Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 170 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

The fact that a company like Petro Canada (of all companies) has decided to install a cross-country network of EV chargers speaks volumes about the future that even they see as inevitable.

But WAIT. I heard from a friend of a friend who knows someone that Husky will announce they are kinda, sorta, possibly considering a hydrogen station for a yet to be constructed gas station in Ft. McMurray, Clearly this indicates the true embracement of future tech.
 
Maintenance costs on the cars should be similar. Cruze will have more frequent oil changes, Volt will have some expensive maintenance at 150K that will balance out the extra LOF costs.

Brakes too. My Volt has 140k kms and everytime I swap tires in Fall/Spring I check the pads and they still have tons of life left. Rotors still great.
Also air filters, Spark plugs...I would have had to replace those already at my mileage with a regular car. Not the Volt.

What's this 150k service?
 
That's really strange as even carrying full coverage my Volt is costing me less than either my Magnum or my old 1-Ton dually pickup truck. Must be your postal code.

Generally EV's and hybrids do enjoy lower insurance because insurance companies know that the drivers are often eco-conscious (IE, Prius drivers trying to get a billion MPG, EV's trying to maximize their range) so they are more conscientious drivers. The exception is Tesla due to the insanely high repair costs and how easily they are written off vs repaired.

As for your mileage, how many K/year are you driving, and what kinda L/100KM is your truck getting?
Postal code by Bayview Village.
~ 8k/year for mileage
16-18L/100km
Around $1200-1400 gas/year
 
My boss says I can charge at work. So I have my L1 EVSE in the trunk of my car and connect to a block heater outlet in our yard.

I connect at lunch time just so I can get about 4hrs of charging to ensure I can get home without using any fuel.

My EVSE keeps faulting out though. Not sure what’s up with that. It’ll charge for a while (it varies) then stop and the red lights on the EVSE are flashing.

Anyway, only used 0.25L of fuel this week.
 
The fact that a company like Petro Canada (of all companies) has decided to install a cross-country network of EV chargers speaks volumes about the future that even they see as inevitable.
It makes sense for PetroCanada, they are in the business of retailing energy for cars and trucks, and increasingly they are investing in roadside food and convenience retailing. The big question is gonna be how they price a fillup? In rough terms, they have a 30% margin on retail fuel sales, so a typical 50l fillup at $1/l nets them $15, somehow they are going to want/need to keep the gross profit the same on their service whether it's gas, diesel, propane electricity or hydrogen.
 
How much they charge is a fair question, and yet to be answered.

I have seen EV changing stations that cost more than the equivalent amount of gas on my Volt, so I just don’t use them.

Pure EV owners obviously have more of an issue with that as they don’t have the option to just continue on gas. But they are also quite savvy and will just go to another local charging station (when the option exists) vs using an overpriced one.
 
My EVSE keeps faulting out though. Not sure what’s up with that. It’ll charge for a while (it varies) then stop and the red lights on the EVSE are flashing.

Maybe it's on a circuit with a GFCI breaker that's not playing nice with the EVSE.
 
How much they charge is a fair question, and yet to be answered.

I have seen EV changing stations that cost more than the equivalent amount of gas on my Volt, so I just don’t use them.

Pure EV owners obviously have more of an issue with that as they don’t have the option to just continue on gas. But they are also quite savvy and will just go to another local charging station (when the option exists) vs using an overpriced one.

There are two chargers on a commercial building near the Aurora go station. If I had to guess, I would say they have been there for 5 years or more. I have never seen anything plugged into them. My guess is they were either paid for by liberal waste or they charge exorbitant rates to use them. It just doesnt make sense that a pair would be installed and never used.
Slightly more on topic, it makes sense a gas station tries this at least as a pilot. It may even be priced reasonably as they hope you come in to the store where they can make tons of money off you.
 
Maybe it's on a circuit with a GFCI breaker that's not playing nice with the EVSE.

Possibly. I might try pulling it into the shop and plugging it into an indoor outlet to see if that has any effect.

I was using the L1 EVSE at home before I had my L2 installed and it did fault out a couple times.
 
My EVSE keeps faulting out though. Not sure what’s up with that. It’ll charge for a while (it varies) then stop and the red lights on the EVSE are flashing.

EVSE's are super anal on having a proper ground, as well as any voltage leakage. It's possible that the receptacle itself is old and crusty and the ground is marginal at best..and once it heats up after an hour or so of usage it's enough to weaken the ground connection enough that it fails.

Is the plug itself you're using in good shape? Can you access the breaker for it so that if you wanted to you could replace it with a new one on your own dime if you wanted to?

