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Factors for no wingless Electric Vehicle

wingless

Active member
These are the reasons why I am not going to purchase an electric vehicle. Others have different factors, with different weights that lead to their own decisions.

Generational Theft
IMO, the US federal government is committing generational theft, passing a staggering debt that will cripple future unborn Americans.

There are untold “great” ideas on how to spend money. In this case, the $7,500 federal tax EV credit incentive sounds great, but with deficit spending, this just adds to the debt we pass onto the future.

My personal opinion is that I strongly object to virtually all of these "great" ideas that burden our unborn future.

Adverse Environmental Impacts
Virtually everything we do can have adverse environmental effects. So, in this case, an examination of the differences between a conventional vehicle and a hybrid are examined.

The hybrid has a massive Lithium-ion battery pack, that doesn’t exist in a conventional vehicle.

The mining of the lithium, nickel and cobalt for the battery pack harms the planet and consumes massive amounts of energy. Here is a decent description.

Given the high costs to recycle compared to new production, along w/ the associated environmental pollution from recycling, it is likely that end-of-life batteries will be discarded.

Excessive Costs
The operational costs are about a break even, if the battery pack is charged at home, with the current Biden double price gasoline costs. The remote charging costs are about twice the price of home. Assuming we revert to normal domestic energy production w/ lower gas costs, then the EV operational cost will exceed that for a gasoline vehicle.

The battery pack has a finite life, then requires expensive replacement. An automotive battery pack replacement currently costs $10K to $20K and high for some models. Assuming this happens past the warranty period, such as 10 years down the road, this is a huge hit on a used vehicle.

Energy Grid
The existing low penetration of EVs is not a significant factor on the electric grid. But if / when this changes, then the generation and distribution must be considered.

That electricity must be created somehow, burning coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, or other, then distributed, with all the associated energy losses to the point of use. If / when EVs become significant, then that may mean more / bigger plants and increased capacity distribution systems.
 

wingless

Active member
These are the reasons why I am not going to purchase an electric vehicle. Others have different factors, with different weights that lead to their own decisions.

...

The battery pack has a finite life, then requires expensive replacement. An automotive battery pack replacement currently costs $10K to $20K and higher for some models. Assuming this happens past the warranty period, such as 10 years down the road, this is a huge hit on a used vehicle.

...
FWIW, already having personal experience w/ a motorized conveyance that would silently burn through ~$1K+ of parts per year, despite usage amount, it sucks lemons through a garden hose.

The $5K OEM exhausts on my 2000 3808DA Sea Ray would last a maximum of five years, before requiring discarding / replacement. If ignored then that would cause the destruction of the ~$20K per engine.

Discarding expensive OEM parts that were beautiful five years earlier, that were now fully corroded beyond useable condition bothered me very much, every single time I performed that service.

At the last replacement cycle, five years ago, I had enough and redesigned the exhaust, using OEM UL approved parts. Being thick as mud I still perform an annual inspection. This continues to verify the parts are still in brand new condition. I would long ago have been attempting to justify continued usage (if appropriate).

Many hybrid electric vehicle owners would gladly trade $1K+/year to loudly profess being woke. Others may be ignorant of this silent time / cost reality. Others plan on not owning the vehicle when the battery pack age becomes an issue.

It is unclear to me that there is any redesign solution possible to diminish / eliminate this expected high cost "time bomb".
 

Indigovic

Well-known member
Just so you know, using terms like “woke” and referencing specific politicians detracts from the credibility of your statements. You do better when separating facts from opinion and political views.

To me, one of the most important statements you made is that “the operational costs are about a break even.” But you provided no data to back that up. Do you have some?
 
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Indigovic

Well-known member
Adverse Environmental Impacts
Virtually everything we do can have adverse environmental effects. So, in this case, an examination of the differences between a conventional vehicle and a hybrid are examined.

The hybrid has a massive Lithium-ion battery pack, that doesn’t exist in a conventional vehicle.

The mining of the lithium, nickel and cobalt for the battery pack harms the planet and consumes massive amounts of energy. Here is a decent description.
You started off great—we do need to examine the differences. But then you only examined the detriments of the battery pack, and not the detriments of gasoline. The collection, refinement, delivery, and use of fossil fuels also harms the planet. Do you have comparative data on that?
 

