Good point. EV's Achilles heel is it's battery obviously but tech is moving forward and someday in the future, the battery maybe small enough to be swappable and not built in! In the meantime, EV works for people that can afford them and will only make a small dent on it's gas counterpart's market dominance.
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Arcimoto
- Thread starter ChuckP
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Sethodine
Elio Addict
Ah, I see you are in Minnisota. Perhaps that may be factoring into your opinion. Here on the pacific coast, EV charging stations are plentiful. That said, most of my charging is done at night on the trickle charger. Despite the number of around-town hops we need to make on a daily basis, there have been very few instances where we have even needed the public chargers (3 times, since we bought our Nissan Leaf back in May 2015). Some nights we could go without charging it at all, but we like to keep it topped-up just in case we need to make an unexpected trip. The Leaf is rated for around 80 miles on a charge, but most days we use less than 40. We lost our "range anxiety" months ago.
The vast majority of public charging stations here are privately owned. The owner can choose how much to charge per kW/h, or can give free charging. Thus an owner can charge enough to cover the installation and maintainence costs, or they can take a loss. Many choose to take the loss and offer free charging because it takes hours to recharge--they are counting on those EV owners spending time and money in their restuarants/shopping centers/movie theaters.
This is the primary difference between Gas and EV refueling: gas refueling is profitable as a dedicated business, but not every business can offer gas refueling without a multi-million dollar investment. EV refueling is not profitable as a dedidcated business, but can be easily installed and operated as a secondary service by just about any business with a parking space to offer. No rule says that EV parking must be as convenient as disabled parking, and in many lots the EV charging is way in the back to discourage non-EVs from parking in those spots (this is called "getting ICE'd" by the EV community
)Because of the pleathora of charging stations, I've never had to "fight over a space", nor have I ever had my plug removed by another EV owner. Most of the time I drive by a charging station it is empty, but even if the free ones are all full I can always look up the location of a pay-to-charge station on my smartphone and go there instead. In fact, there is even an app called "Plug-Share" where other EV owners offer up their own home charging stations for others to use for free, out of the goodness of their own hearts.
Concerns over scalability are valid. Widespread solar power has the potential to help alleviate this, but--as has been mentioned--solar is daytime and most charging happens at night. I see a future where most fossil-fuel power plants only operate at night, and solar provides most of the daytime power generation. Even as utility companies lag in installing solar, private rooftop solar is booming thanks to cheap panels from China. Combine this with smart meters to help track energy use, and we can have a whole new power infrastructure management system that can handle widespread EV charging and summertime A/C, without the brownouts.
On a related note: in England, all of the power companies have to boost production at 4:00pm. Because everybody is putting on their electric kettles for tea. I'm not joking.
RUCRAYZE
Elio Addict
Sethodine
Elio Addict
Getting the Leaf has only added about $25 to $35 per month onto our power bill. Perhaps because we rarely ever get the battery below 25% in our daily use. The leaf has a 24kWh battery and gets around 80 miles on a full battery. However, the Chevy Spark EV can get the same range with only a 19 kWh battery. Size DOES matter
.........and speaking of size we have the !023 lbs. 12 or 20 kWh battery optioned future SRK:Getting the Leaf has only added about $25 to $35 per month onto our power bill. Perhaps because we rarely ever get the battery below 25% in our daily use. The leaf has a 24kWh battery and gets around 80 miles on a full battery. However, the Chevy Spark EV can get the same range with only a 19 kWh battery. Size DOES matter
Paul DeCrans
Elio Aficionado
good thing I live in North Dakota and only pay .05 per kwh it would be less than half that to fully charge
RUCRAYZE
Elio Addict
might be less now that drilling has trickled down, The folks in Oil country are really hurting, hope you're o k
TCBronson
Elio Addict
Interesting video. I am not a big fan of electric vehicles because of the expense of batteries and the range.
Range anxiety was an issue for me too, but the SRK's base 70 miles gets me to and from where I drive most days, usually under 40 miles round trip. Money saved on fuel and maintenance may offset the replacement of the battery pack in an estimated 5 + years at an estimated $2K replacement cost.
How much to maintain and repair/rebuild a V Twin or three cylinder engine if/when she blows and/or the tranny?
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