Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?
--
EA

On 2/24/2013 4:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

TDD

On Feb 24, 5:52*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... *PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
* *At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
* *Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... *Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.



*Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... *that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... * *!!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... * MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.



You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
* *There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
* It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does nothttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highw...
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.

So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... *What gives??

I don't know. But rather than winging the calcs, there must be
some actual real world test results available online. One key
factor is that you're assuming the battery fully discharges on each
cycle. They don't. How much is left IDK.



Holy ****.... *there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... *and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. *At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? *Opinions?
--
EA

I think your math may be off a bit, but I think the conclusion
is probably valid. That's why the govt is subsidizing these things
with big tax credits. They were picking up about 12K of the cost
of the Volts, don't know what the deal is now. And from what I
saw, even with that, the car still wasn't as good as a conventional
car.

BTW, do you know that if you ever let the Tesla battery go
completely dead, it's bricked? That it cost like 30 -40K to
replace it? That's a nice feature. Even better, you would
think that would be in big print in the owners manual. It's
buried somewhere in there, but not made obvious. The car
can self drain the battery in about a month from a FULL charge.
So, what happens if you drive to the airport, arrive with the
battery low and leave on a week long trip?

It does have a phone home system where it alerts Tesla
that it's about to go kaput. And they then try to contact
you. LAst resort, when they could not find the owner,
they have even used the GPS to find the car and dispatch
their own Tesla service folks to plug it in. Despite that,
some have been bricked. A homeowner put one in a
garage for a couple months and thought it was plugged
in. Something happened with the cord getting disconnected.
Battery bricked and it isn't covered under warranty.

Another nice feature for pioneers.... But they seem to be
hippies that are focused on the idea that the car is zero
emission, conveniently forgetting that in most cases that
power is still coming from coal, nukes, etc.

On Feb 24, 7:50*am, "
wrote:
On Feb 24, 5:52*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:





Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... *PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
* *At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
* *Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... *Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. *What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. *That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. * For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. * And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.

*Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. *Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... *that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... * *!!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... * MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.







You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
* *There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
* It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does nothttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highw...
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.

So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... *What gives??

I don't know. *But rather than winging the calcs, there must be
some actual real world test results available online. *One key
factor is that you're assuming the battery fully discharges on each
cycle. *They don't. *How much is left IDK.







Holy ****.... *there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... *and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. *At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? *Opinions?
--
EA

I think your math may be off a bit, but I think the conclusion
is probably valid. * That's why the govt is subsidizing these things
with big tax credits. *They were picking up about 12K of the cost
of the Volts, don't know what the deal is now. *And from what I
saw, even with that, the car still wasn't as good as a conventional
car.

BTW, do you know that if you ever let the Tesla battery go
completely dead, it's bricked? * That it cost like 30 -40K to
replace it? * That's a nice feature. *Even better, you would
think that would be in big print in the owners manual. *It's
buried somewhere in there, but not made obvious. *The car
can self drain the battery in about a month from a FULL charge.
So, what happens if you drive to the airport, arrive with the
battery low and leave on a week long trip?

It does have a phone home system where it alerts Tesla
that it's about to go kaput. *And they then try to contact
you. *LAst resort, when they could not find the owner,
they have even used the GPS to find the car and dispatch
their own Tesla service folks to plug it in. *Despite that,
some have been bricked. * A homeowner put one in a
garage for a couple months and thought it was plugged
in. *Something happened with the cord getting disconnected.
Battery bricked and it isn't covered under warranty.

Another nice feature for pioneers.... *But they seem to be
hippies that are focused on the idea that the car is zero
emission, conveniently forgetting that in most cases that
power is still coming from coal, nukes, etc.

on telsa or any vehicle where a stone dead battery can kill the
battery it should have a automatic total disconnect relay of some type
to protect the expensive battery, self discharge of a disconected
battery should be low. plus a built in solar panel in case its
outdoors when the battery gets low.

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:46:00 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:




The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

TDD


I won't call it junk science, but there is much need for improvement.
Solar is just starting to get a foothold in the sunny regions and is
still a very expensive alternative here in the northeast. The payback
is just not there for most of us. It has been on the market for 40
years already with minimal inroads.

Electric cars may have a place in the future, but right now they are
very impractical and expensive. If I lived in downtown New York
Boston, Chicago, etc. and only popped around town a couple of miles,
I'd probably consider a small car with electricity. If I can't make
it to work and back, it is useless for me. Not to mention very
expensive. It may become practical in the future, but I bet we are
looking at 15 to 30 years and a limited market.

CNG may be a better alternative for the small city cars.

On 2/24/2013 5:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


Did the math myself.
Hybrids are good for those that drive over maybe 20,000 miles per year.
For the bulk of us, they cost more. For those that think it is worth
the cost of conservation, hidden costs have not been considered like
mining the battery material, and these are often environmentally unfriendly.
When Prius first came out, I looked up cost of battery replacement and
figured after warranty ran out and batteries needed replacement you
might as well junk the car for what it was worth.

On Feb 24, 9:17*am, bob haller wrote:
On Feb 24, 7:50*am, "
wrote:





On Feb 24, 5:52*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:

Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... *PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
* *At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
* *Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... *Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. *What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. *That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. * For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. * And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.

*Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. *Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... *that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... * *!!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... * MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
* *There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
* It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does nothttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highw...
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.

So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... *What gives??

I don't know. *But rather than winging the calcs, there must be
some actual real world test results available online. *One key
factor is that you're assuming the battery fully discharges on each
cycle. *They don't. *How much is left IDK.

Holy ****.... *there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... *and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. *At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? *Opinions?
--
EA

I think your math may be off a bit, but I think the conclusion
is probably valid. * That's why the govt is subsidizing these things
with big tax credits. *They were picking up about 12K of the cost
of the Volts, don't know what the deal is now. *And from what I
saw, even with that, the car still wasn't as good as a conventional
car.

BTW, do you know that if you ever let the Tesla battery go
completely dead, it's bricked? * That it cost like 30 -40K to
replace it? * That's a nice feature. *Even better, you would
think that would be in big print in the owners manual. *It's
buried somewhere in there, but not made obvious. *The car
can self drain the battery in about a month from a FULL charge.
So, what happens if you drive to the airport, arrive with the
battery low and leave on a week long trip?

It does have a phone home system where it alerts Tesla
that it's about to go kaput. *And they then try to contact
you. *LAst resort, when they could not find the owner,
they have even used the GPS to find the car and dispatch
their own Tesla service folks to plug it in. *Despite that,
some have been bricked. * A homeowner put one in a
garage for a couple months and thought it was plugged
in. *Something happened with the cord getting disconnected.
Battery bricked and it isn't covered under warranty.

