Anyone here drive a purely electric vehicle? What has your experience been like? Is there a big hit on your power bill because of that?
I just saw an electric Smart Fortwo for about $6000 (used). A guy I'm seeing bought one and despite my dislike of very small cars, I feel that if this is my commute car (for which I'd travel no more than 20 miles round trip), it would actually save me some money compared to a regular gas vehicle.
For example: when I drop down to 1/4 tank I fuel up my Kia and depending on the price of gas it can go as low as $12 to as high as $19 per week. Smart's Fortwo has a battery capacity of 17.5kWh, so assuming I empty the pack every day and charge it up every night, at the price I pay for electricity, it comes to $1.23/day or $8.65/week. Gas would have to drop below $2 for me to reach this level. And, of course, this assumes that I always charge it at home. Southern Maryland is not known to be super green, but there are a few stations out there that welcome EV drivers and let you charge for free.
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Re: Electric Vehicle Owners: sound off
EVs is 20% of cars here now.
We do have more expensive gas and cheaper electricity than you guys, so it is an absolute no-brainer at this point, even if you include car rentals for the occasional long distance trips that even the newest ones can't comfortably make.
One friend said the amount of money he saved from day one driving electric felt like winning in the lottery, he couldn't believe it.
Exiting years ahead, with cheap, autonomous evs organized in car sharing pools. In TEN years we will just shake our heads when we think we used to pollute our citys and spent a good chunk of each day in rush traffic. It will be like waking up from a bad 90-100 year nightmare of fossile fuel hell.
We do have more expensive gas and cheaper electricity than you guys, so it is an absolute no-brainer at this point, even if you include car rentals for the occasional long distance trips that even the newest ones can't comfortably make.
One friend said the amount of money he saved from day one driving electric felt like winning in the lottery, he couldn't believe it.
Exiting years ahead, with cheap, autonomous evs organized in car sharing pools. In TEN years we will just shake our heads when we think we used to pollute our citys and spent a good chunk of each day in rush traffic. It will be like waking up from a bad 90-100 year nightmare of fossile fuel hell.
Re: Electric Vehicle Owners: sound off
The parking garage of my company has dozens of electric cars, some are company cars you can rent, others are employees' cars. A great benefit is that they can charge for free, even cars with the biggest battery, because the company has a very large solar array covering all the buildings and some land.
I haven't tried one myself. I haven't been in any kind of Smart either, I'm not a big fan of it to be honest, but if I lived in Paris proper, I would own one for sure.
The ubiquitous car in the aforementioned garage is the Renault Zoe. Contrary to most electric cars, the battery is rented, so that's a fixed cost per month, then electricity on top. A colleague has gotten the latest Zoe with a bigger battery and official range of 400Km (more like 250-300 in real life), he's leasing, he pays the highest tier for the battery because he drives more than 150Km per day, so that comes out at 500€/month for car+battery, however he saves at least 200€ in diesel fuel. Maintenance is also greatly reduced.
I haven't tried one myself. I haven't been in any kind of Smart either, I'm not a big fan of it to be honest, but if I lived in Paris proper, I would own one for sure.
The ubiquitous car in the aforementioned garage is the Renault Zoe. Contrary to most electric cars, the battery is rented, so that's a fixed cost per month, then electricity on top. A colleague has gotten the latest Zoe with a bigger battery and official range of 400Km (more like 250-300 in real life), he's leasing, he pays the highest tier for the battery because he drives more than 150Km per day, so that comes out at 500€/month for car+battery, however he saves at least 200€ in diesel fuel. Maintenance is also greatly reduced.
Re: Electric Vehicle Owners: sound off
einsteinboricua wrote:Anyone here drive a purely electric vehicle? What has your experience been like? Is there a big hit on your power bill because of that?
I just saw an electric Smart Fortwo for about $6000 (used). A guy I'm seeing bought one and despite my dislike of very small cars, I feel that if this is my commute car (for which I'd travel no more than 20 miles round trip), it would actually save me some money compared to a regular gas vehicle.
For example: when I drop down to 1/4 tank I fuel up my Kia and depending on the price of gas it can go as low as $12 to as high as $19 per week. Smart's Fortwo has a battery capacity of 17.5kWh, so assuming I empty the pack every day and charge it up every night, at the price I pay for electricity, it comes to $1.23/day or $8.65/week. Gas would have to drop below $2 for me to reach this level. And, of course, this assumes that I always charge it at home. Southern Maryland is not known to be super green, but there are a few stations out there that welcome EV drivers and let you charge for free.
You should get 80miles or so, out of the Smart Fortwo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_electric_drive
You're not going to fill her up every day. But check out how good the battery still is, quite expensive to replace.
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Re: Electric Vehicle Owners: sound off
Dutchy wrote:You're not going to fill her up every day. But check out how good the battery still is, quite expensive to replace.
The dealer I'll visit has a deal going on where you can lease the battery, so if there are any defects within a 10 year period, they'll replace it, no questions asked.
Re: Electric Vehicle Owners: sound off
See a lot of the used Smart Cars at the races. Many have replaced their golf carts and 4 wheelers with them for use to tow the race vehicles at the track.
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Used are cheaper than used golf carts, weigh about the same and will fit in the trailer/transporter. The main issue is that they have going for them is they have air conditioning.
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Some go ahead and re-license/tag them for road use for when a quick trip from the track for provisions are required, like pizza, ice etc.
Okie
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Used are cheaper than used golf carts, weigh about the same and will fit in the trailer/transporter. The main issue is that they have going for them is they have air conditioning.
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Some go ahead and re-license/tag them for road use for when a quick trip from the track for provisions are required, like pizza, ice etc.
Okie
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