YSPH Sustainability Coffee Hour - "Electric Vehicles: Taking Charge of Vehicle Choices"

November 06, 2020

Information

November 4, 2020

Sten Vermund, Dean
Paul Cleary, Former Dean
Robert Dubrow, YCCCH Director (Moderator)
Denise Meyer, Web Coordinator

ID5850

To CiteDCA Citation Guide

00:03- We're all set.
00:05- Okay so, thanks Heidi.
00:07So, I'm Robert Dubrow, for those of you who don't know me.
00:11I'm co-chair of the School of Public Health
00:14Sustainability Committee that I co-chair
00:16that committee with Heidi.
00:18And this is a very informal gathering
00:22to provide the community with information
00:24about electric vehicles.
00:28So, just real briefly, and most of you
00:30probably know this already, but electric vehicles
00:35have very important environmental and climate advantages.
00:39First of all in use they are zero emissions,
00:45but secondly, if they're charged with electricity
00:48that's generated from renewable energy
00:52then they're truly zero emissions,
00:56whereby they're not generating greenhouse gas emissions
01:00in any way.
01:04And in fact, most of you have probably heard
01:06that the state of California now has a policy
01:11that starting in 2035, it will be illegal
01:16to sell an internal combustion engine
01:21vehicle in California.
01:23So, they all will have to be electric vehicles.
01:26Sorry, those are new vehicles.
01:27Used vehicles will still be permitted.
01:31So, today we have panelists who own electric vehicles.
01:38The panelists are me, Paul Cleary, Denise Meyer,
01:49Dean Stanvermund and I'm looking
01:52to see if Cassidy made it.
01:54Cassidy said she wasn't feeling well this morning
01:56so she may not have made it.
01:58Okay, so I guess there are, we have four panelists.
02:01And so, some of the issues you probably
02:05wanna hear about are things like,
02:08what's it like to drive?
02:10Is it different?
02:10How convenient is it?
02:12What's the cost compared to a conventional
02:15gasoline powered vehicle?
02:18How about maintenance?
02:20Issues like that, and so I thought we could start
02:23just by going around to the panelists
02:26and having you just comment on whatever
02:28you think you'd like to say
02:31about your experience of driving an electric vehicle.
02:35So maybe we could start with Paul Cleary.
02:41- Okay, those are good, first of all,
02:44thanks for organizing this.
02:45Those are good topics.
02:47I would say the question I get asked most often
02:52is the convenience.
02:54I own a Tesla and so, the performance
02:57is as good or better than any car
02:59I've ever owned.
03:01So that's not an issue.
03:02But the question comes up, is it a hassle?
03:05How convenient it is?
03:06My car has about a 270 mile range
03:13and I've learned that you have
03:14to think about it a little,
03:15but less and less as charging stations become available.
03:19Tesla has supercharging stations
03:21and then there's stations really all over.
03:25For example, when I take my car
03:28there's a charging station at the airport
03:30which they charge for free.
03:32If I go on the train there's a charging station
03:36in the New Haven train station.
03:38There's one at my grocery store, which is Bishop's.
03:41There's one at the garden center.
03:43There's even one at the local brewery in Bradford.
03:47And increasingly there are charging stations
03:52throughout the country.
03:54So, Tesla is every, almost every month
03:57expanding the number of stations
04:00and for example, I just checked on my phone
04:03before we started, I have like four different apps,
04:07the car washes list where the charging stations are.
04:10There's an app called Flex Share, Charge Hub
04:16and Connect, all of them if you click on them
04:19they'll tell you where charging stations
04:21with different capacity and so on are.
04:24And I would say I've never had to do much more
04:29than just be aware of it except a couple years ago
04:33whenever I was skiing in New Hampshire
04:34I got sort of on the end of my charge
04:36and had a little bit difficulty.
04:37But they're adding charge stations in those areas.
04:41My neighbor, Erol Frickrick, has driven
04:44to the DC area and back without any issues.
04:46So, it's really quite convenient.
04:50Because of the way the cars are run
04:55there's almost no maintenance in my car.
04:58You don't have any fluids.
04:59You don't have, except for brakes,
05:01a lot of the mechanical issues are obviated.
05:05So, I've had a couple little things
05:08to take care of, like the door sticking and so on.
05:11But, there're many fewer maintenance issues
05:15and the cost, to be honest, I haven't gone
05:20into the sharp pencil part of it.