Another nice feature for pioneers.... *But they seem to be
hippies that are focused on the idea that the car is zero
emission, conveniently forgetting that in most cases that
power is still coming from coal, nukes, etc.

on telsa or any vehicle where a stone dead battery can kill the
battery it should have a automatic total disconnect relay of some type
to protect the expensive battery, self discharge of a disconected
battery should be low. plus a built in solar panel in case its
outdoors when the battery gets low.

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

How many cars do you think you'd sell when you advertise the fact
that for a long trip you need to go rent a trailer with a generator?

"Frank" wrote in message
...
On 2/24/2013 5:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c
per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile
in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it
will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article
suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $
per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss.
loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other
factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a
30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as
gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I
would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above
electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places,
like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


Did the math myself.
Hybrids are good for those that drive over maybe 20,000 miles per year.
For the bulk of us, they cost more. For those that think it is worth the
cost of conservation, hidden costs have not been considered like mining
the battery material, and these are often environmentally unfriendly.
When Prius first came out, I looked up cost of battery replacement and
figured after warranty ran out and batteries needed replacement you might
as well junk the car for what it was worth.

But my point was, *just considering the fuel source alone*, electrics *at
best* are = to $4/gal gasoline, *unless* your electric rate is really low.
And I suspect few are.

Which makes those "MPGe" stats of 100 total effing bull****. They must be
using electric rates from 1950.

The other stuff involved with electrics -- initial cost, battery
cost/life/deterioration, etc -- just worsens the comparison.
What a bummer.

Sposedly, the batts for a chevy volt (16 kWhr, 1/5 the rating of Tesla), are
"only" about $3,000 -- not terrible terrible over 8 years/100,000 mile, but
that does add about 3c to the cost per mile calc, not insignificant.
--
EA

"bob haller" wrote in message
news:2e55faad-149d-4fd5-8002-
on telsa or any vehicle where a stone dead battery can kill the
battery it should have a automatic total disconnect relay of some
type
to protect the expensive battery, self discharge of a disconected
battery should be low. plus a built in solar panel in case its
outdoors when the battery gets low.

Here is a non-technical explanation of Lithium battery management:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_management_system

You can see it in action when a laptop displays its calculated battery
run time.
jsw

On 2/24/2013 9:17 AM, bob haller wrote:
On Feb 24, 7:50 am, "
wrote:
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:





Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.

Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.







You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does nothttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highw...
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.

So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

I don't know. But rather than winging the calcs, there must be
some actual real world test results available online. One key
factor is that you're assuming the battery fully discharges on each
cycle. They don't. How much is left IDK.







Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?
--
EA

I think your math may be off a bit, but I think the conclusion
is probably valid. That's why the govt is subsidizing these things
with big tax credits. They were picking up about 12K of the cost
of the Volts, don't know what the deal is now. And from what I
saw, even with that, the car still wasn't as good as a conventional
car.

BTW, do you know that if you ever let the Tesla battery go
completely dead, it's bricked? That it cost like 30 -40K to
replace it? That's a nice feature. Even better, you would
think that would be in big print in the owners manual. It's
buried somewhere in there, but not made obvious. The car
can self drain the battery in about a month from a FULL charge.
So, what happens if you drive to the airport, arrive with the
battery low and leave on a week long trip?

It does have a phone home system where it alerts Tesla
that it's about to go kaput. And they then try to contact
you. LAst resort, when they could not find the owner,
they have even used the GPS to find the car and dispatch
their own Tesla service folks to plug it in. Despite that,
some have been bricked. A homeowner put one in a
garage for a couple months and thought it was plugged
in. Something happened with the cord getting disconnected.
Battery bricked and it isn't covered under warranty.

Another nice feature for pioneers.... But they seem to be
hippies that are focused on the idea that the car is zero
emission, conveniently forgetting that in most cases that
power is still coming from coal, nukes, etc.

on telsa or any vehicle where a stone dead battery can kill the
battery it should have a automatic total disconnect relay of some type
to protect the expensive battery, self discharge of a disconected
battery should be low. plus a built in solar panel in case its
outdoors when the battery gets low.

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use

There is also common sense. Lets say you typically drive 40 miles/day
round trip and you take a longer trip on occasion. Why couldn't you
simply rent a gas engine car for those long trips? This is very similar
to driving a mammoth truck with 150,000 towing capacity and a 500 HP
engine everyday so you can tow a trailer once/year.

On 2/24/2013 9:19 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:46:00 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:




The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

TDD


I won't call it junk science, but there is much need for improvement.
Solar is just starting to get a foothold in the sunny regions and is
still a very expensive alternative here in the northeast. The payback
is just not there for most of us. It has been on the market for 40
years already with minimal inroads.


I wouldn't call it junk science either. Things often get perfected after
we gain experience from using them. As far as electric vehicles being
"pushed on us" I have been to the latest car shows and also to many
dealers and most of the vehicles were fitted with gasoline engines and
you can buy gasoline engine cars without restriction.


Electric cars may have a place in the future, but right now they are
very impractical and expensive. If I lived in downtown New York
Boston, Chicago, etc. and only popped around town a couple of miles,
I'd probably consider a small car with electricity. If I can't make
it to work and back, it is useless for me. Not to mention very
expensive. It may become practical in the future, but I bet we are
looking at 15 to 30 years and a limited market.

CNG may be a better alternative for the small city cars.


The problem with CNG is the significant infrastructure update required.
Currently it is a great fit for say companies that have regional fleets
on the road because they can set up their own CNG refilling station at
their headquarters for example.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:46:00 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 2/24/2013 4:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

They have a place. Around here (well, not actually in the town I live
in) many drive golf carts. The grocery stores all have cart spaces
(closer than the handicapped spaces). Even the high school has a golf
cart parking lot (cart driving age is 14). As a car replacement, it's
a stupid idea.

wrote in message
...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================== ==

Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to 50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.






Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.
===========================================

They expanded their line beyond the original sports car.
All electrics are fast-ish to very fast off the block. The Tesla's are esp.
fast.











You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does
nothttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highw...
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.

So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a
30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

I don't know. But rather than winging the calcs, there must be
some actual real world test results available online. One key
factor is that you're assuming the battery fully discharges on each
cycle. They don't. How much is left IDK.



Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above
electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?
--
EA

I think your math may be off a bit, but I think the conclusion
is probably valid. That's why the govt is subsidizing these things
with big tax credits. They were picking up about 12K of the cost
of the Volts, don't know what the deal is now. And from what I
saw, even with that, the car still wasn't as good as a conventional
car.

