Statistics suggest otherwise. https://jalopnik.com/trucks-and-suvs-are-now-over-80-percent-of-new-car-sale-1848427797
"...average car size is way down... A few people are making an extreme statement with giant pick up trucks..."
Polarization! It's everywhere.
Yeah, what Heebie reports is not what I'm seeing here. Not so many big SUVs, but the giant trucks with the extended cab and tiny beds are everywhere. And all the sedans have been replaced by "crossovers" which are junior SUVs.
And, because you can't actually buy a new small truck in the United States anymore, I've been seeing a lot of tiny Japaneses kei trucks that are over 25 years old and are thus available for import.
Right, "crossovers" are the new default, and Heebie is reading them as cars even though they're usually classified as SUVs. But they're not huge like the old SUVs. Now you have a giant truck if you're insecure about your masculinity, and a crossover otherwise, whereas older SUVs didn't read as cars for moms yet.
The whole thing is a major fuckup by Obama-era regulation designers who caved to industry pressure on emissions standards in a way that was broadly recognized as a terrible idea at the time.
There's the Ford Maverick now, which is kind of a small truck (though not the same thing as a Ranger), which are apparently super popular but apparently Ford can't make them anywhere near fast enough for demand.
Crossovers are big enough that they are still difficult to see over if you are a person like me who drives a normal sized car.
They're taller for sure, that's the whole point of them, but I don't think they're wildly heavier or larger than a comparable sedan?
The Ford Maverick is not a small truck. Its a medium sized truck that markets itself as a small truck. You can't buy one without an extended cab.
I grew up driving Fords but they do not make a single vehicle that I would want to buy today.
I drive a 2013 Ford Fiesta hatchback, but of course won't be getting another Ford since they don't sell cars. The other car I was considering back then was a Honda Fit, but those don't exist anymore either. I'd probably buy a Honda Civic hatchback, or maybe a Kia Rio?
There's an F350 that parks in our garage every day next to our bike room and I hate the thing. Height is like heebie describes and it's so long it sticks out of the parking space into the garage lane, so coming out of the bike room you can't see if a car is coming.
We still have a minivan but bought a Bolt and try to drive that everywhere. If I can just get solar panels installed it becomes nearly free travel. I think a lot of the public doesn't recognize the benefits of EVs on ease and cost of ownership because all they hear about is charging infrastructure. No oil changes! No transmission! Brake pads last much longer if you use regen braking! Super responsive acceleration! Just rotate the tires and it might run forever! Battery life, eh, who knows- 10 year warranty but they haven't been around long enough to really see what happens.
Right, "crossovers" are the new default, and Heebie is reading them as cars even though they're usually classified as SUVs.
This is true, but also there were a fair number of actual cars when I made that observation. Truly, in 2006 I remember the number of actual cars feeling much lower.
Yeah, unfortunately people are buying bigger and bigger cars, your neighborhood might be an outlier.
Another indicator: subcompact options are disappearing. Fit, Sonic, Fiesta, Yaris...
Protect your child from being crushed with the all-new, even bigger Child Crusher Machine!
This particular street where I was making this observation is along some big student apartment complexes. It's easy to imagine broke students going for smaller/cheaper cars.
I'll try to be more observant in my commute along country roads, but the truth is that cars all look like shapeless dull blobs to me, with very few distinguishing features.
Are you in a low car or something taller? If you're low, watch for how often you can't see around the thing ahead of you.
Since Heebie mentioned she drove a Volvo, it's worth noting that they also seem to phasing out cars in favor of SUVs. I tried to buy a Volvo station wagon in 2019, my 1999 Volvo wagon was dying. The 2019 wagon was like $6,000 more than the comparable SUV and also not available.
Volvo buyers tend to stick with the brand -- the asshole salesman when we bought our first one in 1987 said that and damn, he had me pegged. We've mostly bought used ones since then. Basically, as long as you maintain them they run forever and are slow to rust out. The 1989 240 sedan I bought used in 1991 made it to 360,000 miles before it got rear ended. But the new ones are so expensive and so tarted up that my wife, whose also 1999 Volvo was dying, said "f* that" and just bought (overpaid for) a 2015 XC70 to avoid things like the stupid TV in the center of the front console. And 2015-2016 XC70s are selling at insane prices: 7 or 8 year old cars with 50,000-75,000 miles and an original sticker price of ~$40,000 get scooped up almost immediately at anywhere from $25,000 to $28,000. There was even a 2016 with very low mileage that sold for something like $38,000.
