In this situation an EV is exactly what you'd want. Take for instance a Tesla Model 3 with 330 miles range. Knowing a storm is coming you'd charge up close to full. Most people don't realize in stopped traffic an EV uses almost no energy, unlike it's gas counterpart - just whatever you're using for hvac, and that's optional obviously. In fact the slower you drive the more efficient the car is. 330 miles is a combination of city/hwy driving.

A couple of guys took a Model 3 on a track and drove around it at the most optimal speed of 35 mph to see how far it would go. They were able to get just over 600 miles of range before it stopped. That would get you from Orlando to Charlotte, NC - more than enough range to get to a place that has power.

Yes it counts but it’s a very small amount overall. Being stuck in traffic for a bit would use up almost nothing.

For instance over the last 4 years I’ve camped in my Model 3 several times now. Fold the back seats down and a twin mattress fits perfectly. On the last trip it was a balmy 90 degrees F but inside we were nice and cool and watched Netflix for a few hours before falling asleep. 3 hrs of movies and 12 hrs running the hvac (and some lights) used up only 30 miles (10%) of range.

Oh for sure. I was just saying it was possible. And in an evacuation situation, where traffic is crawling out of an area, an EV is actually better as it’s range doubles in stop/go 30 mph traffic.

4 seconds isn’t fast when you’re commenting in an EV thread.

I've been running the 19" Michelin CrossClimate2's for about 7k miles on my stealth performance Model 3. They are really good in the rain and quite grippy. However I wouldn't call them quiet. I don't find them much louder than the oem tires though. They do have a good 60k warranty - which is good because I usually drive it like I stole it

I can relate with this. We’ve been driving a Performance Stealth Model 3 for 4 years now. It doesn’t have the 20” wheels or brakes. When we get in our other gas car it just feels clunky, all wrong, and unintuitive to use. I too drove a few other EVs, including a Model S & X, but they were all just too big, expensive, or badly implemented gas conversions of an EV. The nimbleness of the Model 3 performance is just right. Great power to weight, good handling, etc.

I’m glad they had a Porsche to fit your wants and yes a Boxter one day would be great. We’ve done many long trips. I honestly never see us buying a gas car again.

There’s so much distain for EVs these days. I don’t get it. There’s honestly a place for both in the world. But I keep hearing so much misinformation too.

For instance “EVs take too long to charge. I just want to pull up, pump gas, and go”. So let’s look at this for a minute. The average American fuels up once a week and takes 7 minutes to pull up, fuel, pay, and go. They also take about 1 or 2 long trips a year requiring fueling up en route. Let’s compare the two…

Gas
7 minutes X 52 weeks x 5 years is 30 hours pumping gas. You always have to stop to pump gas - even if you take no long trips. And if you stop to eat or shop you have to do that after pumping gas - that adds to the time.

EV
Almost all refueling happens at home. Zero time inconvenienced - well I guess a few seconds to plug in. Wake every morning with a full tank. With 330 miles of range for the 1 to 2 long trips you have to stop for 20 minutes every 3.5 to 4 hours of driving to fast charge. But I’d probably be stopping after that much time anyway for food, restroom, stretch, etc. So 20 minutes X 2x a year X 5 years = 3.5 hours. Even if your trip was much longer requiring more stops your fueling time is probably shorter. And you can charge while you eat or shop.

Reality: It takes 5-10x longer to refuel driving a gas car than an EV.

I too would not recommend keying, vandalizing, or stealing plates. Many cars have dashcams now, locations have surveillance cameras, and just cameras everywhere these days. It’s not worth the thousands you may pay for your actions.

Sure. This was a park I visited. There were approx 60 parking spots. Including myself there were only 4 cars in the parking lot. This XTerra blocked the single charger. The parking spot was clearly marked EV charging only. It wasn’t even the most convenient spot for where the family went in the park.

Since I was going to stay with my car I blocked them in while charging. I could have went to another charger a mile away but I wanted to enjoy the beautiful day while I ate lunch and the other spot was inside a parking deck.

This was the end of a trip and the 30 minutes charging here while I ate made it so I didn’t have to stop elsewhere to make it back home or I would have just went on my merry way.

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I totally agree. At our work there's an unwritten 4 hr max charging time rule. Those that come in first should move at lunch and visa versa. There's also an EV email list where you can post that you want/need to charge or that you are done and preparing to move. It works well.

It’s actually the end of a parking lot and the XTerra is parked nose first into the end parking spot. The back corner spot if you will. Yea f I recall there was a little shade there and it was a hot day. Probably explains why they parked there. But it was labeled on the ground as EV Charging Only.

No I left while they were still having a picnic and playing around the kids area. Family of 4. Had I seen them packing up I would have moved.

Tesla Supercharger installations around here generally follow the rule that half of the chargers are marked as 10 minute general parking and the other half are marked Tesla charging only. I think that's a fair compromise and with stall numbers in the 10-18 range usually works just fine - for now. As EV ownership expands that can easily be changed with a 5 minute sign swap.

There is one Tesla Supercharger location near here that is in the prime front parking spots at the mall, and that one is always a clownfest. Tesla owners know this from experience and never count on those to not be blocked. The mall said it was done due to available power location - so yea that happens.

I've never seen signs that say "Tesla or General Parking" before, at least not on the east coast. Some of these decisions may be by the property owner as well. Meaning Tesla may be giving them the option on what to post for signage.

Yea that’s annoying and why I like sites that implement a 4 hr max charge time.

That spot has 3 Tesla wall connectors and 2 Clipper Creek J-1772 chargers. Do you have a Tesla to J-1772 adapter?

You can easily get by with half that unless you are powering something else in the garage too. Most EV wall connectors max out at 30-40 amps anyway. Plus 40A gets you 9.6kW. That will charge most EVs, including Teslas, in 4-8 hrs max. Or just run 50A and put in a NEMA 14-50. Then you can run welders, RVs, EVs, etc.

I'm a Tesla owner, have been since 2018 and love my car. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I am however skeptical of what Elon's plans are for Twitter though. I see so many posts from people saying it was a huge waste of money, that he should have just started his own from scratch, bankruptcy imminent etc. But I have been following Elon for a long time and also saw the same type of comments coming from the same type of people when they acquired a solar startup years ago. Now look at Tesla Energy - 2022 Q3 deployment is up 62% and $1B in revenue up 38% YoY. New 20GWh factory opening in Lathrop, Ca. Demand outpacing supply. etc etc.

So I say let's see what he does here. Based on the past I guarantee one thing, no one knows all he has planned except for Elon. He keeps a lot of his master plan parts to himself and can be quite aloof . And I'd speculate we are talking like a 3-5 yr plan for it to really start unfolding.

I haven't watched the video... but I will. I can however speculate what it said, same thing everyone always says. Here's my take on these 4 points. By the way I own an EV for the performance, fun, and cost savings reasons, not environment.

