How far do you drive in a day?

Hey all, been a bit out of touch for a while due to my new job and just getting out of the habit of checking the boards. I've also been getting heavily interested in electric vehicle tech recently, and have a few projects planned in that arena (watch for buildlogs starting in Misc Projects over the next couple months). Along those lines, I wanted to get some perspective from people who aren't necessarily heavily interested in EV tech...yet... :twisted: We'll see what I can do about that. ;)


So, on to the question. How far do you drive in an average day? Not talking about the occasional long trip, just your average daily driving habits.

...I don't drive....

Being at contractor I drive almost everyday. But, when it's winter it is reduced quit a bit. During the summer it is a lot more. So, I said 50 - 75 miles a day.

On a typical day it's about 35-40.

Usually zero miles a day as I walk almost everywhere. During the summer I take my motorcycle to work and back every day, which ends up being about 20 miles total give or take a mile. On Sundays I go to church and back totaling about six miles.

I'm interested in electric vehicles. I would love to do some homemade conversions or hybrids if I had a welder and some extra money. As it is, my wife and I have one car and we're fine with it that way.

Interesting; getting lower numbers than I thought I would see. Though, shouldn't be that surprising, come to think of it; got a fairly long commute myself and I only average ~60 miles per day. I've been logging my mileage since 2011-08-29, and have only had 11 days since then that I've gone over 75 miles...and only 5 that I've gone over 100.

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Originally Posted by d_stilgar

I'm interested in electric vehicles. I would love to do some homemade conversions or hybrids if I had a welder and some extra money. As it is, my wife and I have one car and we're fine with it that way.

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Good to find another one. :D My big project won't be culminating for about another 2 years (shooting for spring 2014, mainly for financial reasons), but I have a few intermediate ones that should be interesting. :twisted:

Daily commute is 35 miles one way so I voted 50-75. Carpool a lot with the SO or ride the motorcycle when it's not raining or icy.

Typical hybrids get less mpg than my motorcycle and just a tad better than the SO's Subaru, due to the hills around here. An electric vehicle would have to get a couple hundred miles on a charge for it to be feasible for my needs.

i would say 100-125 miles. only because i love to drive. i constantly find myself putting on over 100 miles a day, even though i work 8 miles away. the worst part about it? i live in california, where gas is more expensive. i drop a fair amount of my paycheck into gas. the other day i drove 300 miles, just to go see a lake with my friend, haha. i bought my car in late october, with 134,500 miles. i just clicked above 138k. i drove over 1k miles in the first month alone... :whistler:

i drive just about 80 miles a day for work. with the gas mileage i get, if take the current gas price and multiply by 100, that's what it costs me to drive to and from work each month.

but, on the subject of electric cars, a few weeks ago i finally got the chance to talk to the dude around here with the green tesla roadster. he says it gets 200 miles on a charge. he also says that you can only get the rated 240 miles per charge by driving below 50mph and like a granny. but what fun is that?

i asked about how much power it takes to charge it. he says it takes about the same amount of power as running your house for 4 or 5 days. so if i take my current power consumption and figure out 4 days worth of electricity, it comes out to be more expensive to charge a tesla roadster than to buy gas for my truck each month.

my whole point is that right now the tesla is the most advanced and efficient of the electric vehicles and it is still more expensive to drive (not counting the $100k price tag) than my tacoma. electric power has a long way to go before it is cost effective enough to be viable.

I'm probably on the heavy side when it comes to average daily mileage - to and from work is only about 7 miles, and running the wife to and from her work probably doubles that, but it's AT work that I really pile up the miles. Most mornings I'll pick up and/or drop off one or two cars for the bodyshop which can be anything from 20 to 50 miles alone. Then I start delivering for the paintshop side of the business - that again can be anything from 30 to 70 miles a day - add to that the fact that 4 days of the week I'll pick up or drop off my son which is roughly a 30 mile round trip, and finally I'll have a computer job or two most weeks which involve a few miles in pick up and drop off. Then comes the weekend and my miles drop like a stone, but yeah, I'm probably well above average heh.