Indigovic

Well-known member
To me, one of the most important statements you made is that “the operational costs are about a break even.” But you provided no data to back that up. Do you have some?
Here's what I have. Since no 4xes have shipped to customers yet, I'm looking at real-world experience from 4xe Wrangler users, which should be pretty close.

Wrangler users report that it takes 15.2 kW to fully charge the battery in real-world use. Based on my last electric bill ($ .116635 per kWh), that would cost me $1.77 for a full charge. The GC I have on order states a 25-mile electric-only range, but Wrangler users report a real-world range of 22; since that's worse, we'll use that. At my electric rate, that's a hair over 8 cents per mile.

Real-world fuel efficiency for a V6 GC is ~19 MPG (or worse). In order for that car to be fueled for less than 8 cents per mile, gas would have to be less than $1.53 per gallon. According to the US Energy Information Administration, gas hasn't been that low in Seattle since January 2004. (Gas is currently $4.76, or three times the cost of electric, so even if I had to pay double to charge at a charging station, I'd still be way ahead .)

(I realize "operational costs" is more than just fuel cost, but I have no data on other operational costs.)
 
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wingless

Active member
You started off great—we do need to examine the differences. But then you only examined the detriments of the battery pack, and not the detriments of gasoline. The collection, refinement, delivery, and use of fossil fuels also harms the planet. Do you have comparative data on that?
All Grand Cherokee vehicles include a gasoline engine, making that a hair splitting point.
 

wingless

Active member
...

Wrangler users report that it takes 15.2 kW to fully charge the battery in real-world use. Based on my last electric bill ($ .116635 per kWh), that would cost me $1.77 for a full charge. The GC I have on order states a 25-mile electric-only range, but Wrangler users report a real-world range of 22; since that's worse, we'll use that. At my electric rate, that's a hair over 8 cents per mile.

Real-world fuel efficiency for a V6 GC is ~19 MPG (or worse). In order for that car to be fueled for less than 8 cents per mile, gas would have to be less than $1.53 per gallon. According to the US Energy Information Administration, gas hasn't been that low in Seattle since January 2004. (Gas is currently $4.76, or three times the cost of electric, so even if I had to pay double to charge at a charging station, I'd still be way ahead .)

...
According to published specs, the Grand Cherokee 4xe Lithium-ion battery capacity is 17.3kWh and that provides 24 miles of range.

At your electric billing rate ($0.116635/kWh) that costs $2.02 for 24 miles.

The V6 Grand Cherokee is rated for 22MPG combined / 19MPG city / 26MPG highway.

So a full charge is approximately equivalent to one gallon of gasoline.
 

Indigovic

Well-known member
All Grand Cherokee vehicles include a gasoline engine, making that a hair splitting point.
For me, it’s a car that can use gas when needed, but most of my trips will be in full electric range, so I expect to fill my tiny gas tank only very rarely. My environmental impact will be in great majority from electric charging.
 

Indigovic

Well-known member
According to published specs, the Grand Cherokee 4xe Lithium-ion battery capacity is 17.3kWh and that provides 24 miles of range.

At your electric billing rate ($0.116635/kWh) that costs $2.02 for 24 miles.

The V6 Grand Cherokee is rated for 22MPG combined / 19MPG city / 26MPG highway.

So a full charge is approximately equivalent to one gallon of gasoline.
You’re using published specs; I’m using real-world numbers I‘ve culled from Jeep users on this and other forums: the battery—which is the same spec as the one in the Wrangler, if not the exact same part—doesn’t hold as much charge as spec’ed and so the real-world range is lower, and the GC V6 is not as efficient as rated. (The 19 mpg number I used is probably better than the real-world average from the reports I’ve seen.)

But even if a full charge were exactly equivalent to a gallon of gas, gas hasn’t been $2.02 per gallon in Seattle since January 2009 (per US Energy Information Administration again). And if gasoline ever does go back near that price range, I’m pretty confident my electric costs will decrease as well, as they’re still partly based on the cost of fossil fuels.