1) It's up to the manufacturer to ensure none of the components come from conflict regions like Congo mines. Tesla does this, requires all materials, including cobalt, to show non conflict sourced. Sadly many other manufacturers don't. We need to have more companies require this. Apple, Dell, Samsung, all of them. There's more conflict materials in our phones, tablets, laptops, and other devices - but I don't see anyone complaining about them.

2) I don't know much data on the second statement. I do know I see articles monthly on many mines switching to EV mining equipment to cut down on the harmful air quality in mines.

3) Power sources continue to improve thank goodness. For instance our use of coal plants in the US has dropped 50% just in the last 10 years! Many will complain that the grid can't handle EVs, and it can't if all cars were EVs tomorrow. However the same thing happened in the 50's with home air conditioning. Houses didn't have AC. As it became popular the power plants adapted. They WANT to sell you power, the grid will adapt. At the current rate of change the grid can handle 100% EVs in under 10 years.

4) Range anxiety is something that exists in non EV owners. If you ask an EV owner if they have range anxiety I bet almost every one of them will tell you they don't have it. Owning an EV is a different mindset to be sure. But really it takes just a few seconds of planning. And almost all of them now will plan routes for you now to include DC fast charging stops. I don't know the state of charge of my car right now, I bet it is around 50%. But I would have no problem grabbing a jacket and heading from here in NC to Florida right now.

Edit: just for fun I looked and my car is at 52% charge. If I went from here to Tampa leaving right now I'd have to stop and charge 5 times for about 20 minutes each time. Every 2-3 hrs stop for 20 mins. So my 10 1/2 hr trip would take me an extra 1hr 15 minutes. Even in a gas car I'd probably stop for a similar time (cumulative) to eat, rest room, fuel, drinks, etc. Difference is in an EV I can charge while I do those things.

Range Anxiety isn't an EV owner thing and neither is longer cross country trip times to be honest.

You took some liberties with my comments as well. I said every 2-3 hrs, not every 2 hrs. Historically for me it’s been closer to 3 but I was being conservative. And over the 4.5 years of ownership my average for 89 DC fast chargers is 12 minutes per stop. Again I was being conservative with 20 minutes.

A 10.5 hr trip would have a food stop unless you do a drive through. If you do a sit down meal the trips are the same. Maybe a difference of a few minutes? Hardly anything.

Plus if you compare 5 yrs of waiting to fuel gas vs EV the EV clearly wins. There’s no waiting when an EV charges at home overnight, just during road trips. 7 minutes a week of fueling gas is 30 hrs over 5 yrs. I’ll definitely be under that and at 6 cents a mile.

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EV or gas they are both sitting idle overnight. Do you really think that’s an inconvenience? The national average time spent at a gas station is 7 minutes. All I’ve done is present facts, not my opinions. EVs aren’t for everyone just like diesels, vans, or trucks aren’t. There’s a place for them all.

Let’s make this apples to apples. Two new cars at a dealer. They both run on gas. They both cost the same.

Car A: typical gas car. You can fuel up any time but even if you don’t take any long trips you must always go to a gas station to refuel and always pay full price.

Car B: you also get a home fueling station that will pump gas into your car, but it’s slow - 8 hrs from empty to full. You have to take 5 seconds to plug the hose into your gas port however you get this gas for 75% off. But every morning you wake up with a full tank of gas. For the 1-2 long trips over 325 miles you take a year you’ll have to use a slower rate of fueling, so it takes an extra 8 minutes to pump your gas per stop. However you get a reduced price of gas of 50% off even though it takes a few extra minutes. And for all fueling you can shop or do other things so you don’t have to wait at the car.

You’d really pick car A over B?

So I pondered this 2 minute stop as I really don’t see it possible for a normal car getting 14-25 gallons. I went to a busy gas station to get Powerball tickets tonight so I watched the 4 people there same time as me. Rules - I skipped anyone that went inside and I timed from the moment they stepped out of their car to the time they got back in. Yes this is a little stalker-ish but my curiosity was peaked. Plus I did find online earlier that the average nationally was 7 minutes - but that could have also included people that went inside.

Car 1 was actually a BMW motorcycle. So only a gallon or two. He took 3.5 minutes but he was using his phone after. From the way he was looking at the pump I’m guessing recording the gallons in some app.

Car 2 was a white truck. I drove by the empty pump when I headed home so I know he got 11 gallons. His time was lightning fast. He couldn’t have done it faster. He waited by the pump handle the whole time and even left his door open. As soon as it clicked he grabbed his receipt and left. His time? 4 minutes. Respectable, but far from 2 minutes.

Car 3 was an Acura. Lady. She sat in her car while it filled and she must have been low because hers was the longest at 6 minutes.

Car 4 was a Mazda and only got 4 gallons. He was right in the middle of the others at 4.5 minutes. He fumbled a lot with his CC, entering in the zip code, etc before pumping - it happens.

So no, 2 minutes to get 14-20 gallons isn’t possible that I saw. Not unless you are sprinting to the pump with their CC out, no zip code verification, no receipt, etc etc. That would be funny to watch though. The real world examples seem to show, for fuel only, it’s more like double that. Still fast though, faster than EV charging but only by 10 minutes and at 3x the price and having to ALWAYS go to a pump it makes over long term at least 2x the time waiting vs charging an EV (98% overnight charging while you sleep). I still have a gas SUV for towing and hauling pins. Got a new pin last week.
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Did you just call yourself out?

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Actually it is, at least for Teslas. It’s a requirement of Tesla Superchargers to have the fast chargers within a mile or two of the interstate, have bathroom access, wifi, and access to a variety of food. They have denied a few good locations because they didn’t meet this criteria. Other DC Fast chargers may not have this requirement. I’ve never seen a Tesla SC more than a mile off an interstate and not have several food choices. There’s a Tesla SC every 100 miles all across the US.

I refueled the same amount of range as you with simply plugging in at home, say 3 seconds, and walking inside for the night. Again I'm not sure how you think overnight charging is any inconvenience for anyone. If your car would automatically dribble gas into it overnight, even if it took 8 hrs, and it cost you 1/5th the cost per gallon of a normal gas station - how many times a year would you stop at a roadside gas station and pay full price? Maybe 3 times a year on a long trip?

You would be stupid not to take advantage of saving the time & inconvenience of standing at a pump (or sitting in your car), even if only a few minutes, along with the substantial cost saving (home fueling would cost you $0.50 cents a gallon) and the convenience of starting every day with a full tank of gas.

There is one at 5 miles, 6 miles, 10 miles, and 18 miles - depending on if I was to go N S E or W. All are 1 mile from the interstate and would be on my route if I was to plan a 100+ mile trip in that direction. All would be in range of my car even if I drove 250+ miles earlier in the day. So should a travel emergency happen at night it wouldn't be an issue.

You’re running out of straws and completely ignore the first 2/3 of my post - but I’ll play along…

It’s not one available EV charger, those Supercharger stops have 8-16 chargers per location. At some point it doesn’t matter if you drive past 2 gas stations to get to the 3rd. The fact is you have access to one before the interstate, as do I. And yes they are a mile or less off the interstate if you’re road tripping - same as gas stations.

