The Electric Vehicle Thread

[ken830]

Listen to @REWahoo. If you are road tripping, the Bolt is probably the worse car you can possibly pick due to is slow charging capabilities.

 

[Ronstar]

Yep. It's no wonder that Ca has so many EV's.

Mostly NOT true. The IRA incentives are just from this year. The incentives from the previous federal program phased out for both GM and Tesla starting in 2018, before they got to very high volumes. And California state incentives introduced income limits around that time. Tesla makes up most of the EVs sold in California and that means most of the EVs sold in California didn't get most (or any) of those incentives.

I don't know why you say "Mostly NOT true"

My limited research shows Ca having the 5th highest tax credit for EV purchase. Source is the first site from my google search: https://www.thezebra.com/resources/personal-finance/best-ev-tax-rebates-by-state/

And Ca has a lot of people. So given a lot of people in a state with above average incentives, it makes sense that Ca has so many EVs

 

[Sunset]

I don't think driving with two feet should ever be done but I have heard of a lot of older people who do that due to reduced reaction time. Two of my neighbors do it all the time. I always see them driving down the road with their brake lights on because they have one foot on the accelerator and the other lightly on the brake.

I've seen 2 footed drivers as well sometimes.
I think it's because they were taught wrong and have done it all their lives.

If a 2-footed driver taught you to drive, how would you drive ? It probably runs in the family.

 

[ken830]

What? Tesla Model 3 price slashed to just $19830 in California?

https://insideevs.com/news/670649/tesla-model-3-price-tax-rebates-california/

That’s due to the incentives.

Yep. It's no wonder that Ca has so many EV's.

Mostly NOT true. The IRA incentives are just from this year. The incentives from the previous federal program phased out for both GM and Tesla starting in 2018, before they got to very high volumes. And California state incentives introduced income limits around that time. Tesla makes up most of the EVs sold in California and that means most of the EVs sold in California didn't get most (or any) of those incentives.

I don't know why you say "Mostly NOT true"

My limited research shows Ca having the 5th highest tax credit for EV purchase. Source is the first site from my google search: https://www.thezebra.com/resources/personal-finance/best-ev-tax-rebates-by-state/

And Ca has a lot of people. So given a lot of people in a state with above average incentives, it makes sense that Ca has so many EVs

I can explain, but it boils down to: your limited research is really limited. Mine is limited too, but I have the advantage of living in California, bought several EVs during this period, and have many family and friends from various income-brackets buying EVs during this period.

I fully quoted the full thread so that it's clear what we are talking about. The initial post is Ron saying that Tesla slashed prices to $19.8k in California. Audreyh1 clarifying that it's after incentives. I will add that it's after federal, state, and county-level incentives. Finally, you saying that no wonder that California has so many EVs, implying that the reason why we have so many is because of the incentives.

My reply is that it is MOSTLY not true because it is partially true. But mostly not.

The reason, as I've said, is that most of the EVs purchased in California are Teslas and the bulk of them were purchased from mid-2018 to today. That's because Tesla wasn't able to ramp-up production until late 2018. So, my focus was during this period.

$7,500 Federal incentive: Under the previous federal incentive program, Tesla vehicles started to be phased out of qualification in 2018, cutting the amount down to 1/2, 1/4, then zero by 2019. It is only with the recent IRA incentives do Tesla vehicles now re-qualify. That started this year, and only some of the models & trims. As of a few days ago, all 3 & Y trims qualify and none of S & X do. The highest-volume vehicle, the Model Y, didn't even go on sale until the end of Q1 2020, so it never had any federal incentives until this year. Summary: For most of the Teslas purchased in the state of California, they had little to no federal incentives and Californians bought them anyway.

$2,500 state incentive: The CVRP had income caps introduced in 2016. Up until 2018, with appreciable deliveries of Model 3, Most vehicles sold were Model S and X (production & deliveries didn't really come until 2016) and most of them to higher-income households which somewhat limited qualification. There were various changes to the program that included increased incentives for lower income applicants, MSRP caps, and disqualified Tesla vehicles during various points in time. For example, between March 16, 2022 and January 11, 2023, ALL Tesla vehicles were disqualified from incentives no matter income limits (source). Tesla was increasing production rate of Model Y starting from 2020, so the bulk of Model Y was produced and purchased in 2022 and none of them in that period above were eligible for any state incentives.