05:23People claim that it is cheaper than electricity.
05:28When I lived in Bradford I put in solar panels,
05:30so it was, basically I was charging my car
05:33from the sun, so I wasn't using
05:36the non-renewable resources that have to use,
05:42that are used to run power plants.
05:44So I would say on those issues that you raised,
05:47the cost is less.
05:48The convenience is, I have to think about it a little bit,
05:53but I would say it's become almost seamless.
05:55I plug in the car every night,
05:56I get up and I go and I've never,
05:58with maybe one or two exceptions
06:00a couple years ago on long trips,
06:03I've never had any issues
06:04with getting charged.
06:06Tesla has this thing called super chargers.
06:09So well, I can go to Hartford Airport and back
06:14without charging, but if I'm going
06:16to go somewhere in New York and it's
06:20a little bit longer and at super charger station
06:23I can charge 80% of the car in 20 minutes.
06:25So, I stop, get a cup of coffee or get
06:27something to eat, come back out
06:30and the car's charged and ready to go.
06:31So I'm just absolutely ecstatic about it and pleased
06:36and I think it's very functional.
06:37I'll stop to see if anyone has any questions.
06:46- [Questioner] Yeah Brian, I have a question.
06:48Do you ever find that these charging stations are filled up
06:52with other people trying to charge up
06:54and you don't have access to one of 'em?
06:57- I would say, I would say a year ago
07:00I would say that has never happened.
07:02As people get interested in it, it has.
07:05So for example, it used to be you'd go
07:07to the train station and you get free charging.
07:10The charging station was down on the ground floor,
07:14which was the closest spot and there
07:15was never anyone there.
07:18Once or twice or three times recently
07:20when I've gone to the train station it's been full,
07:23which to me is a good thing.
07:26On the other hand, the apps will tell you
07:30whether or not there're spots available or not.
07:32So, it used to be go to a Tesla station
07:35and there'd be no cars.
07:36Now you go and I would say once or twice
07:40I haven't been able to get in and I had
07:42to go get a cup of coffee and wait or something.
07:44But it's being compensated for by the proliferation
07:49of charging stations.
07:53- I have one quick question.
07:54- Go ahead Brian.
07:56- I'm just wondering if like I have always heard this
07:59about electric cars, and other batteries as well,
08:04like over time does the capacity diminish?
08:08Like your 270 miles, a year ago was it 290
08:13and then a year from now, will it be 250,
08:15or does that not so much happen any more?
08:19- The answer is certainly yes,
08:22with the caveat that we don't really know.
08:24And what I mean by that, one thing I didn't mention is
08:28the capacity goes down dramatically in cold weather.
08:32So, of the times I've had the trouble,
08:33as I said, I went to New Hampshire skiing
08:35and it was nighttime, it was cold,
08:37the heater was on and the batteries
08:39just don't perform as well.
08:41So, that's one factor.
08:43My car has gone down, you know, it used to be,
08:45when I got it it was like 274.
08:48Now it's like 268 or something.
08:51My car is like four or five years old.
08:52But, I don't think we really know how fast
08:58or how far the Tesla batteries deteriorate,
09:02but any battery does.
09:04That's almost certainly going to happen,
09:06but I don't think we have, others may have
09:08different experiences, but I'm at like 268 or something.
09:13You can start to see it ebb away, but we don't know,
09:18if I keep the car 10 years,
09:19we don't know yet, I don't think.
09:23Others may have different experiences.
09:26- I'd like to chime in, can you hear me?
09:30So, we've had a 2000.
09:35- I can barely hear you, Stan.
09:36- Oh, I'm sorry.
09:47Is that better.
09:48- No, can't hear you at all.
09:52No, when you had the headphones on
09:54we could at least hear you.
10:02- Is that working?
10:08- We can barely hear you.
10:16- It's not working.
10:20It's not working.
10:28- No.
10:31It's getting a little better.
10:33- Okay, if you can hear me I'll just speak up.
10:36Can you hear me okay now?
10:39- Yes, much better.
10:40- Okay, I'm sorry about that.
10:41I am still trying to figure out
10:46this new headphones.
10:47But, we had a 2002 Prius and nobody knew
10:58how long the batteries were going to last
11:02and I gave that car away this year
11:06mostly because it needed a catalytic converter
11:11and a bunch of other, needed about $1800
11:15worth of non-battery related upgrades
11:18and I just, I wanted to buy an electric car,
11:20so I gave it to a friend who's an amateur
11:24car repair guy.
