I think one could argue that if you take a 100 mile trip once every 6
weeks, an EV for everything else might work. Renting once every 6 weeks
would be reasonable, perhaps.
However, aside from the Tesla, 100 mile trips aren't possible. More
like 55 to 75 depending on vehicle and conditions. So, renting would be
more frequent than 6 weeks and, as Ben says, probably past being a
reasonable choice.
Of course there are other factors.
- Do you own two cars?
- Can you charge at your destination (e.g. work)?
- Is it easy to rent or borrow a car?
- Can you charge at home?
...
Peri
------ Original Message ------
From: "Ben Goren via EV" <[email protected]>
To: "Dennis Miles" <[email protected]>; "Electric Vehicle Discussion
List" <[email protected]>
Sent: 29-Aug-14 2:54:22 PM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EVLN: As EV battery prices fall> ?More range or
lower 100mi EV cost?
On Aug 29, 2014, at 1:50 PM, Dennis Miles <[email protected]>
wrote:
85% of driven trip miles were under 39 miles. Also,
99% of driven trip miles were less than 100 miles , leaving only 1%
of
trip miles being over 100 miles.
Those statistics seem quite reasonable. What's _not_ reasonable is your
interpretation of what they mean.
Let's say those statistics apply to a not-atypical person who might
make, say, fifteen trips per week. That's two trips five days a week
for commuting to and from work, and another five trips for things like
grocery shopping or social functions or taking the kids to soccer
practice or whatever. In reality, it's probably a lot more once we add
in lunch trips at work and doctor's appointments and picking the kids
up from school and all the other things people use cars for, but we'll
be conservative and go with fifteen trips per week.
Eighty-five percent of fifteen works out to a bit over twice a week
that this person needs more than 40 miles of range -- a statistic that
passes the "sniff" test, at least for me. A car limited to a 40 mile
range is simply a non-starter for that person -- especially if, as is
so common, the need for such range is unpredictable. (And, of course,
you've got to get back and have some reserves, so you need about a
100-mile range to be able to make a 40-mile trip, unless you can really
count on rapid charging at the destination, something we're a long way
from. Even the Leaf doesn't come close to cutting it for this person,
with only five EPA miles of "Murphy" factor.)
Fifteen trips a week is 780 trips a year. One percent of that is about
eight trips a year...or one such trip every six weeks. Again, a car
limited to a 100 mile range is a complete non-starter for this person,
again particularly if the long-distance trips happen with minimal
predictability.
Maybe I've misinterpreted your definition of "trip," such that the
daily commute is one trip, not two. Take my figures and divide them in
half or double them as appropriate; every week this person is making at
least one over-40-mile trip, and it's a few months between hundred-mile
trips. This is nowhere near enough to meaningfully change the analysis.
It makes a great soundbite to say that only 1% of trips are over 100
miles...but that betrays either ignorance of the true scale of car use
or a less-than-honest distortion of that scale.
Again, I'm all in favor of EVs of all types. For two-car families, it
almost seems criminal to not have at least one EV, ideally a BEV. It
seems similarly irresponsible to buy a new car that isn't at least a
PHEV, or to refrain from converting all but the wimpiest of hybrids
into plugins.
What I won't do is pretend that BEVs are reasonable as the exclusive
option for any but a negligibly small fraction of the driving public --
and I think this pretense of yours may well do more harm to the EV
cause than anything else an individual can do.
b&
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