Total B.S.!

[Bluejuice]

My father-in-law sent me this email. I don't even know where to begin. Seems like it was created by some big oil company!



The bottom line is do not buy an electric car.









All you engineers out there, any thoughts! Very interesting! This needs to be widely reported on. Do you ever wonder, just why the big push for these electric cars? Bob.



ELECTRIC CAR...Hmmm... It makes you wonder...



Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it. This is the first article I've ever seen and tells the story pretty much as I expected it to.



Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things yet they're being shoved down our throats... Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.



At a neighborhood B B Q I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.



This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles... Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS!' and a shrug.



If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.



Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors ... and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.



It will take you 4-1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.



According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.



The gasoline powered car costs about $20,000 while the Volt costs $46,000+... So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.



I foresee the time that travelers that plug in at motels will be 'charged' an additional plugin fee. If they are not already.

 

[OlderThanDirt]

So that old trash floated to the top again??

My first question to person that brings that up is "How much you pay for a kilowatt of electricity?? Not once have I gotten an answer. I disassemble the rest from there.

 

[larmor]

The parallels from the time when we went from gas lights to electric lights are very similar. There were many articles in the dangers of electric lights including too much lighting. Reference: the book- Age of Edison

 

[S'toon]

Seems to be a rewrite of an old email which was debunked years ago.
Cost to Operate the Chevy Volt

Eric Bolling himself said it was fraudulent.
Eric Bolling

 

[TexasEV]

Three errors obvious without even thinking hard about it:
Teslas do not need 75A to charge.
Most houses built in the last 50 years have 200A service, not 100A.
His electricity cost of $1.16 per kWh is off by a factor of 10 for most of the country.

 

[Buster1]

This article is such horse $h!t.

I have an EV naysayer co-worker. His arguments are the same exact thing:
1. the EV cars are too expensive, comparatively. (Point taken)
2. The time to fill up is too much. (Point taken)

I've never heard the "more expensive to operate" argument, or the "neighborhood infrastructure" argument. Both seem to be hogwash from what I understand. I've calculated my future Tesla to cost me about a $1 a day to operate. Need to ask my electrician about the infrastructure stuff.

This article is clearly another attempt to throw mud in the eye of EVs and EV supporters.

 

[Piney999]

This is the reason we need to spread the gospel of EVs.

 

[mal_tsla]

$1.16 per kWh. I did the same math and came up with 4 cents per mile for the Tesla and 14 cents for our Infiniti.

 

[Lasttoy]

My roof is full of solar panels for his information...tesla said to set charging at mid day so sun charges car.

 

[Btrflyl8e]

$1.16 per kWh. I did the same math and came up with 4 cents per mile for the Tesla and 14 cents for our Infiniti.

No, the email author says he looked up what he pays for electricity. Guess I'm getting a crazy good deal from the power company where I live, I pay $0.11/kWh.

My electric bill went up about $50/month when I bought my Tesla.

Also, my house was built in 1959 and was still on glass fuses until 2003 when we decided to put in a pool. 200 amp service was put in as "standard".

 

[Az_Rael]

I am guessing "Eric" was test driving a Volt in the middle of a Canadian winter. Getting only 25 miles on a gen 1 battery was pretty rare in my experience.

I also love the "road trip calculation" that forgets entirely that you just gas up a Volt on a road trip - no one charges theirs during a trip (except overnight at a hotel). That is the whole point of it vs a BEV.

 

[dhrivnak]

My father-in-law sent me this email. I don't even know where to begin. Seems like it was created by some big oil company!



All you engineers out there, any thoughts! Very interesting! This needs to be widely reported on. Do you ever wonder, just why the big push for these electric cars? Bob.



ELECTRIC CAR...Hmmm... It makes you wonder...



Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it. This is the first article I've ever seen and tells the story pretty much as I expected it to.



Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things yet they're being shoved down our throats... Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.



At a neighborhood B B Q I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.



This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles... Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS!' and a shrug.



If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.



Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors ... and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.