BTW, do you know that if you ever let the Tesla battery go
completely dead, it's bricked? That it cost like 30 -40K to
replace it? That's a nice feature. Even better, you would
think that would be in big print in the owners manual. It's
buried somewhere in there, but not made obvious. The car
can self drain the battery in about a month from a FULL charge.
So, what happens if you drive to the airport, arrive with the
battery low and leave on a week long trip?

It does have a phone home system where it alerts Tesla
that it's about to go kaput. And they then try to contact
you. LAst resort, when they could not find the owner,
they have even used the GPS to find the car and dispatch
their own Tesla service folks to plug it in. Despite that,
some have been bricked. A homeowner put one in a
garage for a couple months and thought it was plugged
in. Something happened with the cord getting disconnected.
Battery bricked and it isn't covered under warranty.

Another nice feature for pioneers.... But they seem to be
hippies that are focused on the idea that the car is zero
emission, conveniently forgetting that in most cases that
power is still coming from coal, nukes, etc.
================================================== =====

Apropos of this (pretty shocking, btw) is
http://www.plugincars.com/real-world...-38-miles.html

Wow.... some of the comments disagree, but you'll quickly get the point.

Still, that doesn't affect my calcs in the electric's case, since
"short-charging" the battery affects the numerator and denomenator
similarly, rendering the net cost per mile the same.

Still, it DOES affect real-world convenience.

But, as I mentioned to Frank, I knew electrics "failed" from an *overall*
cost analysis, mostly due to initial cost, battery cost, and to some extent,
electric cost.

I had no idea they would fail *from the gitgo* on electric cost alone!!!!!

Which makes those 100 MPGe claims utter fraud.

I wonder if ALL Li-Ion car batteries "brick" or greatly shorten lifespan on
total discharge. I'm assuming virtually all car batts ARE Li-Ion??
Ackshooly, the Pruis may use nickel-hydride batts, but the same discharge
princ. may apply.

This is a MAJOR glitch in batt technology, sorta like an ICE that
sporadically loses oil, without letting the owner know -- a real damacles
sword. What a pita.....

Depending on the cost/life of Pruis's batts today, the Prius c, at a REAL 68
mpg (for the lightfooted, actual users claim), would seem to be the
real-world winner. The warranty varies with state, but in NY, CA, they are
full-warrantied for 10 years/150,000.... not bad. About $3,000. But
largely moot, if they last 150,000 miles.

Still, some claim that the ROI of the prius over the base Yaris is 5 years,
depending depending -- not so great either.

--

EA

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:17:30 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

...

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

Nonsense.

although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use

That's the *dumbest* idea you've ever come up with. ...and that takes
some doing!

On 2/24/2013 8:19 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:46:00 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:




The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

TDD


I won't call it junk science, but there is much need for improvement.
Solar is just starting to get a foothold in the sunny regions and is
still a very expensive alternative here in the northeast. The payback
is just not there for most of us. It has been on the market for 40
years already with minimal inroads.

Electric cars may have a place in the future, but right now they are
very impractical and expensive. If I lived in downtown New York
Boston, Chicago, etc. and only popped around town a couple of miles,
I'd probably consider a small car with electricity. If I can't make
it to work and back, it is useless for me. Not to mention very
expensive. It may become practical in the future, but I bet we are
looking at 15 to 30 years and a limited market.

CNG may be a better alternative for the small city cars.


Well Ed, perhaps I should call it pie in the sky. The folks pushing the
nonsense lack any understanding of the real world and what it takes to
run it. The cloud hugging, tree kissing, bunny buggering Greenies want
zero emission peddle cars for everyone because it makes them believe
they're saving the world in Gaea's name. Moonbats think and make their
decisions based on emotion rather than logic and rationality. Their
knowledge and understanding of the technology they wish to push on all
of us is nonexistent. Whenever I have a discussion with one of the well
meaning buffoons, I ask them to explain how the tech works and how to
apply it. All I get is a blank stare and guttural vocalizations of the
sound "duhhhhh". I wish I was on our family farm on the side of a
mountain in the Northeast part of the state so I could build and
experiment with wind power and other forms of alternative energy but I
don't have the health and resources to do something like that which I
would really enjoy. When I mention to a Greenie that there is a very
good nonpolluting source of energy called nuclear power, they freak out
and howl about how dangerous it is and how it is bad for your health
then they light up another cigarette. O_o

TDD

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:17:30 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

...

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

Nonsense.

Really??


although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use

That's the *dumbest* idea you've ever come up with. ...and that takes
some doing!



Actually, in principle, it's an excellent idea, altho I would ditch the
trailer.
A portable rooftop generator was my idea.... altho that's not a slam -dunk
either, weight-wise.

So, not a dumb idea at all. Which doesn't mean it can be practically
implemented, but given YOUR track record, you'd hardly be the one qualified
to make any final judgment.
--
EA

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:21:35 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================= ===

Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to 50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

We all know you're a liar. Everyone got your message. You can stop
posting now.

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.

But you didn't use the incremental cost, so you didn't even accomplish
that. IOW, more lies.

snipped impossible to follow posting technique

On Feb 24, 10:21*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:





Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. *What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. *That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. * For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. * And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================== ==

Absolutely. *That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to 50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. *And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.

Yeah, if as I said, you're not paying some $50 a month
"connection fee" or similar. If you are, then you've overestimated
the cost of charging an electric car.



Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. *Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.
===========================================

They expanded their line beyond the original sports car.
All electrics are fast-ish to very fast off the block. *The Tesla's are esp.
fast.


Which was my point. I don't know how their technology choices
for a high-end $100K+ performance car effects their use of
electricity. So, Tesla is not a car I'd focus on when there are
other, more mainstream cars.





But, as I mentioned to Frank, I knew electrics "failed" from an *overall*
cost analysis, mostly due to initial cost, battery cost, and to some extent,
electric cost.

I had no idea they would fail *from the gitgo* on electric cost alone!!!!!

Which makes those 100 MPGe claims utter fraud.

As I said, instead of winging it on assumptions and purely theoretical
calculations, it would be better to find some real, measured data:

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars...o-operate.html

"The pure electric Nissan Leaf costs just 3.5 cents a mile based on
the national average of 11 cents/kWh of electricity. That’s less than
half of what it costs to drive the most fuel-efficient four-door car
we’ve tested, the Toyota Prius. (This calculation doesn’t include
other costs such as maintenance or depreciation. But maintenance on an
electric car is theoretically miniscule compared with gasoline cars.
And depreciation is unknown for such a new technology.)

The Chevrolet Volt, which runs on electricity for the first 35 miles,
is heavier and therefore costs a little more to run—about 3.8 cents
per mile on electricity. "

Even allowing for 2X electric rates, if what CR is saying is correct,
the electric cars still cost substantially less per mile than using
gas. Not enough to make up for all the other drawbacks though,
but not nearly as bad as you claim either. I'm sure there is plenty
more real world data out there. It's not like these cars have not
been thoroughly reviewed, analyzed, tested....



