EV and Mach-e Myths and Fallacies

[Tampamike]

That’s because this one is a myth about gas stations.

At least here in Florida, there is a LAW requiring back up generators for gas stations.

After having gone through quite a few storms since owning my Mach E including two direct hits, I can say one thing with absolute certainty:

A gas powered car is much better in case of emergency.

Not only could I not safely evacuate in my Mach E (not enough range to get to Georgia and no chargers available on the way), I couldn’t even leave it at home!

I had to park on the top of a parking garage (which was full of classic cars and Teslas). Glad I did because my house flooded with saltwater. Multiple homes who left their electric cars here caught fire.

After the storm, no power for a week, but there was plenty of gas and the gas stations were all open.

Um, I DID evacuate in my MME last year for Hurricane Milton. We left, what we thought was early, but so did a lot of others. I proactively charged twice because I didn’t know what the situation would be And and I had no problem - two charges at Tesla superchargers that weren’t busy as I headed north on I-75. I stayed at a friend’s house near Athens, Ga for a few days and then headed back. Had no problem charging on the way home either. House had power when we got back and charged full. Didn’t evacuate for Helene. House didn’t flood so garage and car didn’t flood but it was close. There are multilevel garages within walking distance for future use.

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[Mach1E]

Um, I DID evacuate in my MME last year for Hurricane Milton. We left, what we thought was early, but so did a lot of others. I proactively charged twice because I didn’t know what the situation would be And and I had no problem - two charges at Tesla superchargers that weren’t busy as I headed north on I-75. I stayed at a friend’s house near Athens, Ga for a few days and then headed back. Had no problem charging on the way home either. House had power when we got back and charged full. Didn’t evacuate for Helene. House didn’t flood so garage and car didn’t flood but it was close. There are multilevel garages within walking distance for future use.

I’m glad that worked for you.

But it definitely doesn’t work for everyone. Not everyone has a friend in Georgia (Which equals a destination charger) and the only reason there were chargers in route is everyone else evacuated with gas powered cars. It also helps that you’re halfway up the state and closer to Georgia

In a hypothetical world where everyone in Florida was driving electric, in order to have enough DC charging infrastructure for a mass evacuation, the cost would be astronomical and they would be completely wasted in anything except an evacuation.

I’m not saying it can’t be done (obviously it can, you did). Just that gas is better in this situation. It’s why all those Teslas were in the parking garage next to my car.

 

[Tampamike]

I’m glad that worked for you.

But it definitely doesn’t work for everyone. Not everyone has a friend in Georgia (Which equals a destination charger) and the only reason there were chargers in route is everyone else evacuated with gas powered cars. It also helps that you’re halfway up the state and closer to Georgia

In a hypothetical world where everyone in Florida was driving electric, in order to have enough DC charging infrastructure for a mass evacuation, the cost would be astronomical and they would be completely wasted in anything except an evacuation.

I’m not saying it can’t be done (obviously it can, you did). Just that gas is better in this situation. It’s why all those Teslas were in the parking garage next to my car.

The Teslas in the garage were also probably from a lot of people who didn’t evacuate. Plenty of people here in Tampa did that with both ICE and EV’s to get them out of any flooding. They even opened all of the Public parking garages downtown for that purpose.
For my trip, the friend in Georgia was a last minute substitution. Was planning on just a hotel stay in Savannah. I actually don’t think I even charged at their place because I didn’t have to. The gas stations en route were
way more clobbered than the charging stations and there were some completely out of gas. The chargers were some busy and some not so. It wasn’t really that bad.

 

[Herbknowsit]

Every single one of these “myths and fallacies” is at least partially true.

