There’s something fishy about the range numbers being touted by electric cars. Or rather, the range numbers being touted by those pushing electric cars.
They are very misleading numbers. The first reason being that the way the number is arrived at by what the EPA styles the Multi-Cycle City/Highway Test Procedure – which does not reflect the way most people drive a car in the the real world.
Because to begin with the car isn’t actually driven at all.
The test is performed on a chassis dynamometer that simulates driving. Mostly low-speed, low-load and stop-and-go driving, which just happens to be the type of driving that electric cars (and partial-electric hybrid cars) are best-suited for in terms of range, even though this is almost by definition not very far.
Their range declines when they are operated on the highway, especially for extended periods of time – because you can’t keep moving without using energy whereas it takes almost no energy to remain stationary and very little energy to creep forward and intermittently at “city” speeds.
Non-electric cars, it’s worth pointing out, go farther on the highway – at high speeds – than they do put-putting along at “city” speeds.
In addition, the testing is done inside – in a room that isn’t freezing cold or steamy hot, two real-world realities that significantly affect the range of electric cars because of the increased load on electrically powered accessories such as the heater (a no-cost accessory, in terms of gas mileage or range in a non-electric car) and the air conditioner as well as the energy expended keeping the battery warm – and cool – as the real-world temperature swings to extremes.
The EPA tacitly concedes its EV testing protocols are disingenuous by ”adjusting” the range numbers it promulgates via mathematical legerdemain which is very opaque and so very suspicious.
It also reports something styled MPGe – or “miles per gallon equivalent.” No one outside the world of Wonkdom understands what this means because it is very hard to understand what it means, unlike say 23 miles per gallon in city driving and 35 on the highway.
A gallon of gas can be expected to move the car about that far. Yo comprendo. Because anyone can comprendo that. Multiply the city or highway range times the number of gallons and you comprendo how far the car will go on a full tank. Average the city and highway number and you know the average mileage.
It is not rocket science and more to the point, it is not fundamentally disingenuous.
The mileage figures touted had also better be accurate. If not, they’ll be litigated. Ask Hyundai – which got into some hot water a few years ago for overstating how far its cars could travel per gallon – and that only slightly exaggerated. The company claimed several of its cars delivered 40 MPG or better when they actually delivered 1-6 MPG less.
That was slightly shady – but here’s pitch dark:
The 2021 Nissan Leaf supposedly travels “123 city/99 highway” in “MPGe” terms. But the car is only rated as being capable of traveling 149 miles all told (with its standard battery; if you pay a few thousand dollars more for the “long range” battery, the car supposedly can travel 226 miles).
Lost yet?
That of course being just the point.
“123 MPGe” sounds great, for advertising purposes. Because it sounds better – like three or even four times the mileage of a non-electric car.
But the fact is the Leaf can barely go that far all told. If you believe that number.
Meanwhile, a non-electric car rated as being able to travel 23 miles on a gallon (that has a typical 15 gallon gas tank) can keep on traveling for about 345 miles and that’s actually great – especially when you also consider that the same car can travel 500-plus highway miles on a full tank.
Even if the touted numbers are off by a little, you still have a long way to go.
Which you don’t in any EV.
The excuse given for this MPGe shuck and jive is that it is hard to render a direct equivalent between a gallon of gas and a kilowatt-hour in readily comprehensible terms. Which is perhaps true. In which case, why not something more above-board?
The use of “MPG” terminology to tout EV “mileage” is fundamentally dishonest for this reason and also because EVs “burn” fuel very differently than internal combustion-powered cars do. They are less efficient in proportion to how much – and how fast – they move.
More evidence of the flim-flam is provided by independent testing of EVs in real-world driving, on the actual road – and specifically at highway speeds. The web site Inside EVs – which cannot be accused of anti-EV bias – tested several EVs (see here) and found that the real-world range of models such as the Tesla Model Y and Model 3, the Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Bolt and the Hyundai Kona EV was substantially less than advertised.
By a lot less than the “MPGe equivalent” of 1-6 MPG.
The Model Y’s asserted range of 316 miles, for instance, turned out to be 276 miles – a difference of almost 13 percent less than advertised. Also the Chevy Bolt, which went kaput after 226 miles rather than the touted 259. The Model 3 they tested was off by 9 percent (290 miles before MPG Empty vs. 322 advertised).
