The Real Costs of Electric Car Ownership - CNET

[JCSR]

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7035186

The city of Edmonton bought 60 electric buses for its transit fleet in 2020 at the cost of a million bucks each.

Less than three short years later, only 16 of those 60 are running. The rest are down waiting on parts from Proterra, which declared bankruptcy earlier this year. Some buses have been down for more than a year.

The buses that are running don't get near the range Proterra promised, especially when it's cold. Shocking, I know.

 

[printcraft]

 

[J Galt]

Tesla semis have been in service for nearly a year. I don't know the author of this article but if the data is correct then it looks like Tesla may have cracked the code.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/10/pepsi-reveals-everything-about-the-tesla-semi-trucks.html

They seem to be consistently growing as well. There is (supposedly) a new Tesla facility being built at 37 and County Line Rd on the south side of Indy.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/gross-profit

 

[Ingomike]

Tesla semis have been in service for nearly a year. I don't know the author of this article but if the data is correct then it looks like Tesla may have cracked the code.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/10/pepsi-reveals-everything-about-the-tesla-semi-trucks.html

They seem to be consistently growing as well. There is (supposedly) a new Tesla facility being built at 37 and County Line Rd on the south side of Indy.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/gross-profit

The big problem is grid capacity to charge 900KW of battery.

 

[Hawkeye]

My wife and Ihe agency could have done a better job of explaining the car to us as we had never had one. But outside of the initial getting used to the touchscreen display it went well. We had an agent waalk her though start up. nad shut down procedures.

Our daughter lived about a quarter mile from a TEsla Supercharger location and that is where we did our charging. We weren't asked to pay for the electricity so that was nice, especially wiht Cali gas prices in the $5-$6 range! Im guessing that must hav e been some sort of Tesla-rental deal.

Car handled well. didn't really get used to all the electronic controls, but it seemed well set up.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

EV maintenance tips from Massie.

 

[J Galt]

EV maintenance tips from Massie.

In his defense, he is from Kentucky.

 

[Ark]

EV maintenance tips from Massie.

Thomas Massie confirmed the only congress crittter capable of pulling the door panel on his own car himself?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Thomas Massie confirmed the only congress crittter capable of pulling the door panel on his own car himself?

Not only that but he repurposed a wrecked Tesla battery to power his home (via solar panels). I think his youtube video of it is still out there.

 

[MCgrease08]

Tesla semis have been in service for nearly a year. I don't know the author of this article but if the data is correct then it looks like Tesla may have cracked the code.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/10/pepsi-reveals-everything-about-the-tesla-semi-trucks.html

They seem to be consistently growing as well. There is (supposedly) a new Tesla facility being built at 37 and County Line Rd on the south side of Indy.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/gross-profit

A couple of not so minor points of clarification.

These Tesla semis Pepsi-Co is running are field test and validation units Tesla has provided. Most likely either for free, or at a very reduced cost. That means Pepsi has 24/7 365 day support from Tesla to address any issues that come up. That likely means an application engineer or two embedded on site with the fleet.

Also, the article cites 680,000 miles accumulated across 21 trucks in about nine to ten months. That's an average of less than 41,000 miles per truck. Or about 4,100 miles per month. Not exactly setting records for milage driven considering the average diesel rig can do more than 2,000 miles on a single tank of fuel. Some LTL trucks can rack up hundreds of thousands of miles per year.

When a single Tesla semis hits a million miles, it will be worth noting for sure, but these miles aren't much to be impressed by.

 

[Ingomike]

A friend in the national truck business told me as I recall that california is requiring EV truck purchases but they do not have the power to recharge them, the solution; companies buy the EV truck, park it, pay $9000 per truck for a permit to then buy a diesel truck.

 

[Ingomike]

Doesn’t the water feel so warm and comfortable in this early winter season?

Yep, they just turn the heat up a little at a time, it won’t hurt you, after all they have been turning up the heat a little at a time so you barely notice it.

New Jersey Joins Growing List Of States Banning Sale Of New Gas-Powered Cars

New Jersey officials announced Tuesday that the state would be joining a growing list of Democrat-led states slated to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. New Jersey becomes at least the 17th state to follow some or all of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II rule that was passed by...

www.dailywire.com

 

[Leadeye]

Doesn’t the water feel so warm and comfortable in this early winter season?

Yep, they just turn the heat up a little at a time, it won’t hurt you, after all they have been turning up the heat a little at a time so you barely notice it.

