Pepe Le Pew and the Electric Car

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Let’s talk about the upsides of electric vehicles . . . or at least, try to.

It’d be much easier to do so if electric vehicles weren’t being forced on us with all the subtlety of the cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew urging the girl cat with the painted white stripe on her back to come away with him to the Casbar.

But that aside . . . where to begin?

Is the EV a less expensive way to get from A to B?

The answer to this question is probably the most important question for many car buyers, who buy vehicles chiefly as transportation appliances. This encompasses the economy car class as well as most family-type cars in the $25k and under class.

There are no EVs in this class.

Right now – and with nothing else on the horizon – the short-range version (150 miles) of Nissan’s Leaf is the least expensive EV you can buy.

It stickers for $27,400. 

As opposed to about $15k for a piston-engined equivalent, such as Nissan’s Versa sedan.

How buying the Leaf makes getting from A to Be less expensive is hard to see. Electricity isn’t free – but we know how much gas costs.

How much gas does the roughly $12,000 difference in cost to buy the Leaf over the Versa purchase?

Well, it costs just shy of $50 to fill up the Versa’s 12 gallon tank at $4 per gallon – a higher than (current) average price – just for the sake of this discussion and factoring the likelihood of higher gas prices to come. One fill up per week equals $200/month to fuel the Versa. This adds up to $2,400 annually. Thus, you could drive the Versa for five years before driving the Leaf began to save you any money on fueling costs.

But once you get to five years out, the Leaf will pull ahead – right? The Versa owner will still be paying $2,400 per year for gas – maybe more – while the Leaf owner will be reaping the savings of not paying anything for gas, at all.

Very true – but with an asterisk.

After five years of daily discharging and recharging, the Leaf’s battery pack is probably going to be showing signs of tiredness. It may not happen exactly at five years – or six. But it will happen. And when it does, the Leaf’s owner will be faced with the cost of replacing the battery, in order to be able to continue driving the Leaf. The cost of replacing a Leaf’s battery is around $5,000 at current prices. Equivalent to two more years of driving to catch up to the Versa – which will never need a $5,000 battery pack. It is possible the Versa may need a new transmission or some other major component at some point over a 12-15 year service life. But it is far less likely than a Leaf – or any other electric car – needing a new a battery pack at some point during the same time period.

The “savings” are pretty sketchy.

Even more so when you factor in depreciation, which is greater for EVs because everyone knows that a six or seven year-old EV has a six-or-seven-year-old battery pack, which is like knowing a six-or-seven-year-old Versa has a slipping transmission. The market value of the six-or-seven-year-old EV will be less whatever the cost of replacing that getting-tired battery is. Which is money out of its owner’s pocket, come trade-in/resale time – even if not spent on gas.

Is the electric car more convenient to use? 

There are some subjectives here, as some people like the convenience (as they see it) of not needing to stop at a gas station for five minutes or so – once a week or so. Of being able to “fuel” their EV at home. But there are objectives, too – such as the indisputable fact that it takes an EV so much longer to recharge – especially at home – than it takes to gas up a piston-engined car, anywhere. This means having to devote more thought as well as time to the recharging vs. fueling cycle.

A piston-engined car can be fueled to full on the spur of the moment – and even if the tank is nearly empty, it only takes moments to refill it.

If an EV’s battery is discharged you have to wait. This includes unplanned-for situations. No more spur-of-the-moment get-in-and-goes.

Piston-engined cars also do not need garages. Electric cars do – and not just because garages have places to plug in power cords.

They’re also warm enough to prevent the EV’s battery pack from draining itself to keep warm – vital to the life of the battery as well as its ability to receive a charge. You can leave a piston-engined car curbside when it’s 20 degrees out and if you left it with a full tank when you parked it, it will still have a full tank when you return to it – even if that’s two weeks later.

Is the electric car lower maintenance? 

This one comes up a lot – probably because there is some truth to it. Electric cars don’t need regular oil and filter changes. But this savings – call it $150 annually vs. a piston-engined car – has to be placed in the context of the EV’s cost, for itself – plus the inevitable cost of replacing its battery pack.

EVs also have many of the same wear items that would cost you money with a piston-engined car, such as suspension parts, tires and so on. It is probably true that the EV saves you some time on dealing with service/maintenance costs. But that time saved is a fraction of the time spent waiting   . . . while the EV charges.

Is the electric car safer? 

Electric cars are rated (by the insurance mafia) using the same crash-test standards used to rate piston-engined cars, so assuming a given EV rates “5 stars” in its class it is nominally as “safe” as a piston-engined car in the same class with the same “5 star” rating.

But this s deceptive, because EVs have a unique safety deficit relative to piston-engined cars: They are more likely to catch fire because of the built-in fire hazard of “fast” charging high voltage electric car battery packs. It is probable this risk will increase over time, as the battery pack’s physical structure ages and deteriorates. If the EV catches fire, the fire will burn faster and hotter than a gasoline fire – making it a greater safety threat to anyone inside (or near) the EV.

That threat doesn’t end when the fire is extinguished, either – since battery fires are notorious for re-starting.

Well, what about performance? 

If this is defined as quickness 0-60 and through the quarter mile, then high-performance EVs like the Tesla Plaid have a lot to offer.

With some asterisks.

To experience the full performance of the Tesla Plaid, the battery must first be “conditioned” for the maximum effort (see here) meaning that unlike a piston-engined high-performance car, you can’t just punch it. You must first wait for it – if you want all of it.

But – yes – electric cars are quick. Well, the ones that cost $40k and up, at any rate. Or $129k and up, like the Tesla Plaid. The others – like the Leaf – aren’t appreciably quicker than most $25k piston-engined cars – that go twice as far, without making you wait.

Summary?

The whole electric car thing strikes me as being of a piece with the “vaccines” thing. For most people, neither thing seems to offer much in the way of pros – while draping a mantle of cons around our shoulders.

Maybe that’s why they need to be Pepe Le Pew’d into our lives.

. . .

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124 COMMENTS

  1. 150,000 Canadian truckers are in a convoy from BC to Ottawa, New Brunswick to Ottawa from the east, a vaccine mandate protest that already has trucks and truckers in Ottawa blaring their horns.

    Probably by 5 pm Ottawa time, the politicians will have heard an earful and some more but not enough.

    Canadians line Canada 1 up and down the road, no kidding. Plenty of youtube videos out there telling it like it iis.

    It really is incredible.

  2. I had to drive home in a snowstorm Saturday night. Heater running, defroster, rear defroster, windshield wipers, headlights, radio on. I am wondering how much range this would take off of an electric vehicle?

    • Hi AM,

      The main problem is a compounding problem. Very cold weather has a significant effect on range; if you keep on driving in the very cold, this gets worse. Use of electrically powered accessories adds to this. These are non-problems with non-electric cars. It’s about 17 degrees outside right now where I live. My truck hasn’t lost any range from just sitting overnight in this cold. It will go just as far in the cold as it would if it weren’t cold – and use of the heater cost me nothing.

      Once again, a clear example of the functional/practical inferiority of the electric car. So why are they being forced down our throats? Because they have to be.

  3. These EV’s are far more complicated and fragile then they have been advertised,

    Ice vehicles can operate in high and low temperature environments, EV’s are more fragile.

    There is a very complicated cooling/heating system for the lithium batteries, these lithium batteries are a big problem area, they have a very narrow temperature operating range, they can’t be too hot or too cold, there is also another problem, leaving the car in hot sunlight or very cold temperatures can damage the batteries.

    This battery cooling system is very important, if the batteries overheat they can explode, an ice vehicle doesn’t have that problem.

    The Tesla cars have an oil pump and oil filter, for the motors and the gearbox/diff and two water pumps for the cooling system.

    There is another separate HVAC system for the interior.
    In a tesla here is also a very complicated heat pump system for heating the interior.

    Heat pumps are super-efficient, but they are known to not work as well in extreme cold (around -15C or 5F and below).
    Tesla owners in cold climates are finding their heat pump system isn’t working in low temperatures.
    Tesla deleted the old electric heater that worked, to save electricity to then claim longer range.

    Buy the Taycan it still uses the electric heater not a super complicated heat pump.

  4. I agree with everything in this article. I am an miminalist with cars I have owned. I have owned over 50 so far. The worst car I ever owned was a 1973 Corvette soft top. It was of low quality construction, I blew an engine rod at 120K miles, the plastic trim got brittle and broke, it got terrible fuel economy. The soft top ripped open just from fatigue and weathering. I was glad to get rid of it and some guy in Cleveland paid $5000 for it.

    So after the Corvette I happened to rent a Dodge Colt (Mitsubishi Precis) while stationed in California. I like it so much I bought it. I fell in love with simple econo cars which were easy to work on. The car always started. It got 40 mpg, I could drive anywhere for the weekend for about 10 bucks. It wasn’t a girl getter like the Corvette, but by then I had landed one, and girl that drove a 1982 Honda Civic hatchback 1.5 liter 5 speed. I soon learned the Civic was of higher quality than a Colt.

    Later in life, after many cars and trucks I bought my first 1992? Geo Metro, a 3 cylinder 1.0 liter 4 door hatchback. The gal who sold it to me for $800 said it got 52 mpg, but I didn’t believe her, so she agreed to buy it back in a week if it didn’t. So I tested it and it got exactly 52mpg. This I thought impossible because I had owned the Civic and that Dodge Colt, and some small Nissans and none of them could get over 42 mpg. 38 mpg is tops for most small 4 cylinders. Anyways, long story I am on my 9th Geo Metro, a 1993 4 door with the 3 cylinder 5 speed.

