Just jumped into the EV deep end

[Kit352]

The Slates seem legit though I'm starting to doubt there resolve. I've seen a few in person and they are decent looking. My problem is they have pretty stopped trying to market them to the common man and are now after the affluent crowd. They are going upscale with options and pricing now. I suspect they are gearing up for a massive price increase.
And some of what was promised is now just a memory. No 4wd, and no extend range battery portable battery packs.
I haven't seen a review that really speaks about the driving experience. Even jay leno was very quiet about it and he was driving it around all day. I think the planned 200hp motor is too weak for the truck to be a truck. It's got just a little more power than a Nissan leaf and the leaf is just adequate as a car.

[tyronejk]

That seems to be the unfortunate path that most new products these days go down, even though the whole initial premise of the Slate was to be an affordable outlier.

[Trbo323]

The Slates seem legit though I'm starting to doubt there resolve. I've seen a few in person and they are decent looking. My problem is they have pretty stopped trying to market them to the common man and are now after the affluent crowd. They are going upscale with options and pricing now. I suspect they are gearing up for a massive price increase.
And some of what was promised is now just a memory. No 4wd, and no extend range battery portable battery packs.
I haven't seen a review that really speaks about the driving experience. Even jay leno was very quiet about it and he was driving it around all day. I think the planned 200hp motor is too weak for the truck to be a truck. It's got just a little more power than a Nissan leaf and the leaf is just adequate as a car.

Sounds perfect for a highschool student then.

Sent from my motorola edge 2024 using Tapatalk

[Kit352]

With the ability to 3d print replacement parts it almost certainly is. Makes little love taps much less costly if you own a printer. It's will be an expensive car for a high schooler though. Think currently it's sitting around $29k expected msrp. $20k is gone for sure. $27k is a fight they are losing as production cost ramp up. They got lucky getting that old manufacturing plant in Indiana but the cost to hire enough people in the region is growing and they don't have the numbers to automate as much as they could. They still haven't sorted out the dealer network either. I thought using existing Amazon warehouse as a sort of defecto dealer space was a good idea but that seems unlikely now. Going with the more expensive ship to your location strategy now. No test drives either.

[tyronejk]

For my household's use-case, we could switch to an EV for a short-distance commuter but it seems like no one is building anything towards that goal.

Ideally, it would be a small, lightweight coupe with just 70-ish miles of range. Every other EV built now seems to be targeting the 1-car, do-everything household market, not the 2nd/3rd car/exclusive commuter market.

[martix_agent]

I suspect the average buyer is looking for a vehicle that can do it all.
They make smart cares, fiat, and other small vehicles, but almost nobody buys them.

Sure, a full size car and an SUV might not be what i need 100% of the time, but when I do need it...

[Kit352]

You can buy plenty of older evs that run perfectly fine but only have limited ranges. Older leafs, fiat500e, Chevy spark ev and a bunch of others. 70 miles of range is really dicey though. A cold snap could cut that down drastically and not just because of the battery but power used to heat the cab. If you end up having to hunt down a charger on a drive you might be in trouble. With my lucid I started looking for a charger at 100 miles and really panicked at 50. Usually I would burn up 20 or 30 miles of range trying to find an open charger. I charged at home but sometimes that wasn't enough.

[tyronejk]

Interesting, good info for someone new to EVs. I have that ingrained assumption that a fuel stop is almost never more than 10 miles away.

[Kit352]

Absolutely not the case with ev's. Even if they are they may not be available if someone is charging. Or they are broken which happens a lot. Like a lot lot.

[RichM]

We've transitioned to EVs for daily driving, and I don't think we'll look back. I still have my 98 4runner(love that rig, I'll probably be buried with it) for fishing trips, hauling the trailer, etc., but the power, ease of driving, and mechanical simplicity of an EV is great. We are able to charge at the house, but the interesting thing is that I far prefer taking the EVs on long road trips over an ICE vehicle (winter or summer, lots of mountain passes etc.). Modern batteries hold lots of juice and on the routes we travel there are superchargers at regular intervals, so after a couple of hours in the car you want to stop and take a break, get a coffee etc., it's a perfect time to top up the battery. The traction, control (regenerative braking when you're coming down a steep mountain pass with sharp corners is a game changer, as is the instant and seemingly unlimited torque when passing, even uphill), and quiet power of the EVs makes the long trips way more relaxing. We bought both of ours used, wife has a newish Model Y, and I got an older Model S. What's interesting is I got the Model S with 200,000 km on it, it still had 350 km on a full charge, and it hasn't really lost any of it's capacity since I got it. I got it for a pretty good price, and I think I'll easily put another 100,000 km on it before I think of moving on.

[flyweightnate]

It's interesting that most of the map has been covered. Compact/ subcompact commuter cars, full size luxury sedans, compact SUVs, and massive trucks.