New Jersey Joins Growing List Of States Banning Sale Of New Gas-Powered Cars

New Jersey officials announced Tuesday that the state would be joining a growing list of Democrat-led states slated to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. New Jersey becomes at least the 17th state to follow some or all of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II rule that was passed by...

www.dailywire.com

There must be a niagra of federal money that goes with this legislation.

 

[J Galt]

A couple of not so minor points of clarification.

These Tesla semis Pepsi-Co is running are field test and validation units Tesla has provided. Most likely either for free, or at a very reduced cost. That means Pepsi has 24/7 365 day support from Tesla to address any issues that come up. That likely means an application engineer or two embedded on site with the fleet.

Also, the article cites 680,000 miles accumulated across 21 trucks in about nine to ten months. That's an average of less than 41,000 miles per truck. Or about 4,100 miles per month. Not exactly setting records for milage driven considering the average diesel rig can do more than 2,000 miles on a single tank of fuel. Some LTL trucks can rack up hundreds of thousands of miles per year.

When a single Tesla semis hits a million miles, it will be worth noting for sure, but these miles aren't much to be impressed by.

Always a negative Nancy in the crowd.

Assuming there is an engineer, or 10, "embedded" in the fleet, how is that a bad thing and how will that potential "embedded" engineer affect anything? How does cost affect performance, assuming they received a discount? Who said they were out to set records on miles driven?

I'm surprised you didn't point out the Tesla Q3 earnings were less than projected by finance commentators despite Tesla announcing a temporary shut down of the production line for upgrades.

Seriously. I get playing devil's advocate, that is different than just being negative.

 

[MCgrease08]

Always a negative Nancy in the crowd.

Assuming there is an engineer, or 10, "embedded" in the fleet, how is that a bad thing and how will that potential "embedded" engineer affect anything? How does cost affect performance, assuming they received a discount? Who said they were out to set records on miles driven?

I'm surprised you didn't point out the Tesla Q3 earnings were less than projected by finance commentators despite Tesla announcing a temporary shut down of the production line for upgrades.

Seriously. I get playing devil's advocate, that is different than just being negative.

I'm not being negative just for the sake of it, but rather, realistic. I work in the commercial trucking industry. I talk to the truck makers and large fleets directly. The OEs are being forced to make electric trucks and the fleets are being forced to buy them, despite the fact that they don't make economic sense and they don't meet performance requirements that are needed to move goods across the country.

An electric class 8 semi truck costs close to a million dollars, approximately 4x what a diesel rig costs. It can only haul about 2/3 the load with about 25% of the range (under optimal conditions). They just don't make economic sense at the moment and that's before factoring in the investment requires in charging infrastructure, which is around 1.5x the cost of the truck, so another $1.5 million for each truck being charged.

And as mentioned in a previous post above, charging just 10 trucks draws the same amount of power as 8,000 homes. The utility grids cannot support the power needed to meet the arbitrary mandates politicians in California and DC are setting.

I didn't fully explain my point about application engineers, but essentially it's that while Pepsi has dedicated resources from Tesla to fix any issues that come up, other fleets won't have those resources if and when the Tesla semis go into full production. Pepsi is running these under optimal conditions with all hands on deck support. And they're doing it because they don't have to pay out a ton of capital upfront. Again, most fleets don't have the cash to be able to do this, given the operating costs. Only the biggest of the biggest fleets will even be able to consider it.

Then there is the issue of environmental impact. EV trucks are not nearly as "clean" as people claim them to be. Politicians only look at tailpipe emissions, not a well to wheel analysis, so they claim they are "zero emissions" but they're only moving the carbon output away from the tailpipe and over to the power plant.

The California Air Resources Board tracks the carbon intensity of all commercial vehicle fuels. Diesel has an average carbon intensity score of 100 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy (gCO2e/MJ). The average score of the electrical grid in California is somewhere around 26 gCO2e/MJ. So about 1/4 the carbon intensity. Not bad. That's a pretty good reduction.

But then you look at renewable natural gas, which comes from methane captured from sources like ag waste, dairy gas, landfill gas, wastewater treatment plants, etc. The average CI score of RNG in California is -99 gCO2e/MJ. You're actually going Sub-Zero and removing more CO2 through the process of capturing the methane to create the fuel than the truck is putting out. By a lot.

