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Economic Reasons to Buy an EV instead of a gas powered car

ajdelange

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Brakes do get used - just not that much. In particular, bringing the car to a complete stop with the motors is wasteful of energy and so most cars require the friction brakes when coming to a full stop. Also in cool weather regen has to be limited and, unless you revert to the old hypermileing techniques from the over $3.00 per gallon days you will find yourself using the friction brakes on the road. Drivers of BEV encounter as many idiots on the road and you will be slamming on the friction brakes from time to time to dodge them (or the car may do that for you automatically). Finally, torque vectoring can use the friction brake if the motors alone can't handle it completely. This will be less likely in the Rivians with their 4 motors that the other cars with 1, 2 or 3 motors.

Yes indeed, the discs of BEVs do haze over in wet or even highly humid conditions. And you will notice it more because the sound of the pads against the haze isn't obscured by engine noise. The one thing I have not noticed is the friction brakes grabbing when the haze is heavy as they do on some ICE cars. I used to fairly frequently begin a drive with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake in order to wipe off the haze and prevent this grabbing. These modern BEVs have got so many sensors that they would certainly be able to detect the haze and perhaps are in fact doing something to remove it but doing it so subtly that the driver doesn't know it. But there would be no need to limit regen until the discs are clean that I can think of.

Going back to the OP: it is interesting to reflect on the relative amounts of fundamentals and emotion in the current price of TSLA.
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Pherdnut

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How much do these big ol' offroad pickup tires cost though? Because at 0-60 in 3 seconds and immediate max torque, I might have to make some friends in the local tire service community.
 

thrill

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Don't forget - 0 to 60 in 3.0 seconds followed by the bat turn into the parking spot. Maybe Amazon will offer big ass tires on Subscribe and Save.
 

Billyk24

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Some people are going to point out that the Tesla Service Centers are filled with cars that "don't need service". Others are going to state 5 minutes to refuel and then I can go 450-500 miles. While you need to stop twice as often and for a much longer time frame. Fast charging sites in some parts of the states do not exist such as the UP of Michigan.
 

ajdelange

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Most Teslas that need service are sitting in their owners' garages waiting for a Ranger to come by and fix them. Annual maintenance, if you bother with it at all, consists or rotating the tires, checking the windshield washer fluid level, replacing the winshoeld wiper blades and putting a new battery in the fob(s). Every 3 years they change the oil in the gear boxes and replace a couple of filters in the A/C. The newer models are truly 1 pedal driving so brake pads are going to last for a very long time.

In daily use you charge at home so the speed and availability of fast chargers is not of concern. Traveling through sparsely populated areas looking for a garage owner who will let you plug into his welder outlet is going to be a bit of an adventure but isn't that what Rivian's are sold for?
 

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Thanks for that, at least you are polite. Opinions about anything other than Tesla on the Tesla site will get you slammed and humiliated. Now back to Rivian.
 

Pherdnut

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Ultimately, I think the hours spent argument is hard to push in favor of EVs if you're planning on taking a lot of beyond-local trips with your EV. Refueling times on long trips are a big negative for most. Not so much for me as social distancing was already something I had plenty of practice at and keeping myself amused with a laptop is something I can do up to a point where my wife will actually verbal-murder me if I don't watch the time.

But regardless, it's still time I would have preferred went towards getting there sooner or being a nerd somewhere other than the appealing but still vehicular interior of an R1T.

EVs dominate in most categories. Overall time spent servicing if you count refueling, will not be one of them if you're doing more than just commuting and local errands for 99% of the miles. Especially if you don't have a garage. The upsides of course are still staggering. Even with all the QA/service issues of the early model 3s, owner satisfaction was still surprisingly high.
 

ajdelange

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Ultimately, I think the hours spent argument is hard to push in favor of EVs if you're planning on taking a lot of beyond-local trips with your EV.
Your decision is going to turn on what the two words I've bolded means. There will, of course, be people for whom this refueling time is intolerable. They shouldn't buy BEVs. But for the vast majority who use the vehicles more or less conventionally (commuting and a couple of longish trip a year) the charging time just isn't going to be a problem. This assumes that EA gets their system more or less up to snuff by the time we get our trucks. It also depends on what sort of trip the longish trips are. These are supposed o be "adventure" vehicles. Last summer we went up the north shore of he St. Lawrence. It's remote. But quite a few towns have a 50 kW DC charger usually located adjacent to a visitor information center. For a leisurely poking around "adventure" of this sort who cares if the average charge time was 40 minutes?

