[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

So your answer is that it doesn’t include opportunity cost. Five to ten minutes to charge is not even close to reality. Which vehicles can go from 10% to 80% in five minutes and how common are the super fast chargers, also isn’t that bad for the battery?

No, actually I did not say a thing about opportunity cost. I also never said anything about 5-10 minutes to charge, but I’ll address both of those things anyway.

My Camaro gets about 15.7 mpg combined. If I drive 12,000 miles per year, I would need 765 gallons of gas per year. Since the fuel tank is around 18 gallons that would equate to 42.5 fill ups per year, assuming filling from bone dry to topped off. Since we know that’s not possible, I’d likely make some partial refuelings, so let’s be conservative and say I’d need 50 fill-ups. Let’s say the average fill-up is 10 minutes. I would spend 500 minutes in line and/or pumping gas during the course of a year.

I’m looking at getting a Blazer EV SS with a 290 mile range. The only time I would need to charge anywhere other than home would be on days where I drive more than 250 miles. In 2022, not counting CamaroFest (I wouldn’t drive a Blazer EV to CamaroFest ) I had 4 days where I drove more than 250 miles. Two very specific trips, so I know the mileage. 278 miles each direction, each trip.

Blazer EV can add 78 miles range in 10 minutes. Every Chevrolet dealer will have charging stations available for Chevrolet owners to use. So, if I’m making the 278 mile trip heading eastbound I start with 290 miles of range. I’d drive 220 miles to Maguire Chevrolet and spend 10 minutes getting an additional 78 miles charge, then drive the final 58 miles to my destination where I can plug in and charge overnight. On the westbound trip going home I start with a 290 mile range. I’d drive 164 miles to McMaster Chevrolet, spend about 10 minutes adding 78 miles of range, then drive the final 114 miles home and plug in. 20 minutes spent on public chargers per trip times two trips. That’s 40 minutes in charger time over the course of a year, based on my 2022 travels. Compared to 500 minutes of gas station time if I could only use my Camaro. Maguire Chevrolet is visible from the expressway that I always travel when making these trips, so no “hunting” for a charge. McMaster Chevrolet is about 2 miles from the expressway, so let’s add 10 minutes to each trip to travel to and from McMaster. So now I’m at 60 minutes over the course of a year, versus 500 to refuel my ICE. Real world, repeatable example. Others will have different experiences and should decide their vehicle purchases accordingly.

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

Just because the car tells you where the charger is doesn’t eliminate the need to drive to the charger, or to make an earlier than needed stop to charge. What about all the urban owners who don’t have garages and can’t charge from their apartments? What about the wait time to get to a charger?

Most Level 3 chargers are being planned to deploy at or near major highway interchanges, just like gas stations are set now. Just not as many of them. Most EV drivers will only need to use external charging on days where they drive more than the vehicles range in a single day. Otherwise they will take advantage of overnight charging at home or midday at work where that is offered. The range of most EVs is greater than what the average person drives in a week.

People who live in an urban multi-family dwelling environment (apartment, condo) that does not provide them specific charging opportunity should wait on purchasing an EV until those solutions are studied and in place. FWIW, my consulting team is already working with two providers of multi-family dwelling charging solutions. They will start appearing soon. Can’t say more without violating NDA.

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

I place a premium on my time. I am on salary, with an hourly bonus for billed hours well over $100 an hour, so an EV would cost me more than most people’s car payment in lost hours every month.

Seems to me you paint a picture that’s pretty divorced from reality.

The example I outlined above is not divorced from reality. It is actually a very precise example of how reality could and will unfold once I get my (my wife’s actually) Blazer EV SS.

I also place a premium on my time. I bill my junior consultants time at $300+ / hour, senior consultants at $400+, so no need to discuss what I personally bill at. Even still, in my situation, I’d spend more time over the course of a year at gas stations than I would spend at public charging stations because the vast majority of my charging would be done at home. Your experience may be different. You seem to imply that NOBODY could spend less time charging than they would spend at gas stations. Anderson Consulting Group made the same assumption in their study and it took me 10 minutes to disprove it. They also only assessed “opportunity cost” to EV charging and totally dismissed “opportunity cost” of gasoline refueling. For the sake of simplicity, I direct my team to not try to put one number on time spent refueling. I’ve just shown by example that it is a very plausible scenario for annual away from home EV charging time to be less than annual ICE refueling time. Not at all divorced from reality as you apparently believe. If you include opportunity cost of time spent charging a vehicle away from home in your calculation, you also have to include opportunity cost of time spent filling your gas tank away from home. The thing is, for one of those things, it’s 100% of refueling time. For the other it could be as little as 0%. It could be single digit percentages. It could be 20%, but the aggregate average will be very low.