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Advent Horizon posted:Why does everybody always have to try to piss in other people's Cheerios? No, I am not displacing anybody to coal or natural gas. Our 100% hydro generation is not connected to the national grid(s) and we even have enough excess water available that there is talk of building more plants and connecting our grid to sell the hydropower outside (to Canada, mostly). So shut the goddamn hell up. I don't think you understand, mister - random internet strangers always know better than you, especially when it comes to how your remote local municipality generates its power.  I think it's pretty amazing that there's people (you said others in your area are running leafs, too?) driving EVs in loving Alaska of all places. It says a lot about the feasibility of electric cars.
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Dec 19, 2013 14:20
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Alaska is where the leaf battery has the best longevity so I don't know why more people don't have them there. The leaf loves never getting warmer then 70f degrees.
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Dec 19, 2013 14:59
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There's this rancid little idea that an electric automobile is a waste of time because there's always some twisted way to show that using the electric automobile contributes to greenhouse gas emissions! This idea is stupid, and people who promote it are stupid. Electric automobiles are different from internal combustion engine vehicles, because they afford the ability to power them from non-combustive sources. It is for example possible to power an electric vehicle entirely off solar panels/wind/hydro one owns with a power system completely isolated from the electric grid. When charged in this manner, the electric vehicle contributes no air pollutants. It is not possible to operate an internal combustion engine vehicle with no air pollutants. Including the losses from transmission and storage, a coal fired plant contributes fewer CO2 emissions to the atmosphere to provide power to move an electric car one mile than does all but the most efficient internal combustion engines. Many estimates place the equivalency in the neighborhood of 50MPG or 4.7L/100km. When obtaining 100% of the energy to charge the vehicle from a coal fired plant, it still is less environmentally impactful than is operating an internal combustion engine. If more coal plants are built to satisfy the additional demand for power placed on the electric grid and start spewing more CO2 into the air, it is still an improvement if a corresponding number of ICE powered vehicles come off the road. Finally and most importantly, electric cars are different and in specific ways can be better than gasoline engine cars if you are an enthusiast. Electric motors have 100% of their torque 100% of the time, even from a dead stop. The P85+ Tesla does 0-60 in 4.4 seconds. Your drivetrain is radically simplified; there is an electric motor that turns wheels and batteries that can be designed for easy replacement. I'd be happy to be buried in my S2000, but I don't need to convince myself electric vehicles are terrible to enjoy that internal combustion engined vehicle.
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Dec 19, 2013 15:22
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I think it's pretty amazing that there's people (you said others in your area are running leafs, too?) driving EVs in loving Alaska of all places. It says a lot about the feasibility of electric cars. The Leaf is actually a pretty awesome winter car, thus far. The heater puts out instantly, a heated steering wheel is standard and the car will warm itself up automatically while still inside the garage. Because the batteries are so darn heavy it also has tons of traction (we also put on Blizzaks). One morning we had 19" of snow in the driveway and it came through no problem; last weekend on the way up to the ski hill we went around a FWD car sliding backwards and a 4WD pickup that only made it a little past the car.
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Dec 19, 2013 16:37
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There are 3 houses on my block with solar panels on their roof. It's a big industry here as we get a lot of sunshine. So there are people who get energy that doesn't equal carbon in the atmosphere or burnt coal or any of that. I still want a Leaf. My commute is 4.5 miles one way, barely enough time for the car to warm up so that my Legacy gets about 18mpg or so (1 more than my old LS!). Plus I have a weekend car that sleeps in the garage which could be used in the rare emergency or long trip if my wife is using her car. I'd love to be done with daily gasoline consumption and all the maintenance and smog checks and bs that comes with it. E: Didn't say my big rub on them - they're built to be light so I assume the ride sucks. But I haven't ridden in one so haven't experienced how they feel on the road with potholes and all. Sten Freak fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 16:45
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The Leaf? It's over 3400 pounds! It is most certainly not a 'light' car.
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Dec 19, 2013 17:35
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Advent Horizon posted:The Leaf? It's over 3400 pounds! It is most certainly not a 'light' car. How's the ride?
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Dec 19, 2013 18:35
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Sten Freak posted:How's the ride? Better then a Prius, worse then a Delta 88. Your spine will remain unbroken, I am not sure what else you need.
