The challenge of making people buy EV's

There's an 'S' that's been spoted in the wild up around the CA bay area, though sales technically haven't started yet, and won't for about a month. But according to tesla's web page, the battery warranty is:

Model S Options and Pricing | Tesla Motors

And the range w/ the 85kWh pack ≈ 300 miles ... but that's definately not the under $50k version. Don't know what the depreciation may be for the 'S' ... but the roadsters seem to hold their own, based here on the lowest ebay price currently available.

Tesla TESLA Tesla TESLA | eBay


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Or you can rent a Prius for those occasional long trips and use your EV for the other 15,000 miles.

I know which I'd rather do.

 

Have you been in a $27,000 car lately? It is, in all ways, superior to a Leaf. It will be larger, more luxurious, and gobs faster. One could buy a brand new 290 horsepower Maxima for about $2k more.

This doesn't make sense. Here is the argument you made if I were to say that a Bugatti Veyron is too expensive "Cost?? in what way? a Veyron after incentives is about the same as buying any other $1M car". And of course that statement is accurate but inapplicable to my claim that it's too expensive.

I'll use the Maxima argument again. It is inferior in every major way to a Maxima except fuel costs/efficiency. I never said a Leaf wasn't efficient, though.

Maintenance on a Maxima will be a little bit higher, but then after five years it's just as fast and has just as big a gas tank as it did on day one, whereas the Leaf is now at 80% range (per Nissan).

Of course this Maxima vs Leaf comparison is silly anyway and that's my fault. The leaf is far more like a hatchback Versa than a premier midsize sedan with a 0-60 of 6 seconds, and so simply the Leaf costs $10k more than the Versa and has a ~70 mile range. It's cheaper to run but $10k buys a lot of gas. This is the argument I'm sure you've seen over and over because it's true. That is why its sales numbers are very low.

You know this is wildly optimistic for many people. First, its range is 73 EPA on a full charge. Second, Nissan recommends an 80% charge, which means now our range is less than 60, and third winter conditions can brutalize that, so really the functional range is now somewhere under 50 for literally millions of people in the winter. So now the guy who just drove into work in his $27-28k Leaf in the winter is explaining to his co-workers how he hopes it warms up later or else he'll have to drive with the heating off, lest he get stuck somewhere along the side of the road.

I see a lot of people say this is like early hybrid adopters but the first buyers of the Prius suffered two negatives:
1) Prius was expensive; they'd never economically defend its purchase
2) Tech was so new there were doubts about its robustness

This is it. There were no further caveats like planning where you go and when to avoid running out of power, which is the third and what EVs challenge the buyer to live with.

 

The price of gas has NOTHING to do with my following / rambling answer ... NOTHING to do with my particular situation, plan and "strategy". But let me start that answer with a question: Do PHEV's count here?

You see, in much the same way I believe this nation must "wean" itself off foreign oil in particular / liquid fossil fuels in general ESPECIALLY when it comes to transportation demands - a process that may not reach an end for many decades to come ... if ever! - I am doing what I can to "wean" this household off gasoline; which is ALSO a process that will take some time! I'm hoping to trade in our '08 Prius as a substantial down payment for a PiP no later than February or March of 2014; that's a few months after I can start drawing from my IRA without penalty.

( We've reduced our monthly / average gasoline consumption by about 25% since we bought the Prius nearly 4 years ago ... from about 38 gpm to about 29 gpm. )

A couple of years after that - when I can start receiving Social Security ... if that still exists, of course! - I'm thinking of handing the PiP over to the wife AND getting an EV for my own use. By then, I'm reasonably confident infrastructure concerns AND "EV Range Issues" will have been largely resolved.

( I estimate that this would reduce our monthly / average gasoline consumption by at LEAST an additional 35% ... from about 29 gpm to no more than 19 gpm. )

Then, with a bit of luck, the PiP my wife will have been driving for 3-or-so years might be traded in for a 2nd EV ... that's IF those infrastructure concerns AND "EV Range Issues" have been resolved. I rather imagine we'll still have a great desire to drive cross-country from time-to-time after all ...

( At which time our gpm could - at least theoretically - drop to ZERO ... )

Of course all of the gpm estimates above refer ONLY to fossil fuels used for this household's transportation purposes.

 

as far as what cars i have been in, i probably drive more different kinds of cars EVERY week than you have driven in your entire life. they all fill a niche, just not mine. i cant say that i would trade my Leaf for any of them.

back to preferences. i think a $53,000 Cobra is ridicolous but no more so than an F-150 4X4 Supercab for the same price. but they sell and in the latter case, sell very well

that could not be farther from the truth. how do you feel about your Prius because i personally feel the interiors of both on pretty much the same including the tech features which are not free

we have Leaf drivers who are driving waaay more than average including one just up the road from me who does about 130 miles per day. his one year anniversary of his Leaf delivery comes up next week. he rolled 36,000 miles on his Leaf the 3rd week of April

Never stated there was a risk in being first with new technology and that alone is enough for anyone including you to pass. i have no issue with that.

but you are talking from the outside in. you have stated nothing here but the obvious. i can overload the Prius servers doing the same thing

the car is too loud
the car vibrates too much
the car smells
the car costs too much to drive
the car has to be taken in too much to maintain the warranty
getting gas is hassle

what we dont know is "what is not too loud?"

all you post is rehashed statements from a million negative EV articles.

but is what you say wrong? of course not. its true for someone

 

The range is great. I don't trust your link for low depreciation though, that car has less than 10K miles on it. Like I said, tesla could aleviate my fears by providing a low lease rate. The roadster lease was something like $1700/month which is way to much for me

 

keep in mind, EVs need support. what good is a car with a 1000 mile gas tank if the nearest gas station was 1500 miles away??

