Flutterby™! : Electric Cars

Next unread comment / Catchup all unread comments User Account Info | Logout | XML/Pilot/etc versions | Long version (with comments) | Weblog archives | Site Map | | Browse Topics

Electric Cars

2016-09-02 23:49:11.7454+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

So we're gonna bend over and take the pittance that the Germans (VW) are offering in recompense for duping us into gassing our neighbors with the TDI, but this leaves us looking around for a car. We're intrigued by electric cars. But so far as I can tell, nobody really wants to sell them.

A friend with a Leaf describes the range anxiety of an 80 mile car (that'll fall off 10-15% after a few years). That seems to be about what most of the current non-Tesla electrics offer. 60 miles covers Charlene to work and home, with zero margin. Admittedly that's the slightly longer back way, but turn on the heater, and...?

It'd be *super* nice if we could get something that'd take us to the South Bay and back, or, barring that, let Charlene drive her commute and then me take it to Vallejo for calling or take us both to Sebastopol for dancing. The new crop of ~180 mile vehicles sounds attractive for that, but...

BMW has the i3 extended range option, which essentially bolts on a generator making it a plug-in hybrid with a 1.7 gallon fuel tank. Why the tiny fuel tank? Apparently because if it had a real tank it'd be classified as a plug-in hybrid, and not be eligible for all sorts of tax credits and other regulatory benefits. And it looks like it has frankly lousy gas mileage as a hybrid.

The shortly forthcoming Chevy Bolt has the range, allegedly, but a 9 hour(!) charge time. So we could do those things one day, but the car wouldn't have time to fully charge before the next trip. And no ACC option. WhoTF builds a modern car, especially an electric, without ACC?

And so we're back to Tesla, which is pricey. But is apparently designed to actually be an electric car, and not some sort of dodge to game CAFE standards.

I suppose we have to see what plug-in hybrids offer.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Games Invention and Design Sociology Work, productivity and environment California Culture Travel Automobiles Fabrication ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Electric Cars made: 2016-09-03 12:23:18.768869+00 by: DaveP

Electric motorcycles are making progress. Zero, from Santa Cruz has been steadily improving their range in the past five years.

I have $1k down on an Elio should those ever ship. It's gas, but incredible mileage and nice performance.

But you're right. Other than Tesla, the electrics are kinda disappointing. Cushman isn't mentioned in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car but they're interesting in trying something different and NOT trying to sell via traditional dealerships. I think that system is going to need to change.

Add your own comment:

(If anyone ever actually uses Webmention/indie-action to post here, please email me)




Format with:

(You should probably use "Text" mode: URLs will be mostly recognized and linked, _underscore quoted_ text is looked up in a glossary, _underscore quoted_ (http://xyz.pdq) becomes a link, without the link in the parenthesis it becomes a <cite> tag. All <cite>ed text will point to the Flutterby knowledge base. Two enters (ie: a blank line) gets you a new paragraph, special treatment for paragraphs that are manually indented or start with "#" (as in "#include" or "#!/usr/bin/perl"), "/* " or ">" (as in a quoted message) or look like lists, or within a paragraph you can use a number of HTML tags:

p, img, br, hr, a, sub, sup, tt, i, b, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, cite, em, strong, code, samp, kbd, pre, blockquote, address, ol, dl, ul, dt, dd, li, dir, menu, table, tr, td, th

Comment policy

We will not edit your comments. However, we may delete your comments, or cause them to be hidden behind another link, if we feel they detract from the conversation. Commercial plugs are fine, if they are relevant to the conversation, and if you don't try to pretend to be a consumer. Annoying endorsements will be deleted if you're lucky, if you're not a whole bunch of people smarter and more articulate than you will ridicule you, and we will leave such ridicule in place.

Flutterby™ is a trademark claimed by

Dan Lyke
for the web publications at www.flutterby.com and www.flutterby.net.