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Originally Posted by xr4man

i drive just about 80 miles a day for work. with the gas mileage i get, if take the current gas price and multiply by 100, that's what it costs me to drive to and from work each month.

but, on the subject of electric cars, a few weeks ago i finally got the chance to talk to the dude around here with the green tesla roadster. he says it gets 200 miles on a charge. he also says that you can only get the rated 240 miles per charge by driving below 50mph and like a granny. but what fun is that?

i asked about how much power it takes to charge it. he says it takes about the same amount of power as running your house for 4 or 5 days. so if i take my current power consumption and figure out 4 days worth of electricity, it comes out to be more expensive to charge a tesla roadster than to buy gas for my truck each month.

my whole point is that right now the tesla is the most advanced and efficient of the electric vehicles and it is still more expensive to drive (not counting the $100k price tag) than my tacoma. electric power has a long way to go before it is cost effective enough to be viable.

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Hmm, This does not seem accurate to me.

Here is the info from the Tesla Web site:

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Fueling with electricity instead of petroleum is a sound financial decision. Depending on utility rates, the Tesla Roadster costs as little as $5 to charge, equivalent to $0.02 per mile. Alternatively, a gasoline-powered car rated to 20 mpg costs about $0.15 per mile.

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So it really comes down to what your electricity costs.

you also have to consider, how often do they update that chart on their website. when i first heard of the tesla, my electricity bill was about half of what it is now (thank you very much baltimore gas and electric for the reaming you give me each month).

however, as of a few weeks ago when i talked to this dude, my electricity bill was about any where from 150 to 180 bucks a month. so if it takes 4 to 5 days worth of power to charge it, then over the course of a month that would be just about $400 of electricity (taking into account two days worth of driving per charge). with gas being about 3.20 a gallon - use my formula from above - that means it costs me 320 bucks a month to drive to work right now. compared to $400 for the tesla.

now stop making me do math!


oh yeah, i almost forgot, my tacoma is paid for and the tesla costs $100,000 and you have to have the high current charge station installed if you plan on driving every day, that's another 2 grand.

Ok, I'll bite. ;)

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Originally Posted by xr4man

it takes 4 to 5 days worth of power to charge it

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Meaningless metric. How about some actual numbers instead, eh? The Tesla Roadster has a 53kWh pack. At current electric prices I'm paying BGE (~$0.14/kWh after tax), that comes to $7.42 for a full charge. That being said, you'd almost definitely not be doing a full charge every night. Let's assume you're driving it the average 60/40 highway/city split, doing 60-70mph on the highway portions, and driving fairly aggressively (I mean, come on, it's a sports car!), so cut the range to 180 miles. That's still only $0.041/mile. At $3.49/gallon, that's the cost equivalent of 85mpg. So yes, if you completely drained the battery every day it would cost ~$220-$230 per month....but that would be assuming driving between 5,580 and 7,440 miles per month. How much would your Tacoma cost to drive that far? ;)

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Originally Posted by xr4man

and you have to have the high current charge station installed if you plan on driving every day, that's another 2 grand.

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That's one of those things that sound real useful...until you actually start looking at the reality of using an electric car. How long does your car usually sit outside your house? I'm guessing at least 8 hours a day, if not 12+. Guess what. You could fill that 53kWh pack from completely empty in less than 8 hours on a standard 30A 240V outlet. No fast charge station needed.

Now, all that being said, the Tesla Roadster is not designed to compete with your Tacoma pickup. :D Not by a long shot. It, like the Lotus Elise that it is based on, is a luxury item. If you're paying $120,000 (because, let's be honest, who buys the base model of a car that expensive) for a car, you're not going to be worrying about the economics of operating it no matter what car it is or what fuel it runs on.