    Why? Because it gets the best fuel economy for the cheapest price. It is the easiest car I have ever worked on, this includes many head reconditioning, engine swaps and rebuilds etc. Almost all Geo Metro replacement parts can be bought on Amazon dirt cheap. The single injector and computer have never gone out like on my other cars. The head can be removed in 2 hours and a pot of coffee. I have replaced the engine and drive train in one day of work, with just a cherry picker and a socket set and a few other tools in the back woods.

    So what other car can you buy for a few hundred bucks, gets 50+ mpg, easy to work on besides a Geo Metro? That beats all the hybrids, all the electrics, etc. I say it is a crime to scrap a Geo Metro. And they last forever if you take care of them. By current one has over 260,000 miles and runs perfect.

    I have told many people the Geo Metro is a free car. If you are getting 25-35 mpg in your current car, a Geo Metro pays for itself in a matter of months just from fuel savings.

    And there’s no $4200 electric battery to replace like a Prius.

    It has unlimited range unlike any electric. A geo metro goes 400 – 450 miles on 8 gallons of gas (fuel tank is 10.6 gallons). When I fill up at $4 a gallon no one else even comes close for fuel cost savings. I see Surburban owners shelling out $75 or more while I am only paying $25. Big difference.

    Can you imagine how screwed everyone is going to be if gasoline gets to $5 or $6 per gallon? With a Geo Metro 8 gallons would be $48. I will still survive, how about you with your gas guzzler 4.0 liter?

    • Preach it, Yukon!

      There were also carbureted little runabouts like the Honda CRX Hfi of the ’80s… also capable of 50-plus MPG. With a carburetor. I’ve written previously about the tragedy that is the fact that cars have regressed in value/efficiency over the past 20-something years. This trend is accelerating, too.

      Pete Buttigieg says if you’re worried about the price of gas to go out and buy a $50,000 electric car.

      • If you do a Google search for Asian diesel cars you will find that most foreign manufacturers build and sell highly efficient diesels sold throughout the world EXCEPT here in the good oil US of A.

        The Honda Civic diesel is rated at 78mpg imperial gallon, the CRV SUV obtains 62.8 mpg and most of the others have similar ratings. If the excuse for not importing them here is because of safety issues
        why not build them to our standards.

        There HAS to be a better explanation a to why they are not on our roads.
        Because they actually get better mpg than hybrid perhaps the folks pushing hybrids have a say in it

      • Out of many economy cars that passed through my hands, one was a Honda CRX, and it had the highest EPA rating for it’s time. It’s funny, but the highest EPA MPGs came after the 1970’s oil crunches, about 1982 to be exact. You can still download the original EPA fuel ratings, because I think they changed their calculations over the years because the original rating was 58 mpg highway for the 1984 CRX.

        https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/1982_feg.pdf
        https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/epadata/82guide.txt

        1982 Plymouth Champ: 39 mpg with M4
        1982 Datsun Pickup 2wd 36 mpg with M5 (2.2 liter engine)
        1982 Honda Civic 1.5 /5 spd 34/45
        1984 Honda CRX 1.3 /5 spd 36/45

        This website has a list, but most of the EPA MPG ratings are to high:
        https://www.mpgomatic.com/2007/10/09/1982-a-banner-year-for-high-mpg-cars/
        ————–

        We studied the Prius, they are cheap to buy used. See Craigslist:

        https://sacramento.craigslist.org/search/cto?sort=priceasc&query=prius

        Why so cheap for a Toyota? 2 reasons, the catalytic converters are being stolen left and right, and the replacement battery cost. ($4200 at a dealer) The dealers do not want them, so says Scotty Kilmer:

        Is the Toyota Prius the Worst Car Ever Made
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxOM1deFcbw

        Unfortunately, the Prius can’t be driven as a straight gasoline engine, as it does have a good 1.5 liter motor. Thus the Prius depreciation is much higher after 10 years than a straight ICE motor. That means your article’s PEW factor is even worse!

        We bought the Corolla because I can fix it. Forever. For cost of parts.

        Hybrids are a big joke like All Wheel Drives. Let’s say you buy a Prius for $5000 used and you get 2 years of use before the battery craps out. Are you willing to spend $4200 to fix it? No. Think about that.

        Let’s say your Libtard neighbor gives you his Prius, he replaced the battery with an $1200 reconditioned battery with a 1 year warranty. You drive for a year and the el cheapo battery craps out. Are you willing to cough up the money to fix it?

        No No No. The Prius is a big NO for poor folk, even it you get it free.

        Prius is a joke after 10 -15 years. They are ALL going to the wrecking yard way before the straight gasoline models. That is a fact Jack based on simple redneck math.

        • The punchline was when the generator goes the whole engine must be pulled out, the total job is $6000 and the battery replacement is $4200. So after about ten years the residual value is zero because the battery is dead/near dead.

          It looks like all the EV’s and hybrids are worth close to zero in about ten years because the batteries are dead/ near dead.

          This is very good marketing, people have to buy a new car every 10 years.

          An old ice vehicle can be swapped to an electric drive train, it is very difficult to convert an EV to gas power.

          • Hi Anon,

            EVs solve the problem of cars that last too long, too reliably. Circa the early 2000s, car development had reached an apogee of perfection in that practically any new car could be counted on to last at least 12-15 years before it began to require more work that it was worth to keep it going. Many cars lasted 20-plus years. This meant people were not only not spending money; they were able to save it. The whole point of EVs is to end that – while at the same time, diminishing and controlling mobility. Everything else is distraction.

        • Hi Jack,

          Yup. It’s a measure of how we’ve been gypped – and misled – to reckon that the only new cars that exceed 50 MPG are the Prius and similar hybrids such as the Hyundai Ioniq. In other words, that it in order to achieve the same degree of efficiency achieved 40 years ago, it is now necessary to carry around a battery pack/electric motors – which, as you rightly observe, negate any “savings” on gas due to the inevitable replacement cost of the battery pack and related expensive components.

          My ex had a Corolla and go another one after we divorced, at my suggestion. They are brilliant cars, superior to any hybrid if the metric of that is total ownership cost over say 20-25 years.

          • I live in a small town in rural south Oregon, and back in the day this place was the mecca for hippies and fuel conscious back to the land organic types. There are tons of older super small cars and trucks still being driven. Many of the older retired people here have a Toyota Prius. I joke that the national car here is the Prius. Literally every block in town has one or two.

            At the local organic food Coop the most virtual signalling eco car is the Prius hands down. But now I am seeing quite a few Teslas and I estimate about 5 Nissan Leafs here. I talk to people that have the all electic Leaf, it has a very short 50-100 mile range – so you have to wonder why they shell out $20,000 for a car that can only go such as short distance.

            Older Toyotas are everywhere. When I drive around for my job I pay very close attention to what cars have survived the ravages of time. The most surviving Toyota of all time I would say is the Camry. I see many of every decade. Same for the Corolla. And interestingly is how they changed in size over the decades, both of those models went from small to big to medium.

            I would say Toyota is the most popular brand by far, and I wonder how Tesla stock value can be bigger than Toyota AND 10 other big car companies. Makes no sense to me at all. How can Tesla market cap be over a trillion when they only make 1% of cars?

            https://wolfstreet.com/2020/12/12/tesla-the-quadruple-wtf-chart-of-the-year-it-should-just-sell-shares-on-autopilot-at-huge-prices-and-exit-sordid-business-of-making-cars/

            The little Datsun trucks have survived time, 620 and 720 particularly. But of course the Toyota truck is the most popular in my town, and there are hundreds of them, older ones are as numerous as the newer Tacomas.

            I had a 1982 Datsun 2wd pickup with the 2.2 liter engine and 5 speed. It got 28 mpg on the highway. Good quality and very easy to work on. But few people will be caught seen in them these days.

            What cars do I not see? No Oldsmobiles, no Pontiacs, no Ford station wagons, and no Pintos but a few F-150s. No AMC product is in this town or anywhere I travel. No Pacer or Gremlin survived. But I do see older Civics and Tercels.

            I grew up outside of Cleveland Ohio and I know about these Detroit vehicles. No Chevettes at all but a few LUV mini trucks. I had a LUV and it was junk. Toyota/Honda quality wins the longevity contest. I see lots of Honda Fits but they look like junk to me.

            So the way I figure it we have to wait until the next oil crunch before we see a wave repeat of 1982 high fuel economy vehicles again, this time with fuel injection. Perhaps if gas gets $5 or higher then fuel economy will come back.

          • Hey Eric,
            Couldn’t agree more re: Corollas, I have a 2001 and 2003 and they both run like the proverbial Swiss watch. Only big expense so far was a converter for the’01, which is starting to get some body rust due to being up here in the snow/salt belt. Otherwise I hope to keep them on the road until I’m too decrepit to drive.

        • Right about replacements my cheap neighbors and relatives wouldn’t even replace the turbos on the Subarus and Mustangs, a lot of people will buy a cheap used car and get maybe 10-15K out because they have no intention of maintaining, some of my temporary Neighbors( with shall we say, a weird history ) had old junkyard deserter vehicles that ran funny and were louder than usual{ can you say”convertor delete?- that was the scuttlebutt anyway}, hey goes with the territory.I could see the merits of a plug in hybrid, just don’t step on the toes of a Musk fanboy( they try to defend the ‘indefensible and pay very handsomely for the privilege) I wanted electric, simply couldn’t afford it- yes it would have worked for Me.
          Now I do not even have the parity to purchase the ‘Maverick”I wanted ( either iteration) all the Kids and toy collectors have snapped them up all the while gripping abouts it dimensions and lack of a larger turbo engine, while the greedy stealerships add on bogus charges.
          Remember one thing”People are fake!”

