Electric car thread

I'm seeing more and more Rivians.

You can currently configure an R1T with a max battery pack, but not an R1S. I'm curious to see when they are able to start delivery on the larger battery R1T trucks and the R1S in any battery.

I am pondering an R1T, although I'm not looking to buy any time soon. I'm happy to see how things go with the current guinea pigs before I become one myself.

In one sense I do like the the R1T is not TOO big. I have to parallel park near the beach pretty often in Newport and Huntington, and a large pickup might cause a coronary. However, I'm hearing that the bed might not be big enough for skis around 190, even diagonal. I don't have anything longer than 186, but it would be nice to put skis or surfboards back there without worrying.

I can't find any direct info on the length of skis the gear tunnel can handle, but there is a window from the gear tunnel into the cab, so you could fit long skis that way the way one does in an Audi.

I really hope I hear good things in the next few months about how Rivian is doing with it's first generation of owners.

It would also be nice if they were to put an Electrify America station in Mammoth Lakes. I really like having the Tesla chargers in Mammoth lakes, it allows me to shop at Grocery Outlet or grab coffee at the Looney Bean and get a 20 minute charge in. It you do this on Saturday and Sunday morning you should at least have a decent charge before heading down the hill. Not being able to do that with a Rivian would be a nuisance.

The ski storage R1T issue is discussed here:

https://www.rivianownersforum.com/th...-box.52/page-3

If I lived in Salt Lake or Reno or Seattle or maybe Denver this would not be as big of a deal, I would probably just get racks, but I would not want to limit my range on the way to Mammoth. These are the types of things that you don't have to ponder with an ICE.

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Originally Posted by Long duc dong

I would probably just get racks, but…

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…that would just reduce the range further.

I mean all this discussion is really interesting to me and I’d love an electric car. I’m really into this kind of cool technology stuff, etc. but in 10 or 20 years this will all be a moot point. I’m just not willing to be an early adopter on this.
I mean right now I kind of feel like we have a secret weapon in our all wheel drive Prius that gets 55 miles to the gallon, (and I drive it hard).

Long Duc, have you done a comparison of charging cost per mile vs. an ICE?

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Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive

Long Duc, have you done a comparison of charging cost per mile vs. an ICE?

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I've done a guesstimate using real life data and projected imaginary data provided by Hyundai for thier Ionic 5.

Real life. At $1.58/l of gasoline and BC Hydro's base rate of $0.0939/kWH and $0.1408/kWH. I ciscounted the base rate and used the upper tier rate because in my household I'm usually into the second rate based on my cunsumption.

Imaginary, 488km on 74kwh battery = 15.16kwh/100km = $2.135/100km (a friend with a Hyundai Kona electric say he always exceeds range specifications except at -15°C where he is about at specified range)
Real life Toyota Tacoma 12.5l/100km = $19.75/100km
Real life Toyota Matrix 7.4/100km = $11.692/100km

Electricity is so fucking cheap and rate regulated that these numbers will skew even farther apart as gas prices increase. Presently gas is about $1.70 in Vancouver, come summer, it will almost certainly break $2/l whereas electricity will remain the the same.

At a conservative 12,000km driven per year.
Matrix $1403 plus a couple oil changes
Tacoma $2370 plus a couple oil changes
Ionic 5 $256 and no oil changes

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Originally Posted by Beaver

I've done a guesstimate using real life data and projected imaginary data provided by Hyundai for thier Ionic 5.

Real life. At $1.58/l of gasoline and BC Hydro's base rate of $0.0939/kWH and $0.1408/kWH. I ciscounted the base rate and used the upper tier rate because in my household I'm usually into the second rate based on my cunsumption.

Imaginary, 488km on 74kwh battery = 15.16kwh/100km = $2.135/100km (a friend with a Hyundai Kona electric say he always exceeds range specifications except at -15°C where he is about at specified range)
Real life Toyota Tacoma 12.5l/100km = $19.75/100km
Real life Toyota Matrix 7.4/100km = $11.692/100km

Electricity is so fucking cheap and rate regulated that these numbers will skew even farther apart as gas prices increase. Presently gas is about $1.70 in Vancouver, come summer, it will almost certainly break $2/l whereas electricity will remain the the same.