Refueling times on long trips are a big negative for most.
If you must get from Quebec City to Baie Commeau for a funeral, a business emergency etc. then yes. But if the purpose of the trip is fun, no. On our annual migration from Virginia to Quebec the refueling situation is not noticeably different from what we used to do in our ICE SUV. I was expecting recharging to be much more burdensome that it has in fact turned out to be and you will probably come to the same conclusion after driving your Rivian for a while. But I cannot guarantee that you will. My recommendation is that you rent a Tesla for a long weekend and make a beyond local trip in it in order to get a better feel for what's involved.

Then there is always the possibility that you will retain your feeling that charging is a huge PITA but find that this is outweighed by other aspects of BEV ownership. Everybody has to figure it out for himself.
 
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delmi

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The previous thread makes me realize that we have waited long enough and it is time for RIVIAN to give us something concrete to talk about. When we are down to six sigmas and rutabagas it is time for the configuator
so that the long wait until delivery can be filled with realistic discussions.
 

Boeing787

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Sometimes when discussing EVs we get passionate about them, and bring up the topic of climate change to justify the claim that anything that man can do to control climate change, we should be doing. Some of it may be worth doing, and I’ve done some of the things that are worth doing. 7.5 kW on my roof. DRiving a Prius for 17 years (my first was an ‘02 that got crunched in a crash). Walking and riding a bike when I can. Now looking seriously at EVs because they look mature enough to rely on. And more. However, I’m under no illusions... my personal choices are completely irrelevant to the climate: the degree to which it is changing is unaltered because I personally made these choices. So, I had to make them for other rational objective reasons.

The economics of why an EV makes sense is actually a fascinating analysis that is vastly oversimplified. I’m a six sigma black belt, and so I’ve been trained to think about choices in terms of rational value.

Here’s one point to consider: over the life of a gasoline car, how much time do you spend at the pump, and what value do you place on that time? It’s not an arbitrary number. People who pump gas rather than that change an EV are making a decision to fill a 25-gallon tank with gas at $3 a gallon. It takes ten minutes to fill that car up with $75 dollars of fuel. It takes maybe another 10 min to get in and out of the station. A driver might fill a gas tank up once a week for 60 years, so that works out to a total of 60 * 52 * 1/3 hour = 1040 hours. 1040 hours spent smelling gasoline, much in cold weather, rainy weather. Time that could be spent with a shorter commute, giving you extra sleeping time, an extra cup of coffee, an extra hug with family, or just allowing a lower stress level when driving.

When we make decisions about EVs we often neglect the value of our own free time, because we’ve never bothered to place a dollar value on it. Think about this: if we work 50 hours a week, and we get maybe an hour a day free... then you could value that hour of free time at 50x your hourly pay. That’s a reasonable estimate. Suppose you are working even a minimum wage job at $11 an hour. That means the the value of the time you spend pumping gas each year is 52 * 1/2 hour per week * $11 per hour * 50 =$14,300!!!

No way to convert that time to cash of course.... but it does serve to show that the time savings granted by an EV in terms of just the time saving at the pump is more significant a value than we think it is... and maybe should factor into our decision about whether to by an EV or not.

I started this topic to encourage rational economic thought about why to buy an EV... to avoid the polemics of debating whether EVs help the environment. The impact of an EV to an individual’s life is quantifiable and measurable, and is of great interest to anyone who is rational.

