Leaving the MORE offroad race at Barstow a couple of weeks ago, where my son was in the 2nd place 5/1600 and another team member won the class and for most of the race another team member ran 3rd, my son and I stopped at a gas station in Lenwood off the I-15 to use the restroom, get some snacks and drinks for the drive home. My son decided to check the oil in his diesel F350 4x4 crew cab.
While he was doing that, a guy pulled up in the handicap space next to us in a Tesla with no handicap plates, or hang tag inside. The Tesla DID have Ohio plates. The guy got out not wearing a face mask and went inside. He was ejected from the store for not having a mask. There was a tank truck that had just finished filling the station's tanks. My son went to throw a paper in the trash next to the door as the guy got ejected. The gasoline tank truck driver was next to the trash can with a clip board doing paper work. Probably the invoice for the gas delivery. So the Tesla guy steps up close to the truck driver and my son, still maskless, and asked "Where is the Supercharging terminal?" As the tank truck driver and my son backed away from Mr. Up-close-and-and-personal, they asked what he was talking about. The guy just said as he leaned towards them, "You know, the supercharging connection." He was talking about the battery charger for his Tesla. He was asking a guy who drives a diesel big rig delivering gasoline to gas stations and another guy who is driving a 26 year old diesel pickup truck. Not folks likely to know about "SuperCharging Stations" for Teslas, Apparently they don't grow 'em real bright in his neck of the woods in Ohio.
I had to wonder how many hours he had to stop along his drive from Ohio to California to charge his Tesla. If he got 200 miles per charge, that would have gotten him from the Arizona or Nevada border to Barstow on a charge. When I did that trip in my Durango SUV with a travel trailer on the back, topped up in Kingman AZ and stopped again at the same gas station in Lenwood. Took about 1/2 tank, that cost 2.25 per gallon in AZ, The refill in Cali cost was $3.79/gallon. A bit under 20mpg, which for an SUV towing a travel trailer is pretty good. But still more per mile by far than the EV. But it took that guy in the Tesla longer to find a charging station, just in what we saw, and we don't know if he DID find one, than it took us to fill up with gas. Similar results to what was shown on Grand Tour in England a while back comparing an electric super car to gasoline fueled super cars. The infrastructure just is NOT close to ready for all electric vehicles and won't be for quite a while. And to maintain roads for electric cars that do not pay road tax for their fuel, the state of California has already doubled gas taxes. So the rest of us are paying for electric cars to cruise blithely around. Not to mention that I'm only STARTING to see charging stations for electric cars with a credit card. I would hope that they charge a road tax per KW of power obtained from those charging stations. Or charge a road use tax on the annual registration renewal for the car.
A friend of my son bought a Chevy plug-in electric car for his wife. Then paid about $12K to have the house wired to plug it in. The car spent near 1/2 of it's 1st year in the dealer shop getting repaired for various problems. Then a little over a year after they bought it new, they traded it in on a used conventional gasoline car.
Our electric provider tells us that we're using about 400KwH of electricity per month in our 1750 sq. ft home. Looking at teh "Home Energy Report" received yesterday. Our electric bill averages about $100/mo. If we were still working as we did before we retired, super-commuting down into the San Fernando Valley with a round trip of about 160 to 220 miles/day 5 days/week. With a standard charge rate of 12 hours/full 85% charge daily. It wouldn't be charged the next morning at time to leave for work 10 hours after arriving at home. Of course it COULD get a 1/2 charge at work. Provided work HAS a charging station available... And I haven't worked for a large company since 1986. If you ADD 66KwH of electric consumption 5 days per week x 4-1/13 weeks per month to charge the EV, that would be:
66 x 5 x 4.33 = 1,429 KwH/month.
3-1/2 times as much electricity as we're using now. or $350/mo for electricity.
It's interesting that Southern California Edison, in that Home Energy Report, asks us to conserve electricity. It's common for them to talk about "rolling blackouts" when the electric grid is overwhelmed in hot weather. In that same report, It offers rebates and other incentives to buy an electric vehicle. That makes lots of sense, doesn't it?
We used to commute in a 94 Honda Civic that averaged about 40mpg. About 5 gallons/day of commuting. Monthly cost for gas, INCLUDING road taxes and sales taxes on gas, at $3.79/gallon current price = $410.27 for gas. But not a fair comparison in that EVs are NOT currently paying sales tax or road tax on what makes them go. And many are not paying for the electricity at public charging stations, But we who pay our electric bills pay for it around the back way. Meanwhile, there is noise about that SCE will soon be doubling our electric rates to cover damages in last year's brush fires. That would bring the EV fuel cost to about $700/month
And then .... we could talk about where we'll get enough of the raw materials for all those batteries. Then where they can be manufactured. Then where can they be recycled. Then where can they be disposed of?
It's NOT all that easy.
) that should recharge the batteries within a fairly short period of time which doesn't do off-roaders much good. Also, will the state and fed off-road sites do this also and how much "gouging" will be done 
?