    • I will tell you about another great car: the Toyota Corolla. Last year my wife saved up her Biden and Trump bucks and replaced her aging 1997 Suzuki Sidekick Sport. When the clutch bracket failed and I had to fix it by removing it and rewelding the sheet metal (crap ) bracket assembly (that holds the brake, clutch levers) we decided that was it, lets get rid of it.

      So we studied Craigslist for months and decided on a Toyota Corolla, we drove up the I-5 through Portland, Tacoma and Seattle to get to Bellingham and bought her a 2004 mint condition Corolla from a retire FedEx pilot who kept the car garaged. It was like showroom condition. It has excellent air conditioning, Toyota’s outstanding cruise control, surround speaker option, and it gets 42 mpg – even though it is the 1.8 liter 4 cylinder engine.

      So remember that, the mid 2000 Corollas get excellent fuel economy. Now what is the big difference between the Geo Metro and Corolla? Weight. The Metro weighs 960 lbs less! 2640 – 1680 = 960 lbs. Both econo cars. So I do not understand why manufacturers are building such heavy vehicles.

      Back in the 1980s the Sprint (pre-Metro) only weighed 1600 lbs

      Curb weight 620–750 kg (1,367–1,653 lb) see wikipedia page

      1986 Chevrolet Sprint
      Engine: 1.0-liter 3-cyl.
      EPA rating: City 44, Hwy. 53
      Combined: 48

      MSRP $5,580

        • Yes, diesels are more efficient, but in cold climates starting them is a problem, and working on them is beyond most backyard mechanics, and the result is that small cars with diesels have a small fan group who know how to take care of them.

          Where I live in southern Oregon biodiesels are popular. Thus people trying to sell their diesels often mention that in a Craigslist ad. I have paid much attention to these small diesels over the years and there are hardly any on the road these days.

          The diesel small car is quite a bit louder which makes it terrible for hunting. They are also slow on acceleration (the older ones). I did talk to a guy who bought a VW Jetta diesel and he loved it, he said he got 70 mpg at 70 mph. Sounds high, but I read the European mpg and they are getting much higher fuel economies over there. Some people have told me it’s the computer chip, same exact everything, but the computer chip is different which results in much higher mpgs.

    • A Mk 1 VW Golf 1800 lb., was fitted with a Mk 4 VW turbo ALH diesel, it was fast, 0 to 60 in about 6 seconds and got 65 mpg highway. That is better then an EV in lots of ways.

      Do the same thing with a VW pickup (the Caddy), then you have the utility of a pickup and 60 mpg on the freeway, maybe the best small vehicle ever made. forget about 5000 lb EV’s.

      The VW ALH 4 cyl 1.9 lt. turbo diesel was so good it was swapped into lots of small trucks, etc., more then 450 lb ft torque possible, great fuel economy, can last 500,000 miles.

      this one has a gas engine
      https://dailyturismo.com/10k-all-motor-1980-volkswagen-caddy/

  5. Electric carmakers might have to do something similar to what Henry Ford did, increase the incomes of potential buyers above that required to make the product affordable. If the incomes of the lower class had been increased as much by the Fed’s pumping as those of the elites have been, anyone could afford to buy a Tesla. The new problem would be present hyperinflation.

    • Hi Vonu!

      This EV problem is a multifaceted problem. Cost, obviously, is one of the big ones. Another is the problem of finding the power to make all this work – assuming the intent is to make it work. The third is the regression of mobility the EV visits upon us. We go less far; we’re tied closer (and for longer) to where we can charge.

      This latter alone leaves me sometimes sputtering with incomprehension – trying to understand why anyone would consider it anything other than a regression.

    • The people on the bottom got ten cents, the billionaires got 4 trillion dollars richer since the hoax started, was that the whole purpose? Just more theft…… 100’s of thousands of small businesses went bankrupt, all their business went to the billionaires corporations….there is some angry people out there……

  6. 25 Problems With Tesla Nobody Talks About

    insurance premiums are high for these vehicles.

    Tesla recommends drivers invest in their maintenance plans that include a thorough inspection of the vehicle every 12,000 miles. The prices vary based on the year and model of the car, as well as which specific plan the driver chooses, but standalone inspections range anywhere from $475 to $750 per visit (not including repairs). A four-year maintenance plan is around $2,500.

    A few new Tesla owners have experienced problems with the steering wheel locking up while turning

    Tesla’s can sometimes be uncharted territory for mechanics—this is a relatively new technology, after all—so it may take several days, and sometimes even weeks, before owners get to see their cars again. What’s worse is that many of these technical difficulties aren’t fully resolved during the first visit

    the emergency handle is near where a door handle normally would be, but if it’s pulled too often it can and will crack the window.

    owners have been extremely let down to find that their overpriced electric vehicle has scratches all over their car and bulges in the windshield.

    the price to insure a Tesla tends to be more than the average vehicle.

    Tesla’s autopilot cannot detect stationary vehicles, so if you rely heavily on this feature then you may be in for a rude awakening. You could yourself slamming into a non-moving vehicle.

    Tesla has been accused of having a fatality rate that’s more than triple what you see in luxury vehicles.

    As you may now well know, Tesla drivers are much more likely to get into an accident than other vehicles. Though Elon Musk doesn’t want you to know about this little fact,

    There’s a common problem with Teslas experiencing rattling in several areas of the cars. Owners have taken their cars to service centers numerous times for this issue but a very rare few have seen the annoyance resolved

    https://www.hotcars.com/problems-with-tesla-nobody-talks-about/

    • As you may now well know, Tesla drivers are much more likely to get into an accident than other vehicles. Though Elon Musk doesn’t want you to know about this little fact,

      It is in the marketing plan:

      A) They are green

      So a lot of stupid climate change leftists buy them

      B) They do 0 to 60 faster then any car in the world

      So lots of lead foot speedsters buy them so they can blow off any car on any road, they are the king of the road and they can do it without making a sound. All owners talk about is how fast their car is. Slow drivers wouldn’t bother buying them, there is lots of cheaper slower EV’s.

      • lots of lead foot speedsters buy teslas so they can blow off any car on any road, they are the king of the road

        I see this every time I drive, the Tesla driver pulls up in the right lane at the lights and blows everyone off through the intersection, or if you are beside them and speed up they think you are challenging them and they speed up to put you in your place.

  7. While this subject and comments here have delved into the many cost comparisons between EVs and ICU vehicles, very thoughtfully, one assumption here seems very wrong.

    You don’t “save” $12K on fuel (in the example) unless charging your EV is free. Is it?

    I assume Teslas and the like at charging stations require you to pay for electricity. What I wonder (and have asked here before on other topic) is how much does a full charge cost for a typical fully EV car?

    So fuel savings should be $12k – [cost of electricity per charge over one year of same mileage]. Something far less than that figure being used.

    Yes, electricity per KWH varies across the country, maybe even over time of day, etc. But not free is it?

    This EV “fuel” cost would be nice to actually know.

    • I have a friend with a tesla, he charges at a tesla super charger at a mall, he says it costs almost as much to fuel as an ice car.

      Someone here said it costs him $40 a month to charge at home, in 10 years the total cost would be $4800.

    • I heard that they will do variable pricing for superchargers in the future. Peak hours, they might charge $1 per minute to use it and $0.50 if you leave your car parked after its charged. For example if it charges in 30 minutes, but you are having a 1 hour lunch it would charge you $30 for power & $15 for not retrieving it immediately.

      As of now, average supercharger price is $0.25 per kwh so it would cost $10 to 25 to fill a typical tesla depending on which battery you have and how low it is. So currently cheaper per mile than an econobox. Unless you consider other factors.

      • If your ice vehicle gets 40 mpg, 10 gallons will take you 400 miles at $3.35 a gallon = $33.50

        At $ 0.25 per Kwh if your EV costs $25.00 to charge at a super charger and it takes you 400 miles, it gives you some numbers to start a comparison.

        Tesla cars use exceptionally good tires, which is especially important on electric cars. The average tire life of Tesla tires is 25,000 to 30,000 miles depending on road conditions and driving habits.

        The Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus (SR+) comes with Michelin Primacy MXM4 tires that have a treadwear rating of 500, a traction rating of A, and a temperature rating of A (500AA). You should get around 30,000 miles out of those tires, with a cost on Simpletire of $276. Add on local installation and a road hazard warranty and it comes to about $1,358 for 4 tires. $1,358 divided by 30,000 is about 4.5 cents a mile,

        EV’s are 50% to 100% heavier then ice cars so have higher tire wear, that is an additional cost per mile.

    • Well, think about this (and this is a 2019 CRV 33 mpg) they have hooting and spasing about better fuel economy for the past 50 years and then they reward you with a Fuel-efficient surcharge upon registration, around 70$ and mind you this is on a vehicle that gets at best 33 mpg. I have no idea what the “surcharge” would be on a EV I can only imagine it would be onerous.

  8. “Let’s talk about the upsides of electric vehicles . . . or at least, try to.”

    “It’d be much easier to do so if electric vehicles weren’t being forced on us with all the subtlety of the cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew urging the girl cat with the painted white stripe on her back to come away with him to the Casbar.”

