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If the power is out at your destination you're unlikely to be able to operate the gas pumps either. Who brings emergency gasoline supplies with them on a famil

by avalys 4y ago

If the power is out at your destination you're unlikely to be able to operate the gas pumps either. Who brings emergency gasoline supplies with them on a family trip with young kids? The suggestion is ludicrous. Is your typical vacation, like, traveling to Florida to experience a hurricane making landfall? If you do a lot of travel to remote locations and camping and hiking and things like that, yes, an EV will probably be a stretch for that use right now. But most people in the US live and travel between major population centers. Even if you are into the remote/outdoorsy stuff, an EV is a perfectly viable second car.

Marsymars 4y ago
> Even if you are into the remote/outdoorsy stuff, an EV is a perfectly viable second car. This has been my conclusion - the main problem at that point being the sheer cost. My household’s current secondary car is one that cost $10k a decade ago. (Two years old at the time of purchase.) There’s no EV that’s even in the same ballpark for cost-per-km or cost-per-year. (And for a second city-only car, they almost all come with far more battery capacity than is required, adding weight and expense. The Mazda MX-30 EV is probably closest from a technical standpoint with 160 km of range, but still has a cost problem, starting at $40k locally after taxes and credits.)
- mwint 4y ago
  A Used Nissan Leaf with ~70-80mi range can be had in the US in the $6-10k range. My family has two, they're amazing for everything within a ~30mi radius (which, it turns out, is 98%+ of driving we do)
  - Marsymars 4y ago
    Taking a look at online listings for used cars in my province, the cheapest Leafs are in the $14k range for models that are about as old as my existing secondary car. I'd crunch the numbers more seriously if I had to replace my secondary car today. For some napkin math, assuming I only charge at home and my cost of electricity doesn't go up for the next decade, I'd be looking at about $3500 in electricity costs for 10k km/year for the next decade. Say the $14k car depreciates to $4k over the decade, that's $10k in depreciation. To match my existing car costs that leaves me with an average of $1720 to spend per year on maintenance (which, in my spreadsheet, includes tire changes/replacements, yearly detailing, any other misc parts) on a car that will be close to 20 years old with 200k km by the end of the decade. Might be workable? My current ICE car has run about $800/yr in maintenance after subtracting oil/engine-related costs in years 2-12 of its life. Leaf also seems higher risk - with my current low-value car, there isn't much potential for catastrophic failure (like a battery failure would be), and if there were a catastrophic failure, I'm just out the cost of the car, which isn't much.
    - mwint 4y ago
      Personally, I went from a fully-owned 1997 near-mint Honda Civic to a 2014 Leaf. It handles all my driving needs (and the family still has a gas car for the _very_ rare long trip). I ran all the numbers in a big spreadsheet and determined that with fairly pessimistic numbers on the Leaf for depreciation/maintenance, and very optimistic numbers on the Civic for the same, total-cost-of-ownership worked out to approximately the same per mile. Insane. So I bought the Leaf for $8k about three years ago. In that time it's roughly held its value or maybe appreciated due to the crazy market we're in, and I'm saving roughly $750/year (6k mi/yr, about) in fuel. More than offset the depreciation in my case, so far. And, more importantly because all these costs are super tiny in the grand scheme of my finances, I'm driving a 2014 car instead of a 1997. More comfortable and probably much safer.
      - Marsymars 4y ago
        Yeah, looks like a clear win there. The market wonkiness over the past few years doesn't help my scenario - for $14k (upfront, minus whatever I could sell the old car for) I could go from a 2011 Ford Fiesta to a 2011 Leaf with comparable mileage. Due to said market wonkiness the Fiesta hasn't depreciated much, but since it wasn't worth much to start, those savings are limited. FWIW my real numbers on the Fiesta over the past decade have worked out to 9¢/km depreciation, 6¢/km in ICE-specific maintenance, 9¢/km in non-ICE-specific maintenance and 7¢/km in fuel. My home electric costs would run around 3.5¢/km for the Leaf, so I'd only be saving 3.5¢/km (or $350/year) in fuel. (And I'm locked in to a 5-year electricity contract at a pretty low rate for the area. If I had to re-sign today, my electric costs for a Leaf would be around 5¢/km.)
        mwint 4y ago
        From your use of kilometers, I’m guessing you’re not in the US. Feels like that’s a double whammy because: 1) The insane distances in the US are what make a Leaf unusable as an only-car, reducing demand (and thus resale price) 2) I can’t do the math right now to figure out your electric rate, but my electricity is $0.1/kWh, or about $0.025 per mile (mile!) with pessimistic Leaf efficiencies. Both of those are pretty strong headwinds vs. my situation.
kbos87 4y ago
I've been in my Tesla on a 2hr road trip with a planned stop at a supercharger along the way. A message popped up on the screen of my Tesla that there was a power outage at the supercharger I had planned to use - I was seamlessly rerouted to a different supercharger. Not an ideal situation, but very well handled by Tesla.
xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
Perhaps I should have clarified, but I didn't need to pump gas. I had plenty of range to leave. The point I apparently failed to make was that the range of my ICE meant I didn't have to consider or plan for this contingency. In fact I used my car to charge some electronics and still had ample range to get back to civilization a few hours away. If it were an EV then I would have had to find the nearest place to charge that did have power, which isn't trivial. I agree if it's just travel between major population centers then it's not as big of a deal. There just happens to be a ton of travel that isn't between major population centers, and I'm not talking about camping. Simply put an EV is just not as useful today as I wish I were. I'd just like to be able to visit family without getting stranded.
jjav 4y ago
> If the power is out at your destination you're unlikely to be able to operate the gas pumps either. In areas where power outages are common, gas stations have their own generators to continue operating. This is common where I'm from, so very familiar with it. > Who brings emergency gasoline supplies with them on a family trip with young kids? The suggestion is ludicrous. This is very easy. I always bring a jerry can with gas (or diesel) on longer road trips, just in case. For more remote destinations (camping out in the desert/wilderness) I bring as much as four cans of diesel to be self sufficient in case plans change.