In short, the data—mine and yours—tells me that my electric miles will be significantly cheaper than my gas miles. Right now, with gas here at $4.76 (latest USEIA), even using your numbers, my electric miles would be less than half the price of gas miles. I expect that gap will likely narrow in the future, but it’s not going to close.
 
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wingless

Active member
According to published specs, the Grand Cherokee 4xe Lithium-ion battery capacity is 17.3kWh and that provides 24 miles of range.

At your electric billing rate ($0.116635/kWh) that costs $2.02 for 24 miles.

The V6 Grand Cherokee is rated for 22MPG combined / 19MPG city / 26MPG highway.

So a full charge is approximately equivalent to one gallon of gasoline.
Decided to confirm the costs in my southern Florida area.

The electric rate is $0.12858/kWh (per my last utility bill) costing $2.22 for 24 miles, specified.

Note that the battery will degrade over time and over usage. For Lithium-ion the typical end-of-life capacity threshold is 30% decrease from the nameplate rating. IMO that is interesting when compared to lead-acid batteries having a 50% decrease to reach that threshold.

The historical regular gasoline prices in my area are shown in this chart.

51979013306_e1fa9a6ae9_c.jpg


The fuel cost for this approximately one gallon of electric "gasoline" is roughly a wash, prior to the intentional destruction by the current administration of the energy industry / economy / supply chain.

It is likely and expected that the electric rate increases lag the much more dynamic gasoline prices and will eventually track to also increase, making the cost for this one gallon of electric "gasoline" increase.

Note that the online image for the previously mentioned hybrid electric Wrangler looks nothing like that for the Grand Cherokee. The current cost for the Wrangler electric battery pack is $1,745. IMO, that seems like a bargain, where most other batteries are listed at many times that cost. Note that the image for the currently not priced Grand Cherokee battery shows it to be much larger than that for the Wrangler and probably higher cost.
 

Indigovic

Well-known member
My lower electric costs and higher gas costs do make it much more compelling for me than for you.

Seattle has some of the highest gas prices in the country. Since we have no state income tax, we tend to have higher usage taxes (and property taxes) than other states, which leads me to another factor to consider: If you live where gas taxes fund things like roads, mass transit, and other infrastructure, lowering your gasonline consumption lowers your participation in that taxation, which some may view as a good thing and others as a bad thing—if everyone were to switch to electric overnight, the tax base that feeds that infrastructure would dry up quickly!

On another note, anyone considering a plug-in hybrid or all-electric car should look into whether their electric company offers lower rates for charging during off-peak hours. Jeep makes It easy to set your car up so you can connect it to the charger whenever you like and have it only begin charging during a window you define (with the ability to easily override that for immediate charging when you need to). You can also buy chargers with advanced scheduling features, but it’s really not needed with the Jeep.

Sadly, my electric company doesn’t offer off-peak rates, but I still intend to set up charging to default to late night, when the load on the power grid is lowest and when the grid itself is more likely to be using wind power rather than fossil fuel.
 

wingless

Active member
Decided to confirm the costs in my southern Florida area.

...

The historical regular gasoline prices in my area are shown in this chart.

51979013306_e1fa9a6ae9_c.jpg


...
The historical gasoline prices for Seattle are shown.

As would be expected the two extremes of the country show the same trends, but not exactly the same levels. Note the Y axis have different scales.

51978225627_d089a67185_c.jpg
 

Riviera

Well-known member
I believe that the process for recycling lithium batteries will become refined and practical. All these people who are so worried about lithium battery recycling, I'm assuming you won't own power tools that use lithium batteries? Probably the same with cell phones? There's no doubt that work needs to be done with lithium production and recycling, but I feel like this is the same kind of argument you get from people who say "Do you know how many birds windmills kill", like they actually care about the birds in the first place. If you don't want an electric car, then by all means, don't buy one.
 

sikclown

Active member
One EV point I want to add here is that some of this will come down to what we actually do with degraded batteries. The secondary life of batteries can be quite useful for scenarios for quite a long time before they would be eventually recycled for the elements and used in new EV batteries.
What Happens to EV Batteries

Another EV point I would like to add, which gets missed fairly often, is as we move towards all electric vehicles the maintenance is significantly less costly with less moving parts, regenerative braking, etc. These vehicles could easily go a million miles with proper care. Too many sources to quote but the information is out there. Of course if you have a battery issue that requires replacement it would be a financial catastrophe for a huge chunk of individuals. I wouldn't be shocked to see battery coverage become the next racket insurance companies overcharge for.