    It would be so much easier to talk about the upside of Covid Jabs (if there are any) if they were not being forced on us with all the subtlety…

    These two seemingly disparate issues are, in effect, exactly the same. Someone has decided that you will conform, comply, and accept what you are given regardless of you own desire to make your own choices. Like Pepe, both stink and should be abandoned as quickly as possible. Embracing them does not solve the problem, it only causes you to smell as badly as Pepe.

    • Amen, Roger!

      I’ve argued the same for as long as both have been going on. People have every right to do as they like (provided they’re not harming anyone else by so doing) but they have no right to force anyone else do as they like…

      • The vaccine mandate is more like manditory emissions testing. You do it so that you can get government approval to go places. but they use some retarded test that cant tell if you are polluting or not. Then they use random additives to lower emissions in your engine regardless of how it runs. Some of the additives cause engine failure, some cause computer failure, and some dont seem to do anything. But the placebo effect says its protecting the car. Cars comming out of the emissions treatment center often have higher emissions and lower performance. Most who dare to floor it and hit 6000 rpms after the treatment will throw a rod. Of course you are stuck with your body & brain either way no matter how bad the batch is, and you cant change out your vital organs or blood.

  9. One thing Eric left out was that the Leaf still qualifies for the $7,500 energy tax credit, so the cost difference with the Versa is only a little over $5k. But that being said, you need a 2nd ICE vehicle for long trips if you are going to get a Leaf, which should only be used for a daily commute or trips to the store. Most families have two cars, so maybe this is not a problem.

    • That’s true, Johnny –

      And Nissan doesn’t need to get the government to pay customers $7,500 to “buy” Versas, either! And even so, my understanding is that Nissan has lost money on every Leaf “sold” so far…

    • Using the tax code to favor purchase of EVs has the net effect of INCREASING the price of the EV, so the tax “saving” to the purchaser is ILLUSORY. Never mind the other hidden, however real, costs of Uncle Sam’s “rent-seeking”.

      I also didn’t see a mention of the actual cost at the owner’s residence, or where he parks at work, to re-charge the vehicle, reflected in paying at the meter and in the monthly electric bill. Those who say, “well, I can charge at work for FREE” ignore that SOMEONE paid for the charging station, it’s maintenance, and the “free juice” dispensed. Never mind the utterly immorality and blatant hypocrisy of stick the OTHER taxpayers like you and I with that cost so the EV owner, often at least upper-middle-class or better in financial stature, can virtue-signal.

      If EVs as a widespread automotive consumer option made economic sense, it’d not be necessary for the Government to be involved, period, no more than purchasing that inexpensive Nissan Versa (my #1 son has one, a 2018, bought used a few years ago and now he’s paid it off) or even my 2020 (con) Fusion, which has the simple four-banger, a turbocharged version of the same engine I had in that 2014 Ford (out of) Focus I traded in for it. Since I’d taken the settlement for that defective dual-clutch transmission the Focus had, and got a decent “incentive” (worth about twice what just an outright cash payment was), which was NOT offered on the hybrid, never mind that the hybrid version, also loaded with other gizmos I saw little need for, as the Fusion I wanted had enough, was TEN GRAND more. At the time, that extra ten grand would have landed a decent used pickup (not too sure these days), so the economics of hybrid versus conventional were quite straightforward. Even though gasoline costs have jumped nearly two bucks a gallon here in NorCal since then, I’m still way the hell ahead over the projected life of this vehicle.

    • Johnny boy -I can go a month on a tank of gas if im limiting myself to trips id take in an ev. An considering insurance, registration, etc there is no point where a currently available commuter ev + gas backup makes sense. What makes more sense is a plug in hybrid. Or an NEV if you dont go outside of a 20 mile radius

    • Did Calos ever fix the 90K CV gift( wait, thats right He is still in hiding after nearly putting Nissan under.
      My Preacher and Hubby used to buy new Nissans and put probably 250K trouble free miles on them that is until the last Sentra (two rubber band CVT replacements in around 200K miles) no more sez the Hubby”EX Navy{son is now an Admiral- strongly resembles Tom Cruise) they ended up with a well-used Volvo wagonish thing lets hope they have good luck with that.
      The thing about free charging, someone else does pay for that as much as I love PV electricity it makes absolutely no sense at this late stage to invest in those things, I also have a concern for the smug preppers( if and when the grid goes down) do they think the wiring and electronics on the PV panels will not be affected?)
      In this country perhaps we would be better off not being smug and making our own little fortresses, instead spending time to get to know our Neighbors and working toward enough harmony to make it unlikely that a “Rogue State” will cripple us at any event, one big EMP event and we are pretty much instantly back into the Mid-19th Century? Do we wish to live that ,I think not.I apologize for rambling and straying from the subject, Perhaps as “Winnie the Pooh” sez , this stuff requires” large thinking”, the mess in LA is a harbringer of things to come, lets pray we can get these things sorted out.
      As “Gump’ said “I’m going home now”(paraphrase) above all try not to get entangled with the state

  10. I came close to stepping out onto road in front of one. Never heard it until it got within 4feet. The road is actually part of a parking area that does not have much traffic so I’m used to hearing rather than seeing.
    Being run over by an EV would be the ultimate in shame.

  11. The electric car problems were solved 16 years ago with the introduction of the Toyota Camry hybrid. That technology was ready for prime time. Non-hybrid battery electric vehicles with no gasoline engines are not.

    Assuming you drove an average, or above average, number of miles each year, the extra cost for a hybrid should have a good return on the investment. The Camry is big enough for most people. The earlier Prius was small and looked like a dorkmobile.

    Toyota had a long term reputation for high reliability (not like Tesla). I bought two Camry’s since the 2005 model year, but not hybrids, because we are retired and don’t drive enough to justify the extra cost. But I did test drive Camry hybrids twice, and recommended them to other people

    • You have to admit, the Toyota hybrids have proven to be well-engineered vehicles. One thing to keep in mind: like any hybrid, the replacement cost of that battery pack, which, admittedly, most conventional powertrains have also become, render a vehicle worth, say, $12K one day, a hopeless pile of junk the next. IF you can get a salvage yard to take your now-moribund hybrid.

      I’ve linked to yet another apologist for the hybrids; see the utter bullshit in this particular article. One thing he glosses over: that hybrids have been pushed with GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.

      https://www.ablison.com/pros-and-cons-of-a-hybrid-car/

  12. Hi Anonymous……You make a great point on lack of EV repair options in small towns…I was in western Kansas on Interstate 70 and could not find a TIRE for a Honda Accord. The response at every shop contacted was the same…..”We only stock tires for tractors and pickup trucks.” Forget rural EV maintenance facilities; It will take years just for charging stations to show up. Can’t wait to read those social media stories from EV crybabies needing to trailer their vehicles hundreds of miles for on-the-road service…..

    • EV crybabies don’t go to Kansas, John.)?
      You’ve heard the term “flyover country,” (which is just full of “deplorables”), right?

    • It will be a bit like owning a Mclaren they fly in tech’s to repair them, for body damage they use so much exotic material they have to be flown back to the factory for body repair.

  13. Electric motors are better than ICE motors.
    High torque at low rpm.
    Fewer parts to break.
    No oil changes.
    Great for speed demons like EP.

    It’s the batteries that stink.
    They are too heavy, too expensive,
    charge too slowly at home, catch fire,
    don’t last for enough years, especially after
    lots of fast charging, and they need
    a range of at least 600 miles, in all
    weather conditions, with an 80% charge.

    Until those improvements happen,
    electric vehicles are best as
    second cars for wealthy green dream
    virtue signalers, and other dorks.

    • Also, brakes last just about forever in an EV. Due to the recharging of the battery on the down hill. There is no cooling system to service or leaks. There is no exhaust system to rust out. You don’t have to buy a new battery (conventional 12 volt). No air filter, no fuel filter, no oil filter. No emissions inspection. I could go on.

      • Complete balonry
        Cooling system on my 2005 Toyota Camry at 209,000 miles is fine. with one flush and refill at 100.000 miles. Exhaust system is original stainless steel with no rust. Still using original struts. We do have to replace the battery every 4 to 5 years here in the Detroit area. No rust. $25 ten minute oil and filter change every 5,000 miles.
        No Tesla clown car would last that long — way more expensive, for a smaller car too.

        • Hi Richard,

          My ’02 Nissan has most of its factory original equipment, including the clutch! I did put a water pump in about six years ago; $40 and an hour of my time. Otherwise, it still runs like new…

          • You must be very smooth with the clutch, or it was designed really well. I’ve had quite a few Mustang GT manuals in my life, and one Probe GT manual. The Mustang clutch required a strong left leg. I let the wife drive one Mustang GT convertible all summer while I was working. Taught her how to use the clutch, or at least tried to. That clutch and her left leg strength were a total mismatch. The clutch was never the same after the Summer. Good thing it was my company car that I only had to keep one year.
            I learned why so many people don’t like manual transmissions.

            • ’65-’73 was Z bar solid linkage.
              ’79-’04 cable.
              ’05-present hydraulic.
              Each system took less effort than the one before it.

      • Teslas have one oil pump and two water pumps.

        The Tesla cars have an oil pump and oil filter, for the motors and the gearbox/diff and two water pumps for the cooling system for the batteries, if you check the coolant level, which requires some disassembly you void your warranty.

        These three electric pumps will have to be replaced at some point, like an ice car they might last 60,000 miles., then need replacement, it will cost a lot more then an ice car to replace.

        These motors turn up to 18,000 rpm there will be some wear so the oil and filter should be changed to get rid of contamination in the oil (bits of metal in the oil and filter).

