#RBPi (#RESIST-by-Plugging-in) diaries expand awareness that:
- When the government is run by oil interests and global-warming deniers, switching to a Plug-in vehicle (a.k.a. electric car or EV) becomes a direct, effective act of #Resistance.
- On the merits, EVs are viable and increasingly attractive in many segments of the US new and used auto market.
If you are serious about resisting, have a car, and you haven’t plugged in yet, I hope to help you move ahead in the inevitable path to electrification, sooner rather than later. Because #Resist.
Hi everyone! Apologies, this is coming very late in the day due to some craziness we’ve had here. But in truth, there’s time till December 31st...
Today in the spirit of Black Friday, I will only discuss the ins and outs of buying/leasing a brand-new EV. I’ll stay strictly within the mid-market price range, though.
This diary isn’t a model-by-model discussion, but rather a heads-up regarding some less-known aspects of life with an EV that are better to be aware of before making the plunge.
Besides the substantially better EV selection than ever before, there’s another reason to buy a new EV right now before 2017 ends. The House version of the Middle-class-robbery tax bill contains an immediate end to the $2.5k-7.5k Federal EV subsidy on December 31. Cold Turkey.
Even though per the GOP’s 2017 YTD record in getting things done in Congress, the subsidy has a good chance of surviving, it might not. And frankly with everything else in that bill, the EV nix is not among the worst, especially considering that the way the current subsidy is structured will punish those automakers who invested most in EVs. (btw: Hillary planned to increase the rebate to $10k and make it longer-term)
Regardless. Come January 1, we might wake up to no Federal subsidy. And even if the current rule stays, at some point in 2018 the subsidy to get a Chevy Bolt/Volt or Tesla Model 3 will be halved, then halved again, then — a year later — gone.
Quick Recommended EV List
Even though I’m not discussing individual models, here’s a decreasing-order list of what are IMHO the most recommended mid-market EVs available nationwide right now to walk-in buyers.
Now, please, PLEASE don’t litter the comment thread fussing about why this or that car should be higher or lower on the list. The list is provided just as information about easily available pretty good choices out there.
Note that “mid-market” depends on the vehicle’s segment. For example, the Chrysler plug-in minivan might cost more than a BMW i3, but it’s within the mid-range for minivans - whereas the i3’s price is way above midmarket for 4-seat subcompacts.
Here goes. In parentheses, EPA electric range in miles.
bev (“pure electric”) list
- Chevy Bolt (238) — seems like the current consensus
- VW eGolf (125)
- Old/New Nissan Leaf* (107/150?)
- Kia Soul EV (93)
- Ford Focus Electric (100)
* Caveat: only relevant if you can find either the old or new Leaf… the former is running out of stock fast (several hundred remaining nationwide); the latter might show up in the year’s waning weeks.
phev (Plug-in-hybrid) list
- Chevy Volt (53)
- Brand-New! Honda Clarity PHEV (47)
- Toyota Prius Prime (25)
- Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivan (33)
- Kia Optima PHEV (29)
- Hyundai Sonata PHEV (27)
- Ford Cmax Energi (21)
And now… to the list of things an EV newbie should know before buying one.
YRWV (Your Range WILL Vary)
With your gas car, have you ever tried to figure out how much your gas mileage varies? When gas prices are high people start noticing, and perhaps environmentally-minded people before the option of hybrids and EVs existed, or general OCD types, have done it. But most people just drive, fill up when gas is low, and get on with their lives.
In short, we are not very sensitive or aware to ICE (internal combustion engine) cars’ range variations. With shorter-range EVs, or with any EVs while on a longer trip, you become acutely aware of variations. And to be honest, EV range varies more strongly than gas car range.
