I'm a little curious then, try your numbers with the 'L6R 2S5' postal code.
60 karma · joined July 21, 2021
...although yes I am lying about being on death row. Canada doesn't practical capital punishment. Certainly not for parking violations.
I await on death row now. The chosen method of execution is to be killed by old age 60 or 70 years from now, being withered and worn by the ravages of time. Most cruelly in the interim, I am expected to work a 37 hour work for 48 weeks out of the year in grueling conditions. A climate controlled office with an ergonomic chair in front of a computer with Visual Studio Code open.
Sometimes it seems like if it would not have been kinder to simply kill me there and then. Those days I ask myself why they keep me here. Just to suffer?
tl;dr
No accidents, no claims, no criminal activity on record except the one parking ticket. I don't pretend to comprehend why the quotes are that way for me.
In comparison my current SUV is $1100 a year same level of coverage as that quote. Just for fun I got a quote for an 2022 Acura NSX a while ago and it was $1500 a year, and the NSX is quite a bit more expensive then a Model 3.
As he said, different circumstances can shift the solution point. What you have someone that doesn't have a data plan on their phone, or doesn't carry a smartphone and thus doesn't have access to a mapping app? Or the charge point requires a smartphone app that I don't connectivity to use with?
For me as well an EV is questionable. My gas burning SUV is $1100 a year to insure, tax included. A Tesla Model 3 at the same level insurance would could me $6014 a year before taxes. I don't drive enough to save $5000 in gas and maintenance a year.
Then there's my garage. Long story short, the best it can do right now is 120V 6A charge speed. To properly upgrade my garage to support a full EV would cost an additional $2500. Assuming if I also have to upgrade the electrical mains from 100A to 200A, it's $15,000 to $25,000. And my electricity costs 20 cents a kilowatt hour.
Does buying an EV it still make sense after all that if you were in my circumstances?
For a lot of people that calculation is true, but there's also going to be people like me where the TCO statement is hilariously untrue.
I don't drive enough to make up a difference of $5000+ a year in gas and maintenance.
For you it makes sense. Our residential rate just hit $0.20/kWh, excluding rider and admin fees. Plus higher purchase cost plus several thousand dollars more insurance rates compared to an ICE.
100A service is fairly normal here for smaller homes. As heating here is primarily done by natural gas furnaces rather then electrical heating. Which make sense; gas is way cheaper to heat with here then electricity. And it saves a dollar for the developer.
I don't know about larger homes though; I'd imagine that they'd have 200A circuits but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't unless the builder specifically requested it.
So I took quick look into what it would actually take to upgrade the main circuit breaker in the house assuming a 100A to 200A upgrade is needed to accommodate both an EV and a heat pump. I thought it was $5000 or so.
As it turns out, $5000 is for pole mounted service. It's range is actually around $15,000 to $25,000 for underground service, as it requires digging the line from the street to the house. Unknown how much cost there if too many houses here need to upgrade as well which would necessitate upgrading transformers feeding this area (most houses here are 100A AFAIK).
The garage is detached one fed by a single 120V circuit buried in PVC conduit, and it is enough for everything in there at the moment. But if a car's charging at the same time say someone open's the garage door, it's going to trip the breaker.
So at least I'd have to pull a second circuit dedicated for charging. To do that, the old conduit needs to come out and be replaced with one that is up to code for handling either more then one circuit, or can handle a 240V circuit. The cost of digging the old one out and installing a new one is a very substantial portion of that quote.
Now granted this was a quote for a full 240V circuit with a subpanel; the quote last year was around $2000 ish. Inflation rate, increasing labor costs, and continuing supply chain issues caused the jump. I didn't get a chance to ask what the quote was for just a second 120V circuit though.
The mains upgrade cost is just what I've heard second hand from others upgrading their 100A service to 200A. I haven't gotten a quote for myself but it doesn't sound wrong to me. Just filing the paper work for the permit from the is a $160 fee. The permit itself IIRC is an additional $200 or $300. I suspect the electrician would have to get the utility involved as well to disconnect and upgrade the main lines coming from the street to the house to accommodate the increased possible amperage.
