EV lots getting cleaned out.

[Rmay635703]

How do you think consumers would react if EVs had just as much range, cost about the same and there were significantly more chargers?

Curious how the new BMW i3 does against the ICE version.

This reminds me of Honda making the Gen 1 Honda Insight into a steel body car the CRZ.

I would rather see the gas powered 3 series become composite body with an electric option rather than the rust prone example being put forward.

Lets face it, there isn’t much in NA that can’t rust.

Thread 'EV car camping'

Sep 1, 2023

In a Kia EV6. he normally drives a lifted Ford Ranger Diesel for his adventures, but decided to take the wife's EV6 for a camping trip

He was also on the waiting list for the Cybertruck truck, but then realized, an EV is not for his youtube channel, as the Cybertruck is too huge, and charging enroute to his sites would add too much time.

• UG_Passat
• Replies: 13
• Forum: Electric Vehicles

• 
• 

 

[jghall00]

Every time I use GM’s route planning when I had the Prologue and in the Equinox EV it’s pretty much worthless. And apparently still better than what other companies have?

I haven't had any issues with the route planning, apart from the fact that it doesn't consider charging cost or congestion. The Google Maps battery percentage prediction is usually spot on and it updates in real-time, which is helpful because I drive very fast when traveling. But I just pick my preferred chargers in advance since I want to save money and have a secondary option. During the drive I run GMaps to make sure I'll make it to the charger with enough buffer to have a 2nd option, then I switch to Waze. It generally just takes a few minutes in Plugshare to select a target charger.

 

[goingplacesanddoingstuff]

Yes, that's the standard method through which capacity factor is calculated.

Playing with the calculation of course eliminates the ability to compare it with other sources. Solar is a good summer peaking resource, as, at moderate levels of penetration, its output profile aligns well with peak periods historically filled by gas plants, particularly when paired with moderate levels of storage to cover the ramps. The problem is that winter peaks do not occur during these periods, so, as a winter resource, it does not provide the same value, which, combined with much lower output, creates an energy availability issue.

Efficiency and output are of course very different things. On a clear day during the winter, it's quite easy to hit peak efficiency, but output is going to be considerably lower because of the reduced hours of production, which your graphs below also show. Unfortunately, at least up here, snow cover and a lack of clear skies make those periods reasonably infrequent, which you can see in the graph I provided.

Going back to capacity factor for a moment, CF's for solar in the low-to-mid 20's are also quite common for us here, in the summer months, that's why I specifically brought up the winter period, which presents a very different slate of challenges.

I was more addressing your point on self-sufficiency and claim that this could be mostly achieved by solar being placed elsewhere on a property, not just a roof. And that the market would ultimately "sort this out" when compared to competing sources. The 114kWh you posted above for the month of December wouldn't even touch my energy consumption for that month:
View attachment 343612

let alone provide some level of self sustenance.

The push to electrify things exasperates the issue (I have a hybrid HVAC system that uses a heat pump for temps warmer than about -8C) as heating demand is highest during the hours that solar isn't producing.

I'm not anti solar by any stretch, but we have to be realistic about its abilities; about its strengths and weaknesses as a source.

I don’t disagree with anything here, I just think we see the same data with two different perspectives.

From my perspective, worst case scenario in the dead of winter, it generates a free 400 miles of EV travel. Plus protection from power outages for a whole house via batteries.

I have nothing really to say about commercial grid-level solar. It may or may not make sense depending on the geography. If I were putting a data center in Arizona you bet your bippy I’d be looking into it. Ontario, probably not.

My point was more that home solar, even at surprisingly northern latitudes, can make sense for various reasons, and that a lot of common negative assumptions about home solar (that is expensive, that it doesn’t work in winter, that it isn’t worth the investment) really are becoming less of a consideration due to newer technologies and techniques.

 

[jghall00]

I have nothing really to say about commercial grid-level solar. It may or may not make sense depending on the geography. If I were putting a data center in Arizona you bet your bippy I’d be looking into it. Ontario, probably not.

