Electric Mooney

[CMMPilot]

Okay boys! Check out my latest project for this winter….

[N201MKTurbo]

The motor is easy, what are you going to use for batteries? The battery from that wheel chair?

[Hank]

The problem is battery weight, useful duration and charging time.

When i can hop in an electric car, drive 600 miles, then top off the battery in ten minutes and do it again, then i'll think about buying one. I just drove 500 miles plus a bit tomthe Florida coast while my Mooney was in the shop. Turned for home and went another couple hours before getting gas. And it's no micro bumpy car, just an Altima with nice ride and enough baggage space to travel easily with my wife.

With an electric airplane, the problem just becomes worse. Too many batteries, too much weight, next to no useful load (me, pax, baggage), and who wants to stop every 45 minutes and spend another 45 minutes charging?

[Hank]

1 minute ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The motor is easy, what are you going to use for batteries? Those three old Concords in the corner of the hangar?

No, the two extension cords on the wall! 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The motor is easy, what are you going to use for batteries? The battery from that wheel chair?

He's just kidding.   The motor is really for the wheel chair. 

[MattCW]

No, what he does is install a generator in the cowling to power the motor!

[Utah20Gflyer]

2 hours ago, MattCW said:

No, what he does is install a generator in the cowling to power the motor!

Seems like a Lycoming IO 360 would be a good choice to power the electric motor.  They are reliable, efficient and well proven!

 

 

[A64Pilot]

8 hours ago, MattCW said:

No, what he does is install a generator in the cowling to power the motor!

So, a hybrid  

[Igor_U]

21 hours ago, Hank said:

No, the two extension cords on the wall! 

these guys did just that!

 

[CMMPilot]

Chuckling…

[A64Pilot]

On 12/5/2023 at 11:06 PM, Hank said:

who wants to stop every 45 minutes and spend another 45 minutes charging?

At least on the standard range Tesla it’s every three hours or so and the stop is on average 20 min. Pay more money for the longer range car and maybe you can extend those stops, but I’ve noticed it seems the longer range cars stop at the same charging stations we do. Head North on I-95 or I-75 and you will se a lot of cars that are the same at the Suoerchargers as a bunch of cars are on the highway of course and we all have to refuel if you will at Superchargers.

The cars computer knows the distance between chargers and adjusts  the planned number of charging stops to minimize the total time spent charging, in other words you never charge to a high charge level because the more full the battery gets the slower it charges, you can charge from near zero to 85% faster than you can go from 85% to 100%. Tesla “licked” the charging problem over a decade ago, no other manufacturer has even addressed it, they ignore it based I assume on the Governments promise to pour Billions of taxpayers dollars into chargers.

But that’s a Tesla only thing, nobody else has a charging network, and no one else has either as powerful a charger as Tesla’s Superchargers nor will their batteries accept a charge nearly as fast.

This pic is typical, you can see the car’s rate is adding over 800 miles of range per hour, a rate that’s not sustainable of course, but also if you notice the time remaining to continue the trip is only 8 min. 

We rarely ever Supercharge, 99% of the time we charge at home because we never exceed the range daily unless traveling and the few times we travel we are in the Mooney usually. Plus charging at home is .17c per KWH, 34c per KWH to Supercharge. Be nice if you could refuel your gas car at home for half price wouldn’t it?

Buying a vehicle because it has capabilities that you need for less than 1% of the time I’ve decided not to do anymore, reason I no longer have a truck. I’ve decided the few times a year that I really need one that I’ll just rent one. What I ought to do is what I did years ago, that is buy an eight ft tilt bed trailer, a little trailer is a whole lot easier to load and unload than a truck bed, and for things like hauling a riding mower it’s a whole lot easier.

My opinion is it’s going to take a really big advance in electric storage to make an electric airplane viable, but if it ever happens an EV airplane will be much superior, quieter, smoother, more reliable and sea level power as high as it can fly.

I don’t expect to ever see that though, need a Mr Fusion like in Back to the Future.

[Hank]

But @A64Pilot, what counts is not "time remaining" of 8 minutes; you could wait 6 more minutes and show Time Remaining = 2 minutes. 

What counts is the total time spent charging.

From home to Mom's place in the mountains, not always flyable, is 350 miles across Atlanta. I live 40 miles from a charging station. Even gassing up there and driving home first, I can then drive to Mom's and a couple of hours back before spending almost ten minutes putting 17-18 gallons into my Altima, then I can drive home and commute to work several days. 

