This isn't good for EV's

Just going to leave this here.

 

Yup on both parts. Those tiny leaks really suck. I’ve seen entire evap systems replaced to figure out the little thing that is the culprit on the early ones, supposedly much better now. I left GM in 2004 and never really dealt with that I was in drivetrain but had friends going bald dealing with the problems they created.

 

we need to remove those to make room for solar panels to make our elitist's EV go zoom, zoom.

 

Prolly won't happen in my lifetime but... I gotta admit, the idea of a common vehicle (car, plane, boat, train...) being 100% powered by solar panels (onboard the vehicle) would be cool. Yep, it'll require super light & long lasting battery packs too. None of which exist yet... but me thinks maybe... someday...

 

I really enjoyed this thread- that being said, with any luck my chiming in is going to offend everyone.

I went solar on the roof and the EV route for a few reasons that I didn't see touched on in this conversation yet and wanted to tack on a couple of things to consider.
My roof is directly south facing, and while I'm in SW Connecticut it does get pretty hot and muggy here in the summers. The upstairs to my house would be baking- 110F some days. Window fans did a decent job exhausting the heat, but nothing like AC or anything. After the panels went on, having that gap between the panels and the roof lowered the temps by 10 or 15 degrees just by not having the sun hit the roof directly. Having a lighter colored shingle would have made sense here in the first place, but the panels are there and do the job.
By going with the panels it encouraged me to look at my energy usage and decide where- for us- we could be less consumptive. Over time we replaced light bulbs, got a new fridge (that was the biggest culprit) and did this brand new technology. It's wild. Dries my clothes for free. It's a solar clothes drier. (It's a clothes line- this was a joke)
But it allowed me to do some things in electric here that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. I saw my personal brand of tool mentioned- The RYOBI tools, lol. It's what I could afford when I bought the house and I've been using them since. Having a battery platform that is common to the drill, the weedwacker, the leave blower, circular saw, sawzall. I even bought a few things that made life easier camping- a little 18v chainsaw and inflator for tires / blow up mattresses (only way to get my wife to go camping now). I'm happy with what I have.
I bought a PHEV and my circumstances led me to get what I did. My old Toyota Yaris Hatch had almost 200K miles on it when the rear axle bent. Best guess is I hit a bad pothole. The replacement part was too expensive to justify, and my wife was pregnant so getting a 4 door car made sense. Toyota offered me $200 (I did not forget a zero) on the old hunk of junk. Hyundai had a $4000 (I did not add a zero) push it in / pull it in / drive it in / drop it from a helicopter trade in sale going and that complete had my attention. The purchase incentive included $20 oil changes for the life of my owning the car, and this was a 2019 so the "traction battery" the battery that powers the transmission came with a "original owner's" lifetime replacement warranty. So long as I own this car, they'll replace the battery if it fails. The vehicle does have an independent 12v like all ICE cars have.
So why did I go PHEV. First, I couldn't afford a full EV like a Tesla, and like some folks already pointed out, a 250 mile range would be good most of the time, but not all of the time. Once or twice a year I got from CT to PEI or down to West Virginia- up into VT/NH or ME. I wanted the flexibility. But really- my commute door to door for work is 5.1 miles. Tack on stopping by daycare / the grocery / of whatever other errands I need to run in a typical week- I almost never use gasoline in a typical week. Tank of gas lasts me about 2 months if I'm staying close to home. Traveling to bring my daughter to see grandparents is probably the biggest gas usage. Well worth the price for her to visit them in my eyes. So here's the part I'm getting to- I didn't like letting my car's engine run for only 5 miles then shutting it off. Doing that twice a day just seemed like it was doing more damage than good because it never got up to operating temp it felt like. The heat in the old Yaris was lukewarm at best most of the time, so with the new car with heated seats- I just add a hat and gloves.
The car is at just a tad over 40K miles now and I had 1 component replaced under warranty that failed- a charging door release, and learned the hard way that the 12V battery needs to be tended due to the way the car operates- so I hook that up once a month or so for a few hours and the battery stays good.
I'm not really making much of a point- just thought I'd add in a perspective or two that I didn't see in the conversation. The recap the points (I think I made at least) the solar panels added comfort to my home, cut a monthly cost, and allows me to commute to work without paying for fuel. The car I purchased came with a warranty I couldn't pass up, and I get full synthetic oil changes for $20 (+ tax) for the life of the car. In short, these were economic decisions that made sense to me.