        • EV’s eat tires, another hidden cost:

          NOTE: The biggest pollutant emitted from new cars because they have so low emissions are from tires wearing out while driving, tire particles.
          ATTENTION: Electric cars weigh 50% more than gas powered cars so have higher tire wear, so EV’s pollute more.

          Tesla has a radiator too……plus two water pumps and an oil pump and filter.

          Tesla Thermal Management System – explanation

          https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-thermal-management-system-explanation.88055/

          • The Tesla cars have an oil pump and oil filter, for the motors and the gearbox/diff and two water pumps for the cooling system for the batteries.

            There is an oil to coolant heat exchanger in the system to cool the oil, the problem with this is if it fails, develops an internal leak, the coolant will get into the electric motor bearings and the diff, then the motor and diff will fail, plus the battery cooling system is contaminated with oil, the car would likely be a writeoff.

            Some ice cars had this problem, oil from the auto trans was routed through a pipe, through the rad, which is fine until the coolant gets into the trans oil because of a leak, then the trans gets coolant in it and fails, big repair bill, at least it didn’t destroy the engine too.

        • TINFL, the manufacturers will build in service points or “backdoors–Like Tesla” never argue with a Musk Fanboy, they will not listen, other EVs for the most part do not have all the built in service points Teslas have. I never flush a cooling system these days,I just drain everything I can and refill and that seems to work handsomely, I have never had any cooling system problem.
          The one thing I wish Manufacturers would do is to come up with a better Hydraulic system or at least a closed system that wouldn’t attract water, after a debacle with with an ST Dodge Dakota I found out why you should do an annual brake system drain and flush( the old Dodge was the only vehicle I ever owned that the manufacturer seemed to spend extra money to make it cheap)

    • Electric motors are better than ICE motors, in some ways, worse in others……
      High torque at low rpm.

      ice engines have a problem, lack of low end torque but there is lots of them that have a flat torque curve, the torque will be almost the same up to redline, they are well suited to a race track where you want top end power, not as well suited for around town.

      electric motors have 100% torque at 1 rpm, but like in the tesla for example which revs to 18,000 rpm, the torque starts falling at 9,000 rpm, they are well suited to in town driving or for short drag races, like the 1/8th or 1/4 mile, up to 120 mph they are quick, over 120 mph an ice car with similar power to weight will be quicker over 120 mph and in the 1/2 mile.

      The quickest cars right now are cars like the F1 cars and the Porsche 919 evo hybrid, hybrid combines the two engines to get the best of both.

      • I keep hearing this bunk about how electric motors are more reliable than IC engines due to fewer moving parts. This drivel rubs me the wrong way for several reasons. The first reason this line of thought is rubbish is a quick duckduckgo search of “tesla motor failure” reveals they’ve been prematurely sh*tting the bed mechanically and electronically since the early model S(hitbox) hit the streets. The second thing to consider is how many well designed engines (excluding overstuffed 4’s) pass 200k miles with very little simple maintenance. On top of all that also consider that most of the complexity and expense of an IC engine is due to government fu*kery. Absent the busybodies we’d likely still have the option of buying a brand new farm truck with an indestructible refined flat head iron engine breathing through a modern carburetor. Don’t think for a second that every lasy bit of your precious EV won’t be value engineered down to the piont that it’s a flimsy plastic throwaway turd just like all the fancy overteched home appliances on the market today.

        • tesla motor failure”

          yes I saw that too.

          They turn up to 18,000 rpm, don’t tell me they last as long as something like the old Mercedes diesel, some went one million miles.

          They have oil for lubrication and an oil filter which I heard they say doesn’t need changing, that is crazy with wear there will be bits of metal contamination in the oil. The oil is shared with the diff so bits of metal from the diff wear goes through the motor bearings.

          Someone should get the oil analyzed on a Tesla at 50,000 miles and see what metals are ground up in there, a good pre purchase check on a used one.

          No maintenance they say, don’t believe it.

          It looks like they are a disposable item like a laptop or a cell phone after 10 years when the battery is dead, sell it at 60,000 miles before the pumps go.

          • I just found out tesla had early drive unit failures so they added an oil filter.

            In the old days lots of things were over engineered, now with computers they can design them to last just as long as they want, designed in obsolescence and just strong enough they won’t break with normal use.

        • Theres this 53 Model Plymouth” Cranbrook” on Facebook right now that I keep lusting after it checks a lot of your boxes( if only I were younger and better off, that thing would be my local, fair weather daily driver)

      • “they are well suited to a race track where you want top end power, not as well suited for around town”
        Something I have noticed is if you watch which cars get in wrecks in town, it’s a high percentage the ones with the quick acceleration. It takes half a second of inattention to hit someone who is not accelerating as fast. Or to jump at a stop sign out into the road when you meant to move up a touch into position to see.

        This is the most problem with older drivers with slower reflexes, distracted drivers (like people with phones or moms with kids) and younger drivers who don’t think wrecks can happen to them. Which all adds up to a major percentage of the drivers on the road.

        And since they are heavier than a comparable size gas car, new owners will have less experience with acceleration and deceleration of the weight. Like learning to drive a heavy truck after a small car, you have to account for longer stopping distance, different cornering, and very different behavior on wet or icy roads.

        It’ll be interesting to watch the wreck statistics of the EV cars. Interesting in a bad way, I expect.

        • Hi GK,

          Yup – and there are two compounding problems. One, the EV requires less of the driver (no manual transmission; multiple forms of “assistance” tech) which will tend to increase driver passivity/inattentiveness. Two, the EV is inherently more fire-prone due to the built-in nature of the battery pack as well as the fact that the battery pack is more physically vulnerable to impact forces in a crash because it is spread out over the length/width of the floorpan (in many EVs).

          But don’t worry… “self-driving” will fix it all…

          • The self driving will work great in good weather, well planned cities good roads. So good that your skills will rust away. But then when you need to go to downtown Seattle, the car wont be able to make sense of 5 way intersections, bicyclists, rain & hills. Then the driver having lost 95% of his attention span & forgotton how to drive has to maneuver through that craziness

            • This has been talked about:
              One skill people have developed is the driving skill, with self driving cars people will lose that skill, then it is easier to control them, they are already losing this skill with these new high tech cars, the car drives you, you don’t drive the car, soon they will be full self driving, then people will be a helpless blob with less skills, easier to control.

          • Yeah, right, what some People do not seem to Grok is this-if the FSD car crashes and kills a bunch of people, the owner will bear the brunt of criminal charges , not Tesla or some other manufacturer.

        • As you may now well know, Tesla drivers are much more likely to get into an accident than other vehicles. Though Elon Musk doesn’t want you to know about this little fact,

          They buy them to beat all other cars on the street, drive fast, blow everyone else through the lights (this is very dangerous because the cross traffic will run red lights….the first guy into the intersection gets t-boned, if you do this you better be 100% alert, or you will get hit), some put it in the defective self driving mode and crash = high crash rate….

          all this in a car with up to 1800 lb of lithium batteries that are like a bomb and can explode, a rolling fire bomb.

          • Maybe it has something to do with the tesla drivers:

            High tech leftist, silicon valley, soya boys who sit at a computer, as opposed to gearhead people that race cars at the track and can drive.

            Or maybe leftist/communist gaia religion, purple haired, gender confused.

            • I do not race OTH I learned a lot about driving in the early days of my”tenure” with junk pickups and heavy trucks. It so maddening to have to cut off the “safety” features in modern vehicle during snowwy and icy weather so you can get the dang thing stopped or make it up the hill. There are 3 things I would delete on a new vehicle if I could,Face bombs,Traction uncontrol and anti stop brakes.

    • Well, then, think of how the RAILROAD industry, which has, for 175 years, made its money hauling FREIGHT (yes, there was passenger service, but, save for areas like the Northeast where population density makes it still a viable choice over airline travel, IF the Federal Government weren’t in that business, aka “Amtrak”), has used “hybrids” for over 80 years…the DIESEL-ELECTRIC locomotive. Not only fuel costs, which were cut by about 60 percent over an equivalent power steam locomotive, even one modernized to burn oil or diesel instead of coal, but by decreased maintenance and yard DOWNTIME. If there’s an industry that looks for more cost-effective motive power, it’s the railroads. Same also with the airlines, which did away with piston-engine aircraft not simply b/c jets can typically go faster, but TBO and MTBF numbers with jet engines went way up. I had an old prof back in the day at ol’ Fresno State, “Bodger the ‘Codger’ “, who was then about seventy, he’d gone to work for Pratt and Whitney right after serving in the military in WWII, in 1945, but already had significant experience as an engineer. As part of the team at P&W designed their new line of jet engines, the company president told them, “Product Objective: no P&W engine will EVER fail in a customer’s aircraft.”

  14. Eric,

    The math is a lot simpler than that. All one has to do is ask how much fuel will the $12K price difference buy? At $4/gal, that comes out to 3,000 gallons. Even assuming a paltry 20 mpg in city driving for the Versa, that 3,000 gallons will take you 60,000 miles. If one drives 15K miles per year, that’s four years to recoup the difference; if one drives about 10K miles a year as I do, then you’re talking about six years.