Presumably Volvo does market research but they seem to have missed that some of their best customers (i.e. repeat buyers) so don't like the current offerings that they're paying stupid prices for used ones.
16: I'm in a minivan, so I am in fact part of the problem.
It's a hybrid minivan, but I put more than enough miles on it to blot out any residual halo of hybridness. It's all depressing and my hips hurt from sitting too much.
I'm not sure minivans are as much of the problem. There's an IIHS study that compares relative risks to pedestrians by car type, and minivan is one, but it's paywalled. At least they don't have the child-invisible-from-driver's-seat problem.
My (ancient) crossover- a Honda CRV- is not taller than cars, in a parking lot. Neither was my even ancienter pickup truck.
The truck was an 87; the CRV is a 98. Neither of them is any taller than a modern sedan or hatchback. Along with people buying bigger cars, the actual cars in the US are getting bigger. Visiting Europe always makes me feel like Gulliver.
Because they tied you down on the beach?
Please subscribe me to the newsletter about the tiny Japanese trucks available for import
Along with people buying bigger cars, the actual cars in the US are getting bigger.
Like, they're physically swelling?
The thing that gets me about all those massive cars--apart from the danger of them, and the ecological penalty of them--is that they are also not good cars. The usable interior space on them isn't any bigger than most roomy sub-compact style cars, and way less than a station wagon. Whenever I'm in the US and get driven in one as a passenger, I'm always surprised. I've been in mid-sized UK style SUVs and they aren't much better. There's more trunk space, but not as much as a station wagon, and the driving position is higher, but as cars, they just aren't very good.
My neighbor has a truck that won't fit in his garage. Too high.
Obviously we need to change zoning to require all garages be large enough to hold a jacked up F350, because neighborhood character or something.
I drive a Subaru Crosstrek and in many ways its like a station wagon but I guess the clearance is higher and it probably weighs more. I replaced a 2002 Forester, which was slightly larger than the Crosstrek but much smaller than the contemporary Forester.
As a renter who also drives long distances to out of the way places, I've had a hard time seeing how a plug-in car could work for me. My current lease says you can't charge an EV even if you have a garage parking space with a plug.
I agree with everyone here but heebie, cars are bigger (or "personal vehicles", if people are getting hung up on the car/truck/SUV distinction) and it's scary. Contra my comment yesterday, I'm worried that I or the kid will be hit by a car again but this time it would be one of these new behemoths. There's no way we'd go over the hood of that.
I've had a hard time seeing how a plug-in car could work for me.
Although I don't like concentrating overmuch on the promise of EVs, from a policy POV this issue has been acknowledged at the federal level as a barrier, as there is very little clear path or financing for garage installation of chargers period, anywhere but single-family homes, and the IRA threw a lot of money at the problem so there may be more programs opening up soon that help owners do these installaiton.
Like, they're physically swelling?
It's all the GMO gas and steroids in the water
Some asshat in my neighborhood charges his Tesla with a cord that is tied to a tree to cross the sidewalk without blocking it.
24 agreed. They are like crap TARDISes; they are deceptively far smaller on the inside than they look on the outside. Transits are superior in virtually every way.
On the very small plus side, the Chevy Bolt was announced discontinued in the US, then they reversed and said it would come out again, redesigned. I might get one in a few years when my car hits 10.
28: I was musing to a friend about buying an EV recently. I rent and would park on the street (no parking place). And my landlords have definitely not set things up for charging in front of our building. My friend pointed out that all the charging spots are pretty much either slow-charging, or fast for Teslas only. And that most used EVs don't do fast-charging anyway. So no way to do it: can't leave my car in a third-party charging spot overnight, after all. So an EV is out, unless I move someplace with a private parking spot+charger, or I buy. Love it.
"My current lease says you can't charge an EV even if you have a garage parking space with a plug."
That just seems like a dickish restriction. Sure charge for the electricity if it's included in the rent, if it's not there absolutely no logic to this.
"charges his Tesla with a cord that is tied to a tree"
Now that's green energy.
35- yeah we rushed to get a bolt and they were really hard to find. We thought about waiting but the details are pretty ambiguous- maybe 2026? New battery technology and plug interface? I'd give it a 50% chance they change their mind and never re-release it. Everything else was tens of thousands more expensive and/or a behemoth we didn't want.
Obviously we need to change zoning to require all garages be large enough to hold a jacked up F350
My concern is that municipal garages will now be expected to meet this standard, which is going to add a bunch of costs to construction. So everyone ends up paying more for parking to subsidize that guy.