It seems like you’re saying that gas is better when you have less than 4 miles of fuel in your tank? Who gets that low on fuel? Most gas stations are about a mile off route, same as my charging. How many times have you went home with the fuel light on for half an hour? How many times did you go home with 1/8th of a gallon of gas? I’ll bet never. If your car needs gas you fuel it. If an EV needs fuel you plug it in.

I didn’t plan on replacing yard equipment with electric, but when a sale happened I got a battery powered blower and trimmer. Sold my almost new Stihl blower and straight shaft trimmer. That almost paid for the shift to Ego and I don’t have to worry about mixed gas any more. Mixed gas is something I wanted 100% to eliminate. I still have our riding mower/bagger - mostly for picking up fall leaves. I then caught a deal on an Ego push mower a few months ago and picked it up. I now have 3 Ego batteries - so even if I “plan on mowing” at a bad time there’s a battery for me to use. You’d have to try really hard to fail to not have enough battery to mow our lot. I don’t always push mow it, but I can if I want to and the riding mower is on its last leg. YMMV.

I agree that hybrids are really the worst of both worlds. But for some that can’t commit I guess it fits the bill. Problem with them is you’re hauling around all the weight of the “other” power train. Plus like mentioned by zaph you still have all the gas engine maintenance. Your range is reduced due to all that extra weight. Better to just pick one and go with it.

Plus there are few hybrids that have enough range. IMO you need 60-70 EV miles for daily driving. But companies do just enough to claim those gov credits instead of what the public needs.

I’d love something like a Jeep 4xE but it only has 49 miles. That’s in perfect weather, flat ground, no wind, running nothing on the car, and at 40 mph. So more like avg around 30 miles? That isn’t enough for me to get to and from work unfortunately without it flipping to gas. Honestly just give me a 250+ mile range pure EV Jeep.

That's a really great idea. No thermal runaway event and no fire. I'd sure hate to be Jalopy Jeff though - he got roasted on that video for filming instead of helping. But you know what they say - even bad publicity is good publicity.

That's a 5 hr trip. I don't know many elderly that can make that long of a trip without at least one stop. Most EVs out there now can make that trip with zero or one stop - even ones around $40k, which by the way is about $8k under the average price of new cars in the US as of July (all cars, not just EVs).

DC fast chargers are about every 100 miles in GA, so she can stop wherever she's most familiar with. One 12 minute stop should make the trip in an EV without an issue and allow a quick break and bathroom - and at less than half the cost.

Great post and filled with good facts, awesome. The flaw with your logic is that you assume drivers need to replenish all 75 kW / 325 miles every single day. The reality is people only drive about 1/10th of that daily (37 miles is the average) so that’s just 4 to 5 hrs in your worst scenario. So yes solar would take care of 95% of daily commutes, even on a bad day. I do love all the data though.

https://www.ridester.com/average-miles-driver-per-year/

Agreed, best use will be regional and urban routes. However there's also a max that truckers can drive in a day. I'm no expert but reading about my local laws in my state it shows about 11 hrs depending on a few things like weather and adverse driving conditions. First they must take a 30 minute break after 8 hrs. Second a max of 11 hours in a 14-hour shift after 10 consecutive hours off duty. Third a driver may not drive beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty no matter what.

It really doesn't matter if you have 2,100 miles when you can only drive 650-900 miles in one shift. Plus who's going to drive a distance almost equivalent to coast to coast on a regular basis? So all those dual tanks do is give them the option to buy fuel once every 2 to 3 days. They probably know where the cheapest fuel is so this is a bonus. Granted hauling an extra 1,000 lbs of fuel for no reason will hurt their total hauling load capacity, and probably range a little too. 150 gals is still over 16 hrs of driving at a 65 mph average.

If the Tesla Semi can reach 500 miles that's about 7 hrs of driving. They've already proven the Semi can reclaim 80% charge (another 400 miles / about 6 more hrs of driving) in just 30 minutes which is the mandated rest period after driving 8 hrs anyway. That extra 6 hrs puts the driver at the mandated max daily driving time. Granted I'm sure these Semi range numbers are on level ground with no rain, no headwinds, and at 72 deg F but even at 80% of that is still promising. It proves that this arrangement would work for all but the most extreme long haul truckers (less than <5%).

Tandem/tag teams wasn't something I considered. Fair point that a tandem team would drive further in a day. I suppose there's always exceptions. i wonder what percentage of semi drivers are doing tandem.

Till you’re in a hurry and Fred wants to go for a swim. C’mon Fred we got to go!

You're basically describing a train.

There is a concept called Platooning that Tesla showed during the Semi reveal. The lead Semi has a driver but the ones following it don't. That would be easier to implement since the following Semis just need to follow behind the leader.

The REAL issue is the other human drivers, not it's own 'auto drive' (autopilot) software. A human changing lanes into a driverless platooning Semi for instance. Or a human cutting off one of the following Semis then slowing down. The issues will almost certainly be other driver's mistakes. But working out those edge cases is far easier than having complete autonomy.

The other thing to consider is that the majority of the Semi's time will be spent on the highway - something that Tesla's Autopilot has been good at for a while. It's that few miles at the start and end of the trip that are tricky, not the 99% in the middle.

The highway stuff, changing lanes, taking on and off ramps, etc, my Model 3 has been able to do that for 4 years now - Navigate On Autopilot (NOA) was released in Oct 2018 and has improved over time. It automatically changes into the passing lane to go around slower traffic then merges back. Changes out of lanes that are ending even before I see the signs that it is ending. Moves me to the right most lane, takes the offramp, then the onramp of the next highway, merges into traffic flow. I gotta say NOA is quite solid at this point.

My only complaint with NOA used to be when the timing is horrible like when a car is on an onramp and wants to merge into my lane and we both show up at the same spot at the same time. In those instances NOA used to struggle as it would just persist in the lane at the same speed basically blocking out those cars trying to merge onto the highway. But now it acts more conservative. It sees the merging traffic well ahead of time and starts to decelerate to make a gap.

Depending on where you are it may just be more convenient to tow charge the EV. If you tow a Model 3 for 1 mile at 20mph you'll regenerate 12-15 miles of range at 20mph. That will get most cars to power somewhere - even if just a 110v outlet. Try that with a gas car...
EDIT fast forward to 11:35 for the outcome.

The 2013-14 Model S packs had issues. That’s the problem you have being an innovator in the long range EV space I suppose. There were Nissan Leafs and other EVs before then but all were shorter range and had foil pack batteries.

Many 2013-14 Model S’s have had their packs and/or drive units replaced. I was told by a few Tesla employees not to buy a 2013 or 14 S for this reason. Tesla improved the packs in the fall of 2014. They also used a new type of cell that went into the 3 and Y (2170 cells) that are far better than the X and S cells (18650’s). This is also evident with the packs producing heat and fire when punctured - easy to happen with the early model S’s, much harder with cars after 2018. When you hear of Tesla fires (or packs/drive units needing replaced) it is almost always a 2015 or before.