I have some plugs at work that I do use on occasion (although living <10KM to work makes it not worth my time typically) and despite there being a row of 7 or 8 (they were also originally for block heaters) only one single one has a ground that my EVSE is happy with - the rest just throw the flashing red light errors as well, despite having power.

There are two chargers on a commercial building near the Aurora go station. If I had to guess, I would say they have been there for 5 years or more. I have never seen anything plugged into them. My guess is they were either paid for by liberal waste or they charge exorbitant rates to use them. It just doesnt make sense that a pair would be installed and never used.

It's not uncommon to see stupid pricing - some private property ones have people that really don't understand the realities of EV's or the cost of electricity who have set prices that are just off the charts ridiculous. I've seen $10/hour listings for a 32A L2. And then they wonder why nobody uses them.

My BIL works in Toronto and his company has a private parking garage. He was using his L1 charger at work for about 6 months with nobody batting an eye until someone in management told him that he couldn't charge any more because "the company wasn't paying $50 a day for electricity". In reality it might have been using about a buck a day, tops. He tried to explain this to them, offered to pay for the electricity...etc etc etc. Said person was convinced that the cost of electricity was in the stratosphere despite the fact that it would be physically impossible to draw $50 of electricity out of a 15A receptacle in an 8 hour work day.

In short, a lot of people still don't understand EV's and don't want to be educated, either.

They are putting in L3 charging stations, but have already informed employees that they will be priced at $2/hour. For him, even if he only plugged in for the 4 hours before lunch and then rushed out to move his car, at $8....he's losing money versus just driving home on gas when need be. Again, they just don't understand.

Slightly more on topic, it makes sense a gas station tries this at least as a pilot. It may even be priced reasonably as they hope you come in to the store where they can make tons of money off you.

Yep, this is a known tactic. When gas prices are low in the evening hours, or stations near a Costco gas station (for example) have to price their gas very low to compete, many stations are making a pittance on the actual gas sales - they DO make a great margin on that coffee, chocolate bar, lottery ticket, and bag of munchies you bought while you were there, however.

An EV owner that might be there for 20 minutes while picking up a quick hit L3 charge will be almost certain to come inside and spend money on a coffee and snacks, etc. The chances are actually far higher versus the quick pay at the pump (and leave without ever going inside) gas customers actually.

They'd be stupid to try to rip off EV owners, accordingly. Sell the electricity basically at cost or only marginal profit to cover the infrastructure, and benefit from the captive audience for the time they're there.
 
EVSE's are super anal on having a proper ground, as well as any voltage leakage. It's possible that the receptacle itself is old and crusty and the ground is marginal at best..and once it heats up after an hour or so of usage it's enough to weaken the ground connection enough that it fails.

Is the plug itself you're using in good shape? Can you access the breaker for it so that if you wanted to you could replace it with a new one on your own dime if you wanted to?

I have some plugs at work that I do use on occasion (although living <10KM to work makes it not worth my time typically) and despite there being a row of 7 or 8 (they were also originally for block heaters) only one single one has a ground that my EVSE is happy with - the rest just throw the flashing red light errors as well, despite having power.



It's not uncommon to see stupid pricing - some private property ones have people that really don't understand the realities of EV's or the cost of electricity who have set prices that are just off the charts ridiculous. I've seen $10/hour listings for a 32A L2. And then they wonder why nobody uses them.

My BIL works in Toronto and his company has a private parking garage. He was using his L1 charger at work for about 6 months with nobody batting an eye until someone in management told him that he couldn't charge any more because "the company wasn't paying $50 a day for electricity". In reality it might have been using about a buck a day, tops. He tried to explain this to them, offered to pay for the electricity...etc etc etc. Said person was convinced that the cost of electricity was in the stratosphere despite the fact that it would be physically impossible to draw $50 of electricity out of a 15A receptacle in an 8 hour work day.

In short, a lot of people still don't understand EV's and don't want to be educated, either.

They are putting in L3 charging stations, but have already informed employees that they will be priced at $2/hour. For him, even if he only plugged in for the 4 hours before lunch and then rushed out to move his car, at $8....he's losing money versus just driving home on gas when need be. Again, they just don't understand.



Yep, this is a known tactic. When gas prices are low in the evening hours, or stations near a Costco gas station (for example) have to price their gas very low to compete, many stations are making a pittance on the actual gas sales - they DO make a great margin on that coffee, chocolate bar, lottery ticket, and bag of munchies you bought while you were there, however.

An EV owner that might be there for 20 minutes while picking up a quick hit L3 charge will be almost certain to come inside and spend money on a coffee and snacks, etc. The chances are actually far higher versus the quick pay at the pump (and leave without ever going inside) gas customers actually.