At a conservative 12,000km driven per year.
Matrix $1403 plus a couple oil changes
Tacoma $2370 plus a couple oil changes
Ionic 5 $256 and no oil changes

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Thanks for this, super valuable. Another variable to consider for potential EV buyers - can you charge for free at work? (I can). If not, can you ask your boss about installing chargers for workers or just use a 220 plug ? Also just an anecdotal story but relevant - my neighbor's dad owns a Leaf and has never paid for a charge in years. He's retired so lotsa free time and he enjoys figuring out how to game the system. He'll find free chargers across the city (SLC) and shop for a bit or eat as he's plugged in. This is not for everyone but a lot of downtown city dwellers could figure out how to do a buncha free charges, maybe not every single one though!

Here's all the free chargers in SLC - paid ones are not shown, it's a lot. Most have 2-4 hour limits, some you have to be a customer of the place you are parking at, I don't think any are fast chargers for teslas, etc., etc. but still there are good options:

Attachment 403950

I need to go look at the actuals from my financial records, but before buying my Bolt my estimate was that overall operating costs including maintenance would be about 50% cheaper on the Bolt compared to the Hyundai Accent I owned previously (both purchased brand new and are kind of similar cars). I think that has proven pretty accurate overall, but it's a bit difficult to separate the actual change in my electric bill because other life events happened that affected the overall cost over that ~8 year time period (another person moving into the home, WFH during covid, etc). I think I can say confidently though that the Bolt has been cheaper for me to drive than the Accent despite costing more up front.

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Originally Posted by plugboots

…that would just reduce the range further.

I mean all this discussion is really interesting to me and I’d love an electric car. I’m really into this kind of cool technology stuff, etc. but in 10 or 20 years this will all be a moot point. I’m just not willing to be an early adopter on this.
I mean right now I kind of feel like we have a secret weapon in our all wheel drive Prius that gets 55 miles to the gallon, (and I drive it hard).

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That's precisely the reason I wouldn't do it. If I lived closer to the mountains, i.e. the cities I mentioned, it really would not be a big deal. But driving to Mammoth 10+ times a year means that if the racks reduce range by 25% (I'm just throwing that out there, I have no idea what the real amount would be) that is an issue.

That Prius really is a bit of a secret weapon.

But with the R1S that would be a moot point, I could just throw the skis in the back. With the model 3 I just fold the seats down. Since it is just me, my wife and the dog it works. If you have 4-5 people then you need racks.

I think the question is whether racks are necessary. If the gear tunnel works well then that would be fine. If you can put a pair of 186 skis diagonally in the bed that would work too. I don't ski anything bigger than a 186 EHP, so I might have to put those in the gear tunnel sticking out into the cab and have shorter skis in the bed.

Driving an EV is still about compromise to some extent. With my lifestyle I'm converted, but they don't work for everyone. If there were not many charging stations around me, or on the 395 to Mammoth, it would be an issue. Things have improved enough that I can make it work, and I absolutely love driving it.

A big issue for the future for the EV pickup market will be towing boats and other things. If you have a boat and want to tow it a long distance that is a big issue for an EV. For the boat people it will take faster charging, or a MASSIVE battery pack.

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Originally Posted by Long duc dong

If you have a boat and want to tow it a long distance that is a big issue for an EV.

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I'd imagine - far in the future - marinas, state run and private boat launches, etc would have charging stations so you could recharge as you boat around.

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Originally Posted by plugboots

…that would just reduce the range further.

I mean all this discussion is really interesting to me and I’d love an electric car. I’m really into this kind of cool technology stuff, etc. but in 10 or 20 years this will all be a moot point. I’m just not willing to be an early adopter on this.
I mean right now I kind of feel like we have a secret weapon in our all wheel drive Prius that gets 55 miles to the gallon, (and I drive it hard).

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It would be nice if/when Toyota would actually make enough RAV4 Primes so they could sell a metric shit ton of them. And update the Prius Prime and sell some of those. Both of them are and have been unobtainable around here

I really think we could make the Model 3 work for our next commuter car for the wife. It is just too fancy. Her 12 Prius V has dents all over it (never a fucking note taking credit) from parking downtown in a college town. She doesn't need the BMW (Tesla) of electric cars. But the Tesla charging performance and availability of Tesla charging stations at HyVee grocery stores around the region make it the only practical electric for the routes we run.

Also can't imagine she'd settle for anything but some sort if 'long range' Tesla. Which puts the price solidly in luxury territory.

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Originally Posted by plugboots

…that would just reduce the range further.

