Electric Vehicles

[Mr_Draco]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

So far every comparison of cost of ownership comparison leans heavily in favor of EVs when comparing vehicles of the same type and class. Thing is, most consumers do not know how to do the math based on kWh used.

Does those comparisons include the cost of replacing the battery packs?

Some of the hybrids I've looked into have a replacement cost of approx $12k and need to be replaced between 125k-150k miles depending on your driving style. When we figured owning the vehicle long enough to require at least one replacement, the scales greatly tipped in favor of the ICE equivalent.

I'm just wondering if this is also true for EVs.

[Wyzz Kydd]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

That was one of my problems with the Anderson Group study you posted earlier. They tried to attach an hourly wage to the time spent driving to a charger and the time spent actually charging. What they did not do was subtract the time that EVs don’t spend at the gas station because they do about 90% of their charging while the owner is not using the car. The owner is either sleeping or at work, so those 5-10 minute sessions at the local gas station are eliminated. If the amount of time spent at charging stations away from home / work are added into cost, the only fair approach is to either subtract about 10 minutes once or twice a week or add that into the “cost” of driving an ICE car. I doubt you consider the time you spend at the pump into your cost of operating your car.

So, anecdotally, over the past year our Chevrolet Volt (RIP) spent zero time waiting for charge at charging stations outside of home and spent about 10-15 minutes at gas stations last year (only had to add gas twice). It only charged at home and on two occasions I took it to visit clients whom I knew had charge stations on their property.

As for finding charge stations, every EV worth its salt can automatically locate charging stations on GPS and will suggest which stations you should stop at on any trip that you route with GPS. Some will allow you to reserve a time slot based on when your trip plan has you near a station you should stop at, so there’s no waiting in line when you get there.

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?

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?

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.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by Mr_Draco

Does those comparisons include the cost of replacing the battery packs?

Some of the hybrids I've looked into have a replacement cost of approx $12k and need to be replaced between 125k-150k miles depending on your driving style. When we figured owning the vehicle long enough to require at least one replacement, the scales greatly tipped in favor of the ICE equivalent.

I'm just wondering if this is also true for EVs.

Some actually do. Keep in mind that they have to do so in an actuarial manner. In other words, for any particular instance, the cost to replace could range from $0 to the cost of simply one cell or pouch to the cost of a remanufactured battery pack to the cost of a brand new fresh from the factory battery pack. All of that has to factor in likelihood a battery pack needs replacement. The vast majority of battery pack replacements will be $0 because the warranty on the battery pack is at minimum 8 years / 100,000 mile. This is mandated by your friendly federal government. Some automakers extend that to 10 years / 100,000 miles. So, for the very very few (think one in a million) customers who will need to have their batteries replaced, it will likely be covered by warranty.

Some manufacturers have improved their battery technology to focus on replacement of cells or modules, not the entire pack. GM’s Ultium batteries, for example, have pouch cells that are assembled into modules. Should the battery experience problems, GM techs can isolate the failure to a specific module or group of modules and replace only those. Their modules are designed to be forward / backward compatible and link via software.

By the time today’s EVs are old enough to require post-warranty replacement, AND require a total battery pack replacement, expect the primary source of battery replacements to be remanufactured packs. As with engines and transmissions today, expect the cost to replace a battery pack to cost roughly 70% the cost of a new pack at that point in time. Since battery prices are steadily moving down in price, despite the cost of lithium going up, we’re talking 70% of a number much lower than today’s battery prices.

Today you can get remanufactured replacement batteries for Prius for @ $1,200 - $1,600 dollars. You can get a 1st Gen Chevy Volt battery pack for about $2,600 and a 2nd Gen Volt battery pack for about $10k. Even though the Volt packs are about 15x the size of a Prius pack and they are lithium ion (Prius is NiMH) the cost is not 15x. Higher than the current cost of an engine replacement, but probably on par with the cost of an engine replacement as engine costs continue to go up while battery prices come down.

[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.

[Wyzz Kydd]

I think I owe you an apology on that post. I need to read more carefully, I misread the 5 to 10 minutes as EV time, not gas refueling.

Given you acknowledge that EVs are appropriate for some, perhaps many consumers don't you think that GMs move to all EV is inappropriate?

