Recent content by oilerlord

RCT, nice to know there are others driving EV's in extreme cold conditions and I appreciate you posting your experience. I'm still making do with my B-class EV, which is approaching 50,000 miles. As each year passes, I do notice my winter driving range diminishes. I noticed some high-mileage...

We tend to make the mistake of judging people by the cars they drive. Wish that would stop. It's a safe bet there are a few assholes taking the bus too.

My Manheim account allows me to view auctions, but not participate because I haven't renewed the subscription in a long time. I'm not a dealer per se but as a hobby, I used import about 12-15 cars per year into Canada back in the day the USD/CAD was on par with each other, and flip them. Now...

Perhaps. I think the bigger issue (if it is one for GM) is this: Does GM really want to sell 100,000 Bolts per year? I'm not particularly an Elon Musk fan, but he was in the ballpark on the Bolt's low sales numbers, and he mentioned GM wasn't interested in selling many of them. There just...

I've been away from the forum for a while. Thought I'd catch up, and see how everyone is enjoying their EV's. Only 18,000 Bolts sold in 2018. That is so disappointing. I remember all the hope and promise of the Bolt being a "game changer" and Model 3 "killer". I also recall lofty yearly...

"Just set hilltop reserve, and set the departure time to be 30 mins before peak rate ends, and simply plug in the car. It will start charging at the proper time to have the battery 'full' (about 88% of the 'usable' capacity) just before peak rates end. Since the 'usable' capacity is about 90-92%...

As far as ROI, that sounds about right, but SunPower is pricey stuff. When I started we were paying 8 cents per kWH / 12 cents including fees, taxes, etc. I sourced the modules on the used market, bought the inverters & racking wholesale, and helped with the installation,but even then the ROI...

I have a set of 225-50/R-17 Pirelli-Winter SOTTOZERO 3 tires on the Benz. They stop well in winter...but from experience, I think these may be HRR tires. I've had a dramatic reduction in range with these tires. I guess I might have been able to find skinnier tires that would fit, but I think...

Hey Neil, Congrats on the PV system. We're using 9.23 kW of older SunPower SPR-225's. Here's a photof of our system during its installation: Those must be quite the incentives for an ROI of 5 years and/or you got a steal on what is otherwise pricey gear. If you have a moment, please take...

I've also found that putting winter tires on my EV has a bigger effect on range than it does on my other vehicles. That caught me by surprise.

I absolutely understand the point that mwk, and others new to driving an EV are making, but some of us choose to treat it like the elephant in the room. If a vehicle is rated at 40 MPG highway, and it varies by ~10% in real world conditions, I'd call that fair and sensible. You shouldn't...

^^This. As part of MPG testing, one of the criteria is Cold Temperature testing: There are a couple of problems with that test. One is that it assumes 20F is "cold". Another is that it doesn't seem to account for running the heater. Running the battery & cabin heater uses a lot of energy...

Sometimes, people are just random. A couple years back, I tried to help a friend of the family find a new car. It was like herding cats. Despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to help her narrow her choices down to a few cars, let alone the number of categories of cars. I spent hours...

When I wrote "low-volume" what I really meant was Musk made a "low end of the range" prediction. 23,000 units is still a decent number given the comparables you mention, however I think the industry sees that as a disappointment. Simply put, there was lot of hype, and the sales didn't measure...

Sarcasm wasn't my intention. I'm not at all a disciple preaching the Word of Elon, just recognizing that at a time when analysts were predicting GM would sell ~80,000 Bolts in 2017, (30,000 being the "low" end), Musk made a low-volume prediction of 25,000 cars. The Bolt faithful scoffed at...