Local incentives: this is highly variable and extremely local to a person's county, or city, or power company, so I will not comment because I only know the incentives for my own local area, and they have income limits that prevent pretty much everyone from qualifying since I live in a very high CoL area with average income very high.. San Carlos, CA median household income here is top-ten in the country -- and in California, second to only Los Altos, CA.

So, in summary, Californians have an outsized ratio of EVs per person. And that happened despite the fact that most of them qualified for little to no incentives. Even though EVs, and Tesla especially, are superior products, I do agree though that price does play a role. And because of that, Tesla has reduced prices when the largest financial incentives (federal $7,500) was reduced and removed (COVID-induced price hikes excepted), so it softened or eliminated any effects when those disappeared.

I believe "mostly not true" is still a fair assessment of your statement. It's pretty clear that even with no incentives, Californians would buy EVs at a higher rate than any other state in the country.

BTW, your source is pretty recent, but state incentives change quickly. It's too much work for me to research every state to validate accuracy -- maybe after I'm retired. For you to say that California is 5th-highest is kind of correct, but kind of not. On that list, it's actually tied with 2 other states. I did look at Massachusetts, and see that they are actually offering $3,500 for BEV, which would push California down to be tied for 6th-highest.

 

[ls99]

Some people are unclear on the electric car concept.
Linked is a video on twitter, a woman insisting that the driver of a Tesla turn off his car as it is spewing pollution. Even as she notes it is very quiet.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1666176081404080129

 

[ken830]

Some people are unclear on the electric car concept.
Linked is a video on twitter, a woman insisting that the driver of a Tesla turn off his car as it is spewing pollution. Even as she notes it is very quiet.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1666176081404080129

"Yeah, alright!" Seems almost fake. If it's not fake, then I don't really know what to think...

 

[audreyh1]

"Yeah, alright!" Seems almost fake. If it's not fake, then I don't really know what to think...

I vote for staged = fake. People will do anything for posting on Twitter etc. these days. Really dumb.

 

[joesxm3]

Getting a light dose of the smoke from Canada today.

Glad my Model Y has a nice HEPA filter. If it gets really bad I can turn on "biowarfare defense mode" which also pressurizes the cabin to keep bad stuff out.

Getting used to Auto Pilot and very happy with it. Use it quite a bit of the time. I bought a month of FSD so I can stop at lights and stop signs, do auto lane change and do navigate on auto pilot which pretty much handles everything once you are on a limited access highway. Still waiting to be offered FSD Beta with auto steer on city streets. Have not had any firmware updates since before I ordered FSD on 6/1.

 

[audreyh1]

Getting a light dose of the smoke from Canada today.

Glad my Model Y has a nice HEPA filter. If it gets really bad I can turn on "biowarfare defense mode" which also pressurizes the cabin to keep bad stuff out.

Getting used to Auto Pilot and very happy with it. Use it quite a bit of the time. I bought a month of FSD so I can stop at lights and stop signs, do auto lane change and do navigate on auto pilot which pretty much handles everything once you are on a limited access highway. Still waiting to be offered FSD Beta with auto steer on city streets. Have not had any firmware updates since before I ordered FSD on 6/1.

Agreed! Having the HEPA filter is awesome! One of DH’s pet peeves was road smells - other car exhaust, etc. We don’t smell anything at all now.

Interesting, I haven’t been brave enough to try FSD.

 

[Luvtoride]

We were driving thru that awful smoke in NJ yesterday on the NJ turnpike in our MYP and turned on the Biodefense filter to avoid any smells. It worked great! I didn’t realize about the cabin Pressurization.

 

[Montecfo]

^^^^ that is a definite selling point ( no smells).

 

[Masquernom]

Interesting article on EV's and air pollution;

"Besides looking cool and causing fuel costs to plummet, EVs are helping to lower the amount of asthma-causing air pollution.

A study coming froim the University of Southern California (USC) recently found that “for every additional 20 [zero-pollution vehicles] per 1,000 people, there was a 3.2% drop in the rate of asthma-related emergency visits.”

