Trying to build a solarpunk life in an increasingly cyberpunk world.
Unfortunately many have to finance even for modestly priced vehicles. Saving just a few thousand dollars is unfeasible at lower incomes, depending on your situation. Right on for Toyota though, hard to find a more reliable car (maybe Honda).
Option two certainly is better, for those who can swing it! Being able to go carless and just use public transit/bike/walk everywhere is the new American dream honestly.
You telling me I can eat my cat’s food in times of need? I don’t think he’d forgive me if he saw me do that.
For real though, get your auto loans through credit unions. Checking and savings there too. And mortgages. Actually, just don’t use big banks.
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Real question: what did people feed cats in that day, before kibble? Constant stream of chicken and fish?
We did our solar panels first, to help address our home’s energy use (our electricity company is a monopoly and keeps charging more year after year). Plus we liked the idea of being green and energy independent, the vehicle is a newer addition to the setup.
Not sure where you are, but even if you can’t do solar now, you might be able to do plug-in solar soon! Super popular in some countries already, and coming quickly (hopefully) to the States. And even if you can’t do a four wheel passenger EV, e-bikes are a great choice for traveling on the power of the sun.
100%, though I’m thankful to have net metering at all, as I know it’s not available in some areas! Building up some credit to use in the less sunny months is nice, helps offset potential days when production doesn’t exceed consumption.
Congrats on going solar!
I’m not commenting to dogpile on you, I think the others have explained why the grid is less of a concern than you might think.
Just wanted to add that we charge ours primarily using excess solar from our home panels, which is an option through our system management tool. It takes longer, but it means even less grid dependency (and virtually “free” vs paying for electricity, which you’re right, will go up in price… though largely due to data centers now, not EVs).
I won’t be surprised if this becomes the norm for EV drivers in the future, as a kWh in the “tank” is worth more than one backfed into the grid. More responsible use for extra power not immediately used.
Not necessarily. My PHEV (a RAV4) reserves a portion of its battery to use in the same way that a non-plugin hybrid does. The vehicle maintains a charge in that portion through regenerative braking and the motion of the engine, so the battery can never truly go dead.
Even if I never charged mine, I could still drive it as if it were a standard hybrid and continue to get ~39MPG highway. But in reality I do charge it and most of my miles per month are all electric (most PHEVs also have pressurized fuel tanks to keep gas from going stale when it’s unused for lengths of time).
It’s like if someone asked AI to make the least desirable movie.
Range anxiety is partially what pushed us to go PHEV. We really only use gas if we leave our immediate area, and on longer trips it’s the same as a full ICE car (just with much better efficiency).
I too hope for better batteries and cheaper EVs before my next purchase! Would love to see Chinese cars in the American market to humble these MSRPs.
I’ll have to check it out!
Bought a PHEV earlier this year and my “old fashioned” family quickly moved from “that boy ain’t right” to “you get HOW MANY miles per gallon??” And they still can’t compute that I can drive 50 miles on less than $2 of electricity and not a drop of gas.
The numbers make sense, people just need to be shown. It’s where the market is headed, no one should really be considering anything less than hybrid. When my wife’s old Civic dies, it’ll be replaced by a full EV.
Wow! If only I could get LibreOffice for free without ChatGPT.
Is it FOSS?
Would love to see something like this in the US, the booming e-bike market seems to imply the appetite is there for agile, higher-powered two wheel EVs, but it seems like what we have here is overpriced and underperforming compared to elsewhere in the world.