Wow did I just convince myself to buy an Electric CAR😳

[Boris]

The actual experience of the Truths to owning an EV is what I am wanting to share. Good bad and whatever which I will post and video. I am now at a Supercharging Station and just at 80% charge from 74% charge 15 minutes in and so far costing me $3.87
View attachment 65842 View attachment 65843

This is probably my biggest concern

But a buddy of mine, his wife wants the new Ram EV truck. So he is looking to get on a list for one.
My wife upon hearing that, started looking into the F150 Lightning.

The fact that both of them would never have to go to the gas station is what really impresses them. Just plug it in like a phone and let it charge overnight. Ready to go all day the next day.

I'll end up with an EV in the house in the next few years as they become more mainstream.

But it won't be my daily until gas is outlawed

 

[Slipaway16]

Could have saved you 60k

 

[Jimmy N.]

While I definitely wouldn't want an electric car or pickup, I could see having an electric tractor, if it became necessary to have some sort of EV.

With that I couldn't be much more than a 1/4 mile from the garage when it dies, so it would be easy enough to go retrieve it and plug the umbilical cord in.

 

[Boris]

In the apartment we've been renting since the fires on 12/30/21 devastated our neighborhood and displaced us from our home, .

Holy shoot

Didn't know that.
Hope everything is alright. Demon survive?

 

[vortecd]

This is probably my biggest concern

But a buddy of mine, his wife wants the new Ram EV truck. So he is looking to get on a list for one.
My wife upon hearing that, started looking into the F150 Lightning.

The fact that both of them would never have to go to the gas station is what really impresses them. Just plug it in like a phone and let it charge overnight. Ready to go all day the next day.

I'll end up with an EV in the house in the next few years as they become more mainstream.

But it won't be my daily until gas is outlawed

Doesn't need gas would be nice but you will be paying a different way. Now if you could charge them for free

 

[Jimmy N.]

Doesn't need gas would be nice but you will be paying a different way. Now if you could charge them for free

But you can charge them for free! All it takes is a minor investment of a few tens of thousands of dollars, for solar and/or wind, and a bunch of batteries.

Or. bypass your electric meter.

 

[MikeD1]

The plan is to charge you by the miles you drive is the rumors.

This is already in place across much of the EU & will be adopted here. It will start in the major blue cities and spread like a cancer to the rural areas.
There was some buried legislation in some bill passed last year that set aside $$ to set-up some test areas around the country.

Here in CA, if you use too much power ( can't remember the numbers ) ; your electric bill will double or triple.

FL is like that too, price per KW used + the fuel charge progressively increases as your usage does, so you will be charging your car at the top rate most months of the year.

 

[Boris]

Doesn't need gas would be nice but you will be paying a different way. Now if you could charge them for free

She doesn't drive much and illinois has solar panel incentives.

Majority of my roof faces the south with no obstructions at all. Perfect for Solar panels

 

[DGatzby]

Man...I never paid this much attention to anything in school...uhhh this is nuts...

Sorry guys, it is all simple math. Costs are all over the place. Like @Illegal_Demon is doing currently, they have a light use going. I don’t blame him, he is getting a good deal. Deserves it after unfortunately that fire blew them out. @ChargerChallenger shows what life may hold for us in the future, if we need to charge commercially. We are all still friends who all have fun Hellcats to drive. It is just going to cost a bit more for a while.

 

[1971demon]

Sorry guys, it is all simple math. Costs are all over the place. Like @Illegal_Demon is doing currently, they have a light use going. I don’t blame him, he is getting a good deal. Deserves it after unfortunately that fire blew them out. @ChargerChallenger shows what life may hold for us in the future, if we need to charge commercially. We are all still friends who all have fun Hellcats to drive. It is just going to cost a bit more for a while.

Not overly concerned with any aspect of this EV initiative..got my ice cubes..and the Z06 on its way..my bikes...maybe the wife may get an EV as a DD @ some point..not gonna lose sleep over any of it...

 

[Illegal_Demon]

Holy shoot

Didn't know that.
Hope everything is alright. Demon survive?

My son and I saved our Demon and Viper (all while my neighbor's house was still literally on fire 50 feet away). It wasn't raging at that point but it wasn't simply smoldering either. Anyhow, after the winds died down about 8pm that night (and 90% of the destruction was over) we illegally (fitting, I suppose) made it back into our development, the last 0.5 miles of that on foot in the dark via an adjacent open space area. Once we got to our home, we got into our garage via a side entry, jumped into the Demon and Viper, (manually) opened the garage door, and drove out of the closed-off neighborhood as fast as we could. Of course, a cop stopped us "on the way out". He wasn't happy but after seeing the cars just said "get the F-out of here". I swear I saw a small smile on his face.