It will take you 4-1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.



According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.



The gasoline powered car costs about $20,000 while the Volt costs $46,000+... So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.



I foresee the time that travelers that plug in at motels will be 'charged' an additional plugin fee. If they are not already.

As a Tesla and Volt owner this is total BS. When on a trip there is NO need to charge the battery. It will run in hybrid mode, similar to a Prius. So a fill up is 5 minutes, and oh the MPG is closer to 40. While true the battery is 17.5 KWh only 10 is usable as it has a large buffer. So for me a full charge is about $1.00. I can't imagine anyone paying over $1/KWh our costs are $.095 and the US average is $.12. Charging on 110V does take 10 hours, if empty and you use the default 8 amp setting, but 7 hours if you use the 12 amp setting and 3 hours if you have a L2 charger like I do.

Range can be low in winter but I have never seen it below 30, and I have seen 50 if driven gently in the spring and fall. This is for the Generation 1 Volt, the Gen 2 is better. And I got a fully optioned Volt for $37,000, or $29,500 after the tax credit. This was less than a similarly optioned Prius.

As to bringing down the grid again more fud. A Tesla chargers just fine on a 50 amp circuit, the same as a hot tub or a stove. I have yet to hear of either of those bringing down the grid.

 

[kirkbauer]

There are the obvious problems -- I pay $0.03/kwH to charge my car during super-off-peak, or about $0.13 during peak. Most modern houses have 200amp panels. You don't need 75amps to charge a Tesla, etc.

But the big thing most people miss, in this email and also in the "yeah but the electricity comes from coal anyways" argument, is that at least in my state most if not all of the home charging is done overnight, in "super off peak" times. This is when there is little to no A/C running, little lighting, and really not much else happening. Even if you had a neighborhood with only 100amp panels and even if everybody had an electric car, if everybody charged overnight it would work out just fine.

Power generation is typically done 24x7 but consumption doesn't follow an even pattern. Using electricity when most people are sleeping costs very little. If you live in a city where you aren't getting deep discounts during those times then it is your government manipulating the market and preventing accurate market pricing that will encourage charging during off-peak hours.

 

[S'toon]

I am guessing "Eric" was test driving a Volt in the middle of a Canadian winter. Getting only 25 miles on a gen 1 battery was pretty rare in my experience.

I also love the "road trip calculation" that forgets entirely that you just gas up a Volt on a road trip - no one charges theirs during a trip (except overnight at a hotel). That is the whole point of it vs a BEV.

Eric refers to Fox News host Eric Bolling, who tested the Volt. However, he said nothing like what the article said he said. He himself called it fraudulent. See my previous post above.

 

[Snowstorm]

That is pure bs. At over $1 a kWh, you should install solar everywhere and sell it back to them.

 

[Ugliest1]

But the big thing most people miss, in this email and also in the "yeah but the electricity comes from coal anyways" argument, is that at least in my state most if not all of the home charging is done overnight, in "super off peak" times. <snip>

Power generation is typically done 24x7 but consumption doesn't follow an even pattern. Using electricity when most people are sleeping costs very little. If you live in a city where you aren't getting deep discounts during those times then it is your government manipulating the market and preventing accurate market pricing that will encourage charging during off-peak hours.

Ironically, the dad's old BS email quotes a "BC Hydro" employee. BC Hydro is making small steps towards encouraging EV use but I want them (and have communicated to them) to do much, much better. There may very well be employees saying what is quoted... perhaps that depends on the employee's politics w.r.t. the government's push towards liquid natural gas. However the EV requirements comments... the employee has no idea.

But my point: re the "coal" comment, BC Hydro's website quotes 93% of electricity comes from renewable sources.

Re off-peak pricing: no, BC Hydro doesn't offer anything like that. The first 1,350 kWh over a 2-month (billing) period are priced at just under $0.09, and any kWh over that in the billing period are just under $0.13.