- Speed: thanks to the gear system, ICE cars’ efficiency peaks around 55 MPH, above which the drag effect dominates. Put another way, ICE cars are incredibly inefficient at slower speeds. Regardless: EV efficiency drops like a rock with increasing speed. Going 50 MPH instead of 60 will improve your range by 10-15% or so. Going 70 instead of 60 might kill off 15%-20% or so. According to this chart (with which I don’t completely agree), at highway speeds you lose ~10% of range per 5 MPH speed increase. This is steeper than I’ve seen, esp. at the lower end of the range — (45 to 60 MPH) — but their calculations are more broadly informed than our personal experience.
- Temperature: It’s simple thermodynamics. Pulling electrons out of the battery’s metal compounds gets harder as temperatures go down. My own experience with the Leaf was ~3-7% loss per 10 degrees F, for any cooling below 70F. Maybe a bit more. (On this front, the chart linked above is more lenient, claiming 2.5% loss per 10F.) Again, ICE cars also lose efficiency with cold, but apparently only about half as much. By the way, having a battery thermal management system (TMS) does not help at all on this front! It is a common error to assume it does. No folks, you cannot work around thermodynamics. The energy saved on efficiency by keeping the battery warm, is spent (plus interest, likely) on… well, keeping the battery warm. The only way to overcome this is develop a battery chemistry that’s less temperature-sensitive. Which might still happen. Nay, it will happen at some point.
- Climate control: depending on the car, using the AC or heater can take up another 5%-20% of the range. For example, since 2013 Nissan has offered heat-pump heating on its top 2 Leaf trims, which is the main reason why we’ve chose the middle trim on our last two leases. You lose 5% on heating, instead of 15%-20%.
- Hills and Elevation: Unlike ICE, EVs are not fazed by elevation above sea level. Therefore, around say the Rockies, the range gap between ICE and EVs should be smaller. But relative elevation during the same trip is a different matter. Any car including EVs spends more energy going uphill. With EVs, the price paid is ~1.5-2kWh per 1000 feet climb, on top of the distance traveled. But nicely enough, if you use regen properly, you can recoup ~70% of this investment back when going downhill, vs. zero gain for non-hybrid ICE. Overall, travel over narrow winding mountain roads is where you’ll see some of the best range performances from your EV. Just make sure you have enough range to go past the pass...
To sum it up, if you’re 20 degrees below freezing (obviously using the heater full blast) and also decide to drive at 80 MPH for some reason… then you’ll be lucky to get half your EV’s average EPA range. Conversely, going up and down Mount Rainier National Park’s roads on a beautiful summer day you might do 1.5 times the EPA range (that how we got the 154-mile range estimate in the pic).
Know-before-you-buy take home message: figure out the worst-case scenario range loss for your own conditions and driving needs/styles, and get an EV that meets those needs even under something close to the worst-case scenario. For example, if you’re looking for a PHEV that will do a purely-electric 20 mile roundtrip commute, and your winter is pretty hard — then you probably need something with at least ~35 miles EPA range. Or if you settle for less, know in advance that in winter you might use some gas during commute.
Don’t Panic, Part I (range)
Some EV advocates try to deny range anxiety. That’s silly. EVs won’t be able to match the ubiquity of gas stations and the speed of gas pumps anytime soon.
However.
If you bought an EV that suits your needs and you have a reasonable charging routine, then very rarely will you have to worry about range, or even notice it.
In particular, if your EV would go into a 2-plus car household — and as I will keep repeating until moot, there are easily ~30 million ICE spots like that in the US alone waiting to be replaced by EVs — then all you should care about is that your EV range is enough for your daily drives, and that you have regular ways to recharge it.
Having a BEV in a 1-car household like ours, the challenge is of course greater. You likely want to leave a safety cushion almost anytime, in case whatever happens. For similar reasons, a solo BEV should have a QC port, and you probably want to get a home Level 2 charger regardless of your daily driving distance (see more below on chargers). You also want to think about periodic out-of-town drives you often do, evaluate their feasibility, and and see what kind of quick-charging (QC) is available along those routes. If long drives are fairly frequent in your routine, then almost without a doubt, right now your BEV choice should be the Chevy Bolt.
Don’t Panic, Part II (charging)
On to the other side of the range-anxiety coin: charging.
