How come we haven't talked about gas prices? [Admin Warning: NO POLITICS]

[kingtj]

I really think electric is a great option as we move forward, but it has to grow organically. If government gets involved and tries to push/mandate/incentivize it to artificially boost EV sales beyond what would sell normally each year? It will cause the exact problem you speak of here.

I'll just admit here that I'm a Tesla owner myself (Model 3 Performance) and I owned a used Model S and even a used Model X for a little while before trading for the 3. I've always owned at least one regular gasoline powered vehicle along with the Tesla though, because I don't believe there's ever such as thing as "one perfect vehicle for all purposes".

I do a lot of driving with both a fairly long commute and a side gig doing a lot of food delivery. So the Tesla is great for all of that. (Their app on your phone calculates what you actually spend on electricity each month for all your driving. And it's typically just under $50 a month for me.) No oil changes needed for it either.

But I can tell you, on a longer road trip across multiple states? An EV will almost double the length of time it takes you to arrive. Tesla has plenty of supercharging stations strategically spaced out along all the major highways, so that part is ok. But in 8 hours of driving, you're probably looking at stopping 3-4 times to recharge (since you don't want to let it get TOO low on battery, AND you probably don't want to charge it ALL the way up either -- since that last 20% or so of charging happens a lot slower than the rest of it). You might time a couple of those stops with a lunch and dinner break - so that's not bad. But if you're in some kind of time crunch and you want to only stop for the bio-breaks and 5 minute fuel-ups to get back on the road ASAP? Yeah, the Tesla isn't a great choice.

And sure, if we made everyone go electric "overnight"? The power company would have zero time to build out the infrastructure to support it all. They can make it work for everyone, I'm sure. But it needs to grow slowly, as more people buy an electric car over a span of time.

Exactly this. Also, we're struggling with meeting electricity needs now, and that isn't going to get better with millions of cars plugged in every night.

Sponsored

 

[13MikeH]

Here's my biggest concern with the EV push
1) where is the sustainable power coming from? Currently the dependence on fossil fuel to produce power is a net zero loss.
2) the batteries are storage units. They store energy and the infrastructure needed will take decades to create, while squeezing the gas industry out...lobbyists will fight this tooth and nail further dragging this out
3) the material required to create said batteries comes from very precious minerals, all mined in countries we do not play well with...the average operations require 500 tons of dirt moved for one battery....that's not very green.
4) like ANY battery it has a depreciating half life...it will eventually fail to hold a charge. Where do you "dump" all of these used batteries once they fail?
I don't see EV as a solution. I see a current movement to force change before the system is functional. All the mandates are not making this better

 

[Jess1]

Ok, a month in and I'm spending less on gas. Switching from a decade old F 150 will do that...

 

[13MikeH]

Ok, a month in and I'm spending less on gas. Switching from a decade old F 150 will do that...

Even pedal/throttle/RPM aggression will improve costs. Longer coasting to early stops,.smooth roll on the gas all add up. I try to keep RPM below 2000 when possible and it makes a difference. Expressway, set the cruise stay near 72. Yeah 77 is faster but it's a brick...less is more over 200 miles. A year in and gas is getting expensive. We.are.near $4 a gallon. Death Valley CA a week ago on a hiking adventure????

 

[thekingprawn]

Ok, a month in and I'm spending less on gas. Switching from a decade old F 150 will do that...

Back in '02 or so when gas prices went up I parked my '97 Dodge Ram with a V8 and bought a beater Saturn. It was a pay raise.

 

[Martinjv71]

Gas prices are the most obvious and arguably painful purchase for consumers in this inflationary period. They especially bother my wife, she thinks we should cancel any road trips for this year. Maybe my explanation to her will help others feel a little better about this politically induced gas hike that has rippled through our economy.

I pointed out that we drive our BS about 15,000 miles per year. If we get 24 mpg, we buy 625 gallons annually. At a buck a gallon higher, that is only $625. Most people have this much slack in their annual budget. I grocery shop, so I'm acutely aware that everything we buy is costing more and that compounds the situation. But, at least it made the wife feel better. I'm old enough to remember the similar economy of Jimmy Carter. Not only were gas prices high, but there was no gas to buy. The thing that bugs me most about high energy prices is that this is so unnecessary and raises the cost of everything else we buy.

