Tag Archives: electric-cars

My One Year Evaluation on the Nissan EV

Posted in Electectric vehicles, Electric Automobiles, Uncategorized by

So many things to say and I have no idea where to start. So I guess I will just start.

First, I would not recommend this car as a primary family vehicle. If It truly had a 210 mile maximum range, maybe. However, this is optimistic at best. If the weather is good, it would likely make it. However, on warm or cold days, the electric power of the environment system would use maybe 10 to 15 percent of the battery power, more for short trips. I will say, I wished I had the resources to buy the model that had the 300 mile range. It also had hands free driving. Unfortunately, it cost 10,000 more, which I did not have.

A minor point, but very important point. They highly recommend that you don’t charge the battery past 80% and that you don’t recharge it until it is below 20%. This means, if you follow the recommendations, you need to stay within the 60% in between. Moreover, they recommend you don’t use the high speed charger too frequently. The batteries last longer when they are charged slowly.

Now let’s say you want to use the car to drive back and forth to work. You start out with a full battery and when you get back home, you check the battery. 48%. Now, do you recharge early or do you just run out of energy on the way home from work the next day? I don’t know about you, but I would recharge the battery every day.

The above assumes that you left to work on the first day with a full battery. If you start out with 80%, then when you arrive home, you will only have about 20%. I guess that makes it work. Still, I’d just as soon not cut it that close. Given the number of chargers around, I get nervous when the indicator shows I have less that 40%. Besides, it all needs to be recalculated if you get the 300 mile model.

Now. Let’s look at another scenario. Your car has 41%. You need to go on a 50 mile trip. That means you will need to go 100 miles total. Do you want to recharge the battery before you leave, early. Or do you recharge it before you leave. If you recharge to 80%. then you will have 120 mile range. That will give you a forty mile margin. If you follow the guidelines, you start off on your trip and drive there and half way back. Sorry.

For me, and likely many retired people like me, it’s a good car. I think I spend about half what I would spend on gas. I don’t change oil or change engine air filters. I don’t know what a filter goes for nowadays, but I would guess I could go a few hundred miles by paying for the electricity instead.

Don’t make any mistakes. The original cost of the car is a lot. You will have to drive a lot of miles to save enough to overcome the original difference in cost. If I had bought the equivalent gas powered car, I think I would have saved about 15 thousand give or take.

For me, I did the right thing. It is what I wanted and I’d do the same today. However, I would have done it much differently. I would have made sure I could charge the car at a Tesla charger. Moreover, if possible, I would have bought a smaller car. It would have been less expensive on the front end and would use less electricity. With just the two of us, we don’t need anything that big.

Considering I am retired, a smaller car would have been fine for us. Perhaps the one thing I really like the most is that, the first time I raised the hood was to put window washer solution in it. That was about 10 months after I bought it. I charge it. I drive it. That’s pretty nice. I guess it will be a while before I lift the hood again. If you like a car that does not need a whole lot of maintenance, it’s just almost perfect. My guess is that I won’t ever replace the battery. I doubt I will live that long. If I do, it will likely be 7 or 8 years. I will be over 80. I don’t know if I’ll still be driving.

I do find some to the controls frustrating. Operation of the cruise control does still aggravate me from time to time. I turn it on and let up on the “gas” and the car starts slowing. Then I realize, I forgot to turn copilot thing on first. Or, maybe I forget and turn the copilot thing off, thinking I am turning it on. I still don’t know about some of the controls. Learning how to charge the car off my house current was a hit and miss thing that really caused me a lot of grief. They should have told me how or they should have made it easier. At least they could provide a small pamphlet explaining it.

You might think this trivial, but, to me it is frustrating. The cup holders in the console are one in front of the other, not side by side. Okay. That hardly deserves a mention. The problem is that with them as they are, my wife keeps stealing my drink. Then she gets angry when I correct her.

Speaking of consoles. There is hardly any storage in it. Maybe they couldn’t put any more storage there. It just is, if there is going to be a console that large, it would be nice to have some storage in it. If not, do away with it. As something of a big man, I’d just as soon have the space.

I don’t know about others, but I find it difficult to enter destinations into the GPS system. It seems to assume I know the address of the destination. As an aside, it was of very little use when I tried to find the Social Security office in Hernando. I spent 45 minutes looking for the place.

I guess I can’t complain a lot about that. When I mentioned it to people at the Social Security office, they said everyone else that uses a GPS has the same problem. The crazy thing kept sending me down I-55 to Coldwater. I used a lot of battery trying to find that place.

The car heats up to 120-130 degrees in the hot sun. Nothing new there. However, it really taxes the air-conditioner for a while. Maybe a good exhaust fan would be in order to run 90 degree air though it for 5-6 minutes. It would also use a lot less energy. Much more efficient to cool 90 degree air than 120 degree air…faster too.

I will say this about the car. With the environment system off, with the radio off, when I go down the road, it seems I am coasting. I don’t hear anything but the air going by at 70 mph. (well maybe 72)

There is one more thing I am eventually going to have to find out. How much the windshield will cost. I didn’t even see it happen. However some rock came in contact with the window and don’t like that. They didn’t even let the car last out the year. It’s just not right.

Just thought of two more things I wish they put on the car that wouldn’t have cost them much. First, a readout on the current cabin temperature. Not much but I guess I will need to buy something.