EVs are no different. maybe i am so EV oriented because we have places to charge. WA ranks 2nd in the country for # of plugs and my area Olympia has had public charging for OVER a decade

EV Charging Stations Destroy Hydrogen 9,010 to 56 in the US, How Did Your State Do? | Inside EVs

 

What axe do you have to grind? 300 mile range solves the range issue for almost everyone. And the price has ZERO impact on solving the RANGE issue. It certainly does affect the PRICE issue in a big way, no argument there.

Also, please keep in mind that the range needed to solve the 'range' issue varies from person to person.
For me, 160 miles solves the range issue quite nicely. For others, a 73 mile range solves the range issue. For others, no range will solve the range issue.

As for your 36,000 annual miles, that is at least 2 hours on the road each day. For me, that would be a deal breaker. Does that mean you have an awful job? No, of course not. It just means what wouldn't work for some, works for you, sound familiar??

 

This may simply be a matter of semantics. But I disagree that an EV is, in and of itself, a compromise.
Depending upon your driving habits, there is no compromise what-so-ever. For some, it may require compromise. Is a Prius a compromise because it can't fly?

 

+1 on that

the Prius is a compromise a huge one. it burns a fuel that we cannot fully provide for ourselves. we are dying under a crushing debt that will literally turn our money into chicken feed.

now is going to electric going to stop that? no. if we stopped buying foreign oil today, our debt would still get bigger so that is only a small part of the problem but it is a significant amount of cash

but now we have the option to drive electric and a lot of us can make it work if we simply want it to.

for every dollar i give Puget Sound Energy, a portion pays a PSE employee who will spend it locally and help drive the LOCAL economy and that same dollar will eventually come back to me in my paycheck. so i can spend it again.

now, i dont know how they figure this (not sure why its not infinite) but a dollar spent on electricity is actually worth over $7 in real value. a dollar spent to buy foreign oil is only worth 18 cents.

so now you know why its almost 300% cheaper to drive a Leaf? its because that dollar you spent on gas wasnt even worth a Quarter

 

+1
EXACTLY !
You can't make people spend excessive thousands on a car they do not want! Build something that is reasonably priced, has at least 200 miles range, and looks and rides good, buyers will flock to your door!
It really is as simple as that!

 

Appreciate the clarification. When you stated that EVs we a compromise, it sounded to me like a blanket statement without qualifiers. I am glad that you agree that for some, EVs are not a compromise.

 

Dave,
I think someone is pulling your leg on those numbers. Where did they come from?

 

i have heard so many different variations of this over the years, its hard to say where i heard it first. the analogy of the foreign oil expenditure was within the previous months so trying to run that down.

the local dollar thing was published several times in the Daily Olympian when the establishment was fighting adding a Walmart Supercenter in Tumwater since we had one less than 8 miles away in Lacey, few saw the need for another one (i think Walmart is having a feud with Costco because they put the Tumwater Walmart next door to the Tumwater Costco and the Lacey Walmart is about 2 blocks from the Lacey Costco but then maybe not) but unfortunately that was over a year ago and i have to have a paid subscription to search more than 30 days in arrears so that is kinda out.

but general searching does find general references. keep in mind we are talking about a VERY fungible product that is not locally produced (gas) against a product that is locally produced naturally (hydro) ...(not that it matters much, but why not throw that in? )

these references are mostly about local verses big box retailers but the inference is the same. keep in mind, that when talking about commerce, there is very little that is 100% homegrown, especially when considering non food items. sure we can grow tomatos organically, using salmon as fertilizer, etc. but hard goods are different hence my contention that electricity dollars leave the community at a much slower pace and should have a value waaay more than $7 and change...but i guess PSE does sell bonds and you dont have to live locally to imbibe

How many times will one dollar be spent in the same community

Renewable Energy: Local Investment

http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/11/buying_local_an/

 

It looks like people are just making things up.

Since we did one of the major studies, it may be helpful to you. Austin has a buy locally campaign called keep austin wierd. It had people actually find what the multiplier was. For every $1 spent locally on retail, anouther 45 cents was spent versus 18 cents in a big box store. That's where your 18% came from, but its really 1.45 versus 1.18 for local retail. For every dollar on manufacturing though, there are parts, and restaurants, parks, shcools, etc They figure for cars this amounts to $7 for every $1 of locally manufactured car. Which means you did the oposite. IF you had waited until the leaf was built in tenessee you would have gotten $7 into the american economy for every $1 spent. In stead it went into the japanese economy.

On oil, this is a negative since it starves out other spending, but I am not sure how negative gasoline spending is. I doubt you car creating any jobs with the small amount evs are adding to electricity demand in your city.