My battery is about 75 Kwh and I reckon would empty after 250 miles at fast highway speeds. At 10 cents per Kwh ($7.50) you’re looking at 3 cents per mile. Even at $2.50/gal a Civic or Camry would cost twice as much. Right now it’s almost 50% higher so three times as much. I think the Tesla would also shine in moderate commutes, just as long as you can get home and back on one tank and you have Level 2 charging.
ETA maybe more like 210 miles, about to go 138 and it says 35% arrival and usually that is optimistic
Scanning my 2025 CC charges, I spent $1600 on gas last year, about 400 of which was longer road trips. I’m spending less than 100 a month on daily driving, so little margin is availabile to be saved.
But right now I have two vehicles…I suppose the economics of consolidation into one car could be somewhat compelling IF I am looking at replacing one of them, with insurance, annual standard maintenance, and the gas savings, I am around 2k a year.
I’m living somewhere in the same world with respect to gas costs. I likely spend more on takeout food than I do on gas. I find it difficult to comprehend my colleagues who have an F-150 or similar and do a daily round trip commute of ~250 km and are filling up 3-4 times a week at close to $200 a tank.
When I eventually get an EV its going to be for environmental reasons more than economics. I’m just not driving enough for the cost savings/increase to be significant.
In my mind, $ is s good proxy for environmental impact. If the car isn’t saving me money, i doubt I’m saving the environment. Maybe at some point in the future where more of our energy is renewable, but at roughly 30% today, it’s going to be a struggle to net carbon neutral.
That EV will better off with someone else driving it that can avoid more gas consumption than i will.
Electricity in Newfoundland is primarily generated by dams. There’s an oil generator as well, but it generates a minority of our power and is being phased out.
I agree. Operating cost equivalency isn’t environmental equivalency either. EV + e gen is still better than ICE even at recent past grid mixes, according to most studies I’ve seen.
Also, perhaps not surprisingly, not an electrician. Breakers still work if the switch is physically locked, this is sometimes done if (for example) smoke detectors are on that circuit. Just to help ensure nobody casually flips the breaker off. But I don’t know what might be on a 220v dryer circuit that would be mission critical. But it’s not unsafe.
Looking for 220v tunnel from “mud room” to garage.
I’ll see if my electrician friend will help do the wall-hole-making. If not, I’ll just run it through an illegal doggie door that’s been there since we bought the house lo these years ago.
I don’t think I’ll need an actual “charging station” since the car came with the cords and plugs. I cannot imagine an EV not coming with them.
I found out today i can control the amps via the car! And control the total wattage amount. So, for long trips, i can go to 95% or so the night before. Rest of the time, eh, 50% charge
You might pop the hood to check what kind of battery you have, I’m getting conflicting answers online. If it’s an LFP battery, those are more forgiving on holding a high SoC for long periods, and some/most manufacturers recommend charging LFPs to 100% from time to time to help balance the cells or something like that. If it says NMC or Li Ion (or something like that), then you generally want to keep it in the 20%-80% range, going outside of that for long periods stresses the battery.
Me? I have a lithium battery and set it to 80%, I usually plug in 2-3 times a week just to keep the muscle memory. If I’m going on a trip, I’ll charge it to 95%+, no big deal.
Since you have a 220V charger, you’re golden. In the event you drive it to, say, a friend’s house and want to charge there, don’t forget to throw it in the trunk.
Well, it would be for a short period. Like, from the night before until 40 miles into the trip.
Yes. That is what I’d do. 95% of days it will not be driven far. 10 miles those days.
Last I checked it was at 220 miles of range. I won’t be plugging it back in until it gets below 100 miles of range.
Because:
The plug/wire/outlet from 3-prong to 4 prong came. I need to see if the 4-prong fits what Toyota gave me (I think it is for Tesla Chargers). It should, else I’m taking a 20-mile round-trip to WalMart. Wife has the car right now, and the 4-prong is in the car. Honestly, no idea why.
The one thing missing with a car like this: we cannot decide on a whim to go more than about 100 miles without planning at least a little in advance. And whims are not that far in advance. Whims are now subject to a one-day holding pattern. Or, use the other car.
Sadly, we are at an age that we were not doing whims even before this car. Long are the days of yore when we yearned of whims…
Depends on the car. My Niro takes 45 minutes to charge, so you need to plan a real break for that. My friend’s EV six goes farther on a charge than mine, and can charge from 20% to 90% is 18 minutes. That’s not substantially longer than buying gas.
Still, if you are willing to factor in some breaks, you can just get up and go, even with mine.
Totally fine. Some days I wait until the morning of so I hit 95% right when I leave, but don’t sweat it. Just don’t charge it to 100% and not drive it for three days and it’s fine. Your battery doesn’t actually use 100%, there’s always a buffer between how big it is and the ‘usable’ portion, so 100% is really like 90%. Don’t obsess, just charge it to 80%, 95% or 100% when you need it, the damn thing will last 20+ years.
The ‘A Better Route Planner’ app can help. If you take a long trip, you’re gonna spend some time charging. If it’s like 400 miles, you may not need to charge all that much. You leave with 95% or whatever, and you only need to return with 5%, then plug it in. So if you’re heading home and need to charge, might only need to go to 40% and take off.