A final EV point I would add is the 7500.00 tax break isn't actually a cash refund (as I am sure everyone in this thread knows) it is simply a break on our individual tax liabilities. If at tax time someone owes the government 6000k, which is a very common thing with capping of a lot of the usual tax breaks in recent tax law changes, but they purchased an EV that meets the requirements their tax bill gets zeroed out but they don't get a check for the remaining 1500.00. Yes the government doesn't get that 6000.00 from the individual but they also don't pay that out. Plus at X amount of cars sold manufacturers vehicles are no longer able to qualify for a tax break. This doesn't pass debt on to our future generations UNLESS our government does what they always do and increase spending. So the point about the future burden is a fair one but it could easily be a non-issue.

On the negatives I have a great many questions about our power grid that is ancient by all data points and how adding more demand would impact it.
 

wingless

Active member
One EV point I want to add here is that some of this will come down to what we actually do with degraded batteries. The secondary life of batteries can be quite useful for scenarios for quite a long time before they would be eventually recycled for the elements and used in new EV batteries.
What Happens to EV Batteries
...
Interesting article.

Yes, a repurposed EV battery pack is an excellent solution to address the adverse environmental impact.

Unfortunately, unlike the batteries that have existed forever in our vehicles to start the engines and run the electronics, the EV batteries have widely diverse dimensions and aspect ratios.

A solution that uses repurposed batteries will very likely be tied to a specific vehicle from a specific manufacturer.

The battery pack from a Wrangler looks nothing like that for a Grand Cherokee.

Wrangler
8a54f17bdcc84b47e3749e4838044485.png


Grand Cherokee
4f20a8ac51d0a9a448f2f0e27e0b36fa.png
 

Indigovic

Well-known member
Plus at X amount of cars sold manufacturers vehicles are no longer able to qualify for a tax break.
The specifics here are “The credit begins to phase out for vehicles at the beginning of the second calendar quarter after the manufacturer has sold 200,000 eligible plug-in electric vehicles.” GM and Tesla have already done that (https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxevb.shtml), Ford and BMW will get there soon (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/irc-30d-plug-in-electric-drive-motor-vehicle-credit-quarterly-sales), and Jeep isn’t even close.

(I would not be surprised if a new bill replaces the current bill before that happens, but who knows what it might change.)
 

sikclown

Active member
Interesting article.

Yes, a repurposed EV battery pack is an excellent solution to address the adverse environmental impact.

Unfortunately, unlike the batteries that have existed forever in our vehicles to start the engines and run the electronics, the EV batteries have widely diverse dimensions and aspect ratios.

A solution that uses repurposed batteries will very likely be tied to a specific vehicle from a specific manufacturer.

The battery pack from a Wrangler looks nothing like that for a Grand Cherokee.

Wrangler
8a54f17bdcc84b47e3749e4838044485.png


Grand Cherokee
4f20a8ac51d0a9a448f2f0e27e0b36fa.png
True, but I think it is fair to assume different applications will have different needs/specs. Your assumptions is that they will all need to be the same size, shape, capacity, etc but not all applications will require that. For instance a data center may buy used batteries to power their centers so that customers experience zero down time/data loss. The individual capacity and size really wouldn't matter as their software would handle the outflow and they can be wired anywhere along the system. It might not be elegant or attractive but the application doesn't require either.
 

sikclown

Active member
The specifics here are “The credit begins to phase out for vehicles at the beginning of the second calendar quarter after the manufacturer has sold 200,000 eligible plug-in electric vehicles.” GM and Tesla have already done that (https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxevb.shtml), Ford and BMW will get there soon (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/irc-30d-plug-in-electric-drive-motor-vehicle-credit-quarterly-sales), and Jeep isn’t even close.

(I would not be surprised if a new bill replaces the current bill before that happens, but who knows what it might change.)
I wasn't arguing one way or another, simply pointing out that as written these credits have an end. I am not so sure a new bill would replace the current any time soon; They tried that and it got knocked out of the bill. Anything could happen in the future for sure.
 
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