[slartibartfast01]

GBP £1.99 per litre at my local Esso this morning... which works out to USD $9.27 per US gallon. I've basically stopped using my car except for essential journies (grocery shopping, hospital / doctor / dentist / vet visits etc.), and one short recreational trip per week for my folks and I (just a few miles to local picnic spots). Crazy times...

I remember being upset when petrol went up to £2 a gallon for the first time then dropped again the following week after I had been forced to pay the higher price . The other day I actually found myself calculating whether it would be cheaper to park free in Sainsbury's rather than pay the exorbitant parking charge for a hospital car park, taking into account the extra distance I would be driving

[texandrews]

Well, this has been an interesting thread. It's waaaaay OT now, but since it remains friendly I guess it should keep running? I'm just saying this here because threads that run way OT are often shut down...

[beholder3]

Today's high gas prices will likely accelerate the switch to electric vehicles. On a $/mile basis, electric vehicles in the US pay roughly the equivalent of less than $2/gallon.

In Germany many public charging stations charge 0.65 EUR per kilowatthour even today.
And that is before the foreseeable price hikes due to self inflicted sanctions and exploding demand.
I do not think it will take long until we have prices higher than 1.5 EUR per kilowatthour.

So electric vehicles will not look that cheap.

Not even discussing limitations of the grid and the situation for people who have no easy access to charging stations, eg anyone living in multitenant buildings such as in citied.

---------- Post added 22nd Jun 2022 at 20:15 ----------

Meanwhile, my last refuel was at nearly 8$/gallon. Yay.

(The situation is basically untenable for many here - keep in mind that average gross salary in Spain is 24k€ a year. My friends with long commutes are really feeling the sting)

That said, I'm 100% sure that switching to electric vehicles en masse would make the price of electricity skyrocket. Call me cynical.

In Germany it currently is $ 10.5 per gallon.

[BigMackCam]

In Germany it currently is $ 10.5 per gallon.

Is that per imperial gallon or U.S. gallon?

[beholder3]

Is that per imperial gallon or U.S. gallon?

I used 4.54 liters per gallon as conversion factor.

Otherwise: an African swallow 😉

[Photos-by-Chas]

Thinking in the $/gallon (or Euros or pounds per gallon or liter) How does that translate in monetary unit per mile. Then add in the cost per KWH and the time needed to reach full charge, how does it look in the overall cost?

I have to travel about 600 to 650 miles one way to visit my grandchildren. I get an average of 26 mph in my vehicle giving me around 400 miles per tank, and it takes me approximately 12 to 13 hours to make the trip (including stops for eats, refill of the tank and personal needs). Usually the first fill up is around 2/3 of the distance and needs about12 to 13 gallons, costing $5 per gal is $60 to $65. It takes less than 20 minutes including a comfort break.

In an EV, that trip would require a recharge at about the half way point, taking an estimated two to four hours or more, I have no idea how many KWH that would be, so no guess on the cost, but it will make the trip closer to 14 to 20 hours made easier with an overnight stay and a couple meals, adding to the cost.

My current vehicles are in very good mechanical condition, are comfortable to drive and can make a cross country trip in much less times than any current EV. I also believe they would be less expensive in the long run to operate and allow me to see more of the nation in less time.

Basically, I am not sold on the idea of EVs being a cost effective mode of transportation, yet. Especially when it comes to cross country travel or vacation trips. I will agree with what another posted that it will be an evolutionary, not a revolutionary change. However I think it will take at least a couple decades and at 75, I'm not planning to buy an electric vehicle any time soon, possibly never.

[ThorSanchez]

Thinking in the $/gallon (or Euros or pounds per gallon or liter) How does that translate in monetary unit per mile. Then add in the cost per KWH and the time needed to reach full charge, how does it look in the overall cost?

I have to travel about 600 to 650 miles one way to visit my grandchildren. I get an average of 26 mph in my vehicle giving me around 400 miles per tank, and it takes me approximately 12 to 13 hours to make the trip (including stops for eats, refill of the tank and personal needs). Usually the first fill up is around 2/3 of the distance and needs about12 to 13 gallons, costing $5 per gal is $60 to $65. It takes less than 20 minutes including a comfort break.