My point was more that home solar, even at surprisingly northern latitudes, can make sense for various reasons, and that a lot of common negative assumptions about home solar (that is expensive, that it doesn’t work in winter, that it isn’t worth the investment) really are becoming less of a consideration due to newer technologies and techniques.

These posts (one and two) discuss load shifting in Ontario. Perhaps some insulated batteries for arbitrage is a better deal than full on solar if that 2.8 cent rate is widely available.

 

[alarmguy]

..

So many EV owners, even with the shortcomings, say they will never go back to ICE.There's a reason for it. My guess is, EVs will continue to take marketshare as they get better and charging at home improves (condos and apartments).

this is the latest news I could find on your post
Roughly 25% of people who own electric vehicles would go back to gasoline

I didn’t include the link from 2024 that says 46% would go back to gasoline because I still consider EV’s in their infancy

https://www.spglobal.com/automotive...vehicle-owners-migrating-to-gasoline-vehicles

https://electrek.co/2026/03/27/used-ev-sales-boom-new-ev-sales-drop-28-percent-q1-2026/

 

[AuthorEditor]

I only know two people well that own EVs. One said he would go back to gas, the other will stay EV but he owns a gas car for trips.

 

[OVERKILL]

I don’t disagree with anything here, I just think we see the same data with two different perspectives.

From my perspective, worst case scenario in the dead of winter, it generates a free 400 miles of EV travel. Plus protection from power outages for my whole home via batteries.

Yes, and you clearly don't have my winter demand profile. I'm using 67kWh/day on average in December there, which is more than half of what your array in December produced for the whole month, lol.

A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5kWh, so I'd need 5x of them just for one day of battery storage during the winter. A single Powerwall is $11,959CDN, and the combo with two expansion units is $28,959, so each expansion unit is $8,500 and I'd need 4x, so that's $45,959 + tax and installation to get me through one day.

So there needs to be some considerable consideration on the inputs as to whether this pencils or not. I could get a whole house natural gas genset installed for 1/4 of that and run the whole place with impunity for weeks if needed. ( have a gasoline genset currently, that I got for free from work, that I use with a Generlink).

I have nothing really to say about commercial grid-level solar. It may or may not make sense depending on the geography. If I were putting a data center in Arizona you bet your bippy I’d be looking into it. Ontario, probably not.

Grid-scale solar absolutely makes sense for displacing summer peaking gas, at moderate levels of penetration. That it doesn't provide meaningful winter capacity, and none for that purpose is just part of the calculus. It's still cheap enough that it makes sense.

My point was more that home solar, even at surprisingly northern latitudes, can make sense for various reasons, and that a lot of common negative assumptions about home solar (that is expensive, that it doesn’t work in winter, that it isn’t worth the investment) really are becoming less of a consideration due to newer technologies and techniques.

It's all relative to the price of your grid power really and your demand. I've given you an example with my place, with my consumption. I have a buddy who is off-grid, he has an array and batteries, but has to run gensets during the winter because there simply isn't the sun to cover his usage. The solar makes sense for him due to the fuel savings cost.

If I look at my summer bills, the peak period is during 11AM to 5PM. I used 1,866kWh in August, 276kWh were during the peak period. Let's say I had an array that was similar in size to yours, so I was displacing that entire 276kWh, that would save me $43.61 for August, and much less in the shoulder and winter months. Let's say it saves me $400/year. If the array cost me $20,000 installed, that would take me 50 years for it to pay for itself, assuming rates didn't go up. Even if it only cost $10,000, the math doesn't work for my situation.

That said, in PG&E country where peak has moved to the evening, even during the day at $0.46/kWh, that $43.61 becomes $126.96 and assuming 8 months of air conditioning, that's $1,015.68, plus whatever it saves in the other 4. Let's say that's an additional $300 for a total of $1,315.68. At $20K, your payback is 15 years, at $10K your payback is less than 8. So in places that are more temperate with insane electricity prices, it pencils easily.

 

[Rmay635703]

I only know two people well that own EVs. One said he would go back to gas, the other will stay EV but he owns a gas car for trips.

