The impending Big Auto / Oil implosion explained (2018)
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I am simultaneously humored and saddened by the amount of fear and outright misinformation which is constantly spread about electric vehicles.
For a 14-month period, I used to own a 1997 Geo Metro 1.0L/5spd as a cheap daily driver. The whole point of owning the Geo was to spend less money on my mundane driving than I would if I instead drove my big block Grand Prix, or my big block Suburban, or my lifted Jeep Wrangler (none of which will achieve 15 mpg in typical daily driving). The Geo got 45 mpg, so it cost me a whole lot less than any of my other cars.
I even did the math. My GP and the Burb--both of which run on an exclusive diet of non-ethanol mid-grade gasoline--could only travel about 4 miles per dollar of gasoline (assuming $3.00 and 12 miles per gallon). The Metro was usually happy on regular, and I didn't care about running ethanol through it, so it could cover about 16 miles per dollar of fuel (based on $2.70 per gallon). Four times the distance for the same price? It couldn't get any better than that, I thought at the time. As it turns out, I was wrong--very, very wrong.
In May of this year, I sold the Metro for a grand and replaced it with an electric car. It's a 2013 Nissan Leaf, and I bought it for a paltry $6000. Right off the bat, I was happier driving this car. It is more spacious, more comfortable, has many more features, is exponentially safer, faster, and extremely quiet. But the best part--and the entire reason I bought it--is it is also much more efficient than the Metro. How much so? Based on my home cost of electricity at $.0876 per kWh and my observed average 'economy' of 4.8-5.0 miles/kWh, the Leaf travels 55 miles per dollar. In other words, it goes three times the distance of the Metro for the same cost of fuel. Gee, could it get any better than that?!?
Actually, it can. In my area, there are a number of free public charging stations available. This means I can drive to the local mall and plug in when I park. Then I can head inside to shop, or dine at any of the dozens of restaurants in/on the property, etc. When I'm done, I simply walk back to my car, unplug, and drive away. This is the true beauty of driving an EV, and it didn't take me long to get hooked. I use charging stations near other restaurants, or grocery stores, or whatever my destination may be.
To date, I have put 3,800 miles on the Leaf. In all that time, I have only charged at home a handful of times--the vast majority of my charging is done at convenient public stations. My home charger tracks the amount of electricity it uses, so I can tell you all that to date I have paid for exactly 92.05 kWh to charge my car--all the rest has been free. This means I have spent only $8.06 to drive those 3,800 miles, which works out to over 470 miles per dollar of fuel cost. Needless to say, driving this car has been extremely satisfying.
Yes, batteries do degrade over time. However, some implementations are much more robust than others. My Leaf is the poster child for battery degradation, as Nissan did not install any sort of liquid-cooled thermal battery management--the battery pack is only passively air-cooled via heat sinks (there's not even a fan in the car to blow air through the battery compartment). Most other EVs--the Bolt, the 500e, Spark EV, Teslas, etc--all use liquid to thermally manage the battery pack and therefore they get much longer battery life. It is common for those cars to go 100,000+ miles with no battery issues.
But even if my battery pack were to die, so what? Ever had a car engine spin a bearing, or throw a rod? How much did you spend having the engine rebuilt? I had to rebuild the 454 which got dropped into my Grand Prix, and between the machine shop bill plus all the new parts I spent as much as I would putting a replacement battery pack in the Leaf. What's the difference?
It's called a paradigm shift. You have to completely change how you look at (and go about) fueling your vehicle. With a gas-powered car, you drive until you are low on fuel. Then you go out of your way to stop at a gas station, stand there and refuel, then you get back in your car and resume your journey. Sure, it may only take five minutes, but for those five minutes you are doing nothing else. With an EV, you do something else while your car re-fuels itself. Plug in, then go shop. Or eat. Or work. Or sleep.
That's the neat part for those who charge at home: you park at home, plug in, and go inside. In the morning you come out to your car and the 'tank' is full, ready to go. Never again are you forced to go out of your way to stop at a station and just stand there in the heat/cold/snow/whatever while your car re-fuels. It's amazing. I never knew how much I wouldn't miss stopping at a gas station.
And finally, a word about range. Almost everybody who has never experienced an EV complains about range. Quite frankly, most people do not need a range of 200+ miles. Do the math! Let's say you drive 15,000 miles per year (which is higher than the average American). Furthermore, let's say you do all this driving on your long commute to work, which means only on weekdays. With 5 workdays per week and 52 weeks in a year, that means you're driving for 260 days. If you go 15,000 miles in those 260 days, you're putting 57.7 miles per day on your car. Even my old Leaf can do that. When you get home at night, just plug in. In the morning, you'll be ready to go for another day's drive. It's easy.
