Charging to get home

There are always a couple of Debbie Downers who show up in every thread having anything to do with EVs.
Don't like EVs? Don't buy one.
What owners have shown is that these can be perfectly practical and usable daily driver cars.
Only those who have had the experience can make anything more than theoretical comments on the advantages and downsides of EV ownership.
There is also the halfway house of HEV ownership, which offer vastly better range than gas only cars as well as incredible fuel economy along with the convenience of being able to buy fuel anywhere, no planning needed. For the warmer six months of each year, I typically see range on a full tank in excess of 700 miles and will average well over 50 mpg.
I suppose HEVs aren't very good either?

+1

We got our EV because its more convenient than a gas car. My wife drives about 30 miles a day, ALWAYS parks in our garage where there is power.
 
Just try to imagine if you had to drive your ICE vehicle in this manner. Most people would become disgusted with the whole "procedure" by the end of the first day.

It's all too reminiscent of the Arab oil embargo of the 70's. Waiting in gas lines for limited purchases, that you had to make on a daily basis, if you had to drive any distance.

I'm still searching to understand how this is any kind of improvement in modern automotive transportation?... Along with how and why some people become so fascinated by it?


The majority of EV buyers are too young to have experienced the embargo period. They probably weren’t taught about it either.
 
Depends on where. I used to be supplied by these guys (City of Santa Clara). I almost want to cry with what PG&E charges.

https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocument/6253/638236376834400000

View attachment 177701
Im curious what your "Customer Charge" is.
Bear with me in trying to understand your post. The above is your total charge per kWh correct? Those seem reasonable.
What would be your cost per kWh if you took the total of the bill and divided it by the kWh's used?
 
+1

We got our EV because its more convenient than a gas car. My wife drives about 30 miles a day, ALWAYS parks in our garage where there is power.
I have to agree with this. I dont own and EV BUT when time for a new second car it may be a possibility IF the price is right.
My wife's car goes nowhere, sometimes sits days at a time, sometimes a week, possibly. However for us, cost would be a factor but right now the $7,500 that other Americans have to pay for us if we buy one levels the playing field. I didnt vote for this but others have, so let the young pay for it down the road.
 
I have to agree with this. I dont own and EV BUT when time for a new second car it may be a possibility IF the price is right.
My wife's car goes nowhere, sometimes sits days at a time, sometimes a week, possibly. However for us, cost would be a factor but right now the $7,500 that other Americans have to pay for us if we buy one levels the playing field. I didnt vote for this but others have, so let the young pay for it down the road.

I don't even get the full $7500 on our Mach-E Because not enough of it is made in the USA! I only get $3750
 
Im curious what your "Customer Charge" is.
Bear with me in trying to understand your post. The above is your total charge per kWh correct? Those seem reasonable.
What would be your cost per kWh if you took the total of the bill and divided it by the kWh's used?

There’s a fixed monthly charge for every account. I don’t deal with them any more, but I remember they were always cheaper.
 
The majority of EV buyers are too young to have experienced the embargo period. They probably weren’t taught about it either.
True. I'll never forget it. Waiting to buy fuel is about as appealing to me as waiting for battery charging. I experienced one, and as a result I have no desire to experience the other.
 
True. I'll never forget it. Waiting to buy fuel is about as appealing to me as waiting for battery charging. I experienced one, and as a result I have no desire to experience the other.

Interesting, we actually got an EV in part to not end up in the situation where as always, the Houston population line up at gas stations before a hurricane.

Now no matter what happens, we can drive
 
I thought you loved PG&E. They buy your electricity at favorable rates, subsidized your solar panels, have provided you a deal that nobody else can get…sounds like they’re your benefactor. 🤷‍♂️

I’m teasing.

You say you hate PG&E about as often as you tell us how much you love Tesla. Which is pretty darn often…
The reason I hate PG&E is their criminal irresponsibility. They blew up San Bruno in 2010. Their old architecture causes multiple forest fires every year in both state and federal lands. They paid $50M and had numerous charges including 4 felony involuntary manslaughter for the 2020 ZOGG fire.
Their executives get crazy bonuses and their service is horrid. That's what a monopoly gets you.

