very jealous of EV car owners

[jlee]

i'm 80 miles round trip actually.

isn't the charger free after a tax refund?

So I pay for it. Great.

 

[Lifted]

So I pay for it. Great.

And we pay for you, so I guess the rest of us have to pay twice. :\

 

[txrandom]

yup, i read owners are averaging 1000 between fillups.

the volt is cool, but it's pure EV's that get me excited.
0 dependency on big oil, 0 emissions from the tailpipe. wait, there is no tailpipe.

Where does natural gas come from?

 

[skyking]

Where does natural gas come from?

We keep it under our hat.

 

[abaez]

The Leaf sounds great until you crunch the range numbers a bit. I live in metropolitan Toronto, infamous for it's traffic. Worse than Los Angeles. We also get cold winters, which requires the use of the electric heater. Optimistically, you'd get between 76km - 110km range in those conditions. Far short of the 220km maximum range.

No.

 

[mizzou]

if people are still forking over $$$$ to fill up their useless SUV that's there own damn fault.

I purchased a 30MPG City vehicle for around $500 - 800 including repairs. I single handily reduced my gasoline consumption by around 500-600 gallons per year easy.

I'm not exactly saving huge amounts of $$$$$$$$$ a year considering I have to pay for insurance, maintenance, and meager taxes, but I end up a bit ahead and I end up feeling better I've given maybe not a middle finger to big oil, but maybe an angry fist.

 

[The Stigenator]

I am jealous too.. I want Nissan to let me buy my EV.. not sure where I am in line for it. They shipped about 3400 or so. 12000 by year end. I dont think I am in the first 12000.

So I guess sometime in 2012 I'll get my leaf.. seesh.. it cant come fast enough.. I prefer it to the MiEV, though that would also work. Lets see which gets here first.

 

[0roo0roo]

http://billsleaf.blogspot.com/

reading this blog really has me envious. the feeling of driving around and not having to think about filling up must be really liberating.
my daily commute would cost me $2.40 in electricity instead of $11 in gas.

unfortunately for me...
1. i don't have a garage to plug in nightly.
2. my 80 mile commute to work is right at the upper range, so i'd be fighting range anxiety daily.

when the tech matures and i finally own a house, i'm going to equip the roof with solar panels and be completely free from power and oil companies.

worse then that, the leaf range is exagerrated.
if you do things like fast charge it is down to 70% capacity in only 3 years!!! then your range is truly bupkis.

 

[0roo0roo]

Wow, the Volt is actually a hybrid... not a real EV. I guess it'd good for longer commuters who are scared of the "range" limitation of the Leaf.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/11/shocker-chevy-says-volts-gas-engine-can-power-the-wheels-its/

not sure what that means anyways, it runs on electricity, it is electric. it is the only sensible ev because it does remove the requirement to buy a second car or bum rides off friends who make more sensible purchases. leaf is a false green car unless u really never leave your neighborhood.

 

[CPA]

if people are still forking over $$$$ to fill up their useless SUV that's there own damn fault.

Why does every car thread end up being a crapfest of SUVs. They certainly do have their purpose. Right now I have a Mazda5 and Honda Civic Hybrid. I have had to borrow trucks and SUVs for many purposes because I couldn't do shit with either of my "gas-saving" vehicles. And don't even get me started on the 0-60 in 20 seconds I get in my Civic Hyrbid.

 

[0roo0roo]

if people are still forking over $$$$ to fill up their useless SUV that's there own damn fault.

I purchased a 30MPG City vehicle for around $500 - 800 including repairs. I single handily reduced my gasoline consumption by around 500-600 gallons per year easy.

I'm not exactly saving huge amounts of $$$$$$$$$ a year considering I have to pay for insurance, maintenance, and meager taxes, but I end up a bit ahead and I end up feeling better I've given maybe not a middle finger to big oil, but maybe an angry fist.

yea but the leaf is like 30k, maybe slightly less with tax payer subsidy. but really, say a 2005 ford explorer cost 8k, u then have a 22k gap for gas. even at 4 bucks a gallon that is 5500 gallons of gas. @16mpg thats 88k miles,,,i really doubt a leaf will have much charge left at 88k, thats 880 charges. in any case its a wash. iti s a lot of money spent to have range anxiety.