In an EV, that trip would require a recharge at about the half way point, taking an estimated two to four hours or more, I have no idea how many KWH that would be, so no guess on the cost, but it will make the trip closer to 14 to 20 hours made easier with an overnight stay and a couple meals, adding to the cost.

My current vehicles are in very good mechanical condition, are comfortable to drive and can make a cross country trip in much less times than any current EV. I also believe they would be less expensive in the long run to operate and allow me to see more of the nation in less time.

Basically, I am not sold on the idea of EVs being a cost effective mode of transportation, yet. Especially when it comes to cross country travel or vacation trips. I will agree with what another posted that it will be an evolutionary, not a revolutionary change. However I think it will take at least a couple decades and at 75, I'm not planning to buy an electric vehicle any time soon, possibly never.

It wouldn't take anything remotely close to that amount of time. Not unless you're charging with a wall outlet, or have a primitive 10-year-old electric car or something.


A Tesla supercharger, of which there are thousands spread around the US and more being built every day, can charge a Model 3 from 5% to 95% in 37 minutes. At least according to the first link I found, and that squares with other things I've read. You can top off about 200 miles worth in maybe 20 minutes.

No, it's not as convenient as getting 15 gallons of gas. But electric cars have other advantages. And remember that the vast majority of trips are much, much shorter than what you're talking about. The average daily commute is something like 25-30 miles round trip. Most people are not taking 300, 400, 500+ mile road trips all the time. In the US most families have more than one car so if you are setting of for a trip from South Carolina to Alberta you take the gas car.

[Serkevan]

A Tesla supercharger, of which there are thousands spread around the US and more being built every day, can charge a Model 3 from 5% to 95% in 37 minutes. At least according to the first link I found, and that squares with other things I've read. You can top off about 200 miles worth in maybe 20 minutes.

That's a... what, 80 kWh battery? That would translate roughly to 120 kW for a single charger, which is about as much as 30 typical apartments in Spain.

The logistics are fine while barely no one uses EVs. There's gonna be a strong need for grid improvements.

Just give me a Mirai already, Toyota

[beholder3]

The typical at Home wallbox for charging cars delivers 11 kW, while the upper limit available here is 22 kW.
The much faster charging public stations are rare and you need to consider that you have to drive to them with remaining power plus the wait times in queue are nasty if you are one of many.

With a typical WLTP usage of 20 kWh per 100 km range you can charge 100 km per hour at home max.
And WLTP is not realistic, so power consumption in reality will be much higher.

[ThorSanchez]

That's a... what, 80 kWh battery? That would translate roughly to 120 kW for a single charger, which is about as much as 30 typical apartments in Spain.

The logistics are fine while barely no one uses EVs. There's gonna be a strong need for grid improvements.

I'm sure similar things were said in 1915 when you typically got gasoline in a jar from the drug store. "If everybody buys one of these oil-powered things we'd need a filling station on every corner! That'll take 100 years, nobody will ever do it."

Remember when YouTube first debuted? I remember the discussion about how ridiculously impractical that was, the bandwidth of the internet will never support millions of people streaming video, that's absolutely crazy. Yet here we are 20 years later and probably billions of people stream video all the time because the infrastructure was massively upgraded.

Just give me a Mirai already, Toyota

Maybe. But if you're going to put all that cost and effort and infrastructure into turning fossil fuels or seawater or whatever into hydrogen, then pump that into your car at massive pressures, then feed that into a fuel cell that turns it into electricity... well, I'm not sure why you don't skip about five steps and a bunch of conversion losses and just put the electricity into the batteries in your EV.

Now maybe if you were somewhere like Jupiter or Neptune where elemental hydrogen was somewhat more common...

[Serkevan]

I'm sure similar things were said in 1915 when you typically got gasoline in a jar from the drug store. "If everybody buys one of these oil-powered things we'd need a filling station on every corner! That'll take 100 years, nobody will ever do it."