This is the reason I wouldn’t own an older Tesla. Growing pains and learning what works best improved Tesla battery packs a great deal over the last 10 years of Teslas. Sometimes it is fun to be an early adopter for something and sometimes it works against you - in this case for example.

We've already been down this child labor road a few pages back. But... let's do it again...

So Lithium isn't the problem. Lithium is mined by pumping water underground, letting it come back up, then drying it in the sun. Only bad thing is high water use. But Cobalt is definitely an issue. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has high child labor for cobalt.

So there are two things companies can do here - 1) require cobalt sources to show proof it was sourced ethically or 2) just don't use cobalt in the battery production. Many companies are doing one if not both of these - Tesla for instance. They have gone cobalt free in their LFP batteries (about 50% of production) along with requiring their cobalt suppliers, like Glencore, to show ethical proof of sourcing. Glencore has a copper mine but produces cobalt as a byproduct. Tesla also has cobalt suppliers in Canada.

As consumers it is also up to us. If this is a concern for you then it is up to you to do the research on the company you are buying products from. Find out where they source their cobalt and other precious minerals from. Almost everything has a battery these days. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell, and others have been (or are presently being) sued for the deaths and injuries of child miners in the DRC. Do you have one of their products?

If you aren't researching company's products you buy yet you are pointing a finger at EV companies then you need to sit down.

<sigh> I guess we are back to this again. I already did this 10 pages back Vid - post #4180. 2 minute fill up was fake.

I think people are living in the past. The average price of a new car in the US per KBB for Oct 2022 was $48,000. There are a lot of really good EVs at this price point and even cheaper. For example before Ford increased its F-150 lightning prices (due to overwhelming demand) the price after rebates started about $30k. An EV will save you about $8k per 100k miles in fuel. If you plan to drive 150k+ miles you can get under under $20k total cost of ownership easy. This doesn’t even consider maintenance savings.

Why not post it publicly? And we don’t need a video of YOU running around like a deranged headless chicken. Post a video of a random stranger fueling 11+ gallons and doing it under 2 minutes from the time they exit their vehicle to the time they get back in. Won’t happen. I watched a local station and measured random people in my post and I’d be happy to re-check it or have anyone else to do the same.

But even if gas is double that’s still faster than EV charging - which I said in my post. The real comparison, which I’ve already also proved, is that even at 2-4 minutes you’ll still wait longer to fuel gas than an EV owner over the whole vehicle ownership - since 99% of EV charging is done while they sleep. This isn’t debatable, it’s math. Fueling time isn’t a deterrent for any EV owner. Ask any of them.

How can you not get this? Let's call it 'how long you have to literally stand there WAITING at your vehicle' then instead of 'how long to fuel'. For me plugging it at home once or twice a week it is a few seconds - plug in and walk away. For you it's 2-5 minutes - or 20 times longer. When you wash your clothes at home do you stand in front of your washing machine for 50 minutes staring at it waiting for it to be done? Do you plug your cell phone in and sit watching it charge for 30 minutes? No, that would be stupid - you go about your day. You can't be so naïve to not see this.

As for the 2 minutes I bet I could watch for an hour at a public gas station and not see someone refuel in 2 minutes or less (that fueled at least 11+ gallons). But it really doesn't matter. Even at 2 minutes it's still much higher of an inconvenience to my time.

A friend of mine stopped at a Ford dealership that had a Lightning he wanted to purchase and review for his channel. They wanted double the sticker price. I know some Ford dealerships have had their hand smacked by Ford for this so hopefully price gouging has improved. I wouldn't call it a percentage price of overall F-150's but instead a consumer demand that would allow a dealer to literally tack on $30-60k and get it.

https://twitter.com/itskyleconner/status/1572349929112375299?s=20&t=pTPCxNQ_wX_HvryTcB2_Rg

The difference is we are both living our normal lives at home during those 12 hrs - whether the EV is charging or not I'd still be doing the same thing, same as you.
However while you are waiting at the pump you wouldn't be looking at birds and your phone if you weren't waiting on your car to finish pumping gas.
I don't randomly pull off the road, sit in a parking lot, and look at my phone and the birds for 2 minutes for no reason.

What are you doing while your phone is charging for a half hour? The same thing you'd be doing if it wasn't charging. You're not sitting by the phone staring at the birds out the window. Well, maybe you are, but that would be because it is your choice not because you were forced to wait and needed something to fill the time.
I'm sorry this logic is escaping some, it's not that hard to understand really.

I don't disagree with this, as I've said before on other posts. Fueling gas on long trips is faster.

However every morning I can have 330 miles of range. There are only one or two times a year I take a trip longer than that. So on those times, yes, I'd have to stop every 3.5 hrs of driving for 20 minutes and then I'd be good for another 3.5 hrs of driving again. I'd argue that I'd normally need to stop every 3.5 hrs anyway for a bathroom, drink, or food - all things I can do while charging.
But let's say for argument's sake I didn't need to stop.

Me 2x a year stopping for a 30 minute DC fast charge = 1 hr waiting. The rest of the charging is done at home.
You refueling gas weekly at 2 minutes per stop = 1hr 45 minutes waiting.

You can see how the time spent charging argument is really pointless when you take a wider look at it.

Hi, I see you’re new here.

Why would you think renewables would be any less reliable than coal or nat gas? The only recent renewable incident I can recall was with offshore windmills in Texas last year - and that was intentionally done and only accounted for like 10% of the outage’s missing power. In one of the greatest forced blackouts in history the culprit was a natural gas problem.

Many states have that Vid. We have “time of use” options where I live. You can pay as little as 6 cents a kw if you are willing to use most of your power during non peak times. But if you use too much power at the wrong time the price goes up really fast. Hence I’ll stick to 11 cents per kw any time of day.

I think that exists today on most EVs made in the last few years. When people bring up expensive replacement costs for an EV battery it's usually one of two articles they've read. First are about older Tesla Model S models costing $20k to replace and more recent a 2012 Chevy Volt viral article where the dealer quoted nearly $30k for a battery replacement.

For the first one... yes the early days of Tesla the packs were not that good quality wise and the production costs were high - around $17-20k. Remaking those packs isn't automated like the more recent ones from Tesla. I wouldn't even consider a used Tesla older than 2017. Tesla's battery goal was to get the price down under $100 per KW. They stated this about 2014. Around 2019 they achieved this. A Model 3's pack is 73KW. Tesla packs went from $17k down to $8k in just 5 years - the production cost literally cut in half. Now that's production so replacement would include labor on top of that. Their packs have an 8 yr warranty. What do you think a replacement cost will be in 8 yrs from now? I'd say $5k or so.

For the second one, that crazy hybrid Chevy Volt pack. Chevy decided not to vertically integrate and instead farmed out the pack creation for their Volts to a 3rd party. That party was contacted about the 10 yr old discontinued Chevy Volt and gave Chevy an astronomically high price. They were long out of production, had to be basically built one-off by hand, and this third party battery maker had Chevy over a barrel. This is not typical. As the tech has improved so has the price and so has standardization as well as in house production. Replacement hybrid packs today are around $2-3k.