They'd be stupid to try to rip off EV owners, accordingly. Sell the electricity basically at cost or only marginal profit to cover the infrastructure, and benefit from the captive audience for the time they're there.
It'd be ideal if you could access the car vacuum while you charge. Twenty or thirty minutes to charge while you clean the car and the windows.

Sent from my SM-A530W using Tapatalk
 
It'd be ideal if you could access the car vacuum while you charge. Twenty or thirty minutes to charge while you clean the car and the windows.

Close, but no cigar.

Petro-canada-ev-charger.jpg
 
those petro ppl ain't dumb. theres a reason the vacuums are in a separate area.

as EVs become more common place, I highly doubt you will be able to roll up to a charge point, and it will be gloriously free and ready for you as seen in the pic

Pretty sure, there will be lines ups and fisticuffs.



check out the toronto auto show, increasing number of Hydrogen models on display. a sign of the future. (more than last year for sure)

the masses will eventually figure it out when they see how amazingly convenient it really will be with its quick recharge time (5 mins or less) , longer driving range, and cold weather ability (no loss of range)
 
I wouldn't call that "confirmed" until they actually have a tooled-up plant and Job 1 rolls off the line.

They've got a prototype, they've got a facility (the old Mitsubishi plant in Normal, IL), it appears that they have some money (not enough, in my opinion), what they don't have is time. Late 2020 is a year and a half away. Given that these investments are very recent, they can't have started seriously designing their tooling and automation much before now. It will take at least a year to figure that out and that's pushing your luck - that's assuming you have a large automation company ready to start now the moment you drop a purchase order (everyone who is any good is busy, this does not happen). And this isn't allowing for validation testing. Prototypes. Running them around test tracks trying to break stuff. Chasing down rattles, chasing down wind noises, calibrating the airbags and ABS and ESP and infotainment and whatnot, cold weather testing, hot weather testing, trailer-tow testing, and on and on.

I have some involvement with a major component for another vehicle program that is supposed to launch right around the same time. The program has been "known about" for more than a year, space has been allocated (another line has to finish production and get ripped out before this one can go in!), layout and design of the automation and tooling is more or less done and fabrication is on the go, it needs to be assembled, wired, programmed, commissioned, debugged, used to make prototype parts, PPAPed, "run-at-rate", over the next 8 or 10 months, at some point in all this the auto manufacturer needs to do their final validation testing and there is a built-in delay before SOP in order to account for that, and this is all for start-of-production sometime in 2020.

This truck is going to have a part that corresponds to that one ...

Maybe it will happen, if they have enough money ... just not in that timeframe, and if they do manage to throw something together in that timeframe, it's going to be half-baked.

Ford has a test-mule of an electric F150 running around right now, for start-of-production in the same timeframe.
 
And this isn't allowing for validation testing. Prototypes. Running them around test tracks trying to break stuff. Chasing down rattles, chasing down wind noises, calibrating the airbags and ABS and ESP and infotainment and whatnot, cold weather testing, hot weather testing, trailer-tow testing, and on and on.

Well, unless you go the Tesla route and just skip all that pesky stuff and let the first few thousand owners be the mules.

The Tesla fanboy's have been mostly more than happy to let this sort of stuff slide...because fanboy. The pickup truck crowd will eviscerate them if Rivian starts sending junk out the door.

But, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, despite sharing a lot of Brian's questions.

The fact they have Amazon onboard however is....interesting. Very interesting. Needless to say, Amazon has bottomless pockets.
 
Evidently Rivian has been testing their "skateboard" chassis underneath the skin of Ford F150 bodyshells. There's quite a few spy photos out there. They may be further along this path than we think. The chassis has 4 wheel independent suspension, and a separate drive motor for each wheel.

Still, building it requires stamping press tooling, and robots, and end-of-arm-tooling, and fixtures, and assembly equipment ... and getting all the bugs out of that, in addition to getting all the bugs out of the vehicle itself. May happen ... just take longer than they're saying.
 
Keep in mind, Rivian is not targeting the "truck" crowd, they are after the "lifestyle" crowd who will be much more tolerant of problems like Tesla fanboys are. I wouldn't be surprised if they slip the date, but it may not be by much.
 
BC gov just announced that they are injecting 20mil for the building of hydrogen and electric infrastructure.


Im not going to post the link, you can find it for your self.


as predicted earlier in this thread, and Im not going to quote it again, "BC and Quebec" will lead the way with Hydrogen in canada.

As usual, Ontario govt is totally clueless.
 

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