FWIW, in 3.5 years of driving a Model S, comparing my $2,000/year average ICE gas costs to my calculated electricity costs for charging: somewhere between $350-$450/year. That's not totally fair, because my ICE gas costs would include the odd trip, while the Model S energy costs are normally free on a supercharger route. But, since we're reading that BS article (again), who cares about fair.

 

[Paul Carter]

Ironically, the dad's old BS email quotes a "BC Hydro" employee. BC Hydro is making small steps towards encouraging EV use but I want them (and have communicated to them) to do much, much better. There may very well be employees saying what is quoted... perhaps that depends on the employee's politics w.r.t. the government's push towards liquid natural gas. However the EV requirements comments... the employee has no idea.

But my point: re the "coal" comment, BC Hydro's website quotes 93% of electricity comes from renewable sources.

Re off-peak pricing: no, BC Hydro doesn't offer anything like that. The first 1,350 kWh over a 2-month (billing) period are priced at just under $0.09, and any kWh over that in the billing period are just under $0.13.

FWIW, in 3.5 years of driving a Model S, comparing my $2,000/year average ICE gas costs to my calculated electricity costs for charging: somewhere between $350-$450/year. That's not totally fair, because my ICE gas costs would include the odd trip, while the Model S energy costs are normally free on a supercharger route. But, since we're reading that BS article (again), who cares about fair.

BC Hydro is very pro EV and it actually is now up to 98% clean.

Electric vehicles in B.C.

 

[Zero CO2]

mostly FUD ! I do believe there are parts of the US where a high % of the generation is with fossil fuels (coal/oil) not sustainable ....this argument may be more realistic in those areas ...especially in the current political environment ... many places in Europe are very high % sustainable (i.e. Denmark)

 

[Ugliest1]

BC Hydro is very pro EV and it actually is now up to 98% clean.

Glad to hear now up to 98%! (Last time I searched the Hydro website was late 2016)

What I'm bitching about is, for example, Hydro's recent announcement about installing charging stations on Hwy 3. I entered into an email conversation and got bounced around to a couple of different people with the final result being, essentially, a corporate brush-off of responsibility. My point was, don't install 30A Level 2 EVSE's, they're close to useless for travellers. Instead ensure you are putting in at least 60A, or up to 100A. I let them know that if Chargepoint, Flo etc couldn't match those levels then Sun Country absolutely could. Response: a) something about ensuring cold weather reliability (???? Sun Country has been operating well on the prairies since 2011); and b) "We are hoping merchants will step up!".

Throughout the email process, I could tell I was communicating with uninterested staff/management. I see the attempts to look like they're promoting EVs, and they are to an extent, but my point is, it definitely is NOT embedded within the corporate culture as yet and they are more focused on current business partnerships (IMHO) than thinking about future-proofing their installations.

 

[Paul Carter]

Glad to hear now up to 98%! (Last time I searched the Hydro website was late 2016)

What I'm bitching about is, for example, Hydro's recent announcement about installing charging stations on Hwy 3. I entered into an email conversation and got bounced around to a couple of different people with the final result being, essentially, a corporate brush-off of responsibility. My point was, don't install 30A Level 2 EVSE's, they're close to useless for travellers. Instead ensure you are putting in at least 60A, or up to 100A. I let them know that if Chargepoint, Flo etc couldn't match those levels then Sun Country absolutely could. Response: a) something about ensuring cold weather reliability (???? Sun Country has been operating well on the prairies since 2011); and b) "We are hoping merchants will step up!".

Throughout the email process, I could tell I was communicating with uninterested staff/management. I see the attempts to look like they're promoting EVs, and they are to an extent, but my point is, it definitely is NOT embedded within the corporate culture as yet and they are more focused on current business partnerships (IMHO) than thinking about future-proofing their installations.

I suggest you contact Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association about this. They have a really good relationship with them and have helped with recommendations that are being implemented. Perhaps there's more to the story & reasons behind this and hopefully you can get the scoop. Likely lower level 2 is for destination charging and their focus on enabling inter-urban travel is DCFC instead.