With an electric vehicle, charged overnight at home to 100%, stopping to recharge before reaching 20%, not charging above 80%, would add two stops each way, call it an hour, making the drive 7-1/2 hours plus Atlanta traffic delays plus stops for food, etc. No thank you! That's my problem with electric cars--I'm supposed to happily pay more for less capability, less flexibility in where & when I go, and accept less durability, all so the politicians can look good to each other??? Not with my money and time!

[A64Pilot]

55 minutes ago, Hank said:

That's my problem with electric cars--I'm supposed to happily pay more for less capability, less flexibility in where & when I go, and accept less durability, all so the politicians can look good to each other??? Not with my money and time!

I can’t address your go see Mom use case as well you can’t address every case, but I’ll try to address your others.

I don’t know what capability and flexibility is as those are undefined terms but suspect they address you presumption of reduced long range travel capability.

But as of today the price including the tax credit of a standard range Tesla model 3 is $28K plus change, see attached pic.

According to Consumer Reports two months ago the AVERAGE price of a new car is over $48,000. So that blows the “more expensive” part out of the window, a Tesla is $20,000 cheaper, not more. Even if the tax credit is ignored the Tesla is still over $12,000 LESS than the average.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/buying-a-car/people-spending-more-on-new-cars-but-prices-not-necessarily-rising-a3134608893/#:~:text=The average cost of new,many other factors at play.

Based on our 30,000 miles of driving that’s only the beginning, the cheaper to operate is massive, the Tesla returns 260 miles on 50 KWH, so a full tank on the Tesla costs only $8.50. To fill up our Miata for the same range costs over $30, and that’s at Sam’s Club the cheapest gas there is at least here. So “fuel” wise it’s less than 1/3 to power a Tesla than a Miata, you’ll have to run the numbers for your car of course but I suspect the Tesla is cheaper than even a Prius

So at least a Tesla to operate is orders of magnitude less expensive to buy and operate and own than a comparable gas car. Then add in performance wise it will blow the doors off of any other than gas performance vehicle, but don’t forget that crash test wise a Model 3 is the safest vehicle on the market.

So we have come to several conclusions that are easily proved.

It’s much cheaper to buy.

It’s much cheaper to drive.

It’s the safest vehicle you can buy, I think still, but the test was about the time we bought ours which was almost three years ago.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-3-lowest-probability-injury-any-vehicle-ever-tested-nhtsa

Oh, and it’s the most American made vehicle you can buy. That’s a little tougher to prove as 90% or better of the auto mags etc simply ignore Tesla’s existence as Tesla gives them no money, doesn’t even give them vehicles to test, whereas everybody else spends large sums on advertising and free cars to test and keep as long as they want. Small wonder the Auto press isn’t Tesla fans. But Tesla builds pretty much everything in their vehicles, in the US, even the seats and no other large manufacturer build seats and most even if assembled in the US the major components are shipped in from overseas.

Oh, and charge time is 15 min for 147 miles of range, so my 20 min guess was off a little, but in truth I charge a little more than the computer suggests as I like to have a little extra, if you follow the computers directions you will minimize charge time and you will make it to the next charge point, but I don’t like getting there nearly empty so I’ll charge for a few minutes extra.

In all honesty I can’t come up with a logical reason for most not to buy one. There are some requirements though, the perfect car doesn’t exist anymore than the perfect airplane. A Tesla is close to a Mooney though, fast, safe and efficient.

To be most useful you need a garage that you can park in every night or at least a private parking spot close enough to run a 30 amp cord to. No EV is best in super cold weather as waste heat is normally used to heat a gas car where an EV has to use power to either creat or move heat, the Tesla’s heat pump is very efficient, but you can’t beat “free” heat you get from a gas car.

But for the average driver they are ideal.

Best if you don’t live in the wide open spaces, example I’m sure in places like lots of Montana that you would pretty much be confined to within 100 miles of home, because I’m sure in sparsely populated areas there just aren’t any chargers, a Tesla can use anyone’s chargers, can even plug into pretty much any power outlet, a 110V plug will power it, but it’s ridiculously slow, my back up plan is an RV park, most have at least 30 amp plugs. Of course I’ve never charged at an RC park, but could if I had to.

