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Samsung’s 20-year-life EV battery runs 600 miles on 9-minute charge
(interestingengineering.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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That is the case for some people but cases like that are pretty rare. There is no way I could do a drive like that. Current EVs are fine for the vast majority of people but there is the rare family that makes 900 mile trips once our twice a year. For those instances like yours, I'd suggest renting an ICE one or twice a year if you wanted to switch to an EV for your larger vehicle or get a plug in hybrid.
Definitely swap out that commuter car. A used Bolt is pretty darn cheap. I did some math and replacing our Prius C with one would save $1200/year in gas costs. And then there are oil change costs that you save and a few others.
Yeah, I've been looking at them, and it's something like $13k, which is definitely in the reasonable range of prices, especially since I can probably get $5k for my current car.
However, I'm worried about battery issues. People claim it's fixed, but I'll be parking mine in my garage and there's a lot of flammable stuff in there. So I'm a little hesitant. I don't need to ever fast charge it since I only drive like 200 miles per week (and never more than 100 miles in a day, usually like 50), so trickle charging should be totally fine. If I can confirm that, I might just do the swap. Or maybe I'll get a Leaf, which is in a similar price range used.
Our gas and electricity costs are pretty low ($3.50/gal and $0.12-0.13/kWh), so even at $13k, the Bolt would still need ~10 years to pay back for itself (and that's not counting the opportunity cost of investing that money). I'm still tempted based purely on the convenience factor (never needing to go to a gas station again), but it's not a slam dunk yet. If the car dies, I'll certainly replace the commuter with an EV though, I would just rather avoid the hassle of listing and selling my current car.
From a purely climate perspective, it's probably better for me to replace our family car. We get ~20mpg, and hybrids would get 30-40mpg, and a plug-in would get emissions-free for most of our around-town trips. That car is only used for very short trips (<20 miles) or long trips (>200 miles), with almost nothing in-between. But those cars are super expensive right now, so I'm watching the used market to see if I can score a deal.
I would advise against a Leaf, especially used. Nissan was great at getting a popular, cheap EV out the door but they have completely stagnated since then. The Leaf's big issue is that the battery is air cooled. That's fine if you live in Hawai'i where the temperature is in the 70s year round but places that experience heat will see a severe degradation in range relatively quickly. It's not unheard of fire a 10 year old Leaf to only get maybe a dozen miles of range. There is also the fact that it uses CHAdeMO instead of CCS for fast charge. They have finally started to make adapters but they are $1000 and are not officially supported.
If you are indeed worried about a Bolt battery, you could always park it outside. There is not a catalytic converter for thieves to rip off so being out of a garage is not a big issue in that regard.
I would agree that switching will likely not make a ton of sense for you. Thankfully in my state, they offer a rebate for EVs on top of the federal credit so a used EV for us would pay for itself in about 5 years.
I'm not worried about theft at all. My neighborhood is really boring and my city has one of the lowest crime rates in the area, with most of the crime happening on the other side of the city. It could happen, but I doubt it.
The bigger reason for the garage is climate control. It gets pretty cold in the winter (5-15F is common), and the non-insulated garage generally keeps it above freezing. That should help with the battery, as well as avoids having to scrape the windshield.
Yeah, if we had that, I'd probably jump on it. But there's a bigger chance that my vehicle registration tax will increase to offset the lack of gas tax than a rebate happening.
Another issue is that a lot of our energy comes from coal, so switching to an EV wouldn't be a a dramatic as other areas in terms of carbon footprint. I'm considering getting solar (about a 10-year payback period if I DIY), but I'll need to also replace the roof when I do, so I'm putting that off as well.
Anyway, I want an EV, but as you said, it probably doesn't make sense for me. But I do like the idea of never having to refill my commuter, which I currently need to do almost every week.
If you will EVER need to fast charge then the leaf is going to be more annoying because it has CHADeMO and not CCS
Get the bolt unless you're certain that'll never be a problem even once, it's seriously not worth it anymore
Source: longtime happy leaf owner who hates CHADeMO as it cannot be easily converted to CCS like NACS can
I can't think of a reason I ever would, it's going to charge in my garage 100% of the time, with the only exception being if my company installs charging stations. But they're about the same price used, so maybe I'll just go for the Bolt. I just need to do a bit more research to see if the battery issues happen when doing level 1 charging, since that's what I intend to do in my garage.