Electric and Hybrid Car Thread

[JDMDreams]

^^ same, I'm on the fence about going full electric or phev. But then the plug in rav 4 is still a while away and I think it might be in model 3 price range?

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by nabs

Me and the wife are heavily considering a Tesla 3 over the next couple months. I can say for sure that our next vehicle will be an electric. I gotta figure out the strata stuff with the charging station etc.

I want to take advantage of all the incentives offered right now too.

This is key. So far, a lot of strata's are old school and refuse to allow EV charging in the common areas and won't allow ppl to put in their own EV chargers.

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by Hehe

If anything, the range is going to drop further because snows are stickier than regular tires.

One recommendation to optimize range in cold weather is try to keep it warm as in leaving the car indoor/covered as much as you possibly can. The constant heating the car up takes huge amount of energy. By keeping the car in a covered parking, even if it only brings a few degrees of difference, it saves tons of power heating the car up again.

Alternatively, try to make more efficient trips... so, try to not go a place, stop the car for a while, go another, leave the car for a while again. Because you are constantly leaving the car to cool and make it to warm up again. Instead, go to a single place where you can get many things done there.

It will be interesting to see because my RE71R's are very soft in the summer and they were shorter diameter by a hair compared to the ECO tires and my range only dropped about 5%.
I suspect my range might improve with the snow tires as less friction (less contact patch) but the cold temps is really hurting the batteries efficiency.

I'm using the butt warmers and heated steering wheel so not a lot of energy is being used to heat the cabin.

[Hehe]

Originally Posted by nabs

Me and the wife are heavily considering a Tesla 3 over the next couple months. I can say for sure that our next vehicle will be an electric. I gotta figure out the strata stuff with the charging station etc.

I want to take advantage of all the incentives offered right now too.

Not sure about your strata, the one my friend is in actually has an outlet running to every other spot. And they retrofit the regular plug to NEMA 14-50 for anyone looking to go EV for a small fee (like a few hundred).

If your garage already have plugs (each linked directly to tenants own meter), that might be the way to go. You can get the plug adapter for the Tesla charger that comes with car for like $50 or less. And on a SR+ M3, it charges at 32amps@220v or roughly 50km for an hour of charging.

[Jmac]

Not an EV, but I get about 8.3-8.4 L/100 km with my all season tires and 8.7-8.8 L/100 km with my winter tires. Logged every month since 2015. Surprisingly consistent.

[CorneringArtist]

Originally Posted by J-Chow

I noticed this on my 2020 Corolla Hybrid. When I first picked up the vehicle in May 2019, I was consistently getting 4.2L/100km , which equates to 1000 km range.

Now that the temperature has dropped, and it takes longer to warm up the engine, I've seen my MPG change to 5.5L / 100km, which equates to 850km range.

Drastic change I'd say.

Drops like these are expected in the winter. I've gone from 5.5 to 6.5, however other factors that may affect the gas engine running in addition to requiring warm up is the use of accessories like the front/rear defog. A/C compressor runs on the front, and for some reason to power the rear defrost it cycles the engine longer.

[nabs]

Originally Posted by SumAznGuy

This is key. So far, a lot of strata's are old school and refuse to allow EV charging in the common areas and won't allow ppl to put in their own EV chargers.

I'm in a fairly new building. I want to see what they say. It's kind of dumb to limit people, especially if the tenant would be paying for the infrastructure that could be extended when others decide to get EV's in the future.

[!LittleDragon]

Originally Posted by CorneringArtist

Drops like these are expected in the winter. I've gone from 5.5 to 6.5, however other factors that may affect the gas engine running in addition to requiring warm up is the use of accessories like the front/rear defog. A/C compressor runs on the front, and for some reason to power the rear defrost it cycles the engine longer.

Winter blend fuel is also less energy dense.

[Bender Unit]

Anyone install a EV charger in their own Garage ?
What's the cost ??

[Hehe]

Originally Posted by Bender Unit

Anyone install a EV charger in their own Garage ?
What's the cost ??

It depends on your panel location and what kind of charger you need.

I installed a NEMA 14-50 plug in the garage for $300 (labor+parts) to run from the panel to where I want the plug to be (panel's also in the garage, but about a good 6-8fts away) with a 50amp breaker.

When I inquired if I wanted to put the Tesla wall charger, the tech quoted me about 500 (labor and parts, but wall charger is extra) with a 80amp breaker (which is the max he'd suggest after doing a load calculation)

[Koflach]

Originally Posted by Bender Unit

Anyone install a EV charger in their own Garage ?
What's the cost ??

