Electric car questions

[s_morrison57]

I'm too old to ever own one and I really don't want an electric car but I have some questions, lets use the Tesla

- What is the charging time
- What does it cost to charge it from low to full charge
- How long does it take to charge from low to full charge
- What do replacement battery's cost and what is the life expectancy of the battery
- What is the highway traveling distance

Thanks

[wdfifteen]

Which Tesla? There are several models.

[Scott R]

Ok.

2021 Model Y extended range

70 miles to 284 at 30 amp is 9 hours and 30 mins

70 miles to 284 at 50 amp is about 5 hours and 30 mins

70 miles to 284 at the Supercharger is 2 hours

Highway distance is about 179 actual miles with the AC on driving from Denver to Colorado Springs.

Sorry don’t have the other answers.

[MysticLlama]

This is for a 2018 Model 3 Performance-

Daily commute of 50 miles in traffic, about an hourish charging at home @ 40amp to go from 60%-80%. Costs <$2 here.

0-100% cost at home would be about $8-9 and take about 6 hours or so.
0-100% Supercharging would be about $25 and take about 45-60 minutes.
20-80% Supercharging would take closer to 25 min, it takes a lot longer at the top.

Reality time charging per day - about a minute to plug it in on arriving home, always charged in the morning.

Not sure what current pack cost is, current packs typically go a few hundred thousand miles with ~10% degradation.

Highway traveling distance can vary a lot based on temp. EPA rating is ~300. The most common trip I make is over the mountains from Seattle to Chelan ~185 miles. Easy in the summer with 40-50% of the battery left, winter usually takes a 10-15 min stop to be comfortable.

Have done a 4 hour stretch heading past Portland, so about 260-280 before stopping on that one.

Planning charge stops can save lots of time. For instance, there is a charger close to Chelan that is a 250kw, and we charged 80 or so miles of range in 6min while letting the dog out. Faster charger + lower state of charge.

When getting there, just plug into a 20A 110v outlet at the house and can charge mostly back up overnight.

[Aerkuld]

You really need some additional context with these questions. Most EV owners don’t ever charge to 100%, or run the battery to 0% charge, so you’re never really charging in these extreme cases. I’ll explain a little more in the answers;

- What is the charging time?
This is dependent on the capacity of the battery in your car, and what you're using to charge. Tesla Model 3's come with 50kWh or 80 kWh batteries, Model Y's with a 75kWh battery, and the Model S and X come with a 100kWh battery. There are home charge stations available which charge at anything from 16 amps up to 80 amps on two-phase domestic supply (220V). These will provide between approximately 3kW to 19kW per hour. If you use the superchargers they work on high voltage 400VDC at 250 amps and typically add 90kW per hour. You can get an idea from this what a given model would take to use with a given charge station. In reality it's not a linear charge rate, and the final 20% or so from 80% up to 100% of the battery capacity takes much longer to charge than the first 20%. If you were in a situation where you wanted to drive further than a single charge would take you, it’s actually faster stopping and charging to between 50% and 80% twice, than stopping once and charging all the way to 100%. Even when charging at home we rarely charge to above 90%.

- What does it cost to charge it from low to full charge
This is also not straightforward as it depends on your electricity costs, and that can also depend on when you charge it. Charging off-peak is the cheapest rate and most EV drivers probably have their charge stations set to charge overnight on off-peak electricity. Given you know from above how much energy you're going to use, you can work out the cost based on whatever tariff your electricity is provided on. To fully charge I’d guess it would cost about $25 to $30 IF we didn’t have solar. In actuality, our home solar produces about as much energy throughout the year as we use, so our annual electricity bill is ~$120 for a year’s worth of monthly service charges.

- How long does it take to charge from low to full charge
As mentioned previously, we don't really charge more than 90%. Also, we charge it every night, so we're not ever charging from empty. My wife's commute is ~60 mile round trip, and our experience, similar to MysticLlama, is that we're probably going from 65% to 90% on each charge. That's going to charge within 90 minutes or so and cost about $4. Realistically it doesn’t really matter how long it takes when we charge overnight provided it’s charged by the time we need it. It is nice to get into a car with a ‘full tank’ every morning!

- What do replacement battery's cost and what is the life expectancy of the battery
These are good questions, and things we looked at before buying an EV. The pack degradation is dependent on the efficiency of the car's battery thermal management system. Most modern EV's manage this very well, so battery degradation is pretty minimal. I think ML's number is realistic, but I don’t think the deterioration in range is linear. More than likely the rate of deterioration slows down over time. There are several 2013 Model S's available with well over 100k miles, and range seems hardly affected. There are several places where I've read the design life of the batteries is in the range of 300k to 500k miles, but who knows? In terms of cost, there's an article I read which has an invoice for $16,550 for parts and labor to replace a battery on a Model 3. That’s with new replacement parts I’d imagine. If you were to get hold of a good condition used pack, or have a pack reconditioned, it should be less. Link here:

https://www.currentautomotive.com/how-much-does-a-tesla-model-3-battery-replacement-cost/

- What is the highway traveling distance
Again, it really depends on the size of the battery and how heavy your right foot is. The outside temperature also plays a significant role as the battery doesn't work as well in very low temperatures. Most of the longer range newer EV's can travel within 3% to 5% of their stated range at freeway speeds in summer. In winter that range may drop by as much as 20%. Again, it's probably unlikely most EV's would be driven this way, as you rarely charge to 100% or run the battery down to zero. Our common longest range trip would be a drive out for the day, park wherever it is we're going and charge while we're there, then drive home. I doubt we’d cover more than 300 miles in a day. We have never used a fast charger or been close to running out of range on a trip.