That just seems like a dickish restriction. Sure charge for the electricity if it's included in the rent, if it's not there absolutely no logic to this.
My guess is that it's related to metering. I have a garage space but it's not physically connected to my apartment. Maybe an incentive program would cover the cost of whatever the building ownership would need to do. It did seem kind of a dumb rule.
Yeah, it sounds like they probably don't have the garage set up with separate meters at the individual outlets that can be connected to specific units in the building. An incentive program could cover the cost of putting in the meters.
Oh so it's a big garage? I was thinking large driveway or similar. Aren't the chargers in those usually commercially controlled networks (eg Chargepoint, EVGo) where they can bill you via an app?
Tesla is slowly opening up its supercharger network to non-teslas via adapters either on the stations or BYO, with federal incentives to move it along. It's unclear how fast the charging really is for non-Tesla though. Sounds like maybe 1/3 as fast which is still better than a 240V home but not fast enough the treat it like a gas station equivalent.
Sorry, I haven't described things well. My building complex, maybe to approximate house experiences, has one-car garages that have outlets but not dedicated car charging stations. Many garages are not physically adjacent to units and it's not clear who is billed for electricity from those outlets. I'm pretty sure it's not on my meter.
Ah, okay. They probably have the garages hooked up to a master meter for the grounds (or more than one). Putting in an individual meter at each garage would be pretty straightforward but expensive.
That's not as dickish as I was thinking. I thought there were car chargers installed but they didn't allow anyone to use them.
I'm trying to get a new car that fits 2 kids + the occasion 2 dogs, and it's an infuriating process.
We have an old Mazda 5, which they don't make any more. It's built on the same platform as the Mazda 3. It's a "mini minivan" that's basically a slightly taller station wagon with a 3rd row. It's medium car sized. And the interior cargo room absolutely swamps the massive "mid-size" SUVs that only have 2 rows, and even the tank-sized 3 row SUVs that literally don't fit in my driveway.
All I want is a new Mazda5 equivalent with a hybrid. Europe is full of them! They exist! But nope. Escalades and Tellurides for everyone. I complain about this at great length to anyone who will listen.
42: In general, it has to be noted EV chargers pull a huge amount of electricity and the building/house/street wiring may need improvements to support them. Before you get to significant EV penetration the entire national grid needs improvement.
I've been on the lookout for a 1997 Toyota Previa to convert into my new shag wagon.
Our 2013 Golf needed enough work this year that we decided to get a new car. We were ready to get a larger car in order to go electric, but they all had stupid designs. One had literally no drivers seat position where I could see out of the car. One was much bigger than the Golf, yet did not have a way for us to transport skis (no roof rack capability and no cutout in the back seat). We ended up getting the work done on the Golf.
Legally, if you can't see something, it's at most negligence. If you could see but didn't, your lawyer has a heavier lift.
One of our persistent spousal arguments is whether the Ford 150 is a "big truck". Shiv says no, because it is useless as a truck and there are bigger trucks. I, as a cyclist who is shorter than these lifted pavement princesses, say he is wrong because they are just big. Our Accord is a midsized sedan and would go under the wheels in a crash.
I ride in ruralish places and most people are fine except for the occasional coal roller but none of these fuckers need to have a truck that can't even haul anything. And I'm in a part of the country where it makes sense to have a vehicle for off-roadish stuff.
I was in the UK last month and it was like micromachine land. It's so much easier to see everything!
46: a friend has the 3 row Subaru which is probably bigger than you want but would tick the right boxes, I think.
The F150s used to be smaller, I think. At least not as high.
One had literally no drivers seat position where I could see out of the car.
I feel like now that they're adding cameras, they're like, "Fuck being able to see with your regular eyes!!" What could go wrong.
47 is a thing that's weirdly underdiscussed. People talk about the national grid all the time, but full electrification means dramatically more power to every housing unit in the Northeast & Midwest (where nat gas is the default for heat & cooking). I need to find a way to talk to a utility person who's thought about it and can answer some questions.
It's definitely going to be a big issue, but more on the transmission than generation side. There's plenty of generating capacity out there (although a lot of it is of course still fossil fuel) but the grid is not set up for the quantities of power that will need to go to different places.
So an EV is out, unless I move someplace with a private parking spot+charger, or I buy.
