Posted on 01/17/2023 11:57:53 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
“Did you notify the utility company when adding the load to your service?”
Yes. Not a great load, though.
“”One of the worst things about FR is hatred for all things EV. Very poor arguments usually, just they hate them.”
Totally agree. Charging is never an issue. I come home, plug in and charge while I’m eating dinner, reading, sleeping. I wake up and it’s charged. Usually I only need to add about 1-2 hours of charging. Range on my car is 350 miles.
EVs are an expensive fad.
“how much does a high-powered wall charger cost and what is the cost of electricity for a full charge? If the cost of a full charge is cheaper then a tank full of gas for a similar sized efficient ICE vehicle you have discovered the efficiency of fossil fuel generated power...”
$1,500 including installation. My electricity bill is not much higher monthly. Charging in the garage is very easy and completely non-stressful. Takes about 1-2 hours on most days. My car has a range of 320- 350 miles per full charge, depending on temperature.
Most don’t, but it shouldn’t be too much. The concern is when the number of people have 240V lines for EV charging, and don’t notify the utility company, distribution transformers could blow at peak times/seasons.
Some old services might cause a service conductor fault as well.
Geographic location matters significantly as well.
Now tell us:
The cost of “filling” the EV versus your ICE car.
The mileage ranges of the RV versus the ICE.
How much you paid for the ICE versus the EV.
How much it will cost when the EV battery is eventually replaced.
Well…Yeah.
625 Wh per mile.
Regular 110V outlet typically maxes at about 1500W, so can charge just over 2 miles of range per hour.
Kinda like filling a swimming pool with a garden hose. Use a fire hydrant instead.
I don’t understand what you are driving at. I am an advocate for every type of energy humans can make oil, gas, electricity, coal, solar, wind, hydro, thermal etc. All of it. Make as much as we can and use it with pleasure.
Now you are on some irrelevant tangent about horse and buggy! Silliness.
In my calculations I don't use my old mid-sized ICE pickup, but the used ICE crossover my wife liked to drive that we replaced with the EV. We decided to have cars depending on two different energy sources to give us security through diversification (if the Dims make gas hard to come by or too expensive to use, we'll do most of our driving in the EV, if they make power hard to come by or too expensive we'll do most of our driving in the ICE car). We chose the pickup to be the ICE car because EV pickups are a joke. And since we never thought it financially wise to buy a new ICE car, the EV vs ICE calculations are based on used ICE crossovers not new ICE crossovers.
Keep in mind also that I'm a quasi-retired software engineer with most experience on the back-end data processing, not making fancy front ends with flaming logos and such. LOL I also count myself as an amateur financial planner. So I like tracking data points as it pertains to my large financial projects, including this energy project we took on to wean ourselves from the Dims' stupid energy policies.
| Description | Used ICE car | New EV car |
|---|---|---|
| Mileage | 15 mpg | 3 miles/kWh |
| Fuel cost | $2.859/gallon | $0.148/kWh |
| Miles driven | 1,619 | 1,619 |
| energy consumed | 107.9 gallons | 539.7 kWh |
| energy cost | $308.48 | $79.88 |
| energy savings | $0 | $228.60 |
| increase in insurance | $0 | $70 |
| net savings | $0 | $158.60 |
That's the month-by-month cost differences (using my December power bill for the rate, and the cheapest cost of gas at nearby gas stations as the price per gas that month). In December we didn't take the EV on a road trip and charge it at a DC fast charger. So all charging was done at home (thus the kWh rate from my power bill was used for the entirety of the charging). That doesn't take into account that in my case most of my home power comes from solar anyway. That's detailed elsewhere.
