It looks like electric vehicles are going to be shoved down our throats

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Yeah. EV manufacturers need to figure out a better way to market these to people living in apartments or condos

They are (as was Toyota in their “domestic market “)


I’ve owned an antique EV long before anyone was even thinking about BEV.
I’ve never owned a single family house and could always charge, sometimes out my front window at my apartment , I’ve found most landlords are reasonable and laws are being made for those that aren’t.
Given the fun of my antique EV I eventually got a cheap Volt but sadly the state changed coarse and decided they didn’t want plug ins wanting instead to tax the living $$$$ out of them, forcing me to back off from all modern plug ins.

That said the 50% of people have access to a plug and don’t live in inhuman situations like condos or otherwise garageless situations
don’t have that excuse, so likely less of a concern in the immediate future considering there are only like 3500 BEVs out of 6.5 million registrations in this state and half of people can easily charge at home
meaning there is no immediate need to fix the broken backward corporate rental places that don’t offer plugs for block heaters.


So for me Thankfully my antique EV is tax exempt due to its age, so if I were to daily drive solely plug-in I would need to upgrade my existing antique car and figure out how to get liability insurance on the car once more.
It’s simply not an option to own a modern hybrid/Bev in this state due to the talk of raising the registration into the thousands of dollars with no guarantee of a steady cost of ownership due to the dillusional fair share movement moving through our nation.
 
I'll go electric when I get ICE range and recharge speed and convenience that equals a gas tank fill up.

On a related note, when we lived in Silicon Valley the Mercury News started to publish a "solar index". Solar panels were becoming more mainstream. Some thought this was the beginning of the government preparing to charge for the sun. I agree.

The sun's energy should be free but I guarantee you there are those who think otherwise. To think you will be allowed to recharge your electric vehicle for free with the solar power you generate is naive.

Scott

That's pretty much where I'm at, with regards to electric vehicles.

I hope you haven't incurred any damage from the heavy precipitation in your area.
 
Again, details and a plan.
Today's e- cars are still "experimental" with 20 series tires etc. NOBODY needs narrow tires for real world driving 15 years from now.

We also DO NOT need 3 second 0 to 60 times for every electric car.

Public transportation HAS to be part of the mix. Forcefully remove bums from the system. We can do this.

This "COVID working from home thing" has resulted in a rethinking of work-places....not the first time that has happened.

We can do this. This isn't R-S-P..it's S for the SOCIAL necessity of not being stupid and to stop wanting it to be 1950 again.

Factions ALWAYS point to the past when real progress is called for.

We've known our power grid has needed modernization for DECADES. Really, why all this baby crying? It is so foolish and wasteful.
The grid needs modernized FIRST, along with enough excess non-fossil fuel capacity to have a chance of powering them. Maybe Canada can hook us up with some nuclear? I hear they have the “CANDU” attitude up there! But, if anybody believes owning & operating a car isn’t about to get a LOT more expensive, they’re clueless.
 
Again, details and a plan.
Today's e- cars are still "experimental" with 20 series tires etc. NOBODY needs narrow tires for real world driving 15 years from now.

We also DO NOT need 3 second 0 to 60 times for every electric car.

Public transportation HAS to be part of the mix. Forcefully remove bums from the system. We can do this.

This "COVID working from home thing" has resulted in a rethinking of work-places....not the first time that has happened.

We can do this. This isn't R-S-P..it's S for the SOCIAL necessity of not being stupid and to stop wanting it to be 1950 again.

Factions ALWAYS point to the past when real progress is called for.

We've known our power grid has needed modernization for DECADES. Really, why all this baby crying? It is so foolish and wasteful.

Kira, we are not far from each other geographically. You raise valid points. Westchester has done well with clean diesel/electric hybrid mass transit busses. NYS is a huge state and I'd like to see a fiscally responsible move to school busses as EV's. My eye says that the tech isn't there to make it worth it or the school bus industry would be doing it or at least transitioning to it. I don't see it. Start here and as it gains validity it will grow. Then the masses like us will buy in. Tesla is the prime example. Let it scale down and range increase and lots of us will buy in.

Politics kills all. I brought a project to my city that involved capturing methane from a nearby county run sewer treatment plant. The city could have moved to CNG/Bi Fuel machines and received fuel for free for 10 years. Developer was to assume 95% of the costs and in return developed a former landfill property. democrat controlled council with a republican mayor and minority control. Unofficial response to me for the proposal was to pound sand. Official response was "we have alternative plans for that site." That was 8 years ago and to date not a thing has been done with that property.
 
I think the grid will modernize when they see the demand coming. They make money selling watts. When the watts go bigger, so will they - from the watt’s perspective, they will pay for themselves. An outage is lost revenue.

Apartment charging will become a way of attracting new tenants, and those who aren’t will be forced to catch up.

Battery tech is really the only lingering issue, and we see it catching up as well.