Second, while the car is charging, there is no way to see the charge level without turning the car on. Sort of inconvenient.

It does make me wonder, did they leave these things off out of choice or did they just not think of it? Would they pay any attention to me if I suggested it?

The Real Problems With EVs

Posted in Electric Automobiles, EVs, Gas vs Electric, Going Green by

It’s not just how many charge stations there are, but what kind they are and how reliable are they. Where I am located, there is a wealth of charging stations for Teslas or Tesla compatible cars. For the type I need, not so much. I have looked at the maps showing charge stations, but I have found one common question, are they compatible.

So, I start out on my trip to Fort Smith say. A three hundred mile trip. That means, at least one stop to charge on the way, one charge after I get there and one charge on the way home. Okay. Fine. We can stop over to get a bite to eat while charging. That might work. I don’t know.

However, I get to that spot in Little Rock where they say there is a charge station. That gives me a fifty mile cushion which is fine. But when I get there, I find out the charge station is for Teslas. Now what do I do? Even more, are there any places in Little Rock where I can charge my car. I don’t know. I cannot find out for sure.

Maybe that means we only buy Teslas. Does that mean all other car manufacturer must just put the padlock on the door and close up shop. Remember, only electric cars in 20 or 30 miles.

I don’t know. I have had my Nissan for about six months now, and I have found it is difficult if not impossible to determine which chargers are compatible and which ones are not. Even if they are compatible, can I access the charger? I have heard that with an adapter, I can charge my car with a Tesla charger, but that has two problems. First their chords are too short. more over, if I could use a Tesla charger, as near as I can tell, it would only be a level two charger. I don’t know for sure, but I think that is a 5 or 6 hour charge time.

It’s beside the point. The real problem is that it seems no one wants to talk about it. I didn’t know anything about it until I started looking for charging stations. No one told me. I was told it was as simple as getting an adapter and plug it in. What if I am down to 10 percent and then I find out it doesn’t work?

I was told I can charge at home. It works. It really does. However, there are limits. At a 120 volts, it’s close to two days for a 10% to 80%. I can have a level 2 installed having 220. Only, finding someone to do it is not so easy. I haven’t had an estimate, but I know electricians do like to make a bunch of money. Moreover, I am not totally comfortable with the 120. I have to use an extension cord which gets a little warm.

The car is wonderful. I love it. I love driving it. I just wish I could feel comfortable driving farther than 80 miles from home.

I don’t know, but I would guess any charging stations will be along the interstates. So, I guess that means we who own electric cars will have to stay close to the interstates or carry gas powered generators. If it remains that way, the electric cars will fade, likely very fast. Now one will like a car that will not be able to carry them on a visit to Grandma’s.

Mostly, the government should post where and what kind of chargers are available. Those who hope to sell the vehicles should do what they can to make the same info available. My best guess. it would really be nice to have the chargers work with one car as well as another. Compatibility is one of the biggest problems in many industries. EVs are no exception. Can you imagine people buying gas powered cars if that can’t find gasoline?

Not in My Lifetime

Posted in Electric Automobiles, Gas vs Electric, Going Green by

The declaration has been made. It has been determinedgames. couple of short decades, maybe a tad more, cars made in the US will not have internal combustion engines. I would argue the point. In fact I have very vigorously. Can’t see how that will happen, but the more I argued the point the less people listened.

So, I have accepted the inevitable. In fact, I bought an electric car. For me, it is really working out well. Considering how little I drive, it is wonderful. About every 4th day, I plug it in and go quietly motoring right by all the gas stations, which brings me to the real object of this post, gas stations.

Can you foresee it, the gradual fading away of something that polkadoted our landscape since, oh, about 1905 or 1910, I guess. Some would have to remain for some gas powered vehicles: trucks, buses, police cars, ambulances, etc, etc, and so forth.

The proverbial gas station will fade, fade away. We can and will likely fight it. However, those ecologist do seem unstoppable.

This means the service station will need to change or go out of business. It makes me wonder what it will be like, though I’ll not ever see it in my lifetime. Oh, I will see a little change here and there. But just how things will be are decades away, maybe longer. To be sure, obstacles will be encountered. Problems will have to be solved.

The way I see it, the biggest problem is charge time. Mostly, it slows the long trip. Let’s say I want to go see the Grand Canyon. It’s around 1500 miles from here. If I have a car that has a 300 mile range, it means at least 5 stops to recharge, more likely 6. That does assume recharge stations are located at ideal spots along the way. Right now, that means each stop must be a minimum of 30 minutes. That does not count time waiting for a charging station. You see that family that left this area 2 minutes before me will get to that charging station before me. That means waiting 30 minutes for him to finish charging his car.

Now, let’s look at the converted recharge station. Instead of 10 pumps, it now has 10 rechargers. Instead of taking 5 minutes to refill a gas tank we’re looking at 30 minutes, six times longer to recharge the cars.

I guess we won’t have as much gas stations, but likely 5 or 6 times as many charging stations.

I suppose this problem might be somewhat resolved with a charging system that is a lot faster. That does, of course, leave those in the future with 2 more problems. Distribution of that much electricity without a big improvement to the grid. The second problem is generating that much electricity without making a bunch of greenhouse gasses.