Agreed. Perhaps when the Tesla Roadster is released others will start to follow. Until then if you have an extra $2M and want to go 258 MPH you can get a Rimac.

yea that is a problem huh?

But... if they manage to do what they said and incorporate a COPV and cold gas thrusters into the SpaceX trim Roadster it's a game changer. That is if regulators let them do it.

We can see from that video that these EVs are at the max grip the tires can take. More power wouldn't make the car any faster - period. If there's some type of 'assistance' the car could get for getting off the line then a good part of getting all the weight moving can be overcome. A quick shot of air can do that - although I wouldn't want to be behind the car when it happens. Might be a track only thing... and probably be outlawed real quick at drag strips.

I love the look of the e-tron gt. It took them forever to come to market - they said “coming soon” 13 years ago in 2009, and was even featured in Avengers Endgame 3 years ago. I have some issues with it though. First the $99,900 starting price but to even match the performance of a Tesla Model 3 Performance ($60k) you have to get the RS trim at $139,900. It also has a huge 93kW pack vs the 3’s 72 kW. And at only 232 miles of range it falls way flat of almost everyone else coming to market today. Hell the new Nissan Leaf almost has that much range (212). I consider the whole thing a black eye to VW as it could have been so much better. Heavier, late to market, expensive, and shorter range than everyone else. Still kudos to VW for designing a great looking car.

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Oooohhh a unicorn Model 3 LR RWD? They should have kept making those - so efficient.

Now back to your regularly scheduled non water heater program…

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I added shares at $110 Tuesday.

Yet almost your entire reply was based on it... For me I was just surprised it took the #1 spot - even if it was just one month in one country.

Yes the headline was a little over the top but sadly that's the world we are in these days. If I wanted to sensationalize it I would have left off the part under the image where it clearly says just a single month "Tesla Model Y became the best-selling car in all of Europe in November". I made sure I included that.

I liken this to the headlines that recently went around saying Tesla is slashing Model Y prices due to demand problems when in fact Model Y is 10% more expensive today than same time last year and no production numbers had been officially released. All data was from 'unnamed sources'. Tesla raised prices half a dozen times the last year and the news didn't say anything then they dropped them once and the news went nuts saying there must be a demand problem. Tesla even said during an ER call that shortages was the reason for increasing pricing and they would lower them when they could.

News has no memory and is only interested in what gets them the most clicks - nothing more. Most clicks = most money.

Hard to tell but it looks like a matte black wrap. Could they have just removed them to install the wrap then decided they liked the clean look? I haven’t seen any de-badging on the east coast but I’ll keep my eyes open.

I’ve heard and seen other articles claiming how bad the price cut news is too. But Tesla raised prices on Y for over a year and only lowered them recently. Yes, probably to boost EOY numbers, but still Y is 10% more expensive today than it was just a year ago.

As for sales diving - we will have to see next week (and EOM at ER) when numbers come out but I’m guessing they will have sold every car they could make last quarter. China demand may end up showing a little soft but they just export any remaining cars to Europe, as always.

For shareholders it’s more about high production and low inventory on hand than one market’s ebb and flow. China had 1,500 local sales in April then 77,000 sales in May. China’s numbers vary wildly month to month - but total Q4 sales are most likely a new delivery record. You can’t have steep diving sales and new all time high delivery records at the same time.

Right, but the one in the picture you posted has been wrapped matte. Look how shiny the windows are compared to the paint. Look how shiny the black car is that’s in front and one lane to the left of it. It also has an aftermarket spoiler so the owner likes to customize their car. Many owners decide not to re badge their wrapped cars. All I’m saying is I wouldn’t include them in your count.

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I usually drive my Model 3 AWD like I stole it. I paid for the performance and it’s one of the things that sold me on the car. I’m going to enjoy every bit of it, even if it is hard on tires.

That said I surprisingly got 44k miles out of my factory 19” Continentals. My car has had a day at the track too and also had a performance chip installed at 20k miles. So half of those miles were with the chip - unlocked rear motor to P level so 0-60 went from 4.2 seconds to 3.1 seconds.

When I replaced the Continentals I went with michelin crossclimate 2‘s that have a 60k mile warranty. If I wear them out before that then Michelins will offer a prorated warranty. I have 12k on them and don’t see any noticeable wear. I do believe I got a good built 3 though. When I had my tires rotated at 10, 20, 30k etc the tech said they were wearing almost dead even and really didn’t need to be rotated. So some of it could be each individual car’s set up.

I’m not convinced zaphX. It’s possible they had on adaptive cruse control, but not autopilot. Autopilot follows the lane lines - almost to a fault sometimes. It also defines ‘undriveable area’ quite well and will not enter that area. Unless the lines went over the cliff I don’t think it would be involved. Same for FSD. Good thing is there’s a ton of logged data - so they will be able to tell every little detail about what inputs were being applied and what modes the car was in.

Drove off a 250 ft cliff with kids in the car! Wow that's messed up. Look, life is precious, but if you want to take yourself out leave everyone else out of it.
Also, if you want to suicide via driving a car off a cliff perhaps don't use the car with the highest safety score ever tested - https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/956/tesla-model-y-receives-top-safety-score-of-any-vehicle-ever-tested-video

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Just because it generates wealth, improved travel, supplied goods & services that doesn't make it right or better for us. For instance what if I remove the word Fossil Fuels in your paragraph and replaced it with 'Slave Labor'. The whole paragraph would still be true as the world was a thousand of years ago but that doesn't make it right or better for the human race.

You could also use Big Pharma like Mylan in 2016 - people can't afford medication like EpiPens that went up 400% because of companies making their living and retirement off of the sick. They "depend on this industry for monthly income through dividends on investments/ownership of the" drugs. " If those individuals and companies that supply these goods and services earn wealth because of it, then that is what the market decides."

There's been several of these petrol vs EV races and they all turn out about the same. Interesting to see these comparisons... I saw one today and pasted a link below if you want to view it.

TLDR - 9.5 hr 900km (560 mile) trip from Sydney to Melbourne Australia in two Hyundai's - basically an all day drive trip. The petrol car won by 38 minutes.

The EV charged 4 times and was delayed at one charger - so the race could have been even closer. Total time charging the EV: 34 minutes. The extra 4 minutes was due to going through a town after charging enroute to the highway.
Petrol stopped 3 times - twice for fuel and a food/drink stop. Interestingly he said he would have preferred to stop a 4th time on that long of a trip.

At one point half way through the trip they were just 7k (4 miles) apart. So if you're cannonballing go with petrol but if you are the average human that will stop for 30 minutes for food once on a 9 hr trip the total time is about the same. This also assumed the petrol car was full at the start of the trip - usually not the case.

Found the fuel cost differences:
Tucson - $112
Ioniq 5 - $67

Well sure, but that has nothing to do with my post. The point wasn't how much US dollars were spent but instead that road tripping with an EV isn't much longer (and arguably more enjoyable) at half the cost.