A lot of people will try and make the case for electric cars based on the economics. I'll tell you right here and now. That is bull****. With today's technology it just is. No matter how you cut it right now, you're always going to be running into at least about a $15k premium if you want an 80-100 mile range. If you use the right batteries you can recoup your costs eventually, but we're talking on the level of 10-20 years and several hundred thousand miles. Why am I doing it then? Why am I planning on funneling probably ~$30k in the form of electric components into my project car over the next two years? A few reasons:

1) Economics really have no bearing in it for me. What's the payout on your couch? Your TV? Your fishing boat? How long does it take you to recoup the cost of that liquid cooling system in your PC? Or that new GPU? Meaningless questions, and that's the point. Right now, the technology is still in the early-adopter phase. That means that like anything else in that stage, there are not going to be any real economic benefits to adopting it. And while I do plan to use my project car as my daily driver once it is done, I will retain my ICE car for long trips. The technology and, more importantly, infrastructure, is just not quite there yet for it to be a realistic only vehicle.

2) It's fun, interesting, exciting technology.

3) It's a beautiful car and I want to make it something special (you'll have to wait till I get it in my driveway to find out what it is ;) ).

4) From an engineering perspective it is remarkably elegant, and I like that. Think about an ICE engine for a minute...really think about what's going on in there...if you step back and look at it objectively it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It works, yes, but the level of efficiency (usually ~30-60% from fuel to wheels) and the complexity of the power system is more than a little bit ridiculous.

5) It IS the future. Battery technologies are advancing every day. Not always in leaps and bounds, but steadily, and with massive amounts of room for growth within the theoretical capabilities of currently known battery chemistries. And one day (no clue when, probably not for quite a while) gas will become expensive enough that it will no longer make good sense as a common fuel. I think, though, that long before we reach that point we will have started making a real move over to electric propulsion. As the saying goes; "The stone age did not end because we ran out of rocks." So it will go with ICE powertrains. We can get electricity from anywhere...we are much more limited in where we can get fuel for ICE engines. I here predict that within 10-15 years you will be able to go out and buy a brand new electric car with a 400+ mile range that will be cost-competitive with if not cheaper than similar ICE powered cars, with a battery pack that will outlive the life of the vehicle (and I fully expect quality electric cars to regularly last into at least the 500k-600k mile range) and performance that will put the ICE competitor to shame.

To be fair, yes, it is a sports car and will be driven like one. There are several of them I see on the road on a daily basis near where I live (Santa Cruz mountains), and I have spoken to one guy, who also owns an Elise and another BMW sports car, and he loves the Tesla the most. He got number 35 or something like that. He mentioned he gets close to the 200 mile range even though he drives like a maniac. He was a little embarrassed to find out my sportster could beat him off the line (my sporty is close to 3.2 seconds to 60)...

IF I was going to purchase one of those cars, it would probably be the model S. It is more affordable, less sporty and has several different price points based on the range and options.

http://www.teslamotors.com/models

I am still trying to get a job there so maybe I can get an employee discount.

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Originally Posted by Airbozo

He was a little embarrassed to find out my sportster could beat him off the line (my sporty is close to 3.2 seconds to 60)...

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Nice. :D That the Harley Sportster? You do have a bit of an advantage on him in power-to-weight. ;)

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Originally Posted by Airbozo

IF I was going to purchase one of those cars, it would probably be the model S. It is more affordable, less sporty and has several different price points based on the range and options.

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Agreed. The Model S is shaping up to be a very attractive car on many levels, and if you have the $50k-$80k to buy one there's not really anything on the market that can compete with it. It also has the advantage of being designed from the ground up as an electric. One benefit of this is that apparently the cabin interior is simply massive compared to other cars in its size class. It's going toe-to-toe with the likes of the BMW 5 and 7 series sedans, and I think it will do very well.

I'm still not sold on Tesla's choice to go with a set-ratio drivetrain though. You can get better performance out of a smaller, less powerful, motor with a properly designed transmission. But, hey, they seem to be doing fine with the way they're going. ;) 4.4s 0-60 (85kWh performance model) on a 4,000 lb car is pretty damn good no matter how you're powering it. :twisted:

One way to work is 52 miles. So that's 104 round trip. Plus any running that the wife has to do.

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Originally Posted by SgtM

One way to work is 52 miles. So that's 104 round trip. Plus any running that the wife has to do.