Keep in mind that EV MPGe matters a great deal more than IC MPGs because of the real-world reality than when you run low in an EV you will be stuck whereas the IC car is back on the road, fully fueled, in less than five minutes.
Some EVs did live up to the billing, such as the Porsche Taycan EV – which exceeded its touted range (it went 278 miles – farther than the 203 EPA says it could go). But it was the exception rather than the rule and it also is a cost-no-object Porsche with a base price of almost $104,000 – rendering its efficiency economically irrelevant.
The fulsome scurvy truth is that a deliberate fraud-via-omission is being perpetrated on the car buying public, with the connivance of the Poodlized car press and of “consumer” publications such as JD Power, which recently published without qualification the range numbers touted by Tesla, Nissan Chevy and Kia – the “top” EVs, in their advertorial lingo. 
This is dereliction of duty on an epic scale. Remember: Hyundai was class-actioned and made to pay out several hundred million dollars for having oversold the range of its non-electric cars by as little as one more mile-per-gallon than they actually went per gallon.
It’s of a piece with the lack of interest in the EVs’ tendency to cremate its owners, self-driving EVs that drive into things – and so on.
It is exactly like the excuse-making indulgence some misguided parents extend toward a favored but deficient child, who is considered “exceptional” or “special” rather than what it actually is. The same refusal to openly discuss the reality. The same determination to remain in a delusional state of mind that borders on the hallucinatory – because dealing with the reality is perhaps too painful.
And in this case, too political.
. . .
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Im from Minnesota. When it negative 30 here which is common a teslas 120v charger couldnt even float the battery and the tesla lost 50% range. Owner went to the fast charger and pretty soon had a line behind him. Charge took 40 minutes.
Tesla is at 583 USD this morning, NIO is 36 and change, down from 66.99 USD. NIO was 1.63 USD about a year and six months ago.
Tesla has earnings of 64 cents per share, its PE is 934. A share price of 6.40 USD would be a PE of 10.
It just don’t look too good for Tesla, me thinks.
100 million EVs with a 100 kwh battery will need to be charged to full from zero charge to make them go.
100,000,000 x 100,000 watt hours = 10,000,000,000,000 watts required to charge all those EVs.
One terawatt of electricity will be needed to fully charge all one hundred million vehicles.
Civilization consumes 22 terawatts of electricity in a year. An efficient 1.1 gigawatt nuclear power plant can produce, generate, 4.9 terawatts hours in a single year.
Even if the math is all wrong, you can see the handwriting on the wall
You’ll need a nuclear power plant rated at 98 percent efficiency to charge 100,000,000 100 kwh batteries.
Doesn’t take rocket surgery to conclude it won’t happen over night.
It’ll be a lot more efficient to burn gasoline in 100,000,000 cars like is done now.
Eric, something interesting I just came across. Somewhere deep down the WEF just accepted that electric cars are a sham, and NOT more green !!
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/battery-batteries-electric-cars-carbon-sustainable-power-energy/
Basically in a country like germany where they have relatively renewables in the mix, it will take an electric car 125,000 miles to become as green as a diesel !! Not taking into account most electric cars wont last that long, and if they do will probably require at least one battery change in that time (being the most polluting element of the car)
Hi Nasir,
Yup; the fact are established. The problem is, they don’t matter to people who believe…
The math here is somewhat annoying, but it’s not mystical.
The EPA says a gallon of gasoline contains 33.7kWh of energy, and it converts to MPG based off that.
So, in your example image, 123 MPGe city driving means the car takes 1/123 “gallon” to drive a city mile, which means 33.7kWh/123 = 273 WH/mile. Now, if you have a 60 kWh battery pack, you’d get 60kWh / 273 Wh = 220 mile range driving in the city using the EPA test cycle.
For the 99 MPGe on the highway, the car gets 176 miles of range.
Doing some reshuffling, you can use this formula:
range = (pack capacity in kwh * MPGe) / (33.7 kWh)
It’s a kind of bogus comparison, because the gasoline car has the Carnot efficiency to deal with due to being a heat engine, so you get at least 50% losses, more like 60% for the best ICE engines due to having to burn fuel. The electrics have already burned that fuel at the power plant, and so, their efficiency at the wheels is much higher.
This little bit of math also shows why electrics have such low ranges.