 

RGrant you are terrible at offending people!! Do you need a mentor?

I think your PHEV is working well for you!
My question is this would it work better if reversed? Meaning an electric motor with a small generator to provide range?

 

I'm so not offended that I'm almost offended by it. Lol.

 

The Honda Clarity uses that style of drive train. Speaking of drive trains- I live half a mile from a leg of the Metro North line that winds up in NYC and those big trains have diesel engines that power electrical motors, so that technology is out there and proven. The downside to gasoline is that it's too good... easy to store, relatively easy to manufacture, easy to transport, extremely dense concerning energy. It's just costly and all the other stuff that goes along with it.
For my understanding which might not get me too far, is that marrying the drive train with a battery intermediary allows for waste energy to be recouped- such as under braking or coasting and utilizes that "waste" energy to power the vehicle when it is most otherwise inefficient such as starting from a stopped position.
About a decade ago UPS (and they still might) had a fleet of Hydraulic-Hybrid delivery trucks going where the braking energy was recaptured in some kind of a hydraulic reservoir and was utilized to get back up to speed. That sort of stuff is what I like reading about.
Personally- I have my eye on an electric assist bicycle. They're all over the map with those right now but the one that I like the idea of is the Fuell by Eric Buell, the old Harley Davidson engineer who had the Buell line of bikes 20 years ago- His E-Bike while costly is where I'd like to see myself in 5 years. Everyone is getting crunched by inflation, and I hear ya, but I'm getting smacked by daycare lol. Plus we're having another little one this January so I'm going to have to do some fancy math to figure out how to pay for this hahah.
What's the magic bullet for the future? Maybe it's batteries, maybe its some sort of new electric grid. Make everything a hybrid, I really don't know. Seems to me that the magic bullet might be the only thing all the wealthy powerful know-it-alls don't have but we rely on day in and day out: common sense.

 

Little update on the EV zero turn mowers. I've read in a number of places that the Ryobi and Ego mowers are having 'teething' issues. reviews aren't good and it appears they break quite often plus the cost is high. I swung by Home Despot the other day and they had none for sale. Guess the container boat hasn't unloaded them yet. Big empty spot where they were supposed to go. Had plenty of Ryobi electric push mowers however.

 

Have to agree ^^^

I know I certainly wasn't offended in the slightest. A bit envious though.


RGrant you sound like you're in the exact position I'd like to be at.. minus the daycare costs.


My commute to work is just over 7 miles, my house and polebarn rooves are both south facing. Aside from a few trees, solar would do us well. (those trees are "disposable")

With the amount of acreage I mow, I don't think the technology is there, but I burn wood to avoid using the oil furnace, mostly due to cost.


A 2 zone mini split heat pump system would be perfect for most of our heating/cooling needs, with the wood stove to carry the load over the colder months.

Aside from the furnace, our house is strictly electric. Hot water, stove, well pump, washer/dryer, and all the extra's.

Our average bill is around $150, some higher, some lower. It runs me over $200/mo just to get back and forth to work nowadays.


So yeah, if I had a spare 50-60K lying around I'd make that jump.

 

Chaz same here but my head won’t let pay $50k to save $200 a month electric bill.. payback period is longer than life span

 

Fully understood.

For me, at 53, I also would not likely see a true ROI (return on investment) either.

For me, it's really more on the order of self sustenance. Not relying on current infrastructure to maintain, or improve my quality of life.

One of my last "real" goals for this property is a 1 acre stocked pond at 10-12' depth, at the woodline. Above 1 acre I have to get NYDEC involved, and go through the gov't red tape for permits and such.

Side note.. Everything I do on my property is checked and permitted as necessary. I'm not necessarily "anti-gov't", but I am "anti-bureaucracy".

Heck, I don't even know who I'll leave this place to after I'm gone. Jill's boys are covered, and I've sired no children.

But I won't let the state have it.

 

Thanks for sharing RGrant

 

Turn it into a nudist colony.

 

There are ant colonies and lepper colonies and there are nudist communities or resorts, FYI.

