If Oil Prices Rose, Would Elio Rise With Them?

[Samalross]

Screw Tesla. Get one of these! Cadillac ELR. Same platform as the Volt, but twice the price! They must've been marketing to the people in states where weed is legal.

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Reminds me when Ford put a fake spare tire holder and fancy grill on the Granada to make a Continental. Did not fool to many.

 

[Donnyboy]

I was dreaming of an electric car long before I was dreaming of an Elio. Even had my garage wired in 2009 with an outlet just for charging my future electric car. But I'm still waiting for the electrics to meet my requirements for price, range, and recharging speed. I thought the Elio was my future when I went all in 2014. I have been wrong on electrics and wrong on Elio so far. But I'm still optimistic I'll either get an Elio or be able to plug a car into my wall by the year 2020.

 

[Rickb]

I was dreaming of an electric car long before I was dreaming of an Elio. Even had my garage wired in 2009 with an outlet just for charging my future electric car. But I'm still waiting for the electrics to meet my requirements for price, range, and recharging speed. I thought the Elio was my future when I went all in 2014. I have been wrong on electrics and wrong on Elio so far. But I'm still optimistic I'll either get an Elio or be able to plug a car into my wall by the year 2020.

I felt the same, until I started looking seriously at the other affordable three wheeler commuter options, that happen to be EV. I'm relatively certain I'll be using the garage plug in receptacle mid to late 2018. A city commuter with a 100 mile range meets 90% of my daily driving needs.

 

[Samalross]

I want a third generation i-road that goes at hiway speeds. Probably still weeks away.

 

[gottemfeathers]

Not sure what I would do if I lived down there. I just need a generator to power boiler in winter or fridge in summer. Would probably get a natural gas generator down there. Not sure if they lose natural gas supplies in a hurricane. Here gas lines are 3 foot deep minimum, not sure down there.

All of the natural gas in Puerto Rico is imported. There is no domestic natural gas production/supply. You would be in the same boat as if you were using gasoline if they could not re-supply the island with LNG.

 

[Rickb]

I want a third generation i-road that goes at hiway speeds. Probably still weeks away.

Heck, I'd settle for the 40mph i-Road for around town errands. I'm assuming stability issues at higher speeds. If I were to be put into a hope for scenario it would be for the Lit C-1..........100mph.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

A 5kW solar panel system in Houston runs an average of $16k, and takes 400 square feet of panels. That would take at least 16 hours of full sun to fill an 80kWh battery like Tesla uses. A more practical daily average would be 10 hours of full sun, requiring 8kW of panels. That's approximately 650 square feet (about a 30'x22' area) of panels, at a cost of over $25k. That doesn't count the cost of the storage system you will need to store 80kW of power during the day when the energy is being generated and your Tesla isn't at home.

The projected cost of Powerwall 2 (the larger battery version) is $5,500 per 13.5 kWh. You would need 6 of these to hold 80kWh to fully charge your car. That's $33,000, not counting installation costs.

To be able to charge your Tesla battery from dead to 100% every night by solar power, you are talking a minimum of $60,000. So, yeah, possible, but *very* expensive.

Of course you probably won't need a full charge every day. A 5kW system filling a single Powerwall 2 battery would only take a couple hours during a decently sunny day. My Bolt gets about 4.7 miles per kWh. 13.5 kWh x 4.7 m/kWh would get me about 63 miles. Not quite enough for my daily commute, but pretty close. (It's about 4kWh short.) More than enough for the typical commuter, and much more affordable at around $20k, before any federal/state/local incentives and rebates. Some power companies may provide additional incentives. But then there are some, including areas of Florida, I understand, that are very hostile toward consumer solar.

You mileage may vary.
Like most complex situations, there are no Silver Bullets.
That's where proper planning comes in.

 

[larryboy]

All of the natural gas in Puerto Rico is imported. There is no domestic natural gas production/supply. You would be in the same boat as if you were using gasoline if they could not re-supply the island with LNG.

I have had several 3 day power failures since I moved to my current house. It seems possible that some calamity could interrupt power for a lot longer so I am in the process of getting prepared. We have a propane stove and furnace, 2 wood stoves and several ways to cook outside with wood so we only need to run a generator a few hours a day in order to meet our needs (well pump, bread machine, washing machine, heat pump water heater, battery charger, freezer and the like). I have a 1000 gallon propane tank and a dual fueled generator that can provide 6300 watts. I have a very large deep cycle battery and a 1000 watt inverter. I think I can charge that battery when the generator is running and then use it to power a few LED lights, tv, cell phone charger and the like when it is not. Or I have a mid size chest freezer that I think I could run off that battery if the outage looked to be more than a couple of days. (running the freezer and charging the battery when the generator is running and running the freezer off the battery over night.) We heat mostly with wood and only use around 200 gallons of propane a year under normal circumstances. A prolonged power outage would find me with a minimum of 600 gallons of propane and I could probably live pretty normally for a year on that. The power outages that we have had have taught us how to operate with way less than we will have with the generator. One thing that I recommend to anyone is to get several led flashlights that take a single AA battery. I get mine at Menards and they sell one that has a clip on it like a pen and you can clip it to the brim of a ball cap and use it hands free. The last ones I bought were 4 for $5. I buy some every time they come on sale because I give them as gifts. They furnish useable light from AA batteries that are too weak to run a wireless mouse, remote, or even an electric clock. If you save the old batteries when you change them you will never have to buy a flashlight battery again. If you look at all of the AA batteries in your home in remotes and clocks and cameras you can have light for a long time if the grid goes down. The advantage of the one cell lights is that if you have a 3 cell flashlight and one of the batteries dies you don't have any flashlight at all. If you have a couple of these babies around you can pull the two batteries out and you have light. A lot of people think that you need a $40 flashlight that will blind a person a block away. 99% of the time you need a light to find your way to the bathroom or something where a much less powerful light is more than adequate. I am going to hook my freezer up to a device that tells me how much electricity it uses and find out how much power my deep cycle battery can provide and make sure that my plan will work. If running the freezer partially on battery if workable I might have to get a second battery. I will let you guys know how things work out.

 

[Made in USA]

Perhaps more important to Elios long term success might be the prices for EV's. Based on the following article, the prices for batteries may go through the roof as there are not enough raw materials to meet the goals of all the manufactures. Prices for cobalt and nickel may go much higher as they bid for resources. People will consider an Elio with 85mpg at less than 1/3 the cost of an EV.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/41...eslas-business-may-restore-sanity-ev-industry

 

[Made in USA]

An interesting article about the estimated MPG of fully autonomous vehicles.
Apparently all the electrical requirements eat up a lot of the energy driving the average a lot lower.
Looks better for Elio. Much better.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-are-giving-engineers-a-fuel-economy-headache