And building/buying a new EV is worse for the environment than continuing to drive an existing ICE.
Sounds like you might have been pumping a little sunshine. Maybe educate yourself a little more before looking down your nose at others…

ok Sonic. If EV's are so bad for the environment compared to ICE I invite you to sit in my garage for 30 minutes with doors closed while I let my elderly Honda ICE idle with you. See how spry you are after that. As other's have noted, the whole process of finding, gettting, refining, storing and transporting oil adds to the ICE vehicle story which you are ignoring. EV's are far from being as "green" as we wish but as they improve, the gap will widen even further on the ICE vs EV discussion. A very small minority of us have solar generation that proves we CAN offset utility company crimes using "natural" gas (ha!!) coal or waste products.

 

[Herbknowsit]

Back to the OP's request. Yes.. as recent as yesterday I had yet another person feel bad for me for all the nightmare problems my EV was gonna cause me down the road. He said I'd be "smart" to trade now and get something with more power! Dude was a carpenter and I innocently asked if he owned any DeWalt or Makita power tools. "Hell yes!" he answered. "Use them every day!" I just nodded and said nothing but the irony was lost on him.

 

[SonicBlue]

ok Sonic. If EV's are so bad for the environment compared to ICE I invite you to sit in my garage for 30 minutes with doors closed while I let my elderly Honda ICE idle with you. See how spry you are after that.

Sure, that’s a very sane and rational argument lol.

Speaking of radical arguments, let me give you one on the flip side. If you actually cared about your carbon footprint, why not stop driving altogether? Oh, you “can’t” do that? Or is there a maximum level of personal inconvenience you’re prepared to accept? And if it all boils down to a personal level of inconvenience, doesn’t that make you a massive hypocrite?

Again, continuing to drive one of the billions of currently existing ICE vehicles is better for the environment than manufacturing another car whether EV or ICE.

 

[Herbknowsit]

Sure, that’s a very sane and rational argument lol.

Speaking of radical arguments, let me give you one on the flip side. If you actually cared about your carbon footprint, why not stop driving altogether? Oh, you “can’t” do that? Or is there a maximum level of personal inconvenience you’re prepared to accept? And if it all boils down to a personal level of inconvenience, doesn’t that make you a massive hypocrite?

*Again, continuing to drive one of the billions of currently existing ICE vehicles is better for the environment than manufacturing another car whether EV or ICE.

*This part of your post seems to be true from (some) studies. Not just for cars, but we should stop buying throw-away products across the board. As for being a hypocrite, trying to be sensible about environmental concerns isn't an "all or nothing" deal as you seem to infer. Every small step helps get us to better solutions. And for your information, I have a few bicycles that get used for errands as well as recreaton .Instead of driving around mindlessly in a pontoon boat like I used to, having more fun on a fishing kayak. No need to suffer or miss out on fun while at the same time keeping money out of the gas weasels hands. It's becoming clear to me that you hold anyone who believes in climate change in low regard. Yet you own and likely enjoy your MME. Fine, you've helped in your own way further the EV journey as it gets refined and improved.

 

[SonicBlue]

*This part of your post seems to be true from (some) studies. Not just for cars, but we should stop buying throw-away products across the board. As for being a hypocrite, trying to be sensible about environmental concerns isn't an "all or nothing" deal as you seem to infer. Every small step helps get us to better solutions. And for your information, I have a few bicycles that get used for errands as well as recreaton .Instead of driving around mindlessly in a pontoon boat like I used to, having more fun on a fishing kayak. No need to suffer or miss out on fun while at the same time keeping money out of the gas weasels hands. It's becoming clear to me that you hold anyone who believes in climate change in low regard. Yet you own and likely enjoy your MME. Fine, you've helped in your own way further the EV journey as it gets refined and improved.

Nah, you can believe that man made CO2 emissions are meaningfully changing the climate if you want - that part is at least very much open to debate - I just hold people on low regard who think they’re actually doing something about it by buying an EV LOL.

Back in the 80s the environmental movement began the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” movement. Recycling turned out to be generally useless if not counterproductive, but they were spot on with Reduce and Reuse. That’s how you contribute to a cleaner and healthier environment.

 

[Herbknowsit]

I just hold people on low regard who think they’re actually doing something about it by buying an EV LOL.

