Fulltiming with an EV

[Kirk W]

The fact is that as more and more of the traffic becomes hybrid, electric, or even high mileage cars, the revenue is not going to be enough to pay for road construction and maintenance. Like it or not, if we want good roads, at some point we are going to have to pay for them. While I don't have an electric car or a hybrid, I do drive a car most of the time that is averaging more than 36 mpg around town and in the low 40's when on the highway. In 1980 the average automobile was 21.4 mpg and today it is about 24.9 mpg. There is little doubt that figure will continue to increase in the immediate future. 

Any way that you cut things, the wear on highways comes from miles driven and not from which kind of fuel powers your car. I happen to be an advocate of toll roads because it means that those who use them also pay their costs. But tolls will not resolve all of the problems as city streets need funding too. 

[stripit]

So far I have not taken my Tesla Model X along to a campground but am looking at a way to plug it into the 50 amp service in the motorhome. I can get only 2-3 miles per hour back into the battery with a 110 power, but 40 miles per hour back in with a 50 amp Tesla plug in my garage. Just a normal 50 amp plug shoud give me about 20 ish miles per hour.  Full charge I'm showing 352 miles range. If need be with the adapters i have I could charge at most any chare point. They seem to be adding those charge points more and more.

[jcussen]

45 minutes ago, stripit said:

So far I have not taken my Tesla Model X along to a campground but am looking at a way to plug it into the 50 amp service in the motorhome. I can get only 2-3 miles per hour back into the battery with a 110 power, but 40 miles per hour back in with a 50 amp Tesla plug in my garage. Just a normal 50 amp plug shoud give me about 20 ish miles per hour.  Full charge I'm showing 352 miles range. If need be with the adapters i have I could charge at most any chare point. They seem to be adding those charge points more and more.

Have Model 3  and have thought about the wife driving it and  charging at superchargers and just following me down the road in my coach, but have not done it yet.

[rynosback]

1 hour ago, stripit said:

So far I have not taken my Tesla Model X along to a campground but am looking at a way to plug it into the 50 amp service in the motorhome. I can get only 2-3 miles per hour back into the battery with a 110 power, but 40 miles per hour back in with a 50 amp Tesla plug in my garage. Just a normal 50 amp plug shoud give me about 20 ish miles per hour.  Full charge I'm showing 352 miles range. If need be with the adapters i have I could charge at most any chare point. They seem to be adding those charge points more and more.

This is why I started this thread. Your motor home has a 50 amp female plug? You must have some sort of super smart management system that can allow the max amount of power to be drawn from campground between the changes of what your rig needs and then sending the rest to the charger for the car.  Not to over load the pedestal. Could you please inform me of what that system is? If my rig is plugged into the 50 amp service the car will not be able to. Hence the problem that I explained in the first post. That a 110 outlet would take FOREVER to charge up an EV. 

[RV_]

Just stop at a Supercharger en route. If it's on a trailer. Or being driven.

[Kirk W]

4 hours ago, RV_ said:

Just stop at a Supercharger en route.

I see those at some interesting locations. Is there a charge for using them?

[RV_]

Yes there is a charge KIrk. The best way it was described to me is that using the Superchargers is cheaper than having a gas or diesel to fuel for the same miles, and charging at home is even cheaper than Superchargers.

There are some cars sold with lifetime free supercharger use, still honored even  when that car is resold as used.

The Superchargers are not for daily local use but on trips. Your car will navigate you to the next one if you ask it to.

Once again there is a charge for charging. The Superchargers are the fastest giving a full charge in an hour from empty. Destination chargers, are slower because they are at places the user will stay at longer like zoos, sports stadiums, theme parks, marinas etc.

At home my charger charges at 29-30 miles per hour. If I buy the Tesla wall charger for home at $750, it was $500 when I bought mine, I can charge at 50 miles per hour.

I don't drive any car enough to warrant that expense. My totally full car has a range of 316 miles. I bought a new 2019 Subaru Forester in March 2019. Then moved here in May 2019 with my diesel Ram hauling a big trailer of stuff the movers don't take. I stayed here a week to help get boxes stacked and went back to sell the truck and house. I only had the Forester there and Lynn had the 2006 Subaru Baja here. The Forester was my only vehicle from May to Nov 1st when I got here for good after selling the house. I drove it here ~ 900 miles, and by March of this year I had less than 6k miles on it! If I drove the same that would have been ~15 charges in a year for my Tesla.

Edited August 4, 2020 by RV_

[docj]

8 minutes ago, RV_ said:

The Superchargers are the fastest giving a full charge in an hour from empty.