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Dec 19, 2013 19:33
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:I think it's pretty amazing that there's people (you said others in your area are running leafs, too?) driving EVs in loving Alaska of all places. It says a lot about the feasibility of electric cars. Juneau is actually one of the few places in the US I'd seriously consider buying an electric car even though I wouldn't normally be in the market for one. The city's road network has no connections to the rest of Alaska or Canada, and where there's no roads, there's no range anxiety!
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Dec 19, 2013 23:00
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Bloody gently caress. I left the car unplugged while we were gone for Christmas and now the 12v battery is dead. Time to jump-start the electric car (can't seem to find the battery charger, either).
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Dec 30, 2013 02:11
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That's odd. I know that if you leave a Leaf plugged in for an extended period without driving, it'll drain the 12v. There's a small draw off of the 12v for Carwings, updates, waiting for the keyfob and the like. When unplugged, every few hours the car will charge the 12v from the main drive batteries. If plugged in, that doesn't happen and the 12v slowly drains. You're supposed to disconnect the 12v if leaving the car over 5 days or so so that there's no drain. How far was the main drive battery charged? Your situation is totally backward though. Forgive me for asking the stupid question, but you didn't accidentally double click the power button and switch it to Accessory? It's the most common cause of the "12v drain" complaint on the My Nissan Leaf forum, as it takes some 20 seconds for the car to switch modes and by then you're out of the car. I've done it twice in the last 6 months, but caught it both times as it takes me some time to get my cane out of the car and gather my crap thankfully. I REALLY wish they would do some alert if you put it in accessory and then get out of the car with the key - the car can detect that pretty easily. However, if you're sure that's not the case, it's moot here.
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Dec 30, 2013 03:19
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No, I just left it unplugged for 8 days. The high voltage pack had about 60% capacity and didn't appear to have drained much, if any. I got it jumped just fine with the truck, next time I'll just leave a trickle charger on the 12v battery. Simple enough. Heck, this was as good a time as any to warm up the truck; it hadn't been started since November when we stocked up on gas for the snowblower.
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Dec 30, 2013 03:53
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I forgot, is your car outside? Why would it drain that quickly?
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Dec 30, 2013 07:08
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My car is in the garage. We have pretty bad cell signals here so it was probably stretching to report to CarWings the whole time. It should be noted, for anyone who doesn't know, that the 12v battery in a Leaf is REALLY small. Think motorcycle-sized. There's no engine to turn over so all it has to do is power the computer and accessories. That means it can drain quickly without a whole lot of draw.
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Dec 30, 2013 08:23
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Mortanis posted:That's odd. I know that if you leave a Leaf plugged in for an extended period without driving, it'll drain the 12v. There's a small draw off of the 12v for Carwings, updates, waiting for the keyfob and the like. Why on earth wouldn't it have a built-in trickle charger for the 12v battery to use when the car is plugged in? That seems asinine.
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Dec 30, 2013 18:53
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You could say the same thing about the lack of thermal management for the battery and probably get the same answer - cost savings.
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Dec 30, 2013 19:17
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Yeah, it's a huge oversight that makes no sense at all. It's great that the 12v pulls from the main driving batteries when unplugged, but how in the hell did it get past every QA that such a system would disable while plugged in? It had to be explicit - why not just let the system continue as it was? 12v gets charged from the main driving batteries, main driving batteries gets charged from the plugin. Even if it created some sort of crazy drain where the 12v was in a constant state of discharge and charge, wouldn't that still be less draw than charging the car normally? Edit: guess I should refresh before posting. In this case, it seems like they disabled some code that exists when unplugged - I'm not following how that'd be cost savings.
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Dec 30, 2013 19:20
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murphle posted:Why on earth wouldn't it have a built-in trickle charger for the 12v battery to use when the car is plugged in? That seems asinine. Makes me glad they added a solar panel to trickle charge the 12v! Oh wait, it's charged in a garage where the solar panel is useless. What a weird situation. duz fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 20:26
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duz posted:Makes me glad they added a solar panel to trickle charge the 12v! Oh wait, it's charged in a garage where the solar panel is useless. Just leave the garage light on! 
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Dec 30, 2013 21:05
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I don't have the SL since leather and a dog don't mix. So no solar panel. It is entirely possible to charge the 12v battery with the car plugged in. I jump-started the car and left it 'running' while plugged in for an hour. It is a really odd sensation to close the garage door on a car while it's 'on'. And no, the car was not plugged in all week. So it just doesn't provide inverter power to the 12v system whenever the car is off.