TBH the bus was kind of missed. 10 years ago we needed a huge push into PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles). That was the OG Chevy Volt: ~30 miles of electric-only range, then a small gas engine that acts as a generator, not a motor. No giant, heavy battery pack, no need for fast charging, no range anxiety, and, most days of the month, no gas usage at all. Oh, and compatible with fairly traditional vehicle design & engineering--not nearly the tech leap of full EVs. And because of all those things, more manageable for people w/o private garages and expensive home chargers.
But consumers completely missed their utility, Tesla's success made them seem obsolete, and only a few models were ever developed, many of which failed. There are some on the market now, but if they'd been normalized 5+ years ago, fleet gas usage would be down dramatically, the next gen would be that much better, and we wouldn't be stalled out* with another 25M gas-only vehicles on the road.
*EV sales go up every year, but slower than expected; basically every available model has a backlog on dealer lots
55: yeah, I'm not too worried about generation, because residential electrification will be very slow-developing. Eventually we'll have enough green power to replace all the old FF capacity, then we just keep building the same amount for another 15 years or whatever. But will we need new lines on every single block? Will local transformer patterns need to be completely rethought? I know somebody has to have thought this through, but I've literally never seen any discussion of it. It's like immaculate transmission between national/regional grids and 150M new 300A house panels.
I don't know the extent to which they've started actually looking at these issues, but the type of document you'd be looking for is an Integrated Resource Plan by an individual utility. As the name implies they mainly focus on generation, but they do address transmission and distribution (which sounds like the scale you're thinking of) as well. Regulatory requirements vary by state but they typically update them every few years.
We just got upgraded to 200A which was very not cheap. Since our building is two units we've maxed out what each unit can pull from the grid, 400A total.
How much can solar+battery offset the grid demand? If enough power is generated and store locally, and/or batteries are recharged from the grid at off peak times, would the existing infrastructure be sufficient?
My friend at SMUD comes to lecture to my class every semester. They're the first utility to announce that they'll be fully no-carbon by 2030.
He told me that the rate of new demand caused by electric vehicles is not higher than the rate of new demand from adopting home appliances and air conditioning in the 70's and if they did it once, they can do it again. I think the difficulties of transmission are mostly solved by the fact that they own their whole system and have kept it in good repair all along.
It is a wreck, because it is the car we use to the dog to the river, but I'm insisting that we hold on to our Honda Fit until we absolutely cannot anymore. It is a Honda; I expect at least another 100,000 miles out of it. By then I hope that we can get along with no car, just bikes. But I think it was JRoth who pointed out that my next dream car is actually one of those electric groundskeeper carts. So if I do buy a next car, I expect to get one of those.
He told me that the rate of new demand caused by electric vehicles is not higher than the rate of new demand from adopting home appliances and air conditioning in the 70's and if they did it once, they can do it again.
Yes, several years ago I was at an event where the Juneau utility (a very early adopter of extensive EV rollout programs) was asked if they had the generation capacity for full EV penetration and they replied that it was well within the capacity of their already-planned additions to the generation system. That was eye-opening for me.
my next dream car is actually one of those electric groundskeeper carts
I totally want one of these (when they make a US version): https://www.squadmobility.com/
Yeah. SMUD is one of the best utilities in the country and it is so reassuring to have my friend come and tell me (the class) about what they're doing.
Just because of path dependency, they went hard on wind power first so they still have lots of good solar to develop. They've put in some big new batteries this last year for overnight.
I should be clear here that EVs aren't my primary concern. An induction range is 40A at 208/240V. An electric dryer is 30A at 208/240V. A heat pump is another 40A at 240V. A water tank is 30A at 240V; tankless big enough for a family of 4 is 4 40A at 240V. A normal house that uses gas for all those things (again, the norm for about half the country) already needs 100A for general use. We're talking about a bare minimum increase of 140%. And it's not as if those demands won't be simultaneous: if it's dinnertime in January, I'm using the range, the water, and the heat pump. My draw is probably quadrupling.
I wonder if it makes sense to upgrade houses with a straight 240V service instead of having to upgrade the existing service and panel (the meters are probably OK). Like, keep your 150A panel while adding a new 240V, 200A panel. Just to simplify things on the customer end, I'm not sure it matters for distribution.
Based on the accounting in 64 I'm surprised my house hasn't burst into flames yet.
I mean, you're allowed to have more faceplate draw than you have available, and most of these things won't be running full bore even when in operation. Like, 2 "burners" on medium only draw ~9 amps or so. But I'll have 3 burners going max pretty frequently, and heat pumps will also be running max effort at least a few weeks a year. So I'm not dismissive of the draw the way I am when designing, say, a milkshake bar that has a bunch of small appliances--it only takes a couple items going to really chew up your capacity.