So we booked a beach house on the Texas Coast at the peak of the neotropical bird migration and invited our grandson in Houston to come down.

Currently paying $3.77 in Norman OK. Your thoughts?

Because this is not a gas price forum.

 

[kingtj]

Here's my biggest concern with the EV push
1) where is the sustainable power coming from? Currently the dependence on fossil fuel to produce power is a net zero loss.
2) the batteries are storage units. They store energy and the infrastructure needed will take decades to create, while squeezing the gas industry out...lobbyists will fight this tooth and nail further dragging this out
3) the material required to create said batteries comes from very precious minerals, all mined in countries we do not play well with...the average operations require 500 tons of dirt moved for one battery....that's not very green.
4) like ANY battery it has a depreciating half life...it will eventually fail to hold a charge. Where do you "dump" all of these used batteries once they fail?
I don't see EV as a solution. I see a current movement to force change before the system is functional. All the mandates are not making this better

There's a lot to consider and I bet like many things, you can try to skew the math in your favor, whether you want to try to argue for or against electric?

On the "pro EV" side? I'd say the following?

- Electricity used to recharge your car comes from multiple sources. I know 40% or so was from nuclear power plants in some cities and in others, hydroelectric power is a portion of it too. Those are "greener" sources than burning fossil fuels.
- There's some increased efficiency/savings in centrally generating the power you're using, vs filling up at a station with gasoline that had to be hauled there by a tanker truck AFTER it was refined into usable gasoline from crude oil at a refinery, who got said crude oil from other tanker trucks who transported it from cargo ships that took it across the globe from the source. (Even if you're burning coal for a power plant? At least that coal came out of the ground in the same country the plant is located in, and was largely transported by rail, which is more efficient for moving it all.)
- Optionally, people may put solar panels on their roofs, which would typically generate at least as much electricity as what they use to recharge an electric car.
- Worn out battery packs can be recycled, rather than just dumped. And because of those fairly rare materials inside them, that's worth doing. Obviously, that's still a process that needs to be scaled up further. (Tesla is recycling their own batteries, but they also build their own batteries. Many other auto-makers don't, and source them from companies like LG who may not really recycle theirs just yet.)

The mandates are terrible though, as I said in my previous post. (People seem to quickly forget history, like when the Clinton administration mandated that a domestic auto-maker produce an all electric car. GM released their "EV1" which was only leased ... not sold outright, and only marketed in California back then. It was such a flop and unprofitable for GM, they wound up burying just about all of them in landfills and tried to make the whole project vanish! You can still find one or two on display at electric car expos - but I believe most remaining EV1s have missing parts so they're non-drivable. GM gave a few to colleges and universities under those conditions.)

 

[ScareCrow]

Even pedal/throttle/RPM aggression will improve costs. Longer coasting to early stops,.smooth roll on the gas all add up. I try to keep RPM below 2000 when possible and it makes a difference. Expressway, set the cruise stay near 72. Yeah 77 is faster but it's a brick...less is more over 200 miles. A year in and gas is getting expensive. We.are.near $4 a gallon. Death Valley CA a week ago on a hiking adventure????

This say's it all............

 

[13MikeH]

This say's it all............

its all wonderful, this is what our country needs to help us on our path to green energy
Sincerely
~the teleprompter

 

[bronco_Banks]

I wouldn't see why not. Jeep just released their info on the 4xE model of their Rubicon. Hybrids are going to be more and more common I'm sure now that they are becoming more accessible with various manufacturers. I feel that Hybrids will come more mainstream well before full electric vehicles do.

I went from a 2009 Ford Escape hybrid to my BS OB and I am already dreading the mileage costs associated filling up every week and a half versus every two-three weeks because I don’t drive a lot. The creature comforts and luxuries are worth it, but by golly it’s going to be painful.

 

[Major Kong]

 

[13MikeH]

I went from a 2009 Ford Escape hybrid to my BS OB and I am already dreading the mileage costs associated filling up every week and a half versus every two-three weeks because I don’t drive a lot. The creature comforts and luxuries are worth it, but by golly it’s going to be painful.

hopefully a hybrid option is around the corner. My son just started with a major supplier to Ford...he works with Ranger setup and Bronco/Sport...keep an eye out.

