On the subject of Tesla, Panasonic is building a lot of their batteries. Many of their new improved batteries will be manufactured in Nevada and … De Soto, Kansas.
Friend of mine is working on that facility in Nevada. He was on the verge of moving up there but decided against it. Goes up there every month or so but mostly able to work remotely.
Yeah, halfway between me and KC. The jobs are nice but it will maybe put pressure on the housing market that we don’t need. Most employees would likely move to KC, there isn’t much inventory here. It’s fine.
The move to 4680s has been problematic for Tesla, and Panasonic has delayed their 4680 project. Glad to hear the 2170s are improving. The Si anode is promising.
I was disappointed in driving the electrified vehicle called the Toyota Sequoia. It was not large enough.
Now, hear me out. It seems like a very large SUV but in this case, the battery for the hybrid system sits low under the floor which raises the level of the floor. Also, the obnoxiously large panoramic sunroof robs like 2.5 to 3 inches of head space. This all means the passenger compartment is rather short from top to bottom. That means tall guys, like over 6’- 3" are going to be knockin their noggins on the roof unless they lean their seats way back. I don’t like the idea of leaning my seat way back.
So I don’t have an in-person experience with either the last pre-hybrid 2022 Sequoia, or the 2024 model, but the specs on the 2024 have 39.2/39.3 on front seat head room depending on moonroof/panoramic roof (toyota.
The 2022 non-hybrid shows 34.8. toyota.
So if a 2024 is too small for big dudes, the 2022 was way too small for big dudes. Or the measurement method really changed.
Seems most cars these days have a rather small door opening, the height difference between the seat and the top of the door opening, regardless of electric or not.
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This is TOTALLLY F’ING TRUE !!!
The door on my Honda CRV is basically a triangle. I can really only get into the drivers seat by shifting my body so that my head enters at the side pillar. I cannot duck-in by bowing my head down, as I would just smash my ear against the roofline.
I’m 6’ tall but not 6’ 3", and the Model Y is pretty spacious in this dimension. I will say that the seat is fairly far from the ground, so shorter folks have to step up a bit to get in.
With the new year, the Chevy Bolt is now available for under $20K (with the new upfront tax credit). Great city car and for shorter road trips. If you’re often going further than 300 miles in a single day I wouldn’t recommend it though because of the slow charging speed.
I see some dealers in my neck of the woods offering prices a little below MSRP. Two of the 2LT trim models (heated leather, heated steering wheel, forget what else) are offered here at $30k, so $22.5k net. AND Chevy is still offering to cover the equipment and labor to install the 240v charger.
That’s a banging deal. Though I concur it’s not for road tripping with the 55kW charging speed. My trips to southeast Kansas involve stopping at a few chargers that are limited to 45-60kW and it hasn’t been bad at all for those ~400 mile round trips.
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That’s legitimately tempting. Our vehicles were $10k and $12k when purchased in 2015/2016. Both are over 100k miles now. Plenty of life but could be replaced in the mid-term.
However, in that article it notes the next generation will be electric SUVs (apparently called EUVs), and my partner’s been itching to switch from a sedan to an SUV.
In all likelihood we’ll end up with an EUV and keep my 2014 model year sedan until it’s not worth repairing or our future child turns 16.
If you can wait for the 2025 model year, then you can get the SUV with something like 200kW max charging and the NACS (aka Tesla) charging port that everyone is moving towards. Plus maybe some other improvements, not sure.
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The 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 6 gets a range of 361 miles for their SE RWD. With the discount it’s priced just over $36K. Impressive.
The range estimates are not very accurate, hard to tell if they are even relatively comparable to other cars’ estimates, so I’m going to figure out some new method of comparison.
Were I to buy an EV, the last thing I would do is drive it any more than 200 miles on a full charge. I have (or will have) other cars for those purposes.
Also, I’m going to to give the Korean company a 20-year waiting period to get its shit together.
Also, looking at what affects EV range, per Google:
https://advancevauxhall.co.uk/electric-vehicle-range
- Battery Capacity.
- Weather Conditions.
- Driving Habits.
- Terrain.
- Vehicle Weight.
1 and 5 are one and the same, essentially: bigger battery means heavier car, until new technology comes. And, once the EV is chosen, these won’t change that much, except for expected battery erosion.