I’m wondering if there will be another safety feature needed, as batts get Bigger. If you spill gas or diesel, it takes some effort to get it to blow, and fuel tanks can handle some deformation before rupturing. Until you expose it to flame, it’s just wet. It’s energy comes out of a reaction and state change. A battery stores all the electrons who want to get to the other side of the cell, just micrometers from each other. Bend or traumatize that thing, and it will gladly runaway into a MAKESLAGNOW hot, fiery mess. Seems like as they get larger, some sort of scuttle method (internal chemical release?) might be needed.

Dreaming ... If we could all move to electric motorcycles or open frame go-karts, that would be some serious fun.
 
For those people who have no access to home chargers, would it be an opportunity for a new company to offer drive up charging done at night?

Your car needs charging, you schedule the service to come in the next 12 hours, the service has access to the charge port and location of your car and does the delivery while you are sleeping or watching Netflix.
Charged with what, a diesel-fueled genset? How's that going to reduce co2 emissions?
 
I for one see no legitimate reason for a forced push to electric cars. As it sits today they make no economic sense, are not practical for a huge number of people, and claims of their environmental superiority are highly suspect. There is little or no market demand for them, which there would be if they were truly superior. However, consumers are not demanding the change en masse. So why the mad rush for this massive, disruptive change? It's something that would take place gradually on its own in the future as the technology improves and electrics become more attractive on their own merits.

By the time electric cars actually reach parity with gasoline power on all fronts (including being able to buy one cheap on the used market that is still functional) it will likely be longer than my life expectancy. So I have no plans to buy one.

I also foresee that this thread will probably wind up being locked before too long. :)
 
I appreciate your zeal but please do not put us all in a box. I am not in agreement with you at this point in the tech. I'm not averse to EV at all. What I am averse to is BS stuffed down my throat. I'll address your comments before I get on my soap box.

Can I charge at home? I would assume so. Can't anyone with electricity? It's a cable with a specific plug right? I'm guessing but what, a 10GA wire? Maybe even a 12GA wire with the right plug. I have checked the map. I live/work in one of the most progressive areas of the USA. Westchester County NY to Dutchess County NY. There is not a lot of offerings for EV charging. Sad and pathetic. The map may show options but that needs to be correlated with the volume of vehicles.

I worked for a Westchester city government and was tasked with assisting in a move to EV for the city fleet. The owner of the company providing the EV's was a legitimate and honest man. His words, a fleet of EV's for parking enforcement, water department, some DPW applications will likely equal out and provide a carbon neutral footprint. But he cautioned against EV's for the bulk of our city and was clear the benefit of the tech is close but just not there.

I've been responsible for millions of dollars for my city in grant funding. My lens, the tech is not there. Prior to stuffing this down the masses asses, government needs to lead the way with tech development and grants to state and local governments to get fleet EV's. Then it will trickle down. Instead, this is a total political pandering. Something like this move takes a decade. And the infrastructure is on Uncle Sam NOT Tesla! or any other private company.
I only ask because I am interested in other people's situations and thoughts.
As an owner, I get asked about EV ownership; the Tesla Model 3 in particular.
I hope you did not mis-intrepret my question.

FYI, I had a #6 wire installed from the service box (240v, 60a) to the garage and a NEMA 14-50 receptilcle. $600 including tip. A union electrician did it on his own time. 60' wire was almost $200 as I recall.
 
They are (as was Toyota in their “domestic market “)


I’ve owned an antique EV long before anyone was even thinking about BEV.
I’ve never owned a single family house and could always charge, sometimes out my front window at my apartment , I’ve found most landlords are reasonable and laws are being made for those that aren’t.
Given the fun of my antique EV I eventually got a cheap Volt but sadly the state changed coarse and decided they didn’t want plug ins wanting instead to tax the living $$$$ out of them, forcing me to back off from all modern plug ins.

That said the 50% of people have access to a plug and don’t live in inhuman situations like condos or otherwise garageless situations
don’t have that excuse, so likely less of a concern in the immediate future considering there are only like 3500 BEVs out of 6.5 million registrations in this state and half of people can easily charge at home
meaning there is no immediate need to fix the broken backward corporate rental places that don’t offer plugs for block heaters.


So for me Thankfully my antique EV is tax exempt due to its age, so if I were to daily drive solely plug-in I would need to upgrade my existing antique car and figure out how to get liability insurance on the car once more.
It’s simply not an option to own a modern hybrid/Bev in this state due to the talk of raising the registration into the thousands of dollars with no guarantee of a steady cost of ownership due to the dillusional fair share movement moving through our nation.
Recently moved out of NYC. I wanted to buy an EV last year but then I had to run an extension cord from my apartment, 10 floors down to the street, then about 2 to 5 blocks away to where I usually found street parking (if I was lucky enough to find parking at all). After much thought I didn’t think it was feasible (but just barely). Someone might unplug it while I was sleeping and use my electricity for free and I couldn’t figure out how long of a cord I would need. Plus if someone would have stripped the wire and intentionally electrocuted themselves, I would have been looking at a costly lawsuit.
That EV with solar panels in your link is cool but I’m afraid if you left that out overnight where I lived before in NYC, you’ll walk up to it in the morning stripped down to its frame.
 
