Lessons Learned on Range Anxiety

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Home Solar w/Powerwall like having an oil well, refinery and gas station at the house.
In the 4th grade I did a solar science project and mentioned Someday cars will be solar powered.
So It kinda happened:

https://imgur.com/AUFI92v

https://imgur.com/KKYEC24

https://imgur.com/BdJw93u

 

[RebelliousPeasant]

Assuming that’s Canadian so probably just a bit more from our side of the line. Thanks for sharing this as it helps me understand the costs from that side of things

Yes, that’s in Canadian. We also have ultra-low overnight electricity rates which are two and a half cents per kWh so very cheap overnight energy thanks to so many renewables on the grid. Our grid is roughly half nuclear with the rest being some sort of renewable and about 10% being gas at peak times.

 

[R1TVT]

Here are some actual pictures that I took from a Rivian RAN charger in West Lebanon NH last spring, including actual cost. These chargers are FAST, seem to be always available, and work seamlessly by simply plugging in upon arrival (provided you have a payment method stored inside the Rivian App). They aren't the cheapest of course (at $.36/kWh), those tend to be the chargers that charge by the minute (not by the kWh), but I don't worry about a few cents when needing a fast charge on a road trip either.

 

[J Alynn]

Here are some actual pictures that I took from a Rivian RAN charger in West Lebanon NH last spring, including actual cost. These chargers are FAST, seem to be always available, and work seamlessly by simply plugging in upon arrival (provided you have a payment method stored inside the Rivian App). They aren't the cheapest of course (at $.36/kWh), those tend to be the chargers that charge by the minute (not by the kWh), but I don't worry about a few cents when needing a fast charge on a road trip either.

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Thank you sir. Appreciate the response and your continued real world EV educational support

 

[JohnnyScout]

Our house rate jumps from 9.74 cents to 10.6 on 9/1. Certainly a charging station contracts for much lower, maybe 6 cents. And reselling at over 35 cents is far more lucrative scam, I mean scheme, than the approximately 7-10% profit (before expenses) on a gallon of gas. If all else where equal, cost of juice on the road should only be about 12 cents per kwh

 

[RebelliousPeasant]

Our house rate jumps from 9.74 cents to 10.6 on 9/1. Certainly a charging station contracts for much lower, maybe 6 cents. And reselling at over 35 cents is far more lucrative scam, I mean scheme, than the approximately 7-10% profit (before expenses) on a gallon of gas. If all else where equal, cost of juice on the road should only be about 12 cents per kwh

I’m it sure that’s true, you’re making a lot of assumptions. Fast charge stations cost tens of thousands of dollars in capital just to build, then there’s rent for the site, plus tens of thousands for the high capacity grid connection at the site plus all the approvals. Then there’s the commercial energy billing which is not the same as how it's done for residential electricity. Those chargers are liable to be used at the absolute worst time to draw energy so that energy could be extremely expensive. There’s a lot of overhead and margins aren’t as good as you might think. If it were really that lucrative there would be no concerns about having enough fast charge infrastructure because everyone would be scrambling to get in on the action.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

I'm told we sell our power to the grid for about 38 cents per KW and buy it back at night for 12 Cents per KW. I never did the math and that could be sales-talk I never further checked into.

Our Electric bill has a running credit of usually $500 to about $800. Our Tesla Powerwall inverter is failing so we'll not feed the grid in the 5 weeks it takes Tesla to respond and fix it under warranty. Orwellian company to deal with.

I'm wildly enthusiastic about EVs. Hope eventually a non-profit co-op forms and members can get cheap charging across the USA.

 

[J Alynn]

Based on several of your responses on ‘filling up’. I’m assuming that was approximately 20%-ish to 80%-ish?
This is all new to me so trying to understand. Trying to give my wife a comparison between her 16 gallon Pilot at +/-$3.75 per gallon vs the equivalent in an EV Scout if range lands somewhere around 325 miles.
She’s the money/finance person at home and work-I just play with pens and markers in my daily life drawing ‘stuff’

 

[RebelliousPeasant]

Based on several of your responses on ‘filling up’. I’m assuming that was approximately 20%-ish to 80%-ish?
This is all new to me so trying to understand. Trying to give my wife a comparison between her 16 gallon Pilot at +/-$3.75 per gallon vs the equivalent in an EV Scout if range lands somewhere around 325 miles.
She’s the money/finance person at home and work-I just play with pens and markers in my daily life drawing ‘stuff’

Yes, for daily driving I generally do 20 ish % to 80 ish %. On road trips though I'll typically charge to 100% at home then run it down to 10 ish % on the road and fast charge back up to 80% until I get to my destination. A 10% to 80% charge usually runs me between $20-$30 CAD depending on the charging network. They used to bill based on time and my car charges exceptionally fast so back then a fast charge would cost around $8 CAD.

@Dive Bar Casanova I have no doubt those rates are correct for your particular solar installation. Residential solar vs commercial solar and residential energy rates vs commercial rates tend to be very different. Commercial users tend to be the most demanding and electricity is highly regulated so the regulations tend to give private consumers a break on electricity costs but commercial users can sometimes pay very high rates for their electricity. It all depends on a lot of different variables but generally you can bet that a fast charge provider is not paying what you'd be paying off-peak or even on peak, they're likely paying significantly more for the electricity than private individuals.

 

[JohnnyScout]

Did not want to start a new thread although we could but VWs announcement this week of delaying US battery production, will that have any effect on first of all pricing of Scout since apparently all batteries would have to first come from Germany? Eventually Canada but if Scout production waits for North American batteries we may be waiting even longer. Thoughts?

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

May mean the new technology on the horizon and a delay until it can be implemented.