Money
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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Electric Vehicles
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Right now, the vehicles my wife and I own are in good shape, and have a lot of life left in them, and they are paid for. I'm reluctant to get rid of them to buy a new car, especially since a new EV would be hideously expensive, and a used EV isn't easy to find in my area.
I wish someone would make an electric motorcycle that wasn't so expensive.
Money, I need a fucken place to live. I can't be thinkin' about a car right now.
Money! I can just afford a heavily used car. I don't have the luxury of choice.
when we got ours in 2019 there was a decent government grant and electricty was basically free on the driveway which we no longer have. Even installing a 32amp plug costs £1k now, ours was £300 ish. I think the strategy is to allow the upper middle classes to go first
I have no driveway 😞
I straight up don't want a new car. Between the cost, the lack of buttons, god awful design, driver assists, privacy concerns, and everything else, I don't want one. Newest I'd get would be like a 2010 model.
EVs are newer than that, and in my experience feel like Im driving a macbook rather than a car. Sure all new cars feel like that, but evs especially.
Also battery degradation.The price to swap the battery usually outweighs the cars worth. With skateboard designs, you have to take out the entire interior. The engineers fucked up.
I also like to do road trips. Im not stopping for an hour every 300 miles, fuck that. Even my long-weekend trips are often 400 miles or more.
eGMP cars (Hyundai/Kia) need 20 minutes of charging per 2-3 hours of driving. It really works — I've driven across Europe twice now, and often my coffee breaks take more time than the car needs to recharge.
The battery tech has advanced significantly in the last 10 years. Leaf used to be 24kWh, now it's 40kWh for the same price. If the trend continues (and likely will thanks to economies of scale ramping up), by the time you need to replace the battery in today's EVs, the replacements will be cheaper and better.
by the time you need to replace the battery in today’s EVs, the replacements will be cheaper and better
Unless they adopt the cell phone model and just make you trade the car in.
Someone at the end of those trades has to do the replacement, which will dictate second-hand car value.
BTW, batteries wear gradually, and a battery with 70% of capacity may be annoying for a car, but is still valuable for stationary energy storage (for solar). To me that’s another optimistic factor that can reduce actual replacement cost.
They will not pass these savings onto you.
battery degredation is a big one I hear alot. All I can say is, you wont need to replace anything if the data continues to be far better than even two years ago. I have a now-older model EV and its a few % down after 3-4 years, I expect to be well above 80% in another six and I do alot of miles. What i’ve noticed is as i’ve got used to it, ive learned and understood how and when I need to make allowances. Even today for example I did 200 miles and in summer I can do my usual trip in one stop with a little left over - as the temperature changed as I went over a hill peak I lost 15 miles of range so I made an additional stop.
Generally the biggest thing to get my head around is the efficiency rating. Many new EVs are getting 2.5kw/mile average but because the battery is larger you dont notice it. Mine gets double that easily but the battery is smaller, less weight etc but its actually really cheap to run because its very efficient. I think the new Hyundais are getting 6-7miles per kw, which is superb, but, the bigger brands like Ford and Jag are really poor by comparison. What I mean is, the mass market is going backward and innovators are more expensive. Ive long maintained we are 5 years away from being ready, and my next EV will be hopefully far superior in 6 years time
Over 4 hours solid of driving? That tiring and a solid bladders. Just take one break after two, get a drink, snack, go for a wee. With an EV, a rapid change too. Less hard drive, and cheaper EV battery.
4 hours is not that far.
Regardless of it's motorway, town or country roads, four straight hours is a long drive. I just don't want to do it. I'd get the train when it's practical to. Then sleep and read the whole journey. Driving, I'd take a break driving every two just to get a drink, snack, wee and stretch legs. Turns out two hours is about right.
"Driving for long periods: Research has found driving deteriorates after two hours of continuous driving, as you become less able to concentrate, and slower to react to hazards. The longer you drive, the more rest you need to recover driving performance. Breaks are therefore recommended every two hours."
https://www.brake.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/mybrake/knowledge-centre/driver-fatigue
Oh I see, you're from the UK. Yeah, no wonder you can't drive for four hours, the government said you shouldn't.
Dude, I just said I find driving tiring. Plus it wasn't government link I gave you. In big empty countries, maybe you don't need to concentrate as much. Long straight roads with no one else on them. So maybe it's longer before a break is needed, but four hours still seams long.
Because I haven't got 25 grand to spend on a new car when my old one works fine. When that finally dies, I'll look again. Hopefully we'll be getting some good second hand stuff by then.
Same here. We have two cars. One fully paid off, the other financed at like 3%.
They're both practical, reliable vehicles.
The next time I'm looking for a vehicle, I do hope to buy an EV. This will be in 5+ years, hopefully. By that time, I'd expect there to be a variety of used EVs on the market. As well as improved charging infrastructure.