11:27So, we had predictions that the most it would last,
11:35this battery would be 100,000 miles
11:37and when I gave it away it was 130,000 miles.
11:41There was a slight diminishing
11:44in performance in the car,
11:49not so much that I could really notice it,
11:52but the folks at the Toyota dealership told me.
11:56And I do believe that it's unknown,
12:00just as Paul said, the extent to which these new era
12:05batteries in electric cars, as opposed to hybrid cars,
12:10will last, but I have to say, I'm terribly optimistic
12:14because all of the predictions of prior era
12:19technology since 2002 is a long time ago
12:23in the battery field.
12:25All of the dire predictions that they would
12:27only last five, 10 years were completely wrong.
12:30And so, I'm pretty optimistic that this
12:33new technology are going to be long acting batteries,
12:41shall we say, the EverReady Bunny.
12:46- I have one comment I think is pertinent to this
12:49and then I'd like to turn it over to Denise.
12:53So, we decided, we bought our,
12:57we got our electric vehicle, which is
12:59a Chevy Bolt, at the beginning of 2020
13:03and we decided to do a three year lease
13:08because the reason is that I'm predicting
13:12that battery technology has been improving
13:15and I think it's gonna keep improving.
13:17So I didn't wanna kind of lock in for the longer term.
13:23And so, that's kind of one approach to this.
13:27For one thing, in three years I don't think
13:31deterioration of the battery performance
13:34is gonna be an issue over just three years.
13:36And secondly, my guess, my prediction is that the range
13:40is gonna keep improving so that if two or three
13:46years from now, the range, the typical range
13:49might be 350 miles instead of 250, let's say.
13:56So anyway, that was one comment.
13:58So now, let me turn it over to Denise
14:00and you can talk about it.
14:01Why don't you say what kind of car you own
14:03and talk about your experience?
14:06- So, I came in on more of a budget plan.
14:10I have a 2016 C-Max which was put out by Ford.
14:15I think they've discontinued the model.
14:17It is a plug-in hybrid.
14:19So, it's plug-in electric and gas engine.
14:23So it's much smaller battery capacity,
14:26but I can go without stops and starts,
14:30I can go 23, 24 miles on pure battery.
14:34If I am doing errands around town
14:37and stopping and starting the car
14:38I'll get more like 18 'cause that's
14:40a bigger pull on the battery.
14:42What I discovered is 90% of my driving
14:46is very local and so my gas costs went way down
14:50and I did the math about three years ago,
14:55I'm not entirely sure that I did it right,
14:58but my calculations was it was like 60 cents
15:02at that point to charge for 24 miles
15:08as opposed to, at that time, $3 for a gallon of gas.
15:13So, I also discovered that 90% of my driving
15:18is very local, so I buy very little gas.
15:24My charging experiences have not been as rosy as Paul's.
15:29Yeah lots, there are very few charging stations.
15:33When I was carpooling I could get one way
15:38on battery, but I couldn't get back,
15:41very few charging stations in New Haven.
15:44Guildford Train Station does not have one.
15:46Milford has one, or has two, but one
15:49is usually broken and they're not
15:52real good about maintaining them.
15:55There's really only a couple in Guildford,
15:57so when I'm home and it's in the garage
16:03it's great, but it takes a little more planning
16:05I think, depending on where you are
16:08and what you're doing.
16:09The Ford doesn't have that super charge,
16:12but again, the technology is changing so fast
16:16that I probably, my next car, which hopefully
16:19won't be for another five or six years,
16:21will probably be all electric
16:23and I'm hoping that infrastructure is better.
16:25But, as a point of entry into a technology,
16:29I love the C-Max.
16:32As Paul said, without the combustion engine,
16:35the maintenance costs are much lower.
16:40There's just, you don't have to have
16:42all those oil changes and all those
16:44other routine things.
16:46So, and it's a really nice plus,
16:50it's a quiet car when it's on battery.
16:53It's a quiet ride.
16:57- I have a question about charging at home.
17:01Home charging.
17:03That's available I know for Tesla.
17:04I'm not sure for others, but you do have
17:07to get a special device to charge it from your home, no?
17:11- On my Ford I didn't have a 220 outlet,
17:14so I just go into a regular 120.