A top of the line, 100 kWh battery pack, is the equivalent of abour 3 gallons of gas energy. Now, you have to normalize a bit, since electrics are ~90% efficient and ICE are about 33%, so 100kWh battery (weighing > 1000lb) is roughly equivalent for range as 8 gallons of gasoline.
That doesn’t account for the heater, which is free with an ICE car because the heat is already there. And the air conditioners are so efficient these days that they just use what’s leftover from the ICE’s alternator. That costs battery power. Same with the heated seats and all of the other gizmos that are in the electric cars.
Not to mention the horrid inefficiencies of batteries (I live in New England, where an electric car is a non-starter for five months out of the year)
Add to that the heated garage you need to keep it in just to get the thing to start. None of these factors is calculated into the MPGe fantasy.
Right, that’s under ideal real EPA dyno conditions. The range also drops severely as you go faster, since drag increases as the square of speed, and as you go uphill, or if you have a full load of passengers. ICE cars are so inefficient, that this hardly changes the mileage 🙂
All that’s fine if you have the electric car for around town or for short commutes. But you’ll still need an ICE car for everything else.
The problem is when they outlaw ICE cars and force everyone to their e-car fantasy. That’ll make 80% of the country immobile.
Which, of course, is what they want. I just wish more of my countrymen could see this for what it is.
Chevy Bolts don’t go very far at all. 70% of the Chevy Bolts on dealer lots are the 2020 model. Yes, last years model, some are probably two years old already. So most 2020 Chevy Bolts HAVEN’T EVEN FOUND BUYERS YET!
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2021/02/there-are-still-plenty-of-2020-chevrolet-bolt-ev-units-on-dealer-lots/
I have heard stories of Chevy dealers trying to not get stuck with more of them, but GM forces them to take them to get vehicles (like pickups and SUV’s) they want (that actually sell).
Speaking of MPGe, it seems just about impossible to grok how EVs compare to IC in terms of fueling costs. This is especially important considering that EVs have been touted as an end run around expensive gas.
For the sake of argument, suppose gasoline costs $3/gallon, and I drive a car that gets 30 miles per gallon and has a 15 gallon tank. It will cost me $45 to fill the tank, and that tank will last for 450 miles. So it costs me 10 cents per mile to fuel.
But what’s the equivalent of a gallon of gas in kilowatt hours? How much does that cost? And how far can I drive on that? And will I pay more or less per mile with electricity? What if the electrical equivalent of a gallon of gas costs less, but takes me half as far? Where is the cost savings in that?
And that’s not counting the fact that electricity may be lots cheaper than it’s equivalent in gasoline, but it’s certainly not free. Or the costs of a car that depreciates faster, is more costly to maintain, and breaks down more often. Don’t get me started on the costs of generating and transmitting all that extra juice either!
I’m not the world’s best mathematician, but I can’t see how the math works in favor of EVs.
Right now, it would be really cheap comparatively. The government has definitely kept their hands off the taxes that should be imposed on these EV’s on an equivalent per gallon basis. Also, with so few of these on the road the electricity companies have not had to invest the huge sums that they will have to do in the future if the EV’s become the only mode of transport…..huge costs to pass on there. EV’s are just not going to be panacea the true believers think it is. All the shift will do is move all the things they consider “bad” over to a different bucket, plus EV’s will not have the environmental effects they tout either as it will be impossible to fuel them via a totally renewable resource. All in, the EV push is just another scam like everything the enviro-whackos and government puts together.
All we need for the coming utopia is Unobtanium! This guy explains it perfectly:
https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-wind-and-solar/
This guy gives a great explanation of how all this so-called “renewable/green” energy is just the opposite.
https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-wind-and-solar/
“figures never lie, but liers always figure.”
Ahhh…but your “mileage” (literally) may “VARY”…the ultimate disclaimer for BULLSHIT assertions.
I’m surrounded by Teslas (not kidding, all my immediate neigbors have Teslas, except for one with an e-Golf), and the conversations I’ve had with these folks are hilarious.
– In an effort to convince themselves, they explain to me how nice it is to have 30-60 minute stops on long drives to recharge the car – and themselves. It’s a nice way to take a break.
– The car needs no maintenance! Except, it seems to be getting fixed all the time. God forbid you dent a fender, that’s a minimum four month wait.
– Upgrade-itis is strong, these people have money, they upgrade their teslas every couple of years. They treat it like a cell phone.
– They have AWD!…. except, when driving in the mountain in snow, that charge doesn’t last long.