 

[Desert Bronco.]

Everything cycles around. Always changing. As someone else said, just ride it out.

It’s over $6 a gallon at the pumps in California. I’m not blaming anyone in political circles. But it’s more expensive now than before, which has spurred inflation. I just bought a loaf of sourdough bread for $9 and a second loaf of artesian bread ?. Spent over $20. Real estate in most places has doubled and tripled, mostly due to Covid, supply chain shortages. This brings me to my next point. I tYpically drive my 2004 F-150 around town and I get 8-10 mpg. The fuel F-150 tank holds 35 gallons. 35x6=$210 to fill my tank

 

[cgparsons1983]

I really think electric is a great option as we move forward, but it has to grow organically. If government gets involved and tries to push/mandate/incentivize it to artificially boost EV sales beyond what would sell normally each year? It will cause the exact problem you speak of here.

I'll just admit here that I'm a Tesla owner myself (Model 3 Performance) and I owned a used Model S and even a used Model X for a little while before trading for the 3. I've always owned at least one regular gasoline powered vehicle along with the Tesla though, because I don't believe there's ever such as thing as "one perfect vehicle for all purposes".

I do a lot of driving with both a fairly long commute and a side gig doing a lot of food delivery. So the Tesla is great for all of that. (Their app on your phone calculates what you actually spend on electricity each month for all your driving. And it's typically just under $50 a month for me.) No oil changes needed for it either.

But I can tell you, on a longer road trip across multiple states? An EV will almost double the length of time it takes you to arrive. Tesla has plenty of supercharging stations strategically spaced out along all the major highways, so that part is ok. But in 8 hours of driving, you're probably looking at stopping 3-4 times to recharge (since you don't want to let it get TOO low on battery, AND you probably don't want to charge it ALL the way up either -- since that last 20% or so of charging happens a lot slower than the rest of it). You might time a couple of those stops with a lunch and dinner break - so that's not bad. But if you're in some kind of time crunch and you want to only stop for the bio-breaks and 5 minute fuel-ups to get back on the road ASAP? Yeah, the Tesla isn't a great choice.

And sure, if we made everyone go electric "overnight"? The power company would have zero time to build out the infrastructure to support it all. They can make it work for everyone, I'm sure. But it needs to grow slowly, as more people buy an electric car over a span of time.

I was interested in electric vehicles for a while until I realized all batteries are far less efficient in cold weather and that they take much longer to charge. A large portion of people live in cold climate areas. Here in Boise, more than half the year is cold, and sometimes it goes below zero. I assume that would massively decrease the amount of miles you can get on a single charge, while at the same time dramatically increase the amount of strain on the power grid. Not only that but in order to charge an electric vehicle, somewhere out there a turbine is being spun and it's running on oil. Therefore, an electric vehicle still uses oil to charge itself.

I know cold impacts gas engines as well, but I would assume it's not nearly as bad as electric. The truth is there is no replacement for oil. Even with an electric vehicle, a single car tire needs around 7 gallons of oil. The food we eat is wrapped in plastic that is made with oil, huge amounts of oil are required just to transport goods. If the oil is gone, electric won't do a damn thing because there is nothing on this planet that can replace it.

Look at how closely linked population growth is to oil production, most of us are only alive because of oil production. Without it, most of us will cease to exist. The other problem is NONE of us truly know how much oil is left. We just have to shrug and go on with our daily lives.

 

[SportWest]

while at the same time dramatically increase the amount of strain on the power grid.

Large swaths of the population are divorced from primary production of calories and goods, and can indulge in wishful thinking because of this fact.

We're finally seeing an uptick but total capacity has hovered around 4,000 billion kWh for a decade. I'm not an expert by any means, but what's the plan here? [1]

Ford and other companies will play an important role in "squeezing" more work out of each unit of fuel input with, e.g., gasoline-electric hybrids, until more capacity comes online (years lead time).

[1] As with all "quantity" charts related to energy, this ignores "quality" of kWh source. I submit that nuclear is > all non-hydro renewable, especially if your objective is to reliably electrify the vehicle fleet.

Sponsored