I had a PHEV that did 99% of my city driving and could efficiently go on any trip.
That was ~3500 miles of EV travel.

The sad part is up until the last year or so a dedicated EV would have only increased my EV miles travel to maybe 5000 or 6000 miles due to lack of charging along and to my normal destinations (at least without a massive battery)

Now that battery range is supposedly 360+ miles on a few cars I could do a few more distant summer trips within range depending on if I stay overnight or not.

My view is an efficient PHEV still gets me 90% of the the way there

Now that insurance and registration costs more than the car payment or fuel itself it’s hard to justify a second ride.

 

[Rmay635703]

Yes, and you clearly don't have my winter demand profile. I'm using 67kWh/day on average in December there.

If I look at my summer bills, the peak period is during 11AM to 5PM. I used 1,866kWh in August, 276kWh were during the peak period.

Which is why I am glad that even in -40F weather my electric bill is still under $75, because I have multiple heat possibilities, wood/corn/fiber, gas or electricity. Each one is most efficient under specific circumstances

I’m also glad my summer electric bill sans taxes is about $5-$10, sadly taxes/fixed fees that are unavoidable are around $50.
But I use a small fraction of electricity compared to you year round.

 

[OVERKILL]

Which is why I am glad that even in -40F weather my electric bill is still under $75, because I have multiple heat possibilities, wood/corn/fiber, gas or electricity. Each one is most efficient under specific circumstances

I’m also glad my summer electric bill sans taxes is about $5-$10, sadly taxes/fixed fees that are unavoidable are around $50.
But I use a small fraction of electricity compared to you year round.

At anything below -8C, I'm running a multi-stage gas furnace, but December, particularly early in the month, is generally at or above the temperature that uses the heat pump, so my electricity use is pretty high, as can be seen. I'm heating/cooling about 3,200sq-ft of century home, so it's not the most efficient dwelling either.

 

[goingplacesanddoingstuff]

Yes, and you clearly don't have my winter demand profile. I'm using 67kWh/day on average in December there, which is more than half of what your array in December produced for the whole month, lol.

A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5kWh, so I'd need 5x of them just for one day of battery storage during the winter. A single Powerwall is $11,959CDN, and the combo with two expansion units is $28,959, so each expansion unit is $8,500 and I'd need 4x, so that's $45,959 + tax and installation to get me through one day.

So there needs to be some considerable consideration on the inputs as to whether this pencils or not. I could get a whole house natural gas genset installed for 1/4 of that and run the whole place with impunity for weeks if needed. ( have a gasoline genset currently, that I got for free from work, that I use with a Generlink).

Grid-scale solar absolutely makes sense for displacing summer peaking gas, at moderate levels of penetration. That it doesn't provide meaningful winter capacity, and none for that purpose is just part of the calculus. It's still cheap enough that it makes sense.

It's all relative to the price of your grid power really and your demand. I've given you an example with my place, with my consumption. I have a buddy who is off-grid, he has an array and batteries, but has to run gensets during the winter because there simply isn't the sun to cover his usage. The solar makes sense for him due to the fuel savings cost.

If I look at my summer bills, the peak period is during 11AM to 5PM. I used 1,866kWh in August, 276kWh were during the peak period. Let's say I had an array that was similar in size to yours, so I was displacing that entire 276kWh, that would save me $43.61 for August, and much less in the shoulder and winter months. Let's say it saves me $400/year. If the array cost me $20,000 installed, that would take me 50 years for it to pay for itself, assuming rates didn't go up. Even if it only cost $10,000, the math doesn't work for my situation.

That said, in PG&E country where peak has moved to the evening, even during the day at $0.46/kWh, that $43.61 becomes $126.96 and assuming 8 months of air conditioning, that's $1,015.68, plus whatever it saves in the other 4. Let's say that's an additional $300 for a total of $1,315.68. At $20K, your payback is 15 years, at $10K your payback is less than 8. So in places that are more temperate with insane electricity prices, it pencils easily.

Yes, you use a lot of energy. If your heating is electric there’s no way solar can cover for that in the winter. Physics is physics.