Call me set in my ways, but I view 30-60 minutes for charging when I'm on a long day's drive to be an annoyance compared to 5-10 minutes (or less) for gassing up.  Sure, we can learn to change our ways and we can try to time recharging with meal breaks, etc, but it still takes longer no matter how you slice it.JMO

[RV_]

I never drove more than 200 miles in a day full time RVing, always arrived by 2 pm without reservations (1997-2003,) and always stayed two days to have a day after arrival to explore the area.

I called that the RV Roadie 2 X 2 X 2 rule. It worked for us.

We had our dog with us and my wife with kidneys the size of lentils. We would take a break for lunch that was  about an hour to walk the dog, stretch our legs, and if ewe had a Tesla chase car it would be fully charged.

I am a disabled vet 30% with lumbar and cervical problems service connected and I will never drive 12-18 hours straight again like I did in my 20s, 30s, and 40s traveling around the world with the USAF. Two hours and break then two hours and camp worked great for us. Of course that was after the first year out when we did drive too long like we were on vacation and had to rush before we had to go back to work. That did take a year to get over and learn to travel as a full time RVr.

Everywhere we went we got friendly harassment that at 45 we were too young to be retired and to go back to work! I did from boredom from Jan 2005- December 2009.

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by RV_

[RV_]

20 minutes ago, docj said:

Call me set in my ways, but I view 30-60 minutes for charging when I'm on a long day's drive to be an annoyance compared to 5-10 minutes (or less) for gassing up.  Sure, we can learn to change our ways and we can try to time recharging with meal breaks, etc, but it still takes longer no matter how you slice it.JMO

Joel,

Diesel Light duty trucks or HDTs are not for everyone either. Add up the time just taking it in for service and maintenance, and going on chemical soaked concrete or with diesel fuel in the diesel lane. It's fine with me Joel whatever you prefer for you.

It seems we are both tickled with our vehicles. I am anyway.

[RV_]

[docj]

33 minutes ago, RV_ said:

Diesel Light duty trucks or HDTs are not for everyone either. Add up the time just taking it in for service and maintenance, and going on chemical soaked concrete or with diesel fuel in the diesel lane.

I wasn't even thinking about trucks or RVs or messy diesel fuel.  My comment had to do only with cars and was an observation that when I am taking a long car trip I would find it annoying to have to spend 30-60 minutes at a Supercharger waiting to get charged, assuming I didn't have to wait to use the charger.    

No one is criticizing your enjoyment of your EV.  I'm sure that many of us will own them eventually.  All I'm noting is that EVs aren't the be all and end all of all the world's transportation problems.  As long as the electricity they use is even partially generated by fossil-fuel burning power plants, they aren't as beneficial to the environment as many people believe and using them will entail compromises and changes in behavior as I've noted here.  If I were on a 500 mile car ride from DC to Boston, as I have been many times, I wouldn't want to kill an hour waiting to get a charge.  JMO.

[RV_]

I did not take it as criticism, was it?

 

[rynosback]

16 hours ago, RV_ said:

Just stop at a Supercharger en route. If it's on a trailer. Or being driven.

Defeating the objective. 

[Kirk W]

I really like that Dodge/Cummins warning label. In fact, I kept a copy of it. 

My son recently drove a Tesla owned by a coworker and was very impressed, while I have yet to see one close enough to really examine it. With the prices that they are charging, I just can't see that much expenditure at this point in my life. (78 in two months). I have a good friend who has a Chevy Bolt that he is very happy with and while I could afford that, I still have a hard time justifying the $37k to buy one. We just this past Feb. bought a 2019 VW, Jetta, with 28k miles from Enterprise Rentals for $14k with a 90 day complete warranty and the remainder of the manufacturer's 72k warranty. Yes, it does use gasoline but at an average of 38.2 mpg for all of our driving so far, we can buy a lot of gasoline for the difference in price. 

And I'll keep my 2003 Dodge/Cummins for as long as we keep the travel trailer. 

[RV_]

If you mean charging while sleeping yes I suppose it does. You could do a hybrid. where most of your short trips are electric and only after 10,15, or 20 miles (don't get me lying, I am not hybrid edumacated) do they use fuel. There are a few new models coming out of every type of vehicle. I think we approached it as not telling you you can't, instead seeing every which way it could work for you. Like when I had to sell my full dresser bike because there was no way to carry it on my fiver or truck. Sometimes we can't, sometimes we won't, and sometimes we can.

Paying for the charging at a park maybe?

Sometimes we can't, sometimes we won't, and sometimes we can. I only know that if I don't ask, no one can ever say yes!

[RV_]

KIrk,

I got that Cummins Ram label online too.You know I had all Ram Diesels from before full timing in 1997. That truck with good maintenance will last at least the 700k miles my old Cummins 92 1 ton long bed dually 12 valve did. If it were mine, a good after market higher pressure lift pump to be sure you don't burn up the injector pump and even have to replace the injectors. As I did on my 2004.5 last 3/4 ton. Just the lift pump. No mods or programming for me.