Teslas are great, depending on your use case. They are not for everyone. Do I love my Tesla? Well, I bought the car for my wife but have come to appreciate it far more than I ever expected. I will buy another. But that doesn't mean everyone should. I believe I have discouraged some potential buyers who have been caught up in the Tesla hype. "How ya gonna charge?" and "These cars are expensive..." are my primary considerations.

I can understand how readers might find me a fanboy. I am a little car crazy and Teslas are cars. But this is the EV section so give a poor boy a break!
All good Astro.
 
Just try to imagine if you had to drive your ICE vehicle in this manner. Most people would become disgusted with the whole "procedure" by the end of the first day.

It's all too reminiscent of the Arab oil embargo of the 70's. Waiting in gas lines for limited purchases, that you had to make on a daily basis, if you had to drive any distance.

I'm still searching to understand how this is any kind of improvement in modern automotive transportation?... Along with how and why some people become so fascinated by it?
I am not trying to get you or anyone else to buy an EV. Potential buyers need to understand that these cars are different then ICE vehicles in many ways; fueling being the primary difference.
ICE cars gas up in a few minutes and off you go. The "charge to destination" EV process is to minimize Supercharger time and expense. My nature is to fill up, but the optimal way can be to make more, shorter time charging stops. Different, to be sure. And that assumes there is available charging when you arrive at your destination and have the idle time. Big assumption IMO.

In 16K miles I have been on 3 Superchargers. The 1st time was to try it out to learn how it works; I was at a Starbucks and plugged in for maybe 5 minutes. The 2nd and 3rd time were on a 180 mile round trip run to our other home in Petaluma. I can make it on a 95% home charge; I did not have to stop. These stops were so I can better understand longer distance EV use.
So I have spent maybe 1/2 hour charging. ICE vehicles have spent maybe 40 to 60 trips to the gas station in 16K miles. So who spends more time fueling? Now add in lubricant services... I can tell you fueling up at home is far better than visiting a gas station.

Now, IMO, it is about your use case and what you want. Use case is key. For someone like @Cujet an EV would increase his travel time significantly. The #1 reason people go back to ICE is charging issues. There are owners who only charge at work, but they are statistically outliers. Some owners only charge at Superchargers; that has to be expensive and time wasting. I sure as heck wouldn't own an EV if I could not charge at home.

Like any other car, it is also about what you want. Not the best reason, but it's your money.
 
Last edited:
+1! Its the best part

If I rented an apartment, I think it would be off the the table

Depends. Some people bought into Tesla's free Supercharging for life, which has ended as a routine perk, but which has been brought back with occasional promotions. Some have free charging at work or various public chargers - especially at government buildings.

One of the reasons why Tesla brought out their "Urban Supercharger" was to provide charging for urban condo/apartment dwellers who might not be able to charge at home. These 72 kW setups may not be as fast, but that might be better in the long run for battery longevity, and in any case the charge tapers off where the peak charging rate is going to be for a short period of time.

Now, as part of our commitment to make Tesla ownership easy for everyone, including those without immediate access to home or workplace charging, we are expanding our Supercharger network into city centers, starting with downtown Chicago and Boston.​
 
Have Kindle, will charge. Just need someone to give me the EV now. For my typical life and usage I could charge at home on 110 and be good. Maybe take a short stint at an offsite charger when I make the 95 mile round trip to meet family for lunch. With a Kindle it doesn't really matter how long it takes to charge. The longer the better really.
 
