EV owner stats

[TPA]

"Switch back" means they don't want to replace their EV with another EV when it comes time to dump it, not that they don't have another car.

From the limited sample of people I know who've had EVs, all but two have since replaced them with ICEs. Especially the one guy I know on Sanibel Island whose home survived Hurricane Ian, but not the Tesla fire 2 days later. One eccentric woman I know still has her Tesla Model Y and she's still undecided on it. A pilot I fly with has a Chevy Volt, and he's reasonably happy with it as he bought it used at a major discount, but he's fully aware that the car's future is the scrapyard since Chevrolet stopped supporting it, including the battery. I always laugh because he plugs it in the hangar when we go out. Free electricity.

It's actually a shame GM abandoned the Volt. I think it's probably the best solution. It's also a shame that they didn't offer this in a better car. If it was available in something like a full-size car, such as an Impala or Cadillac, I might have bought one.

 

[alpg88]

If GM had such full size sedan, it would probably start around 50-60k today. Might as well go for Lucid air, it starts around 70k, full size luxury sedan, with modern advanced tech that GM most likely will not offer. Another spect is dealer service, You do not want to deal with GM service centers, Everytime our shop need to deal with them, it is "oh frack not again" moment every time. I do realize that they are not GM owned, and some might be responsible, knowledgeable, but I have not seen such GM service in my area.

 

[alpg88]

"Chevron deference" no more

 

[alpg88]

Is the knob who said "say good bye to your gas cars" still around? He needs to see that.

 

[TPA]

If GM had such full size sedan, it would probably start around 50-60k today. Might as well go for Lucid air, it starts around 70k, full size luxury sedan, with modern advanced tech that GM most likely will not offer. Another spect is dealer service, You do not want to deal with GM service centers, Everytime our shop need to deal with them, it is "oh frack not again" moment every time. I do realize that they are not GM owned, and some might be responsible, knowledgeable, but I have not seen such GM service in my area.

But..the Lucid has no gasoline generator. The Chevy Volt does. Key distinction there. Considering I live in Florida and often find myself doing disaster prep and disaster recovery, an EV isn't for me. An EV with a built in gas generator? You've got my attention.

and for "Starts at $70k", I'd rather pick up a used S-Class. A lot more value for money, and even some resale value compared to EVs these days.

 

[H-Man]

I'm genuinely curious. Have you actually done that?

Yes. Drove fine across texas and the deep south doing 70-80 (dependent on how fast the trucks were going) hanging out at a reasonable distance behind tall vehicles. Engine isn't the most powerful so you either have to pace yourself with the trucks or be very careful to keep the engine out of performance enrichment climbing long grades, but it gives a bit over 30MPG pulling a trailer. Heat wasn't an issue for me, I just don't like to run rich AFRs because it's not the best for the engine. My PHEV has a transmission cooler so that's fine. Downside is that you stop for gas about every 3 hours because the car has a tiny tank but that's not really a big deal for me when that's about my limit between pee breaks. Cycle is: Gas up, pee, wash up, buy food if I want, drive to next gas station, repeat 3 to 4 times a day. I keep spare fuel on the trailer but basically the only negative vs a pickup truck is that you have to be aware of gaps between refuling infra a bit more, but that's also what the 10 gallons of reserve fuel is for. Hell, if you lose your engine for whatever reason, the EV side of the car lets you get yourself off the road and someplace safe to fix the issue meaning that when my radiator got cracked due to someone's negligance, I drove it while it was actively making puddles of antifreeze on the ground becuase I knew the transmission pan and the electronic loops were still intact. Threw the service writers for a loop because a EV leaking that much coolant shouldn't be driven, a gasser leaking that much coolant can't be driven without blowing the head gasket, but I didn't even have a check engine light on.


Based on cost of a lifepo4 pack of the size needed and some healthy exopolation, when CA hands down the pure gas car ban it won't be that big of a deal-- chevy could build a pickup truck today with a 6 banger and a beefier version of the 5ET50-- say a 5 or 6EL90. Put batteries as low as you can go-- have them hang off and between the frame rails and have a skidplate.
Give it a 30 or 60 gallon gas tank.
Beef up the motors... maybe toss in some hub motors for the front axle or even make it front wheel drive and have it be all electric in the back.