    If, OTOH, the Versa gets 25 mpg, then we’re up to 75,000 miles of range for that 3,000 gallons of gas that the $12K price differential will buy you. It’ll take five years of driving to recoup that $12k if one drives 15K miles a year; if one drives 10K miles a year, then it’s 7.5 years of driving that those 3,000 gallons of fuel will give you. By then, the Leaf’s battery pack will be on its last legs and needing replacement…

  15. Hydrogen vs Battery comparison.

    Toyota was more interested in hydrogen fuel cell/electric tech (the advantage…. refuel in 3 minutes just like an ice vehicle, also no up to 1800 lb batteries like in a tesla, so makes more sense, it is the only electric technology that will work on big trucks), the problem is very few refueling stations yet.
    Toyota had a lease for their Mirai for $600.00 per month which included all the fuel, a great deal.

    Their new offering includes free fuel for 6 years, when they ban gas and diesel and electricity costs go up 10 or 20 times current rates, this might be a good backup…..free fuel.

    this is better than a battery EV, 3 minute refueling, no up to 1800 lb of batteries, free fuel (a friend has a tesla who uses a super charger at a mall, it costs almost as much as fueling an ice vehicle), if you charge at home the cost will keep increasing with electrical grid issues, no long charging waits, won’t burn your house down when recharging, no $22,000 battery dead after 10 years so car is worth zero after 10 years like a tesla.

    At the core of Mirai, hydrogen from the fuel tank and air entering from the intake grille meet in the Fuel Cell Stack. There, a chemical reaction involving the oxygen in the air and hydrogen creates electricity—powering Mirai. (electricity made in the car) In the end, the only by-product is water. zero emission.

    With a tesla the electricity is made (burning coal in some places) then transmitted 1000’s of miles at times, then you wait for hours to recharge, battery EV’s don’t work, they knew that 100 years ago.

    Tesla battery after 9 years 135,000 miles? battery dead can’t be used. replacement cost $22,000. residual value of car = zero

    Fuel cell lasts 5000 hr. x 40 mph = 200,000 miles, even then has lost only 30% of efficiency, so still can be used, as a used car. car still has residual value, plus it is a toyota.

    At end of life Toyota takes the fuel cell and recycles it, the up to 1800 lb lithium fire bomb tesla battery goes into the landfill, probably.

    Hydrogen fuel cells make more sense then battery EV’s, gas powered ice is way better, diesel powered ice is best.

    Hydrogen can be produced using a number of different processes. Thermochemical processes use heat and chemical reactions to release hydrogen from organic materials, such as fossil fuels and biomass, or from materials like water. Water (H2O) can also be split into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) using electrolysis or solar energy. Microorganisms such as bacteria and algae can produce hydrogen through biological processes.

    https://www.toyota.com/mirai/Toyota

    • The only problem with H2 is that it takes more energy to MAKE it vs. what it yields! H2 doesn’t appear in nature by itself, so it has to be derived from something else. This is usually done by splitting either water (H2O) or methane (CH4). By the time the H2 has been split off, the process cost you more energy than you can hope to get from the H2.

      • That is why gas, diesel, natural gas is best but they are trying to/will ban it so energy will be very expensive or unavailable, unless you are rich you will walk and freeze to death. Switch back to wood heat.

      • Hi RK,

        Hydrogen is intriguing, in part (to me) because it does not necessarily mean the end of internal combustion – so we’d still be able to enjoy the experience of driving that EVs will take away from us. But hydrogen is also very expensive; the Mirai – Toyota’s hydrogen car – is very similar in general terms to the current Camry by costs more than twice as much – about $50k. That’s just a dead end, no matter how “cool” the tech may be…

  16. You can build your own electric car, you get a car from the junk yard or from any source that has a broken engine, you could get them for $100, then you get a used electric motor and a controller, plus maybe 12, 12 volt car batteries, you can do this for maybe $2000 or less, get the lightest car you can find for conversion, then you get more range, performance.

    Maybe a baja beetle, dune buggy, sandrail, or a small pickup so you can go offroad.

    The range might be 60 miles? If you live within 10 to 15 miles from work (another bonus plug it in at work = free electricity….maybe), you could commute with it, or it might work for someone if they just drive around town, or door dash for one 4 hr. shift.
    I have seen them for sale for $3500.

    EV’s are best suited for short trips and around town anyways so why pay $40,000?

    Jay Leno says the best cars are the homemade cars.

    Someone built one of these, they had solar panels on their roof, they said they got enough energy from the solar panels to offset the energy used charging the batteries. One of these setups with solar panels or a generator powered by a stream would be a good backup if (when) they cut us off gas for our cars.

    Another problem with the new electric cars (except the ones in China that are small, light, cheap), are they are far too heavy (tesla 5000 lb, the batteries alone are up to 1800 lb.) and because of that use far too much energy, are difficult and expensive to recharge = another control mechanism, a huge waste of energy, (they should have built 1200 lb. electric cars). the whole thing is a cluster f….u ..kkkk

    why pay $40,000 for an EV?

    • That sounds very (not) practical.
      Maybe save the $2,000 by cutting a big hole in the floor pan and propelling the car with your feet, Fred Flintstone style?
      That should attract all the best looking women in town!

      • you some kind of idiot, know nothing about cars obviously

        people build these and drive them around town, they are fine for that purpose. there is a lot of ice powered cars being converted to gas, these were the first ones a long time ago.

        some people can’t afford a $40,000 EV car.

          • Morning, Richard!

            This whole debate could be resolved at a stroke if the government stopped trying to force EVs down our collective throats. Let the EV succeed – or fail – on its merits, as determined by the market. I myself despise EVs – for I regard them as the antithesis of everything appealing about driving. But I have no problem with them being available, for those who do not despise them. Just as I don’t have a problem with mopeds and scooters being available, for those who prefer them rather than the motorcycles I prefer.

            So long as we’re all free to choose – and the manufacturers free to offer products that comport with people’s freely expressed choices – there’s no problem.

            • Sadly much of country is now of the mentality of ‘what is best for me is best for everyone’ or ‘what I think is a good idea everyone else should be forced into’.

              Live and let live has become far too rare.

          • As soon as you post something that shows some insight into the repair, design or the technology in vehicles I might believe it.

        • People do not want to build their own hack cars as a rule. That’s the point he was making.

          The post about making your battery EV on the cheap reminds me of discussions I had in Mustang forums etc. People would argue for turning cars into engineering projects. I would argue back, I do engineering for living, I don’t need my car to be another project. I want Ford to offer it.

          Well eventually Ford has offered everything I wanted on factory ordered cars. My second Mustang came brand new the way I modified my older one plus the things I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want it to be an engineering project. I could have made my 1973 Maverick or 1997 Mustang be as fast and handle as good as my ’12 Mustang for a lot less money if I valued my time at zero and wanted to have another engineering project. I didn’t. Most people don’t.

          • A long time ago there were very few electric cars the public could buy, so people with skills would convert ice cars to electric, if you had the skills you could build one yourself, there were companies also building them, usually small pick up trucks converted to electric, they used lead acid batteries because that was the only thing available. One advantage is these batteries were 100% recyclable.

            Now there is lots of ice cars being converted to electric power but there is better battery technology now. The problem is only 5% of lithium batteries are recycled.

            If you think there is something wrong with these cars you are an idiot, clueless.

            • There’s nothing wrong if you want to drive around in an engineering project made with salvaged parts. But if you don’t want to deal with that, and just about the entire buying public does not, then to those people there is something wrong with it. People by and large don’t want to be doing durability and reliability testing on their daily driver. That’s exactly what happens with a car like that being used as one’s regular transportation.

  17. The internal combustion engine has freed humans from so much back breaking work and also given us so much freedom to come and go as we please…. This is why it must be done away with.I just cannot believe the lemmings can`t see it.

  18. Study: EVs Cost More to Repair, Less to Maintain

    Service Advantage Goes to Gas

    Service visits – those that involve diagnosing and repairing a problem – were a different story.

    During the first three months of ownership, EVs were 2.3 times as expensive to service as gasoline-powered cars. At the 12-month mark, repair costs were about 1.6 times what owners of gas-powered cars paid.
    It’s Not Parts. It’s Labor

    Why the extra expense?

    Because EV problems took longer to diagnose and repair. Technicians spent 1.5 times as many hours working on EVs as they did on gasoline-powered cars. And those technicians cost more, to begin with. Working on EVs requires additional certifications most mechanics don’t have. Those that do charge about 1.3 times the average hourly rate.

    https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-evs-cost-more-to-repair-less-to-maintain/

    • Repairing Ev’s is a big problem now, nobody knows how to fix them, they are very dangerous to work on because of the very high voltage (lots of places won’t work on them for that reason), they are very complex compared to an internal combustion engine, they are new technology so people don’t understand them, so very difficult to diagnose. If you break down in L.A. there probably will be a repair place that can fix your EV, if you are in a small town somewhere good luck getting it fixed.

      In ice vehicles most places would do no diagnosis, tech’s won’t do it because they aren’t paid to do it, so why should they. They would use the parts cannon….just keep replacing parts hoping it fixes it, instead of doing diagnostics properly, the customer got robbed.
      Using the parts cannon on an EV could get expensive in a hurry, like a $4000 non returnable circuit board, it would be hard to hide your screw up.

      So they are ramming these very difficult and expensive to repair EV’s down our throat.

      • These EV’s are far more complicated then they have been advertised, “it just has an electric motor so no maintenance and very few repairs”….haha.

        The Tesla cars have an oil pump and oil filter, for the motors and the gearbox/diff and two water pumps for the cooling system.

        How often does the oil and filter need to be changed?

        How often does the coolant need to be changed? How long do the water pumps last and what is the replacement cost?

        There is a very complicated cooling/heating system for the batteries, what happens if there is a leak deep in the battery packs?
        This battery cooling system is very important, if the batteries overheat they can explode, an ice vehicle doesn’t have that problem.

