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I have owned an EV and I liked it, particularly the instant acceleration, but ultimately, it's not a superior product unless you heavily weight zero emissions a

by throwaway22032 2y ago

I have owned an EV and I liked it, particularly the instant acceleration, but ultimately, it's not a superior product unless you heavily weight zero emissions at the point of use. It has a lower range than my now ICE car, like for like it costs more both to buy and to fuel, there are fewer charging points, and it takes longer to charge vs. fueling. Some of these points are marginal, but for a rental company that's not specializing at the high end of the market the margins aren't huge and it doesn't surprise me that the model doesn't work.

tmnvix 2y ago
> I have owned an EV... it costs more both to buy and to fuel How is this possible (the cost of charging vs purchasing fuel for an ICE vehicle)?
- natch 2y ago
  If you use extremely expensive charging stations like the non-Tesla so-called "fast" chargers that are the only option for non-Teslas, they tend to do price gouging. Superchargers also vary in price and can be non-competitive with home electric rates, depending on region, but they don't seem to gouge severely like their competition. At least their pricing for Teslas is good. And maybe the poster lives in a place with very cheap gas as well. It remains to be seen what kind of premium they will charge to non-Teslas which tend to charge more slowly. Because of this slow charging issue, when they roll out more third party charging, Tesla will make non-Teslas pay not only for power, but also for time spent, because taking up a slot for a longer time has an impact on everyone.
- _ea1k 2y ago
  PG&E rates can make it more expensive than gas. That is by far the exception, though.
- throwaway22032 2y ago
  40-50mpg at £7 per UK gallon is approx 14-17p per mile. Assuming that you can't charge at home (true for a rental!), the UK rate for charging is between 55p and 80p or so. Real world my EV got around 3-4 miles per kWh which works out between 14p and 26p per mile. Source: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/charging/electric-car-public-charging-costs-rac-charge-watch/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/charging/electric-... We can fiddle the numbers a bit back and forth but my real world experience was that it was more expensive in every way.
natch 2y ago
Just one point to address the "long tailpipe" myth: EVs have fewer emissions even if they are powered by a coal power plant, because the drive train is so much more efficient. Mine takes six seconds to charge — three seconds to plug in, and three seconds to unplug — and costs far less than gas (depends on your area and local rates, I guess). I haven't been to a gas station in five years. Pretty happy with that.
- throwaway22032 2y ago
  Sure - at home charging is great. You can't do that with a rental on a road trip, and a lot of people just can't do it in general. I'm struggling to find actual statistics on what % of UK households have a drive or garage, but anecdotally, even amongst fairly well off people it's not that common unless you live on the outskirts of a city or rurally. A large part of the UK is terraced housing and you can't easily park outside your house even if you wanted to dangle a cable out of a window or something. If my house had a garage, I could probably quite easily rent it out for £500+ a month as living accommodation, so even the opportunity cost wipes out all of the savings.
  - natch 2y ago
    Teslas have no issues in road trips in most places. Choose the right brand and most if not all of the issues with charging are solved.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

tmnvix 2y ago

> I have owned an EV... it costs more both to buy and to fuel How is this possible (the cost of charging vs purchasing fuel for an ICE vehicle)?

natch 2y ago
If you use extremely expensive charging stations like the non-Tesla so-called "fast" chargers that are the only option for non-Teslas, they tend to do price gouging. Superchargers also vary in price and can be non-competitive with home electric rates, depending on region, but they don't seem to gouge severely like their competition. At least their pricing for Teslas is good. And maybe the poster lives in a place with very cheap gas as well. It remains to be seen what kind of premium they will charge to non-Teslas which tend to charge more slowly. Because of this slow charging issue, when they roll out more third party charging, Tesla will make non-Teslas pay not only for power, but also for time spent, because taking up a slot for a longer time has an impact on everyone.
_ea1k 2y ago
PG&E rates can make it more expensive than gas. That is by far the exception, though.
throwaway22032 2y ago
40-50mpg at £7 per UK gallon is approx 14-17p per mile. Assuming that you can't charge at home (true for a rental!), the UK rate for charging is between 55p and 80p or so. Real world my EV got around 3-4 miles per kWh which works out between 14p and 26p per mile. Source: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/charging/electric-car-public-charging-costs-rac-charge-watch/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/charging/electric-... We can fiddle the numbers a bit back and forth but my real world experience was that it was more expensive in every way.

natch 2y ago

Just one point to address the "long tailpipe" myth: EVs have fewer emissions even if they are powered by a coal power plant, because the drive train is so much more efficient. Mine takes six seconds to charge — three seconds to plug in, and three seconds to unplug — and costs far less than gas (depends on your area and local rates, I guess). I haven't been to a gas station in five years. Pretty happy with that.

throwaway22032 2y ago
Sure - at home charging is great. You can't do that with a rental on a road trip, and a lot of people just can't do it in general. I'm struggling to find actual statistics on what % of UK households have a drive or garage, but anecdotally, even amongst fairly well off people it's not that common unless you live on the outskirts of a city or rurally. A large part of the UK is terraced housing and you can't easily park outside your house even if you wanted to dangle a cable out of a window or something. If my house had a garage, I could probably quite easily rent it out for £500+ a month as living accommodation, so even the opportunity cost wipes out all of the savings.
- natch 2y ago
  Teslas have no issues in road trips in most places. Choose the right brand and most if not all of the issues with charging are solved.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]