Sunday, January 28, 2018

The problem with EVs (electric vehicles).


An acquaintance test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt
switched to the reserve gasoline engine."  Eric calculated the car got
30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. 
So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately
270 miles. It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. 

Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time

of 14.5 hours.  In a typical road trip your average speed (including

charging time) would be 20 mph. According to General Motors, the Volt battery
holds 16 kwh of electricity.  It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained

battery.  The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never

mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.  I pay

approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per

kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.  $18.56

per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt

 using the battery.  Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg.
 $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile. The gasoline

powered car costs about $20,000 while the Volt costs $46,000-plus.  So

the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but
 simply pay three times as much for a car, that costs more than seven

 times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

The moral of the story is that we MUST weigh choices carefully and not let the enviros

rush us into costly mistakes.
 

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