Bolt is out - 300+ range

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mxs said:
Matt Rain said:
~250kms range on pure electric. One-way to cottage country. Then enough gas range to come home, 'cause I'm unlikely to have adequate charging equipment at the cottage, if I can charge at all.




I'd say potential users like yourself are not exactly EV or plug-in hybrid customer base. Keep using your gasser (as long as Wynne or somebody like her takes it from your hands or limits its use ... LOL).

I am sure you can charge at the cottage, but it will be slow from 12A outlet .... so you'd have to plan a bit ... you don't sound like a person willing to do that, working around that. Of course much better option woul be to install 220V/40A outlet ... which will cut your charging times significantly.

Just do dig deeper into your concern ... I assume you have one car only and want to use it for weekly commute and weekend out-of-town fun? If so, forget it, unless you can accept Volt (or install proper charging to reflect your needs). it will take years before there's enough fast chargers along your way to let you use fully EV. You will not see hybrids with 250 EV km and ICE extender anytime soon or perhaps ever .... because it really would be expensive now (large battery and ICE costs as well) with few sales. In the meantime, in coming years EV's will take over so the ICE will be completely gone as range extender and you will buy full EV. I doubt we will ever see Volt able to do 250km in pure EV mode.

If you have two cars, the way to do it is to take one car and call it city car (VOLT, BOLT, soon coming new LEAF would be your choices) and use it for such activities. And dedicate the second gasser car to the weekend stuff (plus of course commute as well).

Everyone's situation differs, but I find that people sometimes just try put a square peg into a round hole ....
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I don't even own a car. :D Actually, I've never even had a car registered in my name, just a couple of family hand-me-downs in my 20's. That'll all change very soon if and when wifey comes back with the next positive pregnancy test. We shall finally give in and get our own wheels instead of using car-sharing. We both want an EV as long as it doesn't make our life harder.

For now, I was merely putting myself in the shoes of an average city dweller. The EV will have trouble reaching the mainstream until EV-charging becomes unobstrusive. A 2-minute gas fill-up is a hell of a benchmark to try and meet.

I definitely don't wanna have to plan my travel around a limitation that doesn't exist with ICE.
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OT, but It's kinda confusing having two EV threads here now - unfortunately a lot of information is going to be repeated across both.
 
Matt Rain said:
mxs said:
For now, I was merely putting myself in the shoes of an average city dweller. The EV will have trouble reaching the mainstream until EV-charging becomes unobstrusive. A 2-minute gas fill-up is a hell of a benchmark to try and meet.

I definitely don't wanna have to plan my travel around a limitation that doesn't exist with ICE.
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If I were in your shoes, I'd stick to Hybrid right now, and wait 2-3 years as Electric cars will become more established and mainstream. LOTS of manufacturers are coming out with some compelling Electrics and hybrids in this time frame.

I'm very certain a Hybrid will still hold value and resale appeal 2-3 years down the road.
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SunnY S said:
Matt Rain said:
If I were in your shoes, I'd stick to Hybrid right now, and wait 2-3 years as Electric cars will become more established and mainstream. LOTS of manufacturers are coming out with some compelling Electrics and hybrids in this time frame.

I'm very certain a Hybrid will still hold value and resale appeal 2-3 years down the road.
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This is why I'm considering leasing for the first time in my life...I want an EV commuter but with the pace of tech and batteries I figure the range will dramatically increase in the next 3 years.
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mimico_polak said:
This is why I'm considering leasing for the first time in my life...I want an EV commuter but with the pace of tech and batteries I figure the range will dramatically increase in the next 3 years.
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Unless the "Green" / "Tree Hugger" aspect outweighs things for you, be sure to do the math and see if there's any savings left to be had however with an EV vs a cheap gasser though.

For us with the Volt, the primary reason for purchase was overwhelmingly lower operating costs, but that math easily made sense considering we bought used, with an exceptionally good deal at that.

Had we insisted on brand new (purchase or lease) the savings would have been dramatically less when compared to leasing something like an econobox gasser given the higher cost of the EV vs the ICE econobox.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Unless the "Green" / "Tree Hugger" aspect outweighs things for you, be sure to do the math and see if there's any savings left to be had however with an EV vs a cheap gasser though.

For us with the Volt, the primary reason for purchase was overwhelmingly lower operating costs, but that math easily made sense considering we bought used, with an exceptionally good deal at that.

