With 400 miles of range on $6 of electricity who wouldn't love it! But my old Promaster with a Colorado camper van now must go. Cheap.
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JohnForde
I switched to a Brightdrop Zevo 600 electric van
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With 400 miles of range on $6 of electricity who wouldn't love it! But my old Promaster with a Colorado camper van now must go. Cheap.
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No. I meant SIX DOLLARS. Actually $4.95 for 425 miles.
177kWh battery
2.4 mi/kwh
MN Xcel EV at home program $.028/kWh
I have had mine for 6k miles. They are underpromising. I get 300 highway and 400 city.
$88k
My best 5 legs (miles/kWh) X 177kWh capacity
2.66 X 177kWh = 470 miles
2.48 X 177kWh 438 miles
2.42 X 177kWh 428 miles
2.35 X 177kWh 415 miles
2.32 X 177kWh 410 miles
Except for the entire floor in front of the wheel wells being battery. Makes mounting a seat difficult. Installing a 3 point folding Freedman seat next week.
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Thanks aFox, I wil respect everyone unless given a reason not to and even then I will be temperate. I have a thick skin, interesting perspective and reasonably clear expression.
My motive is ecological but my argument is practical. EVs are the future. They are sooo cheap to operate and they last almost forever. Once you drive one it's really hard to go back to ICE. My ZEVO is AWD, handles like a car and has 342HP on each axle. Fun. Fun. Fun.
Bromaster. Try it. You'll like it. Keep your ICE for road trips. But at-home charging is da bomb. A dryer outlet, 50 amp extension cord and an $80 refurbed charger from Amazon. It takes 5 seconds to plug in at night and unplug in the morning. Every morning your tank has 200-300 miles and it cost $5-10. Being a late adapter is just impractical.
Black Pearl I got some good news for you. For EVs in Alaska a kWh is a nickel. Cut you last cost estimate by 80%. It's starting to look more practical, isn't it?
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RV8R I respect your skepticism. I am trying to be both practical and ecological. Not a saint, just less dirty and less wasteful than I used to be. Think of EVs this way: A gas engine is only 25-30% efficient because it throws away 3/4 of it''s energy in the form of waste heat through the radiator. That is way better than a steam engine (5% of potential energy becomes kinetic energy). But it is way less than electricity which is the 90%+ efficient. You be glad you left the steam and gas engines behind.
I made the graph. It is accurate within a few percentage points at room temperature & no wind.That van is not going 200 miles at 80mph on that battery pack.
Very optimistic graph.
Just look at the trend line. Where is the 1/V² term? Compare to this graph supposedly for real-world Tesla performance:
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So a tiny sleek Tesla S3X can go 200 to 300 miles at 80mph with an 82 KWH battery, and the ZEVO 600 huge boxy van can go just as far with only 160KWH ? I'm not convinced.
Also: range is typically measured at 100% to 0% (reported) battery capacity. In real life, people tend to use 80% to 20% to prolong the life of the battery.
I think it is wonderful that @JohnForde is going electric, but I will be super surprised if they regularly plan a leg of over 100 miles in real life.
As a point of comparison, the Kia EV-6 (we just got one) can be hammered into going 250miles at 70MPH, but since we care about our battery life, like to have some comfortable reserve, and need to account around for the still-nascent PNW fast charging architecture, we plan on ~150 miles between stops at highway speeds.
We absolutely love our electric vehicle. If we charged it from 0% to 100%, that is 77KHW. Our power is $0.06/KWH (~94% non-fossil) so it costs us $4.62. For regular day-to-day operations, we charge it nightly to 60% - that gives us ~150 miles reported range and is in the most gentle area of battery wear.
Brightdrop is underpromising. They must think it is smart marketing psychology. I think it is.
And yes, the ZEVO will get 200 miles at 80 mph. Here its a photo I took of what seemed to be the average consumption at 80 mph. It is 69 Kw. That is 1.16 miles/kWh and a 205 mile range.
Baxsie, I have not been through the depths of a MN winter with Zevo yet. I received it Aug 25 and was able to drive it beginning Sept 11. But you better be ready to be surprised. I plan on 200 mile legs and always succeed. I have no fear of a 250 mile. I went from Santa Fe to FairPlay CO (300 miles). I still had 60 miles on the gauge but no charger option before Denver. Battery holds 177kWh.That van is not going 200 miles at 80mph on that battery pack.
Very optimistic graph.
Just look at the trend line. Where is the 1/V² term? Compare to this graph supposedly for real-world Tesla performance:
![Image]()
So a tiny sleek Tesla S3X can go 200 to 300 miles at 80mph with an 82 KWH battery, and the ZEVO 600 huge boxy van can go just as far with only 160KWH ? I'm not convinced.
Also: range is typically measured at 100% to 0% (reported) battery capacity. In real life, people tend to use 80% to 20% to prolong the life of the battery.
I think it is wonderful that @JohnForde is going electric, but I will be super surprised if they regularly plan a leg of over 100 miles in real life.
As a point of comparison, the Kia EV-6 (we just got one) can be hammered into going 250miles at 70MPH, but since we care about our battery life, like to have some comfortable reserve, and need to account around for the still-nascent PNW fast charging architecture, we plan on ~150 miles between stops at highway speeds.
We absolutely love our electric vehicle. If we charged it from 0% to 100%, that is 77KHW. Our power is $0.06/KWH (~94% non-fossil) so it costs us $4.62. For regular day-to-day operations, we charge it nightly to 60% - that gives us ~150 miles reported range and is in the most gentle area of battery wear.
I know the Tesla graph above very well. The model 3LR peaks at ~425 miles like the Zevo. But the sleeker Tesla still get 250 miles at 80 mph while the boxier Zevo only gets 200 miles. These graphs are very aligned.
A gas fill in the hometown is still 5 minutes. Plugging and unplugging the EV takes 5 SECONDS.
On the road, yes. Gas is a 5 minute fill and EV is 45. But I only have to do it once a day. I have a nice sit-down lunch and eat healthier. In my youth I did a lot 900 mile days. Now spousey and I usually stop at 600.
I am at home 44-46 weeks a year. I bet on average the fill time is about a tie between ICE & BEV.
No but I am planning on developing a fold-out aerodynamic "Whale tail". Hoping for a 20% reduction in drag.
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