I wonder if ALL Li-Ion car batteries "brick" or greatly shorten lifespan on
total discharge. *I'm assuming virtually all car batts ARE Li-Ion??
Ackshooly, the Pruis may use nickel-hydride batts, but the same discharge
princ. may apply.

The problem is particular to the high performance batteries
Tesla uses, AFAIK.

wrote in message
...
On Feb 24, 9:17 am, bob haller wrote:
On Feb 24, 7:50 am, "
wrote:





On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:

Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the
purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c
per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into
what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.

Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile
in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it
will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article
suggests
that it does
nothttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highw...
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $
per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss.
loses
badly.

So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other
factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics,
typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost
of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as
gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

I don't know. But rather than winging the calcs, there must be
some actual real world test results available online. One key
factor is that you're assuming the battery fully discharges on each
cycle. They don't. How much is left IDK.

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless
I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I
would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At
a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above
electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places,
like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition
for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?
--
EA

I think your math may be off a bit, but I think the conclusion
is probably valid. That's why the govt is subsidizing these things
with big tax credits. They were picking up about 12K of the cost
of the Volts, don't know what the deal is now. And from what I
saw, even with that, the car still wasn't as good as a conventional
car.

BTW, do you know that if you ever let the Tesla battery go
completely dead, it's bricked? That it cost like 30 -40K to
replace it? That's a nice feature. Even better, you would
think that would be in big print in the owners manual. It's
buried somewhere in there, but not made obvious. The car
can self drain the battery in about a month from a FULL charge.
So, what happens if you drive to the airport, arrive with the
battery low and leave on a week long trip?

It does have a phone home system where it alerts Tesla
that it's about to go kaput. And they then try to contact
you. LAst resort, when they could not find the owner,
they have even used the GPS to find the car and dispatch
their own Tesla service folks to plug it in. Despite that,
some have been bricked. A homeowner put one in a
garage for a couple months and thought it was plugged
in. Something happened with the cord getting disconnected.
Battery bricked and it isn't covered under warranty.

Another nice feature for pioneers.... But they seem to be
hippies that are focused on the idea that the car is zero
emission, conveniently forgetting that in most cases that
power is still coming from coal, nukes, etc.

on telsa or any vehicle where a stone dead battery can kill the
battery it should have a automatic total disconnect relay of some type
to protect the expensive battery, self discharge of a disconected
battery should be low. plus a built in solar panel in case its
outdoors when the battery gets low.

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

How many cars do you think you'd sell when you advertise the fact
that for a long trip you need to go rent a trailer with a generator?
================================================== ===========

LOL!!! A deal killer f'sure....

And my roof-top portable generator is proly not far behind!!!!
I don't know if a rooftop generator smacks more of Chevy Chase or Sanford &
Son..... lol

But, still, an idea that in principle has merit -- a kind of piece-meal
Volt.

My 15,000 W genset measures, iirc, about 30" long, by 16" wide, by 21"
high.... and a "very heavy" 230#.
And THAT is VERY compact for a generator that size.
I don't know how you could make it more compact, for mebbe a permanent
placement somewhere (soundproofed lol) in the car, and just manually hook
it up in a pinch, or for the long-ish drive or low batt.

So, a good idea, that might be difficult to implement. But mebbe someone
will figger it out.
--
EA

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:28:30 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:17:30 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

...

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline
making us less dependent on a finite resource.

Nonsense.

Really??

Really!!

although i think any only electric vehiicle should be designed to
hitch on a trailer generator in case someone needs to take a really
long trip. generator trailers could be sold or rented for occasional
use

That's the *dumbest* idea you've ever come up with. ...and that takes
some doing!



Actually, in principle, it's an excellent idea, altho I would ditch the
trailer.

It does sound like an "idea" you'd come up with.

A portable rooftop generator was my idea.... altho that's not a slam -dunk
either, weight-wise.

Or any other wise (i.e. *not* wise).

So, not a dumb idea at all. Which doesn't mean it can be practically
implemented, but given YOUR track record, you'd hardly be the one qualified
to make any final judgment.

It certainly *is* a dumb idea. If you must go down this road, perhaps
because of some love for pain, rent the whole damned car. You really
are an idiot (no surprise to anyone here).

wrote in message
...

They have a place. Around here (well, not actually in the town I
live
in) many drive golf carts. The grocery stores all have cart spaces
(closer than the handicapped spaces). Even the high school has a
golf
cart parking lot (cart driving age is 14). As a car replacement,
it's
a stupid idea.

But a golf cart saves many hundreds of dollars a year by not requiring
registration and insurance, which can destroy the savings potential of
having a second limited-range electric car. They solve a problem that
is social rather than a technical.

On 2/24/2013 8:25 AM, Frank wrote:
On 2/24/2013 5:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the
purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you
about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per
mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it
will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article
suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0

)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $
per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss.
loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other
factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost
of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as
gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I
would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above
electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places,
like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


Did the math myself.
Hybrids are good for those that drive over maybe 20,000 miles per year.
For the bulk of us, they cost more. For those that think it is worth
the cost of conservation, hidden costs have not been considered like
mining the battery material, and these are often environmentally
unfriendly.
When Prius first came out, I looked up cost of battery replacement and
figured after warranty ran out and batteries needed replacement you
might as well junk the car for what it was worth.

I don't know about the hidden cost but, the Prius battery is under
warranty for 100k miles, IIRC.

Here is a interesting article about the life of the battery.

http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/...y-as-you-think

http://tinyurl.com/b6rvkws

We had a Prius for about 50k miles. Great car with great mileage. We
sold it to my niece who loves it too. My wife bought a Sonata Hybrid.
Nice car, but expensive and doesn't get as the gas mileage of the Prius.
Personally, I'd have kept the Prius but it is important to find a good
mechanic to do any repairs. The dealer will soak you. Fortunately I know
a guy that used to work for Toyota and does repairs for a fraction of
what the dealer will. Not that it needed many repairs. The video display
went out and the replacement cost at the dealer was outrageous. I ended
up paying less than $275 for a used display. I think my guy charged me
about $25 to do the replacement. To do the repair at the dealer would
have cost around $5000.

wrote in message
...
On Feb 24, 10:21 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:





Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c
per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================== ==

Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to
50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.

Yeah, if as I said, you're not paying some $50 a month
"connection fee" or similar. If you are, then you've overestimated
the cost of charging an electric car.



Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile
in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.
===========================================

They expanded their line beyond the original sports car.
All electrics are fast-ish to very fast off the block. The Tesla's are
esp.
fast.


Which was my point. I don't know how their technology choices
for a high-end $100K+ performance car effects their use of
electricity. So, Tesla is not a car I'd focus on when there are
other, more mainstream cars.





But, as I mentioned to Frank, I knew electrics "failed" from an *overall*
cost analysis, mostly due to initial cost, battery cost, and to some
extent,
electric cost.

I had no idea they would fail *from the gitgo* on electric cost alone!!!!!

Which makes those 100 MPGe claims utter fraud.

As I said, instead of winging it on assumptions and purely theoretical
calculations, it would be better to find some real, measured data:

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars...o-operate.html

"The pure electric Nissan Leaf costs just 3.5 cents a mile based on
the national average of 11 cents/kWh of electricity. That’s less than
half of what it costs to drive the most fuel-efficient four-door car
we’ve tested, the Toyota Prius. (This calculation doesn’t include
other costs such as maintenance or depreciation. But maintenance on an
electric car is theoretically miniscule compared with gasoline cars.
And depreciation is unknown for such a new technology.)

The Chevrolet Volt, which runs on electricity for the first 35 miles,
is heavier and therefore costs a little more to run—about 3.8 cents
per mile on electricity. "

Even allowing for 2X electric rates, if what CR is saying is correct,
the electric cars still cost substantially less per mile than using
gas. Not enough to make up for all the other drawbacks though,
but not nearly as bad as you claim either. I'm sure there is plenty
more real world data out there. It's not like these cars have not
been thoroughly reviewed, analyzed, tested....
================================================== =================

OK, that's fine.
But you are assuming THEY calc'd it correctly. Is that 11c REAL WORLD
electric rates, or some bull**** avg of what utilities CLAIM they charge?

And let me tell you sumpn about CR -- I luv'em, but they are often totally
in the clouds when it comes to basic math, science. Sometime back, they
made the claim that trampolining can burn as many calories as running.
Since their corp hq are right by me, I offered to take them running in a
local park, to see just how absurd that statement was.
Heh, they didn't call back.

But back to the point:
Even at 11c, which when all is said and done would be half of my calcs,
that is still a range of 5-10c per mile, and if it is indeed the 10c, that's
perilously close to the 13c of a (mere) 30 mpg gas car.

The fact that CR did not give a RANGE of costs per mile, AND are calculating
dat **** to the TENTH of a mile on top of it all, indicates that they do not
understand statistics or plain ole "significant figures" -- which is beyond
the likes of krw, but shouldn't be beyond CR. But then they think
trampolining burns boucou calories..... go figger.

And,. btw, my calcs are not "winging it".... they are (likely) a BEST CASE
SCENARIO for electrics. **** just gets worse in the real world.
As my calcs show, CR is WAAAY off, even accounting for cheaper electric
rates. kWhrs is kWhrs.... If you have a 50 kWhr battery, it's HS math to
figger out the *minimum* it will cost to charge it up.

Which dudn't mean I haven't made a mistake..... but show me the error in MY
calcs, before you go off lauditing CR....
--
EA





I wonder if ALL Li-Ion car batteries "brick" or greatly shorten lifespan
on
total discharge. I'm assuming virtually all car batts ARE Li-Ion??
Ackshooly, the Pruis may use nickel-hydride batts, but the same discharge
princ. may apply.

The problem is particular to the high performance batteries
Tesla uses, AFAIK.

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
...
On Feb 24, 10:21 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:





Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the
purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c
per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into
what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================== ==

Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to
50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.

Yeah, if as I said, you're not paying some $50 a month
"connection fee" or similar. If you are, then you've overestimated
the cost of charging an electric car.



Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.



So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile
in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.
===========================================

They expanded their line beyond the original sports car.
All electrics are fast-ish to very fast off the block. The Tesla's are
esp.
fast.


Which was my point. I don't know how their technology choices
for a high-end $100K+ performance car effects their use of
electricity. So, Tesla is not a car I'd focus on when there are
other, more mainstream cars.





But, as I mentioned to Frank, I knew electrics "failed" from an *overall*
cost analysis, mostly due to initial cost, battery cost, and to some
extent,
electric cost.

I had no idea they would fail *from the gitgo* on electric cost
alone!!!!!

Which makes those 100 MPGe claims utter fraud.

As I said, instead of winging it on assumptions and purely theoretical
calculations, it would be better to find some real, measured data:

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars...o-operate.html

"The pure electric Nissan Leaf costs just 3.5 cents a mile based on
the national average of 11 cents/kWh of electricity. That's less than
half of what it costs to drive the most fuel-efficient four-door car
we've tested, the Toyota Prius. (This calculation doesn't include
other costs such as maintenance or depreciation. But maintenance on an
electric car is theoretically miniscule compared with gasoline cars.
And depreciation is unknown for such a new technology.)

The Chevrolet Volt, which runs on electricity for the first 35 miles,
is heavier and therefore costs a little more to run-about 3.8 cents
per mile on electricity. "

Even allowing for 2X electric rates, if what CR is saying is correct,
the electric cars still cost substantially less per mile than using
gas. Not enough to make up for all the other drawbacks though,
but not nearly as bad as you claim either. I'm sure there is plenty
more real world data out there. It's not like these cars have not
been thoroughly reviewed, analyzed, tested....
================================================== =================

OK, that's fine.
But you are assuming THEY calc'd it correctly. Is that 11c REAL WORLD
electric rates, or some bull**** avg of what utilities CLAIM they charge?

And let me tell you sumpn about CR -- I luv'em, but they are often totally
in the clouds when it comes to basic math, science. Sometime back, they
made the claim that trampolining can burn as many calories as running.
Since their corp hq are right by me, I offered to take them running in a
local park, to see just how absurd that statement was.
Heh, they didn't call back.

But back to the point:
Even at 11c, which when all is said and done would be half of my calcs,
that is still a range of 5-10c per mile, and if it is indeed the 10c,
that's perilously close to the 13c of a (mere) 30 mpg gas car.

The fact that CR did not give a RANGE of costs per mile, AND are
calculating dat **** to the TENTH of a mile on top of it all, indicates
that they do not understand statistics or plain ole "significant
figures" -- which is beyond the likes of krw, but shouldn't be beyond CR.
But then they think trampolining burns boucou calories..... go figger.

And,. btw, my calcs are not "winging it".... they are (likely) a BEST
CASE SCENARIO for electrics. **** just gets worse in the real world.
As my calcs show, CR is WAAAY off, even accounting for cheaper electric
rates. kWhrs is kWhrs.... If you have a 50 kWhr battery, it's HS math
to figger out the *minimum* it will cost to charge it up.