– And here I am, with my awful 25 mpg Subaru Outback for the mountains, and my 24 mpg Focus, just driving around without thinking about range. The 180 mile range on my gas powered focus would be insufferable if I couldn’t fill up in 5 min.
Hi OL,
I love the “It’s a nice way to take a break” line… it reminds me of what Soviets waiting in bread line queues used to say: Such a nice day to be out in the sunshine!
Haha, no. I stood in those lines as a kid. Everyone was pissed at the state about the lines, but powerless to stop it, because whining doesn’t do much versus tanks, and the populace was completely disarmed and subjugated. The true believers were gone by the 70’s and 80’s.
As the fictional Soviet ambassador to the USA rued in “Dr. Strangelove”…
“meanwhile our people grumbled…for nylon stockings…and washing machines…the amount of money we spent on the Doomsday Device cost but a fraction of what we spent every year on ‘Defense’ “.
“Be glad, comrade…in America, they don’t even have bread lines!”
Oh, and one more thought WRT EVs vs. ICEVs. Until EVs are the better tool for the job, they won’t overtake ICEVs. Even staunch EV advocates say this! Alejandro Agag, founder of the Formula E racing series, has said this. Lucas di Grassi, a Formula E champion and driver, has said this too. More ardent EV advocates you will not find, but they come right out and say that, until EVs are better than ICEVs, they won’t supplant ICEVs.
Lucas made a documentary, “Racing for Clean Air” (link below), in which he went to India to examine their serious air pollution problems. In the film, he and his host ride on a powered rickshaw, a three wheeled taxi common in India. This particular rickshaw was an E-rickshaw; i.e it was a small EV. Lucas said in the film that the driver/owner didn’t choose it because it was good for the environment or anything like that; he chose it because it was the BEST TOOL for the job! For this owner/operator taxi driver, the small EV made the most sense for him, so that’s what he bought to ply his trade. Only when something similar can be said about cars is when EVs will become prevalent.
Oh, and before I forget, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNZIdHhdQs8
That should’ve been “Race for Clean Air”-duh.
Oh, I forgot this in my previous comment. I think that until solid state Lithium batteries are perfected, EVs won’t be ready for prime time; Li-Ion batteries are a lot better than lead acid, but they don’t go far enough. Li-Ion will improve, but only incrementally, as I believe that their capabilities have been pretty much maxed out at this point; the inherent limitations of Li-Ion won’t allow much more progress at this point, as the technology has been taken as far as it can go.
ASSBs, OTOH, if perfected, could be a real game changer! They’ll offer 50%-80% greater range; they’ll charge faster; they won’t degrade as Li-Ion do; and, they’ll be cheaper! Just think of what a 50% range increase will do. For a long range Nissan Leaf, instead of being able to go 225, miles, 337.5 will be the max range; if ASSBs end up increasing range by 80%, that same Leaf will go 405 miles on a single charge! That’s pretty respectable.
In any case, until a superior battery supplants and displaces Li-Ion batteries, EVs won’t be able to displace ICEVs-not on their merits, anyway. Li-Ion doesn’t offer enough range, even though their range vs. lead acid is impressive. Li-Ion doesn’t charge fast enough, even though again, compared to lead acid batteries, they’re a lot better. Finally, Li-Ion is expensive. Granted, their cheaper than they used to be, but they’re still expensive; replacing a battery pack will run thousands of dollars-end of story. As impressive as modern batteries and EVs are when compared to their older counterparts, they’re not quite there yet. That’s because Li-Ion simply cannot do more, thanks to its chemistry. Only when ASSBs come on the scene will EVs offer a compelling case over ICEVs.
Merits have nothing to do with it, except political merits, which is an oxymoron. If EVs depended on their real life merits for market share, they wouldn’t have one. Their market wouldn’t likely be large enough to justify mass production. The EV market is created by goons with guns, aka government. Penalty for ICVs, reward for EVs, market forces need not apply, or be applied.
In one of my comments, I mentioned that even the staunchest of EV advocates have said that EVs will have to be flat out better than ICEVs before enjoying widespread growth; IOW, they said that EVs will have to succeed on their merits to supplant EVs
Aluminum-air offers some tantalizing prospects, especially if they become easily rechargeable.
I happen to know it CAN be done, though someone has yet to produce them commercially. Can’t be sure, however, what cell-cycle life to expect, however.