 

[SandEagle]

wow OP, you write as though we give a fvck. 80 miles? well, rip de friggin doo!! at least you got a job

id get a leaf if i could afford it

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

not sure what that means anyways, it runs on electricity, it is electric. it is the only sensible ev because it does remove the requirement to buy a second car or bum rides off friends who make more sensible purchases. leaf is a false green car unless u really never leave your neighborhood.

GM initially led everyone to believe that it was a true EV where only the EV motor powers the wheels, and the gas engine was just a generator.
it was later revealed that the gas engine drives the wheels under certain conditions, which ticked some folks off.

 

[zerocool84]

Yet you still probably won't come out in the black. Same thing with hybrid drivers, you pay a huge premium for the car when you can get something like a Focus or Cruze for cheap yet still get great mpg.

 

[bobdole369]

Yet you still probably won't come out in the black. Same thing with hybrid drivers, you pay a huge premium for the car when you can get something like a Focus or Cruze for cheap yet still get great mpg.

What is the USA's issue with diesels. Seriously - Give me a little Golf TDI like-vehicle (that wasn't a VW nor a golf) manual, small turbo - and you'll nail 60+ mpg and not worry about accel either.

 

[jlee]

Why does every car thread end up being a crapfest of SUVs. They certainly do have their purpose. Right now I have a Mazda5 and Honda Civic Hybrid. I have had to borrow trucks and SUVs for many purposes because I couldn't do shit with either of my "gas-saving" vehicles. And don't even get me started on the 0-60 in 20 seconds I get in my Civic Hyrbid.

I couldn't handle it...I drove a Jetta TDI for the first time a few weeks ago. I'll take 0-60 in sub-5 seconds and 22-26mpg highway instead of 0-60 sometime next week at 50mpg.

What is the USA's issue with diesels. Seriously - Give me a little Golf TDI like-vehicle (that wasn't a VW nor a golf) manual, small turbo - and you'll nail 60+ mpg and not worry about accel either.

I believe it's due to emissions issues, but I'm not sure.

 

[skyking]

California drives the emissions standards, and diesel cannot get as clean as a gas engine. Does not matter that they use 80% of the fuel.

 

[qliveur]

my daily commute would cost me $2.40 in electricity instead of $11 in gas.

Who the hell told you that?

Al Gore?

 

[bobdole369]

Who the hell told you that?

Al Gore?

I'm not blah, but... Math?
I suppose Mrs. Grundy my 7th grade algebra teacher.

Electricity costs roughly $0.15 per kwh - it takes 30kwh to charge the thing so it goes a "rated" 100 miles so 30/100 = 0.33kwh per mile.
0.15x0.33 = $0.0495 to go a mile.

$2.40 is roughly 60 miles.

It costs me $10.68 to go 60 miles in my gas-car.

It ain't really that simple though as others and myself have pointed out.

Also - once a ton of EV's are out there, guaranteed the cost of electricity goes up. And since we are a fairly backward people when it comes to nuclear and renewable energy - that extra load will be supplied by the cheapest possible power source, which i think is currently nat-gas powered turbines, or coal. Coal is much worse....

 

[deanx0r]

Destroying the environment how? The coal or nat gas burned to make my electricity? Nope - its over 80% nuclear down here. Thats possibly environmentally destroying though I'll give ya that.

It takes more resources to build an EV compare to a regular Hummer. The batteries usually require some rare earth elements and their manufacturing dispose quite a lot of wastes in the environment. BTW, do you live in France?

 

[0roo0roo]

GM initially led everyone to believe that it was a true EV where only the EV motor powers the wheels, and the gas engine was just a generator.
it was later revealed that the gas engine drives the wheels under certain conditions, which ticked some folks off.

that is a ludicrous argument and kind of says it all, gm chose the most efficient method of extending the range of an ev, your specific but meaningless definition of what gets to be called an ev says you care more about what the badge says than how it works.