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nathan_compton 13 hours ago

One under-appreciated value of having an EV is that you don't have to buy gas. You literally do not have to buy gas. I cannot emphasize this enough: you do not buy gasoline for these cars. Not only that, but many places let you charge them for free. That is like someone giving you free gas.

tedggh 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You always buy fossil fuels with an EV, not directly but you do. When you stop at the plaza for a quick super charge there’s no way to tell where is the energy sourced from, it could very well be from a diesel generator a few miles down the road. The value is in all the parts found in an ICE that need servicing or replacement that you don’t have in an EV. With an EV you basically need tires and maybe brakes once every 8-10 years, no oil and fluids, no oil or engine filters, water pumps, spark plugs, valves, seals, etc etc

jackdoe 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You always buy fossil fuels with an EV,

"always" is just not true. "most of the time" is true, and it will get less and less as time goes by.

froindt 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

While it may be dirty sourced electricity, there are still significant benefits many people don't think about. As (or I suppose now, if) the grid moves towards cleaner electricity sources, the total emissions go down, where the ICE vehicle will always be an ICE vehicle.

Generators are also much more efficient at converting fuel to electricity. They don't have to provide pretty good power output at all RPM's, they are much more fine tuned. There are also emission reduction options that are economical at the scale of a power plant, but not when attaching to millions of cars.

baby_souffle 11 hours ago | parent [-]

You also get regenerative braking; some of the energy that you took out of the battery and put into the wheel can be recaptured and stored. The alternative is burning the fuel and ablating your brake pads.

bluGill 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Where I live my utility generates more wind power in a year than all customers use. (I assume the excess is sold to some other utility) There is also a lot of solar people are putting on their houses.

> no oil and fluids, no oil or engine filters, water pumps, spark plugs, valves, seals, etc etc

Those are cheap though.

You still have tires, shocks, and the general body wearing out from use.

tencentshill 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But they are also extremely efficient. So at worst its like driving a diesel truck that gets 120mpg.

adammarples 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can charge this thing on solar panels at home

idiotsecant 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Depends where in the country you live and when you charge. 8AM in the pnw? 100% renewables. 5PM in oklahoma? Not so much

coldpie 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not only that, if you have access to an outlet at home (many do; many do not), then you just never have to think about your "gas tank" at all. You start every day at a full "tank". After a month of ownership, your state of charge is just not even something you think about, at all.

bell-cot 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Not quite that simple. "Normal" home outlets (120v, 15A) charge EV's very slowly. And even then, non-trivial driving will show up on your electric bill.

Schiendelman 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As someone who does non-trivial driving: When I switched over, I was floored - that electric bill increase was less in a month than gas was in about three days. And yes, I also have a dedicated 240V/50A circuit, 120/15 is only fine for normal commuters.

In Seattle, we also went from flat 13.4c/kWh to a new variable rate with 8c/kWh available from 12-6am. My electric bill just dropped by about 30%.

bell-cot 12 hours ago | parent [-]

What did you switch from and to? Even Tesla's Charging Calculator is far less optimistic than that:

https://www.tesla.com/charging-calculator

"Seattle" may be a critical bit here. The Fed thinks the "U.S. City Average" cost of electricity is far higher than yours:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610

Based on how many of my friends followed their first EV purchase with an electrical outlet upgrade - even those with very short commutes - I suspect your "120/15 is only fine for normal commuters" is still a tad optimistic.

EDIT: Re-reading comments here - I'd bet a leading reason to upgrade from 120/15 to 240/50 charging is to get much more of your charging done within the 12am - 6am "lowest rate" time window. Or whatever that window is, locally.

Schiendelman 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I switched from $5 a gallon for a Subaru to 8c/kWh for a Model 3. Seattle is the best trade in the US for EVs.

officeplant 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

400 miles of driving a month in my EV van which gets on average 1.7 miles/kwh is around 235.3 kwh.

At local rates that $16.47 in electricity (235.3 x $0.07). On average my electric bill went up 15-25 dollars a month.

I spent the first two years of ownership charging mostly from the 110v socket outside the house because over night its enough to cover my commute of around 27 miles at the time.

Now that I have a 60A 240v circuit setup outside and a 40A EVSE I never even worry about what state of charge I get home with.

coldpie 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're kinda right.

Our car (2025 Ioniq 5) gets about 3-4 miles of range per hour on a 120V outlet. If you're home for 10 hours overnight, that's at least 30 miles of range each day. Some random article I found[1] suggests the average commute is about 42 miles. So if you include some extra time on weekends, a 120V outlet easily matches the average commute distance. If you drive less than that, or are home more often due to WFH or whatever, then a 120V outlet is definitely enough.

In reality, probably people drive significantly more than that, eg for shopping and seeing friends and shuttling kids around and whatever. So in the end I do agree with you, lots of people will want to get a 240 line to their garage. But an existing 120V line is probably genuinely enough for a whole lot of people, too. It is for my wife & me.