Every month when I get my power bill, I enter a few data points into an Excel workbook and a homemade SQL Server database table. That's the total power bill in dollars and the # of kWh the power utility says I pulled from them. I also record the odometer reading of the EV and cheapest cost per gallon of gas at nearby gas stations (and assume that cost is constant for the month). From those data points I have a spreadsheet and TSQL queries remove the flat monthly power fees from the total bill to derive the total usage cost. Divide that by the power pulled from the grid to get the true cost per kWh. Compare the odometer reading to the prior month to get the miles driven. I track to the side the few times I charge at a road charger and from that deduce the # of kWh charged at home. I export from my solar inverters a detailed file in 5-minute candles showing kWh pulled from the grid, kWh used (whether pulled from grid or from solar or from batteries) and other things to help me study the solar project. From all of that it automatically calculates the total power costs saved (kWh consumed - kWh pulled from grid = kWh saved, multiplied by true kWh rate = dollars saved on power bill).
If I showed you the detailed list above for all months since we bought it in June 2022, it's a net savings of $4,057.40 (before getting into costs added by having an EV other than the extra insurance premium listed above). That's because we drove the EV a lot more in other months (more miles = more total savings). In my calculations for future savings I assume less driving miles now that the newness of the car is wearing off and we're not joy riding as much. LOL
At most fast chargers (if I wasn't getting a free subscription at one of them for the first 2 years) it'd cost me 32 cents per minute for at most 15 minutes, which is $4.80 to get a little over 200 miles (unless I charge it to 100% or drive slower on the interstate). So count it as $2.40 to drive 100 miles on the interstate. Compared to driving the ICE car at 15 mpg and for the sake of argument I'll use my local gas price even though it's higher on the highway gas stations: it comes out to $19.06 to drive 100 miles in the ICE car.
Battery replacement cost: for mine it'd be $10K in today's dollars if I had to replace it but somehow it wasn't covered under warranty. I assume a 3% inflation rate 10 years from now will make it a little over $13K.
used ICE car replacement cost: That was $10K too. One reason we chose to get the EV is it was about time to replace my wife's used ICE crossover anyway and we were surprised how much a used one would cost. And since used cars last us on average 7 years, in a way the choice to go EV instead of used ICE saves us from having to replace it again in 7 years (but makes us replace the EV's battery in 10 years at about the same cost).
cost of EV: We decided to go up in luxury and get one for $61K after fees and taxes as the only new car of our marriage. We could have gotten one with the same EV throughput as before for about $50K after taxes and fees. I told my wife that the $400/month car allotment that we're used to putting into a car savings account (to repair and replace our used ICE cars) is being used to help make EV payments for 7 years even though our car payments will last only 4 years (the other 3 years that $400 will pay onto a HELOC I took out to finance our broader energy project, including help make EV car payments).
larger energy project: The EV is part of a larger energy project of making our house better insulated, getting rid of our natural gas bills by replacing our two natural gas appliances with high efficiency electric ones, and installing solar and batteries. I installed some solar and batteries first and watched the telemetry for half a year to make sure it was as good as advertised. I then replaced my A/C and gas furnace with a variable speed heat pump (with heat strips to handle what us Alabamians call "bitter cold"). I replaced my natural gas water heater with a hybrid water heater (built in heat-pump on top of water heater) that I duct air in from the attic into the water heater's air intake (might as well use that free hot air from the attic to heat the water tank). From the water heater's air output I have a wye lever to either duct the cold air into my living quarters (might as well use that free cold air to help cool the house down) or into the attic (during the winter months). When the solar system was a year old I studied it again and upgraded it, adding solar panels and battery storage with the goal to be 80% to 90% energy independent (pulling 10% to 20% of the power from the grid for our all-electric two story home, including charging an EV I would buy). Before getting into costs of this overall project, the energy savings from the past 12 months is $4,057.40 (that's with having the EV only half of a year and upgrading the solar system this past August shortly after getting the EV and having over a year to study the throughput of the solar system with it's original capability). Assuming a 3% inflation rate on all energy costs, on the 1 year anniversary of the solar upgrade we're looking at a hair over $6,200 for the year in energy savings (in power, natural gas, and gasoline). All of these calculations are based on month (i.e. I assume in February 2023 I'll consume as much power as I did in February 2022 and the power rate will be 3% more than the February 2022 rate with no relation at all to other months in the year.)