Weather conditions: I didn’t expect this much variation. 70F is apparently the sweet spot. Too much hotter, and range drops. Too much cooler, and range drops. ICEV’s don’t have this much issue.
Driving habits: I expect this, and I drive my wife’s hybrid car like a non-Pasadenan little old lady, hardly ever breaking 75mph. Plus, if a car has better (or more) motors, this allows the car to be driven faster, which requires power. Big battery and smaller motors (a bad combo for #Muricans) would increase range, if only to hold back a lot of acceleration.
Terrain: you bet it affects mileage. I know when I go to sea level (from about 1000’), my wife’s car always gets 44+MPG (according to the car, though, and who knows how it is really determining that?). Coming back, though, the total trip is about 40MPG (again, the car says so), so probably 36MPG going back up to 1000’.
Vehicle weight: Again once the car is chosen, not much one can do about it. Now, add in another 150-300 lbs per passenger, see what happens to range. Has no one done this? Quite possible to do the simple math/physics, if I weren’t so simple.
That range is from the EPA - tested under real world conditions.
There have been some folks looking at it, particularly for the trucks. Put a thousand pounds in the back of the F150 Lightning and your range will suck, like 20-25% less or something like that, depending on various factors.
Let’s look at my Model Y, it weighs about 4,300lb by itself. So adding another couple hundred pounds, you’re talking 5% more weight, so it requires more power for acceleration, though you get some of it back when you brake. So around town, and extra passenger or two costs you a few percent on range, not much, and I’d be hard pressed to drive 200+ city miles in a day. On the highway, where range is the real issue it’s a different story. You add a bit of friction by adding weight. But drag is pretty much identical with or without an extra occupant, and drag is proportional to the square of speed. So at 75mph drag is the big factor in range.
Anecdotally, I can’t tell any difference in range with one passenger vs three on the interstate. Just looking at the % battery I lose going to Costco (55 mi round trip), it’s the same whether it’s just me or if the fam goes with.
I have seen articles that have a lot of range tests. I haven’t specifically seen any that use cargo loading as independent variable, except maybe some towing tests.
A small city near me has been testing a partial electric schoolbus network and recently got to test it in -10F conditions.
They said it went completely fine, they’ve planned out routes such that the longest ones are currently using ICE engines while the electric buses were on routes they were sure would be fine even with the cold.
They’re planning to expand the fleet over time as their current buses obsolete.
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Wondering how to determine (and thus compare) the cost of driving an EV in a simple way, especially after driving for a while.
Does an EV tell you how many kWh’s were added to the batteries during a charge?
Or, does the charger tell it?
And another thing: one doesn’t have to fill to the brim, as one does with an ICE. In fact, it is not even recommended.
Cuz, I’m checking a story on the CyberTruck, which has a few data points from real people showing only 200 miles on a full charge.
Again, it’s a heavy vehicle, it’s “winter” one driver says he’s “aggressive.” Etc.
As a comparison, an ICE car has a gas tank, which gets filled up, and the cost of the gas is publicly displayed. When it is filled up, usually to the brim, the cost of the tank and the trip odometer are known immediately. The MPG are calculated, the $$/ mi are calculated, and done. (note: “$$” needed to be used, cuz one symbol means something to the board’s programming.)
@Mathman , could you live up to your name and provide a $/mi estimate?
From energy dept:
To put this into perspective and make it simpler, let’s use some averages to calculate what should be the average cost of EV charging. Suppose you drive at the American average of 1,124 miles per month. If using an EV, which gets an average of 3 to 4 miles per kWh (let’s use 3 in this case), you will use about 375 kWh a month. Using the U.S. household average of about 16 cents per kWh, charging an electric car at home would cost nearly $60 per month.
Is the bolded a reasonable estimate for a small EV, non-SUV?
And just how difficult is it to estimate the costs of a P-IHEV?
I mean, my bro-in-law have a P-I Prius, and he told me the other day that he’s gone 600 miles without a gas fill-up. Great, but what do the other miles cost? One would have to keep track of both the gas fill-ups and Electrical chargings over several months to get a reasonable estimate.
Looks to be about 4-5 cents per mile for EV-only, based on energy dept.
Versus, on a great day: 30 mpg and $5/gal, for 16.7 cents / mi for my current car.
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