17:17I've just put in a 220, so I can buy
17:20a new adapter and do that if I want.
17:22But, it takes six hours on a 120
17:25to charge for that 20 miles.
17:27So, it's you know.
17:29- When you do that do your lights dim in your house?
17:32- Nope.
17:33- Good.
17:34Thanks.
17:36- Paul, did you wanna say something?
17:38- I was just gonna comment on a couple things Denise said.
17:41First of all, since I'm purely electric
17:45I would find it impractical to do the 115.
17:48It would just take a day or two to charge it up.
17:51So, we put in 220, but I think as Daniel just noted
17:55it's not a big deal.
17:58You just run a 220, you probably have it on your dryer
18:00or appliance, you just put, I just put a plug
18:03in the garage and charged it.
18:06But, to Denise's first point, what her typical
18:09driving is, when I was buying my car
18:11I was going, well, what if do this
18:12and what if I go to Washington
18:14and what if I do this?
18:15And he says look, why don't you tell me
18:18what you do in a typical week or month.
18:21And when I did that it was quite instructive
18:24'cause the reality is well, I go to work every day,
18:28so I didn't need to, I don't need to charge at work.
18:31I charge at home.
18:33I go to the airport, used to go to the airport
18:34three, four times a month, but I could go there and back.
18:38And it's instructive.
18:41I think anyone on the call should just write down
18:42what you do with a vehicle in the course of a month.
18:46My guess is, it's like Denise, it's much more local
18:50than one worries about when you're saying,
18:54what's the boundary condition of the car.
18:57Your typical use is usually much lower.
19:00I never used actually the charge at the local grocer
19:08or the garden center and stuff, 'cause I just
19:10go out and do the things I do, go to work,
19:13come back, I don't go to work anymore,
19:15but used to go to the office and come back,
19:17just charge it at home.
19:19And the only time I really would charge
19:21it in the train station mainly 'cause it was free
19:24and it was kinda cool.
19:25I'd go to New York for the day
19:26and come back with a charged car.
19:27But, most of the things you can do
19:30in very limited radius as Denise indicated.
19:34- Yeah, just to build on that.
19:35As I said, we've owned the car since
19:39the beginning of 2020 and of course,
19:41it's been special circumstances, but we've never
19:45used an outside charger.
19:46We've only charged at home.
19:48And the range is about 240 miles on the Chevy Bolt.
19:55And so, actually we never have taken a trip,
19:59that round trip has been more than 240 miles,
20:03except for one time.
20:05We traveled to Burlington, Vermont
20:07and in that case we decided the easiest thing,
20:11simplest, which is about 275 miles one way
20:15and we decided the easiest thing to do
20:17would be to rent the car, conventional car.
20:19So, that's what we did.
20:22I think a disadvantage of the Bold compared to Tesla
20:26is that, Paul, correct me if I'm wrong,
20:31but I believe those super charger charging stations
20:34are Tesla specific.
20:36Do you know if that's the case?
20:37- Yeah, that's correct.
20:38They are, I don't know, they operate
20:40at something like 450 volts or something.
20:42Yeah, they're Tesla specific.
20:45- Yeah, the Bolt doesn't charge,
20:49have a charging station that charges that fast.
20:52So, that's what made it more kind of inconvenient
20:55to take a trip to Burlington because I believe
21:00the fastest, it's called a level three
21:03charging station, for the Bolt only does
21:07about 20 miles, only puts on about 20 miles an hour.
21:13So obviously, to fully charge it you'd have
21:16to do it overnight.
21:17So anyway, that is a disadvantage.
21:21But we actually decided up front
21:23that, and we did that calculation,
21:25like how often do we really travel very far.
21:29And the answer was we don't.
21:30And we decided we'd just rent a car
21:32when we needed to and we still save
21:35a lot of money I think.
21:38- I should add, when I got my car
21:40the super chargers were free.
21:42So, if I'm going to New York I stop in Milford,
21:45plug it in, get a cup of coffee
21:47or if I go to the train station it's free.
21:51They now charge and to be honest,
21:54I don't know what the charge is.
21:54So, if you buy a Tesla tomorrow morning
21:57there's a charge for using the super charger.
22:01It almost had to happen.
22:02I couldn't see how it was sustainable
22:04to have free charging to some people.
22:08They'll go just charge their car only
22:10at the super charger if they're near one.
22:12- They may give you a year of free charging, Paul.
22:18- Okay.
