OT: Electric Vehicles--anyone driving them or seriously looked at them?

[klasse]

I have an F-150 Lightning Lariat ER and 2023 Tesla Y which I bought new for $58K after taxes in late 2023. Tesla Model 3 and Y are not especially expensive cars.

Cost per mile:
My Tesla averages 3.62 miles per Kilowatt-Hour over 10,000 miles. (This is shown on the "Trips" screen of Tesla as "276 Watt-hours per mile.) Charging at home in Los Angeles, LADWP bills me $0.20 - 0.25 per KWh, which translates to 20-25 cents for every 3.62 miles. Plugging in 25 cents per Kilowatt-hour, I pay roughly $5 for 65 miles of range.

F-150 is much less efficient, getting around 2.0 miles per KWh, and 1.7 on a road trip from LA to Mammoth. I'm in the process of gathering data on trips where I do not exceed 65mph, wind resistance directly proportional to speed.

The Lucid boasts around 5 miles per KWh, not sure if that's true.

Free supercharging ("FSOC") The 2016 Teslas and prior came with free supercharging (mixed bag during 2016 as some vehicles came with SC05 code not transferable to new owner), transferrable to the new owner via private sale. If the car was traded into Tesla, then Tesla removed the free charging before reselling from many of the cars, not all of them. Reasons I've stayed away from the older Teslas with FSCOC: High failure rate of the large rear drive unit, not a cheap fix. The battery has been 'fast charged' and likely charged beyond 80% which implies the battery health is not great. Finally, the money I'd save on charging is offset by the additional cost of insurance.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by klasse

I have an F-150 Lightning Lariat ER and 2023 Tesla Y which I bought new for $58K after taxes in late 2023. Tesla Model 3 and Y are not especially expensive cars.

Cost per mile:
My Tesla averages 3.62 miles per Kilowatt-Hour over 10,000 miles. (This is shown on the "Trips" screen of Tesla as "276 Watt-hours per mile.) Charging at home in Los Angeles, LADWP bills me $0.20 - 0.25 per KWh, which translates to 20-25 cents for every 3.62 miles. Plugging in 25 cents per Kilowatt-hour, I pay roughly $5 for 65 miles of range.

F-150 is much less efficient, getting around 2.0 miles per KWh, and 1.7 on a road trip from LA to Mammoth. I'm in the process of gathering data on trips where I do not exceed 65mph, wind resistance directly proportional to speed.

The Lucid boasts around 5 miles per KWh, not sure if that's true.

Free supercharging ("FSOC") The 2016 Teslas and prior came with free supercharging (mixed bag during 2016 as some vehicles came with SC05 code not transferable to new owner), transferrable to the new owner via private sale. If the car was traded into Tesla, then Tesla removed the free charging before reselling from many of the cars, not all of them. Reasons I've stayed away from the older Teslas with FSCOC: High failure rate of the large rear drive unit, not a cheap fix. The battery has been 'fast charged' and likely charged beyond 80% which implies the battery health is not great. Finally, the money I'd save on charging is offset by the additional cost of insurance.

My Model Y was purchased at peak pricing in 2022. Took delivery on December 8 and got to enjoy seeing prices drop by like $10K a couple weeks later. That frustration aside, it’s been extremely reliable and efficient to own and operate. It is my daily driver (currently my only car) and anecdotally costs me about $30-$40 per month to charge and drive locally in the Chicago area. I charge at home and the Tesla Wall Connector cost me about $1500, including installation by a qualified electrician. When I take a road trip, which I have done numerous times, my costs go up but it’s still competitive with gasoline in an efficient vehicle like a Toyota hybrid for example. I’ve driven it to Texas and Florida and to the Twin Cities numerous times since I got it. Total mileage now is 30,300.

The car is paid for as is the connector in my garage so from here on out I get to enjoy “savings” but it cost a lot to realize those savings. I stand by what I’ve said in the past - Don’t replace an existing ICE car with an EV if that car is still running fine. But when the time comes have a look around. There’s some pretty interesting stuff coming and even though the hype is coming down I think there will be a future with a lot of EVs. There’s reason to dislike them but also reasons to think they’re OK. Do your research. Living with one can have some negative surprises if you don’t know what you’re really buying.

I have sold my TSLA stock for two reasons: it’s been tanking over the past couple years so I waited for a spike a few months back and sold it. I think I still made a profit over the years I owned it. Additionally, I got tired of hearing the junk the their CEO spews all the time. So I’ve got that going for me.

[deluz]

We have a 2017 Prius Prime and love it.
It gets about 25 miles on a charge which covers a good percentage of our driving. When we do drive on gas it gets 55 mpg. We have Solar so cost of charging is low even through we have the highest electricity rates in the US.
As far as ICE cars go my philosophy is buy a used low mileage car and drive it until it dies. However it seems used car prices have gotten out of whack. We bought a used 2010 Sienna that had 30K miles and it has been a good vehicle. When it dies we would like to replace it with a plug-in or EV but it has to be big enough to hold a tandem inside.