I'm not an urban resident, but unless things change radically being forced into an EV would have major lifestyle consequences for me, setting aside the fact that it would eliminate the enthusiast part of driving as I currently enjoy it. Not to mention having to add garage space to park the things, or having to start parking cars that I would prefer to preserve out in the weather so I can recharge the things.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

I think I owe you an apology on that post. I need to read more carefully, I misread the 5 to 10 minutes as EV time, not gas refueling.

No worries. It did confuse me though. On the other hand, hopefully you see that 5-10 minute recharging IS possible, but not recharge-to-full. The point being, as more people drive EV, refueling/recharging norms will change. When I refuel my ICE cars, I refuel from whatever level I’m at to full. I think a lot of people do that and as an extension, assume EV drivers will do the same.

Fact is, since most EV drivers can charge for a lot le$$ at home, instead of recharging to full, most will recharge to just beyond what they need to get back to home or some other location where they can recharge at significantly lower cost. So we will likely see mor 10-45 minute charge events at public chargers than we would see 2 hour charge events. And it should be noted that most EVs will include in the route instructions, how much charge they should get at the public charger and how long it will take to get that amount of charge.

[snizzle]

Odd that Ram released the spaceship version of their BEV and then very quickly the production version which looks like they slapped some new LEDs on the current truck.

[KMPrenger]

Originally Posted by snizzle

Odd that Ram released the spaceship version of their BEV and then very quickly the production version which looks like they slapped some new LEDs on the current truck.

Yeah...the concept looks good in that particular image there, but in many others I just felt like it was kind of awkward.

So I for one am glad they toned it down. I do wish it was a bit "more" of a change than just what on the surface looks like a revised front end and tail from the ICE version, but then again we used to complain that EVs shouted a bit too much "look at me, I'm saving the planet" so I hate to complain when an EV just looks like a nice looking normal vehicle.

I thought their funny Superbowl commercial was good. Sounds like they will have some sort of a range extender available for the RAM REV. Any details on that yet?

If it ends up being more or less, like the GM volt platform (with a dedicated engine to keep it going down the road) but with a battery that can take it 200 to 300 miles on battery alone, then I applaud RAM. It's the only kind of EV at this time that I'd feel relatively comfortable replacing my ICE vehicles with. One thing is for sure, if/when we go to a full EV vehicle, you can be damn sure we will have one ICE or hybrid vehicle for use if the need arises for traveling long distances without throwing in range anxiety or worrying about if I'll find an available charger.

I don't have to worry about it here so much, but think about the folks in Florida who may have to "get out" due to an impending Hurricane. No idea when they might be gone, how long, or the conditions when they get back. Last thing I'd want is to worry about charging.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

I think I owe you an apology on that post. I need to read more carefully, I misread the 5 to 10 minutes as EV time, not gas refueling.

Given you acknowledge that EVs are appropriate for some, perhaps many consumers don't you think that GMs move to all EV is inappropriate?

Missed the bold part of your question. Short answer: Not really, but it has some risk.

Long answer: By the time 2035 gets here, the automotive landscape will look a lot different than it looks today. Especially infrastructure and vehicle portfolio options. The two biggest impediments to EV adoption today are

1. People who do not have dedicated parking and charging at their residence.
2. Charger availability in rural areas, particularly “fly-over states”.

There is work being done now to address both those issues. By 2035, people with more expertise in those areas than either you or me will have developed and implemented solutions to both problems. I am very aware of some of those solutions in progress, because we are providing those companies everything from vehicle registration and census tract info to vehicle miles driven statistics and other metrics they need to build business cases.

In those fly-over states, GM does not do particularly well today except in larger trucks and utilities. More than likely, GM will have trucks and utilities in both EV and gasoline configurations until 2035. Silverado and Silverado EV. Blazer and Blazer EV.

And they will also likely continue to have commercial vehicle gas and diesel options beyond 2035. They specifically said all passenger vehicles would be zero emissions by 2035. They also said timing for 100% zero emissions commercial vehicles was still to be determined. A Silverado 2500 (and 3500 and 4500 and so on) is categorized as a commercial vehicle, even if it is purchased for everyday personal use. That is what the $900M spend for new V8 engines is for. Cleaner engines for commercial pickups and utilities.

