Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 31 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

Wow. I leave for 5 seconds and all hell breaks loose.

How do you find the low rolling resistance tires? Is the braking distance longer? Is it too easy to spin the tires off the line (I'm thinking with the high initial torque of the electric engine)?

The dealer I bought the car from made a mistake and installed plane-jane Goodyear Assurances instead of the Goodyear Assurance Fuel Max LRR tires that they were supposed to. So for the past 2,000 kms I've been driving on regular all seasons. When I get the LRR tires I'll see what the car feels like with them on.

On another note:



I'm still working on getting work to let me plug in.

Otherwise I'm really enjoying the car. I even got to use the HOV lane on the 403 today :cool:

 
I'm still debating whether or not to Plasti-dip the grills black. :confused:

dip the larger parts of silver and leave the outline
what about dipping the Chevy logo, lol
or just leave an outline of gold

add a good tint ( I know of a good shop)
reduces the heat from the sun = less ac
 
There are a couple things you're leaving out. Teslas were still the first fully electric vehicles that weren't hoarded and crushed by its own manufacturer.

Tesla might have wanted to do that with the Roadster on a few occasions given it's reputation. ;)

you want to try and tell me that those same companies, ones whom experimented with EVs, and then subsequently burned and buried any evidence of those experiments, would have gone full electric on their own??? No, pure and simple no. Not only did they not have any interest whatsoever, but they fought it tooth and nail.

Yes, Lutz did say that the impending Tesla roadster "inspired" him to push for the Volt, but the facts remain the Volt concept came out a year before Tesla even released the Roadster, so it seems they were likely thinking about it for a while. It's hard to say how serious any automaker (GM included) even took Tesla at that point in time so I'm not sure they felt overly pressured to compete necessarily.

Like I said, competition in the segment is good, and if Tesla kickstarted the industry, cool...but I don't think for a second that the EV revolution wouldn't have happened regardless without Tesla, it might have just happened slower.

Once again, you're talking about an $8500 brake job on a $150-190k car, which is not uncommon. Its also not uncommon to not find a dealership for $150-190k cars in or around less affluent communities, so towing long distance is an expected expense and inconvenience. And the lack of currently available service centers and parts available for a car that wont be delivered to customers for what, another year? Come on. Hey, do you think Bolt parts were available last year? If Ferarri did make a $35k car hypothetically, do you not think that a dealer network would rise up almost immediately? And what makes you think that service costs on that $35k Ferarri would not be proportionate to the cars value? Think about it, you can't make a car for $35000 if the sum of it's parts are in to six figures.

An $8500 brake job is all fine and dandy on a $190,000 car, sure...not because it's still not completely asinine, but because someone who can afford a $190,000 car probably isn't too worried about that sort of cost. But the guy buying the $35,000 Model 3 sure as hell is going to care if HIS brake job costs $8500. Or $5000. Or even $2000. It's not gonna fly.

Like I said, if an automaker chooses (as Tesla has done) to dramatically change their customer demographic based on cost of the initial product, they're going to have a hard to continuing to demand the super premium parts and service fees for their new consumers who will lose their **** at the mere thought of a $2000 brake job.

The sum of the parts on any car is in the ballpark of six figures (obviously retail prices not cost). Each individual part isn't so bad, but by the time you have a bill for a few thousand parts, the sum is shocking.

A car is a car for the most part - yes, some contain higher quality parts or bleeding edge technology but "cachet" often takes far too much influence when it comes to end pricing...ie: HUGE profit margins for the manufacturers. Look at Cadillac for example - not that many years ago GM took the Avalanche, slapped some Caddy badges on it along with some other fluff, jacked the price up a metric crapton because of the Caddy "cachet", and people ate it up.

The Ford Expedition becomes the Lincoln Navigator with a much inflated price.

There's a laundry list of Honda's that become Acura's...with suddenly inflated prices.

Even Hyundai got into the game with the Genesis which they spun off into an entirely new brand now. Their price is inflated as well and they recently won the honor of the fastest depreciating car on the market, but that's another story.