Had we insisted on brand new (purchase or lease) the savings would have been dramatically less when compared to leasing something like an econobox gasser given the higher cost of the EV vs the ICE econobox.
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agreed. The way I look at it now is if the gas savings monthly are the same or more than the lease price I'm interested. My car works great but I'm not going to pay 400/month for a green tree hugger feel. My gas is 180/month so if I can use that money to drive an EV I'm ok. Otherwise no point in trading in my 8l/100km commuter.

Used Volts are hard to find and at 20k....you're looking at about 9k less than brand new after rebate....with a much higher interest rate. I'm sure one can talk then down to less but I need to go see them. Then there's the whole thing of whether Gen1 is worth it against the Gen2.
 
We paid $13,800 for our used 2012 so you can find deals if you're OK with a gen1 and aren't super concerned with mileages north of 100K. Given what I learned about the exceptional reliability of the Volt when I was doing my due diligence the higher mileage on ours wasn't of overwhelming concern to me because the price was a no brainer from a savings standpoint - we saved over $1000 in operating expenses vs my wife's old car in the first few months of ownership.
 
The Catch 22 of an EV is that they economically benefit high mileage drivers more than the low mileage ones but the range factor favours the low mileage operator.

An EV would work for my wife in that she drives less than 20 kms each way to work but the higher vehicle cost is spread over fewer kms.
Also

If a person drives 20,000 kms a year and a battery lasts seven years, costing $8,000 to replace, the battery cost per km is just under six cents per km. Add in the electrical cost and the savings are a few cents per km over an ICE. It's worse for the low miler.


Even with Auntie Kathy's bribe I don't think the math works out.

The Bolt is smaller than a Hyundai Accent but you can put an air/automatic Accent on the road for about $18,000.00

If it wasn't for tax incentives a Bolt wold be about $40,000.00. Even with incentives (For which your children will have to pay) the Bolt is still over $36,000.00, double the Accent price.

Add in the stupid factor.

If you stash away the fuel savings for the inevitable battery replacement you might be OK but a large number of morons will think "Look at the money I'm saving. I can buy more lattes and nifty trinkets." Then the battery dies, they have a dead horse and have to dump it for a pittance or put $8,000 into a car that isn't worth all that much. Sort of like the hillbilly pickup truck. Its value depends on how much gas is in the tank.

Too much smoke and mirrors for me.
 
I don't know why so many people continue to assume that the battery packs are going to wear out so quickly in an EV.

A reasonably scientific survey of Tesla's for example showed that most will achieve 800,000KM before the packs begin to suffer failure or major range loss.
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-battery-degradation/

There are LOTS of Volts out there with many hundreds of thousands of miles on them and no major EV range degradation. Heck, there's a rather famous one ("Sparkie") with 637,000KM on it right now and NO degradation of the battery. Take note the article is a year old and it's still going.

Anyhow, the tried and true FUD stories about how EV batteries are somehow disposable after a few years is old and busted.

An average ICE vehicle lasts perhaps 350,000KM to maybe 500,000KM before they end up in a scrapyard, so given as how EV batteries are now easily exceeding this by a wide margin the battery replacement cost argument is invalid.
 
PrivatePilot said:
I don't know why so many people continue to assume that the battery packs are going to wear out so quickly in an EV.

A reasonably scientific survey of Tesla's for example showed that most will achieve 800,000KM before the packs begin to suffer failure or major range loss.
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-battery-degradation/

There are LOTS of Volts out there with many hundreds of thousands of miles on them and no major EV range degradation. Heck, there's a rather famous one ("Sparkie") with 637,000KM on it right now and NO degradation of the battery. Take note the article is a year old and it's still going.

Anyhow, the tried and true FUD stories about how EV batteries are somehow disposable after a few years is old and busted.

An average ICE vehicle lasts perhaps 350,000KM to maybe 500,000KM before they end up in a scrapyard, so given as how EV batteries are now easily exceeding this by a wide margin the battery replacement cost argument is invalid.
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Toyota batteries fail reasonably often. Apparently they draw conditioned air from the cabin to cool the battery pack. If you have a pet in the car often, something gets plugged with the hair and the pack is irrepairably damaged. No pets, no problems, the packs last funcitionally forever.

I think the key here is finding a particular vehicle model with a history of success (eg existing Volts) to buy and keep or lease the newest and best and give it back in 3 years so you don't get stuck with a nightmare.
 