In your case for your Mothers house all you would need is a 30 amp or larger plug in her garage and plug in your travel charger into it. A standard range Tesla charger can only pull 22 amps so while it certainly can use a 5o amp plug a 30 amp is more than enough. A drier or stove plug is fine, so if your Mothers drier is near the garage you could simply plug into it’s outlet.

You know I watch Fox News myself, but get tired of their honestly ignorant tirade against EV’s.

 

 

[Hank]

@A64Pilot, your Tesla is much more expensive than a Geo. You can't compare one model against the average, use averages for both.

EVs average price right now is $53,000+, while the average gas vehicle is $48,000+. So the EVs cost more on average. And the $53K price is including the government rebate.

Consumer Reports just posted that the average reliability of EVs is significantly less than gas vehicles. Since I don't have or want an EV, I only read the headline because the details don't matter. 

So most of what you wrote applies only when discussing YOUR PARTICULAR EV, while I was discussing the mystical "average EV available in the U.S." As such, we will never agree because we are looking at different data sets.

My Nissan Altima gets 40+ mpg on the highway, and usually 38.5 on my through-the-countryside commute to work [35 miles each way]. Range is usually 630-650 miles, but when traveling it can exceed 700 miles. And I can drive to that distance.

EVs cannot drive the full range shown. It's bad to quick-charge above 80%, and it's bad to ever discharge below 20%, because both will do strange and terrible things to the batteries. So your "driving range" of 272 miles turns into 163 miles maximum distance between stops when driving away from your home. Sure, your first leg can reach up to 217 miles. So my 350 mile trip just takes a lot longer, and we won't discuss the drive from Lower Alabama to D.C. for dad's funeral, I'd still be going up in an EV. There were reasons that we didn't fly--stopped to see Mom and offer a ride, she really can't crawl into the Mooney, and we stayed the night on the way up, adding maybe 2½ hours to the total trip time.

so no, EVs just don't work for many of us. I'm glad you like yours, but apparently [like your Mooney], you have an above-average EV.

[Hank]

P.S.--"flexibility." Take your electric SUV out into the woods to go hunting, fishing, camping or just hiking. But driving those bumpy, hilly dirt roads, your range will go way down, so don't stray too far from the nearest charger. It's hard to strap an extra battery to the back, but 5 gallon gas cans are no trouble at all . . . . . isn't this why many people buy SUVs anyway? Or at least it used to be, until everyone had to have an SUV. My former neighbors "had to have" a 4WD Bronco; when they turned it in at the end of the lease [3 mistakes at once!], they had to pay ~$4K because there were problems in the 4WD system, which they had never used . . . .

[JimB]

Just drove from Indianapolis to Galveston. TX. Yes I spent a lot of time charging. But I will say this is by far one of the nicest, most comfortable and absolutely the fastest vehicle I have ever driven. Long trips not all that great with the time spent charging. At home, you wake up every morning to a full tank of gas and about 320 miles of range.

 

 

[Hank]

4 minutes ago, JimB said:

Just drove from Indianapolis to Galveston. TX. Yes I spent a lot of time charging. But I will say this is by far one of the nicest, most comfortable and absolutely the fastest vehicle I have ever driven. Long trips not all that great with the time spent charging. At home, you wake up every morning to a full tank of gas and about 320 miles of range.

Wasn't it the Head of DOT who took their Gov't EV on a "long cross country trip" recently, from LA to Vegas [a pretty short trip in my experience!]. They ran into charging problems, and had staffers in a gas vehicle blocking a charger for her use at one point, and angry EV drivers called the police to make them move [being gov't staffers, they are above the laws that apply to us peons, and didn't move]. Even Her Highness said that the trip was miserable and took way too long.

[hubcap]

The allure of the electric vehicle has worn off. Manufacturers are already seeing diminishing demand. The technology is not ready for prime time. The only way it is affordable to drive an electric vehicle is government subsidies. Electronic vehicles are not economically viable nor do they lend themselves to the vast majority of uses we have with petroleum based engines. I will stick with diesel until something at least as good comes along.

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, Hank said:

Wasn't it the Head of DOT who took their Gov't EV on a "long cross country trip" recently, from LA to Vegas [a pretty short trip in my experience!]. They ran into charging problems, and had staffers in a gas vehicle blocking a charger for her use at one point, and angry EV drivers called the police to make them move [being gov't staffers, they are above the laws that apply to us peons, and didn't move]. Even Her Highness said that the trip was miserable and took way too long.

