Value of a PIP with 38 mile one-way commute?

Must be nice. I live in Nebraska's capitol city (Lincoln) which is almost 300,000 people. There are no charging stations anywhere other than the Nissan and Chevy dealerships.

Then again, I can get most places in town and back again on a full charge during the summer.

 

My electricity costs per month were similar to yours prior to the PiP. My first full month with the PiP, my cost was $73. I thought great, no need to change anything. Then it started plateauing at $90 every month. That's like $30 extra a month I was paying or $1 dollar a day or $5 an equivalent gallon! I got to this number because there was over 100 kWh's in the pricey tier 3 level every month. I thought, what the hell, let's switch to the EV9 TOU rates. Everyone in the family hated me for the banning peak time use of major appliances. The result was $75 average cost. The worst was a $90 in the summer when we were running the AC. I calculate I pay $15-$20 a month. This is much more palatable.

I set the timer to finish right before I use it to decrease trickle loss with a full battery sitting overnight. The battery becomes warm when it starts charging. Batteries are more efficient when they are warmed up, on Tesla's anyway. I assume it is true for my car as well. And finally a warm battery in the morning keeps the cabin a wee bit warmer. Then I signed onto TOU rates and now I have to charge at night or pay $0.50 per kWh.

Even the cheapest EVSE L2 chargers are many hundreds of dollars. You're only saving about $300 worth of gasoline a year when you charge once a day. That's my back of the envelope calculations for CA electricity rates and gasoline prices. This means the L2 charger isn't likely to save me any money but will save me some time which when charging overnight is unnecessary.

It takes on 2.5 to fully charge from empty to full. An L2 charge is 1.5 hours. There is no 30 minute quick charge port that you see on other EV's. It's kinda unnecessary with a 1.5 hour charge time. It's actually 90% full after 1 hour on L2. The last 30 minutes, it's just slowly topping up.

I save my EV use during stop and go driving where it is most efficient. That's how I get such great mpg numbers despite the distance I go.

As Markabele asked, why aren't you looking at a volt? If I were in the market today, that's what I would get. It was nearly $4000 more when I bought my PiP which is why I didn't get it. Today it's the same price after rebates in CA.


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I grew up in the Midwest. As we used to say: get out of the sticks my friend.

In Southern California, we have several charging stations... Still not everywhere, but a good number if places. Expect the freebies to be always taken. The volt sold quite well this year.

iPad ? HD

 

Nah, there is no other town in the world I would rather live in. Lincoln is great for so many reasons.

 

I think the Volt is selling at very similar prices to the PiP, maybe just a hair more, after all rebates.

 

Also look at the difference in size. The price difference between a typical compact and midsize is $3,000.

Consider the gas efficiency as well. If you go outside the EV range, you'll get penalized and it'll take a lot of charging to bring up your overall efficiency.

 

The devil is in the detail.

Look at MSRP. It still appears reasonable for PIP to be delivering a profit, though marginal. Volt is selling below cost. Even with demand, a vehicle losing money won't offer a large supply.

Look at State Incentives. Colorado – $6,000; Georgia- $5,000; Illinois – $4,000; Texas – $3,500; Louisiana – $3,000; Pennsylvania – $3,000; California – $2,500; South Carolina – $2,000; Oklahoma – $1,500; Maryland – $1,000; Utah – $605. Volt is available in each of them. PIP only in one (California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Hawaii). So, they are definitely not similar in that respect.

Differences like that are what influence the market's big picture and what happens next.

 

Blink rounds up to the next hour, but there is a 15 minute grace period at the end of each hour. 85 minutes at level 2 will get you damned near a full charge, and that would only be $1, assuming that she walks out and unplugs the car at that point.

 

I do have a similar 38 miles trip to work. I only charge at home. My trip is about 5 miles local, and 33 miles highway. I got about 64 MPGe on my dashboard after 31k miles. I press hard on gas pedal and drive at a speed of around 80 miles/hour on highway. If I can be a little gentle on gas pedal or even "glide" like other expert prius drivers do on this forum, the number will be much higher.
About Volt, unless you can get charge at work, a Volt will probably give you 50/50 EV ratio or slightly higher on the trip. But of course you need to consider other factors, such as cost, cargo space, etc.