The first generations of Prius battery experiences that fuel the 7-8 year battery lifespan beliefs sure do persist, despite significant advances in battery tech and thermal management. I remember when the Prius first came out, a lot of writers pessimistically predicted 5 year life spans because of what was known and experienced with Nimh batteries (especially in rechargeable power tools). Most of them went well past those predictions and even those that "failed" could often be repaired, rather than replaced because only a few cells actually died, for a cost in the hundreds of dollars.

If you're strictly looking at the Bolt as an economical option, sure it won't compare to an basic econobox like the Accent. But the Accent can't compare to the performance of the Bolt and that's probably one of the important traits of the Bolt. http://gas2.org/2017/06/26/chevy-bolt-outguns-volkswagen-tdi-drag-race/ http://www.detroitnews.com/videos/b...payne-goes-0-60-2017-chevy-bolt-ev/102615404/
 
PrivatePilot said:
but It's kinda confusing having two EV threads here now - unfortunately a lot of information is going to be repeated across both.
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Agreed. Why is there a 2nd EV thread now? Lots of misinformation in this one already that was covered in the other
 
Unless it's governed differently for models sold here, it's not technically legal. Top speed for Ebikes is supposed to be 32KPH here, that lists 28MPH which is just over 45KPH.

Otherwise it looks like a great little bike - nice to see someone looking at an actual bicycle style Ebike vs the "wannabe motorcycles" that are flooding the segment now. And realistically the heat score on that will be very low and the speed thing isn't likely going to be a problem unless he goes blasting along next to a cop car or something.
 
If you it doesn't meet the strict definition for an e-bike the penalties are severe as it becomes an unlicensed, uninsured motorcycle(>$5000 in tickets).

I like that style of e-bike (what they were intended to be, a bicycle with power assist). Unless there is a very specific use in mind or your BIL has too much money, I can't see spending $3000+ on a 50lb bike. For that much money, I'd want 20 lbs lighter. It make take a few more generations before there is an ebike that is actually a nice bicycle with added power assist.
 
Thought you were talking about this:

2017-yamaha-star-bolt-r-spec-crimson-red-action.jpg
 
Hi, my bil is 61 and had a electric bike last year/early this year (looked vaguely like a vespa?) and he had a lot of trouble with it. Think it was chinese made. He brought it back to the shop several times for free service, and luckily he had some sort of lease to own deal on it - finally he told them keep it. He said the guys at the shop were pretty decent about it and took it back without any more monthly payments and tore up the contract. They remained on good terms. +1 for the shop.
This bike he's buying cash outright and wanted something reliable so I looked at some reviews- which seem pretty good. I like the fact the motor is yamaha made. shimano gears. Tiawan made for the rest.

As for the legality I don't think he will be riding it very quickly - he once told me he always stays 100% focused when riding as the cars can be reckless when passing. He takes his time. Oddly, the dealer is claiming the top speed of the bike is 28km/hr. Im waiting to see some pamphlets he has picked up, but it is the exact same bike as in the video. I asked him if he was sure it was 28km/hr and not 28mph. He said yes, and had discussed it with dealer as he felt this was a little slow, but was ok with that. so? Next time i visit i will check out the pamphlet - and the dealer, perhaps there is a governer, or the solution was just to claim 28km/hr for canada? Interesting, I will find out for sure when he gets the bike - they measured him up for frame size and he will be getting the bike - soon as the shop gets it in. Located in brantford.

thx for the feed back folks.
 
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GreyGhost said:
If you it doesn't meet the strict definition for an e-bike the penalties are severe as it becomes an unlicensed, uninsured motorcycle(>$5000 in tickets).

I like that style of e-bike (what they were intended to be, a bicycle with power assist). Unless there is a very specific use in mind or your BIL has too much money, I can't see spending $3000+ on a 50lb bike. For that much money, I'd want 20 lbs lighter. It make take a few more generations before there is an ebike that is actually a nice bicycle with added power assist.
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I had rode his old e bike and I have to say, I liked it. He really enjoyed having his e bike even though he had a lot of problems with it. Actually, he loved riding that bike. I could tell he missed having it. In the review they list this bike at $3000 US. So at $3300 cdn it seems not too bad (or good) depending on your view. For my bil 3 large isn't that much for him and enjoys the freedom from waiting for cabs and the cost. He is planning on getting panniers/bags installed on the bike - he will even use it for doing his groceries. A 2 year comprehensive warranty and a good shop ...all added up, and not that bothered with dollars, he is happy to pay - to each their own. He has a full algonquin status card and is looking into avoiding the tax on it, or having the taxes returned. not sure how that will work out though.
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