Yes but Ford and I believe GM too has bought into Tesla’s Supercharging network so that’s no longer an issue. 

I’m sure Musk is making boat loads of money with his charging network, but look at his picture where he’s charging, see how it’s mostly empty? That’s because in truth the vast majority of drivers don’t need and or rarely charge anywhere but at home. I’ll attach my charge stats for the year, 0% Supercharger, 2% “other” 98% at home.

In fact Tesla launched the network to sell cars, not make money off of it even gives away free supercharging every so often to boost car sales, but Time magazine says he’s set to make 5 Billion dollars a year off of it.

https://time.com/6287589/tesla-ev-charging-business-model/

When our current President was touting Government funded charging network, Musk offered to allow his network to be included of course for a part of the Government funding, but you know who told him to pack sand because he’s not a Union shop, but faced with losing more money than even the Government is giving them Ford and GM made private deals with Musk, an EV has to have a reliable, available and functioning charging network and the Tesla one is the only one in existence.

So far as your assertion that the average EV is priced higher, they aren’t selling, they are sitting on lots unsold, so if you change that to the price of the average price of EV’s that sold then I bet money the EV’s come out cheaper. Currently the Tesla market share is only 50%, so half of ALL EV’s sold are Tesla’s, not your overpriced ones.

Away charging if you have access to the Tesla network just isn’t the issue the haters want it to be, in fact for the majority it’s no issue at all.

You want to talk average, well average fuel economy is 25.7 and that’s a record high not 40, you may get 40, but that’s not average.

Time will tell, for an automobile an EV is a superior technology, in truth they have to be much cheaper to build, you say they aren’t reliable and use the dated Consumer reports article as proof, have you read the article? I have in it they point to Tesla’s poor panel fit and paint and define that as reliability, not if and or how often the car breaks or needs service.

An EV is an incredibly simple machine, no smog controls, no transmission etc. Just a small light electric motor bolted directly to the differential just like a golf cart.

You want to talk off road? You off road your Altima? How deep of water can it cross before the engine is destroyed? A Tesla powertrain is literally waterproof, it will even flow if the water is deep enough, if you look on Youtube there are videos of Tesla’s crossing flood waters floating, spinning the back wheels very fast for propulsion.

You try to pick odd use cases to prove an EV is inferior, but in fact an EV four wheel drive should be way superior, why? because nothing delivers power more smoothly than an electric motor, an electric motor can be on any angle of hill and the oil pump won’t cavitate etc. and as I said if needed they can apparently easily be made completely waterproof.

Time will tell, but using the Model 3 as an example as it’s my only real experience, it’s drive train was designed to last 1 million miles. Why? Because it’s the drivetrain for the Tesla Semi if it ever gets built, it will use four Model 3 drivetrains.

I don’t think normal mechanical wear at least on a Tesla will be the issue, I suspect battery degradation will eventually as consumers become more educated about EV’s the determine value of a used EV, not mileage so much. But we have no idea really how long these things will last.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1177-march-15-2021-preliminary-data-show-average-fuel-economy-new-light#:~:text=Preliminary data for EPA's 2020,miles per gallon (MPG).

Oh, and on the charging report page, that $600 is for an entire year of driving and includes all the times in Summer we leave the AC on because the little dog is in the car and the times the AC runs because I have the car set to not allow interior temps to exceed 90F.

‘Even at 40 MPG how much do you spend on gas this year? I bet more than $50 a month.

 

[JimB]

27 minutes ago, hubcap said:

The allure of the electric vehicle has worn off. Manufacturers are already seeing diminishing demand. The technology is not ready for prime time. The only way it is affordable to drive an electric vehicle is government subsidies. Electronic vehicles are not economically viable nor do they lend themselves to the vast majority of uses we have with petroleum based engines. I will stick with diesel until something at least as good comes along.

I'm probably not going to 100% agree. I think in certain circumstances they are pretty much perfect. If I had a service type business and fleet of vehicles I would use them. Something like an HVAC or plumbing business where the trucks go out in the morning and return to shop each day and go maybe 100-150 miles at the most during the day. I also think something like Amazon, UPS, Postal carriers, FEDEX it all makes a lot of sense. They all leave with a full charge each morning and come back to be charged each night. And there is very little maintenance. 