Which dudn't mean I haven't made a mistake..... but show me the error in
MY calcs, before you go off lauditing CR....

Heh, mebbe CR winged it!!
Do you think they REALLY factored in the real cost of electricity, tiers and
all?
Do you think they took the article link I posted earlier
http://www.plugincars.com/real-world...-38-miles.html

into account?
Heh, they likely did just like they did with that trampoline fitness
bull****, massaged some press-released data,and forgot about the physics of
simple harmonic motion (springs).
And it's not the first time they've fallen conceptually short.
Still luv'em, but still.....

And dood, I'm HOPING I'm wrong!!! I still want my Volt...... but.....
--
EA




--
EA





I wonder if ALL Li-Ion car batteries "brick" or greatly shorten lifespan
on
total discharge. I'm assuming virtually all car batts ARE Li-Ion??
Ackshooly, the Pruis may use nickel-hydride batts, but the same discharge
princ. may apply.

The problem is particular to the high performance batteries
Tesla uses, AFAIK.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 05:52:44 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

.... and guaranteed to get worse.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williamp...ouble-by-2014/
Think of someone who lives in a flood zone and has been washed out
multiple times and is therefore working his ass off to convert his
house into a boat. My advice is to ask yourself how hard YOU want to
work in order to stay in the NYC area. ****, if NYC is good then why
not carry that thinking all the way and move to Hong Kong?

If you're genuinely stuck in a 'flood zone' then you have my sympathy.
Maybe you could stave off the doom by taking advantage of TOU rates.
Here are some samples and discussion.
http://gm-volt.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-9152.html Summary: the
range of costs to fully charge a Volt (approximately the equivalent of
a gallon of fuel) is from about 30 cents to 3 dollars. Don't forget to
compare the 10 year projected cost increases for both fuel and
electricity. http://tinyurl.com/bys2rxm

This might also interest you.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/gridtie.html TNSTAAFL, but
ass-penetration prevention has never been cheaper. My own plan is to
reach net-zero for under $20k plus some sweat equity.

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:21:35 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c
per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================ ====

Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to
50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

We all know you're a liar. Everyone got your message. You can stop
posting now.

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.

But you didn't use the incremental cost, so you didn't even accomplish
that. IOW, more lies.

You don't need incremental cost per se.... too complicated to explain to
you, since you can't even follow a post.
I'm so dumb, you're so smart, yet you can't follow my calcs enough to point
out the """lies""".
Why is that?
Don't you have some family members you can abuse and berate?
--
EA






snipped impossible to follow posting technique

On 2/24/2013 5:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the
purchase of one, but bleeve, it's hard. I figger my gas cost per year
is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would proly be $6,000
year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery? Don't for a minute
believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per kWhr.... Do
the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what you
actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge it..... that's about $20 in electricity. If the Tesla gets
200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile. If it only gets 100 miles,
that's 20c/mile..... !!!! Split the diff, that's 15c/mile....
MORE than what I'm paying per mile in gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse: There's the ever-present thermodynamic
kick-in-the-ass. It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85
kWhr battery -- it will take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article
suggests that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0


)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in
$ per mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss.
loses badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other
factors, is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics,
typically around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3
the cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.. But my calcs show that an electric
will be *at least* as expensive as gas, and likely considerably more
than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable.
Unless I made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I
would repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY
is. At a TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all
the above electric costs by FIVE. But I don't think anyone is really
paying 5c, and quite a few places, like CA, pay MORE than NYS utility
rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition
for electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


My PRIUS gets 52MPG in the summer, 46MPG in the winter (longer idle time
for the engine to warm up before turning off when not needed by the
hybrid system and I make a lot of short city driving trips. I get 52
MPG in the summer and about 46-48 MPG in the winter (longer initial idle
time in winter to warm up the engine before it turns itself off when not
needed by the hybrid system). The 10 gallon tank gives me a typical
cruising range of 480 - 500 miles. There is negligible difference in
mileage between city and highway driving. It cost me $4-5K more than a
gasoline only economy car that would get at best 38 MPG or so city
dirving. Over the expected life of the car (7 yrs) and gas at least
$3.50/gal, I certainly expect to save money by the time I'm ready for my
next car. The emissions are fewer and less toxic than those produced by
our coal fired electric generating plants. Not a perfectly "green"
solution, but probably the best compromise currently available among
cost, convenience, and "green" considerations.

On Feb 24, 11:03*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Feb 24, 10:21 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:





wrote in message

...
On Feb 24, 5:52 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:

Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase
of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c
per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check.

That isn't the correct way of doing the calculation. What
you want to find is the INCREMENTAL cost of charging a
car. That could be lower or higher than the rate with your
method. For example if you have a monthly fixed charge
of $25, you're paying that regardless of the car and it
should not be attributed to the car. And if you're
in an area where rates escalate if you exceed a certain
amount, then you're going to pay more for the car
charging than shown by your method.
================================================== ==

Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to
50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

So my calcs are likely, and were intended to be, a BEST CASE scenario for
electrics, given the tier structure of most utility rates. And draconian
tier structure in some, or mebbe most.

Yeah, if as I said, you're not paying some $50 a month
"connection fee" or similar. *If you are, then you've overestimated
the cost of charging an electric car.







Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

Could be. Here in NJ it's been around 15c to 17c.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile
in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

The Tesla is a performance car that does 0 to 60 in like
4 secs.
===========================================

They expanded their line beyond the original sports car.
All electrics are fast-ish to very fast off the block. The Tesla's are
esp.
fast.

Which was my point. *I don't know how their technology choices
for a high-end $100K+ performance car effects their use of
electricity. *So, Tesla is not a car I'd focus on when there are
other, more mainstream cars.



But, as I mentioned to Frank, I knew electrics "failed" from an *overall*
cost analysis, mostly due to initial cost, battery cost, and to some
extent,
electric cost.

I had no idea they would fail *from the gitgo* on electric cost alone!!!!!

Which makes those 100 MPGe claims utter fraud.

As I said, instead of winging it on assumptions and purely theoretical
calculations, *it would be better to find some real, measured data:

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars...tests-show-ele...

"The pure electric Nissan Leaf costs just 3.5 cents a mile based on
the national average of 11 cents/kWh of electricity. That’s less than
half of what it costs to drive the most fuel-efficient four-door car
we’ve tested, the Toyota Prius. (This calculation doesn’t include
other costs such as maintenance or depreciation. But maintenance on an
electric car is theoretically miniscule compared with gasoline cars.
And depreciation is unknown for such a new technology.)