And while this 3.2% decrease may seem modest now, when most new car sales are EVs — which could be by the end of the decade — there will be way less car pollution on our city streets."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mar...n&cvid=c2b00e0dd1b1418d8c3f0f3211857bc5&ei=43

 

[Masquernom]

Getting a light dose of the smoke from Canada today.

Glad my Model Y has a nice HEPA filter. If it gets really bad I can turn on "biowarfare defense mode" which also pressurizes the cabin to keep bad stuff out.

Getting used to Auto Pilot and very happy with it. Use it quite a bit of the time. I bought a month of FSD so I can stop at lights and stop signs, do auto lane change and do navigate on auto pilot which pretty much handles everything once you are on a limited access highway. Still waiting to be offered FSD Beta with auto steer on city streets. Have not had any firmware updates since before I ordered FSD on 6/1.

I thought you were making a joke about the "biowarfare defense mode". So I looked it up and found this article where they did a smoke test;

https://electrek.co/2022/01/26/tesl...apon-defense-mode-keep-cabin-air-clean-video/

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, it’s truly incredible. We really do have a Bioweapon Defense Mode to get bad air out of the car fast.

But normal operation keeps a most of the bad air out. Here the biggest are other car/truck exhaust which can be really bad at times, other car fumes (like raw fuel), smoke in the air, but also wastewater treatment plants and other sewer smells, skunks, the occasional chemical plant.

On in second image.

 

[joesxm3]

We also have "dog mode". This keeps the AC on, locks the doors and displays a message on the screen saying not to worry that my driver will be back soon.

" sentry mode" guards the car, warns people too close, records video and lets you remotely view the cameras, as does dog mode. You can also make the car fart from your phone.

 

[REWahoo]

GM follows Ford’s lead and adopts Tesla chargers

First it was Ford, now GM. Who is next?

General Motors will integrate Tesla’s electric vehicle charging standard in its future EVs, CEO Mary Barra said Thursday during a Twitter Spaces with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The agreement between the erstwhile rivals comes less than two weeks after Ford announced a similar partnership, and signals that other automakers could soon follow.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/gm-follows-ford-s-lead-and-adopts-tesla-chargers/ar-AA1cj1vg

 

[JoeWras]

This is huge.

As someone still on the sidelines, I've been frustrated seeing the different standards. Yeah, yeah, ya'll are gonna tell me you just "do this or that" and "use this adapter" or whatever.

I don't care. Make it like a gasoline or diesel engine. World standard. Simple. One less thing to worry about.

It is huge because some of the other automakers (and standards makers) are going to have to swallow some pride if the Tesla system becomes the ultimate standard.

PS: I realize the idea of a world standard has a long way to go. But this is at least a step. How long did Beta linger in the VCR wars?

 

[Midpack]

First it was Ford, now GM. Who is next?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/gm-follows-ford-s-lead-and-adopts-tesla-chargers/ar-AA1cj1vg

+1. I agree it’s good for consumers, and Tesla as well. Tesla is clearly managing their charging network far better than others so far, in reach and reliability. I hope some other legacy automakers join Ford and GM! CCS plug is a monstrosity.

 

[Koolau]

It seems like a sound financial move on Ford and GM's part. Folks buying their generally cheaper products know they'll be getting the Cadillac (er, I mean, the Tesla) version of charging. What a great sales move!

 

[ken830]

Once Ford was on-board, it was every one else's market to lose if they didn't hop on-board... it was only a matter of time before we saw the next manufacturer to follow. Now that we have GM, the game is already won for Tesla and NACS. Expect Electrify America, EVGo, Chargepoint, along with vehicle manufacturers to all fall into place in the coming months.

Now the only thing left is for everyone to agree on placing the charge port at the rear-left or front-right so we don't have conflict at the Superchargers.

This is the right thing for the industry. I think Tesla is doing a huge favor for the public and for the other manufacturers, big and small. Good on them.

 

[ken830]

This is huge.

As someone still on the sidelines, I've been frustrated seeing the different standards. Yeah, yeah, ya'll are gonna tell me you just "do this or that" and "use this adapter" or whatever.