22:21- I wanna make one other comment and then see
22:23if Stan wants to talk specifically
22:26about your experiences.
22:28It was about up front cost.
22:29We haven't dealt with that yet.
22:32So I could just, I could talk about the Bolt,
22:35which I can say runs great.
22:38I love it's really quiet, as Denise
22:40was talking about.
22:42I love the quiet ride and it has really good pick up.
22:46I'd say it performs better than any gasoline
22:51powered car I've ever owned.
22:53But so, the cost, a new Bolt costs,
22:56well it depends on the features,
22:58but the average Bolt is roughly $38,000 to $40,000,
23:04and we got a deal kind of, we bought new 2019
23:11in early 2020, so they gave us a good deal.
23:14And so, for the lease, for the three year lease
23:17the total amount that we're paying over the three years
23:20is about $11,000.
23:23That's pretty good for three years.
23:27And so, I think some are more affordable than others,
23:31but EVs are becoming more and more affordable.
23:35So Stan, do you wanna talk a little bit
23:37about your experience?
23:39- My experience mimics Paul's almost exactly.
23:45In fact, Paul was an inspiration for our thinking
23:48about the electric vehicle 'cause we had owned
23:52exclusively owned, hybrid vehicles since 2002,
23:56all of our cars were hybrids.
23:58Out two sons, my wife and myself.
24:01And we really thought that wasn't enough
24:04given the circumstance of global warming
24:08and we looked at the plug-in hybrids
24:13and Denise did a great job reviewing
24:16the pluses there.
24:20You can do all of your local travel.
24:23Maybe you're commuting, all electric.
24:25And then, if you have to go to Burlington, Vermont
24:27you're in a hybrid.
24:29So, it's kinda the best of both worlds.
24:35Currently just out of philosophy
24:40because we went solar in our house
24:45and so we thought if we went solar in our cars.
24:49(garbled audio)
24:54So, that was the biggest gift for him we could make
24:58and since at this stage in my life
25:02finances are not the biggest challenge.
25:04I have the resources to go somewhere in my house
25:08and to buy an electric car, I thought
25:12it would be a good thing to do.
25:14And the experience with the car is absolutely remarkable.
25:19It's almost like a sports car.
25:21It's so lively and so responsive.
25:25It has so little maintenance attached to it.
25:27It really seemed like we were making a leap
25:30into a whole new advanced technology
25:33that is unambiguously the wave of the future
25:37and we were just dazzled at how mature
25:40that technology was already.
25:43The first time that we took it on a trip
25:48I had forgotten to plug it in and it was winter
25:52and my wife had a 6 a.m. flight to Puerto Rico
25:55and we stayed at the airport just for her convenience.
25:58And then I was driving to work to have
26:00my meeting with Heidi and I ran out of energy.
26:05It was somewhere around Wallingford,
26:09my car told me I was done.
26:13And I found on the web the nearest
26:16charging station, which happened
26:18to be a Choate School, for those of you
26:20who know where Choate is.
26:22So, I plugged in there for an hour
26:24and got enough to limp my way
26:27to the university and it was not a super charger,
26:33it was just a conventional charging.
26:35I had to figure out how to sign up
26:37and sync my credit card and just some pretty basic stuff.
26:42And I had my meeting with Heidi as I was pacing
26:47the Choate parking lot 'cause I called her instead.
26:50So, there was a humorous element to it.
26:53And then on my way home I barely had enough,
26:58so I stopped at a local Greek diner
27:00that has a Tesla plug-in.
27:03So it was that one untoward experience
27:06the very first week that we owned the car
27:08where I didn't know what I was doing.
27:11Beyond that, it's been a year of smooth sailing
27:15and really no problems at all, easy to find charger.
27:20It's easy to charge them up, super charger,
27:23as Paul said, 20 minutes.
27:24Conventional chargers, you can plug it in for an hour.
27:37- Thanks, Stan.
27:39Daniel, did you wanna say anything?
27:40You've posted a few comments.
27:45- Yeah, so I mean, I've had a Bolt for about three years.
27:53I put in some of the, here I was just writing
27:56another comment, road trips you do have
27:59to do some work ahead of time,
28:02but it's usually something you can figure out.
28:05Here, I'll just type in that comment I was gonna send.
28:08Other thing, let me just type it up
28:11'cause it'll be easier to write than to say,
28:12but I think people should think
28:14about their energy plans that they're using.