[1] https://www.axios.com/2024/03/24/average-commute-distance-us...

nathan_compton 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, it will show up on your bill as a cost drastically smaller than purchasing the equivalent amount of gas. If you put solar panels on your house you can get that cost even lower.

bluGill 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm sure it shows up on my bill, but there are so many other variable costs that I can't find it. The weather (how much I use the heat pump) is a much larger factor

mitthrowaway2 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is like saying "an under-appreciated value of ordering from Amazon is that they deliver to your house".

ericmay 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, if you had never used Amazon before and all you did was drive to the store it kind of could be considered under-appreciated if you didn't give it the proper weight in the convenience factor.

It really is under appreciated how much less stressful EVs are to own on a day-to-day basis until you have one. Never worried about gas prices, it's always "full", don't have to deal with crazy people bumming money at the gas station, &c.

WarmWash 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Where people snag is the "gas station mentality", where everything they know about car ownership revolves around "filling up at a station".

So when they think about owning an EV, they focus really hard on "gas station mentality" things like "how long does it take to fill" and "how far can you go between fill-ups?".

Once you own an EV (and have a home charger) you pretty quickly forget about those things shy of the occasional 300+ mi road trip.

ux266478 13 hours ago | parent [-]

It's true it only matters for the road trip, although a slight note that the slate has a stated 150 mile range so you may have to take it into account if you're driving all over a metropolitan area.

For an around-town daily, the only real reason you wouldn't want to take an EV is because literally all of your options are rolling privacy violations. At least with an ICE you can buy a 2011 panther platform and rest easy.

Thankfully, Slate solved this problem. I don't care that it's a cheapy, uncomfortable shitbox with no range. Please yes, more modern cars that aren't literally made out of spyware at an atomic level.

mikestew 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One under-appreciated value of having an EV is that you don't have to buy gas.

I’m pretty sure that’s the whole g-damned point of an EV. Who are you thinking needs to be told this?

x187463 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is that under-appreciated? It's kind of the whole deal aside from environmental concerns.

Schiendelman 13 hours ago | parent [-]

It's hard to understand beforehand just how game changing it is when you switch. Once you're not constantly thinking "Wait, is 60% enough?", it's incredibly freeing. No more "ugh, I'll have to spend $70 before I do that."

bigfishrunning 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's ok, just keep a generator in the bed and you can buy gas for it

pc86 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is literally the only selling point what are you on about?

economistbob 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

True, but one does not have to replace their gas powered engine and fuel tank and drive train every ten to fifteen years if they want to drive several hundred miles. The problem with EV is destroying the economy to shift it to a tiny few people. From all the gas station workers, fuel distribution, parts makers, parts suppliers, etc. for several hundred moving part vehicles. To the oligarchs who control the thirty moving parts that must be replaced every ten years for ten grand.

EVs are a massive serfdom wealth and freedom transfer masquerading as a decade of not having to visit a gas station while hiding the country sized hole that will be needed for all the battery trash.

They are a blight on humanity. China survives them at scale because they are communist and have policies to mitigate economic fallout in one sector by having people supported in others. The USA just makes more homeless people and tells the next generation of high schoolers to enroll in a special work ready jobs pipeline program for whatever the local school board thinks will be left. And their non-employment rate skyrockets.

Schiendelman 13 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure where you got these ideas. Do you have some recent data showing that EV batteries go to trash at all?

bluGill 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, but it is all specific to the Leaf. And newer leafs apparently have good systems and won't have that problem.

The problem is we can only guess because we are talking about going to trash in 8-10 years, and most EVs are not near that old. Still signs are good.

Schiendelman 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I think any EV or PHEV being trashed today has its battery recycled.

bluGill 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Probably, but that is a difference concern. The concern here is the average car is 12 years old. If your battery only lasts 10 years, odds are the car is worse less after you replace the battery than the cost of a battery replacement. Thus the concern - if a battery only lasts 8-10 years that means there are less used cars for poor people to buy.

Fortunately it appears that only the leaf is destroying batteries that fast. Everything else we don't know how long a battery will last, but likely long enough that only collectors (who pour more money than the car is worth into it anyway) will care.

Schiendelman 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I haven't met anyone who's replaced a battery yet. So far the batteries seem to outlast the car.

bluGill 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Most EVs are not old enough to need a replacement so no surprise you haven't seen it.

I've seen places offering to do it to a leaf. However the cost is more than the leaf is worth by the time it needs it. I know a few people with a leaf that has half the factory range left and they just deal with it because the cost isn't worth it.

Schiendelman 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, it wasn't designed for it. But the battery still gets recycled.

economistbob 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Talking the power company into taking it and calling that recycling is really just renaming the landfill location and making the electric customer's pay for it. Repurposing a failing piece of hardware is not recycling it.

Schiendelman 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Any data?