Have Kindle, will charge. Just need someone to give me the EV now. For my typical life and usage I could charge at home on 110 and be good. Maybe take a short stint at an offsite charger when I make the 95 mile round trip to meet family for lunch. With a Kindle it doesn't really matter how long it takes to charge. The longer the better really.
I'm not sure about the 95 mile round trip thing considering there's not a car on the market now without more than enough range to do that. What surprises me is how well 110V does it's thing. I probably couldn't rely on it with extreme cases with my schedule, but I haven't attempted that in cold weather, nor do I only drive the Tesla. My occasional 300 mile round trip does have me charging on the way back. The car is on track to do 8k miles this year which is more than double what my wife was driving her last car because I do drive it a decent amount and that's all on 110v plugged in overnight 2-3 times a week. It would never need to touch any public charging if it wasn't for the occasional family trip or if I would have a reason to take it for work.
 
I'm not sure about the 95 mile round trip thing considering there's not a car on the market now without more than enough range to do that. What surprises me is how well 110V does it's thing. I probably couldn't rely on it with extreme cases with my schedule, but I haven't attempted that in cold weather, nor do I only drive the Tesla. My occasional 300 mile round trip does have me charging on the way back. The car is on track to do 8k miles this year which is more than double what my wife was driving her last car because I do drive it a decent amount and that's all on 110v plugged in overnight 2-3 times a week. It would never need to touch any public charging if it wasn't for the occasional family trip or if I would have a reason to take it for work.
No, even the Mini would probably make it with a mile or three to spare. But I might charge once, especially if we met at Cracker Barrel or somewhere with on-site charging, just to do it once. Just have to wait for someone to give me the EV now. :)
 
EV's absolutely excel in city driving - imagine polar opposite of ICE where city gets you best range/efficiency and highway is less range/efficiency.

I am on week #2 in a Toyota Corolla rental (review coming soon) as my ID.4 is in the body shop due to a sideswipe by an impatient driver. I should be turning the Corolla back over in the next couple days but I am figuring once all is said and done its been ~$60 in gas to go ~400 miles, my ID.4 would have been ~$30-33 if I had to use Electrify America to go ~450 miles but I pretty much charge free at work so best case it would have been $0. After ~320 miles my overall average MPG in the Corolla is a whopping 24.2 MPG (I reset it as soon as I got the rental) - there is nothing wrong with the car as it easily hits its 38 MPG hwy number, just my commute sucks it and I have never seen good economy no matter what ICE I drive. Living in the city is just the absolute pits for non-hybrid ICE fuel economy - my old Jetta TDI would only pull down 22-23 MPG, Altima 2.5 which is a fuel economy champ hovered around 20MPG, Camry another fuel economy champ was in the 19-20 range, when I had gas guzzler Mercedes V6's I did see high single digits a couple times but low to mid-teens were more normal. Moving to an EV with my commute pattern was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

In the city or slow crawling traffic EV's are much much better.
 
Just try to imagine if you had to drive your ICE vehicle in this manner. Most people would become disgusted with the whole "procedure" by the end of the first day.

It's all too reminiscent of the Arab oil embargo of the 70's. Waiting in gas lines for limited purchases, that you had to make on a daily basis, if you had to drive any distance.

I'm still searching to understand how this is any kind of improvement in modern automotive transportation?... Along with how and why some people become so fascinated by it?
I wouldn't look at it that way. It is more like do you want to eat out for a full meal if you have left over at home that cost you half as much. Why would you want to pay $30/meal when better food at home is already there for $10/meal, right? At work or at home EV owners just plug them in and forget about it, you don't even need to get off the road to a gas station.

I know a few coworkers living in apartment with Tesla, they just charge at work, at grocery stores, at Target, at the mall, whenever they park their cars they park at the chargers and just leave when it is slightly topped off.
 
There’s a fixed monthly charge for every account. I don’t deal with them any more, but I remember they were always cheaper.
For my PG&E (or SVCE) rate I am not on TOU, and I would pay about the same for TOU in my model.

I remember typically the generation is about 1/2 of the total and the other half is transmission, and I'm slightly over tier 1 consumption into tier 2, and the electric portion of my bill is usually $60 in spring and about $180-220 in the summer per month for about 320kwh or so. I remember a lot of solar guys say I am not a good customer for going solar because I'm not using too much, and I have a north facing roof.
 
Back
Top Bottom