Finally, as I had mentioned before, the real financial benefit to GM shifting to EV is that it will save them shit-tons of capital on vehicle platform development, maintenance and manufacture. Today GM has to support Alpha, Gamma, Chi, Delta, Epsilon, ZERV, 31XXN, and T2 platforms. Some of those have multiple derivatives. Add to that about 6 or 7 engine families and 6 transmission families. Each vehicle platform requires billions with a B dollars to maintain and update. The engine and transmission platforms require tens to hundreds of millions, depending on the number of variants. In the EV skateboard environment they will have two basic vehicle platforms (BEV3 and BET) that they can use to flexibly produce a wide range of vehicles by mixing and matching 5 electric motors that are all very similar in design, plus 3 electric drive units. They can put whatever type of tophat on them they like. Look at Blazer EV. They can produce FWD, RWD, or AWD just by where they decide to put the motor(s). They can use one small motor, one big motor, a small motor plus a big motor, or (SS) two big motors.

So basically, the cost and time required to develop new derivatives is significantly reduced, and time is money.

The risk for GM is if the solutions for people who don’t have availability to charge while they are at home don’t come by 2035. From what I see, they’ll be fairly commonplace by 2026. 2030 at the latest.

Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd

I'm not an urban resident, but unless things change radically being forced into an EV would have major lifestyle consequences for me, setting aside the fact that it would eliminate the enthusiast part of driving as I currently enjoy it. Not to mention having to add garage space to park the things, or having to start parking cars that I would prefer to preserve out in the weather so I can recharge the things.

You keep saying that you would be forced into an EV. That is not true. Even in the states that intend to ban non-ZEV vehicles by 2035, new vehicles can be purchased through the end of 2034. After that, used ICE vehicles can still be purchased in state. And there’s (for now) a loop hole that would allow for purchase of a new ICE in another state and later transported to the ZEV state.

FWIW, Georgia is not a ZEV state, so you can purchase new even beyond 2035. Thing is, since so many automakers are going the same route as GM, the variety of options will be scarce. Sadly for this forum, performance vehicles, other than Corvette and maybe Mustang are the first to go away.

[snizzle]

Originally Posted by KMPrenger

Yeah...the concept looks good in that particular image there, but in many others I just felt like it was kind of awkward.

So I for one am glad they toned it down. I do wish it was a bit "more" of a change than just what on the surface looks like a revised front end and tail from the ICE version, but then again we used to complain that EVs shouted a bit too much "look at me, I'm saving the planet" so I hate to complain when an EV just looks like a nice looking normal vehicle.

I thought their funny Superbowl commercial was good. Sounds like they will have some sort of a range extender available for the RAM REV. Any details on that yet?

If it ends up being more or less, like the GM volt platform (with a dedicated engine to keep it going down the road) but with a battery that can take it 200 to 300 miles on battery alone, then I applaud RAM. It's the only kind of EV at this time that I'd feel relatively comfortable replacing my ICE vehicles with. One thing is for sure, if/when we go to a full EV vehicle, you can be damn sure we will have one ICE or hybrid vehicle for use if the need arises for traveling long distances without throwing in range anxiety or worrying about if I'll find an available charger.

I don't have to worry about it here so much, but think about the folks in Florida who may have to "get out" due to an impending Hurricane. No idea when they might be gone, how long, or the conditions when they get back. Last thing I'd want is to worry about charging.

I agree. This is better than the concept IMO. I haven't seen anything definitive on the powertrain yet although they did tease as you mentioned premature electrification

[snizzle]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

Sadly for this forum, performance vehicles, other than Corvette and maybe Mustang are the first to go away.

This is why you shouldn't be shocked about the dialogue here. Many of us lament the end as we love the genre.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by snizzle

This is why you shouldn't be shocked about the dialogue here. Many of us lament the end as we love the genre.

I am far from shocked (no pun intended). I get it. I have two performance cars in my garage and have no issues with adding to that if the right deal comes along. I try to keep my involvement in this and similar threads to separating truth from fiction from panic. I am not shy in saying I’m an expert on the topic. My day job is consulting with OEMs, suppliers, and government agencies on all things automotive. This just happens to be what’s mega-hot right now, so I’m in daily conversations on this stuff, including the occasional speaking engagement at various conferences. I halfway know what I’m talking about.