The house in my example has natural gas for heat and therefore uses 400-700 kWh per month by comparison. The solar covers 25% to 50% of the load. Not bad.

This conservatively works out to roughly $500-600 of savings per year, amortizing the entire battery setup (after tax breaks) over 15-20 years. So not the best pure cost profile, but certainly could have been done cheaper. If I knew then what I know now I could cut that amortization schedule roughly in half.

 

[jghall00]

Yes, and you clearly don't have my winter demand profile. I'm using 67kWh/day on average in December there, which is more than half of what your array in December produced for the whole month, lol.

A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5kWh, so I'd need 5x of them just for one day of battery storage during the winter. A single Powerwall is $11,959CDN, and the combo with two expansion units is $28,959, so each expansion unit is $8,500 and I'd need 4x, so that's $45,959 + tax and installation to get me through one day.

You can get two Docan Pandas for ~8,700 Canadian. That would equal 64 kW and would cover the bulk of your daily usage. What would the savings look like if you combined that with a discount off-peak rate? Technically with the off-peak you would only need enough battery to cover your daytime consumption.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Yes, and you clearly don't have my winter demand profile. I'm using 67kWh/day on average in December there, which is more than half of what your array in December produced for the whole month, lol.

A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5kWh, so I'd need 5x of them just for one day of battery storage during the winter. A single Powerwall is $11,959CDN, and the combo with two expansion units is $28,959, so each expansion unit is $8,500 and I'd need 4x, so that's $45,959 + tax and installation to get me through one day.

So there needs to be some considerable consideration on the inputs as to whether this pencils or not. I could get a whole house natural gas genset installed for 1/4 of that and run the whole place with impunity for weeks if needed. ( have a gasoline genset currently, that I got for free from work, that I use with a Generlink).

Grid-scale solar absolutely makes sense for displacing summer peaking gas, at moderate levels of penetration. That it doesn't provide meaningful winter capacity, and none for that purpose is just part of the calculus. It's still cheap enough that it makes sense.

It's all relative to the price of your grid power really and your demand. I've given you an example with my place, with my consumption. I have a buddy who is off-grid, he has an array and batteries, but has to run gensets during the winter because there simply isn't the sun to cover his usage. The solar makes sense for him due to the fuel savings cost.

If I look at my summer bills, the peak period is during 11AM to 5PM. I used 1,866kWh in August, 276kWh were during the peak period. Let's say I had an array that was similar in size to yours, so I was displacing that entire 276kWh, that would save me $43.61 for August, and much less in the shoulder and winter months. Let's say it saves me $400/year. If the array cost me $20,000 installed, that would take me 50 years for it to pay for itself, assuming rates didn't go up. Even if it only cost $10,000, the math doesn't work for my situation.

That said, in PG&E country where peak has moved to the evening, even during the day at $0.46/kWh, that $43.61 becomes $126.96 and assuming 8 months of air conditioning, that's $1,015.68, plus whatever it saves in the other 4. Let's say that's an additional $300 for a total of $1,315.68. At $20K, your payback is 15 years, at $10K your payback is less than 8. So in places that are more temperate with insane electricity prices, it pencils easily.

Your numbers in the last paragraph assume a static electricity cost. And they are low; they can exceed 65 cents per kWh... Ouch! I used 3 years of PG&E bills for consumption calculations and for the costs. I believe rates are dramatically higher now than 10 years ago, and that they will continue to rise.

The decision to invest in solar, as I have said many times, was the biggest no-brainer in the world for my use case. Going forward, I believe technology can provide continued solution.

 

[JeffKeryk]

this is the latest news I could find on your post
Roughly 25% of people who own electric vehicles would go back to gasoline

I didn’t include the link from 2024 that says 46% would go back to gasoline because I still consider EV’s in their infancy

https://www.spglobal.com/automotive...vehicle-owners-migrating-to-gasoline-vehicles

https://electrek.co/2026/03/27/used-ev-sales-boom-new-ev-sales-drop-28-percent-q1-2026/

AG, I am a numbers data guy, but more than that, my career was an information guy. What does the data tell us? Without detail, the data can mean whatever we want them to mean.