by avalys 4y ago

Marsymars 4y ago

> Even if you are into the remote/outdoorsy stuff, an EV is a perfectly viable second car. This has been my conclusion - the main problem at that point being the sheer cost. My household’s current secondary car is one that cost $10k a decade ago. (Two years old at the time of purchase.) There’s no EV that’s even in the same ballpark for cost-per-km or cost-per-year. (And for a second city-only car, they almost all come with far more battery capacity than is required, adding weight and expense. The Mazda MX-30 EV is probably closest from a technical standpoint with 160 km of range, but still has a cost problem, starting at $40k locally after taxes and credits.)

mwint 4y ago
A Used Nissan Leaf with ~70-80mi range can be had in the US in the $6-10k range. My family has two, they're amazing for everything within a ~30mi radius (which, it turns out, is 98%+ of driving we do)
- Marsymars 4y ago
  Taking a look at online listings for used cars in my province, the cheapest Leafs are in the $14k range for models that are about as old as my existing secondary car. I'd crunch the numbers more seriously if I had to replace my secondary car today. For some napkin math, assuming I only charge at home and my cost of electricity doesn't go up for the next decade, I'd be looking at about $3500 in electricity costs for 10k km/year for the next decade. Say the $14k car depreciates to $4k over the decade, that's $10k in depreciation. To match my existing car costs that leaves me with an average of $1720 to spend per year on maintenance (which, in my spreadsheet, includes tire changes/replacements, yearly detailing, any other misc parts) on a car that will be close to 20 years old with 200k km by the end of the decade. Might be workable? My current ICE car has run about $800/yr in maintenance after subtracting oil/engine-related costs in years 2-12 of its life. Leaf also seems higher risk - with my current low-value car, there isn't much potential for catastrophic failure (like a battery failure would be), and if there were a catastrophic failure, I'm just out the cost of the car, which isn't much.
  - mwint 4y ago
    Personally, I went from a fully-owned 1997 near-mint Honda Civic to a 2014 Leaf. It handles all my driving needs (and the family still has a gas car for the _very_ rare long trip). I ran all the numbers in a big spreadsheet and determined that with fairly pessimistic numbers on the Leaf for depreciation/maintenance, and very optimistic numbers on the Civic for the same, total-cost-of-ownership worked out to approximately the same per mile. Insane. So I bought the Leaf for $8k about three years ago. In that time it's roughly held its value or maybe appreciated due to the crazy market we're in, and I'm saving roughly $750/year (6k mi/yr, about) in fuel. More than offset the depreciation in my case, so far. And, more importantly because all these costs are super tiny in the grand scheme of my finances, I'm driving a 2014 car instead of a 1997. More comfortable and probably much safer.
    - Marsymars 4y ago
      Yeah, looks like a clear win there. The market wonkiness over the past few years doesn't help my scenario - for $14k (upfront, minus whatever I could sell the old car for) I could go from a 2011 Ford Fiesta to a 2011 Leaf with comparable mileage. Due to said market wonkiness the Fiesta hasn't depreciated much, but since it wasn't worth much to start, those savings are limited. FWIW my real numbers on the Fiesta over the past decade have worked out to 9¢/km depreciation, 6¢/km in ICE-specific maintenance, 9¢/km in non-ICE-specific maintenance and 7¢/km in fuel. My home electric costs would run around 3.5¢/km for the Leaf, so I'd only be saving 3.5¢/km (or $350/year) in fuel. (And I'm locked in to a 5-year electricity contract at a pretty low rate for the area. If I had to re-sign today, my electric costs for a Leaf would be around 5¢/km.)
      - mwint 4y ago
        From your use of kilometers, I’m guessing you’re not in the US. Feels like that’s a double whammy because: 1) The insane distances in the US are what make a Leaf unusable as an only-car, reducing demand (and thus resale price) 2) I can’t do the math right now to figure out your electric rate, but my electricity is $0.1/kWh, or about $0.025 per mile (mile!) with pessimistic Leaf efficiencies. Both of those are pretty strong headwinds vs. my situation.

kbos87 4y ago

I've been in my Tesla on a 2hr road trip with a planned stop at a supercharger along the way. A message popped up on the screen of my Tesla that there was a power outage at the supercharger I had planned to use - I was seamlessly rerouted to a different supercharger. Not an ideal situation, but very well handled by Tesla.

xyzzy_plugh 4y ago

Perhaps I should have clarified, but I didn't need to pump gas. I had plenty of range to leave. The point I apparently failed to make was that the range of my ICE meant I didn't have to consider or plan for this contingency. In fact I used my car to charge some electronics and still had ample range to get back to civilization a few hours away. If it were an EV then I would have had to find the nearest place to charge that did have power, which isn't trivial. I agree if it's just travel between major population centers then it's not as big of a deal. There just happens to be a ton of travel that isn't between major population centers, and I'm not talking about camping. Simply put an EV is just not as useful today as I wish I were. I'd just like to be able to visit family without getting stranded.

jjav 4y ago

> If the power is out at your destination you're unlikely to be able to operate the gas pumps either. In areas where power outages are common, gas stations have their own generators to continue operating. This is common where I'm from, so very familiar with it. > Who brings emergency gasoline supplies with them on a family trip with young kids? The suggestion is ludicrous. This is very easy. I always bring a jerry can with gas (or diesel) on longer road trips, just in case. For more remote destinations (camping out in the desert/wilderness) I bring as much as four cans of diesel to be self sufficient in case plans change.