ReinyDays
Gold Member
I have had pretty good success with my electric vehicle. I still need a gas powered vehicle to be functional though....but I digress.
As many have already astutely pointed out the real problem with EVs is going to be fueling them up. Now I do most of that at home but once in a while I go for a commercial quick charge. EVGO has a pretty good system. The one closest to my house has six charging stations that offer the 600 volt DC leads for 45¢/kwh....not too bad.
These are 4 gauge wire leads that are very heavy and in the cold weather very stiff. A senior citizen would most likely be unable to muscle the thing into place.
The charging system is an online communications network that works like an ATM machine so no network ...no service. I ran into that today for the first time; Called EVGO and they walked me through the manual process. So I plugged in and still nothing.
Finally I decided it just wasn't going to work and moved to unplug. Uh-oh....the lead won't come out! Not good. I tried to work it with the charging machine but because it was offline I couldn't get it to release my car! Now I'm pissed! No charge and now I'm stuck!
I called EVGO again and they too were unable to unlock the lead. I tried from my car dash but it wouldn't release the lead. Finally an EVGO technician got on the phone and told me to take my key fob out....make sure the car was off and all doors and windows closed. Sequence one push on lock followed by five pushes on the unlock. It worked! I was relieved. The alternative was waiting for a mobile tech to come unhook me which may have taken hours. The customer service asked me if I wanted to try the adjacent machine. My response:
" Hell no!"....
Jo
I'd keep a piston-engined rig for things like hauling cement or running the 250 miles to the closest commercial airport ... use the golf cart for grocery shopping and visits to the aquarium store ...
Manufacturing the rig is the most carbon-intensive part ... not the fuel it uses ... if you own two rigs, you hate the environment ... or my friend in SoCal, 8 passenger rigs for a family of four ... it's how they procreate down there ...
I can imagine the folks at EVGO rolling their eyes "another Michael at station 43" ... I got the stripped down version of the Tacoma, none of that fancy-pants bullshit that just "brakes" or is too confusing ... it's a wheelbarrow, it only needs one goddam ignition coil, not four, stupid Japanese engineers ...