03-30-2016, 03:40 PM | #31 | |
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Quote:
300 miles EPA rating means 300 miles in weather that is generally pretty good at speeds that aren't crazy high; add rain (or cold, or god forbid snow), or speed up and average 80 mph, and your range drops, sometimes precipitously. It will be a long time before an EV can do the kind of drive you're talking about, if only because that's a pretty edge case in terms of usage. There aren't that many people who have to be able to drive 4 hours non-stop at 80 mph. I know I wouldn't want to do it, ICE or EV. Ultimately, a 250 mile EV coupled with strategically placed DC fast chargers can do nearly everything an ICE can do. Can it do everything an ICE can do? No. There are a whole range of scenarios where you have to modify your driving, modify your route, or do something else to take account for the fact that your range is limited and your refueling time is (relatively) slow compared to an ICE car. If you are waiting for an EV that demands literally no change in behavior, it's going to be a long time. Which is fine! Nothing wrong with that. But in my experience, for the majority of people, the changes in behavior that you need to make are small, relatively infrequent, and are offset by some pretty compelling advantages. I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to go to the gas station, e.g. EDIT: I'm mainly trying to challenge the assumption that there is some magic mark at which the compromises that EV ownership demand disappear. There isn't (or at least, there isn't a realistic one). Instead of thinking "EVs have to hit range X before I pull the trigger," you have to sit down and examine where and how you use the car, and whether there's any change you'd accept in your driving habits to accommodate EV ownership. |
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03-30-2016, 03:51 PM | #32 |
lawn boy
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03-30-2016, 03:55 PM | #33 |
195
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Really. Why do I need to do that? It's dangerous, for me at least. No way I am as alert in hour four as I should be. And what's the difference between getting someplace in 4 hours versus 4.75 hours? I'm not delivering organs.
I'd much rather stretch my legs after a couple of hours than try and do 300 miles in one sitting. Maybe I am just weak. |
03-30-2016, 04:00 PM | #34 | |
lawn boy
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It's more like, do I get there in 20 hours or 23? |
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03-30-2016, 04:11 PM | #35 |
Hello.
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On the 4hr non-stop thing, my wife and I both do it comfortably and neither of us find it fatiguing. We usually time it to minimize traffic, if we leave too early or too late we easliy add an hour to the drive. That kind of road trip is the sweet spot of operation for the e61, which we use most often.
The 80mph range truncation is a bigger issue for me. On the PA Turnpike, 476 and 15/86 in NY, average speed is easily 75+. If I had to sit in the right lane at 60 to maintain my total range I'd lose my mind. I get your point re: where do you draw the line on EV = useful daily vehicle. There is no universally right answer and I know my car usage parameters are an outlier. It is same reason why leases would never work for me right now we just put too many miles on our cars. If we didn't have the lake house and / or a kid that played ice hockey with lots of tournaments in Canada, the times we'd want to drive more than 200 miles in a day would be few and far between. I don't see an EV successfully replacing any of my 3 cars. It can't do the long hauls of the E61, it doesn't check the top down fun boxes of the e88 and it doesn't do the bad weatehr 4wd beater, dog carrier, kid car of the e46. Again, I know this is a personal issue and I'm not in the EV target market. Just giving a counter situation to the EVs are all wonderful discussion. Edit: Just for fun, I went back and looked at time/mileage when I got the e61. We got it on 7/3/2014 with under 55,000 on it. Today it has 105,000 on. We average 78 miles /day ~28000/year. Wow.
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Josh (PA) - '19 X5 '17 991.2 C2 Cab '11 135i Convertible '11 328xiT '09 X3 Last edited by Josh (PA); 03-30-2016 at 04:24 PM. |
03-30-2016, 05:18 PM | #36 | |
Relic
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03-30-2016, 06:28 PM | #37 |
Relic
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As for range:
I agree with JST that ~200-250 miles is the sweet spot for an EV. Anything above that is potentially wasting weight from extra batteries and not needed >95% of the time (and possibly closer to 99% for most people). I have the now out-of-production S60 -- that originally had an EPA rating of 208 miles, and now displays 195 rated when I do a 100% charge. The drop is partly due to age (the battery is nearing 3 years old...) and partly due to calibration algorithms that are estimates and not always exact (for example a 100% charge I did last December was 188 miles, while last week was 195 -- but the battery was likely holding nearly exactly the same energy). Based on the ~185 mile drive we did last Friday, which had 11 miles remaining, I think 195-196 is accurate and would mean the battery has degraded by 5-6% since new (not bad in 3 years -- Nissan Leafs are known to degrade ~30%+ in <2 years). Anyway... Out of the nearly 49k miles on the car, about 7.5k has been on road trips -- so 15%. Most of those road trips have used multiple superchargers (a couple were non-supercharger or only 1...). I've found that the pace of a road trip with a ~45 min stop for charging every 1.5-2 hours is really refreshing. You drive for a bit, pull into a supercharger, plug in and go find a place to grab a drink, hit the restroom and sit down and read or take a short walk.
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03-30-2016, 08:39 PM | #38 | |
Vicarious Twitterer
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I find these days I need to stop every couple of hours to stretch my back - a simple walk around is all it takes ... it makes all the difference. |
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03-30-2016, 08:46 PM | #39 |
gone riding...
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amex ready for deposit tomorrow. Are you guys gonna visit a Tesla store in the morning or wait to do it online at the unveil?
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03-30-2016, 08:51 PM | #40 |
Relic
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I haven't decided yet. There is a rumor that owners will be able to do it online before the reveal event. If I can't do that, I may swing by the store early afternoon...
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