything not a Tesla).
I think a lot of them are doing apartment dwelling mode, because it IS the most common parking situation. Not necessarily living in an apartment itself, but the lack of a having a garage.
Stats show roughly 70% of the Population lives in a single family or type dwellings. Of those, only roughly 63% have garages. That is a miniscule 42% of the population. Not saying *some* apartments dont have garage space you can rent, but odds are those will have a 110 only hookup and not be wired for a 220v drop by your car.... nor is that something most places may be willing to do.
Honestly, for the time for the "average Joe / Jane", it probably is the most realistic vantage point.
If you're running those stats, it might be interesting to look at households and not population. And lack of a garage does not mean inability to charge at home - IIRC Tuna parks his Bolt outside and we have another GRM member who runs a Volt that lives outside as well.
The new apartment/condo construction in my town has chargers. I know that building codes are evolving so that new construction has a certain amount of charging capability. So that will gradually evolve as the market demands it (ie, you can charge more rent for an EV-friendly apartment, until they're all EV-friendly). But as I mentioned, it's completely possible to treat an EV like an ICE and take it somewhere for refueling occasionally. The difference is that you plug it in and walk away and do something else instead of standing beside it, so it's not the wasted time you think it is if you haven't actually experienced it. I could charge while doing my grocery shopping or visiting the mall here, for example. Both of those chargers are fast enough that I'd have no trouble getting a full charge while in the store. I have a friend who runs a Tesla and has a garage and the ability to install a charger, but hasn't bothered because he hasn't really needed to.
But journalists don't get a chance to experience that as they're usually only living with the car for a few days, and they don't get a chance to learn a routine. It's all still weird and new. The only way to learn things like "charging isn't necessarily like visiting a gas station" is to actually use it like a normal car for a while.
Keith Tanner said:GaryC83 said:Keith Tanner said:The Tesla SC prices have been going up. The first time I stopped at the Glenwood Springs SC in October 2019, it was 24c/kWh. The last time, last May, it was 39.6c/kWh (both of these are without tax, which bumps the total by about 3c). That puts my cost per mile at about 12.5c, or 30 mpg on regular.
It's interesting to note that pretty much all journalists are testing EVs in the "cannot charge at home" mode. They're all apartment dwellers in this use case. Rarely do they have a car long enough to get a feel for day to day use, because of course the first thing they want to do when they get an EV is plan a road trip to test the charging network. So from that viewpoint, the state of the charging network along their chosen route becomes all-important and every stop is momentous. You can certainly pick up some good observations from doing this, but it's really not a good indication what what normal use is like. It's like doing all your supercar test driving on a track when most supercars rarely go near one.
Tom's viewpoint, having lived with an EV, is a good counterpoint to this. To properly get a feel for what it's like to live with an EV, all journos should spend a month or two with one, preferably with a home charger. That way they can learn more about the fundamental differences about the mode of propulsion and can then review the cars on other aspects taking the charging experience as a constant (for everything not a Tesla).
I think a lot of them are doing apartment dwelling mode, because it IS the most common parking situation. Not necessarily living in an apartment itself, but the lack of a having a garage.
Stats show roughly 70% of the Population lives in a single family or type dwellings. Of those, only roughly 63% have garages. That is a miniscule 42% of the population. Not saying *some* apartments dont have garage space you can rent, but odds are those will have a 110 only hookup and not be wired for a 220v drop by your car.... nor is that something most places may be willing to do.
Honestly, for the time for the "average Joe / Jane", it probably is the most realistic vantage point.
If you're running those stats, it might be interesting to look at households and not population. And lack of a garage does not mean inability to charge at home - IIRC Tuna parks his Bolt outside and we have another GRM member who runs a Volt that lives outside as well.
The new apartment/condo construction in my town has chargers. I know that building codes are evolving so that new construction has a certain amount of charging capability. So that will gradually evolve as the market demands it (ie, you can charge more rent for an EV-friendly apartment, until they're all EV-friendly). But as I mentioned, it's completely possible to treat an EV like an ICE and take it somewhere for refueling occasionally. The difference is that you plug it in and walk away and do something else instead of standing beside it, so it's not the wasted time you think it is if you haven't actually experienced it. I could charge while doing my grocery shopping or visiting the mall here, for example. Both of those chargers are fast enough that I'd have no trouble getting a full charge while in the store. I have a friend who runs a Tesla and has a garage and the ability to install a charger, but hasn't bothered because he hasn't really needed to.
But journalists don't get a chance to experience that as they're usually only living with the car for a few days, and they don't get a chance to learn a routine. It's all still weird and new. The only way to learn things like "charging isn't necessarily like visiting a gas station" is to actually use it like a normal car for a while.