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Dec 30, 2013 23:32
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For people in here who have a volt, how does it drive. Payment wouldn't be a problem, but I'm curious on A: how does that tax credit thing work, and B: how does it drive on highways. Right now I have a gas car that gets 25-30, but I do a lot of 300-500 mile stretches (not by choice!), and the idea of an electric car with a little more gas combined with stopping at charging stations sounds somewhat tempting.
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Jan 4, 2014 03:20
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Ryand-Smith posted:For people in here who have a volt, how does it drive. Payment wouldn't be a problem, but I'm curious on A: how does that tax credit thing work, and B: how does it drive on highways. Right now I have a gas car that gets 25-30, but I do a lot of 300-500 mile stretches (not by choice!), and the idea of an electric car with a little more gas combined with stopping at charging stations sounds somewhat tempting. Get a TDI. The range-extending mode mileage of the volt is kinda lousy, (~40mpg) and EV mileage sucks above ~65mph. (It gets the rated 38 miles at 65 or so, more if you go slower, a lot less at 75.) The Volt is great if it's operational limitations fit your life, but when operated outside those limitations, it's just another car. Being able to say that, though, is loving amazing to me. It really is an awesome technological achievement. You could never charge it, run it on gas all the time, and enjoy it, it just wouldn't make financial sense.
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Jan 4, 2014 04:02
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Ryand-Smith posted:For people in here who have a volt, how does it drive. Payment wouldn't be a problem, but I'm curious on A: how does that tax credit thing work, and B: how does it drive on highways. Right now I have a gas car that gets 25-30, but I do a lot of 300-500 mile stretches (not by choice!), and the idea of an electric car with a little more gas combined with stopping at charging stations sounds somewhat tempting. Echoing what the guy above said, if you're doing huge 300-500 mile road trips all the time no electric vehicle on the market (even a Tesla) is going to work for you. Just get a TDI or a Prius or something that will maintain consistent good mpg.
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Jan 4, 2014 08:27
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Everything above, and I'll chime in on the highway experience: For the most part, the gas engine is a generator. The accelerator is disconnected from the engine RPMs. The gas engine cycles on and off throughout the trip. Power delivery is 100% seamless. I do a 400 mile round trip every 6 weeks and get 40-42 MPG using the generator + 40ish miles on the plug in charge. As far as the tax credit, you have to have at least $7500 of taxable income to get the full credit, otherwise you only get back your tax liability before deductions. Goober Peas fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Jan 4, 2014 |
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Jan 4, 2014 16:54
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Goober Peas posted:As far as the tax credit, you have to have at least $7500 of taxable income to get the full credit, otherwise you only get back your tax liability before deductions. And its only good in the year you buy the car, you cannot carry any credit forwards to the next fiscal year. Its so poors can't afford to buy them, as far as I can tell.
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Jan 4, 2014 17:30
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Don't forget that it can land you on the other end of the tax spectrum, as well. My CFO (wife) is not looking forward to AMT paperwork this year.
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Jan 4, 2014 20:51
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CharlesM posted:Advent Horizon is in Juneau which is a huge city, and not like, you know, what everybody thinks of when they hear Alaska.
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Jan 5, 2014 00:35
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Itzena posted:I was in a Model S demo a couple of weeks before Xmas and it was a little rattly inside, but that was a beat-to-poo poo model (old LHD US demonstrator shipped across here to the UK just after being used by Samuel L Jackson in a film, oddly enough) and it was still mostly okay. I'd speculate that the interior design in itself might end up putting off more people than the fit & finish - personally I think the whole "double-sized tablet as controls" works great, but I can totally see other people hating it. Yeah in the few Teslas I've driven/ridden in, including a friend's brand new Model S, some of the important stuff like switchgear was weirdly bad. Just boring stuff like the headlight stalks and buttons on the wheel feeling particularly cheap and rattly. Also I hated that giant tablet thing. In part because I hate touch controls but also because the design of the dash surrounding it is poor and somehow manages to make it look like an aftermarket hack-job right out of the factory. Materials were ok but nothign to write home about - more Subaru than Lexus or even VW caliber, though the only thing that popped out to me as particularly bad was the cheap looking headliner and also the questionable ergonomics on some of the boring stuff like door cards/door handles. Surprisingly tight headroom both front and back for the Model S, and I'm not even that tall. Fit and finish was also ok but not amazing, with a couple obvious flaws and also some sort of issue with the seats that ended up having to be repaired. Overall competent (compared to, say, a Chinese car) but definitely not at the level of a luxury car as would be implied by the price. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jan 5, 2014 |
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Jan 5, 2014 07:48
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Of course the interesting thing about that is all of the non-bespoke switchgear is Mercedes-sourced: the steering wheel is right out of an E-class (iirc), for example. You'd think that MB would be a bit more co-operative and provide the decent switches, given that Tesla are apparently building the entire drive train for the electric B-class for them.