My bottom line is…

1. It’s going to happen so best to understand what is happening when.
2. It’s not going to happen overnight. Today’s grid is not 2035’s grid. Today’s charger availability is not 2035’s charger availability.
3. This is more of an automaker driven change than it is a government mandated change. The government is doing things to take advantage of the shift by forcing manufacture (jobs) to be in the US and supporting the buildout of the infrastructure, just like it did with the buildout of the Interstate system in the ‘50s.

[Wyzz Kydd]

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

Missed the bold part of your question. Short answer: Not really, but it has some risk.

Long answer: By the time 2035 gets here, the automotive landscape will look a lot different than it looks today. Especially infrastructure and vehicle portfolio options. The two biggest impediments to EV adoption today are

1. People who do not have dedicated parking and charging at their residence.
2. Charger availability in rural areas, particularly “fly-over states”.

There is work being done now to address both those issues. By 2035, people with more expertise in those areas than either you or me will have developed and implemented solutions to both problems. I am very aware of some of those solutions in progress, because we are providing those companies everything from vehicle registration and census tract info to vehicle miles driven statistics and other metrics they need to build business cases.

In those fly-over states, GM does not do particularly well today except in larger trucks and utilities. More than likely, GM will have trucks and utilities in both EV and gasoline configurations until 2035. Silverado and Silverado EV. Blazer and Blazer EV.

And they will also likely continue to have commercial vehicle gas and diesel options beyond 2035. They specifically said all passenger vehicles would be zero emissions by 2035. They also said timing for 100% zero emissions commercial vehicles was still to be determined. A Silverado 2500 (and 3500 and 4500 and so on) is categorized as a commercial vehicle, even if it is purchased for everyday personal use. That is what the $900M spend for new V8 engines is for. Cleaner engines for commercial pickups and utilities.

Finally, as I had mentioned before, the real financial benefit to GM shifting to EV is that it will save them shit-tons of capital on vehicle platform development, maintenance and manufacture. Today GM has to support Alpha, Gamma, Chi, Delta, Epsilon, ZERV, 31XXN, and T2 platforms. Some of those have multiple derivatives. Add to that about 6 or 7 engine families and 6 transmission families. Each vehicle platform requires billions with a B dollars to maintain and update. The engine and transmission platforms require tens to hundreds of millions, depending on the number of variants. In the EV skateboard environment they will have two basic vehicle platforms (BEV3 and BET) that they can use to flexibly produce a wide range of vehicles by mixing and matching 5 electric motors that are all very similar in design, plus 3 electric drive units. They can put whatever type of tophat on them they like. Look at Blazer EV. They can produce FWD, RWD, or AWD just by where they decide to put the motor(s). They can use one small motor, one big motor, a small motor plus a big motor, or (SS) two big motors.

So basically, the cost and time required to develop new derivatives is significantly reduced, and time is money.

The risk for GM is if the solutions for people who don’t have availability to charge while they are at home don’t come by 2035. From what I see, they’ll be fairly commonplace by 2026. 2030 at the latest.



You keep saying that you would be forced into an EV. That is not true. Even in the states that intend to ban non-ZEV vehicles by 2035, new vehicles can be purchased through the end of 2034. After that, used ICE vehicles can still be purchased in state. And there’s (for now) a loop hole that would allow for purchase of a new ICE in another state and later transported to the ZEV state.

FWIW, Georgia is not a ZEV state, so you can purchase new even beyond 2035. Thing is, since so many automakers are going the same route as GM, the variety of options will be scarce. Sadly for this forum, performance vehicles, other than Corvette and maybe Mustang are the first to go away.

I agree with some of what you've stated above. I bolded several parts that you present as fact, which I think you should admit are your opinion. You may be right, but then again, you may not.

Two years ago nobody would have predicted that NY would ban gas appliances in new construction, but they have. You can't predict whether the administrative state will ban ICE vehicles or not. Clearly they would like to do it if they thought they could get away with it.

[snizzle]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeROC

Bottom line is the V8 and this hobby are dead, as far as new vehicles are concerned. Let's just hope ICE isn't outright banned or gas (or alt fuel) becomes prohibitively hard to find and expensive. Let alone parts to keep fun cars running.

Yeah, I think ICE is eventually banned one way or another, either outright or by making them too expensive to operate for most as you mentioned.