EVcast #396: Range Anxiety is a Darwinian Response

I wouldn't totally discount the electric vehicle converters influence on what is unfolding. I think one of the things that points strongly to the pent up demand for electric vehicles is that there are some people willing to put in the supreme effort to build their own. I doubt the big car companies would have gambled on electric cars without some indication the odds of success were in their favour. The converters are the pioneers of the change that is coming. The majority of the people in my country (New Zealand) buy second hand cars and production electric cars are still about two years away here and it will be even longer before they make it onto the second hand market at a reasonable price and then their value for money will be debatable until battery longevity is known. Before you ask were all these used cars come from we import them by the ship load from Japan. Electric conversions make sense in this situation. Most don’t start with a junker or if they do they don't survive long. Most start with a car that has been through the majority of its devaluation and or have an expensive mechanical fault and wind up just looking like every other car on the road when finished. If I could buy an electric car now or in the near future for a reasonable price I wouldn’t be making the effort to convert one myself because I think the car companies can do a much better job of it than I could and would give better consideration to passenger safety than I possibly can so why reinvent the wheel if I don’t have to.

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I think that range anxiety is just a red herring... No matter how hard I tried to put more fuel in my car, the most it could go was about 300 miles on a tank. If I drove a bit easier on it, I might be able to squeeze out 320 miles, and if I drove it a bit harder I might only have gotten 260 miles from it (sometimes less if the gas wasn't very good quality).

For the Nissan Leaf, since the average commuter has a one-way commute of between 10-15 miles, if they forget to plug in one night and don't do any opportunity charging, it's no big deal. Most owners will probably not have the issue of forgetting to plug in and will probably look for locations to do opportunity charging anyhow, making this a non-issue.

For longer travels, one will need to plan their trip accordingly, just like you did with your previous vehicle. If I know that I can only travel another 10-15 miles before I'm out of gas, I will make plans to stop and refuel. At least electricity is the same no matter where you get it from and you don't have to worry about what "the cheap stuff" will do to your car.

On the topic of cost savings, over the lifetime of my Nissan Leaf I'll definitely be saving money over my previous Subaru Impreza. My cost per mile ended up being about $0.30. On the Nissan Leaf I estimate that my cost per mile will be around $0.24, the primary reason being that I will be paying $0.05 per kWh to recharge. Even if I decide to replace the battery pack after 5 years I could still end up being ahead depending on how many miles I put on it.

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Greets,

Regarding conversions....not all are equal...They are not going to slow down the adoption of pure electric vehicles, but allow there to be a practical intermediate step, in this time when real, practical EV's have not hit the streets.

One of the newer Hybrid conversions that incorporates a larger Li-ion battery pack, like Engineer or Hymotion for the Prius, not only allows one to almost double the mpg, but due to the nature of a Hybrid, eliminates RANGE ANXIETY...grin.

I too am ready and waiting for pure EV's....but still want to see a reasonable, affordable, and quick-rechargeable (with the charging infrastructure to support it), before I abandon my converted Prius.

Thanks for what you do,

Scott

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