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Jan 5, 2014 15:59
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Just got my Leaf a few days ago and my ladyfriend and I both love it. We took it into the near-mountains around Denver (to Idaho Springs for lunch and a quick charge, then up to Nederland and back down) nearly all day yesterday and B-mode's enhanced regen performed beautifully. The guessometer pegged as at 30 miles, and our home was at 31 miles... until we regened all the way down, and had 32 miles left while only 5 miles away. The best part is, the garage near my work has free EV charging along with the best daily rate in town, so two free charges picked up the tab for our road trip yesterday.
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Jan 20, 2014 17:23
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What percentage of the battery did you regen and what kind of slope was it? When I'm coming back from snowboarding I have exactly the same percentage at the bottom of the hill as at the top. I lose about 1200 feet in 6 miles or so, plus the heater is always running, but I originally figured I'd get at least SOME positive gain on the way down.
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Jan 22, 2014 07:07
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I always wondered why Teslas are so popular in Norway. It turns out there's a 25% VAT tax (similar to sales tax) in Norway, but it is waived for electric vehicles. So EVs end up 20% cheaper than similarly priced gas cars. The VAT waiver for EVs lasts all the way until 2018.
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Jan 23, 2014 22:58
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That and apparently there is a guy living in Norway (one of the Scandinavian countries) that owns ~20 of them and leaves them around his town for people to use freely. I remember Elon talking about this at Dell World last month 
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Jan 23, 2014 23:26
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Radbot posted:Just got my Leaf a few days ago and my ladyfriend and I both love it. We took it into the near-mountains around Denver (to Idaho Springs for lunch and a quick charge, then up to Nederland and back down) nearly all day yesterday and B-mode's enhanced regen performed beautifully. The guessometer pegged as at 30 miles, and our home was at 31 miles... until we regened all the way down, and had 32 miles left while only 5 miles away. What area do you live in? I'm in Lone Tree and getting a flat that has a garage where I can put in a 220 or 240 (not sure) and want to know how it does in Colorado.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:16
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Mathhole posted:It turns out there's a 25% VAT tax (similar to sales tax) in Norway, but it is waived for electric vehicles. So EVs end up 20% cheaper than similarly priced gas cars. Plus free tolls, HOV lane use, free parking, no registration fees, and avoiding the $3.35 per gallon petrol tax. Norway has certainly incentivized EV usage.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:13
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That, and everyone is stupid rich from all the oil&gas money 
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Jan 27, 2014 19:34
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MrYenko posted:And its only good in the year you buy the car, you cannot carry any credit forwards to the next fiscal year. Its so poors can't afford to buy them, as far as I can tell. You need $7500 of tax not taxable income. You also need to not be so rich that you get AMT or phaseout. You can always lease and the credit comes off of that if you are too poor or too rich income tax wise. If you lease you also get to take advantage of a residual value that is balls nuts too high.
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Jan 27, 2014 22:26
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Anybody else do their taxes yet? We found out last week that our rental needs a new roof, so a tax refund is high on the list of needs right now. I have no clue how we missed the AMT with all the credits and deductions this year, but TurboTax let me take the credit for installing an EVSE. New roof: $8-11,000 depending on whether we do the tear-off and anything else needs repairing. Refund: $11,319. loving hell. Oh, and per TurboTax, anyone taking the EV credit can't file until February 6th. FYI.
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Jan 28, 2014 07:10
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I did it last year. I didn't have any software though so I had to print out the extra form and fill it out. I hope they fixed the language on it this year since it was worded poorly.
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Jan 28, 2014 17:37
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ColoradoCleric posted:What area do you live in? I'm in Lone Tree and getting a flat that has a garage where I can put in a 220 or 240 (not sure) and want to know how it does in Colorado. I live in Denver. The last round of -5F and below temps definitely stresses the battery pack and cuts range by around 30 percent, more if you keep the heater running constantly. Anything above 10F or so and it performs beautifully. Getting a level 2 EVSE at home would be nice, but i rent my home so it's not an option. Regardless, between L1 at home and a decent charging infrastructure in Denver, I've never really wanted for more. 1100 miles in my first month!
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Feb 14, 2014 15:41
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