Back in the 80s the environmental movement began the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” movement. Recycling turned out to be generally useless if not counterproductive, but they were spot on with Reduce and Reuse. That’s how you contribute to a cleaner and healthier environment.
[/QUOTE]
I'll get off my hind legs after this. I work at recycling center as a volunteer and you are mostly right about plastics. And 90 % of e-waste. But dead wrong on all the metal, glass and paper we get by the tons. It gets re-used and you are mistaken if you are claiming that the process for recycling on those materials causes more pollution than either cutting down trees , mining glass materials or mining iron ore.
But glad we are in agreement with Reduce and Re-Use which truly are the best things we can do for our wallets, let alone the planet.

 

[bbulkow]

A very detailed answer, nice. Give me your opinion...... Which would you trust the most:

An AI generated answer, Consumer Reports, or the ever popular Magic 8 Ball device?

I mostly start with ai (a good paid version) and double check details with a specific web search. Consumer reports is behind the times too much to be useful. Asking forums has its place.

Most ai engines do live searches and aggregate the content results, and give you the web pages it used, as refernces to double check. Today's ai is not last year's ai. I have accounts with three different ones and have learned which are trustworthy. I use the ais for that, too.

Web results are now so crowded with ai content that searches are less and less useful. It's ai vs ai. "This side toward enemy".

 

[Mach1E]

Nah, you can believe that man made CO2 emissions are meaningfully changing the climate if you want - that part is at least very much open to debate - I just hold people on low regard who think they’re actually doing something about it by buying an EV LOL.

Back in the 80s the environmental movement began the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” movement. Recycling turned out to be generally useless if not counterproductive, but they were spot on with Reduce and Reuse. That’s how you contribute to a cleaner and healthier environment.

This is why for the longest time I have thought environmentalists need better marketing.

It’s easy to argue against whether or not co2 emissions and temperature changes that have small impacts that may or may not be felt during your lifetime…….matter. Even if you could get everyone to agree that the car you drive will make it 1 degree cooler in 100 years, you still won’t get everyone to care.

Instead the focus should be on air quality and smog.

Smog is 100% man made, 100% preventable and you can see (and smell) immediate benefits.

Oh, and when you prevent smog you lower co2 emissions.

They picked the wrong thing to market.

 

[Discwizard70]

Yes, the smell/pollution is definitely improved greatly with EVs, plus we all forgot to mention the noise pollution too, not that it really matters to carbon at all, but since driving solely EVs, I noticed how loud the rest are!

 

[Discwizard70]

Another thing to consider is the reason why people are buying /not buying EVs. It's not always invirementally based. I bought both of mine for financial reasons. Both my wife and I travel a decent amount for work. I do at least 120 miles daily, she does at least 45. I get $. 64/mile tax credit, and where I live and mostly charging at home it costs me about $12 to fill up and her $9 to fill up average. With our old vehicles it was double that or more. Overall cost of ownership (another EV myth!) when you look over the period of ownership with tires/brakes/fuel/maintenance/etc the EV so are a much better financial situation for my business over the roughly 100k miles it will be used. I know EVs are not for everyone, but for me and my business, it's an easy no brainer. If they offer help to the air, then great, if they don't, I am still better off.

 

[ChehRob]

If you have the extended range, in the summertime first leg in the morning you can go comfortably upwards of 250 miles if you start at a 100% charge. For the second leg going from 80% to 20% will give you a decent 180 mile range. For all but a few of us, that is a day's travel. I've had fun going 800 miles a day on occasion but no plans for that in the future. Your mileage may vary. These days I likely would make it a 200+ and a 150 mile legs before calling it a day.

 

[SonicBlue]

Yes, the smell/pollution is definitely improved greatly with EVs, plus we all forgot to mention the noise pollution too, not that it really matters to carbon at all, but since driving solely EVs, I noticed how loud the rest are!

Yes. The quiet, sudden acceleration, and fuel savings are my three favorite things about EV ownership.

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