You could concievebly offer an 4WD PHEV pickup truck that gives you diesel fuel economy on a gas engine... for about the same cost as the 4WD diesel trim. BUT it would behave like it has a locked rear diff, you wouldn't need DEF, and it'd be able to ignore stuff like throttle response of the engine so you could tune it for insane efficentcy. Think a truck that can do 1000 hp but also can do 25-50 MPG depending on how you drive it because there are almost no pumping losses. Yeah, you can't get a substained 1000 hp out of the engine, the engine might only be able to do 2-300 hp while in the stoich burn regime, but that's what electrics are for. Supply a dedicated set of pins on the BCM to run the trailer lights so that the defualt behavoir is that the truck saves about half the battery for reserve (so that you can climb hills at 80, I10 in west texas is a bit insane) when a trailer is plugged in.




What do you get after all of this? A pickup truck that will practically *ignore* the fact that you have a trailer hooked up to it, you can carry 75 miles of range in a gas can if you do run out of gas, and when you are running around town you pretty much never touch the engine.

Where was I... Oh yeah. The reason I'll tow with my PHEV is beacuse I'm not going to dedicate a truck to do something (provide a 4'x8'
bed the 1 time a month I need it or tow a ton of trailer) and deal with the 3x capex when I can just use a PHEV I already own. Plus, my PHEV does not flip when ran off the road into a ditch.

 

[Monocrom]

My mistake, I thought you meant you did that with a full-blown EV; not a Hybrid that also uses gasoline.

 

[H-Man]

"Switch back" means they don't want to replace their EV with another EV when it comes time to dump it, not that they don't have another car.

From the limited sample of people I know who've had EVs, all but two have since replaced them with ICEs. Especially the one guy I know on Sanibel Island whose home survived Hurricane Ian, but not the Tesla fire 2 days later. One eccentric woman I know still has her Tesla Model Y and she's still undecided on it. A pilot I fly with has a Chevy Volt, and he's reasonably happy with it as he bought it used at a major discount, but he's fully aware that the car's future is the scrapyard since Chevrolet stopped supporting it, including the battery. I always laugh because he plugs it in the hangar when we go out. Free electricity.

It's actually a shame GM abandoned the Volt. I think it's probably the best solution. It's also a shame that they didn't offer this in a better car. If it was available in something like a full-size car, such as an Impala or Cadillac, I might have bought one.

with the volt and other orphen cars, you kind of have to be prepared to diy a lot.

My mistake, I thought you meant you did that with a full-blown EV; not a Hybrid that also uses gasoline.

I have a volt so around town it might as well be an ev. It basically drives like an ev that uses the gas pump as a fast charger. I drove a rental camry hybrid the other day and it makes me miss my volt. The build quality on it was crap vs the volt, there were more rattles, the doors sound like I'm back in a 20 year old corolla, the head unit's android auto integration is buggy, I can't remote start it, I have to touch the remote so much more when unloading, the adaptive cruise has so much less polish.

 

[TPA]

I drove a rental camry hybrid the other day and it makes me miss my volt. The build quality on it was crap vs the volt, there were more rattles, the doors sound like I'm back in a 20 year old corolla, the head unit's android auto integration is buggy, I can't remote start it, I have to touch the remote so much more when unloading, the adaptive cruise has so much less polish.

I know Toyota has the reputation for being reliable...but man, what a miserable car otherwise. I had a Camry as a rental for a whole 5 minutes before returning it and picking up a Chevrolet Malibu instead. NO Android Auto on the Camry. Plastics felt very cheap. Infotainment system felt like it was from the late 90s. Weak AC. My 2004 Infiniti M45/Nissan Gloria had a nicer/more attractive system.

I was surprisingly impressed with the Malibu. Granted, National has nice cars, so this one was the top trim-level available, even had a white interior. I'm not a fan of CVTs, but this one wasn't terrible. Typical GM design weirdness with things, but that's GM.

 

[alpg88]

Well, you will not see many chevy malibu as a car service vehicle here in nyc, camries, OTOH, are in abundance. There is a good reason for it.