 

That was a great post RGrant . Everyone's circumstances are different so what makes sense for some, doesn't make sense for others. Even then, ROI or necessity does not necessarily have to be the determining factor. If it was, no one would put in air conditioning - humans lived just fine without it for most of our history. I didn't have AC until 4 years ago (even when I lived in KS I didn't have it). If I went with ROI, I'm doubtful that I will ever see it with the mini-split I put in last year to replace the window unit and portable unit I was using. "Saving" $20-70 / month during the short NH summers means that it would be a really long time to realize a true savings. But the comfort of a stable temp and reduced noise level while WFH outweighed ROI being the determining factor for me.

Once you get above sustenance living, most everything is about comfort, convenience and joy. Some (most tech maybe?) of that can't really become available to the masses without "elitists" adopting it first as they allow the production, development and build-up of desire by those less affluent to continue until it becomes cheap enough for a larger population. Will I see an ROI from my up-front costs after my solar is installed? Most likely it will be after 15-18 years (when I'm 75-78 years old). But again, that was not my sole determining factor, so I'm fine with that.

That being said, do I believe it should be pushed on the masses thru policy? No. But those that chose not to go with something (regardless of the reason) do not help their causes when they seem to be of the opinion that no one should do it because it doesn't make sense for their particular circumstances.

 

I know this isn't a mini-split thread, but i feel like you should see savings on the heat side with your heat pump. (At least for a few months per year. Not Dec. Jan., and Feb.)

 

Nope - at best I break even since I use a pellet stove. And that break even is at $5.50/bag as opposed to most of the pellets I get off CL or during spring sale which is $3-4/bag. That being said, it is more comfortable at a constant temp instead of the house overheating by the time the stove has shut down.

 

I was in the market for a new Zero turn. I had it narrowed to a Toro Titan with my Ride as ive had 5 spine surgeries and without the suspension I can't take advantage of the mowing speed a zero turn provides. Anyway, fast forward to January 2020 and beyond had me rethinking that because of the cost of rec fuel so I looked into the Ego zero turn. No suspension but powerful and about the same cost as the Toro. Without even considering the potential lack of reliability, the battery replacement cost turned me off. It takes 4 minimum to operate and will hold 6. The prices I found were $500+/- per battery. Say you get 10 years out of them then you need to spend $2000 to make it new again? Nope. Not this guy. Mowers I've owned have not needed a new engine at 10 years and it wouldn't cost 2000 if it did. The 10 years is only in theory. No idea the proposed battery life of the Ego product, I'm just going off my experience with the longest lasting batteries I'm dealing with and thats my Milwaukee 18 volt batteries. I still have one from 2010 but it has much diminished capacity and it won't power my impact sufficiently to remove a lug nut torqued to 100 ft pounds. The other battery I got in the same year died last year. If Ego offered life time battery replacement and the bugs were worked out id reconsider one. I still couldn't mow at 8-10 miles an hour but I'd have the benefit of tight turns. Because of all this I'm looking for a small used diesel mower like a Kubota GT1800, B6100 or Deere 400 series. Not looking hard but looking. Off-road diesel is cheaper than rec fuel here and I know from experience that diesel tractors use way less fuel. $20 every time I mow with my deere gx 335 isn't happening. Ive been push mowing the yard. I can use the exercise anyway. For now. Lol

 

Its funny you say that. A couple years ago I had a conversation with a fellow that was all big on the solar. Diesel mechanic. His house and both his big barns had the roofs covered. Drove a Prius ect. He was showing me pictures and had graphs ect. He was legitimately excited to share and I was genuinely interested in what he had to say. When I asked him how long it would take to break even and start saving money over his former set up, straight grid power, he avoided that answer like it was covid. He never did tell me even an estimate. My guess is, at his age, guessing around 45-50 at that time, he will die before seeing savings. Doing the solar to be less dependent or not at all dependent on the grid is a nice idea if you can or want to drop $$$$ into a system to do so but doing it to save money on the monthly utilities, for me isn't worth it. In fact we just had a solor company stop here earlier this year and when he found out who our electric provider was, its a co-op, and what our monthly costs were, he was honest and said I can't help you. I can usually help Consumers energy folks but not Great lakes energy co-op folks. This not considering I'm 50+ years old.