I need a car with a 5,000lb towing capacity and I don't have $60k to spend on a car.
I have considered to buy an EV when I had to take my old car to the junkyard. But all that was available were matchboxes on wheels. No space for proper seating, no space for transporting anything. Bought a Seat Alhambra instead.
I have a perfectly functional gas vehicle that meets all my needs. It would be more wasteful to buy an all new car. When it dies I will look at getting an EV.
I bought a Subaru Outback only three years ago and I don't plan to replace it until necessary. Being an Outback, that will probably be something like twenty years from now.
I'm waiting for my car to die before considering a new one.
I am also hoping to coax it along long enough so that we no longer need cars but are shuttling everywhere in autonomous EV pods.
And I can't blame the granny on Facebook as the right wing press have a torrent of anti-EV hit-pieces (and green policies in general).
This is just from my current Google News feed:
I decided not to block that kind of nonsense and it's been enlightening.
Range anxiety and charging times.
We take 1-2 8+ hour car trips per year. I’ve done the calculations and an EV would add approximately 2 hours to the total drive time. We tend to stop 2 or 3 times max, and with an EV we’d have to stop more frequently (which I hate) and for longer (which I really hate). When we stop it is to fill up gas, quick bathroom break and we are back in the road in 5-10 min.
I’m planning on buying an EV but it’ll only be for commuting. We will still need an ICE for long road trips.
Yeah, long trips could be annoying, but I went to Cornwall and back in my 200 mile range EV with max 50kW charging and it was fine. Stop for a coffee/breakfast, maybe a little longer than ideal, stop for lunch, stop again at Jamaica Inn and have a good look round, then I think one other stop as the charging network down that way wasn't great (it is improving). If you have faster charging, even without more range those non-lunch stops will be very short. With an eight hour journey you ought to be stopping more than two or three times anyway (probably four minimum)
We travel very differently! When I’m on a 6-8 or more hour journey in the car, my goal is to get to the destination as quickly as possible.
The yearly trip we take consists of a 4 hour drive to stop 1, a 2-3 hour drive to stop 2, and a 2 hour drive to finish the trip. We make stops as quickly as possible, and have snacks and drinks in the car so we don’t need to stop unless for gas or a meal, that we eat in the car while traveling.
I totally understand the desire to travel differently, take your time on stops, eat a nice meal etc…. But we are driving through the desert. There is literally nothing other than a gas station at many stops. We aren’t going to have a nice family meal or stop for coffee at a Arby’s.
Tbh in my old ICE I would have done the same as you - stopped as little as necessary. EV driving lends itself to a different mindset, and I stop much more often (even if it's a quick ten minute top-up at some stops). It's more relaxing but until you need to think different and plan ahead, you don't realise it will change your habits (I certainly didn't). Of course, traveling through the desert likely has it's own complications and probably insufficient charging points, which might be a bigger consideration.
If you only do it a couple of times a year, then why not hire an ICE for those journeys?
Some manufacturers used to provide this as an incentive when you bought an EV.
Because renting a car will cost more than one month's car payment? And it's miserable?
I don't drive.
Very few secondhand EVs in my price range yet, all older/cheaper models with concerns over range, street parking only so costly to charge, and difficulty establishing the cost of battery replacement/leasing.
Got an old hybrid instead. Am hoping it'll last until private cars are no longer necessary.
I don't need a car
My current car gets decent mileage and is still running fine. I’m interested in the Ford Maverick as a possible future replacement (occasionally need a truck and this one solves most of the problems (size, mileage, cost)), charging is not quite ubiquitous enough for comfort (yes I could probably make any long trip work, but that is just it, I’d have to make it work and plan the trip around charging, which adds a whole other source of anxiety and complication (as would rental vehicles) Once chargers are more common in airport parking decks and hotels (e.g. not just two in a corner…) that will go away.) many are quite expensive.
Cost, actual ownership/right to repair issues, being sick of driving after commuting to work for so long, cost of diy conversion went way up just as I was about to buy parts several years ago.
Three things for me. One, I have no practical way of charging one at home. Two, they're mostly outside my price range. Three, I have doubts about maintainability of the used ones in my price range.
I've owned 3 cars in the last six years, two of which I still have. All have been between 9 and 26 years old and cost between $2300 and $7000. Last time I looked around my area, there were only a few electric cars in that price range mostly 2012-2014ish Leafs and electric Focuses. I know the battery packs degrade over time and suspect the range at that age from that era of EV's would be impractical for me. Replacement packs are expensive and if I factor them into the purchase cost it's pushing all of them over $10,000.
Maybe in a few years when my living situation has changed and better EV's are available in that price range?
in the US i take it? We dont often talk about replacing the battery here or in the EU, not that its a problem to talk about it just that its not part of the conversation. The lifespan of batteries is well past the 80k mile warranty all manufacturers have.
Street parking at my apartment.