I mean all this discussion is really interesting to me and I’d love an electric car. I’m really into this kind of cool technology stuff, etc. but in 10 or 20 years this will all be a moot point. I’m just not willing to be an early adopter on this.
I mean right now I kind of feel like we have a secret weapon in our all wheel drive Prius that gets 55 miles to the gallon, (and I drive it hard).

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55 mpg in your Prius? Is it a plug in hybrid?

Wife just leased a Hybrid CRV (non plug in) and the piece of shit is averaging 27 MPG right now.




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Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive

Long Duc, have you done a comparison of charging cost per mile vs. an ICE?

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I have not done one personally, although I like the work that Beaver did.

If we are talking about just charging at charging stations, it is actually very cheap. Honestly, I don't even pay attention. If you are charging at home it is far less.

Whenever I'm charging and I look at how much it cost I am always amazed.

Here is a very quick ABRP (a better route planner) calculation for driving from my home to Mammoth, and back.

It assumes leaving my home with 18% charge and returning home with a 17% charge.

Using this, it costs about 8.6 cents per mile.

If you charge at home and leave with an 85% charge this goes down to 6.7 cents per mile.

If we use the higher estimate, just charging on the road, this would mean a 400 mile trip would be 34.4 dollars.

This calculation factors in driving to Mammoth, which is generally up, and coming home, which is generally down. When I did the drive in an ICE I always noticed that I used less gas coming home, which is to be expected.

Let's say we have an ICE which gets 30 mpg on the highway for the trip, with the higher consumption of driving there balanced by the lower consumption of coming back.

400 miles would be 13.333 gallons. In California at 5$ per gallon (roughly) that would 66.67 dollars.

If we look at it another way, going 400 miles for 34.4 dollars using 13.333 gallons would result in 2.58 per gallon.

The real savings come from being able to charge at home. My guess is that if you can plug in at home it greatly reduces the cost. This is particularly true if you rarely take long trips. If you have a home charger and rarely take long trips, and particularly if you can charge at the destination it also would reduce the cost significantly.

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Originally Posted by Long duc dong

The real savings come from being able to charge at home. My guess is that if you can plug in at home it greatly reduces the cost. This is particularly true if you rarely take long trips. If you have a home charger and rarely take long trips, and particularly if you can charge at the destination it also would reduce the cost significantly.

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This is a key point. Your electricity at home is way cheaper than the electricity at charging stations. Additionally, DC fast charging is much more expensive than Level 2 charging.

Rough math for driving around town and charging at home for me:
-Electricity is somewhere around $0.15 per kWh. That includes me paying extra for wind power.
-The car (2019 Bolt) says I've averaged 3.6 mi/kWh over the ~32,000mi I've owned the car. That's below the EPA estimate, but I also drive like a jackass and do nothing to try to maximize range. I drive year round in CO Front Range climate, set the climate control where it's very comfortable year round, drive 85mph on the freeway (and most of my driving is on the freeway), am not light on the accelerator, etc.
-There is some energy loss when charging, but not a lot. Current Level 2 chargers are about 99% efficient. That's good enough to pretty much ignore for our purposes here but jsut for argument's sake let's say we actually are getting more like 3.5mi/kWh of energy input into the charger (ie the amount that the electric company bills you for).

That means the total cost of electricity is about $0.04286 per mile, or $42.86 per 1000 miles driven.

To compare that to my old 2016 Hyundai Accent, which I put 100k miles on and drove in similar conditions and lack of regard for fuel economy, and is a similarly sized car - current average gasoline price in Denver is $3.19/gallon and I averaged 33.2mpg over the time I owned the car (yeah, I'm a dork and kept track). That comes out to $0.09608 per mile or $96.08 per 1000 miles.

So yeah, current fuel prices, the EV is less than half the cost for fuel than a comparably sized ICE.

Now, for DC fast chargers on a road trip, you might be paying more like $0.30-$0.50 per kWh, so then it's going to get a lot more expensive. At the high end of that, more expensive than fuel for the ICE. But you're definitely paying for convenience (fast charging). If you can do most of your charging on Level 2 chargers, even if you have to pay for them, it's most likely going to come out cheaper.

Of course, your overall cost has to factor in lower maintenance costs for the EV, but higher upfront costs, and likely higher insurance costs due to higher value. Overall I still think most people eventually are going to come out ahead on cost, at least comparing new to new.

“Higher maintenance costs” depend how long you own your ICE, what model it is, and if you get a shitty one. Or, if like lots of EV converts you are going from a truck or phinicky import sedan, to an ev sedan.