When we evacuated earlier in the day (a mere 1h after the first smoke plume and 100mph wind gust arrived) I honestly thought we would be back that night. Well, we were, just under much more dire circumstances than we originally thought. Once the cars were safely out of there I did feel a bit better but I also felt also awful for many of our neighbors who literally lost everything in a matter of a few hours. At that point, we also weren't 100% sure we would have a house to come back to the next morning. But as a small consolation (in the much sadder, bigger picture) we figured we had just saved two unicorn cars from a fiery demise.

Since that day (12/30/21) I've only been back to our (still standing) home 5 times (adjusters, inspections, etc). It's just too damn depressing. It will be years before our neighborhood is rebuilt back to anything close to normal. To this day the police monitor ingress and egress to our neighborhood. It's a bit of a PITA to get in and out even for the property owners but they are stopping the lookie Lous and potential looters, so no complaints.

If you have 2h to spare watch this footage below. I warn you though, it's not uplifting. The 1st min documents a burned-down Tesla dealership, a 1000 unit hotel torched, and then a sister development from us during mins 3-5 where EVERY house (150/150) was lost. We are the development across the street from there, 0.5mi away. We "only" lost 27 houses.

All of this devastation resulted in 1085 homes lost with hundreds more (like ours) temporarily unlivable due to smoke and other damage. Even more insane, this all happened over a few hour period within a 10 mi x 10 mi square. After all's said and done The Marshall Fires will be Colorado's worst/most expensive natural disaster of all time.

@Hunter @BULL

 

[BULL]

One of my wife's colleagues is in the same boat as you, house didn't burn, but just feet away is total destruction.

Her house is unlivable and won't be for at least a year because of all of the issues you're well aware of.

One notable cluster F is the insurance wanted to come in and take out all of the insulation right away, and then not complete any other repairs/remediation until later in the year. This so they could do all of the disposable in one shot I'm guessing??

Can you imagine the broken pipes?

 

[1971demon]

One of my wife's colleagues is in the same boat as you, house didn't burn, but just feet away is total destruction.

Her house is unlivable and won't be for at least a year because of all of the issues you're well aware of.

One notable cluster F is the insurance wanted to come in and take out all of the insulation right away, and then not complete any other repairs/remediation until later in the year. This so they could do all of the disposable in one shot I'm guessing??

Can you imagine the broken pipes?

Can't imagine the magnitude of the loss...do insurance companies "total" houses?

 

[BULL]

Can't imagine the magnitude of the loss...do insurance companies "total" houses?

In a sense, but not in the same way as a car. You can be (and MANY of the people in this fire are...) "under-insured". Even people that recently got new policies, or had theirs "updated" to reflect current home prices are finding that they are under-insured.

Houses in this region are valued at $150-225/sq.ft., but because of all of the factors nation wide, and also here locally, houses are costing ~$350sq.ft. to rebuild!!

So almost double... And people are left holding the short end of the stick, and even though your agent who sold you a policy (to be fair, based on purchase price and appreciation) helped you set an insurance level, it's ultimately your responsibility to pick the "correct" insurance value.

But, put that in perspective...

You buy a $750,000 house, you insure it for $800,000 because you believe that's its real value, you consider that your typical home owners insurance policy has a built in 125% rebuilding value and so you think you're good. Part of this is that your agent will tell you that you don't have to rebuy the land, the water tap, or other utilities as well as you "don't have to re-pour the foundation". So the logic is that your policy should more than cover you.

Guess what, nope...

And for fires this bad, you DO have to replace the foundation... Dirty little secret I guess

 

[1971demon]

In a sense, but not in the same way as a car. You can be (and MANY of the people in this fire are...) "under-insured". Even people that recently got new policies, or had theirs "updated" to reflect current home prices are finding that they are under-insured.

Houses in this region are valued at $150-225/sq.ft., but because of all of the factors nation wide, and also here locally, houses are costing ~$350sq.ft. to rebuild!!

So almost double... And people are left holding the short end of the stick, and even though your agent who sold you a policy (to be fair, based on purchase price and appreciation) helped you set an insurance level, it's ultimately your responsibility to pick the "correct" insurance value.

But, put that in perspective...

You buy a $750,000 house, you insure it for $800,000 because you believe that's its real value, you consider that your typical home owners insurance policy has a built in 125% rebuilding value and so you think you're good. Part of this is that your agent will tell you that you don't have to rebuy the land, the water tap, or other utilities as well as you "don't have to re-pour the foundation". So the logic is that your policy should more than cover you.