Meanwhile, these guys offer the technology using aluminum as a “fuel”:
https://phinergy.com/electric-transportation/
Also from Wikipedia:
“On May 27, 2013, the Israeli channel 10 evening news broadcast showed a car with Phinergy battery in the back, claiming 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) range before replacement of the aluminum anodes is necessary.”
But there are many technologies that COULD displace Li-ion for dominance.
I’ve looked at EVs, but I NEVER looked at the MPGe number-never! One, it’s hard to make an equivalent between the energy density of gas vs. batteries (kWh). Two, the only number that mattered was the range; how far could it go on a charge. That’s all that really matters, so that’s the number I looked at.
Even so, any number of things can cause mileage or range to vary. The car ads used to always have the standard disclaimer that EPA mileage numbers were for comparison only, and that the real world numbers would vary. That’s how I looked at an EV’s range numbers-for comparison only. Even then, different EV builders might arrive at their numbers differently, so the range number was most useful when looking at a particular manufacturer’s offerings.
Now, as to what happened to Hyundai, WTF wasn’t that case tossed out of court? Why was it even heard in the first place? I can think of a couple of factors that would EASILY cause a car’s mileage numbers to drop by 1-6 mpg! Were the tires underinflated? Just a 2-3 psi below spect can easily cause a loss of 1 or more mpg. Did the driver vary speeds? Varying speed by as little as 5 mph can cause a 1 mpg drop. Were the cars driven at high speeds? For every 5 mph you go above a car’s max fuel economy speed, mpg will drop on the order of 10% or so. I’ve seen this with my Focus.
I recently took a road trip to VA. It’s about 220 mile. On the way down, I drove at 75, and I observed 34 mpg or so. On the way back, I did 70; my mpg was 38. On previous trips down to the Jersey Shore, I locked the cruise control on 65; my mpg was 42! So, traveling faster will cause the mpg to drop substantially. Why? Simply because aerodynamic drag varies as the square of speed.
Again, with all that said, why wasn’t the Hyundai case tossed out of court? Why did it even see the light of day in a courtroom?! Why weren’t the plaintiffs and their lawyers PUNISHED for bringing such a BS case to court? Sorry, but I can’t see how or why Hyundai was found at fault here; there are plenty of good, logical reasons why their mileage didn’t measure up to the advertised figures.
1912: The Detroit Electric Co. sells an electric car with a nominal range of 80 miles, although the record range was reportedly 211 miles.
The nickel-iron batteries in this particular car lasted for 81 years, and needed to be replaced only because the steel casing began to leak:
https://veva.ca/Detroit-Electric
Now, the car only did about 20 mph (the Model T did 40-45 mph), but likely could’ve been configured to go faster, though the roads of the day were not built for speed, either.
Also, these cars were considerably more expensive the Model T: about 5.5 times as much, depending on the year. However, Detroit Electric never properly mass produced anything like Ford. They made ~13,000 cars, total, from 1907-1939. Ford made many times that in a single year.
I still think Edison’s batteries could hold quite a future for grid-less life, and could be improved upon with modern manufacturing techniques. But it all makes me wonder what could have been.
Here in Fairfield County, CT, the “Gold Coast” these electric douche canoes are about 15%, or more in some places, of the vehicles on the road. Though curiously, they garage them in the winter. But they’ll thaw them out soon. These are toys of very wealthy people, who use them to virtue signal (though they happily enjoy the “free” electricity provided by the charging stations at workplaces and shopping centers).
Most (not exaggerating) cars here are BMWs, Audis, Acuras, Porsches, Infinitys, Land Rovers, and an occasional McLaren. People who own these are the main EV consumers. Cost is not really a consideration. They could give two shits about whether the mileage may vary, if they even paid attention in the first place.
Oh that electricity isn’t free. I’m sure you are and i and everyone else that doesn’t drive one of these virtue mobiles is paying for it. Since its spread out amongst all the customers we may not notice a $.01-$.10 rise in the cost of some products, but beleive me these companies aren’t providing power out of the kindness of their hearts.
My Leaf (30 kWh) when it was new, would run about 210 kilometers with typical highway driving (average 80 km/h). This compared to a rated range of 200 kilometers. In other words its rated range was realistic.
Now my electric car does not run 200 kilometers in highway driving, since it is about 4 1/2 years old. Today its effective range is about 190 kilometers, since the batteries have DETERIORATED.