        There is another separate HVAC system for the interior.
        There is also a heat pump system for heating the interior.

        Heat pumps are super-efficient, but they are known to not work as well in extreme cold (around -15C or 5F and below).
        Tesla owners in cold climates are finding their heat pump system isn’t working in low temperatures.
        Tesla deleted the old electric heater that worked, to save electricity to then claim longer range.

  19. Depreciation is the biggest cost in a car (unless it is a collectable car like an old air cooled 911)

    this is the big hidden cost in Ev’s and hybrids, the deal killer, that depreciation would buy you a lot of fuel in your ice vehicle.

    Electric cars depreciate over two times faster than their internal combustion engine counterparts, a serious black mark when it comes to tallying up your actual yearly cost to run your vehicle!

    https://crestlineautotransport.com/blog/electric-vehicle-depreciation/

    • The dealers might love these EV’s, they can charge a lot more for labor to fix them, the parts are more expensive so bigger profit margins on parts.

      Plus they are very expensive so fatter profit margins when you sell them.

      No wonder manufacturers are going along with this, there is more profit margin selling expensive vehicles and parts.

      If you sell something simple, cheap and reliable there is no profit in it, sell something expensive, full of problems with very expensive parts, and charge a fortune to fix it. Ice was becoming too reliable maybe.

    • Not true.
      So far Tesla depreciation has been slower than the average ICE.
      Other electric vehicles much faster.
      I would think the used EV value would depend a lot on the condition of the batteries. Affected by the number of miles driven / total charges and the percentage of fast charges.

      With a used EV I think you are buying a vehicle and a battery pack. The condition of the battery pack could have a huge effect on the value of the vehicle, being so expensive to replace. I don’t know how you would measure the condition of the batteries, but there must be some way.

      • Tesla Model S price $94,000 new, residual value after 9 years if battery dead zero $.0.00…. one battery used up, battery replacement cost $20,000, = residual value = zero

        Mercedes $94,000 new, residual value after 9 years $23,000

      • Teslas only depreciate slower than other EV’s because people buy them as a status symbol and they’re still selling the same models since their introduction. To the untrained eye a first year tesla might as well be fresh out of the factory. If that company wasn’t busy re-engineering their faulty door handles (among many other quality problems) they would have been on to several mid model refresh cycles or second generation models by now. The only thing that gives Muskmobiles higher “value” than the offerings of large automakers is their facade of elitism and exclusivity. As soon as EV’s are forced into a position of market dominance all surviving ICE vehicles will become coveted and gain value so long as they’re not banned from use.

        • I don’t understand the high value of used Teslas, but just reported the fact. Because the Tesla brand scored very low on both the J.D. Power initial quality survey and durability survey:

          2020 survey
          3 months in service
          for the initial quality survey
          (Tesla was the worst brand)

          2021 survey
          3 years in service for durability
          (Tesla fourth from the worst brand)

          I heard the Tesla steering wheel came off in the driver’s hand. He handed it to his front seat passenger, and said: “Can you drive for a while, I’m tired”. I can’t verify that story, but it was from a Tesla owner who had a serious problem with his steering wheel — you don’t hear that often.

    • Have you looked at Teslas on Carvana lately? The gently used, late model Teslas fetch about as much as brand new ones do! I don’t know about over the long term, but over the short term? Teslas have little or no depreciation

      • Of late, used car prices have shot up gi-normously on just about ANYTHING. I get unsolicited offers from Ford dealers in the Sacramento area for my now 2 y.o. (con)Fusion, humdrum as it is, which would, in effect, mean that I drove it these past two years and some 22K miles for about…oh, $2,000! So IF I were in a position where I wanted to bail on it, AND I had something else, it’d be tempting. And I DID…but I gave that vehicle, a 2013 Toyota Corolla that my dad gave me (he’s 88, and done with driving), to my “little goil”, who’d just gotten home from her Mormon mission and, going to school in “Yew-Tah”, needed wheels. I’m in a lot better position to have to buy a new ride even in these inflated times than she is.

  20. Great points as always Eric.

    I’m not quite sure how – on earth – BEVs can pass the same crashworthiness requirements as ICE cars.

    It is relatively easy to package a gas tank inboard of the “frame” and ahead of the “rear axle.” Scare quotes to account for the fact that FWD cars and most non trucks have no rear axle or actual frame on body construction.

    Still – the most “dangerous” component in an ICE car is tucked well within the vehicle structure.

    This means that it would take a major impact to actually penetrate the gas tank and potentially cause a fire. An impact so major that it likely wouldn’t even matter if the car caught fire, since the impact alone would be enough to kill you. How many G’s of an impact does it take to penetrate the typical gas tank? How many G’s does it take to jellify your brain and other useful organs?

    If jellified brain G’s < Gas tank rupture G's then it doesn't even matter.

    I have no clue how a BEV can protect a battery that is so much physically larger than a gas tank during the same delta V crash.

    Until the KW-hours per cubic inch of battery can compete with gasoline – accounting for all losses – I don't know how an EV can compete with an ICE car from a crashworthiness standpoint.

    • When you drive down the road in your EV don’t think about this……..don’t hit anything, don’t run over debris and don’t get hit (good luck with that, you will be hit by these moron drivers eventually, make sure you aren’t in an EV when you get hit.

      The biggest problem with EV’s is the batteries in EV’s are very dangerous, a fire hazard, how they ever got passed for safety standards is a huge mystery.

      Lithium-ion batteries have a tendency to overheat and can be damaged at high voltages leading to thermal runaway and combustion. like driving around sitting on top of a huge bomb, make sure you don’t hit anything or get hit while driving one of these abortions.

      EV fires are very hard to put out the only way is with the application of huge amounts of water.

      Tactically, this may mean using a master stream, 2½-inch or multiple 1¾-inch fire lines, to suppress and cool the fire. Vehicle fires don’t typically call for surround-and-drown tactics, but these are not typical vehicle fires. so you need multiple fire trucks to put out the fire, this is insanity, they should ban these things.

      One example: the flames on the Tesla were extinguished, it reignited again. Firefighters began hosing it down with copious amounts of water, up to 200 gallons per minute, but “that did not extinguish the flames,” according to the NTSB. At approximately 9:13 p.m., nearly three hours after the first alarm was received, firefighters had to pour out more than 600 gallons of water per minute. In the end the agency used 20,000 gallons of water. these should bsa banned from the road…..

      Then the fire still isn’t put out……..Batteries can be expected to reignite after being put out because they still have stored energy. 15 hours later it catches fire again…
      “Battery fires can take up to 24 hours to extinguish”….. the vehicle must be parked under “quarantine” for 48 hours, so that no new fire can break out.
      Batteries are difficult to extinguish, and they can burst into flames again several hours later –ATTENTION: in some cases, right up to a week later
      ……… and they allow people to buy these abortions.

      – these things are so dangerous they shouldn’t be sold…..remember the leftist government says 24/7 safe and effective, all lies.

      The greater the amount of energy the electric vehicle may contain, the greater the fire risk of electric vehicle fires.
      So they want to increase the range but that means bigger batteries which are far more dangerous, tesla is the worst they have 2000 lb of batteries, a huge fire on wheels going somewhere to happen.

      The big hidden problem:
      they can’t increase the range because the huge batteries are too dangerous, and get more dangerous with increased size, capacity, so EV’s will never have ice vehicle range, so they are too dangerous and useless.

      Tiny little electric vehicles with tiny batteries would have been safer, cheaper would have made more sense, these huge EV’s are exactly the wrong solution, but the government is stupid, corrupt, insane.

      Here is the biggest problem nobody talks about……
      31% of fire departments don’t train for electric vehicle fires. 50% of fire departments say they don’t have special protocols in place to handle electric vehicles after an accident. These EV’s shouldn’t be sold the fire departments can’t even put out the fires, these things endanger everyone.

      Remember this while driving your EV:
      Drive down the road in your EV, hit some debris, a high bump, a huge pothole (the cities don’t fix the roads anymore, so don’t buy an EV), a raised manhole cover or drive into the ditch, puncture the battery and the battery catches fire.
      In addition to crashes, some of the earlier fires involving Teslas were reportedly caused by debris in the roadway puncturing and gouging the undercarriage of the lithium-ion battery pack.

      The damaged battery pack exposed the lithium, causing an exothermal reaction and subsequent fire. This hazard was thought to have been solved with the installation of a titanium cover encasing the battery pack, giving the undercarriage more resistance to severe damage. looks like they don’t work too well, remember this while driving your EV.

      Most electric vehicle fires are caused by the thermal runaway of a damaged battery. Thermal runaway is the rapid and extreme rise in temperature and when it initiates the same reaction in adjacent cells it is known as ‘thermal runaway propagation. When thermal runaway happens, it can produce smoke, fire and even explosions.

      Fires while the electric vehicle is stationary (an EV can catch fire even while parked, don’t sleep in it), this can happen from:
      Extreme temperatures, both extreme heat and cold
      High humidity
      Flooding
      Internal cell failure
      ATTENTION: Overcharging or problems with the charging station (the EV can catch fire), don’t charge it in your garage, what if something goes wrong while charging?
      Is that why so many charging stations are out of order? the software shuts them down over any little issue because they can cause fires.

      why do they even allow these on the road? the leftist government is pushing these because they are morons and insane,

      Fires in gas powered vehicles is far easier to put out compared to an EV and doesn’t take 24 hours to put out. (it is very very difficult for a diesel powered vehicle to catch fire, they are by far the safest)
      they soon will ban far safer gas powered vehicles and the best and the safest by far diesel powered vehicles, throw a match in diesel, it won’t even catch fire……..

