As I happen to have an interest in automobiles I at least follow the story of the emergence of electric vehicles. I will tell you right up front that I am not opposed to the idea of electrical vehicles, but I don't believe much thought has been given to the consequences of such a change. The broad strokes are this: politics and governments that are mandating 100% EV usage immediately, limited education on the usage of EV's, significantly higher costs for the consumer, and significant obstacles for a satisfactory EV experience. It would be helpful to all that we be informed before jumping into the deep end. Let's examine these thoughts.
1. Government Mandates
To a great degree the EV revolution (or whatever you choose to call it) is being marketed as the salvation of the world's climate problems. However, the scientists of the world still do not agree on the extent of the "problem." Can we do a better job taking care of the planet and minimizing pollution? Certainly. Will switching to electric energy magically eliminate all pollution? Not in the least. In the middle of all of this, little thought is being given to the cost to the consumer involved with this huge shift in energy priorities. Simply making new laws will not solve all of these problems.
Personally, I have noticed mandates on a global scale which touch every area of our lives. The latest COVID pandemic coerced and forced many to take vaccines if they didn't want to lose their jobs. Plant based foods, including "meat" being produced from plants, is now a priority for those decrying climate change. Teachers are being required to teach subjects that defy sensibility and common sense without regard to their personal beliefs. The list goes on but they all have one thing in common in that more and more of our personal liberties are being taken away little by little. They are often framed in such a way as to make the average person believe it is in their best interests, without regard to personal beliefs, personal preferences, or even personal finances. The latest energy crisis finds itself right in the middle of this.
Obviously we have been using electricity for a long time so it's not like we are unfamiliar with plugging in all sorts of devices. The problem will be if electric-only cars are mandated and gas or diesel cars are banned, then the electrical power demands of the world are multiplied greatly. Yet there is not an adequate supply of electricity for all those new demands, and many studies do not see supply catching up to that kind of demand any time soon. Those kinds of questions are being asked and debated even now and we are discovering that there is no simple solution in this switch to an electric-only future. We are certainly finding out that we can't just make a mandate to an electric car future in ten or fifteen years without regard to the inherent realities of all our energy needs. In my estimation, the powers that be are doing a mighty poor job in making this energy transition.
2. Limited Education
How much do you actually know about electric vehicles? When Tesla came out with their first car the world was amazed at the blistering speeds it produced. The 2012 Model S ran a 0-60 time of 4.4 seconds according to the car magazines. I remember when family members got a ride in someone's Model S and the acceleration pushed them back in their seats like nothing they'd experienced before. But, as we are finding out, an electric car is not simply the kind of car we are used to but with an electric motor. It is a completely different animal and many early adopters of the electric car eventually decided that they were unable to live with the downsides. While an electric vehicle can prove economical and useful, it is necessary to recognize some of the limitations before jumping in with both feet.
Most of the cars I owned over the years were nothing more than transportation. Hub caps, roll down windows, push/pull door locks, cloth seats, perhaps even air conditioning. I was thrilled when I got a different car and it had a new feature. Power windows and lock were a revelation. Fuel injection meant you didn't have a carburetor to flood out. It's taken nearly fifty years of cars to reach a turbo engine, fancy wheels, leather interior, heated and ventilated seats, radio options galore in a center digital screen, power tailgate, four wheel drive, panorama sunroof, and safety systems stem to stern. We learned about those year by year, doled out to us one or two at a time.
But with the advent of electric vehicles there has been a steep learning curve. People have made assumptions about electric vehicles without learning about them first. What about the battery for starters? Those go far beyond the 12 volt battery we are familiar with in the engine compartment of gas cars. Battery size for electric vehicles are normally listed in kilowatt-hours (kWh) and refer to how much electricity a battery (pack) will use over a certain time. Let's take the battery in the Chevrolet Bolt as an example. It is rated at 60 kWh and will expend that much energy to propel the car to its destination. The Bolt is rated for 247-259 miles with the standard Bolt getting the 259 miles because it is the smaller version, and the Bolt EUV getting less at 247 miles as it is a little longer and heavier. As with gas mileage estimates these are the best you are likely to see if you fully charge up your battery and take off on a drive.