My neighbour who is an electrician did it for $100 in parts. It took him about an hour to do as the fuse panel was on the other side of the garage from the plug I had installed. I am just using the charger that came with the car so i'm not sure how much extra (if any) it would have cost for the Wall Charger.

[Manic!]

Petrocan has completed it's electric highway project. They now have 50 charging stations across Canada so you can drive across Canada.

https://www.pumptalk.ca/ev-and-ev-charging/

Canada’s Electric Highway™ covers 6300 km. The maximum distance between charging stations is 250 km, and on average it is 150 km between stations. Each site features DC fast chargers with both CHAdeMO and CCS/SAE connectors, which support a broad selection of vehicles. The chargers can provide up to a 200 kilowatt charge – enough to provide an 80 per cent charge to most EVs in less than 30 minutes. The units are also capable of 350 kilowatt charging with future upgrades.

[Badhobz]

Question for all the guys here with autopilot. Can it drive itself in the city ? Or twisty roads or in the rain ? I’m asking because the wife is interested in getting it IF it’s able to automatically drive itself on west Vancouver’s marine drive. That street going to horseshoe bay is twisty and narrow and she hates driving it.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

Question for all the guys here with autopilot. Can it drive itself in the city ? Or twisty roads or in the rain ? I’m asking because the wife is interested in getting it IF it’s able to automatically drive itself on west Vancouver’s marine drive. That street going to horseshoe bay is twisty and narrow and she hates driving it.

Probably best to not drive it at all as opposed to killing Somone on autopilot..

Scared to drive a twisty/narrow road...let the car do it instead..

[whitev70r]

Electric vehicles are supposed to be green, but the truth is a bit murkier

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/e...rint-1.5394126

Some EV batteries today pack 10 times as much power as an average household uses in a day. And often, those electric vehicles are being charged at home.

Most of the electricity generated by North American grids has some greenhouse gas emissions connected to it. So even if a car isn't belching carbon, it doesn't mean it's perfectly clean.

For instance, coal is about the dirtiest way to generate electricity to recharge a car battery. Powering an EV with electricity generated from coal is marginally better than burning gasoline in an internal-combustion engine, according to numbers compiled by Jennifer Dunn at Northwestern University's Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience.
Most North American grids are composed of a mix of generating sources, from coal to hydro to nuclear, though Canada has pledged to eliminate coal-burning plants by 2030.

It's only when electricity comes from clean, renewable sources like wind and solar that you see the most pronounced drop in EV emissions generated to power the car.

Before an electric vehicle even charges for the first time, however, one key part of its power system already has a significant carbon footprint.

"For example, the material that helps power the battery is produced from a number of different metals, things like nickel and cobalt and lithium."

Mining and processing the minerals, plus the battery manufacturing process, involve substantial emissions of carbon.

Lithium mining, needed to build the lithium ion batteries at the heart of today's EVs, has also been connected to other kinds of environmental harm. There have been mass fish kills related to lithium mining in Tibet, for example. The freshwater supply is being consumed by mines in South America's lithium-rich region. Even in North America, where mining regulations are strict, harsh chemicals are used to extract the valuable metal.

And all the operations are energy intensive, sometimes running on diesel generators and relying on carbon-emitting heavy machinery.

[hud 91gt]

^ is that news? I thought we all knew this. Lol Until energy production is truly green (most likely nuclear Id they can figure that out), EVs are a pipe dream for an environmentalist. They offer good performance, and for the time being cost efficient transportation (until energy costs sky rocket). But they are by no means, “green.” Just a way for us to spend our money and keep the economy rolling.

[Jmac]

Most of the studies only look at CO2-equivalent GHG emissions, but when you factor in other environmental pollutants like NOx, SO2, and fine particulate matter, it’s not even close to a modern internal combustion engine with modern emission controls.

Alberta, for example, has limits of:
0.8 kg/MWh for SO2, 0.69 kg/MWh of NOx, and 0.095 kg/MWh of PM2.5 on NEW power generating units, but existing infrastructure is allowed to operate until it’s 50 years old, so some plants will still be allowed to operate until the 2040s (under existing legislation) and those plants were built with much less stringent environmental regulations.

Meanwhile, a modern gasoline ICE engine has limits of 0 SO2, 3 mg/mile PM2.5, 125 mg/mile NMOG+NOx for Tier 3 bin 125 (which is the most common emissions standard for passenger vehicles).