I would like to see data broken down into buckets so that we may glean meaningful information to enable each of us to make better decisions for ourselves and our families.

 

[OVERKILL]

Your numbers in the last paragraph assume a static electricity cost. And they are low; they can exceed 65 cents per kWh... Ouch! I used 3 years of PG&E bills for consumption calculations and for the costs. I believe rates are dramatically higher now than 10 years ago, and that they will continue to rise.

I'm using the current PG&E rate chart. the 43 cents is middle of the day pricing, which would be peak pricing in Ontario, but because of Cali's glut of solar, peak is now in the evening, so that period is off peak. And yes, they could go up, but that didn't need to be factored into the math I was doing there to show the difference when compared to Ontario.

The decision to invest in solar, as I have said many times, was the biggest no-brainer in the world for my use case. Going forward, I believe technology can provide continued solution.

Sure, but you also got NEM2, which isn't available anymore, which made your situation much more lucrative.

 

[Hermann]

Middle of the day from Evergy in KC is 13¢ in the middle of the day on summer rates. in the winter its 11¢ Peak summer rate (4-8pm) is a penny higher at 14¢

Californians just love to overpay for everything.

 

[Rmay635703]

AG, I am a numbers data guy, but more than that, my career was an information guy. What does the data tell us? Without detail, the data can mean whatever we want them to mean.

I would like to see data broken down into buckets so that we may glean meaningful information to enable each of us to make better decisions for ourselves and our families.

Not surprisingly the raw data shows us that the average car driving 15,000 miles is a myth and very regional.

You have many cars that drive extremely small distances and far more than you would ever expect driving immense distances.

Very similar to our k-shaped economy , DOT discovered that an immense number of out of state vehicles are on our roads everyday and
that most all EVs in the state drive under 5000 miles annually deflating their narrative that EV drivers should spend a grand a year on road tax.

Not surprising EV owners mostly self select based on their behaviors that suit the car, very few locally try to force a car to work that would create extreme inconvenience

 

[OVERKILL]

You can get two Docan Pandas for ~8,700 Canadian. That would equal 64 kW and would cover the bulk of your daily usage. What would the savings look like if you combined that with a discount off-peak rate? Technically with the off-peak you would only need enough battery to cover your daytime consumption.

I've never heard of that brand, I assume this is "straight outa' China"? US mainland shipping is $639, so you'd be $6,779 USD ($9,586.55 CDN) + whatever the shipping difference is to get it into Canada, plus duty and taxes, which appear to calculate to $1,283.87, so that's $10,870.42 + whatever the shipping difference is. Definitely cheaper than the Powerwall setup, but still a pretty hard sell. It would have gotten me through day 1 of our 5 day power outage we had, while my genset ran the house the whole time. I could spend less for a whole house genset that can produce 240kWh/day:

Are you talking about the Ultra low Overnight rate plan for EV charging?

If I look at my August bill, I used:
1,295 kWh off-peak
295 kWh mid-peak
276 kWh on-peak

And this cost $178.01

That's roughly 19 kWh a day between off and mid peak, so a single "Big China" would do the job there, just not for standby power.

If we moved this all to the ULO rate plan, that's $72.77, so I'd save $105.24.

If I look at my December bill, I used:
1,351 kWh off-peak
394 kWh mid-peak
339 kWh on-peak

And this cost $263.05

That's roughly 24 kWh a day between off and mid peak.

If we moved this all to the ULO rate plan, that's $81.28, so I'd save $181.77

If we average these two, that's a monthly savings of roughly $143.51, or $1,722/year.


Then I'd need an inverter, and installation.

This inverter looks like it would fit the bill, and allows connection of the genset:
https://cdnsolar.ca/products/midnite-mn15-12kw-aio-all-in-one-inverter-120-240v

That's $7,933.00 + tax and shipping, plus $4,484.55 for a single Docan, so that's $13,449.36. Break-even would occur at 8 years based on that math.