Hybrid Cars, any good ?

[Lurking]

Forget level 1. It isn't practical. And even if you have the time and can schedule your driving around charging for many hours, the residential outlets and plugs aren't nade for continuous duty. A 15A outlet theoretically can operate at 12A (80%), but the standard outlets aren't made to run at 12A for 9 hours every day. Same for dryer outlet, that is made to run a few hours every week. 

 

Level 1 is just if you are in a total pinch. Like you visit relatives once a year for a weekend and there is absolutely no public charger. At your home, you NEED level 2. Level 1 is just an excuse they tell to make it sound you can charge anywhere.

 

You probably want to run at no more than half the rated current. So on a 40A dryer outlet, not more than 20 to 25A. That likely is livable. But on 120V you want to limit to 8A. So, that now will take 50% more than an already very long time.

 

Someone mentioned time of use rates and electricity more expensive in the afternoon. That is true. But you can program to start charging in the evening once it is cheaper. With Level 2, even at only 20A, this shouldn't be an issue for most people.

 

Here some great discussion on this. You really should use EV specific hardware. 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

On 7/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, Donut417 said:

Assuming everyone has an electric dryer. Lots of people here in the US use natural gas. Our Dryer, hot water heater, furnace, and stove are all gas. We dont have a single 220v appliance and we dont have space in our electrical panel for one. The reason we use gas is because its cheaper than using electricity for everything. 

I'm not assuming anything - but if the breaker has space, wiring up a new 220v plug is not an expensive job. Obviously it depends on the variables of each individual person.

On 7/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, Donut417 said:

Yes but they are here right now. And before cars we had horses who just required food and water. Horses are no longer a prefered method of transportation for most.

True, but horses became obsolete a long time before every person had a car. Especially in urban environments.

On 7/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, Donut417 said:

Instead of pushing EV's when the infrastructure isn't ready, you make the infrastructure ready.

You need to do both - because private investment sure as hell doesn't want to build out a bunch of EV infrastructure if no one is buying them. Ideally the government would do it, but then the capitalist folks would scream that the market should dictate that.

On 7/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, Donut417 said:

You upgrade the power grid, you install charging stations, you mandate that new homes have the ability to install a level 2 charger.

I agree with all of these things. But we're in a chicken and the egg problem. We need people to buy EV's. People in part don't want to buy EV's because lack of infrastructure. Private enterprise doesn't want to build infrastructure until there's big demand. Repeat.

On 7/4/2023 at 10:37 PM, Donut417 said:

You let the market decide when its time to change over, you dont force it, and thats what the idiots in goverment are doing, trying to force it.

We can't just do nothing. If we let the market decide this, it would likely take decades longer for the transition to happen, and we'd be a lot farther behind already then we are.

 

 

< redacted by moderation, derail >

Edited July 6, 2023 by LogicalDrm

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread cleaned ***

 

Some posts edited to remove derailing comments. Please try to keep discussion to cars and which would work best for OP.

[Poinkachu]

Holy shit that's a lot of replies.
First of all sorry for not saying anything at all until today. I fell sick and just starting to recover from it now.

Massive thank you to everyone for sharing their knowledge, opinion, and thoughts.

And thanks Mods for keeping the thread clean.

I'm gonna start reading each replies carefully.