[VTCaraco]

Can't comment on cost to operate yet, but the cost of EVs v. ICE, if buying today, is pretty interesting. Specifically the lease-numbers, which, to my mind, allows you to control the cost of ownership.

Specifically, I came down to a few different options...
I loved the drive of the M340, but a CPO was right around $45k with more than 40k miles. I couldn't justify that when I did a back-of-the-napkin cost of ownership given depreciation, maintenance and repairs.
I was very tempted by the prior generation 340 or 440 GC to get the B58 engine without the premium of the M340 or M440. But again, when I considered depreciation, maintenance and repairs on those, I was still looking at a pretty good cost of ownership that would likely be 4-5 years before some more expensive costs would be expected.
The EVs, with their incentives, seemed like a good choice from a cost-of-ownership point of view.

Holistically, I think my days of owning a car for an extended period of time are over (between New England road salt and the long-term maintenance costs to drive something that I enjoy driving)...until we either drive a lot less and/or move out of an area that does the winter road treatment that is done in this part of the country.

I'm only 1 week into this adventure, but so far, I'm very happy with drive of our i4 M50.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by VTCaraco

Can't comment on cost to operate yet, but the cost of EVs v. ICE, if buying today, is pretty interesting. Specifically the lease-numbers, which, to my mind, allows you to control the cost of ownership.

Specifically, I came down to a few different options...
I loved the drive of the M340, but a CPO was right around $45k with more than 40k miles. I couldn't justify that when I did a back-of-the-napkin cost of ownership given depreciation, maintenance and repairs.
I was very tempted by the prior generation 340 or 440 GC to get the B58 engine without the premium of the M340 or M440. But again, when I considered depreciation, maintenance and repairs on those, I was still looking at a pretty good cost of ownership that would likely be 4-5 years before some more expensive costs would be expected.
The EVs, with their incentives, seemed like a good choice from a cost-of-ownership point of view.

Holistically, I think my days of owning a car for an extended period of time are over (between New England road salt and the long-term maintenance costs to drive something that I enjoy driving)...until we either drive a lot less and/or move out of an area that does the winter road treatment that is done in this part of the country.

I'm only 1 week into this adventure, but so far, I'm very happy with drive of our i4 M50.

Get winter tires and keep the vehicle clean. That’s the only advice I can think of. Salt is the friend of no vehicle.

[robt57]

Our 2022 Bolt has been local and commuter use since new, put into service 7/2021 in the Portland, OR area [home].

As I type this from Victoria, BC it is sitting outside in the parking lot of the hotel. Yep, we decided the 'little car' for parking here be it's inaugural over the road trip.

It is right at the range capacity [charged to 100%] each way, with the ferry trip over the water of 25 miles not using battery obviously.

We stopped in Olympia, WA and DC f ast charged [relative term with the Bolt], 18 minutes gained 60 miles and had 79 mile left @ ferry pier waiting on the ferry. We had only 'DC Fast' tested it when new for a dry run once.

Avg mile/kw was 4.2 for the trip to CAN. Assume/expect return to be the same. We did one 45 minute DC fast day one in CAN, and topped to 100% after that in the eve @ Hotel free Level 2. Usually only ever charge to 80% for local use. Going 100% for the trip including stay. We hope to do all that for free @ hotel. But more folks with EV cars than chargers here too, at least day one.

I forget what the Victoria '51' [correction] min DC fast added, as I put dash to Metric here as the speed limit signs are KPH. But chargers have limit time wise. Besides which the charge rate drop progressively once over 55% capacity, so it does not melt or something silly. But up to the 55% point it stuffed in the juice pretty fast. Then lost 10kw of rate at the very end to get to 80%, and as I said above topped it to 100% on Level 2 @ hotel.

Leaned something interesting too. Sitting still with the car on and A/C running for near 3 hours used 7 mile of range. We missed stand by on the earlier ferry departure by 9 cars. But had reservation on the one we did get on, 9th car on. But it is a 1st on 1st off system, so that was good on the CAN side.

Side note: we just paid it off 37 payments early in July. My goal was 24 months, but went over 11 months. But also bought a used $20k car for cash last year, so not a huge fail.

Our last no car payments period was early 2000s. Glad to be back there with a 2022 and 2018. Bolt and Sedona/Van dog/bike/junk hauler.

EDIT: looked up CAN side DC fast session. Another cost here the exchange rate makes 27% off sale on.

[Andy340]

If I was buying now I would go used/CPO route - the depreciation hit is big (especially post Tesla price cuts which reduced resale on EVs in general) but if someone else is taking hit then you can get a low mileage EV with plenty of warranty at a great price. Battery and EV drivetrain/electronics will have remainder of 8 year/ 100000mile warranty.