>Sorry if you can't figure it out.
I'm honestly not sure if you're genuinely sorry if it's not working out for me, or if you're snarking.
A Bolt to be insured to the exact same level is $$4200 a year. A Tesla Model 3 would ring me $5700 a year. A Porsche Taycan is $7300 a year. None of these are as expensive as the NSX.
And the cost for me to install the additional circuits to the garage went up significantly since my last quote; it's now $2500 to run an additional circuit into the garage. I don't know what it would cost to upgrade the mains panel as well if it's needed (I have only a 100A) but I've heard it's averaging about $5000 or so.
So yeah... not exactly FUD at least from where I'm standing.
That said, someone mentioned to me once that it's about 7 years from the time a power company to notify the government of intention to build a power plant to completion. At least for natural gas plants. So it's plausible for the necessary capacity to be built over the next 15 years.
I'm not sure why that would make any difference.
>Vancouver is experimenting with curbside chargers.
Maybe; I'd be concerned about someone cutting the cables for scrap copper here. I don't know if richer Vancouver suburbs would have to worry about such a thing.
So at the least I need to install a second circuit. But the cost of installation is mostly tied into labor rather then material since it involves bringing out a trenching machine out. And the cost difference between just 1 extra 120V circuit and a full blown 240V service with subpanel is significant, but not bad enough for me to think it's makes sense to penny pinch there.
Edit: Well in theory you could also have a receiver and relay that cuts off the charging to the car before initiating powering the garage door motor. That said I don't think it's worth the hassle... at minimum that's two electrical mechanical relays for the 120V lines, some sort of RF receiver for the car, a controller for the relays and to probably some way to signal the garage door itself (replacement for the button inside maybe), and way for the controller to state of the door itself so that it doesn't cut power at the wrong time. Certainly hackable but I doubt I could build it reliable without way more money and time spent on it.
And for that price I was sitting in the most uncomfortable seats I've ever sat in for a personal vehicle; thin, hard and not well sculpted for my back. The only positive I recall was the excellent throttle response.
Only other items that are ICE specific I can think of off the top of my head is engine air filter and fluid changes for the transmission and transfer case. Most of the other maintenance is the same AFAIK.
Like I said though, the insurance difference for me kills whatever savings there are from lack of oil changes by a wide margin, even before factoring in higher upfront.
Isn't there?
Right now for me to own a Ford Mach E, a Tesla Model 3 or a RAV4 Prime is $3400 to $3700 per year for comprehensive insurance, $1400 a year for liability only. My SUV right now costs $1100 a year to insure comprehensive, but even a 2021 Acura NSX or Jaguar F-Pace is only $1400 for the same level of insurance that I have right now.
I only spend about $1200 a year on gasoline for the SUV and another $200 for regular maintenance. So right out the gate, assuming electricity is free and tire rotations are free, I'm already looking at least $900/yr increase in operating expense.
And then there's the upfront; the above is on top of the $10,000 to $20,000 more I'd have to spend to buy an EV vs a comparably sized and equipped ICE. And an additional $1500 to $2000 to have my garage accommodate charging a car, assuming main panel doesn't need upgrading and only installing a 240V circuit.
Right now it's a detached garage with a single 120v to it, so it's retrenching and installation of new conduit and wire, installing a new sub panel in the garage, and rewiring everything. Not going to count the cost of a level 2 DC charger (Chevrolet and Kia are offering one as an incentive for purchase). Main uncertainty is whether or not the main panel would need to be upgraded.
If I didn't have a garage, I'd also have to be super concerned about charging stations though. You leave an extension cord more then once out overnight, it will get stolen; the copper in it is worth a dollar or two. I can't imagine how fast a $200 charging cable with $10 of scrap copper in it wouldn't get swiped. It's unfortunately common here, there's quite a few sections of street where the street lights have been knock out for months now due to copper thieves ripping it out of the conduit. A nearby truck depot gets the copper wire cut from the trucks battery systems sitting there overnight every few months.
So... yeah. There's my excuse. Money.