 

There are LOTS of reasons not to get a Volt, the main ones being:

1) It's a GM Product
2) Far less space in the back seat/cargo area
3) Poor gas mileage compared to PiP once EV range is exhausted.

 

PiP actually comes out on top, if he uses PiP EV miles in the city traffic section and get 11 miles per charge.

Here is the math for PiP:
3.2 kWh per charge = 0.095 gallon(e)
65 miles on 50 MPG = 1.3 gallon
Total = 1.395 gallon(e)
76 miles / 1.395 gallon equivalent = 54.5 MPGe

Volt:
13.3 kWh per charge = 0.395 gallon(e)
38 miles on 37 MPG = 1.027 gallon
Total Fuel = 1.422 gallon(e)
76 miles / 1.422 gallon equivalent = 53.5 MPGe

A bigger plugin with higher efficiency. PiP is the way to go, especially with lower cost to purchase. Of course, there are other things to be considered.

 

I have only noticed charging stations with single connectors at work and around town. My place of employment has parking structures with single connector charging stations (Clipper Creek 240V) for free, but we also have large rows of photovoltaic panels on top of the structures. Charge Point seems to be what's present elsewhere (local Whole Foods, Walgreens, retail spots etc.).

 

I think that is not quite right. The only ChargePoint station (and I think it may be an industry first) that has power sharing is the new CT4000 series of stations. When 2 cars are plugged in they don't actually give each car 120v instead of 240v. What they actually do is renegotiate with the battery chargers built into the cars to tell them to reduce their current draw to 16A instead of the full 30-32A. The voltage is always 240v.

Here is the data sheet specification.

http://www.chargepoint.com/files/CT4000-Data-Sheet.pdf

 

I don't know if anyone clearly said the Volt gets $7500 fed tax rebate vs. $2500 for PiP.
The PiP is a much more practical family car with much space. Greenist overall gaso +elec.
Volt is valued by those who want a more comfortable commuter for 2 and place a high value on getting to work on 38 miles all-electric, kicking the gasoline habit entirely.

 

The PiP charge rate is controlled by the on-board charger and limited to 12A whether on 110/220v. This equates to about 0.9kW on 110v and 1.9kW on 220, hence the halving of the charge time.

Either way, 15 or 20A, you were only getting a portion of the current, hence the longer charge time.

 

Ok, this is getting complicated....

When you charge on 110v (obsolete, the national voltage standard is "currently" 120v) you are using your own Toyota EVSE charge cord that came with your car. When you plug it into a 120v outlet the charge cord tells the car it can draw up to 12A (which is about 12x120 or 1.4 kW). When you draw that power over a properly sized wire you will normally get about 120v. If you plug in 2 cars to the same outlet location you will draw 24A which is more than the 15A or 20A that the circuit is typically designed for and the circuit breaker should snap after a short time and turn off the power. If for some reason the wiring is normal for a 15A circuit but the circuit breaker is higher than it should be like 30 or 40A then the breaker will allow 24A to be drawn by both cars. However, drawing that much power over the smaller wiring and outlet designed for only 15-20A will cause the voltage to sag lower and the wiring and outlet may get hot. Let's say it drops to 100v. Both cars will now charge at 12A at 100v and get 1.2 kW. This will slow down their charge rate and it will take a bit longer to get a full charge.

Earlier we were discussing a new ChargePoint station design that can sit on a 40A circuit but tell one car to draw the full 30-32A at 240v (continuous power draw is limited to 80% of the 40A circuit by the electric code). Or, if 2 cars are plugged in to its two charge cables it will tell each car to draw no more than 16A so the total circuit will stay with the 32A limit (80% of 40A).

For a Tesla or 2013 LEAF this will slow down it's charging rate since they can draw the full 30A by themselves. A 2012 LEAF or a Volt can only draw 16A so they won't notice any difference in actual charging time. This is also true for the PiP which draws only about 9-10A at 240v (1.9-2.3 kW because unlike "120v" the actual voltage for "240v" is either about 208 or 240 depending on how the utility supplies power to the building).