How much do you think the Veyron (that sells for $1.7-2.7 MILLION USD) actually costs to build? Do you not think that there's a massive profit in there, and that much of that price is "because some can afford it" cachet?

Yes, when it comes to money, some people don't care. But do you REALLY think that the brake rotors cost Tesla $300 each, or do you think that this is a "they'll pay it because they don't care" price? Much like a Ferrari, or a Porche, or a Bugatti?

Anyhow, I'm straying off topic, but my point is this:

- Premium priced cachet cars can command premium priced parts and overpriced, inconvenient, and slow service...and the owners aren't likely to care that much. Because F-You money, that's why.

- But Bob from the widget factory who buys his first "working mans" Tesla for $40K, well, he's gonna lose his **** when he runs up against the same reality. . Tesla better realize this - as Brian has mentioned several times, the only real way to realistically service a mass market car is to open up the service experience outside your own closed ecosystem - something Tesla still steadfastly refuses to do.
 
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Yes, the working mans Tesla. Great - unfortunately your argument falls apart when you reach that reality though - many people buying a $40K car (that will depreciate to half of that inside a few years) wants to be able to work on their own car. . Many more yet will not want to be locked into Tesla solely for routine maintenance, especially when an $8500.00 brake job horror story like this (click) might be the reality.

Peanuts. Ceramic rotors on an RS5 check in @ $3000ea.



....my cost

Edit: Retail from ECS Tuning LMAO https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine...eramic-brake-rotors-pair-380x38/420615301gkt/
 
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You know you've done something wrong in life when one guys rotors are worth more than your car.....

I'd go with he did something wrong to spend that much on brakes for the street. For the track, make the investment, on the street I doubt that car will ever be in a situation where having ceramic rotors matters.
 
Anyone check out the specs on the '17 e-Golf? 200km range , $29k out the door. No lease rates as of yet.

Ha. Check out the charging time at 110V. Basically this car has to return to homebase daily to be a useful vehicle. Even if you could make it somewhere, having to charge it for an entire day before you could get home is crazy. As much as I prefer how VW's drive, I think the Volt has a huge leg up for now.

From http://driving.ca/volkswagen/golf/reviews/road-test/first-drive-2017-volkswagen-e-golf

Charging the e-Golf from empty to full takes 26 hours from a 110-volt plug, and four to five hours on a home or public AC charging station. With a public DC Fast Charger, you’re looking at about 30 to 45 minutes for an 80 per cent charge.
 
FWIW 120V charging is borderline hopeless for any true EV with a big battery. The only reason to even half realistic on the Volt is because the battery is only around 11-12kwh, but even then you're talking between 8-10 hours to charge it up on 120v. Possible sure (I think Slowbird is still doing so), but not ideal especially if you deplete the battery multiple times a day as we do on weekends for example.

A Tesla would probably take a week or something crazy to charge at 120V for example.

Reality is a 120v circuit can only feed around 12 amps continuous, which is where the Volt maxes out when charging on 120v.

For large battery EV's much higher amp/Volt combinations are required. The Bolt for example charges rapidly via DCFC, same as most over true EV's, but of course if you want to benefit from that at home you need to get a DCFC installed there as well obviously.
 
Ha. Check out the charging time at 110V. Basically this car has to return to homebase daily to be a useful vehicle. Even if you could make it somewhere, having to charge it for an entire day before you could get home is crazy. As much as I prefer how VW's drive, I think the Volt has a huge leg up for now.

From http://driving.ca/volkswagen/golf/reviews/road-test/first-drive-2017-volkswagen-e-golf

Charging the e-Golf from empty to full takes 26 hours from a 110-volt plug, and four to five hours on a home or public AC charging station. With a public DC Fast Charger, you’re looking at about 30 to 45 minutes for an 80 per cent charge.
That's no different from any other EV, they'd all charge at a rate of around 7km per hour off 110V. The VW just has a bigger battery than the Volt so it takes longer to 'fill'.

