Electric vehicles (EVs), their emissions, and future viability

I've never ordered any of my cars from a website. Wasn't all that difficult. The haggling was always the most irritating part.

Tin Man said:

Yeah, the "$35,000 model 3" ha ha.
Air is abundant and "free." I don't think even upper middle class people who live in cities can afford to set up a "free wind and solar energy capturing" EV, but maybe in the near future the business of EV's will be more advanced. For now, it's anything but "free" and anything but "zero emissions." There are many examples of government using their statist clout to raise rates and costs, as well as contractors taking their share in maintaining and setting up solar panels, charging stations, etc. so the market hasn't matured yet. For now, I'll drive diesel. Thanks.

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1) I didn't say $35k even though they do exist. I said $50k

2) Plenty of people that are solidly 'Middle Class' have a Model 3.

Teslas have gone from $140k to $100k to <$40k; How else do you suggest we get to EVs at ~$30k other than people buying more EVs? How exactly do you think this works?

jackbombay said:

Where do you live that you need to repeatedly do 0-60 launches in under 3 seconds? How often do you do 0-60 launches in under 3 seconds in your current car? Is your car capable of doing 0-60 launches in under 3 seconds? Are you holding electric vehicles to a standard that your ICE car could never and will never meet? If you repeatedly did 0-60 launches in under 3 seconds in a gas burning car that was capable of doing that, how many could you do before it overheated? NOT MANY!!!!!!

But yea, carry on with you distaste of electric vehicles it is amusing.

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Where are you living that you don't?? What universe are we in?

J/K. MY Touareg goes from 0-60 in 'Oh, I'll get there."

nwdiver said:

1) I didn't say $35k even though they do exist. I said $50k
2) Plenty of people that are solidly 'Middle Class' have a Model 3.
Teslas have gone from $140k to $100k to <$40k; How else do you suggest we get to EVs at ~$30k other than people buying more EVs? How exactly do you think this works?

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Really, in cities? I'd like to see how New York does it with the solar panels, garages, and chargers for plenty of people....

Oh, and I'm still waiting for my free electricity from wind and solar - don't want to bother paying for the infrastructure since then it wouldn't be free would it...

Let them eat cake, er, $50,000 model 3's and pass the Grey Poupon James...

Wouldn't cities like N.Y. put most of the solar installations and wind farms outside the most built up areas? It seems that would be wise. We can ship those electrons quite a distance with our grid system.

turbobrick240 said:

Wouldn't cities like N.Y. put most of the solar installations and wind farms outside the most built up areas? It seems that would be wise. We can ship those electrons quite a distance with our grid system.

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Why not put solar panels on top of all of those nice flat roofs?

gulfcoastguy said:

Why not put solar panels on top of all of those nice flat roofs?

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For sure. But the population density of a place like NYC will require much more surface area than the rooftops alone could provide.

Tin Man said:

Really, in cities? I'd like to see how New York does it with the solar panels, garages, and chargers for plenty of people....

Oh, and I'm still waiting for my free electricity from wind and solar - don't want to bother paying for the infrastructure since then it wouldn't be free would it...

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I never said the wind and solar needs to be local. And a 'charger' doesn't need to anything more than a 16A 240v outlet. SUPER simple.

If you want free electricity move to Texas. They allow consumers to subscribe into the market with RSPs like Griddy.



Did You Know Electricity Prices Can Go Negative?

Get paid to use electricity. That's even better than free

Tin Man said:

Let them eat cake, er, $50,000 model 3's and pass the Grey Poupon James...

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LOL.... yes.... clearly ~30% of the country is in the top 1% income bracket.... more 'Tin Man' math

So, "nwdiver" math is to have your cake and other peoples' money... wait, there's a way to get free electricity without any investment? Great!

Return On Investment is not the same thing as "free"

Tin Man said:

I've never seen a Tesla driver accelerate much. Maybe they are too busy with preserving their range to prevent needing to stop for 30 minutes or wait in line for an available charger. Dunno.

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Lol I don't think I've ever seen a dawdling Tesla.

We've also never, ever had to wait 30 min for a charger. I think once or twice we had to wait 10 min. I'll ask 'Dub when he gets back, he's driving from Austin back to VA right now

I drove the ELR to Jersey 2 weekends ago. I filled the gas tank for the first time since April 2018!

-J

compu_85 said:

Lol I don't think I've ever seen a dawdling Tesla.

We've also never, ever had to wait 30 min for a charger. I think once or twice we had to wait 10 min. I'll ask 'Dub when he gets back, he's driving from Austin back to VA right now

I drove the ELR to Jersey 2 weekends ago. I filled the gas tank for the first time since April 2018!

-J

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Just curious, do you add something to the gasoline when it stays so long in the tank unused?

Tin Man said:

So, "nwdiver" math is to have your cake and other peoples' money... wait, there's a way to get free electricity without any investment? Great!

Return On Investment is not the same thing as "free"

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LOL! That's not how electricity works. Maybe think of it a little like investing in rain (once lots of renewables are on the grid). You need water so you invest to make it rain but sometimes it floods. So you also give away water for free or even pay people to take water to reduce the flood if there's too much.

