Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Plenty of light duty hybrid trucks and SUVs for those who need them. F-150 hybrid for example.

If you're towing a lot and often, you're gonna need a bigger frame anyway. F-350 /F-450 or something.

 

How much is your time worth?

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/electric-vs-gas-cars-it-cheaper-drive-ev

Cost of electricity vs. gasoline
Here’s where EV owners win out. Going electric means you get to skip pricey trips to the pump, which is one of the biggest draws for making the switch. A 2018 study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute found that the average cost to fuel an electric car was $485 a year, compared to $1,117 for a gas-powered vehicle. A 2020 Consumer Reports study similarly showed that EV drivers tend to spend about 60 percent less each year on fuel costs compared to drivers of gas-powered cars. And in 2023, the nonpartisan policy firm Energy Innovation released a report showing that these savings benefit drivers across the United States: Every EV model in every state is cheaper to fill than a gas-powered vehicle. These savings are largely based on the fact that current EVs are 2.6 to 4.8 times more efficient at traveling a mile compared to a gasoline internal combustion engine, according to real world data collected by the U.S. Department of Energy.

But these savings calculations aren’t the same for everyone. Here’s where it can get a little complicated.

 

NOW you're talking my language.

 

They get the cracker part right.

 

Re: Road tripping in an EV

My buddy has a Tesla. His son is playing in a travel ball tournament in Florida this summer. I asked if they were taking the EV or the Suburban, thinking the charging would be an issue. He said with Tesla's onboard navigation, they can plan their route to hit Superchargers with wiggle room on the range. Based on how often his family wants to take bathroom breaks and such, he said it won't add more than 30 minutes to the total trip.

 

Almost every Uber I’ve taken in Sydney has been an EV. Every one of those is one fewer Camry belching emissions into the atmosphere. For the taxi/Uber use case, the EV seems to be perfect.

On the towing use case, I was going to ask to what extent a Lightning F-150 is less efficient. My Chevy Colorado diesel gets a bit more than 30 mpg highway when it’s empty, and about 20 mpg when it’s towing a trailer. So it loses 33 percent of its efficiency when towing. Is that comparable for the Lightning? After I walked through that, though, I did not account for the cost of the additional time to recharge the Lightning vs the time it takes to fill a tank. So there’s that.

 

I paid about $5,000 more for my hybrid, which isn’t a plug-in. I calculated I’ll break even on that in about 5.5 years. Wiggle room there based on gas mileage being worse in the winter given the system can’t operate while the cabin is being heated/the car running in the morning to heat up.

But we average right around 40 mpg in an SUV that gets about 29 without the hybrid system.

 

Is it a hybrid hybrid?

—old fart old commercial joke

 

I didn’t say it was a funny joke.

 

Lots of Aussies rolling coal in their Camrys?