Edited August 5, 2020 by RV_

[lappir]

Looking at an older Zero motorcycle. It needs a battery rebuild, but seems perfect for a back and forth to work Bike. I am usually not more than a 20 minute ride. Waiting to see what they think of my gas powered trade. 

Rod

[RV_]

Which model Zero! I just looked, Amazing!  https://www.motorcycle.com/specs/zero/on-off-road/2020/fxs/zf3-6-modular/detail.html

[RV_]

BTW Kirk, the Model Y I have is nowhere near a "Basic model," it has dual motors/AWD, the long rang batteries and it is only $10 k more now than the Bolt. Mine as spec'd is now $49k, not the big bucks of the Model X.

I did not choose to pay the extra $7k for full self driving to be turned on, as I can add that anytime over the air. See they come with all of the hardware needed so it is just a software upgrade if/when I want it. Once the bugs are worked out of self driving I can order it and not have to hang up my keys at some point should I live that long.

I am happy with autopilot in town for staying with the car in front and stopping/starting up again with traffic. Much better than the adaptive cruise control on my Forester, which impressed me when it was my primary vehicle. But it is nowhere as easy to use as the Tesla. MY thinking was that by the time I have 8 years on it I may be able to double the range on it with the new batteries being announced on battery day in about 10 days:

Excerpt:

"Battery Day will take place on Tuesday, September 22, immediately after Tesla's 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. It will be streamed live, so keep an eye on Tesla's Twitter, website and YouTube.

What is likely to be revealed?

The news likely to generate the most headlines is a so-called "million mile" battery back, which would extend the range an electric vehicle can handle over its lifetime.

Musk said at a Tesla event last year that new batteries would likely go into production this year and would be "designed explicitly for one million miles of operation."

In theory, they will offer higher-capacity power packs at a reduced overall cost—which should bring down the cost for consumers, opening up the luxury brand to those who previously couldn't afford the financial barrier-to-entry. It may also cut recycling costs. Electrek reported in 2019 that Tesla was working on a "battery recycling system."

More in the article here: https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-teases-tesla-battery-day-while-saying-bill-gates-has-no-clue-about-electric-cars-1531640

[jcussen]

You are never too old for an EV, bought a used Tesla Model 3  two years ago for less than what I have been paying for the used Porsches and MB's I usually buy. Paid about $9000 for a house solar system to charge the car and run fridges and freezers, and a small AC.. Figure 3 years to pay off the solar in gas and grid electricity savings, then another 4 or 5  to make the car free. I might not make it that far, but the kids will be happy I made the investment. 

[RV_]

Yep, a rush, at any age, is still a rush!

My kids will too I think.

[lappir]

8 hours ago, RV_ said:

Which model Zero! I just looked, Amazing!  https://www.motorcycle.com/specs/zero/on-off-road/2020/fxs/zf3-6-modular/detail.html

It's an older model that with further research seems to have been originally marketed as a "MX" Motorcross bike. It has full lighting including turn signals but I cannot find a photo of one on line with the name listed on the side of the bike. 

I stopped at the shop late Saturday. The shop was closed and the "person in charge was out racing" over the weekend. They were also closed Monday as many shops used to be. 

I'm hoping for an email today with information regarding the purchase. I won't be able to get back to the bikes location for 8 weeks or the first part of November. 

In an nonelectric (so far) less than 4 wheeler, I did purchase a recumbent trike during my trip too. Took it on it's first real ride yesterday and think I will look into adding an electric assist to the front wheel. Have found some YouTube's of a company that was doing it a few years ago. I like to ride, but do not like to ride 1/2 miles per hour climbing hills. I get half way up and decide to turn around and coast back down and find a more flat route.  

Rod

[RV_]

Rod,

That is great. Keep us posted as I had planned an electric bicycle like the Rad but not a motorcycle. The ones I am looking at can haul a 220 pound big guy like me at 30 mph for over 100 miles! I spoke with their head of marketing who also is part of the design crew. He rides one and weighs 250! 

[lappir]

15 hours ago, RV_ said:

Rod,

That is great. Keep us posted as I had planned an electric bicycle like the Rad but not a motorcycle. The ones I am looking at can haul a 220 pound big guy like me at 30 mph for over 100 miles! I spoke with their head of marketing who also is part of the design crew. He rides one and weighs 250! 

Thanks, 

I have looked at (from a distance) the electric bicycles and have declined so far. I haven't heard from the dealer yet but will give them a call later today. It will be November before I will be in the area to pick it up. 

Rod