Electric Eh???

[Rwede]

Electric Eh???


As a "joke", my Chev dealer gave me a Volt as a loaner while my
full-size pick-up was getting some attention. He thought it was funny
to give his energy company CEO this thing here on Vancouver Island!
I live 30 kms outside of Victoria near Sidney.

The battery was dead - later he admitted they almost never charged it. While
the car was "ok", on gasoline, it was pretty anemic. So for the extra
money, even taking into account Chev rebates and Provincial
incentives, you get an under-powered, heavy car that felt "too small"
for its actual size (battery has to go somewhere).

Now the kicker: at a neighborhood bbq, I was talking to a neighbor, a
BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He
laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric
vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For
example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service.

The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small
street (approx 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be
unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even
half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly
over-loaded.

This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles ... Our
residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius
elected officials ram this nonsense down our collective throats, not
only are we being forced to buy the damn things and replace our
reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and
solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery
system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so
far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an oops and
a shrug.

**************************************************************************************

If you want to argue with a “green” person over cars that are
eco-friendly, just read the below:

Note: However, if you ARE the green person, read it anyway.

Enlightening.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General
Motors...and he writes...For four days in a row, the fully
charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the
reserve gasoline engine. Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including
the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9
gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10
hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5
hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging
time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of
electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The
cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I
looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies
with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per
kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.

$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the
Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a
gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32
mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $15,000 while the Volt costs
$46,000.........So the American Government wants proud and loyal
Americans not to do the math, but simply pay 3 times as much for a
car, that costs more than 7 times as much to run, and takes 3 times
longer to drive across the country.....

Still wonder why Trump won?

[youjustcomplain]

You pay $1.16 per kwh ?

I have no idea what I pay per kwh, but that seems high. According to the BC Hydro site, the average house is paying 10 cents per kwh. That said, I suspect that charging your car will keep you in the second tier pricing, so 12 cents per kwh. If that's the case, then your math is wrong. You'd be charging your battery for a very small fraction of the cost of a gas vehicle.

It would not cost $18.56 to charge your battery.

[jimmy4321]

I think the whole electric thing is crap right now
Many gasoline powered econo cars of the 80's and 90's got almost as good mpg.
They should concentrate in curbing peoples interest to practical vehicles that fit their needs. Maybe less heavy vehicles that never end up towing or going offroad, that are basically mallcrawlers.

[Zoso]

The dollars per gallon seem very low aswell .
Electric cars give me the heebee geebees anyways .what say you end up in an accident or overcharge . KER EFN BOOM .

[GenesisGT]

Have had a Camry hybrid for ten years and have no complaints except for the size of or lack of, of the trunk due to the bank of batteries. What we like best is the car is full size and still gets between 45 to 50 mpg city or highway. I would say the hybrid has a lot of benefits over an electric only vehicle, such as the problem of recharging the batteries.

[JayByrd]

I'd be interested to note who wrote the above. Did they put their name on it? Rwede, are you the writer?

I pay 9.8 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity. So, approx. $1.60 to fully charge a Volt. If I paid the rate mentioned in the OP, my electricity bill would be over $1500 for two months, to run a 1500 sq ft. house that doesn't have electric heat. I suppose there could be a place where people pay 10x what I do but I find that hard to believe. This article talks about the government wanting people not to do the math. Apparently, so does the writer of this article. Maybe it's a joke within a joke, and it's going over my head.

No one, not the government or the manufacturer, is saying electric vehicles are for everyone. I don't haul heavy loads, and I rarely travel long distances. I might go a whole month without even driving outside Kelowna. My wife works in Winfield one day a week. That's the only regular trip we take that would exhaust the Volt's battery, and even then, just barely if at all. If one of our two vehicles were electric, it would be practical and cost efficient for us. Lots of people have different needs than us, but I also know a lot of people have similar needs.

And I love the bit about "proud, loyal Americans". Let's substitute "Canadians" in there. If I hadn't taken that pesky first year university English course back in the 1990's, I might not be able to tell when the writer of an article is trying to manipulate me. Sorry.

Rwede, while I find your writing distastefully cynical and spiteful, usually I can trust that you at least believe the stuff you post here. I'm afraid you got worked on this one though.

[JollyGreenBully]

I'd be interested to note who wrote the above. Did they put their name on it? Rwede, are you the writer?

Source most likely wasn't posted because it's a nonsene piece that was done for Fox News years ago and proven false:


http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/chevyvolt.asp

One snippet:

"It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph."

Answer:
This statement is nonsensical, as time spent charging the Volt's battery has nothing to do with elapsed driving time; recharging would be performed before the beginning and/or after the end of a trip. On an extended road trip, the Volt's driver certainly wouldn't be stopping every 270 miles to spend 10 hours recharging the battery, as implied here — instead, under such circumstances the driver would simply refill the Volt's gas tank as needed and skip recharging the battery until the conclusion of the journey.