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I'll go electric when I get ICE range and recharge speed and convenience that equals a gas tank fill up.

On a related note, when we lived in Silicon Valley the Mercury News started to publish a "solar index". Solar panels were becoming more mainstream. Some thought this was the beginning of the government preparing to charge for the sun. I agree.
Well Oxygen is free, do you think the government is going to start charging for air soon? After all, they have air quality indexes. And then chuck you into an airlock without air when you can't pay?

Can I charge at home? I would assume so. Can't anyone with electricity? It's a cable with a specific plug right? I'm guessing but what, a 10GA wire? Maybe even a 12GA wire with the right plug.
I think most people do it with a 50 amp plug which probably requires a 6 gauge wire. Typically for 10 gauge, that's 30 amp and 12 is 20 amp. You could probably do it, but a 20 amp outlet will take 2.5 times as long to charge as a 50 amp outlet.
 
Recently moved out of NYC. I wanted to buy an EV last year but then I had to run an extension cord from my apartment, 10 floors down to the street, then about 2 to 5 blocks away to where I usually found street parking (if I was lucky enough to find parking at all). After much thought I didn’t think it was feasible (but just barely). Someone might unplug it while I was sleeping and use my electricity for free and I couldn’t figure out how long of a cord I would need.
That EV with solar panels in your link is cool but I’m afraid if you left that out overnight where I lived before in NYC, you’ll walk up to it in the morning stripped down to its frame.
I actually just did look around for charging stations near me. Probably the closest is about a mile from me. Probably not practical to go there, plug it in for a few hours, go home and then come back 4-5 hours later once it's charged up and move the car. There's a few other charging places closer, but those are hotels or buildings where it's only for the people that are there and are not open to the public.

ICE cars will probably be like cars that use leaded gas, still around years later but as the years go by, the numbers will slowly dwindle. New cars make up about 1/3 of all the cars sold each year so it will be a while before they displace all gas powered cars if they ever do.
 
I actually just did look around for charging stations near me. Probably the closest is about a mile from me. Probably not practical to go there, plug it in for a few hours, go home and then come back 4-5 hours later once it's charged up and move the car. There's a few other charging places closer, but those are hotels or buildings where it's only for the people that are there and are not open to the public.

ICE cars will probably be like cars that use leaded gas, still around years later but as the years go by, the numbers will slowly dwindle. New cars make up about 1/3 of all the cars sold each year so it will be a while before they displace all gas powered cars if they ever do.
I can't imagine doing that routine everyday or even 2-3 times a week. If I didn't have to work and had all the time in the world then... maybe. In my opinion, not practical yet for most people. It would be a big change incorporating it into people's daily routine if this is their daily driver. To me an EV feels more like a cool toy that you would get if you really wanted one to play with or flaunt and not a vehicle to get for its utility or practicality....for the time being.
Don't get me wrong, I would really love to own one right now. But, first, I don't need one, and second, I could think of more than a dozen better things I could use my money for.
 
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Beautiful Tesla. I think they are cool as heck. I've also looked into the Lexus hybrid parked next to the Tesla. Love that car/SUV.

Dittos on the Lexus.
The RX shoulda been an F Sport. Ours is too squishy. But I'm working on that...
For now I drive it in Sport mode.
Sue sez it gets better mileage than the TSX.

RX is pretty nice, but probably too fancy-pants for me.
The steering wheel is amazing, though.
 
Recently moved out of NYC. I wanted to buy an EV last year but then I had to run an extension cord from my apartment, 10 floors down to the street, then about 2 to 5 blocks away to where I usually found street parking (if I was lucky enough to find parking at all). After much thought I didn’t think it was feasible (but just barely). Someone might unplug it while I was sleeping and use my electricity for free and I couldn’t figure out how long of a cord I would need. Plus if someone would have stripped the wire and intentionally electrocuted themselves, I would have been looking at a costly lawsuit.
That EV with solar panels in your link is cool but I’m afraid if you left that out overnight where I lived before in NYC, you’ll walk up to it in the morning stripped down to its frame.

Up until "recent events" NYC is one of the few "American Cities" to have a viable public transportation network. And yes-I have ridden the subways.
 
I sure hope they won’t but I have a feeling they will and much sooner than we think. I do not like electric cars I want something I can fix in my driveway if it breaks and something that has style which so far I haven’t seen an electric car that wasn’t ugly so they need to do some major improvements to make me impressed. I just hope if they do rise in popularity that they don’t make the whole thing electric and what I mean by that is don’t make all of the systems electric like brakes and power steering and stuff make that all hydraulic like it originally was so us grease monkeys can have something so still be entertaining when working on them.
 
Then don’t buy one.

There’s this thing called “technology” and battery power is going to get better.

Obviously not all car makers are going to be all electric. There’s going to be gas or hybrid options.
Thing is technology won't continue to improve at a drastic pace. Look at cell phones and other things in our daily lives. Once things hit a decent level of performance/longevity upcoming 'improvements' are marginal at best.
 
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