If you use electricity when there is too much wind or solar on the grid it can be free or even have a negative price. Market forces This is completely independent of any 'ROI'. The cost of building the wind or solar is recovered because the other ~90% of the time the cost is higher. Fortunately for EV owners is pretty easy to charge in that 10% window

And... that's not really 'math' so much as just informing you of something that occurs. Much like I'm trying to inform you that not just the top 1% are buying Model 3s. People making $40k/yr DO own model 3s and the cost of electricity DOES go negative sometimes. Those are just 'facts' like a TDI runs on diesel.

Apple/Fanboy

It is interesting how certain topics bring out the fanboy mentality.

Maybe, especially in the early TDI days, I/we sounded that way too.

It`s not good enough to have a solution that works for the poster or for some people, it becomes proselytizing for the only true and right way and if some don't agree then the government should step in and fix stuff (we all know how good the Gov is at fixing stuff).

This from someone who is interested and excited about where electric vehicles are already and expect to own one someday when there are more choices and the full impact of those choices is known.

BUT I never have and never expect to:
o. Purchase a brand new car (highly depreciating asset)
o. Spend more than $15k or so on a car

Humans tend to think in short terms and simple, closed, systems. Nature/the world doesn`t work that way. Only a couple of generations ago damming rivers was an environmentally positive way to generate power. Now the PNW is looking at tearing all the dams out that have destroyed salmon resources that were thought endless.

Now we think replacing crop land with solar and wind farms is innocuous. The displaced crop land still needs to be grown somewhere, meanwhile the hardscaping (solar) adds to already terrible run-off problems.

In the long run will the impact of solar, wind, etc be less negative than continuing to add carbon to the atmosphere? Probably, but our track record is not great.

Sadly, the only real, long term, solution is less people. Most of us don't have our hands up to be the first to go though.

prsa01 said:

Now we think replacing crop land with solar and wind farms is innocuous. The displaced crop land still needs to be grown somewhere, meanwhile the hardscaping (solar) adds to already terrible run-off problems.

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??? Why would we do that? The vast majority of new solar does not replace 'crop land' and wind can easily be co-opted since the base of the turbines is very small relative to the turbine spacing. The turbines in NM are being built on range land. The same number of cattle can graze 1000 acres with 100 turbines as grazed when there were 0 turbines. (Just makes for a little more work for the butcher cutting out all the tumors from wind cancer )

If you look at 'crop land' most irrigation is done with center pivots which leaves large areas of un-irrigated land between them. I've seen farmers install ~100kW in each of these areas. That adds up quickly. They've also done studies and discovered that using solar to provide some shade can actually INCREASE yields. There's obviously a middle-ground in there since the plants need light but you can use solar to provide shade, generate electricity AND grow MORE food.

Energy and food together: Under solar panels, crops thrive

We don't need much solar to power everything. The total amount of area is <0.1% roughly 4x more than we currently use for golf. And that's 100% solar which would be idiotic. We'll use a significant amount of wind also.

tikal said:

Just curious, do you add something to the gasoline when it stays so long in the tank unused?

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Over that time I have added ~2 gallons of fuel a couple times. The car keeps track of the last time it was filled up, the last time the engine ran, etc and will start the engine to keep things from going stale.

-J

You appear to be from the sw US and your answers tend to reflect that bias. In the mid-west we (mostly) don't irrigate and most of the land is farmed so what is displaced is (largely) farmland. I drive by many solar and wind farms. (real world)/here once taking into account access roads, etc few have bothered to continue to farm once the wind towers are in place. Certainly, grazing is a different story. Many would argue that farming land requiring irrigation and grazing in general are at least as environmentally detrimental as cars.

Not interested in debating, more interested in the whole fanboy mentality Apple, Tesla, and OK, maybe VW tends to provoke.

Not sure what the ultimate right answers will be. Just know that people, even scientists, tend to miss some of the unintended consequences.

compu_85 said:

I drove the ELR to Jersey 2 weekends ago. I filled the gas tank for the first time since April 2018!
-J

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Maybe I missed it earlier in this thread, but what's "the ELR"?

Oh - and to whoever it was in this thread who bought Tesla stock last summer....well-played, sir...well-played.
Go out and buy yourself a couple of PowerWalls.

ELR = Cadillac ELR, the Chevy Volt in fancy jewelry.

Ahhh - didn't know there was a "pimped-up" iteration of the Volt.

We live in a small town (~20K people) and can go months on end without ever using the gas engine on my wife's A3 e-tron; always kinda wondered if we should take it out every "x" weeks just to burn through the gas.

Nuje said:

Oh - and to whoever it was in this thread who bought Tesla stock last summer....well-played, sir...well-played.
Go out and buy yourself a couple of PowerWalls.

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I bought TSLA in 2012....

I'm a Tesla 'fan-boy' and even I think this is crazy.... up >30% in 2 days.

nwdiver said:

LOL! That's not how electricity works. Maybe think of it a little like investing in rain (once lots of renewables are on the grid). You need water so you invest to make it rain but sometimes it floods. So you also give away water for free or even pay people to take water to reduce the flood if there's too much.

