Conservative Politics & Daily Events Discussion

My wife and I have talked about getting her a Tesla as her next car, but the one thing that is holding us back is the lack of a charging infrastructure and also the time required to charge.

The fastest charging currently is at a Tesla Supercharging station. these stations charge with up to 145 kW of power distributed between two adjacent cars, with a maximum of 120 kW per car. That is up to 16 times as fast as public charging stations, but they still take about 20 minutes to charge to 50%, 40 minutes to charge to 80%, and 75 minutes to 100%. and there are still not enough of them - - that just isnt convenient for anyone who wants to be able to take trips and have electric as their only car

Before people will be willing to ditch their gas and trade for electric they are going to have to get charging times down to around 10 minutes for a full charge that has a range of something near 300 miles and they are going to have to have charging stations located in enough places that you dont have to map out every trip just to hit the charging stations.

until then electric cars will remain cars that are used only for local transportation where people can charge them at home every night

I think that Rivian pickup has a pretty good range and charge time. 400 mile range. 1 hour full charge, 200 mile charge in a half hour. Maggie Valley is 632 miles from me. Stopping once for an hour on a day long trip sounds like a decent trip to me.

I do wonder where all the bad batteries go when they are no longer good. How many miles you can get out of them. How much they cost to replace, I've heard upwards of $12k on Tesla's. Tesla's gigafactory(battery plant) is run on renewable energy which should be good news to everyone. A humongous factory with no carbon emissions(breath of fresh air, right?)

Quote from WOLF

I think that Rivian pickup has a pretty good range and charge time. 400 mile range. 1 hour full charge, 200 mile charge in a half hour. Maggie Valley is 632 miles from me. Stopping once for an hour on a day long trip sounds like a decent trip to me.

I do wonder where all the bad batteries go when they are no longer good. How many miles you can get out of them. How much they cost to replace, I've heard upwards of $12k on Tesla's. Tesla's gigafactory(battery plant) is run on renewable energy which should be good news to everyone. A humongous factory with no carbon emissions(breath of fresh air, right?)

This assumes that a Supercharging station is located at the right place on the route. I used their Trip Planning Site assuming a model s with the largest battery to see how charging would go if I took the 650 mile trip from Palm Springs to Salt Lake city and it would having me stop 3 times to charge 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 40 minutes each and making the drive over 12 hours. Stopping once for an hour like you say will only be possible if there is a station at the correct distance between the start and end of where you are going. At this time there just are not enough stations for them to always want them to be to minimize the number of charging stops that we would like

Quote from WOLF

Here you go Bill. You can get it next year. Let me know how it is. As I'm not "flush with cash" I can't afford the 70k price tag. If I could I would be all over it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/e…c-pickup-truck-order/amp/

That would have been presumabled (if the price was the same as a combustible truck).

It is a heck of a electric vehicle but pulling in the mountains it probably isn’t doing anymore than 250 miles. That’s a waste of 3/4 of a good driving day. When I’m going somewhere I hate if I blow more than one travel day each way. Limited vacation time.

another thing to consider if you are concerned about the environment would be the source of the electricity that is being used to charge your electric car - - if the local power plant that supplies the supercharging station is coal fired it is probably causing more pollution charging your car than you would driving a normal gas powered car.

Also if you plan on going solar to charge your car or if you already are solar and you plan on adding more panels to charge your car if you drive the national average of a bit over 13,000 miles per year it will take roughly 10 - 250 watt panels to provide the kWh you will need to stay charged. The average cost for residential solar panels is around $3.30 per Watt installed so this will be another $8,250 that you will need - this is all based on a tesla model 3 with the larger 70 kWh battery with a 310-mile range - - - if you are talking a truck with a battery with a 400 mile range these numbers will obviously go up

All good points. Most people only do travelling vacations once, maybe twice a year. The savings on fuel can be used to rent a vehicle for those times. The rest of the year you never have to stop at a gas station or worry about range anxiety and you get to leave a cleaner environment for your kids and grandkids.

Quote from WOLF

All good points. Most people only do travelling vacations once, maybe twice a year. The savings on fuel can be used to rent a vehicle for those times. The rest of the year you never have to stop at a gas station or worry about range anxiety and you get to leave a cleaner environment for your kids and grandkids.

for me it was just easier to go solar on my home - I figure my 59 panel 15.64 kW system and the over 22,000 kWh's of electricity it generates each year easily compensates for whatever pollution I may contribute by driving my Slingshot or my wife driving her Chevy Spark - - - and yes for big family trips we do rent SUV's and I still think we are ahead of the game - - - way ahead of the game

Quote from WOLF

All good points. Most people only do travelling vacations once, maybe twice a year. The savings on fuel can be used to rent a vehicle for those times. The rest of the year you never have to stop at a gas station or worry about range anxiety and you get to leave a cleaner environment for your kids and grandkids.

one more thought on the "savings on fuel" - - dont forget that electricity isnt free - SCE charges as much as 43 cents per kWh at their higher tier and when added to normal usage it is very possible that you will be using in that higher tier for the additional needed to charge At these rates that 70 kWh battery in the model 3 is going to cost you over 30 bucks to charge at home every time you fill it up and of course a larger battery in a truck would be even more

You are doing much better than me Edward Neal . I tried going to an SUV to save fuel over my truck. I soon realized how much I depend on a truck for hardware store trips during side jobs and Home improvement projects. I switched back to a truck. That is why something like the Rivian is very appealing to me.

Quote from WOLF

You are doing much better than me Edward Neal . I tried going to an SUV to save fuel over my truck. I soon realized how much I depend on a truck for hardware store trips during side jobs and Home improvement projects. I switched back to a truck. That is why something like the Rivian is very appealing to me.

We went solar on the house to go green - and no I do not mean green as in the environment I mean green as in more money my bank. Being in the desert AC is an almost constant thing and electricity can get very expensive and with the AC we use allot. We have consumed over 19,720 kWh this year and its like that pretty much every year. Before solar we had some monthly bills well over a thousand dollars and our lowest was around $350 - - with the solar lease we pay less per month than even that 350 The first year we saved well over $3000 and we continue to save that or more every year going forward - - one of the things we like best is knowing exactly what it will be every month which makes keeping tabs on our finances much easier and also knowing it will never go up is a very good thing

The fact it was also very good for the environment was just a side benefit

Quote from UK_Paul

Don't forget to remind any law enforcement officers of that, if you ever get stopped for a speeding offence.

It's bound to help the situation.

I didn't realize law enforcement wrote the law, I thought they enforced it. As far as speeding, well, if I wasn't breaking the law or giving law enforcement probable cause or reasonable suspicion, to detain me, my civil liberties would not be interrupted.

Quote from Bill Martin

Edward Neal - did I get it right - all new construction starting in 2020 is going to be required to have solar panels in CA?? If so, how much is that going to add to the already unaffordable housing issue statewide??

I did hear something about that, but I dont really know the specifics so I am not really in a position to comment.

I do wonder how they plan on dealing with things like deciding how much solar each house needs - and how to deal with how it will be metered - - currently all systems must be approved by the utility to get net metering and they have to be sized according to historical consumption for the home - with new construction there is no history to use for sizing the system and if they just put tiny systems on to make them legal then there really isnt much point

it will be interesting to se how this plays out

If charging time is one hour and access to charging stations is limited you wait for an hour for each person in line. You might just burn more time waiting and charging than driving.

I took my first ride in a Tesla three last week and my God talk about acceleration! Electric vehicles are here however I will wait to see how they progress.

You guys are so easy... Doesn't anyone want a flying car?