I don't care. Make it like a gasoline or diesel engine. World standard. Simple. One less thing to worry about.

It is huge because some of the other automakers (and standards makers) are going to have to swallow some pride if the Tesla system becomes the ultimate standard.

PS: I realize the idea of a world standard has a long way to go. But this is at least a step. How long did Beta linger in the VCR wars?

I don't think anyone, EV owner or not, will tell you to just "do this or that" or "use this adapter." No one likes adapters especially not for such large connectors carrying so much power. Problem with NACS is that it can never be the world standard because in Europe (and other parts of the world?) residential "Level 2" charging requires 3 phase and the Tesla connector only has 2 conductors for power.

+1. I agree it’s good for consumers, and Tesla as well. Tesla is clearly managing their charging network far better than others so far, in reach and reliability. I hope some other legacy automakers join Ford and GM! CCS plug is a monstrosity.

I know you know this, but for others... The reason CCS is a monstrosity is because they "glued" two unnecessarily-large connectors (one for AC charging and the other for DC charging) together side-by-side (or top-to-bottom really), dusted their hands, and called it a day. That's lazy engineering. You would never ever use both AC and DC charging at the same time, yet you're always wielding around both parts of the Frankensteined-connector when you are ever only using one half of it.

And it goes beyond the connector itself. The double-sets of heavy-gauge wiring behind the connector on every single CCS vehicle adds weight, complexity, and tremendous cost for zero benefit. Actually, I take that back... ...for negative benefit. Muro & Associates also recently pointed out that the larger size of CCS pretty much required most vehicles to house the connector behind a "gas filler" panel like a traditional ICE that requires painting, assembly, & alignment, whereas Tesla can hide theirs behind an unpainted tail light assembly -- looks 1,000% better too.

 

[Texas Proud]

Once Ford was on-board, it was every one else's market to lose if they didn't hop on-board... it was only a matter of time before we saw the next manufacturer to follow. Now that we have GM, the game is already won for Tesla and NACS. Expect Electrify America, EVGo, Chargepoint, along with vehicle manufacturers to all fall into place in the coming months.

Now the only thing left is for everyone to agree on placing the charge port at the rear-left or front-right so we don't have conflict at the Superchargers.

This is the right thing for the industry. I think Tesla is doing a huge favor for the public and for the other manufacturers, big and small. Good on them.

Interesting... if it now becoming the standard I do not see that Tesla can be the only one with charging ports for Tesla (not sure if they were anyhow).... but I can see all the others using Tesla connectors as it will now be the standard... so price of charging will now be part of the equation of where to stop... like the cost of a gallon of gas...

 

[Koolau]

Interesting... if it now becoming the standard I do not see that Tesla can be the only one with charging ports for Tesla (not sure if they were anyhow).... but I can see all the others using Tesla connectors as it will now be the standard... so price of charging will now be part of the equation of where to stop... like the cost of a gallon of gas...

Speaking of price to charge, are the prices for charging listed on the netw*rks that you can access by phone/app showing where charging stations are located? Such info would give you some flexibility about where you buy your electricity, assuming you're not just about "out."

 

[audreyh1]

Speaking of price to charge, are the prices for charging listed on the netw*rks that you can access by phone/app showing where charging stations are located? Such info would give you some flexibility about where you buy your electricity, assuming you're not just about "out."

There are going to be lots of factors for a while - availability, number of chargers at a given location, reliability, how much power can be provided (speed of charging), location.

For a Tesla car, the car navigation shows you the rate and occupancy and availability at each charger in real-time on the map. Easy to view. The app shows you the same for nearby chargers. For a non-Tesla car they need the Tesla app to charge their car anyway so I assume they see the same Tesla charger information.

That type of information is quite limited for non-Tesla chargers. These days users use third party apps like PlugShare.com which rely on customer reports, so not in real time and maybe missing rates, but it’s a good way to find out about alternate chargers in an area and get some idea of their state. I don’t know whether Chargepoint or Electrify America show this type of information in an app - or availability status.

 

[Chuckanut]

GM has jumped on the Tesla charger bandwagon.

Mr. Musk’s decision to build a first class charging network strikes again. More money for the world’s richest man. Cha-Ching!