I do not know what kind of car I will buy next time. It could be a fully electric car, a chargeable hybrid or even a mild hybrid. All three concepts have their advantages and drawbacks.
Hi Jone,
I appreciate your first-person experiences! I’m curious, though… 80 kilometers per hour is only about 49 MPH; in the U.S. highway traffic averages 70-plus. I suspect the range you got would considerably less at those speeds.
Also: You have noted pretty significant deterioration of the car’s battery after less than five years. An IC car is barely broken in at the same age.
Your feedback is correct. My personal experience indicates that new electrical cars would under ideal conditions achieve their rated range up to an average speed of about 55 mph. Above that speed, the range in real life would be shorter.
My main concern with electrical cars is how long the batteries are going to last. Might electrical cars get scrapped when they are just about 10 year old, due to worn out batteries? The expected lifetime (in Norway) for a typical fossil powered car before scrapping car actually is 18 year.
That’s be it. Once the batteries are done, or the CVT, the vehicle is junk, being that the cost to repair it will well exceed its value, and compare unfavorably with even just buying a new replacement.
Modern ICE vehicles are almost as bad. It used to be that an old beater like a Dodge Dart or a VW Beetle could be kept running just about “For-Ev-Uhr” (like from “The Sandlot”), due to ample supply of aftermarket parts, and there was just about nothing an experienced “shade tree” mechanic couldn’t handle. Even when the engine needed rebuilding or the transmission finally went, often a rebuild only laid up the car for a few weeks, and it was also easy to find a good used engine or gearbox out of a boneyard. Not anymore. Obviously, the supply of used engines and trannies has dried up. The real problem, though, is that the DIY mechanic is gradually being LEGISLATED out of business, in the name of being “eco-friendly”, or by fuss-budget, busybody neighbors that believe the local wrench-twister is bringing down property values.
Hi Doug,
Yup. A related issue is that it’s hard to swap parts from car to car/year to year because of electronics/computer compatibility. Before electronics/computers, if it mechanically fit, it could probably be used. For example, my ’76 TA will accept any engine Pontiac – and Chevy -offered in any 1970-1981 Firebird or Camaro and numerous parts from other GM vehicles of that era are common or will fit/work. This made it easy and inexpensive to keep such a car working, back when cars like that were in use as daily drivers.
Today, model specialization is extreme and in addition to parts only physically fitting a much more narrow/limited range of cars, there are issues with electronic/computer compatibility.
Most of this has arisen on account of “emissions” regulations and while there was some legitimacy initially, it has also served the purpose of gradually but systematically turning the car into an expensive, disposable appliance.
Eric, if, for some reason, you actually contemplated dropping in, say, a Chevy “Rat” motor (427 or 454) to replace that (400 or 455 ?) Pontiac mill, leaky rear main seal and all, would there be any issue as far as keeping it legal for the road in the Commonwealth of VA? In the People’s Republic of Kal-Lee-Forn-Ya, you can fairly much do as you please BEFORE the 1976 model years (obviously, not a lot of 46 years and counting vintage, drivable iron out there anymore), which my boy and I have done with the ’66 Plymouth Fury, which now has a 360 LA engine liberated from a wrecked ’85 Dodge Ramcharger. But, for ’76 and newer, you MUST have the original emissions hardware, and it MUST all function IAW tailpipe emissions applicable to that era. So engine swaps are generally a “No” in the state where hot-rodding got its start…what an irony.
Hi Doug,
Not that I would ever commit the sacrilegious act of removing and replacing A Pontiac’s Pontiac V8 with a Chevy V8 … but I could do so without repercussions from the government in Coonman Country. My car is exempt from both emissions and “safety” inspections; any car with “Antique Vehicle” tags is exempted. The sole criteria for this being that the car is 25 years old or older.
Hmm…besides the nice, down-home folks that my “little goil” has gotten to know there in the extreme western part of Virginia (Bristol, Abingdon, and Marion, she’s now back in TN) on her LDS mission, it appears that the Commonwealth has a least a few good points…like a “rolling 25” insofar as the regulatory BS drops out. If only in Cali(porn)ia they were even that reasonable.
Collector car plates are available here for anything over 25 yo.
My Craigslist and other auto searches are all set for 1996 and prior.
Fiero gets collector (cheap) plates (must be stock) this year and then the 350 goes in. Nobody checks the stock status once it has collector plate designation.
