Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! A new survey of electric vehicle owners around the world finds that only 1% of electric vehicle owners would buy a pure gas-powered (or diesel-powered) car for their next vehicle. The survey comes from ... [con...
I'm on both sides of this. Had an EV for nearly 4 years and had to go back to gas for work (construction, moving/having tools, materials and supplies).
I cannot wait for an affordable small ev pickup. Even a not that affordable one. I just can't do $100k for an oversized monster like the Lightning. But give me a $60k Ranger/Frontier style (basically the smallest truck they make these days, without a full SUV on the front) and 500km range and I'm in.
All you need is a house and a garage and room to keep your evs in there and an ev with a range big enough to handle all your travel needs or you'll still gave to own a 2nd vehicle that uses gas and then if you want to keep your ev past 100k miles just be sure to keep an extra $20,000 lying around for when the battery needs replaced.
But yeah, you can always leave home with a full tank. Of course, filling it to 100% also degrades the batteries faster. But don't worry. Your warranty will kick in once you lose about 1/3 of capacity. Sure ducks if your 300 mile range vehicle (when the weather is right) can only go 220 miles, but that isn't quite bad enough for warranty coverage.
I own a hybrid. Between knowing batteries, electronics, evs and vehicles, I'm more informed and knowledgeable than most people on here. EVs are only great if you own a garaged house, want to take large losses on resale, and keep newer vehicles. A lot of people do fit in that category, but for everyone else they're still a poor idea for now. They're fine if you only keep vehicles under a warranty and trade them in. They aren't a "thrifty" option.
If you were "more knowledgeable than most people on here" then you wouldn't be so wrong about everything you're saying... Seems like maybe you're just smug and also full of shit. Great combo!
Lol a self declared expert huh? Bows to your greatness
I never had a garage, I sold for 80% what I paid 3 years later, and I usually go with 4-5 year old, under 50k km private sale vehicles outside of the EV(because it's a newer market). I was pretty giddy to buy my first new vehicle. Might have been my last, depending on my funds when an electric truck that meets my needs hits the market.
Thanks for sharing your opinion though. Takes all types.
Hybrids are the worst of both worlds - intensely limited electric range, performance worse than electric, fuel efficiency not much better than diesel alone, expensive to buy and maintain (you not only have to buy and maintain a full combustion engine but you also have to buy a battery). No wonder you think EVs are rubbish.
They also lose value much faster and repairs outside of warranty are much more expensive.
Plus again, you almost have to have a house and garage to keep one. Not to mention the cost of the charge station set up in your garage (usually around $1,200).
Then you also have how much quicker tires wear out. Replacing $800 tires every 30,000 miles is a lot more expensive than $600 tires every 50,000 miles.
Go ahead. Point by point. I'm quite interested in seeing how you can deny the tire wear and the EV hookup costs. Well known and easily searched information like that must be "super" easy to argue against. Lol
You aren't interested in any of that. When I say "My EV came with the charger and an electrician did it for $200, you'll say "well that's not usually how it goes! I know. I'm a paid Professional."
I don't need convincing, you don't want convincing, anyone reading this can google and research about the tires (mine were still considered 80% by the dealership after 3 years and 40 something k)
So.. whoops, kinda did go point by point. Guess when you actually owned an EV it's not that complicated.
Can use a regular outlet with the included portable charger to top off over night as well. Cost me $0 to install. I do this regularly. Some ignorant and stubborn people just want to find ways to make EV seem implausible and they're usually the ones who have never used or owned one.
The tire thing is somewhat based in reality because of the weight but that's marginal, I think this urban legend got compounded by folks getting their shiny performance model Tesla's, probably their first fast car, going "weeeee" every time they take off from a red light at max speed and then being surprised the tires get chewed through.
Oh yeah there are downsides to EVs, but the upsides mostly outweighed them already in 2020.
I spent so little on "gas" with my EV. It was very hard to even pin down a number on my hydro bill because we redid the windows the same month we bought the EV, and our basement tenants moved out the month I got rid of it weirdly enough. It was something like $50-80 month, when I usually fill up twice a month with my current truck at ~$100/tank.
And I didn't spend a penny on oil changes, so that's $80 twice a year for my lazy ass that gets it done when I swap tires. I laughed when I read the manual for regular maintenance and it was like "moisturize window seals" and air filter changes until 60k or something stupid.
Coles notes is that EVs are really great, but there's a few tradeoffs as we move towards full adoption. I'm glad I had mine, disappointed I had to give it up. But having it really let me see it in high def.
Can't wait to go back.
The tires were more expensive (obviously they came with the car, but I bought winters from The dealership and I didn't have as many choices,) but I never cheap out on tires.
You want to know what drove me the most insane about my EV?
The battery.
Not the 28kw lithium battery cells.
The lead acid starter battery.
In the year of our Lord 2018 I couldn't start my car, because even though it was fully charged with 28kw of lithium power, it's starter battery is some 1940's lead acid box.
I had to buy a noco battery booster, essentially keeping a extra, separate 500watts or whatever in my trunk. Even though I had 28kw fully charged... In that vehicle....
I know a couple people that hung extension cables from second and third story apartment windows to plug in their Nissan Leafs or similar low end EVs.