Home overnight charging is the most convenient, and by far the most common way to charge. Any properly grounded 110v15A outlet is a charging station, that can be used with the cable supplied with the car. And yes — despite what some driver handbooks claim, extension cords are fine as long as they’re 12-gauge or thicker (more on that later). Over a 10-hour overnight period, you will gain back 30-40 miles of range (depending on season and particular EV). This means that most PHEVs only need the 110v charging. That is true for many BEVs, too, if daily driving rarely goes above 30-40 miles.
If you have no home charging access, then a regular spot at work or at a routine stop (say, near your gym), will do. This is particularly true since those spots will be likely to be “Level 2” 240-volt chargers that will replenish 10-30 miles of range per hour, 3x-6x faster than a 110v outlet. Another option — for BEVs equipped with a QC port — is to stop 1-2 times per week at a QC station, say one located near a supermarket or other errand destination. One hour will easily do. To see what’s available in your area, look up Plugshare. The orange ones are QC. But make sure to click “more options” and select only the chargers relevant to the EV you’re interested in (for example: when looking at midmarket options, de-select everything Tesla :) ).
If you regularly arrive back home 50+ miles down, then you likely need a home Level 2 charging station. If you already get one, I’d recommend at least 5-6 kW, meaning at the very minimum a 240V25A circuit (the circuit and outlet ratings must be 125% of the charger’s current ratings). Getting an electrician to do the circuit is $0.5-1.5k, depending on complexity and on what deal you can land. DIYing is of course much cheaper, although permitting can cost a bit. Then the chargers themselves are in the $400-700 range, although some midmarket EVs are beginning to show up with a 110/240v dual-voltage charger that might obviate the need for that.
Don’t Panic, Part III (No, it won’t explode and it doesn’t kill puppies)
Depending on my mood, this is either the most amusing or most annoying aspect of being an EV early adopter: hearing all the crap people bring up they’ve heard somewhere, about EVs’ imaginary dark and dangerous side.
So, in no particular order:
- No, EVs don’t often combust. To think that for the first 1-2 years with a Leaf we actually dragged around an extinguisher because of these fears. Of course, when sitting on a veritable traveling NAPALM bomb for decades before that, an extinguisher never occurred to us… To my knowledge, with 300k Leafs zooming about for years, there was maybe one report of battery fire. Or zero. There were a handful of Tesla fires, but it is orders of magnitude less often than ICE car fires. The latter are just considered “normal”, I guess.
- No, the battery doesn’t zap your body with crazy electromagnetic stuff. Nuff said. Yes, people did tell me that.
- No, home charging isn’t particularly dangerous either. North American electrical code allows continuous use of a circuit, at a current 80% the circuit rating. There’s plenty of safety overhead built into that rule. As long as your circuit is sound, you’re fine. That’s why, for example, the car’s 110v charger with a 12-gauge (15A-rated) extension cord works well with an 110v15A outlet, because the charger will only draw 11-12A. And chargers have pretty good, electronically controlled behavior. It is actually stuff like your cooking range or dryer or water heater or overloaded kitchen circuit, that are more likely to cause you trouble.
- No, lithium mining is not particularly malevolent. Lithium is actually mined mostly in South America and the US, under fairly benign conditions (as far as any mining can be benign). Cobalt, also used in lithium batteries, is another matter with some verified reports of child slavery and poor conditions in some regions in Congo. Despite being only one stream of the global cobalt input, this atrocious exploitation can and should be rooted out, and people are working on it. But EVs are hardly the only, or even the leading, consumer of cobalt.
- Last but not least: No, EVs are not bad for the environment. Whenever you hear such claim, it is either made in bad faith using twisted data, or made in good faith using pitifully wrong data and wrong calculations. Bottom line, EVs are far more efficient in energy use, and they live off the grid with grids being rapidly cleaned across the world. If your particular grid isn’t being cleaned at the moment, knock’em dead till they do. Don’t give up on buying an EV now because of this temporary backwardness. Even stronger bottom line, EVs are our ramming rod for bringing down the oil economy. On what planet is that not a good environmental outcome?