All my friends have 2017+ trucks (mine 1995) because “I don’t want to have to deal with an unreliable used vehicle”. Really don’t know how they came to that thinking as every one of them has had their new vehicles in the shop for warranty work, some repeatedly, often for the same problem again. My 1995 has never had anything other than a starter since 2013. Even that was just because I got tired of crawling under to hit it with a hammer when it occasionally found a dead spot.
New stuff is great, until the new digital bits get dementia like Biden.
Amen to that!! I am told I need a new or replacement engine for my 2010 Hyundai, not sure if I really do or not. The garage could only find one used replacement engine in our area. One.
When major major repairs were needed and we didnt have the cash at the time, we would park the main vehicle and buy a cheap $600 car to drive for a month or two. Remember when $500 could buy a car that drove for a few months?
Sorry to say, Andy, but that 11 y.o. Hyundai is “done”. IF you could score a good used engine and do the swap yourself, it’d be a financially viable proposition. Otherwise, you’re better off parting with it and finding a replacement.
Hi Andy,
I wouldn’t lose hope until you know your car needs a new engine. It may not. I think it is well worth a second opinion. And if you do need a new engine, it might be worth the expense if the car is otherwise sound. You didn’t mention which Hyundai you’ve got but – ballpark – you should be able to buy a remanufactured replacement for around $3,000 or so. That is a big chunk, I realize. But it is also not much more than an options bundle on a new car and if you got another five years of reliable service out of the car you invested well, in my opinion.
Hi Jone!
One of the problems with electric cars in the US is that they are simply unable to match the capability of any IC car to travel great distances at high speed without having to stop regularly for extended periods of time. A Tesla S is extremely quick – but it is also a much slower way to travel if your trip is longer than about 200 miles or so down the road because of the need to stop – and wait.
My 18-year-old truck does not get to 60 in 3 seconds. But it can get me 800 miles down the road in a day of driving, because it only takes me 5 minutes to refuel and because it can travel several hundred highway miles on a tankful.
The battery degradation – and replacement – problems are even more serious. As you have experienced, an EV battery can (and does) noticeably decline in terms of its capacity to hold charge over a relatively short period of time. This results in reduced range – and more waiting.
The fix is a new/replacement battery – a major expense – and one that has no parallel in the IC car world. Most IC cars have a useful service life – i.e., they will run reliably without requiring a major repair – for 12-15 years or longer. The useful service life of an EV is much shorter because of battery degradation and the proportionately enormous cost of replacing it.
The bottom line is that while EVs can be described as “cool” and have some admirable attributes, such as silent operation, the ability to “fuel” at home and lots of torque- they remain inferior in terms of their practicality and economics.
This is why they must be subsidized and mandated. It speaks volumes.
Leaving out the ecological impact of replacing that dead battery car, requiring the building of a new one, since there’s little market for a used one, with a new battery powered car, and the waste disposal problems with a huge highly toxic dead battery. The environmental impact of such is never mentioned, if it’s ever been examined. Which leads one to conclude that ecology has little to do with the forced market of EVs. Something far more sinister is most likely in play.
John,
Just like the pearl clutchers from 12-14 month ago screaming about the “the turtles!!!” Whenever you asked for or used a plastic straw are earily silent about the very real, very noticeable litter everywhere of used disopsable face diapers laying all ovee every road, parking lot and sidewalk you pass. The turtles only matter when its politically convenient and are thrown to the side when another issue becomes more important. All these virtue signlalling ev drivers i bet have never considered the environmental impact of the end of life of their evs, let alone the environmental impact of the mining of lithium at the beginning of their life. Also have you seen what they do to “green energy” wind turbine blades when their useful life is expended (usually that life ends before the turbine has even generated enough power to equal the power needed to create it in the first place.) They bury them in a landfill. How very green.
It’s no different that when the competition, some 115 years ago, was between, for example, a Ryker Electric that the old lady drove a few miles to Church on Sunday, a Stanley Steamer, or a gasoline-powered Oldsmobile (just before Henry Ford’s operation kicked into high-gear, no pun intended). The electric vehicle had a limited range, was heavy, and battery replacement was prohibitive. The steamer was EXPENSIVE, and it took awhile to warm up and build a head of steam, but the boiler burned anything liquid and once it was fired up, the thing would go like a “raped ape”…the gasoline was the most versatile and had the best range…WHEN it ran, which wasn’t a given. The overall paradigms haven’t changed, even with computers and more advanced electronics, better, more lightweight materials, and better batteries. EVs in a free market would have their place, but still quite limited. Hybrids? Ehh…maybe by now subsidies and tax credits are no longer needed, but we’ll see. I could have bought a Hybrid Fusion a year and a half ago, but even with the tax credits, it simply didn’t pencil out, and I don’t regret passing on it.