I found a good article on this Vid that seems to contain at least some factual data collected from the family and friends. You can read around the pop up that wants you to sub to read it uninhibited, but really just put any email address in, even fake, to dismiss it.

I found it interesting to learn that his father had a stake and only doubled his money over 5 yrs then it was over. That's a decent investment, but not spectacular. Also it wasn't even a large part of his father's income over those 5 years - yet this story comes up a lot in the media. There was never any official documents or agreement on this stake, just a handshake. Also lots of mention saying it was blood emeralds yet Zambia wasn't a conflict country. None of his father's income helped Elon after he left home at 17 (aside from one investment in Zip2 well after the business began and the sons returned 10x that back to their father 5 yrs later). So really why does it all matter?

I guess it just goes to show how corrupt media is and that they really are just after the clicks and whatever headline will bait you in.

https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism

Elon is known to overstep to a fault. But if you listened to the exchange then you heard/saw the jest, mocking, and poking several people were doing on the call before the name calling started. The exchange was not civil, by either side, and I'd argue that the ex twitter employees were actually the ones ramping things up. Why was Hotz on the call anyway if he had resigned earlier that day? And Brown had left in 2021. All had recently experienced a fairly hostile takeover by Musk so I'm not shocked by the way it went really. EDIT: I see that Musk hired Hotz back Nov 22 as an intern to fix the search engine but that he resigned earlier on the day of this call.

The exchange started with Hotz saying something about "features as high as possible". I assume he's discussing adding a lot of new features. To which Elon said If you want to have a high velocity of new features they'll need to amend the stack that exists or rewrite it. Not really a crazy statement - why had Twitter not added these new features at that point? Probably because some rewrite was needed.

We just went through a huge rewrite for a project in our company in fact. Many years and developers, most not even employed anymore, have left code that is no longer relevant and disjointed. We also needed to take the code in a new direction. To add some new features we had to spend 6 months rewriting a whole section of how part of the code logic was originally done. Elon hates messy code, that's well documented. He's even said it's better to not need certain lines of code if there's a better way to do it.

Anyway, the banter continues with Brown asking for clarification. It's at this point things turn south. You can hear several people laughing at Musk in the background and then send laugh emojis. When Musk starts to reply they just continue to talk over him until Musk says 'who are you'? To which Brown replies 'you gave me the F*ing mic'. Hotz tries to settle things down. Brown eventually settles down then asks Musk what's wrong with the stack. But at that point the whole thing had gone off the rails.

https://twitter.com/pwnsdx/status/1605442608603463680?s=20&t=SRXJpV_NZfDgmZgaDLTtcA

Fairly good read about the exchange here too, with some background info. I think if you take this whole thing in, instead of out of context, you'll see that both sides played a part in how this turned out.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/22/elon-musk-loses-cool-with-ex-twitter-employee-during-spaces-chat/

Don't worry. Legacy auto makers love to show how cool a concept looks - and then don't deliver.
This is the Porsche Taycan Turbo S (Mission E concept) that everyone wanted - wide rear hips, great lines, suicide doors, awesome side scoops, no mirrors, etc. But that's not what Porsche ultimately delivered. Same story for the Mercedes EQS, Audi e-tron, and so many others.

In the end they find out the costs are too high, just not practical, or some other logical reason to cut all the good stuff.

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Funny you should bring this up - Elon Musk owns the Wet Nellie submarine car from the movie The Spy Who Loved Me. Wish i could have been lucky enough to get a $100 storage container with something like that in it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_Nellie

Upon completion of filming, the submarine went on a promotional tour.[4] Afterwards, it was shipped to Long Island, New York, and placed in storage. The storage unit was prepaid for 10 years; at the end of the lease, no one claimed the contents, so the contents of the storage locker were placed on auction. The buyer paid less than $100 for the unit.[4][8] The buyers did not know the contents when they bought it, and from 1989 to 2013 occasionally exhibited the submarine.[8] The then owner, also owner of a tool rental shop, had the exterior restored.[4] It was put up for auction as a Bond car in 2013.[8] In September 2013, the submarine sold at auction for £550,000,[9] at RM Auctions in Battersea, south west London.[6] Elon Musk bought the vehicle, and as of 2013, planned to convert it into the functional car-submarine from the film.[10] Musk stated that he plans to use Tesla Motors' electric drive train in making his conversion a reality.[11]

Tesla’s default used to be black. Then everyone complained to Tesla that everywhere else, especially in Europe, the default color is white. Plus Tesla was discovering how hard it was to make a black car look clean and not show scratches. So prepping the black cars was taking way longer.

When it isn’t a couple hundred but instead $2,000.
Edit: Red is 2k, the rest are 1k. I think red used to be 2.5k actually. The white is a nice metallic flake white though. If I bought another I’d get the white even if it wasn’t free.

You’re correct. The red is a multi coat and the reason it’s 2x price. But it isn’t even a nice red IMO. Google Tesla Signature Red - it’s a nice red similar to this one. Think of a glass of Cabernet and you’ll be close. Mazda has a nice red too. Tesla is introducing a few new colors but not in the US unfortunately.

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I was really hoping for a little more from the e-ray than that. 0-60 2.5 sec and a 10.5 second 1/4 mile for a six figure car is not that good. Especially since a Plaid can do low 9's and even high 8's with some weight reduction - at the same price. Now granted there's some sexiness to the vette but then again all that is personal preference too.

We covered the conflict cobalt a few pages ago. It’s up to the companies that consume the cobalt to confirm where and how it was sourced. Some companies, like Tesla, are finally public about this information and sourcing locally (Canada) and requiring confirmation of non conflict cobalt or removing cobalt entirely. Some are not. Several are in lawsuits about this very thing - Apple and Google come to mind but there ar more.

As paynemic has said there’s so many devices that use batteries in our lives. I think we would all be shocked at how and where some components for devices we use every day are sourced. Doing due diligence BEFORE you come to conclusions is the only option. Believing one online article or video is not that.

What part of them is not sustainable when over 95% of the battery components can be recycled right back into new cells with zero loss of functionality? That means at a certain point almost no new materials will be needed. I'm curious what you mean by not sustainable.

Indeed they are but there are so many problems with hydrogen it is DOA in my opinion. Who wants to be tied to a fuel pump? I'm so happy to have ditched the need to stop at a fueling station every week it's not even funny. To be able to 'fuel' at home (or literally anywhere there is an electric plug) is a huge benefit to EV ownership.

Plus it isn't hard to find all kinds of problems with hydrogen. For one it's hard to contain without it escaping. But the largest issue is that you're using electricity to create hydrogen that is stored, transported, stored, pumped to cars, then used to create electricity. You see the problem there right? Using electricity to power an EV means that 75% of the power is directly converted to the wheels. Where as hydrogen is less than 25%. It is far less efficient to use - and it's not even close. Much better to just use that initial energy to fill a battery.