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Originally Posted by dunfree

“Higher maintenance costs” depend how long you own your ICE, what model it is, and if you get a shitty one. Or, if like lots of EV converts you are going from a truck or phinicky import sedan, to an ev sedan.

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Sure it depends on the car, but I said lower maintenance costs on an EV, not higher. That might change if you keep the EV long enough to require a battery replacement but the scheduled maintenance on an EV is way less than any ICE.

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

Sure it depends on the car, but I said lower maintenance costs on an EV, not higher. That might change if you keep the EV long enough to require a battery replacement but the scheduled maintenance on an EV is way less than any ICE.

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scheduled maintenance on boring well made new sedans (Camry) isn’t much of a number - couple hundred bucks, maybe into a grand - it’s why Uber exists. That’s kind of a thing people go from expensive maintenance ice to econo box ev and say “everything is ev!”

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

That might change if you keep the EV long enough to require a battery replacement

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Seriously. The nightmare stories I keep hearing about the cost of Tesla batteries is a big part of my deterrence from the obscenely overpriced ones on the used market. You seriously might as well go new and dump it when the warranty's up. Although that's not very environmentally conscious either for a multitude of reasons.

I can't wait until the day when we can pick up cheap refurb battery packs or individual cells like you can on Priuses and such. The current Tesla corp model of doing ENTIRE battery swaps when sometimes it's a few individual and theoretically serviceable cells is crazy wasteful. I know they probably recycle the packs, but still. It could all be done so much better.

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Originally Posted by AK47bp

55 mpg in your Prius? Is it a plug in hybrid?

Wife just leased a Hybrid CRV (non plug in) and the piece of shit is averaging 27 MPG right now.




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Prius AWD. Prius prime doesn’t come all-wheel-drive or we would’ve bought it. My friends have a CRV hybrid and they get 27 or so as well. (My 350hp Bmw gets 27 mpg.). I have another friend who has the hybrid RAV4 and they get 34 or so.
When we brought the Prius ~six months ago, there was one Sienna hybrid in a 500 mile circle around our house, and there still are no RAV4 primes being brought into Washington.
Again, this is cool stuff, but in ~10? years the infrastructural will be in place and I’ll be driving some electric car, I’m sure.

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Originally Posted by dunfree

scheduled maintenance on boring well made new sedans (Camry) isn’t much of a number - couple hundred bucks, maybe into a grand - it’s why Uber exists. That’s kind of a thing people go from expensive maintenance ice to econo box ev and say “everything is ev!”

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Why are you talking about comparing expensive Euro status wagon ICEs to econobox EVs? I'm comparing an econobox ICE to a cheap-ish EV because I've purchased both new and driven and maintained both. The EV is nicer and more expensive so it's not a 100% fair comparison, I'll grant that. But... the ICE has filters, oil changes, brakes, etc. that an EV doesn't have. OK the EV technically has brakes but they never wear out because the regen handles most of it. Seriously, there is more regular maintenance and more shit that can go wrong on an ICE than an EV, arguing otherwise is dumb. My EV's maintenance schedule includes rotating tires, replacing cabin air filter, replacing wipers, inspecting shit, and finally replacing coolant at 140k mi. That's it. Please link to a boring well made new sedan ICE with the same or less.

I did not spend much on maintenance for my econobox ICE in the four years and 100k mi that I owned it. You're right, it was pretty cheap, new cars are pretty damn good. But the EV is absolutely, without question, less maintenance.

And I have no idea why you're talking about Uber. Are you trying to say that Uber exists to get you around while you're having your ICE worked on? My commute is 50mi each way, so Uber is not realistic, and I do my own maintenance for just about anything that's not software.

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Originally Posted by MontuckyFried

Seriously. The nightmare stories I keep hearing about the cost of Tesla batteries is a big part of my deterrence from the obscenely overpriced ones on the used market.

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You seem to have a fixation with the issues on used Teslas. There are companies other than Tesla that build EVs, although Tesla wouldn't like to admit that.

Speaking of Teslas, I just learned they had a bicycle mode that has been removed now due to NHTSA concerns: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...op-fsd-recall/

Lol.