Sat AM Update: Deals GALORE!!!
Silly me, putting up a Black Friday diary without a deals and discounts section. It was planned, but then I loved the ramming-rod punchline and felt the diary is long enough.
Anyway, thanks to the Rescue Rangers this diary is now seeing some additional Saturday eyeballs, and I should add something about deals.
1. know your state and local incentives/fees
H/t javan in the comments for the reminder. Our “Laboratories of Democracy” have generated a pretty thick tangle of state EV incentives and penalties. The latter are explained by the need to maintain gas-tax revenue and make sure EVs “pay their fair share”. Not surprisingly, you will find some usual suspects who levy heavy EV fees and provide zero incentives, even though they have hardly any EVs on their roads (e.g., South Carolina or Oklahoma, where the EV fee was struck down by the courts). But to be fair, my own “evergreen” state, the #2 EV state in the nation, was the first to levy an EV fee back in 2012.
I digress. Many blue/purple states now offer rebates or sales-tax exemptions equivalent to $2-5k. They might vary by EV, or have a price cap. In addition, many local utilities offer rebates on your Level 2 charger costs. Plug-in America has this interactive map of incentives and fees. It may not be 100% up-to-date, so ask around, e.g., contact your local Electric Vehicle Association chapter. They’ll know.
2. take advantage of the dealership model (shop! haggle! rinse! Repeat!)
Without digressing into dealership vs. direct-sales arguments, the fact is when you have multiple competing dealers in your region, and they face competition from other automakers — you can score pretty amazing deals.
This site lists some publicly advertised current EV deals (alphabetic by car name). For example, both the Bolt and the Volt (which as you may notice, are the #1 choices in my BEV/PHEV lists) are now selling at least several thousands $$ below the MSRP, pretty much nationwide. You can rest assured you can usually score even better by actually bargaining with them. A good dealer will also know how to look up various promotions that are “on the books” with the automaker right now, giving you an even better starting point for haggling.
3. don’t. fear. the. lease
Conventional wisdom is that leasing cars is silly. For EVs, this gets turned on its head for two main reasons:
- EV technology changes fast, and a lease takes the resale-value worries off your head. Case in point, Leafs coming off a 2-3 year lease sell well below $10k.
- Following Nissan’s lead, most EV makers now offer leases that factor in the Fed rebate (which is delivered to them rather than to you), thus passing the rebate on to people who might not have a $7.5k Fed tax liability — and opening the door to some amazingly low-cost lease deals.
Same conventional wisdom also directs you to calculate “residual value” when deciding about a lease. Two words: forget it. You’re not going to buy that lease off the automakers’ hands, unless they discount it down to (below) the market price at lease-end time.
So what you should calculate, is just your overall annual/monthly lease cost, by adding up the down payment and all monthlies, then dividing. Then compare to an estimated outright-purchase financing+depreciation cost. Don’t forget to subtract any state rebates! For example,
- our 2012 lease was $4.6k+99/mo, eventually lasting 22.5 months. I think the 1st payment was skipped, So our monthly cost ended up ~$300/month.
- Our 2014 lease was $4k+114.5/mo, eventually paying 32 times for 34 months (I think). ~$225/month.
- Our current 2017 lease is $0 (zero) + 115/mo. If we do it 24 months, the cost will be ~$110/month.
You may note a pattern here… indeed EV leases are only getting cheaper and spreading across more and more automakers. Again, ev-vin.blogspot is your friend.
The link actually ranks the deals in increasing order of monthly cost, and the blogger hasn’t forgotten to add any standard “drive-off” fees. Unfortunately the top is dominated by deals on the Fiat 500e, a repulsive little compliance car available only in CA/OR. But if you look beyond the 500e’s, other EVs still have pretty amazing deals.
Lastly, note these are advertised general-public deals, before any buyer-specific promotions (which are what got us the 0 down payment).
Shop away! You have 5 weeks.