I don't know how many amps we have. We do have an electric stove and an electric dryer. I was going to buy an electric car, but our old car kept running and Musk got to be a bigger and bigger tool, so I'll wait.
So, I'm listening to my wife explaining to the elders that schools don't have litter boxes for students. So glad that's not my job.
I've blown individual breakers of course- what happens when you exceed the total panel load? Does the main trip?
I don't know enough about electricity to be amazed.
Huh I always thought it was spelled Butkis which only a macho football guy could pull off.
56: Toyota suposedly has blown its electrical transition by staying with hybrids too long. Maybe not the case? Especailly if they branch away from the Prius branding. (Which probably they've done and IJDK.)
It seems that everyone here is driving a hybrid Rav 4.
The little Spacely Sprokets noise of a Toyota hybrid on electric power is a constant sound I hear out the window.
Oh, Butkus died. "Butkus" is a guy, "Butkis" is a way to say "nothing."
I had trouble finding a citation for that, but I finally found one.
64: An induction range is 40A at 208/240V
That's what it's wired for, because of absolute peak load, but it's actually pretty hard to draw that peak. Even with all the induction spots ("burners" seems wrong) turned to max I don't think they actually go all-out all the time. There are a couple of companies that have done the math and built induction ranges with a good-sized battery (LiFePO4 to reduce fire risk) and an ordinary 15A/115V plug - the 1800W from that circuit is plenty for the average draw and/or recharging, and the battery can supply a lot of power for peak usage, and together it's enough even for cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Peak shaving within one appliance!
I kind of expect more of that kind of thing so that we aren't inadvertently oversizing panels and the like for peaks that can just be avoided instead.
There are a couple of companies that have done the math and built induction ranges with a good-sized battery (LiFePO4 to reduce fire risk) and an ordinary 15A/115V plug - the 1800W from that circuit is plenty for the average draw and/or recharging, and the battery can supply a lot of power for peak usage, and together it's enough even for cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Peak shaving within one appliance!
That's fascinating, and maybe a sign that battery costs are starting to come down enough for a broader range of demand-management approaches. (Although I assume those ranges would be pretty expensive.)
In fifty years, whoever the zoomer Trump is will complain about Americans having to cook their turkeys "ten times, fifteen times, as opposed to once."
There are a couple of companies that have done the math and built induction ranges with a good-sized battery (LiFePO4 to reduce fire risk) and an ordinary 15A/115V plug - the 1800W from that circuit is plenty for the average draw and/or recharging, and the battery can supply a lot of power for peak usage, and together it's enough even for cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Peak shaving within one appliance!
For example, see the discussion here: https://www.volts.wtf/p/induction-stoves-with-batteries-built#details
And one of the trends that we were really disturbed about was all these costs were coming down. Like, if you read Bloomberg New Energy Finance, you see battery prices approaching $100 a kilowatt hour, all of this. But if you actually looked at what it cost to install those, to put them on your house or something, those prices weren't coming down. And it was mirroring a very familiar story from residential solar, where now the hardware cost of residential solar is really cheap. It's something like $26 a watt for the actual hardware, but it's closer to $3 a watt to put it on your house.
....
Yeah. So this battery is about four kilowatt hours in our flagship product. You could think of that as about a third of a Tesla powerwall. And so it is meaningful with respect to your whole homes energy use. Say the power goes out and you have no access to power, you'll be able to run your fridge for about four days. Modern fridges tend to do about a kilowatt hour a day. And depending on how grandiose your meals are during that blackout, you can cook meals for that same amount of time. But the really interesting thing about the battery, or this is actually an interesting thing about our cooking habits generally, so we've taken a lot of data about cooking.
You put power meters all over the stove and you measure how much power goes to the burners into the oven, and you get to cook nice meals for the engineering team at the same time. And on average, for sort of like windows of about an hour or so, there's no cooking activities that really draw more than one or 2 kilowatts. That's 1500 kilowatts what you can get from the 110 volts outlet that's already in your kitchen. And so, on average, the power supplied by that relatively meager outlet can totally run all of your cooking activities. It's just these brief moments when we're bringing the pot to boil, or you put the 20 pound bird in the oven, or you really want a lot of flashbang, then you're using way more power.
And those short moments are the only reason a conventional induction stove has that huge 50 amp, 240 volts outlet.
75: Specifically, they stayed with the old hybrid technology, which is to say cars that use gas for every trip. That gets you excellent efficiency, but the name of the game right now is FF-free miles, whether PHEV or BEV. Basically, your Prius badge won't get you into Sunset Movement meetings anymore.
