View Poll Results: How far do you drive in an average day?

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  • < 50 miles

    28 60.87%
  • 50 - 75 miles

    7 15.22%
  • 75 - 100 miles

    4 8.70%
  • 100 - 125 miles

    4 8.70%
  • 125 - 150 miles

    1 2.17%
  • > 150 miles

    2 4.35%
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Thread: How far do you drive in a day?

  1. #11
    Yuk it up Monkey Boy! Airbozo's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    Quote Originally Posted by xr4man View Post
    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.
    Hmm, This does not seem accurate to me.

    Here is the info from the Tesla Web site:

    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.


    So it really comes down to what your electricity costs.
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  2. #12
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    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.

  3. #13
    Will YOU be ready when the zombies rise? x88x's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    Ok, I'll bite.

    Quote Originally Posted by xr4man View Post
    it takes 4 to 5 days worth of power to charge it
    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?

    Quote Originally Posted by xr4man View Post
    and you have to have the high current charge station installed if you plan on driving every day, that's another 2 grand.
    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. 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.
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  4. #14
    Yuk it up Monkey Boy! Airbozo's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    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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  5. #15
    Will YOU be ready when the zombies rise? x88x's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    Quote Originally Posted by Airbozo View Post
    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)...
    Nice. That the Harley Sportster? You do have a bit of an advantage on him in power-to-weight.

    Quote Originally Posted by Airbozo View Post
    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.
    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.
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  6. #16
    Spam Sniper SgtM's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

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

  7. #17
    If it isn't stock, it's modded! slaveofconvention's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    Quote Originally Posted by SgtM View Post
    One way to work is 52 miles. So that's 104 round trip. Plus any running that the wife has to do.
    Yay, I was starting to wonder if I was the only 100 miles+ a day driver lol

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  8. #18
    rawrnomnom diluzio91's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    I have a bicycle... Snow Tires FTW
    Not dead yet

  9. #19
    Measure once, curse twice nevermind1534's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    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).
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  10. #20
    herpin' the derp farlo's Avatar
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    Default Re: How far do you drive in a day?

    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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