      After 10 years the battery in your EV is near dead, useless, the car is scrap now, no residual value: Lithium-ion batteries are subject to aging, losing capacity and fail frequently after a number of years.
      A bigger worry is being cremated in the thing.

      Electric car batteries are catching fire and that could be a big turnoff to buyers.

      BMW initiated a recall in the United States of 10 different BMW and Mini plug-in hybrid models because of a risk of fire caused by debris that may have gotten into battery cells during manufacturing.
      Then, in early October, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into reports of apparently spontaneous battery fires in Chevrolet Bolt EVs.
      A few days later, Hyundai announced that it was recalling 6,700 Kona Electric SUVs in the United States, among about 75,000 of that model to be recalled worldwide, after it had received numerous reports of vehicles catching fire while parked.
      Tesla faced problems this last year after multiple highly publicized battery fires.

      The leftist government is pushing these EV’s like crazy, all they say is safe and effective 24/7 like their mrna vaccine, same thing, pure lies. You are not allowed to know about the safety of vaccines or EV’s.

      Container puts out inextinguishable fires in electric cars

      https://cfpa-e.eu/container-puts-out-inextinguishable-fires-in-electric-cars/

    • I used to work in product development in the auto industry, and knew about Fuel System Integrity regulations, but retired long before there were electric vehicles (except golf carts).

      301 information:
      https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-571/subpart-B/section-571.301

      China implemented new EV fire safety regulations at the start of 2021 — one rule is a 5-minute warning between a thermal event and fire or smoke exiting the battery pack.

      I don’t know of any US regulations on EV battery fires yet — does anyone else know?

      I do know a retired fireman who heard about EV fires in other districts, and said he’d rather climb a tree to get a cat down than to fight an EV battery fire. He was happy he retired before fighting his first EV fire. So they must be pretty bad.

  21. Hi Eric,
    Friend of mine had a Chevy Volt, which you reviewed awhile back. That would be a perfect car for my use since most of my driving is local, but if I did need to go on a long trip the IC engine was there to keep me going. So of course they’re no longer made, because that would put the kibosh on the real reason for EVs – to limit our mobility.

    • Exactly, Mike!

      There is are no reasonable grounds for objecting to a near zero-emissions vehicle like the Volt – if the “concern” truly is “emissions.” Indeed, I would bet that the total emissions resulting from the manufacture and use of the Volt are lower than those of a Tesla 3. Which by the way also costs about $15k more than the Volt. And this doesn’t factor into it that because the Volt is affordable, more people would be able to drive one – which would have a huge effect on these “emissions” the people pushing 100 percent (and 100 percent unaffordable) EVs down our throats pretend to be “concerned” about.

      • GM could have had a real winner by stuffing the volts series hybrid system into a crossover or small truck. Too bad for them, now Fords going to eat their lunch with the less refined Escape/Maverick parallel hybrids. How is it that GM is just now losing their #1 spot? The company is a dismal failure on all fronts. I expect that to accelerate with their future full electric lineup.

    • One of the problem with the Volt and the BMW i3 was a short electric only range and on the highway going up a steep hill after the battery reserve got low, the now ice only engine power was low compared to an ice only vehicle, so sluggish on a steep hill, other then that they were great.

  22. The dilemma for a lot of us that need a lot of ‘work’ performed to do our work, like pickup trucks carrying loads, etc…. is the big concern we have if they try to ‘force’ the EV thing on pickups. I’ve done the math and ya need 1000Kw to do a typical job that 30gals of gas does today. Seems we’re at 200-300Kw’s currently avail. storage in larger EV vehicles?
    There is huge disconnect here.
    The short answer in my mind right now is we will be adding big diesel generators to our pickup beds. How amazingly stupid this would be, but we will adjust to forced stupidity.

  23. The big bet with electric cars is that they’ll follow the Moore’s Law and Metcalf’s Law (the network’s value increases as the number of nodes increases) at the same time. Of course those “laws” are about microchips and communications networks, not technology in general. But the idea is that at some point there will be a breakthrough that will fix all the issues and they’ll surpass internal combustion. And because they’re a simpler machine manufacturing will be cheaper too.

    I’ve been following the battery stuff for some time now. The hope is that solid-state electrolytes will be the turning point, and anyone in the field is filing their patents. The idea is that batteries will be rolled out like paper or sheet metal, then stamped to fit whatever size you need. And they’ll withstand incredibly high current charging, so that recharing time drops to 10 minutes or so. But they can’t seem to get them out of the lab and into production. They remain “5 years away,” which considering I first heard of this about 5 years ago, means they’re probably having unsurmountable problems. Meanwhile millions of dollars are being pissed away going down this dead end.

    • Hi RK,
      I’ve read similar things, what I understand is they’re trying to come up with some kind of super capacitor that would charge quickly and not contain a lot of nasty chemicals. Good luck with that.

    • Hi RK,

      Ok, but…

      Assuming they do gin up a sheet-battery that can be recharged in ten minutes – that is still twice as long as it takes to refuel any gas-engined car. Maybe I’m just not smart enough to grok how it’s an improvement – desirable – to spend so much effort developing a “technology” that doubles the wait-time to refuel… It’s all so bizarre. Replacing what works better with something that works worse. Has this ever occurred in the history of modern capitalism. Oh. That’s right. We no longer have capitalism!

      And – does this “10 minutes” assume a very high voltage charging source? If so, no go (well, no go fast) at home, as most homes do not have the capacity. How will they get it? How will all this juice be generated?

      • I don’t see any chemical battery ever getting to the point of being practical enough to compete with let alone beat IC.

        Chemistry and Physics are what they are, politicians can’t just change it because they said so. Mainstream full electric cars are a fantasy (Teslas are not mainstream by any means).

        And it doesn’t answer the question that only seems to be posed on this site.

        Why do we even need them?

        We have a great system for personal vehicles, so a major shift isn’t even needed. If anything politicians have prevented Moore’s law from being applied to the car business since the 1970’s.

        • Rich,

          Politicians think that they can decree something in to existence because the car companies have always done so before. Look at when cars first had emissions controls put on them 40+ years ago; a Corvette barely developed 175 hp-WITH A V8! Now, a Nissan Altima or Toyota Camry with a four cylinder engine can easily equal or surpass that. The politicians will say that, gee Detroit, you did it before. Why not now?

        • why do we need them……

          The dealers might love these EV’s, they can charge a lot more for labor to fix them, the parts are more expensive so bigger profit margins on parts.

          Plus they are very expensive so fatter profit margins when you sell them.

          No wonder manufacturers are going along with this, there is more profit margin selling expensive vehicles and parts.

          If you sell something simple, cheap and reliable there is no profit in it, sell something expensive, full of problems with very expensive parts, and charge a fortune to fix it. Ice was becoming too reliable maybe.

      • Note my use of the words “bet” and “hope,” neither of which instill much confidence in the technology. These are moonshots at best, and many of the same people who complain about the alleged NASA funding gaps are the same ones who really need internal combustion to go.

  24. There are a couple of things EVs CANNOT provide, that all recent ICVs DO provide at no additional cost. Free heating, and nearly free AC. These would be items two and three on the list, right behind transportation, of things people demand from a motor vehicle. Both either severely limit EV range, or you show up in a puddle of sweat, or with frost bite.

  25. A thought on crashworthiness –
    given that EV batteries are susceptible to damage, does an otherwise fixable accident become a totaled EV due to possible battery damage?

    and due to increased depreciation, could a fender bender lead to more out of pocket costs to replace an EV?

    On batteries –
    from https://www.evgo.com/blog/nissan-leaf-battery-life/

    1. One of the most important rules of Nissan LEAF battery maintenance is keeping the battery charge between 20% and 80%

    So, is it bad to charge to 90% and will that shorted battery life?

    2. When possible, try to avoid leaving your LEAF in the hot sun for too long, as it can add a substantial amount of stress on the battery pack and shorten its life due to things like lithium plating and thermal runaway.

    While cold temperatures don’t directly affect lithium-ion degradation, they can shorten your LEAF’s range due to the electrolyte fluid in the battery pack moving at a slower pace or freezing.

    Good luck with #2

    A note on price –
    Opportunity cost is a real thing.
    The money spent on a more expensive EV can’t be spent on other things.

    Long term cost of gas, maint, etc is made cheaper by inflation depreciated dollars, which may weight cost of ownership more toward ICE than constant dollars.

  26. ‘This means having to devote more thought as well as time to the recharging vs. fueling cycle.’ — eric

    Thought being an exquisitely painful process for most folks most of the time, no doubt there’s already an app that will alert EV drivers when and where to recharge — no thought required.

    Like a lab rat subtly steered through a maze by electrodes implanted in its tiny brain, you too can plug in fully to the Matrix, secure in the arms of all-knowing Big Brother.

    • With respect to “thought,” Jim H, there is also the issue that a road trip of any significant distance or time will have to stick to a tightly planned and heavily optimized schedule, with little or no room for any planned or unplanned deviation. You can’t just decide to do things on the spur of the moment, or things like pass up a gas station to make better time. What’s more, if you should get caught in traffic for any significant length of time, it’s not like you can get off at the next exit, refuel in five minutes, take a back road, and get back on the highway. You’ll need to be close to a charger almost all of the time.

      Methinks this is more a feature than a bug…but I digress.

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