Natural gas engines have been around for decades, have similar HP and torque as diesel trucks, can pull the exact same loads, and have a range of 1,000 miles or more. They can run nearly identical routes as diesel trucks, which EVs can't do. And a CNG semi only costs about 30% more than a diesel.

Full disclosure, I do work for a major manufacturer of both diesel and natural gas engines, so I admit I do have some bias in this discussion, but we also make EV power trains too, so we win no matter what fleets pick. But as someone who eats, sleeps and breathes this stuff for a living, I can say honestly, that electric trucks just aren't a viable choice for widespread adoption yet. The tech works for short, fixed regional routes but not for line haul applications. And the economics of it don't really make sense for any trucking application yet given how much more expensive the trucks are, how expensive it is to install chargers.

 

[JCSR]

I'm not being negative just for the sake of it, but rather, realistic. I work in the commercial trucking industry. I talk to the truck makers and large fleets directly. The OEs are being forced to make electric trucks and the fleets are being forced to buy them, despite the fact that they don't make economic sense and they don't meet performance requirements that are needed to move goods across the country.

An electric class 8 semi truck costs close to a million dollars, approximately 4x what a diesel rig costs. It can only haul about 2/3 the load with about 25% of the range (under optimal conditions). They just don't make economic sense at the moment and that's before factoring in the investment requires in charging infrastructure, which is around 1.5x the cost of the truck, so another $1.5 million for each truck being charged.

And as mentioned in a previous post above, charging just 10 trucks draws the same amount of power as 8,000 homes. The utility grids cannot support the power needed to meet the arbitrary mandates politicians in California and DC are setting.

I didn't fully explain my point about application engineers, but essentially it's that while Pepsi has dedicated resources from Tesla to fix any issues that come up, other fleets won't have those resources if and when the Tesla semis go into full production. Pepsi is running these under optimal conditions with all hands on deck support. And they're doing it because they don't have to pay out a ton of capital upfront. Again, most fleets don't have the cash to be able to do this, given the operating costs. Only the biggest of the biggest fleets will even be able to consider it.

Then there is the issue of environmental impact. EV trucks are not nearly as "clean" as people claim them to be. Politicians only look at tailpipe emissions, not a well to wheel analysis, so they claim they are "zero emissions" but they're only moving the carbon output away from the tailpipe and over to the power plant.

The California Air Resources Board tracks the carbon intensity of all commercial vehicle fuels. Diesel has an average carbon intensity score of 100 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy (gCO2e/MJ). The average score of the electrical grid in California is somewhere around 26 gCO2e/MJ. So about 1/4 the carbon intensity. Not bad. That's a pretty good reduction.

But then you look at renewable natural gas, which comes from methane captured from sources like ag waste, dairy gas, landfill gas, wastewater treatment plants, etc. The average CI score of RNG in California is -99 gCO2e/MJ. You're actually going Sub-Zero and removing more CO2 through the process of capturing the methane to create the fuel than the truck is putting out. By a lot.

Natural gas engines have been around for decades, have similar HP and torque as diesel trucks, can pull the exact same loads, and have a range of 1,000 miles or more. They can run nearly identical routes as diesel trucks, which EVs can't do. And a CNG semi only costs about 30% more than a diesel.

Full disclosure, I do work for a major manufacturer of both diesel and natural gas engines, so I admit I do have some bias in this discussion, but we also make EV power trains too, so we win no matter what fleets pick. But as someone who eats, sleeps and breathes this stuff for a living, I can say honestly, that electric trucks just aren't a viable choice for widespread adoption yet. The tech works for short, fixed regional routes but not for line haul applications. And the economics of it don't really make sense for any trucking application yet given how much more expensive the trucks are, how expensive it is to install chargers.

Hold up here a minute! Don't try to cloud the issue with facts. You are just confusing those trying to save our planet.

 

[bwframe]

 

[actaeon277]

View attachment 315043

Another way of saying, how about selling what the public buys.

 

[indykid]

Dem governor withdraws electric vehicle mandate in stunning blow to environmentalists

Connecticut is pulling its electric vehicle mandate proposal after it received widespread pushback from Democrats and Republicans alike in a blow to environmentalists.

www.foxnews.com

If the people speak loud enough, even deaf democrats can hear it. The link about the governor of Connecticut reversing his stand on using commiefornia law in his state to ban the sales of internal combustion powered vehicles.

 

[actaeon277]