Would you be willing to charge your car every night?

Question

I hear it takes 5-9 hours each night to charge the batteries on an electric car or 12 hours per night to fuel a car with natural gas. For each you can only get upto 200 miles in a day. Would you being willing to do this to avoid the current gas prices?

Answer 1

Yes I would.  The length of the charge time at night is irrelevant.  I'm asleep so what difference does it make if it takes 1 hour or 6.  Think how many hours a day is your car actually being used out of 24?  The rest of the time it is just sitting, waiting to be used.

An electric car is so much cheaper to operate than a gas car it's astounding.  A gas car getting 20 MPG and gas at $4.00 a gallon (for easy math, gas is more than this) your car will cost 20 cents to go 1 mile in fuel alone.  In most areas of the country electricity is priced so that your car trip is 2 cents a mile or less.

Now add in maintenance.  $30 every 3 months for Quick Lube oil changes, new hoses and belts every 5 years.  And tack on radiator flushes, oh and don't for get the air filer and fuel filter etc.  And finally the brakes do have to be serviced on both cars but in an electric car with regenerative braking the pads and shoes last well over 100,000 miles while a gas car has to have them replaced every 30,000 or less.  Maintenance of an electric car: fill up washer fluid tank, if you're using lead acid batteries $2.00 for 1 gallon of distilled water every month or so.

The big if, "range" is thought about incorrectly.  You don't need a 300 MPC electric car.  When you get home after a hard days work, you plug in the car, eat dinner go to bed.  In the morning you get up, get dressed, unplug the car and leave every day with a full load of "fuel".  Two minor additions to the usual routine and you've made the world a little better.  A gas car doesn't self fill at night an since you don't want to visit the gas station on a daily basis 300 miles is a light range requirement.

The gentleman that put up the site http://sealbeach.org has a 2002 RAV4-EV that is still running. He charges it with solar panels on the roof and drives around for free which is my goal.   He paid for the solar with the money he didn't spend on gas in less than 3 years.

Answer 2

Yes, I would like to see plans for a DIY e-car conversion.

Answer 3

With gas prices right now, id have to say no. Theyre draining my wallet but it isnt unbearable. When gas hits the 6 dollar mark, ill be gladly coming home at 10pm to make sure i have enough juice to wake up at 7am :)