If you use electricity when there is too much wind or solar on the grid it can be free or even have a negative price. Market forces This is completely independent of any 'ROI'. The cost of building the wind or solar is recovered because the other ~90% of the time the cost is higher. Fortunately for EV owners is pretty easy to charge in that 10% window

And... that's not really 'math' so much as just informing you of something that occurs. Much like I'm trying to inform you that not just the top 1% are buying Model 3s. People making $40k/yr DO own model 3s and the cost of electricity DOES go negative sometimes. Those are just 'facts' like a TDI runs on diesel.

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When you lose an argument, you say something unrelated that every person understands and knows is true. Pat yourself on your back, fan-boy.

Tin Man said:

When you lose an argument, you say something unrelated that every person understands and knows is true. Pat yourself on your back, fan-boy.

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??? What exactly is 'unrelated'? You were arguing that electricity isn't 'free'. 'Free' electricity does happen and it's increasingly common. I never claimed electricity is always free. I was very explicit with curtailment and surplus.

So apparently when you lose an argument you claim you were never arguing the thing you just lost?

OK, I must have been in a cranky mood today. Mentally delete the name-calling from my posts.

I'm glad we have early adopters, even if in this case they were subsidized.
I'm glad people care about the environment and, at least believe, they are doing something to help.
I hope these incremental steps forward will lead to changes that have some positive impact.
I get a little nervous when a group wants to impose their solution on everyone, especially using the government to do so.

I remember when I was young and knew everything. Before I got old and realized I didn't.

But, most importantly, ... Stay offa my yard! ;-)

nwdiver said:

??? What exactly is 'unrelated'? You were arguing that electricity isn't 'free'. 'Free' electricity does happen and it's increasingly common. I never claimed electricity is always free. I was very explicit with curtailment and surplus.

So apparently when you lose an argument you claim you were never arguing the thing you just lost?

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OK, I want the world to know you haven't given me/us the Nigerian web site that explains how I can get free electricity (without investing $$$$ in an EV, solar panels, etc. personal or public). Must be nice to know.

Here is an interesting take on the market penetration of the Tesla 3:

As the Model 3 enters its third year—soon to be followed by the Model Y compact SUV—Tesla must prove that its wide appeal so far isn’t just a temporary rush of early adopters. Will most brand loyalists and economy-car buyers stick to their old habits? Or is Tesla repeating what Apple Inc. did with the phone: convincing consumers to fundamentally reassess how they value an established product?

Top 10 Cars Given Up for a Tesla Model 3
Buyers trade up, paying an average $50,528 for the Model 3 (U.S. Only)
Electric or Hybrid Luxury Economy

Rank Type Model Company Average Selling Price*

1 Toyota Prius Toyota 27,080
2 BMW 3 Series BMW 46,477
3 Honda Accord Honda 25,428
4 Honda Civic Honda 21,448
5 Nissan Leaf Nissan 34,562
6 Chevrolet Volt GM 34,251
7 Toyota Camry Toyota 26,160
8 Tesla Model S Tesla 95,000
9 Mazda 3 Mazda 24,847
9 Audi A4 Volkswagen 42,530

*Edmunds’s “True Market Value” reflects the average sales price including options and discounts from manufacturers and dealers. Tesla’s average Model 3 price is estimated by Bloomberg Intelligence.

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Looks like well-heeled consumers that don't pick an SUV came to try a Model 3.

Measuring luxury cars traded in for a Model 3 against each brand’s U.S. market share, BMW proves most vulnerable
Rank Brand Vulnerability Index
1 BMW 100.0
2 Mini 86.8
3 Audi 58.2
4 Acura 51.8
5 Infiniti 48.6
6 Porsche 43.6
7 Lexus 31.6
8 M-Benz 22.3

Tin Man said:

OK, I want the world to know you haven't given me/us the Nigerian web site that explains how I can get free electricity (without investing $$$$ in an EV, solar panels, etc. personal or public). Must be nice to know.

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.... try reading

nwdiver said:

If you want free electricity move to Texas. They allow consumers to subscribe into the market with RSPs like Griddy.



Did You Know Electricity Prices Can Go Negative?

Get paid to use electricity. That's even better than free

Click to expand...

nwdiver said:

.... try reading

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I did, and Texas had to invest in wind turbines to get the public "free" electricity.

Nothing is free in the energy business. Air is free.

Tin Man said:

I did, and Texas had to invest in wind turbines to get the public "free" electricity.
Nothing is free in the energy business. Air is free.

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.....

nwdiver said:

If you use electricity when there is too much wind or solar on the grid it can be free or even have a negative price. Market forces This is completely independent of any 'ROI'. The cost of building the wind or solar is recovered because the other ~90% of the time the cost is higher. Fortunately for EV owners it's pretty easy to charge in that 10% window

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I understand Tinmans hesitation to accept the notion of getting something for nothing. That's almost a philosophy amongst the old farmers of my parents generation here in rural Maine.