(As we are talking about car batteries here, let me interrupt to give you a link to one of my favorite "commercials." It is a parody of a car commercial done during Saturday Night Live with Julia Louis-Dreyfus extolling the virtues of the "Mercedes AA Class Car." I'm not sure all those batteries could power the car but it is a fun "fake" commercial! Click here >>> Mercedes AA Class Car ).
You would find this 60kWh battery pack a common size on smaller cars like the Bolt. You might find a 1.5 kWh battery in a hybrid vehicle where such a small size might get you 25-30 miles on battery power only. At the other end of the spectrum, Teslas now are using 100 kWh battery packs in their Model S which gets them about 405 miles rated for the 2023 year as they are heavier and larger cars. These battery packs are stored in variety of ways within the vehicle. Most manufacturers have placed them at the lowest part of the car, sandwiched between the bottom of the car and the interior floor of the vehicle. These packs can weigh from 400-1,000 pounds give or take. The electric motor(s) also add weight but normally the batteries and motors do weigh more than the motor and transmission of a gasoline car. This extra weight causes tires to wear out more quickly, though new tires are being developed specifically for electric cars.
What are some of the things that reduce actual battery range from their advertised range? Like a gas car speed will affect range. Driving about 60 mph is normally the sweet spot for driving the electric car, so driving slower in town or faster than that on the highway will reduce range. A full car of people will reduce range, although that is why we buy a car. Yet extra weight in the electric vehicle will affect it more noticeably. Cold weather, running the heater and other electric devices in the cold, or towing all reduce the range. So if you bought that fancy new electric pickup truck to haul your family and a trailer across Montana in January with the heater blowing and everyone plugging in their devices, you will likely see your range drop to one half or one third. That surprises a lot of people.
Let me just touch on the whole "zero-emissions" argument that still rages on. This is another point that is often ignored as it is hoped we will choose an electric car simply because it has no emissions, i,e. good for the environment. The electric vehicle indeed has no tailpipe emissions like the internal combustion engine (ICE) produces. Yet the process of sourcing, mining, building, and transporting the electric vehicle to its final destination affect the environment just the same. It is the degree to which the environment is affected that many disagree with. Mining the various minerals and rare earth metals for batteries (such as graphite, nickel, copper, manganese, cobalt, lithium, neodymium, terbium, and dysprosium) needs high amounts of water, specialized tools, and human labor. Many of these minerals and metals are found in other parts of the world, in countries unfriendly to our interests. That will make it difficult to source enough of these materials, probably leading to other technologies. Tesla is changing the way it makes its motors so that they will use less of these rare materials.
Manufacturing parts for the electric vehicle and building them for sale is just as energy intensive as building ICE cars. The plants need electricity and natural gas to run the machines and all of that produces pollution. Transporting them to their ultimate destination by rail or truck still uses the same energy as transporting ICE vehicles. These various emissions are being tracked and measured and it is generally agreed that, after a specific time period, electric vehicles will start to use less than their ICE counterparts. The electric car contributes more of its energy and emissions up front while the ICE vehicle starts lower but continues contributing throughout its lifetime. From what I've read so far it take four to five years until the electric car has an overall smaller environmental footprint than the ICE car.
( For a more detailed analysis check out this article >>> Comparing Environmental Impact ).
3. Higher Costs
In the argument between electric cars and ICE cars nothing is more contentious than when comparing costs. As they say, nothing here is what it seems. It is like comparing apples and oranges as to which is better. Even trying to come up with a way to compare cost-per-mile between electricity and gas or diesel is a tricky thing. The EPA has come up with MPGe as their way of comparing the two. "The left-hand fuel economy box on the label displays the fuel economy when operating on electricity. This is described in miles per gallon of gasoline-equivalent (MPGe). Think of this as being similar to MPG, but instead of presenting miles per gallon of the vehicle’s fuel type, it represents the number of miles the vehicle can go using a quantity of fuel with the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline." (from the EPA.gov website).
But, as we have said before, we need to consider all the costs of using a vehicle if we want to make a fair comparison. Using only the cost of electricity versus the cost of gas is not a very good comparison, though it is part of the equation. The first thing that comes to mind for me when buying a car is the cost of the car. Even here it continues to be apples and oranges, but I think it is fair to say that electric vehicles cost more than traditional ICE vehicles.