Is an electric vehicle 'right' for everyone to use as their only car? Of course not. Indeed, I still have my fleet of gas-powered cars and I don't intend to give up any of them. But when it comes to your ho-hum daily driving, an EV can make a lot of sense for a whole lot of people... and most of them don't realize it.
For a 14-month period, I used to own a 1997 Geo Metro 1.0L/5spd as a cheap daily driver. The whole point of owning the Geo was to spend less money on my mundane driving than I would if I instead drove my big block Grand Prix, or my big block Suburban, or my lifted Jeep Wrangler (none of which will achieve 15 mpg in typical daily driving). The Geo got 45 mpg, so it cost me a whole lot less than any of my other cars.
I even did the math. My GP and the Burb--both of which run on an exclusive diet of non-ethanol mid-grade gasoline--could only travel about 4 miles per dollar of gasoline (assuming $3.00 and 12 miles per gallon). The Metro was usually happy on regular, and I didn't care about running ethanol through it, so it could cover about 16 miles per dollar of fuel (based on $2.70 per gallon). Four times the distance for the same price? It couldn't get any better than that, I thought at the time. As it turns out, I was wrong--very, very wrong.
In May of this year, I sold the Metro for a grand and replaced it with an electric car. It's a 2013 Nissan Leaf, and I bought it for a paltry $6000. Right off the bat, I was happier driving this car. It is more spacious, more comfortable, has many more features, is exponentially safer, faster, and extremely quiet. But the best part--and the entire reason I bought it--is it is also much more efficient than the Metro. How much so? Based on my home cost of electricity at $.0876 per kWh and my observed average 'economy' of 4.8-5.0 miles/kWh, the Leaf travels 55 miles per dollar. In other words, it goes three times the distance of the Metro for the same cost of fuel. Gee, could it get any better than that?!?
Actually, it can. In my area, there are a number of free public charging stations available. This means I can drive to the local mall and plug in when I park. Then I can head inside to shop, or dine at any of the dozens of restaurants in/on the property, etc. When I'm done, I simply walk back to my car, unplug, and drive away. This is the true beauty of driving an EV, and it didn't take me long to get hooked. I use charging stations near other restaurants, or grocery stores, or whatever my destination may be.
To date, I have put 3,800 miles on the Leaf. In all that time, I have only charged at home a handful of times--the vast majority of my charging is done at convenient public stations. My home charger tracks the amount of electricity it uses, so I can tell you all that to date I have paid for exactly 92.05 kWh to charge my car--all the rest has been free. This means I have spent only $8.06 to drive those 3,800 miles, which works out to over 470 miles per dollar of fuel cost. Needless to say, driving this car has been extremely satisfying.
Yes, batteries do degrade over time. However, some implementations are much more robust than others. My Leaf is the poster child for battery degradation, as Nissan did not install any sort of liquid-cooled thermal battery management--the battery pack is only passively air-cooled via heat sinks (there's not even a fan in the car to blow air through the battery compartment). Most other EVs--the Bolt, the 500e, Spark EV, Teslas, etc--all use liquid to thermally manage the battery pack and therefore they get much longer battery life. It is common for those cars to go 100,000+ miles with no battery issues.
But even if my battery pack were to die, so what? Ever had a car engine spin a bearing, or throw a rod? How much did you spend having the engine rebuilt? I had to rebuild the 454 which got dropped into my Grand Prix, and between the machine shop bill plus all the new parts I spent as much as I would putting a replacement battery pack in the Leaf. What's the difference?
It's called a paradigm shift. You have to completely change how you look at (and go about) fueling your vehicle. With a gas-powered car, you drive until you are low on fuel. Then you go out of your way to stop at a gas station, stand there and refuel, then you get back in your car and resume your journey. Sure, it may only take five minutes, but for those five minutes you are doing nothing else. With an EV, you do something else while your car re-fuels itself. Plug in, then go shop. Or eat. Or work. Or sleep.
That's the neat part for those who charge at home: you park at home, plug in, and go inside. In the morning you come out to your car and the 'tank' is full, ready to go. Never again are you forced to go out of your way to stop at a station and just stand there in the heat/cold/snow/whatever while your car re-fuels. It's amazing. I never knew how much I wouldn't miss stopping at a gas station.
