Largest Price increase you have seen ?

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

QUESTION:

Who here, posting in this thread has driven an electric vehicle, or owns an EV?  Has experience with charging stations and the (mostly imagined) limitations of EV batteries?  Personal disclosure- I’ve driven one regularly for the past 7 months, have taken test drives in newer models.  I’ve charged the batteries and watched the dashboard readouts.

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From page 9 of this thread:
Hawaii also needs to grow its own food. 

Ag related job opening, position is designed to expand ag production on Big Island:
https://www.hirenethawaii.com/vosnet/job...GpFm5FmInQ==

[My 2 cents]

"The answer is simple. We just have to become a nocturnal society so that we can all sleep while our cars are (solar) charging.

"What happens on rainy days?"

Or rainy weeks?

Really? That's the only flaw you could find in my post?

[HawaiiEV]

I thought I could chime in an correct some misinformation when it comes to driving an EV. We drive a PHEV that gets 50 miles ev range per charge, we charge almost entirely off solar. A full charge at regular Helco prices would cost about $6, this works out to a break even point comparable to a gas car at about 35-40 MPG at current gas prices. For a lot of people this means any one of many hybrids available would be less expensive and not come with any “range anxiety” Evs don’t come with 400 mile range, the very best right now in the most expensive luxury models are closer to 300 miles, after driving over saddle road to Kona with AC on this is a lot closer to 250. Most regular range EVs at mid level prices would not make Kona and back, if they can it will come with “range anxiety”.

The charging in Puna and Hilo is nice, free at target and Walmart, equal to gas price at Puna kai. The fast chargers cost much more at 60 cents a kWh double gas prices and they aren’t very fast compared to the mainland. Unfortunately this is not a robust network, there is one car that is going around and melting the chargers one by one. It’s been six months since we could charge at Puna kai because the plug doesn’t fit, some seem to have forced theirs we won’t. Same person now melting plugs at target, I assume it will be months or years until they are repaired if ever.

Charging off solar is very difficult for most people, to start with it requires a large system, ours is 8.4 kw and with a lot of effort I’m able to charge almost entirely off solar. Most people don’t charge during the day when the sun is out, charging off of a home battery is not smart or efficient and should be avoided, most batteries for homes don’t have much power to spare. This means most Evs are charging off the grid which is not exactly clean energy at night for us in Puna 30% is geothermal, hopefully more to come, the rest is bunker fuel. Most Evs average 3 miles per kw so you can do the math.

We are making it work averaging 200+ mpg and had already invested in the solar which will pay for itself in time, the plug in hybrid will pay for itself over the hybrid as well. Assuming all goes well over the next 8 years. As a word of warning though electric cars should be low maintenance, they are still new and have other issues. Tesla in particular has numerous build quality and reliability issues that are difficult to address on this island. Electric vehicles are the future but it’s still early now and there are many factors to consider, including the procurement of materials in manufacturing the batteries which is not entirely kosher and demand problems going forward. As in most cases there’s a lot of correct arguments on both sides of the issue and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Ps quick clarification that PHEV means plug in hybrid electric vehicle or in other words it runs on gas when the ev runs out, gets about 40 mpg when running on gas.

[kalianna]

Is there any place in east Hawaii that services Teslas? Other EVʻs? How much does it cost to have a home charging station?

[Punaperson]

My concern about purchasing an EV at this point is what happens when there's a disaster? After TS Iselle, I was without electricity for 12 days, and couldn't leave the house because of downed trees on the road for the first 4. How long will the batteries hold a charge if the vehicle is not driven ? Between rainfall amounts and shade trees planted for cooling the house, I'm not well set up for solar at this point, so having up a home charging system does not seem practical for now.

As a side note, I read that the Baltimore Public Library System got a grant to install chargers in their parking lots. It seems that might be a good idea for Hawaii - many community libraries where people don't have to spend money to spend time.

[HawaiiEV]

The dealerships service their own. Tesla has mobile mechanics for some issues otherwise it’s shipping off to Honolulu. EVs come with level 1 chargers that are 110 volt and take forever to charge, fine for overnight charging. Level 2 chargers cost more starting at $400 and require 220 volt. Our level 2 charger can give us about 25 miles per hour, a little over 2 hours for a full charge.

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The batteries will hold charge fine for however long you need. Keeping an ev battery fully charged is hard on the battery longevity, most Tesla people limit the charge to 80% decreasing range, but increasing the life of the battery which is around 10 years at least. Having to replace a battery on a Tesla totals the car, they want something like $25k for a replacement. Shops that can repair and refurbish battery packs are coming slowly but we won’t have anything like that here for a long time. For most people Evs don’t make sense now, hybrid is the least expensive and proven reliability option. If you don’t have a large solar system and charge when the suns out your ev is not “better” for the environment in any significant measurable amount during normal car ownership periods.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Good info HawaiiEV.
I’d just like to add that while most EV models are in the range you noted, the newest technology provides the long range Tesla with over 400 miles on a charge, the Lucid Air is rated at 520 miles.  Do they cost a fortune?  Yes they do.  But like computer technology in the 1990’s what was a bleeding edge option one year became standard equipment a few short years later.  Looking at the history of EVs over the past 10 years I expect the same will happen with cars.  There’s a good selection of vehicles currently available in the 250-300 mile range, plenty for Big Island driving.

https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-ad...ing-range/

[Rob Tucker]

Mahalo HawaiiEV, And welcome to Punaweb.

[HawaiiEV]

Not over the mountain at highway speeds… epa highway testing is done at 55 mph on level ground. Around Puna you can get the full range. The energy use curve goes up steeply at highway speeds and climbing mountains does not help. When they say 300 it means 250. Sure to improve and hopefully in cars that cost less then $100k. Battery range will decrease with the age of the battery especially if it is left fully charged or emptied often. Keeping it between 30%-80% state of charge is the sweet spot to maintain range after 5-10 years.

[kalakoa]

I need my EV to be a truck, so it's all kind of moot for a while yet.