Cheapest Vehicle:
2023 Mitsubishi Mirage ES $17,600
Cheapest Electric Vehicle:
2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV $27,500 (56% higher)
Cheapest Compact SUV:
2023 Hyundai Tucson SE $27,745
Cheapest Electric Compact SUV:
2023 Nissan Ariya Engage FWD $44,525 (60% higher)
Cheapest Electric Compact SUV:
2023 Nissan Ariya Engage FWD $44,525 (60% higher)
Cheapest Pickup Truck:
2023 RAM 1500 Classic Tradesman $32,590
Cheapest Electric Pickup Truck:
2023 Ford Lightning F150 Pro $57,870 (77% higher)
Whether or not you fully agree with my list (what makes a compact SUV anyway?) it has been pretty clear to me that the entry price for any electric vehicle is significantly higher than the entry price for the gas model. There's something else that stands out. Even the cheapest electric vehicles start out with more standard equipment than the cheapest gas vehicles. In the case of the pickup trucks, the gas RAM truck is a holdover from a couple years ago with no club or crew seating, whereas the Ford Lightning is a full crew cab with a hefty standard list of options. Again, apples and oranges. But with inflation raging out of control there are many people who are looking for the most affordable option—period—without the extra issue of trying to "save" the environment. So right off the bat you are many thousands in the financial hole if you try to start off with an electric vehicle.
The Chevrolet Bolt
Obviously, the lower end of the cost spectrum is tighter when comparing gas and electric. This is one reason why my son bought the Bolt EUV when looking for a cheaper car. With the rebate that was available at the time it was a good deal because of how he uses his vehicles. This is the one his wife uses and she is able to go anywhere she needs for work and get back home without running out of power. They have a plug-in hybrid minivan that they use for when they all go out together and they can get where they need to and back on those smaller trips within the 32 miles of electric-only range. And for the long trips? The van continues in hybrid mode after the electric battery is used up and gives them over 30 miles per gallon.
For electric only costs, I turned to a website to give me the calculation (EV Charging Calculator) which said it would take $6.32 to fully charge the Bolt EUV 60 kWh battery from empty to full. If you divide that $6.32 by the 247 mile range you end up with right around 2.5 cents per mile. Therefore, it costs right around 75 cents to drive for 30 miles which I figure would be the average MPG for a compact SUV. In fact my Jeep Cherokee does get 30 MPG so an SUV a bit smaller might get 34-35 MPG but I'm using the 30 MPG figure for now. Since gas costs around $3.00 at our Sam's Club gas station right now then the 75 cents for the Bolt goes into $3.00 of gas for the Jeep right at four times. So in my mind, the Bolt is getting the equivalent of 120 MPG since it is four times as efficient as the Jeep. And, as you see from the sticker below, EPA considers the Bolt EUV to get between 104 highway and 125 city for its MPGe. So strictly as a per-mile cost the Bolt EUV costs very little to run.
One of the biggest unknowns right now is the cost of electricity for charging up an electric vehicle. For most of the initial buyers of electric cars, they were just plugged into a standard 120V garage outlet (level one, or L1). Smaller battery packs did not take that long to fully charge and the car was ready in the morning. The Nissan Leaf was one of the first cars to take off even though, at 24 kWh, its battery was on the smaller side. Range was claimed to be 73 miles but nobody ever wanted to run it too close to empty. These worked well for commuting to work and back but nothing else.
As the batteries got larger the charging times got longer and chargers were designed for 240V and 50A (L2). Home charging got a little tougher as homes were not designed for this extra draw. If a home had 100A total then 50A just for EV charging was questionable. The 50A outlet could provide 40A safely according to electrical guidelines (80% of rated circuit breaker). If your wiring was not as heavy you might be able to put in a 40A breaker to provide 32A to the charger. Still, this was not a project for the uninitiated. Adding an outlet like this meant running a 6/3 or 8/3 wire from a new circuit breaker in the electrical panel to the garage, putting it in a large electrical box, wiring it to a new 14-50 dryer-style receptacle, and then purchasing the correct plug-in charger to go from the new receptable to the car plug. Because of the heavy wires and often long distances to run them, getting an electrician was needed and the cost of materials and labor often ran around $2,500. If you wanted two of them then double it. And that didn't include changing electrical service to the house if you needed to upgrade the entire system. In those days it wasn't surprising to hear it turn into a $15,000 to $20,000 project.