28:19So, let me put in the chat about that.
28:23- Okay thanks.
28:26One thing I wanted to say is it's really great
28:29never having to go to a gas station.
28:32I can't imagine ever attending a gas station
28:36again in my life or ever owning a gasoline powered vehicle.
28:41I mean, the EVs are just so much more fun to drive
28:47and more convenient in so many ways
28:50except you know, for the ranges if you have
28:54to go on a longer trip, at least for me in the Bolt.
29:00So, are there any questions, comments, concerns?
29:05Feel free to raise anything, any kind of issues
29:08that you'd like.
29:09- Denise had her hand up.
29:11- Okay.
29:12- I did.
29:13One advantage of my kinda hybrid was of course,
29:17I could go on a trip.
29:18And last year I actually drove to the south,
29:22to Alabama, and I think if you're going to travel
29:26to that part of the country you probably
29:29are gonna have a lot more problems
29:30than you did in the northeast.
29:33I did not see one charging station south of Pennsylvania.
29:39- I have a friend with a new electric car
29:42and he went from Tennessee to California
29:47and he managed it well, but only because he
29:50planned very carefully,
29:53for exactly the reason that Denise outlined.
29:56And he told me he barely made his planned
30:00charging station in Arkansas.
30:02You know, just made it with a few miles to spare,
30:06so to speak.
30:08And he just mapped it out and he just decided
30:12this is where I recharge and have dinner.
30:14This is where I recharge, et cetera.
30:16So, Denise is right that we are well endowed
30:21in the northeast and people should feel
30:23very comfortable getting an electric car
30:25in terms of the logistics of being able to charge
30:27if they make a longer trip.
30:29But, most of us charge at home
30:32'cause we're not going more than 200 miles
30:34in a given day.
30:38- The problem with that is that it's a technology
30:41that's very suitable for suburban homeowners
30:44and very difficult for apartment dwellers.
30:46- That's true.
30:47That's one reason my son has not gotten
30:49an electric car 'cause he's in a townhouse
30:53and he's not controlling his parking garage
30:56and he has yet to negotiate
30:59that with the homeowners association,
31:04so you're absolutely right.
31:08- I have a question.
31:10- Yeah, go ahead.
31:12- I actually wanna, I actually had looked
31:14into gettin' a Tesla.
31:16I actually went and test drove it and I was
31:19kinda really impressed with how nice it drove.
31:22But, I'm actually have a 70 mile commute
31:25and I kind of was sort of put away
31:32from an electric car after we had
31:34that big power outage.
31:35And like I would not even have been able
31:36to get to work.
31:37How would I have charged my car?
31:39How would I have been able to go?
31:41So, that was kind of, I'm kind of worried about that,
31:45with the power outages we have.
31:48I mean, I was out of power for six days.
31:51So, how can you guys, were you guys able
31:53to charge at, I guess, I don't know how long
31:57you guys lost power.
31:59- That's actually, thanks for raising that point.
32:03That's really quite important that when we have
32:05these power outages you're always reminded
32:07how much you're dependent on power.
32:09When I used to live in Bradford and we had
32:13the big storm and we had power out
32:15for about a week or so I couldn't use the car.
32:19You're right, until the power was on.
32:21I have a generator where we are now
32:23'cause we lose power couple times a year.
32:27But that is a down side.
32:29If your power goes out and you don't have
32:30alternative power you can't drive after a while,
32:34with the exception, I guess, what I did one time
32:39was I went in, I parked going into work,
32:41I went into work, parked at the train station,
32:43plugged it in to park.
32:45I guess there, Denise can say, I'm not aware
32:48of all the Yale charging stations now.
32:52That's what I did.
32:53I went into the train station and plugged
32:54it in and it charged and did that
32:55for the remaining time after, while the power was out.
33:00And now I have a generator.
33:03That's a real consideration.
33:05- Yeah, Martina, I would think that a plug-in hybrid
33:09might be a really really great option for you
33:13because they do have plug-in hybrids now
33:16that have a much longer range.
33:19And I don't know it off the top of my head,
33:21but if you could find a plug-in hybrid
33:23that had 160 mile battery range
33:26and you would always have the gas engine as a backup.
33:33- One thing, this is gonna sound a little silly,
33:36but one thing I actually did for a while was
33:39Milford has super charging stations.