If one assumes 400 hours of operation per year and 12000 miles per year (average 30 MPH/50 km/h) and average 40 hp (0.029828 MW) = 11.9312 MWh per year, 0.036 kg/year of PM2.5, 1.5 kg/year of NMOG+NOx

That’s 0 kg/MWh of SO2, 0.003 kg/MWh of PM2.5, and 0.126 kg/MWh of NMOG+NOx compared to 0.8, 0.095, and 0.69 respectively for NEW (not existing) coal-fired plants. 32x higher PM2.5 output and at least 5.5x higher NOx output per MWh

[Koflach]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

Question for all the guys here with autopilot. Can it drive itself in the city ? Or twisty roads or in the rain ? I’m asking because the wife is interested in getting it IF it’s able to automatically drive itself on west Vancouver’s marine drive. That street going to horseshoe bay is twisty and narrow and she hates driving it.

I would suggest not letting your wife drive at all.

[Koflach]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

Electric vehicles are supposed to be green, but the truth is a bit murkier

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/e...rint-1.5394126

Some EV batteries today pack 10 times as much power as an average household uses in a day. And often, those electric vehicles are being charged at home.

Most of the electricity generated by North American grids has some greenhouse gas emissions connected to it. So even if a car isn't belching carbon, it doesn't mean it's perfectly clean.

For instance, coal is about the dirtiest way to generate electricity to recharge a car battery. Powering an EV with electricity generated from coal is marginally better than burning gasoline in an internal-combustion engine, according to numbers compiled by Jennifer Dunn at Northwestern University's Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience.
Most North American grids are composed of a mix of generating sources, from coal to hydro to nuclear, though Canada has pledged to eliminate coal-burning plants by 2030.

It's only when electricity comes from clean, renewable sources like wind and solar that you see the most pronounced drop in EV emissions generated to power the car.

Before an electric vehicle even charges for the first time, however, one key part of its power system already has a significant carbon footprint.

"For example, the material that helps power the battery is produced from a number of different metals, things like nickel and cobalt and lithium."

Mining and processing the minerals, plus the battery manufacturing process, involve substantial emissions of carbon.

Lithium mining, needed to build the lithium ion batteries at the heart of today's EVs, has also been connected to other kinds of environmental harm. There have been mass fish kills related to lithium mining in Tibet, for example. The freshwater supply is being consumed by mines in South America's lithium-rich region. Even in North America, where mining regulations are strict, harsh chemicals are used to extract the valuable metal.

And all the operations are energy intensive, sometimes running on diesel generators and relying on carbon-emitting heavy machinery.

It's a good thing that our electricity comes from hyrdo electric dams then.

[Jmac]

Originally Posted by Koflach

It's a good thing that our electricity comes from hyrdo electric dams then.

Most of what we produce is from hydroelectric, but BC Hydro also purchases substantial amounts of energy from Alberta and Washington at night as brought up by the Green Party in the legislature.

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

Question for all the guys here with autopilot. Can it drive itself in the city ? Or twisty roads or in the rain ? I’m asking because the wife is interested in getting it IF it’s able to automatically drive itself on west Vancouver’s marine drive. That street going to horseshoe bay is twisty and narrow and she hates driving it.

Serious answer, no. They use camera and radar technology and in bad weather or low light, the cameras cannot pickup the lines, thus has trouble staying within the lines.

[Badhobz]

I just thought it would aid in her ability to drive that road. She occasionally clips the center meridian and it scares the shit outta me. One of these days while visiting her West van friend she’s gonna meet somebody just like her and both of them will end up in a head on collision.

[underscore]

Drivers Ed might be a better investment than a new vehicle. If she's bad now imagine how bad she'd be if the system can't do it and she has to take over after not having done it for months.

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

I just thought it would aid in her ability to drive that road. She occasionally clips the center meridian and it scares the shit outta me. One of these days while visiting her West van friend she’s gonna meet somebody just like her and both of them will end up in a head on collision.

Just for reference, here is what my drive to work was like.
6:30 am, hwy 1 and it is like a monsoon with lots of water on the road.
The adapative cruise turned off the assisted steering because of the water on the road, the camera's could figure out where the lines were.
After a while, with the heavy rain, the front radar turned off as it couldn't differeniate rain from other cars.

Now I have good old fashioned cruise control where I have to steer and brake to avoid rear ending the person in front of me.

[yray]

and since BC decided to use road paint without glass beads, cameras can't see shit