[zap]

Originally Posted by VTCaraco

I'm only 1 week into this adventure, but so far, I'm very happy with drive of our i4 M50.

i4's get great reviews. Been looking at i4's myself. The grand coupe should easily handle a single bike.

[VTCaraco]

Originally Posted by zap

i4's get great reviews. Been looking at i4's myself. The grand coupe should easily handle a single bike.

I don't have much experience, but my son has some miles in Teslas...he says that my car feels more "BMW" and less "EV" than the Teslas he's driven.

[bikinchris]

Two points:
1. Samsung has released examples of solid-state batteries to every EV maker with roughly double the capacity and super-fast charging times. So, a vehicle that gets 325 miles today with the new battery would likely get over 600 miles on a charge. Charging that 600-mile battery would take around 9 minutes. Solid state batteries will also greatly reduce the chances of overheating when charging and crash damage is much less likely to cause problems. When they become available, they will probably go into luxury EVs.

2. Conventional batteries prices are going to drop DRASTICALLY by next year, making EVs comparable in price to ICE vehicles. The price of batteries might drop as much as 90%. It might be possible to make very low-priced economy EVs. This should also cut the value of used EVs which is great if you're buying, but bad if you're selling.

Things are going to change and because of political pressure in the past, the US is far behind the curve.

[VTCaraco]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

Two points:

This makes the traditional wisdom of 3 year old CPO less sound ~ or that was my experience.
Between EV incentives (through government and local power companies) and sales incentives provided by manufacturers and dealerships (that need to reconcile sales numbers), they are defining the residuals so aggressively that I found the numbers to make more sense to lease.
For a variety of reasons, I didn't want to commit to the current technology for the long term, but I liked the ethos of EV and was comfortable with the defined cost per the lease specifics.

Ultimately, I'm not sure WHAT the future market will look like for EVs or the auto industry overall, but I enjoy driving my i4 from an energy and performance point of view.

[robt57]

Originally Posted by VTCaraco

For a variety of reasons, I didn't want to commit to the current technology for the long term

Hoping after market better tech cheaper battery replacement in future. But the Battery was replaced by GM at 2 years old, and 8 years coverage by GM from the install date started over, with a mileage pr-rating, yada.

I was on the fence on the math there, But wife wanted it too. Being our timing was good trade wise [got 14k for a car woulda taken 9000 cash for]. The 2500 DEQ that went to deal as a cash down did it. I calc approx $3k saving of fuel cost per 5 years VS 41 MPG Trade. And zero oil change cost.

But ALL HV battery costs have to have that cost amortized back into the cost per mile absolutely. So what that costs against to the effective 110-118 equv to ICE gas costs yet to be determined.

Long term isn't look bad. 10 yr; -6k fuel and -7.5k generous trade and DEQ 2500 added together. [lets even call that $6k].

But it was an expensive compact car @ double what the 2018 Honda Fit cost originally. But way more accoutrements in the option dept too. Oh, and plates +100.00 a year over ICE compact car here.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

Two points:
1. Samsung has released examples of solid-state batteries to every EV maker with roughly double the capacity and super-fast charging times. So, a vehicle that gets 325 miles today with the new battery would likely get over 600 miles on a charge. Charging that 600-mile battery would take around 9 minutes. Solid state batteries will also greatly reduce the chances of overheating when charging and crash damage is much less likely to cause problems. When they become available, they will probably go into luxury EVs.

2. Conventional batteries prices are going to drop DRASTICALLY by next year, making EVs comparable in price to ICE vehicles. The price of batteries might drop as much as 90%. It might be possible to make very low-priced economy EVs. This should also cut the value of used EVs which is great if you're buying, but bad if you're selling.

Things are going to change and because of political pressure in the past, the US is far behind the curve.

Do you have published sources to back this up? If true, the EV game will completely change.

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by VTCaraco

I'm only 1 week into this adventure, but so far, I'm very happy with drive of our i4 M50.

Glad it's working for you; an i4 was on my consideration list too but I went with an Ioniq 5.

Your post made me realize something I hadn't expressed before that contributed to my choice. Namely, the idea of enjoying driving is now foreign to me -- it's purely a functional exercise. I mean, I want it to be a comfortable experience but I have zero interest in paying for performance. I say that as someone who grew up driving Porsches, owned and loved my 2002, 911s, and M5.

"Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago."

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

Two points:
1. Samsung has released examples of solid-state batteries to every EV maker with roughly double the capacity and super-fast charging times. So, a vehicle that gets 325 miles today with the new battery would likely get over 600 miles on a charge. Charging that 600-mile battery would take around 9 minutes. Solid state batteries will also greatly reduce the chances of overheating when charging and crash damage is much less likely to cause problems. When they become available, they will probably go into luxury EVs.

.

I find this VERY hard to believe.

If there was real world technology to have a battery bank capable of 600+ mile range that could be charged in 9 minutes every EV car manufacturer would be clawing their way into getting it, and every EV on the road right now would be obsolete.