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Originally Posted by plugboots

Prius AWD. Prius prime doesn’t come all-wheel-drive or we would’ve bought it. My friends have a CRV hybrid and they get 27 or so as well. (My 350hp Bmw gets 27 mpg.). I have another friend who has the hybrid RAV4 and they get 34 or so.
When we brought the Prius ~six months ago, there was one Sienna hybrid in a 500 mile circle around our house, and there still are no RAV4 primes being brought into Washington.
Again, this is cool stuff, but in ~10? years the infrastructural will be in place and I’ll be driving some electric car, I’m sure.

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The Prius Prime Gen 1 came out in 2012. Never available in Iowa. Gen 2 in 2016 and not available.

2022 msrp 28k. Still not available.

Rav4 Prime. Not available on this market.

It is ridiculous.

But I could have a Model 3 now.

Your mileage with the awd is impressive.



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Originally Posted by adrenalated

You seem to have a fixation with the issues on used Teslas. There are companies other than Tesla that build EVs, although Tesla wouldn't like to admit that.

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Not at all! The Kia EV6 and upcoming Hyundai Ioniq 6 rank high on my list. Also would be interested in the Bolt if they weren't going for silly prices these days. Esp considering their entire purpose was supposed to be an affordable EV for the masses.

THAT SAID, the reason Tesla is still likely my #1 pick simply boils down to the charging network. It is hands down the best in the business. Electrify America is complete ass by comparison. No big deal for MOST people who just commute and can do 99% of their charging at home, but I'm going to need it for work and I go to a lot of very rural places where only Tesla superchargers exist. At times my commute can be hundreds of miles at a time in the middle of nowhere. Tesla has mostly taken away my range anxiety fears. The rest of the pack has yet to catch up on that front. When that's addressed, it opens up all of our options a LOT.

Now what I may end up doing is getting any EV for city duty and a PHEV or something else super economical for road warrior duty. I really wish Ford and GM would knock it off with their SUV obsessions or that could also be a good route due to rural dealer network. I would be equally skrewd if I broke down in a Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, or European car in some of the places I have to go. Yeah, I'm picky.

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Originally Posted by plugboots

My friends have a CRV hybrid and they get 27 or so as well. (My 350hp Bmw gets 27 mpg.). I have another friend who has the hybrid RAV4 and they get 34 or so.

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FWIW, Mrs C's hybrid RAV4 (2021, current version) returns around 35 on winter gas (with a ski rack on roof), around 38 on summer, both on stock tires. On the recent drive between Reno and SLC with a roof box (without the ski rack), at around 80 mph cruise control setting, it was 28mpg.

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

Why are you talking about comparing expensive Euro status wagon ICEs to econobox EVs? I'm comparing an econobox ICE to a cheap-ish EV because I've purchased both new and driven and maintained both. The EV is nicer and more expensive so it's not a 100% fair comparison, I'll grant that. But... the ICE has filters, oil changes, brakes, etc. that an EV doesn't have. OK the EV technically has brakes but they never wear out because the regen handles most of it. Seriously, there is more regular maintenance and more shit that can go wrong on an ICE than an EV, arguing otherwise is dumb. My EV's maintenance schedule includes rotating tires, replacing cabin air filter, replacing wipers, inspecting shit, and finally replacing coolant at 140k mi. That's it. Please link to a boring well made new sedan ICE with the same or less.

I did not spend much on maintenance for my econobox ICE in the four years and 100k mi that I owned it. You're right, it was pretty cheap, new cars are pretty damn good. But the EV is absolutely, without question, less maintenance.

And I have no idea why you're talking about Uber. Are you trying to say that Uber exists to get you around while you're having your ICE worked on? My commute is 50mi each way, so Uber is not realistic, and I do my own maintenance for just about anything that's not software.



You seem to have a fixation with the issues on used Teslas. There are companies other than Tesla that build EVs, although Tesla wouldn't like to admit that.

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replacing the front pads on my econobox ice cost me <$30 and 20 minutes. Maintenance & operating costs are quite low, which is why services like Uber can exist. Look at what maintenance a Camry needs before 90k, it’s not much different - it’s filters, etc. major difference is oil changes.

Prius V has needed one front wheel bearing in 210k miles. That is the extent of repairs not related to smashing into a deer or wheel lugs being overtorqued by dealership during free maintenance period and needing replaced.

That said I read people complaining that the Tesla brakes need to be serviced often to lubricate the sliding pins. BFD. I do that anyway on all of our cars probably every other time I rotate tires at a minimum. Its called living in the rustbelt. Even cars without electric motors to stop them need to have the pins lubed.