Guess what, nope...

And for fires this bad, you DO have to replace the foundation... Dirty little secret I guess

Wow...even when it seems you've done your diligence with regard to insurance..you could find yourself at serious risk...

 

[Illegal_Demon]

Yeah most ppl who lost their houses are way underwater. We are lucky ours is still standing. It will be in the 6 figure realm to get us back but we won't have debris removal and our foundation is fine. We are one of the "lucky" ones. Still, being displaced in a tough-to-find rental market (with teenagers!) isn't fun, trust me. Dealing with insurance can be awful too. So far USAA has been fine but waiting for the shoe to drop on that, lol.

 

[BULL]

Yeah most ppl who lost their houses are way underwater. We are lucky ours is still standing. It will be in the 6 figure realm to get us back but we won't have debris removal and our foundation is fine. We are one of the "lucky" ones. Still, being displaced in a tough-to-find rental market (with teenagers!) isn't fun, trust me. Dealing with insurance can be awful too. So far USAA has been fine but waiting for the shoe to drop on that, lol.

The doctor I referred to end up renting in Golden, commuting to the BCH clinic in Erie.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

Ford’s ‘revolutionary’ new electric vehicle plant to bring 6K jobs, trade school to West Tennessee
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Ford Motor Company is bringing a revolutionary new electric vehicle plant and thousands of new jobs to West Tennessee.

Once complete, the 3600-acre campus will be called “Blue Oval City.”

The project is expected to create 5800 jobs and a trade school.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

Ford's ‘Electric University' to train dealers in all things EV
Ford and its dealer council will launch "Electric University" to give salespeople, service technicians and parts department staffers a crash course on all things EV.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

Here is some conversations in the Ford Mach E forums:

Electrify America De-Rating chargers
Just thought I'd make a thread on this since it can affect a lot of people.


@OutofSpecKyle Was talking about this last week on InsideEV's podcast and on the EQS charging video.

Electrify America currently has limited A lot of 350kw stations to 350amp when they are normally rated for a max of 500amp. This basically makes the 350kw units as fast as a 150kw unit for the MME. The only cars that can get higher charging currently on those are 800v cars.

Sounds like newer signet units are still able to do the full 500amp though.

This is something that I've been digging into since I updated my GT with the new charging curve and haven't been able to get over 123kw no matter what I tried. Originally thought that it was the update that was only requesting 350amp from the charger, but it turns out EA has turned the max speed down.

I did my charging curve test on a ABB charger that previously has given me 150kw-160kw consistently. This same charger now only can give my car 123kw, so it is something that changed in the last couple of months.

On my way to/from Florida over the winter break, when I was in *warmer* climates, I was regularly getting over 150kW (I think the record may have been 168... but only *briefly* and then it backs off). But it does stay pretty high. Also I think the state of charge was probably around 15-20% when I'd hit those numbers. If I was over 50% ... I don't think I ever got those numbers.

Its not ALL EA stations that are doing this. And I'm not even sure when it happened. I used to always hit ~150kw for the 2 minutes when DCFC. See above what I'm getting now on a 350kw station. maxes at 123kw.


I was just going to ask about environmental temperatures. Are you running the cabin heater during charging now when you weren't before?

(To be clear, I think it's unlikely to be the issue.)

We never got better than about 120 kW during our charging at EA chargers in AZ and CA this past weekend. But after trying on a 350 kW charger and seeing no difference, we didn't bother to use the faster rated charger any more on the theory that there might be someone who could use that higher rate.

I actually raised the issue with Ford, And they sent one of their charging testers to a station that @Mach-E VLOG used in his charging curve test video.

Ford got the same result of a limited charging session and raised an issue with EA directly, and that was the last I heard about it from that side. I also tried to contact EA but they wouldn't give me any info.

Its been kind of a mystery at what was going on until Kyle said EA was limiting the chargers to 350amp which is exactly what I'm seeing on my tests.

EA confirmed with Kyle they have limited the current though. Sounds like there might be a bad part that they are waiting on replacement parts for and it will be de-rated until that is fixed.

It's definitely possible that adding in the battery reserve is causing the issue, and I'm not sure if the site I was using for testing was one with a battery reserve or not. It's about 50 miles from my house or else I'd just go check.

A 350kw charging station requires 2 of the big beige power units that are in the fenced area of an EA station, while a 150kw unit only uses one. So its possible its an issue with how they are tied together, or just pushing that 500amp though it was causing issues. Really just a guess at this point.