I can’t imagine waiting for more than 10 minutes to “fill up”. That would drive me bonkers. But…….the biggest issue for me is the tEcHnoLoGy. The reason most people “love” Tesla the most in the electric car space. Oooooh how I hate that comment.
When people tell me they just like the tech, the first thing that comes to my mind is Kip on Napoleon Dynomite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERCzN91JicA
Fu*k you and your technology.
For the few people I know that have EVs, they are little more than a toy
An EXPENSIVE “toy”. EVs have been sold as some sort of “Futuristic” vehicle, not recalling the quaint old Granny of yore and her electric car, probably a Riker, that she faithfully used for a grocery run or to go to Church on Sundays.
Have a good friend that got a tesla, not sure what model, but she’s a tech head and LOVE’s all things new tech, so she got one. she is of well means and can get almost anything BTW. I told her I would berate her forever, and she accepted, didn’t care cause most people call me crazy.
First time I saw her parked on the side of the road I rolled up “hey you need a jump? Want me to go get my generator? hahahahah.” No ass-h, I just stopped to talk on the phone…………… haha….. we have very bad cell service in our parts… Darn: her-1, me-0.
So she’s had it about 9 months now and guess what has happened? Whenever her and my wife need to go somewhere more than say 100m, she asks if my wife can drive… WHAAAAAAT???????
I think it’s ‘inconvenience’ is wearing on her. she is not one to be inconvenienced.
I talked to her about it a few days ago when again she asked for my wife to drive somewhere. She said it’s not working out. Fun car, but a second car only.
Now she’s asking my wife and I, ‘how do you like that G cherokee?’. Wait….The one you’ve been driving the past few months???
Hi Chris,
Yup. Jibes with the “case” of a couple I know. Very affluent (millions). They bought a Tesla S… as their second car. Their other car is a Benz G-Class. Guess which vehicle they drive most of the time . . . ?
A friend of mine would rent a car for long distance travel because long-distance highway driving in a Jeep is pretty hard on a person after age 40. It was a major hassle because we don’t live near a major airport, but he had figured it out. I could see where that could be a useful way to own an electric, but because local politicians figured out they could soak the tourists with relative impunity it isn’t at all an economic alternative to a gasoline vehicle.
As for a second vehicle option, that’s a pretty high cost for registration, insurance, etc for something that will probably sit in the garage much of the time.
Hybrids are still a pretty good option, but because they’re not green perfection on wheels they aren’t an option. Shame that, since they can actually add interesting features (like the F-150 30A generator) not available to gasoline or battery only vehicles.
Your experience illustrates the limited case for EV’s. Sure they can have a place for more urban areas and as a runabout for the shorter trips, maybe a commuter car if your drive is within the limited range on a daily basis. The EV definitely does not meet an all things for everyone case though with the huge expense and general poor range. If we were not being mandated that everyone will be driving one soon, then there would be hope that the tech could develop if there is possibility there, but with the way they will be mandated it just will not end very well for the average person. Which I think is the whole point of mandating these contraptions.
The problem isn’t so much the tech, although it’s a factor in why the combination of tax inducements and legislative force are being applied to foist these contraptions on an otherwise unwilling motoring public. Along with the mania to push “Mass Transit”. Deep down, it all comes from a desire to CONTROL the masses…these collectivists, corporatists, and statists all have their own ideas about how folks should live, but rather than simply preach them and let their ideas succeed or fail in the marketplace of ideas…they take the course of becoming TYRANTS, petty and/or gross, as they can. To them, an American middle-class person driving the ride IAW HIS/HER tastes and requirements, going wherever and whenever (s)he wants, using the highways and roads that are funded by the fuel taxes (s)he pays (and said fuel taxes are used for NO other purpose), if not tolls, is complete…ANANTHEMA. Movement equals freedom, and these control freaks will not stand for that. So we should stand AGAINST them, always.