And hydrogen costs are about double the cost of gas - $0.25 per mile vs $0.14 for gas or $0.03 for an EV charged at home. That means over 100,000 miles of ownership a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will cost you $14,000 more than a gas car or a whopping $22,000 more in fuel than an EV. That's another compact car! Cost is a huge deterrent for consumers. Perhaps eventually the infrastructure improvements will help bring this cost down - if it survives long enough.

That said, I believe there is a place for both. Hydrogen may be a good fit for mass transit. Bus, train, semi, etc. But I don't see it ever catching on for the general commuter car.

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So you have no logical reason then?
Carry on.

Gas is $0.15 per mile, EV is $0.03 per mile. Over 100,000 miles that’s $12,000. Not to mention other engine belts, hoses, brakes, trans flush, etc maintenance savings. It’s very probable that you’ll save $15k per 100k miles driven in an EV. I’m on pace for this actually. What happens when you drive it for 200k miles? That’s a considerable amount of money. Total cost of ownership should be considered. A $30k EV would be the same (or cheaper) than a FREE gas car.

Most consumers would buy a home water filter that is $3k vs one that is $5k. However if the replacement filters are more expensive for the cheaper one and you use it for 10 years you could actually end up paying double or more for the cheaper one. This concept escapes most unfortunately as they just focus on the upfront cost.

I sold some on the way down but had buys and added those shares back at 150, 130, and 110. Basically lowered my average.

2 EVs take spots in the Top 10 best selling cars in the World for 2022.

Toyota Corolla: 1.12 million (down 2% vs last year)
Toyota RAV4: 870,000 (down 14% versus last year)
Ford F-Series: 787,000 (down 9% versus last year)
Tesla Model Y: 759,000 (up 88% versus last year)
Toyota Camry: 675,000 (down 3% versus last year)
Honda CR-V: 601,000 (down 18% versus last year)
Tesla Model 3: 596,000 (up 4% versus last year)

If the list was sorted by revenue Model Y takes top spot since it averaged a sale price of $55k. Every other car in the top 10 declines.

"But but but people can't afford high priced EVs..."
note: the average price of a new car in November 2022 was almost $49k.

The funniest part of this 8:57 video is that Bill is on camera 8:54 and his guest, the girl showing cleavage, is on for 3 one second clips. But what do they use for the thumbnail? Cleavage

I tend to agree with this. Almost all of the Tesla fire articles I’ve seen cite they are 2013-14 Model S. Those older 18650 cells and the way those packs back then were built aren’t as good as the Model Y & 3’s 2170 cells. I’ve only seen a couple of 3 & Y fires - and those haven’t been runaway events. Those older S’s have issues if the pack is punctured. My guess is this latest one ran over an object that punctured the pack - not an easy feat but like an alternator or large metal object could do it.
And newer S and X were made much better, surrounded with flame retardant, better protection, and now are using the 2170’s too. Luckily the overwhelming majority of Teslas on the road wouldn’t have this problem or at least handle it much better. I wouldn’t have a problem buying any used Tesla made after say 2016.

Edit: look at the pictures… the whole front of the car is burned but the HV batteries are basically under the car between the front and rear wheels - mostly behind where the fire was. This seems to imply the front of the pack was compromised. Possibly by running over something. I hope they do a follow up investigation.

That was a satire piece from The Onion. OMG you didn’t really believe that did you? A Tesla can’t even do that in self drive mode.

There are at least 3 problems with that story.
If the driver’s hands aren’t on the wheel the car would disconnect self drive after 30 seconds.
Self drive won’t drive on roads that don’t have lines so I guess there were lines leading up to the fence?
Self drive won’t move forwards and backwards.

The Onion’s articles are all about satire, shock, awe, and frequently non-fiction. It’s there basically for amusement.

You might want to do some research before posting some of this stuff.

With every electrical outlet being an EV “fuel pump” there’s one literally within a stones throw of almost everyone on the planet. While it may be slower and inconvenient… should SHTF it’ll be harder to get gas.

Problem we have today is auto makers like VW giving away a year of free DC fast charging with new car purchases. People that live locally will drive from their home and sit in their cars to get that free juice rather than charge at home for a few bucks. It really inconveniences long distance travelers that need those chargers. We really need to do away with free charging to stop incentivizing these new EV owners clogging the chargers to save a few bucks. If they are going to do it they need to limit it to the fast chargers at the dealers - away from the highways and travelers.

Same. My wife hated pumping gas & it wasn't my favorite thing to do either. I had to do all the fueling in our cars even if she got home late, it was cold, bad weather, etc. I'd have to go back out and fill up the car(s) so she could go to work the next morning. Man, I don't miss doing that crap!

I wouldn't say 'just as guilty'. They haven't offered unlimited supercharging since the 3 was released like 6 years ago. Back then there weren't near as many being produced either. They deliver more in 6 months now than all delivered combined 2012-1017.

And the 1,000 miles Tesla offered during a few Q pushes (or with a referral) is really only 3-6 charges - it goes quick. It's nothing like a year or two of UNLIMITED charging. Placing a mileage cap on it is a smarter way to do it and causes you to use it when you need it - like on a road trip.

The 10,000 miles free Supercharging was only offered Dec 15-31 2022 to push year end sales. They only offered it for those 2 weeks and they’ve never offered that high an amount before. Owners have up to 2 years to use those miles.

They have offered 1,000 miles a few times since 2016 - about once a year and usually for only a few weeks to drive Q end sales.
There is no current free Tesla supercharging being offered with new car sales.

As for how it’s calculated it’s defined by the car’s rated range - which is about 4.3 miles per kW supplied by the charger. It’s about 2,300 kW to go 10k miles. Rates are about 20-25 cents a kW so that’s like a $500 perk.

For reference Kia offers 1,000 kW of free Electrify America fast charging on every single EV they sell - 365 days a year. That’s about 4-5k miles of charging on every single car.

VW is worse going as far as offering 3 years unlimited charging on Electrify America fast charging network on all VW ID.4 models. 30 min max per session, but there’s a bug so all you have to do is move stalls and you can start another session free.

All articles I’ve found say the 10k free miles expired Dec 31 2022 - which makes sense as they wanted to boost year end sales.

Tesla discontinued free supercharging in mid 2016. From 2012 to mid 2016 they produced about 125,000 vehicles total and not all had free supercharging. Not all are still on the road either. But let’s say 50k are still out there? Each Tesla Supercharging location has on average 8-16 stalls. So a few older Model S owners charging isn’t a big deal. Electrify America charging locations are usually only 2 or 4 stalls. Much more of an impact.

VW sold half a million EV’s worldwide in 2022. Much less just in US (having a hard time finding the exact number). But all of those have 3 years of free unlimited charging. Every single one sold daily even today. When they show up at a charger that one car occupies 25-50% of available EA chargers vs a 2013 Model S showing up and occupying 1/10th or less of available Tesla Superchargers.

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Fair enough, but that seems to be a German based 3rd party accessory store instead of a credible news outlet or Tesla itself. It also mentions kilometers and says "until probably January 12, 2023" - low confidence. Perhaps this was only in Germany?