And finally, a word about range. Almost everybody who has never experienced an EV complains about range. Quite frankly, most people do not need a range of 200+ miles. Do the math! Let's say you drive 15,000 miles per year (which is higher than the average American). Furthermore, let's say you do all this driving on your long commute to work, which means only on weekdays. With 5 workdays per week and 52 weeks in a year, that means you're driving for 260 days. If you go 15,000 miles in those 260 days, you're putting 57.7 miles per day on your car. Even my old Leaf can do that. When you get home at night, just plug in. In the morning, you'll be ready to go for another day's drive. It's easy.
Is an electric vehicle 'right' for everyone to use as their only car? Of course not. Indeed, I still have my fleet of gas-powered cars and I don't intend to give up any of them. But when it comes to your ho-hum daily driving, an EV can make a lot of sense for a whole lot of people... and most of them don't realize it.
Brand new sbc with warranty is 1600 from summit jegs or any other place
I have had cars from the 70's and older still running no problems to this very day with original drive trains
Even half the owners here have the original engines UNTOUCHED
Your Leaf is 6 years old and needs a new "engine" already
Nissan even admits their batterys are good for aprrox 5 year before they loose 20% of their capacity
The smallest 24kwh "Refurbished" Leaf battery cost $2850, not sure if that includes the install.
I have had cars from the 70's and older still running no problems to this very day with original drive trains
Even half the owners here have the original engines UNTOUCHED
Your Leaf is 6 years old and needs a new "engine" already
Nissan even admits their batterys are good for aprrox 5 year before they loose 20% of their capacity
The smallest 24kwh "Refurbished" Leaf battery cost $2850, not sure if that includes the install.
I started typing a reply similar to this but it ran too long and got a little political so I quit lol. Agree 100%. I drive a Jetta TDI that probably should have been crushed a decade ago. I drive it because I put on 100+ miles A DAY and would go broke with any less than 40mpg. This little piece of poo gets 47mpg, even when it was running like garbage. If I could afford an electric car with sufficient range at the moment I would be all over it, but I don't want a monthly payment and don't have quite enough in the savings to pick up a used one just yet.
Also, that misinformation doesn't just apply to electric vehicles, it applies to just about ANYTHING ANYONE is trying to do about going greener. Whether you believe that climate change is a crisis or not, we all know that plastic and hyrdocarbons are bad. Unfortunately, we're stuck with them for now, because we are dependant on them. That's why I hate hearing things like "Well Greta Thunburg is wearing shoes! and came here on a boat powered by diesel! and lithium batteries are encased in plastic!" Of course all these things are true! I'm potty training my toddler right now, but he really likes his diapers. Throws a fit whenever I try to change him, and even worse when I sit him on the toilet. Should I scrap potty training just because we still have diapers? Try again after we run out? I'm gonna stop there, I'm sure I've already gotten too carried away
Try that same comparison with just about any modern vehicle. Modern cars are more expensive to fix, and break way more often than the old stuff. The transmission in my 2010 charger cost me over $3000 to replace with A USED ONE, at 113000kms (70000mi,) and I doubt there's many (any?) hemi rams out there that go more than 150000 miles without some kind of major repair. Or 5.4 Triton. Or LS......
Really, lets at least TRY to compare apples to apples
The problem there is you named the so called big 3, try that again with a Toyota gas powered cat.
I never bought a new car and most likely never will.
I'm not a fan of Japanese cars, even though I have to admit their gas powered cars are superior and the big 3 American manufactures put out 3rd world overseas parts junk.
This argument is old......where all the E85 cars?????????
Petroleum still comes out on top.
Yeah the PA turnpike was only supposed to be a toll road until it was paid for- and currently tolls are the highest they've ever been! Similar story with property tax- it was created to displace lost tax revenue from the liquor tax during prohibition. Well prohibition ended in 1933 but we're still paying property taxes!
F*cking right! We aren't running out of corn anytime soon!
Electric cars wont work for me since I do 500 plus miles a day and upwards of 50k miles year. Minimum. An electric car would be worn out before the loan is paid off needing to replace it with something else if I financed. I will stick with gas powered trucks that can handle all terrain and more comfortable for long drives.
Fair enough, there are some actual reliable vehicles still out there. I guess I'm just trying to say that a $3000+ repair bill can be expected on many, many current gas vehicles, so that isn't a deal breaker for me.
I'm no climate activist, nor am I against oil and gas, I just know that this is just the beginning of a looong transition, so I dont have to make a choice between my big block or an electric motor, and I can have one of each!
Personally if I had the money to buy an electric car, I'd still rather build one.
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