Financial goals:The ultimate goal is to make it so that our budget has energy costs like it's still year 2019 (what I consider the last normal year for energy prices since it's before the china virus and before Brandon). That was before I installed solar or any other energy improvements. That year it cost me on average $463/month for power bill + natural gas bill + gas to drive one ICE car. (We drove 2 cars regularly back then while both of us were working. But I'm basing costs on just 1 car back then because that's about how much we drive the EV now. Not counting the little we drive the ICE pickup for pickup chores or when my wife and I need 2 cars to run separate errands for the day.) My goal is to make our energy budget $450/month (plus the $400/month car allowance the first 7 years to help with buying the EV). If I meet that goal then I've protected our retirement financial planning from the Dims' runaway energy cost inflation. (Of course, that doesn't protect us from other inflation like food costs, even though some of that is from energy costs priced into food and other goods we buy.) Bonus points if the $450/month is flat for the rest of our lives, but I'll count it as a win still if it's $450/month with a reasonable 3% inflation rate for the rest of our lives.
Paying for it all: I took out a HELOC to pay for almost all of it (I wound up taking a total of $26K from savings, which in the end means $26K pulled from retirement investments). When the HELOC payment + car payment + tiny power bill is over $850/month (which it always is), I pull the excess from the HELOC (which adds to the balance owed, which increases the HELOC payment). When I get the tax credits for EV and some of the solar I'll put that into the HELOC to pay down the balance (which lowers the HELOC payments). Repeat the next two years because the solar tax credit carries over into future years (it's not refundable but the carry forward means if it's more than your tax liability you get a full tax refund on all you paid in that year plus get to use the remaining tax credit in future years until the solar tax credit is exhausted). Repeat month by month, year by year. When the EV is paid off, we'll pay a lot extra on the HELOC for 3 years (because HELOC payment + tiny power bill will be a lot less than $850). After we've had the EV 7 years we'll pay down on the HELOC some extra each month (because HELOC payment + tiny power bill will be less than $450/month). I may instead opt to put the excess into an investment account instead of paying down extra on a 3.5% fixed interest rate loan.
what it means in the end:As of now the net impact on savings is loss of $2,100. Basically, the retirement planner in me is telling the energy planner in me: "Thanks for paying me back most of the $26,000 I loaned you over the past 2 years. But you still owe me $2,100 before I count this energy project as not costing me anything." Part of the reason my retirement savings has quickly recouped some of the costs is because I didn't have to spend $10K to buy a used ICE car (because my wife's car needed replacing anyway). And part of that is just normal energy savings with the project costs being put into a HELOC instead of my budget. Around November this year, the energy savings in my budget/retirement will be in the positive (total energy savings more than total cost to my savings for the energy project). But I'll still have the HELOC debt to content with as well as some left on the EV car debt. So as long as the overall financial process pays off the EV and the HELOC without requiring more from my budget than the $850 or $450 per month, it's an overall win on avoiding stupid energy costs. Assuming 3% inflation rate on energy prices and 1% annual degradation rate on my solar system, we're looking at the breakeven point being a little over 10 years from now (11 and a half years since I began the project). That includes buying an EV battery at 10 years, but also means not buying a used ICE car at 7 years. At that point in time my total energy savings to my budget/retirement will equal what's left to pay off the HELOC. I ought to still have 9 or 10 years left on an EV with a new battery. Plus I'll have plenty of years left with my 25-year solar panels (on my metal roof so there's no cost to temporarily remove the panels to replace a shingle roof) and years left on my 19-year home solar batteries. I've thought a lot about putting my monthly excess of the $850 or $450 into simple mutual fund investments instead of paying down extra on the low interest HELOC loan like I did the first time. If I do that then obviously the payback point is sooner. With a 7% to 10% ROI I'll have a kind of trust fund built up to repair or replace parts of the solar system without having to get another loan. All while my energy budget for home and driving is still $450/month for decades as though it's forever year 2019. Also, the payback point is a lot sooner if the Dims make energy costs go up a lot more than 3% like they promise to.