33:43Milford's not next door, but it's only
33:45an extra 10 or 15 minutes really, so I'd drive
33:48towards going to Milford, get something for breakfast
33:52or a cup of coffee.
33:53The car would be totally charged up.
33:55Go to work, go home and so, that's another way
33:57of doing it.
33:58At least with Tesla there are enough super
34:01charger stations around.
34:04Another trip I make regularly is going up to Boston.
34:06There's two or three places,
34:09well three or four places that I routinely use
34:11going up there to do round trips to Boston.
34:15You have to plan it, as others have said,
34:17but it's very very manageable if you just
34:20give it a little thought.
34:22- So, those charging station are usually working
34:25even during power outages?
34:27I was wondering about that because I go by
34:28the Milford Mall every day on the way
34:31in and on the way out.
34:35- It's a good question.
34:37I've never run into them not working,
34:40but I'm sure there's I don't know.
34:44They must go out.
34:45They do have big solar panels and battery arrangements,
34:48so I don't know if they'll operate
34:49when power goes out or not.
34:54- The reason it was not a consideration for me
34:57is I have favorable public transportation
35:00near my home.
35:02I have a bus
35:06and I have a train that's not so very far.
35:09So, I have backup.
35:12So I could take a chance on a one week power outage
35:16with an electric vehicle because of that.
35:21And actually, this is all false pretenses.
35:25The electric car is actually my wife's
35:27and I still have a, I have a 2005 Prius.
35:32But, I use her car when she's not
35:34gonna be using it on a given day.
35:36She's retired and doesn't travel,
35:38doesn't drive each and every day.
35:40So I try to use the electric car as much as possible.
35:43But, if we let's say the Prius was in the shop
35:47or we get rid of the Prius.
35:50(garbled audio)
35:57- Lauren asked if there were tax incentives.
35:59My guess is Rob or someone else knows this
36:02better than I do.
36:02When I bought my Tesla there were
36:05pretty substantial tax incentives,
36:07but I was under the impression they expired
36:09a few years ago, but maybe someone else knows.
36:13At the time there were both federal and state
36:15incentives and my impression was both of those expired
36:19not long after I bought my car.
36:21Rob, do you know how those work?
36:23- You know, I believe they're vehicle specific.
36:25So, once a certain number of cars have been sold
36:29of a particular type they expire.
36:31So for example, I couldn't get any kind
36:34of tax incentive for the Bolt because they had
36:36sold enough of them.
36:37But, I don't know the specifics really.
36:39I've lost track about what the amount is, et cetera.
36:43Does anyone know the answer to that?
36:46- I don't know currently, but when I bought mine
36:48in 2016 I got $9000 in incentives.
36:52So, it's worth looking at.
36:55- There's actually a web page where you can look it up.
37:04The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
37:07It's called Cheaper and I think it gives you
37:10exactly, you can look up the models and everything
37:12and tells you if there's any incentive or not,
37:16if you get any rebates.
37:20- Several people have written comments
37:22about difficulty of charging at Yale
37:25and should Yale be encouraging it.
37:27I wonder if that's something the committee,
37:29I don't know if that's too heavy a lift,
37:33or is that something the committee could raise?
37:35My guess is it's not on a lotta people's radar screen.
37:39But, I think Tesla, if enough people petition,
37:44you know, they will respond and put charging stations
37:48in certain places.
37:49I don't know what their policy now is,
37:50but I wonder if Yale would do something
37:54about expanding the number of charging stations,
37:58not just for Tesla, but for wide.
38:01- I mean, that would be easy enough
38:03for us to raise that with the Yale Office of Sustainability
38:07and see if it's something they're already
38:09thinking about or not.
38:11I think that certainly makes a lot of sense to do that.
38:19All right, any other questions or comments?
38:29Okay, so if not I think we could wrap up.
38:35Let's see, here's something.
38:38Martina just posted the website.
38:41All right, well thanks everyone
38:46and I hope you found this to be
38:48a useful discussion and I'd encourage
38:50you all to go out and buy an electric vehicle.
38:54It's really fun.
38:56- It's the new version of Car Talk.
38:59- And let's get Yale to provide more charging stations.
39:03I think that's a very good project.
39:06- Yeah, I agree.
39:07Thanks everyone.
39:09- [Group] Thanks everyone.
39:10- Good talking to you.
39:12Sorry it's not in person, but always good to talk.
39:14- Yeah.
39:15- Thank you.