electric cars

[driftwood blue]

here is an Eye opener!


CAR...Hmmm... It makes you wonder...


Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it. This is the first article I've ever seen and tells the story pretty much as I expected it to.

Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things yet they're being shoved down our throats... Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.

At a neighborhood B B Q I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles... Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS!' and a shrug.

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors ... and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4-1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $20,000 while the Volt costs $46,000+... So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.



I foresee the time that travelers that plug in at motels will be 'charged' an additional plugin fee. If they are not already.

[Tanner Peyton]

Just wondering but do you by chance know the numbers involved with a gallon of gas or a ton of coal minus the subsidies? I've been trying to located them figures for awhile now not having much luck.

[ethertonee]

Electric windmills are subsidized so much that they can have a negative $23 per megawatt cost and still be profitable. Using coal it cost $6-12 to produce a megawatt. You won't find these numbers but if you know people in the business you can get it. The windmills won't ever produce a enough electricity to pay for the cost to make the components in it. Little on cover of the maintenance and set up cost.

[ethertonee]

Tanner are you wondering subsidized cost or tax cost on gas?

[Tanner Peyton]

Yeah, what I'm wondering is what it would cost to put a gallon of gas into my fuel tank or a load of coal in my truck bed if the government wasn't involved. When I was digging coal way back in the day out in Wyoming I remember doing the math at the cost of my fuel and my wages vs the amount of coal I could get to the rail cars and it didn't add up. So I asked my boss about it and he said it had a lot to do with subsidies. So I'm just wondering how would gas, coal and oil do in the free market. I'm not pushing for electric cars or coal fire power plants. All I want is free market numbers. And if these a better way then bring it on. Listen, we didn't leave the Stone Age because we ran out of rocks. We're not going to run out of oil any time soon either. But if there's a better cheaper cleaner way. Why not explore it.

I was hanging out with some dudes from England one time and they were telling me there gas cost 9 dollars a gallon. When I was in Mexico last summer it was about the same. I wonder if these are representative of actual fuel cost or just the current and local markert trends.

For me, I just make my own ethanol and burn it. It cost me about 1.48 per gallon and that includes labor plus corn. But I suppose that's a perk to being a chemical engineer. But it makes me wonder.

Good day folks.

[david]

Dang Tanner, I never knew.
What would it cost me for a mason jar full of that good ol' ethanol?

[Tanner Peyton]

Haha, well David based on my math I guess a fella could make him self a quart jar for about 0.37 cents. If he was to buy all the stuff. But if a quart jar is all you want then heck, just go cut some cattail root or pine bark and use that instead of corn.

[Tanner Peyton]

Wait, I think I misinterpreted that question. So let me rephrase,

David, if you want a jar of shine I would gladly give you one. No charge at. It's the least I could do.

[horshur]

we are having real infrastructure challenges in BC this summer..my wife was up several nights all night keeping the gas pumps going due to evacuations because of fires...puts light on electric cause you can't have a tanker full of electric fill the pumps and the cars move on after a minute or two...and if a fire hits during the day and the electric car is only half charge from the commute how do you flee??? how do you charge up in a timely manner or if at all with power grid down?? Electric is dead in the water when the SHTF.

[Tanner Peyton]

I agree with you, electricity is about the first thing to go when a natural disaster hits and it's a pain to produce when it does go out. Hey I'm not advocating for gas or solar or ethanol or anything for that matter. All have there advantages and disadvantages there time and place. But what I am trying to advocating for is the free market. If a dunder head like me can produce a relatively cheap fuel with out the governments involvement it makes me wonder what a person with decent brain between there ears can do. It will be interesting to see where technology has the ability to takes us.