In a world where my sister just bought a Jeep that won't require any gas unless she goes into the honest-to-God mountains, 50 MPG isn't that impressive.
82 et al make sense, and for 95% of homeowners, they're never using more than 1.5 burners* at max at a time. But for me it's been 3 days since I used my 3 biggest burners at max, for at least 30 minutes, and based on the wattage numbers on the model I was looking at, that's 6000 watts, or 25 amps at 240V. And I was doing dishes as I went, so my hot water tank would've been firing, at least briefly, during that time. So the load is real, even if I'm an outlier as a home cook.
The trouble is that you can't--legally--design an electrical system on the assumption that most people won't use their appliances. There are various load assumptions built into the engineering, but they're predicated on "everything will never be running simultaneously", not "they'll never really use what they have."
All that said, I certainly like the idea of using batteries to level the load, and perhaps the way that induction ranges actually work means that, even during those 30 minutes at 100%, they were never all the way at 25A.
*I'll switch when there's a convincing term
it was mirroring a very familiar story from residential solar, where now the hardware cost of residential solar is really cheap. It's something like $26 a watt for the actual hardware, but it's closer to $3 a watt to put it on your house.
I was confused enough to listen to the audio and this is indeed a typo: the guy says "26 cents a watt for the actual hardware" vs $3. FYI!
So this battery is about four kilowatt hours in our flagship product. You could think of that as about a third of a Tesla powerwall. And so it is meaningful with respect to your whole homes energy use. Say the power goes out and you have no access to power, you'll be able to run your fridge for about four days. Modern fridges tend to do about a kilowatt hour a day. And depending on how grandiose your meals are during that blackout, you can cook meals for that same amount of time.
It's not clear from this if they're talking about an individual battery that's part of an appliance and completely self-contained or a battery that powers multiple appliances, but if it's the latter people are going to have to be very careful about electrical codes and safety requirements. I suppose that's already its own discussion for people who have solar panels with battery backup.
I was confused enough to listen to the audio and this is indeed a typo: the guy says "26 cents a watt for the actual hardware" vs $3. FYI!
Thanks! I was confused as well, but I hadn't gone back to listen to the audio.
In a world where my sister just bought a Jeep that won't require any gas unless she goes into the honest-to-God mountains, 50 MPG isn't that impressive.
It was once pointed out to me that we should really care about GPM, not MPG, since most people lives don't allow them to adjust how far they drive, based on the car.
When you care about MPG, going from 15 mpg to 25 mpg is considered as good as going from 30 to 40 mpg.
But if you care about GPM, going from 1/15 gpm to 1/25 gpm is significantly more important than going from 1/30 gpm to 1/40 gpm.
I don't know if I really buy this argument. I feel like I can talk myself into agreeing with either metric.
Yeah, I'm a GPM truther. People don't buy $100 of gas and go as far as it'll take them.
But here's how I go in circles:
Awesome, I got a new hybrid minivan! I still drive 60 miles a day, like always, but now instead of getting 1/20 GPM, I get 1/30 GPM*. Great!
But if I have an 18 gallon tank, it used to be the case that I had to fill up every 6 days. Now I only have to fill up every 9 days. So that seems like a meaningful 30% improvement...and now I'm back to essentially saying that comparing 20 mpg to 30 mpg is the important comparison.
*Actually more like 1/36.4 BUT WHO'S COUNTING.
In other words, I kinda do buy $100 of gas and see how far it will take me, in round trips, back and forth to work, spread out over time.
90: In this particular case the range with a battery also has an inverter and a standard outlet it can power with the battery. It's a bit of a hack to make the large battery in the range slightly more useful in various emergency situations.
And part of the appeal of these things isn't just the reduction of peak load at the panel (and thus being possible when panel upgrades are hard or expensive), but avoiding having to install that 40A circuit at all, which can be a pretty expensive proposition all by itself.
95: It's weird how things and their inverse are often related.
I'm putting the electrician's kid through college with the many upgrades I've had to do. At least we destroyed the last of our knob and tube wiring, as far as they could tell.
98: Hopefully destroyed the knob and tube wiring intentionally, not with a fire or something?
No other wiring system is as good of a sexual innuendo.
82 et seq suggest to me that between costs of 1. copper 2. other battery metals and 3. labor, US electrification will be dominated by kludges like this battery-range thing for the next ~decade.
Or mandatory diesel trucks that "roll coal" during ordinary operation.
100: Pff, as if.