[A64Pilot]

13 minutes ago, hubcap said:

The allure of the electric vehicle has worn off. Manufacturers are already seeing diminishing demand. The technology is not ready for prime time. The only way it is affordable to drive an electric vehicle is government subsidies. Electronic vehicles are not economically viable nor do they lend themselves to the vast majority of uses we have with petroleum based engines. I will stick with diesel until something at least as good comes along.

Besides Fox news where do you get your data?

What makes an EV more expensive to drive? I’ve heard that mantra repeated daily on the news with zero explanation. I’d sure like to hear one, because I think it’s as silly as the old assertion that a Hummer was more environmentally friendly than a Prius, or tgat you would have to buy a new Prius battery every other year, yadda, yadda.

But your right everybody except Tesla isn’t selling, I think that because they have largely made a mess of it, tried to get too much out the door too fast, Musk is no idiot and yet it took him over a decade to work out the bugs, and we expected GM and Ford with zero experience to get it right on day one?

By the way, I got zero government subsidies, no tax credit, nothing and we have had it for coming two and a half years I think and other than charging it’s cost $0 money.

I couldn’t drive anything for less than $600 a year, not even a Prius.

I suspect in another year or so I’ll be buying tires, and maybe windshield wiper blades, but that’s it.

Even the much touted due to their weight EV’s chew up tires is BS, our Model 3 actually weighs less than a BMW 3 Series or an Audi A4, the two most comparable cars size wise etc.

Diesels due to the overly complex smog controls with Diesel particulate exhaust filters and excess EGR are a mess, much less reliable and way more expensive.

Google Ford 6.4L Powerstroke reliability if you don’t believe me and it’s just one, nobody can make those things pass smog tests without problems. and our current Government is promising far stricter smog standards. 

Just announced they are going to reduce Methane emissions from the oil and natural gas industry by 80%.

If they can pull that off and I don’t think that’s even close to realistic, but what do you think that’s going to do to the price of gas and Diesel?

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-standards-slash-methane-pollution-combat-climate

[A64Pilot]

Oh, I will admit that in my opinion the Government getting involved and throwing tax payers money away to companies building electric school busses etc is really screwed up. These companies have zero experience building anything, about as likely to be successful as the self driving cars next year or the electric flying taxis next year etc.

IF, the government had stayed out of it and let consumers vote by buying vehicles, then we would have had a logical transition of quality vehicles at a sustainable rate, and maybe by 2040 or so there would be very few at least passenger fossil fueled passenger cars.

‘You see these idiots completely forget that if we really did flood the market with EV’s especially inefficient SUV’s and pickup trucks, then pretty quickly we would be sitting in the dark sweating or freezing because we couldn’t heat or cool our houses and charge our EV’s.

But they didn’t and we are in the mess that we are, I think it’s likely good that many EV’s are going unsold, that will bring the prices down and hopefully slow growth to a rate that the electric grid can support.

[A64Pilot]

2 hours ago, Hank said:

 

Oh and the other half of the charging report that shows cost per KWH to Suoercharge and at home and the estimated saving in gas cost

 

[hammdo]

My daughter and her husband both own Teslas. They don’t do a whole lot of long distance travel (unlike my wife and I). For them it made sense and they figured they could rent a gas powered vehicle if needed.

Not for me but if my driving was local, I can see the benefits. Lots of chargers here in DFW so it works for them - if they need a supercharger vs home charger.

Traveling long distances- not ready for prime time…

-Don

[Fly Boomer]

27 minutes ago, JimB said:

Something like an HVAC or plumbing business where the trucks go out in the morning and return to shop each day and go maybe 100-150 miles at the most during the day. I also think something like Amazon, UPS, Postal carriers, FEDEX it all makes a lot of sense. They all leave with a full charge each morning and come back to be charged each night. And there is very little maintenance. 

That's similar to the experience Pepsi is having with their Tesla fleet.  They move product from a production facility to a distribution facility (California, I think).  Truck is fully charged overnight.  They head out in the morning for a few hundred miles.  When they get to their destination, they charge while the truck is being unloaded -- takes about 30 minutes to get back up to 80% or 90%.  When the truck is unloaded, they head back to headquarters, and do it again the following day.