 

[TPA]

NYC Taxi & Limo commission requires hybrids. No Chevy sedan hybrids are out there, not that there were a ton of them to begin with.

 

[alpg88]

NYC Taxi & Limo commission requires hybrids. No Chevy sedan hybrids are out there, not that there were a ton of them to begin with.

At one time there was lots of ford escapes hybrids taxicabs in NYC, few years later there was almost none of those fords in taxi service, It is now almost exclusively toyota, nissan, cars now. Modern domestics just can not keep up with imports reliability.
BTW taxi and car service are 2 different things, but neither them, nor uber/lift use chevys, or fords, or dodges in mass, those are not cars you can rely on. there is no greater proof of it than those services not using cars they can not rely on.
TLC does not require anything, there are hybrid medallions and not. hybrid medallions are 3-5 times cheaper, but there are still plenty of non hybrid medallions on the streets.

 

[alpg88]

 

[Monocrom]

At one time there was lots of ford escapes hybrids taxicabs in NYC, few years later there was almost none of those fords in taxi service, It is now almost exclusively toyota, nissan, cars now. Modern domestics just can not keep up with imports reliability.
BTW taxi and car service are 2 different things, but neither them, nor uber/lift use chevys, or fords, or dodges in mass, those are not cars you can rely on. there is no greater proof of it than those services not using cars they can not rely on.
TLC does not require anything, there are hybrid medallions and not. hybrid medallions are 3-5 times cheaper, but there are still plenty of non hybrid medallions on the streets.

I was fortunate to stumble upon a fellow Christian here in NYC who has his own car service. Excellent rates (yes, even for non-Christians). And, he usually stops by in a black BMW SUV. The hatch is sloped so it's very impractical. Leather rear seats aren't very comfy nor supportive at all. But I can pretend to be Big while riding in it.

 

[bykfixer]

A coworker has a jeep cherokee hybrid that makes this weird, space craft sounding noise when in reverse. I thought to myself "if the point is to alert a blind person the car is moving toward them and alert the non blind person too, why not use the noise most people recognize already?" You hear "beep beep beep" you know a vehicle is approaching. You hear this creepy whirring sound and wonder "whatthehell is that?"

 

[aznsx]

A coworker has a jeep cherokee hybrid that makes this weird, space craft sounding noise when in reverse. I thought to myself "if the point is to alert a blind person the car is moving toward them and alert the non blind person too, why not use the noise most people recognize already?" You hear "beep beep beep" you know a vehicle is approaching. You hear this creepy whirring sound and wonder "whatthehell is that?"

EDIT: 'Stop making sense', Byk

Ever hear the reverse warning sound from the more recent amazon delivery vehicles? Sheesh - some people aren't thinking (not a news flash). For the alphabet-type folks, different=better, and newer=superior, by definition. The Mallory Sonalert is from the '60s. How could it possibly be any good today;-)?

 

[bykfixer]

EDIT: 'Stop making sense', Byk

Ever hear the reverse warning sound from the more recent amazon delivery vehicles? Sheesh - some people aren't thinking (not a news flash). For the alphabet-type folks, different=better, and newer=superior, by definition. The Mallory Sonalert is from the '60s. How could it possibly be any good today;-)?

Well lets just change a stop sign from red to blue and make it a rectangle..... 'cause those old ideas are stupid.

 

[alpg88]

Here is another video explaining how much ev chargers pull compared to a average size home, or more like over a hundred of them.

 

[alpg88]

Not battery related but still interesting

 

[alpg88]

A coworker has a jeep cherokee hybrid that makes this weird, space craft sounding noise when in reverse. I thought to myself "if the point is to alert a blind person the car is moving toward them and alert the non blind person too, why not use the noise most people recognize already?" You hear "beep beep beep" you know a vehicle is approaching. You hear this creepy whirring sound and wonder "whatthehell is that?"

My 2025 pilot has this idiotic feature, it makes loud white noise/static sound INSIDE the car while backing up, while lowering radio/music at the same time. Why the hell do I need that noise Inside the car for?!?! fortunately it can be disabled. I rented a Dodge challenger a while ago, it also lowered radio volume when in reverse but it made no such stupid noise. I had 2 previous generation pilots, 18 and 21. they had nothing like that