The Chevrolet Volt, which runs on electricity for the first 35 miles,
is heavier and therefore costs a little more to run—about 3.8 cents
per mile on electricity. "

Even allowing for 2X electric rates, if what CR is saying is correct,
the electric cars still cost substantially less per mile than using
gas. *Not enough to make up for all the other drawbacks though,
but not nearly as bad as you claim either. *I'm sure there is plenty
more real world data out there. *It's not like these cars have not
been thoroughly reviewed, analyzed, tested....
================================================== =================

OK, that's fine.
But you are assuming THEY calc'd it correctly. *Is that 11c REAL *WORLD
electric rates, or some bull**** avg of what utilities CLAIM they charge?


Assuming they calculated what correctly? The Kwh it took to
charge the cars or the cost of the electricity? I would certainly
think CR Labs could meter the energy usage of the charger.
And they just gave the electric rate at 11c. Put in your own
rate, if you want. The point is even if the rate is double that,
ie 22c then those electric cars still have a substantial cost
per mile advantage over a conventional car. And most
people aren't payin 22c. NJ here has one of the highest
rates in the country and last month's bill it was 15c.



And let me tell you sumpn about CR -- I luv'em, but they are often totally
in the clouds when it comes to basic math, science.

But they ran actual tests, as opposed to your calculations
based on theoretical battery charging.

Sometime back, they
made the claim that trampolining can burn as many calories as running.
Since their corp hq are right by me, I offered to take them running in a
local park, to see just how absurd that statement was.
Heh, they didn't call back.

I'll bet they aren't the first either.




But back to the point:
* *Even at 11c, which when all is said and done would be half of my calcs,
that is still a range of 5-10c per mile, and if it is indeed the 10c, that's
perilously close to the 13c of a (mere) 30 mpg gas car.

CR reported around 3.5 cents per mile with electricity at 11c/kwh


The fact that CR did not give a RANGE of costs per mile, AND are calculating
dat **** to the TENTH of a mile on top of it all, indicates that they do not
understand statistics or plain ole "significant figures" -- which is beyond
the likes of krw, but shouldn't be beyond CR. *But then they think
trampolining burns boucou calories..... *go figger.

I'd say since they actually tested the cars and did real
measurements, they have a lot more credibility than
your musings based on theoreticals and assumptions.






And,. btw, my calcs are not "winging it".... *they are (likely) a BEST CASE
SCENARIO for electrics. ***** just gets worse in the real world.
As my calcs show, CR is WAAAY off, even accounting for cheaper electric
rates. *kWhrs is kWhrs.... * If you have a 50 kWhr battery, it's HS math to
figger out the *minimum* it will cost to charge it up.

Which dudn't mean I haven't made a mistake..... *but show me the error in MY
calcs, before you go off lauditing CR....
--
EA


Look. I'm not lauding CR. I just did a bit of googling
and they popped up. They tested several electric cars. They
reported the results. They say that with electric at 11c/kwh, the
cars cost 3.5c a mile to run. That has a lot more credibility
than your theoretical musings based on battery capacity.
As I tried to explain to you, one thing your assuming is that the
full battery charge is depleted to go X miles. How about if
it's actually only 70%?

These cars have been out there and have been extensively
tested by all kinds of groups, not just CR I'm
sure you could find what RoadnTrack, Motortrend, Car/Driver,
etc have to say about equivalent fuel economy. Are you that
lazy that you'd rather continue pontificating on hypotheticals
instead of seeing real test data?

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 10:33:11 -0500, wrote:


Absolutely. That's why I left the calc as it was.
Some places have, like, a 5c/kWhr rate, which quickly escalates to 50c/kWhr.
Iirc, CA goes up to pert near $1/kWhr.....!!!!

We all know you're a liar. Everyone got your message. You can stop
posting now.

I pay .30kwh here in California

Gunner

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie

On 2/24/2013 11:02 AM, gonjah wrote:
On 2/24/2013 8:25 AM, Frank wrote:
On 2/24/2013 5:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the
purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you
about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into
what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per
mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it
will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article
suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0


)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $
per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss.
loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other
factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics,
typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost
of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as
gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I
would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above
electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places,
like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


Did the math myself.
Hybrids are good for those that drive over maybe 20,000 miles per year.
For the bulk of us, they cost more. For those that think it is worth
the cost of conservation, hidden costs have not been considered like
mining the battery material, and these are often environmentally
unfriendly.
When Prius first came out, I looked up cost of battery replacement and
figured after warranty ran out and batteries needed replacement you
might as well junk the car for what it was worth.

I don't know about the hidden cost but, the Prius battery is under
warranty for 100k miles, IIRC.

Here is a interesting article about the life of the battery.

http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/...y-as-you-think


http://tinyurl.com/b6rvkws

We had a Prius for about 50k miles. Great car with great mileage. We
sold it to my niece who loves it too. My wife bought a Sonata Hybrid.
Nice car, but expensive and doesn't get as the gas mileage of the Prius.
Personally, I'd have kept the Prius but it is important to find a good
mechanic to do any repairs. The dealer will soak you. Fortunately I know
a guy that used to work for Toyota and does repairs for a fraction of
what the dealer will. Not that it needed many repairs. The video display
went out and the replacement cost at the dealer was outrageous. I ended
up paying less than $275 for a used display. I think my guy charged me
about $25 to do the replacement. To do the repair at the dealer would
have cost around $5000.


Might have been over 10 years when I googled battery replacement and I
recalled 7,000 Australian dollars. Still a lot of money today.
Doing cost of car repair, if repair exceeds Blue Book value is is time
to trade in the car.

I'm retired and both wife and I only put about 6,000 miles per year on
our cars. We'd be wasting money on hybrids.

OP's calculation based on electricity cost - I haven't done it but our
electricity is expensive in part due to Democratic administrations that
put green energy programs on the backs of electricity consumers.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 05:52:44 -0500, "Existential Angst"
wrote:


Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?



Do they charge more for insurance on an electric car than a gas car?
If yes, then that's an added yearly cost too just to own this car. I
don't know about your calcs but I did read an article that said it
would take 7 to 10 years to break even. If true and knowing what the
average age of car ownership is, you can figure out what the projected
savings (or costs) will be.

Another thing I worry about if I bought this car is that if you have a
car problem, how many will know how to fix it unless it's strictly a
mechanical issue. In other words, can you trust an independent
repair shop to know how to fix them or are you forced to go to the
dealership for repair. Obviously I have a lot to learn before I'd
consider an electric car.

You can't justify the purchase of an electric car on economics.

You justify the purchase of an electric car on environmental considerations.