This is all based on current (excuse the pun) technology of course. Batteries are a huge area of development at the moment in terms of capacity, rate of charge, cost, and materials. Also, EV's aren't yet suitable as direct replacements for every vehicle with an internal combustion engine, or every use case. I’ll be honest, in addition to the ‘toys’ we have the EV and we have a gas/electric plug-in hybrid, so a long road trip is never going to be a problem.

[Kraftwerk]

There are also FREE places to charge an electric car. My sister's family have THREE Chevy Volts, a red one , a white one and a blue one (not planned!) If she parks at the town library there is a free charging station and a reserved spot for electric cars. Free > !

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by Kraftwerk

There are also FREE places to charge an electric car. My sister's family have THREE Chevy Volts, a red one , a white one and a blue one (not planned!) If she parks at the town library there is a free charging station and a reserved spot for electric cars. Free > !

Volts are not not EV’s and should not be parking in those spots.

[Evans, Marv]

My wife's car is the 2021 Model Y Dual Motor, and everything said by Scott, MysticLama, & Aerkuld is right on. We have solar which produces almost 3 megawatts of extra power per year. This past year was the first time I had a true up after buying the car, & we didn't pay anything for electricity used over the year. I'll be interested to see how much we may have to pay after the next period. Range on EVs can vary a lot. Getting on it is fun but uses a lot of power. Traveling uphill uses a lot too. There is a window you can sweep open on the display that shows how many watt hr./mile you are using. It updates itself every minute or so, so is an approximation. We go up an down the foothill area here. Going uphill can use around 575 Whrs./mile. Downhill it gets down to around 75 Whrs./mile. With the 75 kW battery charged to 90% there is a useable charge of around 68K/69K. If traveling on the flat, usage is around 250 to 300 so if you're on a trip that's mostly flat, you can divide 68K by 250/300 to estimate the total range. My wife has a 45 mile+ RT to work. She usually gets home with a stated range of 225 miles remaining. With the 30A, 220V charge outlet, charging time is maybe around 3 hrs. She loves the damned thing more than me.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Volts are not not EV’s and should not be parking in those spots.

How are Volts supposed to get their batteries charged?

[Tobra]

Volt is an electric vehicle

[PorscheGAL]

My husband just bought a Model 3 performance:

To charge from 30miles of range to 280miles of range takes 15-25 mins at a supercharger (some superchargers have more amps than others). Here in SC, that costs about $12.

At home we have a Tesla Wall charger at 48 Amps. We tell the car how much of the battery we want charged and when we want to leave and it starts charging to accomplish the goal we set.

I must admit: I love driving his car. After driving that my Audi RS 3 seems like it is moving at snail speed. I have ordered a new Model S that is due to arrive in October.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Volt is an electric vehicle

Yeah, I'm wondering how Scott things Volt batteries get charged if not at charging stations.

[Bugsinrugs]

I thought the Volt was a Hybrid and the Bolt is all electric.

[Sooner or later]

It was a plug in hybrid.

[1990C4S]

YouTube. Engineering Explained.

He does several long Tesla trips, winter and summer, and he does an excellent job explaining times, cost, strategies, etc.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs

I thought the Volt was a Hybrid and the Bolt is all electric.

It's an electric car for the first couple dozen miles of city driving.
Then the engine kicks on.

I think the Prius has an 'electric only' mode as well, but is internally regenerative-charged, instead of plugged in separately.

https://www.caranddriver.com/chevrolet/volt
Unlike many plug-in hybrids that have about 20 miles or less of electric-only range, the Volt can travel up to 53 miles before its gasoline engine fires up.

The Volt's long electric-only range makes it one of the most successful plug-in hybrids on the market. However, once the battery runs out of charge and it must rely more heavily on its gasoline engine, its fuel economy becomes modest. The Volt is rated to deliver 53 miles of EV range, according to the EPA, which is more than enough to get most people between home and work every day. It didn't quite live up to expectations during our highway test, where it yielded a 37-mile real-world highway range. The fuel economy of the gas engine also disappointed in our highway test. Once the battery was depleted, it earned just 39 mpg.

[Tobra]

Volt is an electric car with an onboard generator

So is it Tesla or nothing? There are a number of choices now

[cockerpunk]

im scoping out an electric F150, would be perfect for what i use a truck for.

[stevej37]

If you own a Tesla...plenty of charging stations here.
Our local Meijers (in the pic) has 12 free charging stations in the back of their parking lot.

In the five years that they have had these...I've never seen a Tesla getting charged....(and it's free.)

[PorscheGAL]

Those super chargers are not free. You are charged to a credit card on file