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Yay, I was starting to wonder if I was the only 100 miles+ a day driver lol

I have a bicycle... Snow Tires FTW

Since the spammer brought this back to the top, I'll join in. I drive around 60 miles total on days I have school (to Midtown Detroit and back).

i moved a couple years ago to be closer to work, i used to drive about 60 miles a day, now i drive 10. My work is moving in september which is cool because it'll be right down the road 1.25 miles away.

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Originally Posted by farlo

i moved a couple years ago to be closer to work, i used to drive about 60 miles a day, now i drive 10. My work is moving in september which is cool because it'll be right down the road 1.25 miles away.

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Awesome! I do sometimes wish I could like that close to work...I think I like having a bit of land better though. ;)

I drive an average of about 125 miles a day. Being a field tech for a security company, I usually spend my days driving from one customer to another repairing their security systems. And since we do work all over the state of Arizona, sometimes I can have a 3 hour drive just to get to my 1st job of the day. Lucky though it is in a company truck that they pay all the gas and maintenance. My gas bill last month alone was $1,142.16

I too drive between 100 and 130 miles a day. I work for the worker's comp insurance rating bureau in CA - it's an independent company that does all the rating for worker's comp insurance for the state. My job is to drive to businesses all over the LA area, find out what they do, how they do it, # of employees, etc., and do up a written report. I hit between 15 and 20 a week...still, it's a good job, and endlessly fascinating. I've seen the inside of so many businesses now, places I'd never have gone otherwise.

Thankfully I've got a company car and they pay gas (even for personal use; I only pay income tax on my personal use of the car) so all in all it's a good deal. At this point I'm still SO thankful to have found a job, I was out of work for a year and a half. :up:

I read all the posts and then... Spam FTL.

I'll reply anyway though. I often drive 0 miles. I ride a bicycle to and from work and around town when the weather cooperates. The drive to work is 4.4 miles round trip if I can't bike. If I need to drive somewhere else, it generally isn't more than a 10 mile round trip. It's pretty rare that I ever leave the metropolitan area...which is sad now that I think of it. I need a vacation.

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Originally Posted by mDust

I read all the posts and then... Spam FTL.

I'll reply anyway though. I often drive 0 miles. I ride a bicycle to and from work and around town when the weather cooperates. The drive to work is 4.4 miles round trip if I can't bike. If I need to drive somewhere else, it generally isn't more than a 10 mile round trip. It's pretty rare that I ever leave the metropolitan area...which is sad now that I think of it. I need a vacation.

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Perhaps I should rephrase the question then. ;)

How far do you travel in a day? The point of the poll was/is to gather metrics from a more diverse group. Method of travel is really not important.

Under 50 here. Actually about 33 miles.

I travel a day 22 miles each way to work then errands probably adds another 15-20 ish miles.

Between my personal car and work van, around 150-200 a day.

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Originally Posted by Cale_Hagan

i would say 100-125 miles. only because i love to drive. i constantly find myself putting on over 100 miles a day, even though i work 8 miles away. the worst part about it? i live in california, where gas is more expensive. i drop a fair amount of my paycheck into gas. the other day i drove 300 miles, just to go see a lake with my friend, haha. i bought my car in late october, with 134,500 miles. i just clicked above 138k. i drove over 1k miles in the first month alone... :whistler:

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lol. at 152k miles now, 1 year after purchase. :whistler:

140 KM a day to get back and forth to work...

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Originally Posted by x88x

Hey all, been a bit out of touch for a while due to my new job and just getting out of the habit of checking the boards. I've also been getting heavily interested in electric vehicle tech recently, and have a few projects planned in that arena (watch for buildlogs starting in Misc Projects over the next couple months). Along those lines, I wanted to get some perspective from people who aren't necessarily heavily interested in EV tech...yet... :twisted: We'll see what I can do about that. ;)


So, on to the question. How far do you drive in an average day? Not talking about the occasional long trip, just your average daily driving habits.

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I only drive to my Dr.s appointment once every three months