I think they all charge at more or less the same rate for a given charger. It's not the car or the battery that makes a difference but the charger.
 
That's no different from any other EV, they'd all charge at a rate of around 7km per hour off 110V. The VW just has a bigger battery than the Volt so it takes longer to 'fill'.

I think they all charge at more or less the same rate for a given charger. It's not the car or the battery that makes a difference but the charger.

Oh, I get it, I was just commenting that a pure plug-in EV is much less useful than a car like the Volt. It will still be many years before a pure EV vehicle could be considered as most families primary vehicle. There is no magic to charging, you can only get ~1.5kwh per hour plugged into a standard outlet. The only way to make things substantially better will be to improve the range per kwh (which won't be easy to make a huge improvement).

I have at least a few days a month over 200km, my wife rarely has a weekday under 200. Even if an e-golf works perfectly for me 27 days a month, I am not renting a car twice or more a month (or doing dealership swaps that often if VW follows BMW's lead).
 
Oh, I get it, I was just commenting that a pure plug-in EV is much less useful than a car like the Volt. It will still be many years before a pure EV vehicle could be considered as most families primary vehicle. There is no magic to charging, you can only get ~1.5kwh per hour plugged into a standard outlet. The only way to make things substantially better will be to improve the range per kwh (which won't be easy to make a huge improvement).

I have at least a few days a month over 200km, my wife rarely has a weekday under 200. Even if an e-golf works perfectly for me 27 days a month, I am not renting a car twice or more a month (or doing dealership swaps that often if VW follows BMW's lead).
That reasoning is based on the assumption that you only charge overnight, and only off 110V. Then an EV isn't feasible, but a plug in hybrid is (barely). But with level II charging and charging as you go through the day, if possible, that math can change drastically.
 
Oh, I get it, I was just commenting that a pure plug-in EV is much less useful than a car like the Volt. It will still be many years before a pure EV vehicle could be considered as most families primary vehicle. There is no magic to charging, you can only get ~1.5kwh per hour plugged into a standard outlet. The only way to make things substantially better will be to improve the range per kwh (which won't be easy to make a huge improvement).

I have at least a few days a month over 200km, my wife rarely has a weekday under 200. Even if an e-golf works perfectly for me 27 days a month, I am not renting a car twice or more a month (or doing dealership swaps that often if VW follows BMW's lead).

You know you can install fast (and ultra-fast) chargers at your home.... right?

I paid $350 on Kijiji for my 220V Level 2 and wired it myself. I can now fully charge from empty in 3.5-4 hours.

Tesla is a good example of home-based fast charging - nobody that owns one relies solely on supervhargers at remote locations, they just plug in in their driveway. I'm not even sure they're *capable* of charging on 120v - it would be a totally hopeless cause.
 
You know you can install fast (and ultra-fast) chargers at your home.... right?

I paid $350 on Kijiji for my 220V Level 2 and wired it myself. I can now fully charge from empty in 3.5-4 hours.

Tesla is a good example of home-based fast charging - nobody that owns one relies solely on supervhargers at remote locations, they just plug in in their driveway. I'm not even sure they're *capable* of charging on 120v - it would be a totally hopeless cause.

I know installing a 220v charger at home is neither expensive nor hard. My point is, if I have to drive over 200 km before coming home with a pure EV, I'm in trouble more often than not. For instance I need to drive to look at something west of hamilton, then drive home. There is no power where I'm stopping. Teslas 400 km range fixes things substantially, but obviously it has a price point problem. Having to alter my route to try to drive past somewhere with a charger where then I have to wait while I get some juice is obviously annoying. My wife normally works at a number of different locations during the day, none have 220V chargers. That's why I said, for us and many families, pure EV isn't there as a family vehicle yet. If it is purely a commuting vehicle, it can work very well.

Tesla can be plugged into 120V. I've seen it at home depot. Now whether it was worth the effort of plugging it in for the 3 km of range it got???
 

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