Buy a used car now and save your money for another 10 years. By that time battery technology will have improved and prices will have dropped, and you'll be able to justify the purchase on economic grounds.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:33:17 -0500, Peter wrote in
Re Dying for a Chevy Volt,
but....:

There is negligible difference in
mileage between city and highway driving. It cost me $4-5K more than a
gasoline only economy car

Is that after the tax subsidy?

On 2/24/2013 12:59 PM, Frank wrote:
On 2/24/2013 11:02 AM, gonjah wrote:
On 2/24/2013 8:25 AM, Frank wrote:
On 2/24/2013 5:52 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the
purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt
would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you
about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into
what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to
charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per
mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it
will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article
suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...ewanted=1&_r=0



)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $
per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss.
loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other
factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics,
typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost
of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as
gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable.
Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I
would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is.
At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above
electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places,
like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?


Did the math myself.
Hybrids are good for those that drive over maybe 20,000 miles per year.
For the bulk of us, they cost more. For those that think it is worth
the cost of conservation, hidden costs have not been considered like
mining the battery material, and these are often environmentally
unfriendly.
When Prius first came out, I looked up cost of battery replacement and
figured after warranty ran out and batteries needed replacement you
might as well junk the car for what it was worth.

I don't know about the hidden cost but, the Prius battery is under
warranty for 100k miles, IIRC.

Here is a interesting article about the life of the battery.

http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/...y-as-you-think



http://tinyurl.com/b6rvkws

We had a Prius for about 50k miles. Great car with great mileage. We
sold it to my niece who loves it too. My wife bought a Sonata Hybrid.
Nice car, but expensive and doesn't get as the gas mileage of the Prius.
Personally, I'd have kept the Prius but it is important to find a good
mechanic to do any repairs. The dealer will soak you. Fortunately I know
a guy that used to work for Toyota and does repairs for a fraction of
what the dealer will. Not that it needed many repairs. The video display
went out and the replacement cost at the dealer was outrageous. I ended
up paying less than $275 for a used display. I think my guy charged me
about $25 to do the replacement. To do the repair at the dealer would
have cost around $5000.


Might have been over 10 years when I googled battery replacement and I
recalled 7,000 Australian dollars. Still a lot of money today.
Doing cost of car repair, if repair exceeds Blue Book value is is time
to trade in the car.


No argument there. When the dealer told me $5k for the repair of the
display I was wondering what we got into. A quick internet search found
a used display and I found a really good cheap mechanic. If it hadn't
been for that the Prius would be a bad memory.

I'm retired and both wife and I only put about 6,000 miles per year on
our cars. We'd be wasting money on hybrids.

snip

I'm not really sure about that. Most hybrids don't perform that well on
mileage but the Prius is an exception. On one cross country trip we
averaged 75 mpg with the Prius. From that point, I was sold on them.

I'd put your battery worries to rest.

In article ,
"Existential Angst" wrote:

Awl --

After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.

Now, about those electricity costs.....

If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.

Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.

So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF??

You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.

Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.

So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/au...highway.html?p
agewanted=1&_r=0
)

factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.

Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.


So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.

YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??

Holy ****.... there goes my Volt....

Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.

Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.

AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.

Idears?? Opinions?

You aren't factoring in that the cost of gasoline over the lifetime of
the batteries will escalate far faster than the price of electricity

On 2/24/2013 1:42 PM, dsi1 wrote:
On 2/24/2013 2:46 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:

The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

TDD

It's a good thing for us that folks who said that the infrastructure was
not in place and that the moonbats were trying to replace horses and
buggys with new-fangled automobiles were unable to convince the
citizenry of their anti-progressive ways. What model carriage do you
drive, sir? :-)

Don't be silly, the primitive automobiles were few in number and the
highway system didn't exist at the time not to mention the relatively
tiny population in those days. Electric vehicles will be wonderful if
the infrastructure is allowed to develop and evolve slowly and with the
demands of the market the same way the internal combustion engine based
transportation infrastructure did. Moonbats believe the present
transportation infrastructure can be scrapped and changed overnight. If
you remember history, our politicians didn't use the newfangled gasoline
powered automobiles and airplanes until the technology matured as much
as the rail and steamship travel had become and widely used safely by a
large number of people. Last week I had to spend a few days working at
the Northern end of the state which was a two hour drive. There is no
windmill and solar cell powered vehicle in existence that would have
made it possible for me and JH to transport ourselves and a half ton of
tools and equipment to the job site and back. So my assertion of the
moonbattery of the Progressive Liberal Leftist Commiecrat Freaks still
stands. ^_^

TDD

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 06:17:30 -0800, bob haller wrote:

the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they save gasoline making
us less dependent on a finite resource.

And what infinite well of energy does electrical power come from? Just
because it always comes out of the wall when you plug into it doesn't
mean that there isn't some generating station out there burning
_something_ to deliver the bulk of it to you.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:01:17 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .

They have a place. Around here (well, not actually in the town I
live
in) many drive golf carts. The grocery stores all have cart spaces
(closer than the handicapped spaces). Even the high school has a
golf
cart parking lot (cart driving age is 14). As a car replacement,
it's
a stupid idea.

But a golf cart saves many hundreds of dollars a year by not requiring
registration and insurance, which can destroy the savings potential of
having a second limited-range electric car. They solve a problem that
is social rather than a technical.

They are registered, though I don't know about insurance. If that's a
problem it will similarly be "solved" (it hasn't been for cars,
either).

Why would any sane person buy a limited range car? That's *nuts*.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:26:15 -0500, wrote:

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:01:17 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

But a golf cart saves many hundreds of dollars a year by not requiring
registration and insurance, which can destroy the savings potential of
having a second limited-range electric car. They solve a problem that
is social rather than a technical.


I have a golf cart but I can't drive it on the road without tags and
insurance (plus having all the street legal equipment).
There may be places with cart paths to shopping but that is a rare
place. I break the law, just driving around the neighborhood and the
cops usually let us get away with it but actually getting up on the
county roads would get me arrested.

AIUI, in Alabama they're legal on any road posted under 35MPH. Don't
know about insurance or tags. Only half the drivers have insurance
anyway. :-(

In the city I was referring to above (Peachtree City, GA), there are
cart paths and bridges that bypass all of the major highways and they
are street legal on other roads. Again, I don't know about insurance
but there is a city registration for them.

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:42:38 -1000, dsi1
wrote:

On 2/24/2013 2:46 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:

The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^

TDD

It's a good thing for us that folks who said that the infrastructure was
not in place and that the moonbats were trying to replace horses and
buggys with new-fangled automobiles were unable to convince the
citizenry of their anti-progressive ways. What model carriage do you
drive, sir? :-)

The new model carriages were not forced on anyone. There *IS* a
difference. When economics wins, everyone wins. When it takes a back
seat, everyone loses.