Remember when YouTube first debuted? I remember the discussion about how ridiculously impractical that was, the bandwidth of the internet will never support millions of people streaming video, that's absolutely crazy. Yet here we are 20 years later and probably billions of people stream video all the time because the infrastructure was massively upgraded.



Maybe. But if you're going to put all that cost and effort and infrastructure into turning fossil fuels or seawater or whatever into hydrogen, then pump that into your car at massive pressures, then feed that into a fuel cell that turns it into electricity... well, I'm not sure why you don't skip about five steps and a bunch of conversion losses and just put the electricity into the batteries in your EV.

Now maybe if you were somewhere like Jupiter or Neptune where elemental hydrogen was somewhat more common...

I never said it can't be done, just that there *are*, objectively speaking, massive logistical challenges that people tend to handwave away. Hydrogen also has a good handful of challenges, but grid load is not one of them; it's mostly about making green hydrogen cost-efficient enough at small scale... And about the massive subsidies given to EVs (it's always about money).

Also, batteries are utterly terrible for the environment as it stands. We're a good couple decades* away from having truly good stuff, I reckon.

*Source: I did half of my PhD research in sustainable energy storage. There are thousands of papers published every year trying to wean ourselves out of, chiefly, cobalt. It's a far from simple issue.

[ChrisPlatt]

I suggest you take up film photography.
It is far more serene.

Chris

[bogwalker]

That's a... what, 80 kWh battery? That would translate roughly to 120 kW for a single charger, which is about as much as 30 typical apartments in Spain.

The logistics are fine while barely no one uses EVs. There's gonna be a strong need for grid improvements.

Just give me a Mirai already, Toyota

eh... overnight charging load is pretty similar to running your A/C unit for an hour or two. I'm sure we'll have apps to schedule the daily recharge for 3 AM or whatever when the load is low. A large supercharger station might need some extra juice, but most people won't be using them every day. The average person drives about 30 miles a day, so that's the typical recharge.

Fuel cells, meanwhile, have their own problems. Not the least is that the hydrogen comes from natural gas. It's far cheaper (and uses proven technology) to just use the natural gas directly. Natural gas vehicles are less polluting than gasoline or diesel, and take just a minor change from the standard ICE.

---------- Post added 06-23-22 at 09:54 PM ----------

...Then there's the matter of the number and ratios of the gearing, for whichever trans type, with more gears meaning more ability to keep the engine at an efficient rpm (or at an rpm with the best torque, if that's what you're trying to optimize).
Comparisons like the EPA fuel mileage estimates make assumptions about how a manual trans driver will shift to come to their estimate, but a manual trans offers the driver more leeway to choose whether they want to optimize shifts for acceleration or efficiency, assuming the driver knows how to do so effectively. ...

I agree with that. I drive for fuel efficiency, and easily beat the EPA estimates. Published EPA estimates show about a 1 mpg improvement for automatic over manual for my particular car, but that's really down in the noise margin when you consider different driving patterns and different commutes.

---------- Post added 06-23-22 at 10:06 PM ----------

...
I'm more concerned about engine life. Car makers are hell-bent on reducing their published mpg figures (however unrealistic they may be), so auto transmissions are programmed to use lower ratios than are good for engine wear. The cost of having to replace an engine would wipe out any slight savings from forcing the engine to labour up gradients without changing down. I'm not talking about motorway cruising, but about the short sharp rises around where I live. Lady L's car is manual but recommends gear changes on the dashboard display, and its choices are astonishing. I'm an engineer and hearing the labouring makes me feel stressed, let alone the engine.

Most automatics and EVs now have several modes: economy, normal and sport is pretty common. Published MPG figures come from economy mode I'm sure, but most people won't choose that except maybe on long trips. Normal and sport modes will run higher RPMs for more torque.

My manual also recommends gear changes, but it depends on how you're driving. If I'm just tooling along casually, the shift points are pretty low, but the engine never sounds like it's lugging. If I'm pushing it harder, it won't recommend a gear change until I'm at higher RPMs.

[pjv]

Hi folks, as the original Photographic Industry and Professionals thread topic has now changed into a General Talk thread, it is no longer serving its purpose.