Tesla's own website shows the sale was over on Dec 31st.
https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharger#:~:text=If%20you%20took%20delivery%20of,Supercharging%2C%20open%20the%20Tesla%20app.

Even if Tesla extended 10k to Jan 12th the impact of offering 3 years of free charging by VW (that owns Electrify America's charging network) is just plain irresponsible. 3 years could easily be higher than 50,000 miles vs Tesla's 10,000. Plus with each Electrify America location only having 2-4 stalls (instead of 8-16 or more at a Tesla Supercharger) it greatly impacts the charging location.

Honestly they ALL need to stop offering any kind of free DC Fast Charging. Offer some free accessories, price discount, rebate, premium connectivity service, whatever but not free charging.

Google image search found the reason from 4 years ago from My E-Life Now! Facebook page - "We've found a post from the owner of the car explaining the situation in a Facebook post (embedded below). Apparently, the car, which was somewhat, but not super-low on energy, refused to engage reverse gear. After charging up, it worked properly. Weird."

New Supercharger sites now install at least one pull through station - for those with bike racks or pulling trailers.

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Very true. We don't have as much ice and snow here in the mid eastern US but now at 55k & plan on doing maintenance to my pads next month.
Skip to 5:45 in the vid for pad and pin check/cleaning/lube.

I pay more in extra EV registration fees than I paid in gas taxes. Most states have this already set up for EV registration. Right now for NC it’s an extra $140 per year no matter how many miles I drive. And all that goes to the roads. During Covid I only drove like a thousand miles and still had to pay that $140 a year. That’s like paying a $140 tax on just a few tankfuls of gas. And now they’re trying to raise it even more.

The gas taxes haven’t increased in many years. So I guess you can thank EV owners for picking up the gas tax slack.

Edit: the last time the US gas tax was raised was 30 years ago in 1993. Inflation has risen 93% in that time.

Kyle and Alyssa are friends of mine - from right here in eastern NC. I encourage you to watch the full video if you have time. He's been covering all kinds of EV news and reviews since going full time with his company Out of Spec about 5 years ago. He held a few EV Cannonball records here in the US - first set in 2019 with a Model 3 then beat with a Porsche Taycan in 2021 (about 44 hrs 25 mins, including charging time). He even worked for Tesla years ago here in Raleigh.

For the record he's visited thousands of Tesla Supercharging locations all over the world and this is the only time he's ever seen an entire Supercharging location down. Electrify America and others however need to improve their games a great deal.

The new gov mandates will require an uptime > 97% to get any of the new subsidies. That should push these charging stations to remedy the situation if they want any of that money. https://electrek.co/2023/02/15/sick-of-ev-chargers-not-working-heres-how-thats-going-to-change/

This excerpt seems to say it all…

“The Ukrainian military has used Starlink services effectively against Russian forces. Since the war broke out, Chinese military researchers have repeatedly called for developing capabilities to destroy Starlink if necessary.”

Tesla prices went up, almost monthly, for two years due to the pandemic, chip shortages, etc along with increased prices in materials. Model Y AWD went from $50k to $65k during this 18 month timeframe. Elon even said when they could cut costs again they would.

Now that goods are stabilizing, chips are available, and they've implemented production improvements the prices have come back down and the first thing the media runs to is a demand problem. Nevermind that the new prices are still higher (Model Y AWD) than they were two years ago or that the delivery numbers continue to climb every quarter.
It's a "can't see the forest for the trees" mentality.

https://images.app.goo.gl/FjBLRBZ7uJqoyHAQ6

KBB says the average price of new cars sold in the US last year was $49k. The Ford F-150 starting price is $56k. You’ll get a $7,500 tax rebate as long as your tax burden is that. So your F-150 ends up costing you $500 less than the national average new car. That’s before fuel and maintenance savings. So just an average person, not a wealthy one.

Plus the F-150 Pro trim, the starting price one, comes very nicely equipped surprisingly.

Below is an image posted in the newspapers about 1900 when electricity was new and just spreading across the US. People fear what they don't understand. They literally thought it would jump out and kill anyone that walked by it.

It's a shame really. Look at any FB ad for an EV and it's filled with hundreds of posts of complete false and nonsense information. Just a bunch of parrots and lemmings really. Rather than validate any information they go by "its on the internet so it must be true"...

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The ID 2all will sadly be for just the European market. VW did this with the ID.3 as well so I'm not surprised. My wife wanted one and it never came to the states. I hope they change their mind. A small sub $30k hot hatch Golf sized EV would be awesome.

"Despite the ID 2all being deemed a concept vehicle, Volkswagen says it will unveil the production version of the ID 2all for all European markets in 2025 with a goal of starting it at less than 25,000 euros."
https://electrek.co/2023/03/15/vw-reveals-id-2all-affordable-ev-concept-with-279-mile-range/

So where does all this EV misinformation come from and why does it perpetuate when it’s so easily disproven?

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There are so many problems with Dan O’Dowd and the Dawn Project. Just Google this stuff, it’s crazy.

He founded and runs a competing project for autonomous driving software. He’s spent millions trying to cut down Tesla any way he can. Yea, there’s no motive there I’m sure.

Dozens of people have tried to recreate his videos and even posted their results on Twitter. In every instance the car stopped or avoided the dummy. Many of them also asked Dan if he wanted to attend a recreation live streamed by an independent party - he denied.

Again… just look at my post above about The Scientific Uncertainty Principle. It doesn’t matter if what he says is true or not. Just that he’s created uncertainty and doubt.

Well sure… his video shows it hit the dummy. But his video doesn’t even show that Autopilot or FSD was engaged. Quite the opposite in fact. The AP indicator never turns blue, the visualizations aren’t there, and no audible indication either. All he did was turn on the regular cruse control.

But the dozens of people with in car cameras that tried to recreate it by actually engaging Autopilot or Full Self Driving either one could not get it to hit the dummy no matter how many times they tried. In other words he faked it.

Several news agencies even confirmed it was fake.
https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-campaign-releases-test-fails-fsd-never-engaged/

Even Twitter shows it was faked. Again, back to fear and doubt - whether it’s true or not they get people like you thinking it was true. So they did their job.

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Edison invented the light bulb in 1879 and electricity started becoming more popular after that. Hence my “about 1900” statement. By 1920 just 35% of houses in the US had electricity.

Lithium is mined by pumping water in the ground, it comes up, and is evaporated leaving behind the lithium. There’s no slave part involved. You’re thinking of cobalt. Perhaps you drank that zombie kool-aid before getting mixed up and conflating the two?

It’s something like 2.5x better even if charged from fossil. I can’t remember the number but it’s been studied to death so should be easy to Google.

I did a quick search and found some data here…. Would need to be verified.
https://driveelectriccolorado.org/myth-buster-evs-are-just-as-bad-for-the-environment-as-fossil-fuel-cars/

It’s been covered here in this thread half dozen times at least too.