Electric Vehicles

[FighttheGoodFight]

You see all these 20-somethings driving around in new, expensive cars eating out several times a day then complaining about the lack of affordable housing.

It's only unaffordable if you are saddled with auto and credit card debt. Otherwise, not that hard to save up, buy a starter house, and systematically improve it. THEN you can eventually upgrade to a brand new place out of a magazine.

Talk to anyone over 45 about the car they drove when first out of college, or their old apartment or even first house. I assure you it wasn't a $50K SUV or a new apartment/home in a hip urban neighborhood.

A lot of younger people have grown up feeling doomed. They aren’t saving for retirement and just don’t think they will have any safety net so they live for the now. Interesting to see if that changes.

[Dob Hooligan]

A lot of younger people have grown up feeling doomed. They aren’t saving for retirement and just don’t think they will have any safety net so they live for the now. Interesting to see if that changes.

Young people have never saved for retirement, Only old people worry about that. I do not say that disrespectfully, but, I remember being young and how we thought back then. I remember a sermon from 40 years ago about how research always show that "Nobody thinks they enough now, but would become secure if they made 20% more." Always the solution for humanity. 20% more will solve all my problems.

[Pete]

^

That is very true but the big difference is that most people as they age have a lot of equity in their home, and there are lots of ways to tap into that, even by selling and downsizing or moving into a care facility.

It's why you must bite the bullet and buy something even if that represents a compromise (and it almost always does). Otherwise, homes will only get more expensive and you are just sitting on the sidelines making it increasingly difficult to get into the market.

The way our tax laws are structured and the nature of real estate, buying a home -- almost any home -- is absolutely the single best thing you can do for your financial future.

[OKCRealtor]

^

That is very true but the big difference is that most people as they age have a lot of equity in their home, and there are lots of ways to tap into that, even by selling and downsizing or moving into a care facility.

It's why you must bite the bullet and buy something even if that represents a compromise (and it almost always does). Otherwise, homes will only get more expensive and you are just sitting on the sidelines making it increasingly difficult to get into the market.

The way our tax laws are structured and the nature of real estate, buying a home -- almost any home -- is absolutely the single best thing you can do for your financial future.

Pretty much, I'd add to that maxing out a Roth IRA at a minimum simultaneously each year. If you do both of those starting in your early 20's and do nothing else you'll still have several hundred thousand in net worth by the time you're in 30's. The alternative of course is just not to make those sacrifices only to wake up 10 - 15 + yeas down the road and realize. Probably the single most important lesson on opportunity costs + time value of money & compounding.

[fortpatches]

^

$37,000 / 12 *.33 = $1,017.

At 6% and 30 years, you can borrow $169,710. Assuming 20% down, that's $212,000 in purchasing power.

There are TONS of affordable starter homes and condos throughout the OKC area in this price range, and we are talking about ONE person.


If you use the far more realistic median HOUSEHOLD income in OKC, that's $63,700. Using the same formulas gives you a buying power of $365,000.

Since the average (I couldn't easily find the median numbers) renter has ~$17k in all forms of savings, I think assuming 20% down is overly optimistic unless you are looking at $80,000 houses.... Luckily, I was able to put like 4% down to buy my house in 2019. But using the Bankrate Mortgage calculator, even with 17k down, the home price is still under $150k, so the 112 houses still cover that same range. Maybe by weight, there are literal tons of homes available. But using tons as a count of the number of homes, I still think that 112 homes doesn't qualify as "tons".

Even assuming $200k in purchasing power, there are only 248 homes in OKC in that range.


Also, also, since most Renters have a credit score around 638, I used the interest rate of ~7% (which is the average APR for a credit score of 640-659).


If you use the far more realistic median HOUSEHOLD income for -Renters- in OKC, that's $41,155 (according to data.census.gov). Using the same formulas gives you a monthly max of ~$1132. With $17k down (since that's absolutely all the money that most renters have), and 6% (even though it would actually be higher), you get a smidge over $150k for a house. (To be as conservative as possible, I assumed half the insurance I pay and half the taxes I pay and a PMI of only $100, even though I bought my starter home for less than $100k). I guess it's lucky that Zillow has that break at $150k - so even using more accurate numbers still doesn't change the count I provided last time. Although, updated for today, there are only 107 houses for sale <=$150k.

[Pete]

^

Good grief.

Let's get back to discussing EVs.