Most people - city dwellers and even suburbanites - don't need a garage, nor a house, nor an EV that can go hundreds of miles at the drop of a hat. Most trips people make are pretty short in comparison to the range of any modern vehicle, electric or combustion.
For country folk, the considerations are different to be sure. But anecdotally, one of those people that hung a cable out a window years ago now lives a couple hours outside the city and still drives an EV that gets less than 150 miles of range. The biggest alteration to someone's lifestyle by getting a low range EV is the money saved by making pretty minor adjustments.
We've entered the fact-free zone again with the mental sloth.
Still haven't answered why after 120yrs of internal combustion evolution, best they can do still gets less than 5% energy after drivetrain losses to moving your fat smelly ass:
What embarrassing efficiency from ICE vehicles, with hybrid vehicles being a low quality bandage.
I agree with you for the most part but I love my fuckin volt hybrid man.
I can make it back and forth to work on pure electric, I can go shopping, I can go into town and come back.
If I need to go further than commute distance, I just go and the gas kicks in when it's out of juice. When I get to my target location if there are charges around I pull up and charge, If not that's okay too. I run through about 7 gallons of gas every two or three months.
Glad you enjoy it, it's good that a fuel transitional vehicle is working for you. It can't be the stopping point in vehicle evolution, which is what I fight with this guy's constant disinformation about.
Imagine lying about being an engineer in an attempt to get more clout lol.
Anyway drive safe, glad you don't have those garbage Toyotas that are like 15mi range all electric. 😂
I had mine outside my house, and while it did suck to have to plug and unplug it in the cold Canadian winters, it took 10 seconds, not the 5 minutes stopping at a gas station takes. It was a great trade off to never have to stop at a gas station.
Few people want to get wired and lug/have out a heavy duty 30 amp extension cord running out into their driveway to plug in their car.
Beyond that, during the winter months, having a completely cold soaked ev battery when it's like 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside MASSIVELY cuts down on your range, while having to leave your car outside 24/7 during the summer causes your battery to degrade faster, so you want it left parked in the shade.
I can't wait to replace our service vans with EV. Fuel costs are a killer, as is the downtime from servicing, not to mention the cost of brake pads and rotors which chew out semi regularly due to the weight we carry.
Unfortunately the only electric vans have terrible range when empty, and far worse when fully loaded. 250k is insufficient.
I'd probably settle for a hybrid, BYD Shark style. Something with a big enough battery for urban use, and a little petrol motor on board to give you range when you actually need it.
Once upon a time I knew someone with a small contracting business. Needed to move sheets of plywood and tools and whatnot around town. Anyway, fed up with one of the pick ups breaking down, he wound up at a used dealer to replace it. He ended up leaving with a wagon instead of a truck, and later on replaced the other trucks he had with wagons. Seems to be a win, it's been about a decade now.
I got the Kia Soul EV for that reason. That poor little "SUV" had more 2*4 and assorted furniture and metal in it that probably 99% of other Souls ever do in their lives. The roof carpet was trashed, the side wall plastic was shaved and scraped, the back of the seats were ripped....
It's true even my smaller truck does almost all I need and is overkill 30% of the time. But you have to be flexible.
I think ford forgot that Truck makers went big on chassis sizes is for the exemptions for fuel economy signed into law a decade ago.
They could have made a ford ranger EV that was normal truck size from the old days. They went against that because of mentality of current truck drivers. At the same time, the truck drivers who want EV trucks probably aren’t driving the 3 gpm monsters they sell today.
If you’re loud enough on social media, you might get your modest size EV truck in 3-5 years.
I mean, I can't get rid of my S10 because there's no new truck on the market today sufficiently small enough to allow me to compensate for my enormous penis.
Elon Musk is doing everything possible to sabotage the world's transition to EVs.
In his new position as president Musk is looking to end funding for EVs and pivot his company to hydrogen fuel because they realized they can't maintain a fuel racket like with oil if they allow people to swap to EVs.
The real EV boom will be when China's EV prices start to beat American EV prices despite the 100% tariff.
Currently China is the only country who seems to be actually pusbing EVs in a practical way.
Hopefully China will do something about the slave shops they call factories before they start making anything in Europe. A great fucking example of a worker's paradise.
I heard the Toyota has planned on bringing in the Stout small pickup as a hybrid. We might get one of those in a few years once our Tacoma is too expensive to fill up.
If you are in the states then you will have to wait until they remove the chicken tax or you will never get an imported small pickup truck and neither will I up in Canada as our market is too small without the USA having the models too.
I'll keep my eyes out. My other half has a Tacoma and loves it. I don't really but it's still one of the smallest you can get these days and it has been reliable.
All my gas vehicles have had the gas door on the outside of the car, and I don't have a full time assistant to go out and operate the pumps, sadly. It's an embarrassment.
But given the choice, would you prefer to go to a convenience store 1-2 times a week and place your phone on a charging mat for 5 minutes? Or do you prefer just plugging it in at home before bed?
People don't realize how archaic something is because there has never been another way to do it.
I'm in Canada, I do t think even a used bare bones Lightning is $50k CAD. I'll take a look though because last time I checked prices was in the spring. But it's still too big for my parking situation and a danger to pedestrians. I need a truck not an SUV with an exposed trunk.