Now, we can plan for this possibility. In our home we had the builder add the wires from the panel to the garage because we planned one for each stall. They didn't give us a choice but put in 8/3 wires suitable for a 40A breaker. This cost us $250 installed. It sat there unused until he decided to upgrade his hybrid van charger to 240V and got the Bolt. We got a couple breakers, a couple receptacles, and hooked up those outlets for a cost of about $75. He had to buy one charger for the van, since it only came with the 120V charger, but the Bolt EUV came standard with the 240V charger. Both of those charge at 32A but since they are not super-large batteries they always stay charged. For less than $500 we had two L2 charging stations.
That brings us to the L3 chargers. These were designed for serious charging of around 100A, usually with 3-phase wiring. These could charge up a Tesla full size battery pack in hours instead of days. Tesla has its own chargers for wiring into your garage and it can be set up for two vehicles. Once again it could run $2,500 for a simple installation but could reach even $25,000 if extra electrical upgrades were needed. When you add these costs to the additional initial cost of an electric car you see how you are starting in a negative financial position to a standard ICE car.
While there are advantages to owning an electric car, such as less maintenance and zippy driving, there are also some disadvantages. Batteries only last so long, around 8-12 years, and replacing the battery pack is expensive. Depending on the size it could run from $5,000 to $25,000. Many driver get rid of the car before that happens. Towing is not the same experience with an electric vehicle as it is with a standard vehicle. Those buying electric pickup trucks to tow are finding that range drops significantly to maybe a third. A pickup truck with a range of 300 miles will right now be unable to make much more than 100 miles. Extra charging will be required. And, it is still difficult to find places away from home to charge a vehicle. If an electric car is your only vehicle then a long trip will entail stopping often along the way. The state of charging is hit and miss right now with charging stations not working at times and priced prohibitively as well. Costs right now are between $0.30 and $0.60 per kWh compared to 10 to 12 cents in your garage. Like anything else, once something gets popular it gets more expensive and new charges are getting added to building these charging stations.
4. Satisfaction Obstacles
As of this moment in early 2023 the lack of reliable charging stations across the country is the most frustrating problem facing EV drivers. For those who have decided on their electric vehicle as their only mode of transportation, it adds extra time to trips when they have to drive out of their way to find a charging station. And when they do it adds insult to injury when those chargers are already in use or are not working. No doubt this will be fixed eventually but setting up a charging station is much different then setting up a gas station we are all use to using.
While we have already mentioned the initial cost of electric vehicles themselves, there are other surprise costs. Insurance costs for electric cars are usually more that a similar sized ICE car. In fact, my son's Bolt EUV insurance is higher than that of his full-size van (do we really need to call them minivans anymore?) Prices of those electrical circuit parts are expensive and repairs cost more than regular cars.
Range anxiety tends to cause frustration. Just because the sticker tells you the car will go 250 miles doesn't mean it actually will. You will find that there are many things that lower that number and make it impossible to complete some trips. After some time people get used to it but it's something to be considered.
Right now there are less choices in electric cars, both in models that meet your liking and costs that meet your pocketbook. The electrical vehicles that are available are not the lowest cost models but instead are the top-end luxury models since there is more profit in those models. You may jump in with both feet but there are many surprises along the way.
Finally, I will circle back around to where I started, in the thought that electric cars never seem to be as "green" as you hoped they would. You buy the "green" option electricity but then you find out you can't be guaranteed it's from green sources. And when you finally discover all the "un-green" materials that go into making your electric car, is it really as green as you hoped?
But, as it is often said, this is just the beginning. Time will tell how many of the kinks can be worked out of electric vehicles. Maybe there will be new technologies that will carry the day. But no matter what vehicle you choose, make sure you do your homework so you are not unpleasantly surprised after you purchase that new car.
Arktander
(ada David Andreasen)