[Plutonic Panda]

I’ve read all of the articles posted here about how EV’s are supposedly better for the environment. I’m not gonna sit here and say they’re not but it’s really hard to believe that they are. This is coming from Southern California so maybe it’s different in other states but I’ve spent probably around four hours today. I am not making that up charging my car which includes finding a charger and then waiting in line for damn near an hour at every single EV station that I can find. I’m renting a Ford Mustang Mach E While my Subaru is in the shop. I think if I had a charger at home, I would feel a little bit differently but still seeing how many people wait in these lines and all this energy that’s being used up. It is really hard to believe that EV’s are that much better for the environment than ICE Cars.

[Plutonic Panda]

In case you can’t tell the line of cars stretches around a really long way

[Plutonic Panda]

I think in places like California where EV Cars are used much more than other states. It’s a bigger issue, but they really need to find a way to alleviate this problem. I think we’re at least five years out before EV’s become really that practical for most people.

[Snowman]

I think in places like California where EV Cars are used much more than other states. It’s a bigger issue, but they really need to find a way to alleviate this problem. I think we’re at least five years out before EV’s become really that practical for most people.

I have heard estimates that we are more like 10-20 years from having enough of the materials mined per year to actually construct the majority of vehicles as EVs. Maybe that might change if one of the alternate battery chemistries works, especially one of the ones being looked into for cost, since likely has either more already in higher production or has a simpler mining/refining/production processes to set up and/or higher ore availability.

[Plutonic Panda]

I’m not sure how it would be done because I don’t know much about this sort of stuff, but some kind of new technology is definitely gonna have to be invented to rework the whole battery and charging situation. Because I’m averaging About 160 miles per charge but I do drive a little faster but it’s still is way off from what the range says. I’m supposed to get even driving faster and accelerating faster versus a gas car.

They need to find a way to give them more accurate reading of what your range truly is. My Subaru holds about 14 gallons and in the city I get about 220 miles give or take for each fill up. But when I’m on the highway and I put it on cruise control at about 75 to 80 I get about 5 to 600 miles. I can get about 220 to 250 miles out of a charge when I’m driving in the city if I take it easy on the throttle.

But the main problem is the charging. If I had enough money, I would buy a lucid air with the extended range which gets 500+ miles per charge. The Hummer seems like a cool car. The mini Cooper seems like a cool car. I see a lot of Mercedes and BMW, electric cars. I see a lot of Polestar as well that seem to be a cheap alternative which people are using for Uber.

Then, of course, you have the Audi and Porsches, which are bad ass, but again they are extremely expensive. You can find decent deals on a Ford Mustang Mach E But at any rate I would want Just in case I needed to travel long distances. The lines here are insane. I got really lucky today in Palm Springs and was able to pull right up to a charger and I charge from about 40% to 80 and roughly 20 minutes or so. But some of these chargers, say they’ll charge 380 kW an hour around 80 to 100.

The other bad thing is is once you get past 80% the charging comes to a crawl. And when I take this car back to return it, I’m supposed to charge it to 100%. Not only is that gonna take a while, but I’m sure it’s gonna piss some people off.

I’ve heard about stuff like solid state batteries, Being able to pull up to a gas station and just have your battery changed to one that’s fully charged. I think we’re a ways off from stuff like that. I’m in the Redlands right now and I’m about to head up to big Bear. The charging up there is extremely limited, so I’m kind of nervous. I have been suffering from anxiety, so I generally start looking for a charger once I get below 50%.

But I think the biggest problem right now is the infrastructure in the charging situation. One of my friends moved to Norway and he said that it is extremely easy to have an electric car there because there’s charging infrastructure all over the place and it’s really fast charging. I was told that I could use Tesla superchargers with Fords now, but I went to a bunch of different Tesla supercharger stations and all of them don’t have the adapter that you need.

That’s another thing. In order to be able to use a Tesla supercharger the station itself there has to have the adapter or you can purchase one from Ford and I’m sure they’re not cheap. We need a universal standard for car chargers.

But at the end of the day, I would not buy an electric car unless I just didn’t do much driving or I had enough money to have one as a toy.

[Pete]

^

Most EV owners have a second, ICE car in their household.

[Plutonic Panda]

^

Most EV owners have a second, ICE car in their household.

Maybe the ones you know. or maybe it’s just an Oklahoma thing and people there have more disposable income. or maybe it’s just the fact there’s so many electric cars out in California that is just a completely different dynamic out here. But there’s a lot of people who just drive a lot so having a charger at home doesn’t give them the mileage that they need or they just don’t have a charger at home so so they’re using the public chargers. There’s a lot Uber and Lyft drivers who I don’t think are exactly rich and don’t have the funds or availability to even have a charger at their home or apartment if they even have a parking space and don’t have to park on the street.