I wonder how many cost savings, time savings, quality of life improvements, or avoided irritations we can indentify, and having done that, what dollar value might be placed on them? Remember in this exercise, you can’t count the value to a group... only to the individual, because the choice to purchase an EV is an individual choice, not a group choice.
Gas is $1.35 at walmart in Texas...
 

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Billyk24

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No way do I spend 1/2 hour each week pumping gas. I own a PHEV and hybrid. I have a reservation for a BEV.
 

Rob P

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The time saved with an EV will be offset quite a bit if you take a lot of road trips. I go to San Diego from Seattle for a few months each winter and always push straight through 1200 miles in one day in my Range Rover. With vary careful planning it is 2 days minimum in a Rivian with the 180kw battery with a mandatory hotel stop and a few hours of sitting at charging stations. Also when we rent a house for 6 weeks it will likely be a big hassle to charge the Rivian so I will be forced to go park somewhere for an hour each week unless golf courses start getting fast chargers then perhaps it won't be such a hassle. Another factor that isn't applicable to all EVs per say is the self driving tech. being able to relax in traffic might extend my lifespan which you can't put a dollar amount on
 

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For me, driving 16+ hours straight and I would go insane. I realize everyone is different, but after about 3-4 hours of highway driving and I'm ready to walk around. Yes, driving 1200+ miles in an EV would require quite a bit of charging time, but I would plan that into my drive and overnight at a hotel that offered free charging and was close to something else I wanted to explore. It's not for everyone, but it's an option.

As far as charging at the rental house- don't forget that you can still charge your Rivian using a standard 110v outlet. I've had to do this many times when we've stopped at a friend/family members house and the nearest Supercharger or any type of fast charging location was a minimum of an hour away. It's not ideal and the most I've seen is 4 miles/hour of charge. If you figure a minimum of 8 hours of charging overnight, then you could possibly get enough mileage to get you to a faster charger if you needed one. Also, you don't always have to use a "fast charger". Many grocery stores and golf courses offer Level 2 charging stations that give you anywhere from 15-50 miles per hour of charge.

I'm not sure what your experience with EV's is, but a lot of people don't fully understand charging concepts or the different levels of charging. It took a lot of research and asking questions before I fully understood daily driving versus road trips.
 

ajdelange

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For me, driving 16+ hours straight and I would go insane. I realize everyone is different, but after about 3-4 hours of highway driving and I'm ready to walk around.
Same here. There has been a convenient convergence of the impositions of BEV fueling and the impositions of advancing age. But I realize that this is not the case for everyone.

As far as charging at the rental house- don't forget that you can still charge your Rivian using a standard 110v outlet. I've had to do this many times when we've stopped at a friend/family members house and the nearest Supercharger or any type of fast charging location was a minimum of an hour away.
Never used the 120V adapter. It's just too slow. Keep in mind that in most newer houses there is a 14-50R behind the stove (even if it is gas), that there is likely a clothes dryer and that one can, with a simple adapter, plug into two 120V outlets thus getting 240 and doubling charging speed.


Also, you don't always have to use a "fast charger". Many grocery stores and golf courses offer Level 2 charging stations that give you anywhere from 15-50 miles per hour of charge.
Don't overlook camp grounds as a possible place to charge. There is also a large installed base of Tesla "Destination Chargers". As a Rivian driver you will not be able to use the Tesla Super Charger network but you can use the Destination Chargers (with an adapter).

I'm not sure what your experience with EV's is, but a lot of people don't fully understand charging concepts or the different levels of charging. It took a lot of research and asking questions before I fully understood daily driving versus road trips.
People who haven't operated a BEV don't understand the fueling process because it is something they have not experienced and it seems, with all the articles, videos and web sites that it is dramatically different from ICE fueling. It isn't, really. Would you get panicky in your ICE vehicle when the gas gauge got to 1/4 on a freeway with service areas? If not then why would you get panicky if your battery indicator drops to 1/4 with your energy monitor telling you that you will arrive at the next charger with 20% margin? For most BEV drivers once they have accepted the paradigm shift it's very much the same. You have to be a little more aware with the BEV, though.
 
 




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