Yet no minivan/ 3-row SUV that I've seen, except maybe a Model X or some Rivian model - which is not family- friendly pricing (especially when a fender bender can be $40k to repair on the Rivian).

I would think that extra mass would benefit the most from the EV powertrain - torque enough for stop and go commuting, regen braking when you have to stop all that inertia, good form factor for drag in most conditions (even if it had a huge cross section). But it's not an option yet, so you need a 3.6L ICE to get up to speed, then it idles along while you coast.

Is it just that road trips are assumed, so hybrids win the day?

[RichM]

They're getting there... I was also wondering about that for the last few years. A coworker just bought a Kia EV9, it's a 3 row SUV it's essentially a minivan, Hyundai has a similar model, and VW has the iD buzz, which is actually a really good vehicle and a proper minivan (a guy I play ball with picked one up, he loves it), but they were way overpriced when they hit the market. VW has dropped the price recently so that should help.

[Tarsun2]

i cant believe where EV's are at. As a "car guy" born in the 80's, EV's were a joke. Now though, things are quite different. The "quickest" Hyundai/Kia isnt the twin turbo v6 awd beast of a stinger but rather their ioniq 5 N rav4 lookin' EV...
I drive a tlx 2.0t awd with a tune and while its not a rocket, its plenty quick for my daily commute and can easily get ahead of most traffic i come across. Still, if i see an EV (weather its a tesla, blazer, hyndai, or kia) i dont even try; i just duck in behind them.

[SignOfZeta]

For my household's use-case, we could switch to an EV for a short-distance commuter but it seems like no one is building anything towards that goal.

Ideally, it would be a small, lightweight coupe with just 70-ish miles of range. Every other EV built now seems to be targeting the 1-car, do-everything household market, not the 2nd/3rd car/exclusive commuter market.

The problem with 70 miles of range is that it’s nearly useless. Seventy miles is only 70 miles in the absolute max best circumstances.

Few people with EVs use much of the range above %90 or below %10 due to the wear on the battery, the extra time spent to charge at those SOCs and the risk of being stranded. So…your 70 mile range has already dropped %20. You now have a 56 mile range.

Now consider things like cold weather and darkness which can murk effective range by as much as %40 from max. Let’s say it’s a good car and you’re only losing %30. So take that %30 off the original max and then take the %20 mentioned earlier. You’re now at a range of 39 miles.

Now drive the thing for half a decade and take off at least another %10 for degradation. Now your 70 miles is 35. Going anywhere more than 17 miles away requires recharging to return…and recharging again not long after. This thing will have to be constantly on the tit, like a 10 year old iPhone.

It’s absolutely true that OEMs have almost completely ignored practically priced vehicles and obviously if this type of car is going to see mainstream adoption then they have to stop pricing everything for upper middle class suburban brats but of course they’re already losing billions on $100,000 vehicles so I’m not sure how that’s going to happen but sacrificing range is suicide for the driver and the OEM.

On the old Jack Benny Show the hero was such a cheapskate he’d only buy one gallon of gas at a time. (He didn’t want to invest too much in his POS car.) The problem with that is that you have to stop at every gas station. A 70 mile EV puts you in a similar situation…but permanently and always getting worse.

[BLachance75]

For my household's use-case, we could switch to an EV for a short-distance commuter but it seems like no one is building anything towards that goal.

Ideally, it would be a small, lightweight coupe with just 70-ish miles of range. Every other EV built now seems to be targeting the 1-car, do-everything household market, not the 2nd/3rd car/exclusive commuter market.

That's what plug in hybrids are for. Charge it overnight and you can get some all electric miles then you have a regular hybrid when the EV charge is out.

For me personally a 70 mile range wouldn't even get me to work and back.

[JonM]

Also consider that advertised EV range is shown under the best of circumstances. This means things like heat, stereo, headlights, a lead foot, and so on will all pull power from the battery. Most manufacturers actually recommend 80/20 rather than 90/10, so that will cut even further into range. Living where I do, I wouldn't even consider an EV without a long range battery.

I can also add one more lesson learned to the list. I'm in the process of having a 60A circuit installed for my Level 2 charger. In the meantime, I've been getting by with my Level 1 charger that came with the car and charging stations in the area. What I learned is that in colder weather, battery conditioning can almost draw more power than a Level 1 charger can provide at its lowest setting. My garage has only 10A circuits at the moment, so I can't crank up the output on the charger to 12A. I finally figured out how to change the settings on the brick to at least output 8A (following the 80% rule to avoid tripping the breaker). I already have the Level 2 charger in hand. I'm now eagerly waiting for the electrician to schedule the work they quoted.