Thank you very much for that break down. That’s one of the first I’ve seen from someone who owns EVs with a solar system, and all the costs documented. AND compared against losses in other sources of investment like your retirement savings.
I am a mechanical engineer type and go straight for the up front costs and immediate infrastructure needs using the stats the idiot democrats tell us. “NO MORE gasoline cars in 5 years” without a single consideration of what is really involved. You have done very good for yourself financially. IMagine when the Granholm rule gets shoved down low income or fixed income folks. “If you had an electric car you wouldn’t have to worry.” And, Northern states, like mine, where Lithium batteries won’t charge, and in some cases, can’t even discharge (I’m off grid with solar and propane).
It sure is gonna be fun when this is all forced on us by brilliant government bureaucrats for our own good.
Thanks for the complement. To be sure, my money would be better off not going solar and EV but investing that money into more plain mutual funds in a diversified portfolio like our retirement accounts are. But with us stepping into our retirement we need part of our portfolio to be in safer investments. IMHO, reducing energy inflation is a fairly safe investment because it bigly reduces how much has to be pulled from investments for cost of living. I still have some of my portfolio in "safe" bond funds, but only about 20%. (Actually I'm all out of equity funds right now anyway, but that gets into avoiding a potential big market dip after it got sky high right before Brandon entered the WH. When I buy back into the market I'll probably be only 20% safe funds.)
And, Northern states, like mine, where Lithium batteries won’t charge, and in some cases, can’t even discharge (I’m off grid with solar and propane).
I don't put power onto the grid either. I'm not off grid -- I pull some of my power from the grid. But if I were to put power onto the grid I'd be subject to a few regulations (like the one that would require me to set my inverters to shut down every time the grid shuts down) and have to pay a large monthly fee for the power company to give me a little back. One thing I do with excess power is charge the EV more. We religiously keep it at least 50% charged so we have 120 miles the next day in case we have errands to run (though we always have the ICE pickup anyway). On days it's at least 50% charged, we plug it into a special 240V outlet that's powered only when my home batteries are charged at least 80% (configurable). Basically, on days the EV is already charged more than we need we'll take even more charge if the power is free (the solar batteries are charged way more than is necessary to power the home through the night). But on the days the EV is charged less than 50% we plug it into a constantly powered 240V outlet to charge the EV to at least 50% (knowing that it may increase our power bill, but if we need the EV charged we need it).
You'd be amazed at how much power is saved using that simple EV charging technique. Since we're quasi retired the EV will often still be plugged into the intermittent outlet the next day. When the sun is out long enough to charge the home batteries to 80%, the EV automatically starts getting more charge (and the 20kW of solar panels is usually bringing in plenty to both charge the EV and whatever else the load of the house is, but still have some left to charge the home batteries more). I don't have to monitor it -- the charging starts and stops automatically.
“I make regular runs across several states. I can get from Cape Coral, FL to North of Knoxville, TN in about 12 hours, all stops included. Your EV will take a couple of days, minimum. How does your time factor in to the proclaimed cost savings? Does it have no value? Perhaps it doesn’t for you.”
I just checked this trip using “A Better Route PLanner” and for the Tesla Supercharger network.
There are four stops for Supercharging needed. The longest is for 31 minutes and the shortest is for 14 minutes. Total charging time is 1Hr36Min during the trip.
Driving time est 13Hr 52Min with the charging time included. Distance estimate is 794 miles.
SO... this is about 2 hrs longer than your drive, but not at all “a couple of days.” And this is with a standard range Tesla, not a long-range, which would cut the number of stops needed to 3 from 4.
The other factors of cost during the trip (elec vs gas) and overall cost (per Hertz, EVs cost half of regular gasoline cars for overall operating expense) favor the EV.
For normal driving around town and recharging overnight at home, EVs are just fine. For longer road trips, EVs using the Tesla supercharger network are a bit slower, but it is only on the order of 10%-15% or so, and NOT inordinate.
For Non-Tesla it is a different story as the other charging networks are very inferior to Tesla’s.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.