ioweddie
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2011
- Messages
- 1,198
- Reaction score
- 1,869
- Location
- Winford Isle of Wight
- Your Mercedes
- W205 AMG Sport Line Premier Plus Estate C220d
An interesting take on the new technology of Electric Cars
as seen by a Canadian.
********************************************************
I always wondered why we never saw a cost analysis
on what it actually costs to operate an electric car.
Now we know why.
At a recent neighbourhood B-B-Q I was talking to a neighbour,
a British Columbia Hydro executive and 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 a 75 amp service.
The average home is equipped with 100 amp service.
On our small street, only has 25 homes,
the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry
more than 3 houses, each with a single Tesla.
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 the damn 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.
My friend Eric recently 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 then 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 and a half 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.
On 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 $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.
Will it prove to be the same in Australia ?????
as seen by a Canadian.
********************************************************
I always wondered why we never saw a cost analysis
on what it actually costs to operate an electric car.
Now we know why.
At a recent neighbourhood B-B-Q I was talking to a neighbour,
a British Columbia Hydro executive and 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 a 75 amp service.
The average home is equipped with 100 amp service.
On our small street, only has 25 homes,
the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry
more than 3 houses, each with a single Tesla.
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 the damn 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.
My friend Eric recently 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 then 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 and a half 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.
On 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 $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.
Will it prove to be the same in Australia ?????