[martix_agent]

Also consider that advertised EV range is shown under the best of circumstances. This means things like heat, stereo, headlights, a lead foot, and so on will all pull power from the battery. Most manufacturers actually recommend 80/20 rather than 90/10, so that will cut even further into range. Living where I do, I wouldn't even consider an EV without a long range battery.

I can also add one more lesson learned to the list. I'm in the process of having a 60A circuit installed for my Level 2 charger. In the meantime, I've been getting by with my Level 1 charger that came with the car and charging stations in the area. What I learned is that in colder weather, battery conditioning can almost draw more power than a Level 1 charger can provide at its lowest setting. My garage has only 10A circuits at the moment, so I can't crank up the output on the charger to 12A. I finally figured out how to change the settings on the brick to at least output 8A (following the 80% rule to avoid tripping the breaker). I already have the Level 2 charger in hand. I'm now eagerly waiting for the electrician to schedule the work they quoted.

This is exactly what I suspected. What's the cost of the 230V charging system? Does it have to be a proprietary system, or are 3rd parties selling them too?
Hopefully your main breaker is able to support the extra current draw, and you have spare slots available in your panel.

Does your state require that an electrician install this, or could you do it on your own, if you has the skills for it?

[JonM]

This is exactly what I suspected. What's the cost of the 230V charging system? Does it have to be a proprietary system, or are 3rd parties selling them too?
Hopefully your main breaker is able to support the extra current draw, and you have spare slots available in your panel.

Does your state require that an electrician install this, or could you do it on your own, if you has the skills for it?

With a firefighter daughter and a concerned wife, I promised to do everything to the letter. This means bringing in a licensed electrician trained in EV charger installations and sparing no expense on the equipment. When he came to do the quote, I asked him all sorts of questions about the install including things like what kind of wire he's going to use, what the subpanel can safely handle, what kinds of junction boxes and conduit he's going to use, and so on. Before he came, I obsessively poured over all the information I could absorb - what code requires, what went wrong with other installs, best practices, etc. What I found is that one shortcut or budget cut in the materials used can result in failure. For example, if you were to have an outlet installed, absolutely do not skimp on this. Get the commercial grade outlet rather than the cheapo residential outlet. These things put out A LOT of juice and can melt the cheaper outlets. Better yet, go hardwired and avoid this altogether (this is the route we're taking). Also make sure they use metal junction boxes since a short can melt through a plastic box. We also need to ensure that everything is torqued down to spec. Most importantly, never under any circumstances get lax with the wire choice. If the electrician pulls off whatever Romex he has on the truck instead of properly gauged #6 AWG copper wire, you're gonna have a bad time.

As for the costs, I went with a "buy once, cry once" mindset. I bought a Tesla Universal Wall Connector that works with every EV in the North American market. My Ioniq 6 uses a J1772 connector for home charging, but many manufacturers are switching to the Tesla NACS connector. This unit will cover both without the need of a separate adapter. The charger ran me $600, but it's from a known brand (not some cheap Chinese charger that isn't even UL certified). The cost to install the unit will run me about $900, but the charger will be only about ten feet from the subpanel. If it required a longer run or if it required more work and permits, I'd expect the cost to go up. Could I save money and do it myself? Probably. Still, for our safety and peace of mind, I figure it's best to err on the side of caution and let the pros handle it.

As it is right now, there is a 100A subpanel in my garage with two 50A breakers in it and a row of 10A breakers for lights and unused outlets. One 50 goes to a hot tub we don't have and the other goes to a generator we don't have either. It turns out that the generator breaker and the main breaker were not linked, so we're just going to pull and cap that circuit for safety reasons (I have no desire to meet my ancestors yet). We also have no plans to ever put a hot tub on the patio. He also tested the current load on the panel, which turned out to be nearly nonexistent - even with my car on the L1 charger at the time. He assures me there's plenty of juice available from the main. As an added precaution, The Tesla charger has intelligent load balancing to throttle back if there's too much strain on the system. Lastly, as an added precaution we're installing a smoke detector in between the subpanel and charger and getting our expired fire extinguishers tested or replaced.

[Jonnydread]

My friend bought an EV last year and really likes it (IONIQ 5), but her major complaint, as others have said, is the charger functional availability and etiquette of users. If someone left their car with the gas pump in it people would think they're crazy, but since charging can take 20+ minutes people seem like it's fine to do walking errands.

[BLachance75]

If you only have 10A outlets in your garage you might as well have him put in a few 20A outlets while he's doing the other work. That's assuming the panel will handle those as well.

[JonM]

I probably could, although the only things on those circuits are the garage door openers and a few lights. Not a bad idea though.

[Kit352]

I just started looking at the Honda prologue. They are almost giving them away. I can find a ton of year old ones with a couple thousand miles for under 20k. With state rebates closer to $15k. These retailed new for $60 a few months ago lol