There are some chargers on the street in LA but those things are super slow. I mean they take hours to charge your car.

If I could, it would be great to be able to afford a gas car and an electric car. Because really some days just getting around the city I could do on one charge and it’s about $20 or so without my electric pass which is the electric charging stations I use the most. There’s EVGO that I’m gonna have to use when I get up to big bear and I’m kind of nervous about it because the last one of those I used I spent like an hour and a half charging up to 70%.

I love the way Elon Musk described how charging works right now with cars. he said basically it works like you have an empty parking lot and it’s really easy to find a parking space when it’s empty because there’s a lot of available. But the fuller parking lot gets the harder it is to find a parking space. Which makes sense. I’m not an engineer and I don’t know much about battery technology so I don’t know how you get around that. But I do know when I bring my car in charge starts charging pretty fast but it’s once it gets closer to 80%. It starts slowing down. After 80% it comes to crawl

[Pete]

Maybe the ones you know. or maybe it’s just an Oklahoma thing and people there have more disposable income. or maybe it’s just the fact there’s so many electric cars out in California that is just a completely different dynamic out here.

We have a big age difference where my friends are all married and probably most of yours are single.

I doubt many multi-car households only have EVs precisely for all the reasons you have mentioned.

[FighttheGoodFight]

We have a big age difference where my friends are all married and probably most of yours are single.

I doubt many multi-car households only have EVs precisely for all the reasons you have mentioned.

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023...nt-wont-admit/

"Do you know what percentage of EV owners own only an EV?

About 4 percent.

The rest – about 96 percent – own another vehicle that isn’t a battery powered device. "

[TheTravellers]

We have a big age difference where my friends are all married and probably most of yours are single.

I doubt many multi-car households only have EVs precisely for all the reasons you have mentioned.

Yep, my wife has an ICE 2024 Honda Civic, and my MINI SE is only used for in-city driving, after a trip with it to Dallas one time.

As far as charging goes, PP - there is level 1 (plug in to a regular household 120v outlet) which takes hours (those may be the street chargers you see in LA), level 2 (220v) which is what I use at home (32W charger, which is all my MINI will accept, it's got a small battery set because, well, it's "mini", and it takes a few hours), and level 3 (Fast DC) which can charge my MINI in about 45 minutes. And yes, Fast DC chargers slow way down around 85-90% full, because it damages batteries if you charge at full power right up to the end, kind of like pouring a carbonated drink into a glass (pour fast until it starts foaming, then slow down, otherwise bad things happen).

[CaptDave]

As cool as some EV's are, you are correct the charging network and charging etiquette are not ready for prime time. It is actually better to only charge to 80% but the problem I ran into at store parking lots was people sitting on chargers forever trying to get to 100%. The charging curves in every EV taper off at around 80%, so the most efficient method is to run the pack down to around 10%, fast charge to 80% and get moving again. That keeps charging sessions to around 20 minutes IF it is a fast charger AND the car can charge at a high rate. Of course rental companies demanding 100% is foolish, but they haven't recalibrated their requirements for this reality and treat it like a ICE vehicle.

Widespread adoption of EV's will not happen until charging becomes as easy and no brainer as filling a gas tank. We've got a ways to go on that.

If the EVgo charger is full at Big Bear, there is a Chargepoint facility in one of the public parking lots off the Main Street in the village. I was just there Labor Day weekend and there was a line due to charger squatting, but they all appeared to be working.

[TheTravellers]

As cool as some EV's are, you are correct the charging network and charging etiquette are not ready for prime time. It is actually better to only charge to 80% but the problem I ran into at store parking lots was people sitting on chargers forever trying to get to 100%. The charging curves in every EV taper off at around 80%, so the most efficient method is to run the pack down to around 10%, fast charge to 80% and get moving again. That keeps charging sessions to around 20 minutes IF it is a fast charger AND the car can charge at a high rate. Of course rental companies demanding 100% is foolish, but they haven't recalibrated their requirements for this reality and treat it like a ICE vehicle.

Widespread adoption of EV's will not happen until charging becomes as easy and no brainer as filling a gas tank. We've got a ways to go on that.

If the EVgo charger is full at Big Bear, there is a Chargepoint facility in one of the public parking lots off the Main Street in the village. I was just there Labor Day weekend and there was a line due to charger squatting, but they all appeared to be working.

All working is better than a lot of the Francis charging stations I've found. And yes, the entire charging process needs to be just like filling a gas tank - pull up, put a debit/credit card in, charge. Absolutely no need for an app, match up the car with the app, payment methods, etc. - no charging company needs to know who you are, what your car is....