Exactly.
I drive 400 miles a week and never ever ever ever go near a gas station other than to fill the mower occasionally. It's an errand I no longer have to plan for. I save time by not having to fuel 2x each week.
The Bolt currently sits at 4.2 mi/khw, and my last bill says I pay $0.11 per khw, so that equates to 2.62 cents per mile. Fuel here is $3.20 today for 87, so in a 30 mpg car, that equates to 10.7 cents per mile. With gas this low, it's closer to a fifth of the cost for the EV, even skipping things like oil changes and such.
My Bolt has never been inside of my garage, and I installed the charger for a cost of around $500.
We haven't discussed wireless, in-the-road charging yet. Think that we'll see that go mainstream?
The cost to install and maintain that would be immense. I don't think so. It's a cool concept but not really plausible.
One other thing that doesn't seem to get discussed much: home chargers can be slow. Like, s-l-o-w. The average person drives something like 35 miles a day, right? So the average charger at an apartment complex needs to be able to give about 35 miles of range in 10 hours. That's a 1 kw charger, otherwise known as a standard wall outlet. That will still take investment, but "install a bunch of standard wall outlets in the parking garage" is a whole different ball game than "install a bunch of 300kw connections in old construction." One DC fast charger equals the same amount of peak electrical demand as 300 daily commuters plugged into their slow charging parking spots.
That's an interesting point about not bothering to install a charger. (I'm late for Keith's reference to that Tesla owner, but we're still more or less on that topic)
As much as my outdated Leaf experience told me that it wasn't ready for us (or vice versa) at that point in time because of the pain of trips with a 65 mile freeway range, it was too easy for local use: I bought an L2 charger, and it's still sitting on the shelf in the basement because in day to day usage I started every day fully charged on 120V and never bothered installing the L2 at home.
How many people who "can't charge at home" would be adequately served for the vast majority of their use by a standard extension cord?
Tom Suddard said:One other thing that doesn't seem to get discussed much: home chargers can be slow. Like, s-l-o-w. The average person drives something like 35 miles a day, right? So the average charger at an apartment complex needs to be able to give about 35 miles of range in 10 hours. That's a 1 kw charger, otherwise known as a standard wall outlet. That will still take investment, but "install a bunch of standard wall outlets in the parking garage" is a whole different ball game than "install a bunch of 300kw connections in old construction." One DC fast charger equals the same amount of peak electrical demand as 300 daily commuters plugged into their slow charging parking spots.
Sort of agree that a 110V charger is unusable for modern EVs, but then again every dwelling has 220V service for a dryer or a stove or AC somewhere. My admittedly slow-charging Bolt is usually topped off by the time I go to bed, and it doesn't start charging until 7pm.
I think we have a Tesla owner on the forum who uses 110 to charge at home and stops by a Supercharger occasionally for a top-up if the reserve is getting low. It's plausible - the 110 home charging just stretches the time between charger visits. IIRC a standard 15A 110V outlet is good for something like 3 miles of range per hour. If you're driving 35 miles a day, you can recover most or all of that overnight.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I want to say that I saw about 3 miles per range hour on both the Mach-E and i4 using a 110v outlet.
I'm a huge EV fan and I'm excited to get one, but realistically I'll probably wait 5-10 years until the infrastructure has come along. My travel needs are just too diverse and sporadic to tolerate the current inefficiencies.
Am I the only one to see a correlation between the 'free charge' charging and seeming to have been shopping in the store the charger was at or was it merely just coincidence that happened?
Swap out "free charge" for "free wifi" in that thinking and we've been through this evolution just recently :)
In reply to DjGreggieP :
I think it's a coincidence but I see where you're heading.
For example, one charge in West Palm Beach was free while one wasn't, and I bought something there both times.
One charge in Cocoa was free, one wasn't, and I never bought anything there.
Also, in both cases, I didn't use the same credit card for charging and my purchases.
Also, BMW does offer free charging with new cars: 30 minutes and up to 200 miles. But I didn't have the code for the app and, in several cases, the charger wouldn't even read my phone so I just used a credit card. Some of my free charges went past 30 minutes, too.
So, still trying to find a common link here for the free charges....
Oh, one part of the trip that I forgot to share–and really has nothing to do with EVs.
Our first Electrify America stop was up in Jacksonville. After waiting a few, I finally get to a charger.
Right as I get things going, I hear a car skidding. I look up, and there's some rando in an E36 doing donuts in the parking lot–like, not dangerously close but, still, we're at a mall that's open for business.
After a few donuts, he drove away like nothing happened.
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