Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Electric vehicle charging?

EVs are overhyped junk!

One of our county attorneys has a Tesla that he has been showing off every time he parks at the county building. Sharp car. Two weeks ago it was getting loaded onto a flatbed in front of the county building, haven’t seen it since. Made me chuckle.

How many gallons of gas can you buy with what this solar system will cost?

So, Simonkenton, you do not own one. Your brother does, but you....NOT! Hype BS. Do not care if it would. Started this as an information request and you throw down your brothers quantlet. WEAK! MTG
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My friend rented a Tesla and drove it Dallas. He stopped in Waco at a super charger site and when he tried to go again he got the blue screen of death and car wouldn't do anything. He said he looked on the web and found the instructions to reboot the car by holding two buttons down for 10 seconds. After that he was able to drive away.

They only make sense if nothing breaks or none of the batteries puke out. The odds of one of those happening is pretty high after a few years. I'd rather have a used Corolla.

My goodness, mtgunner. I gave you what you asked for, direct first hand information about electricity consumption for the Tesla, and you come back at me with this hostility.

Your post that your “brothers” Tesla was not necessary. Not in competition with electric car muscle. I asked for mere information. You answer with what was less than necessary. MTG

This is one of the better threads that we have had in a while.

Yes, I agree. I have made an informed decision to wait and plan to build my solar array for charging. Lots of new ingenuity out there plus lots of deals on equipment. The one thing that is necessary is to time sunlight availability during morning to sunset. We live near the west slope of the Rocky’s and sun does not appear sometimes until 10:00AM. Summer we can get sunlight until nearly 10:00PM. Will research availability. As stated I need no electrician nor an engineer to plan or install. Have always done my own work. Believe in over installing. Have been working on neighbors solar array doing the maintenance as we are on a shared well. I take care of the work and we split the cost on the well.
I will post more in the future. MTG

You’re forgetting that ICE powered cars require maintenance too. I’m not going electric as I often have to travel extended distances. 500 miles in a Ram 1500 today.

It appears most missed that part of your original post.

Just a side point since it is that time of year...
The law of supply and demand tells us that if we stop building gasoline and diesel vehicles the it will become less economical to produce heating fuels therefore their prices will go up...

thats the thing. Effieciency cost wise and time wise says 480. No neighborhood is set up for 480. IE even if you wanted to up grade the power companies can't provide 480 without redoing all the lines.

If this becomes common just think all the blackouts.. Once again we don't have enough electricity to deal with heat and cooling across the country. Much less EV. Solar could be independent but I've no clue the cost to produce 60 amps 240 to charge X hours.

I suppose if you can afford the array, storage batteries and or time, plus the car and ONLY solar charged it then it could be a thing. For minor trips and such.

Of course everything usually comes down in cost eventually.

That said the hate of nuclear power and the getting rid of fossil fuel plants for power...
NONE of this bodes well.

Keep developing electrical and solar and wind, see if its self sufficient eventually. IE not subsidized. Then maybe we can get somewhere.

That said, if your service is big enough to add the amps, putting in a plug 240 really is nothing at all to it. ITs not hard. Not rocket science. but do have to have knowledge.

Good grief.

Spend 20,000 to save 5000 in gas...

all require maintenance. Question is normal maintenance vs normal battery replacement. I"ve heard 5000 to replace battries or more. I can replace a complete engine for that myself. Can still actually rebuild one less than 2500 I'm guessing. Having one done by a god child now will be only parts and less than 1000.

I'd be a willing man to be that as the demand for more electricity goes up as we think we are going to abandon a proven energy source that 50 buck bill is going to get a whole lot closer to 200.

Its not that it can't even out in the end. It could I simply say its a lot of work to break even in the end. It certainly won't get ahead at least with current tech.

Never mind the available carbon fuel reserves vs battery material reserves IIRC.

I'm not against anything new. But it has to make sense.

Since this is a gun place, I liken it to the AR15. Used to be somewhat useless and unproven. Many didn't like it. I didn't because it was short range. And felt weird. Along comes years of tech and the AR feels perfect to me and I've shot it successfully out to 1000 yards and more and taken game to almost 600 so far with only the 223 round and we have many other calibers in the safe to boot.

Will certainly at least be a learning curve as to how these things work.

If we didn't use 4WD and carrying capacity and had extra cash I'd be willing to buy a used one or cheap one just for putting around to town and back on most days. just to see.

I read on the Tesla website a few years ago that you can order a model S, their flagship high end luxury car with 3 ways to charge. 110 volts would take 8 hours to charge, 220 about 3 hours, and their supercharging stations of 440 volts, 45 minutes. No one should let the vehicle go completely dead. Just like gasoline when you reach about 1/4 of a tank or 1/4 of a charge left, get the thing charged. They had an extended range version that was supposed to go 320 miles on a charge at 70 mph. This is over 4 hours driving. There is a supercharging station 2 miles from my house. I have considered it. Tesla is also going to offer a solar package for campers that you can carry in the back of your car or their new truck, that can fold out and charge the vehicle in about 2 days. Slow, but if you go camping and stay a couple of days or longer, can get your vehicle charged. Their truck is supposed to go 500 miles on a charge. You have to pay extra for the extended range batteries. Mileage is also decreased if you are towing a boat or camper, or running faster than 70 mph or using the air conditioner for extended periods. Tesla has chargers all over the country and they follow the interstate system. They have also struck deals with hotels to put them at hotel locations to charge overnight. They should also put them a camping locations too. Tesla knew they would need charging stations so they began to install them as soon as they started selling cars. The sold about 1 millon cars last year.

Also, one university has developed a way to make a cheaper battery using lithium sodium instead of cobalt. Sodium is cheaper and is found in salt. It can charge faster and go further for less money. They are figuring out how to make this battery in mass production. It could power your phone for days without charging. So battery technology is catching up. Power is cheaper than fuel, and you don't have to change oil.

Tesla is not accurate on their web site. My brother's Tesla gets 5 miles of driving, for one hour of charging on 110. On the 220 volt, 40 amp charger that I wired up for him, he gets 23 miles of driving for one hour of charging. In ten hours on the 220 he gets a full recharge. Now those superchargers on the interstates are phenomenal, and charge at a rate of 310 miles in an hour.

Another bit of misinformation is maximum range. Supposedly my brother can go 300 miles. But that is if he charges the battery fully. If you always charge the battery all the way, long term it will damage the battery. Brother goes with a 80 per cent charge, and he can go about 220 miles on a charge.

Hope the new batteries they are developing are better. What if he goes 90% charge? Any more mileage? The new Tesla trucks, delayed until first quarter 2022, are supposed to get 500 miles in extended range models. They are having trouble, of all things, how to install windshied wipers on the sloped front end. Also, the sloped rear doesn't allow standard campers or caps, tool racks or anything else to be installed over the bed. Management wants to make the beds standard sizes, maybe with removable side panels to remove the slopped features, and to compete with Ford, external plugs for powering your home. It may end up looking more like a standard truck than a space ship. Trucks are longer, thus allowing more room for batteries for extended ranges.

Those are the direct costs. The indirect costs are wars in the middle east, enriching people who hate us, and environmental damage(more controversial). I bet most of Europe is regretting being dependent on Russia for gas and oil right now.

At the very least it will be an interesting and entertaining project. New technologies don't always payoff instantly.