[InvisiBill]

Originally Posted by Cafe Racer

There might be something wrong with my math, but it really looks to me this electric motorcycle is pure bullshit.

I looked up those fast charging stations. They appear to charge something like $.35/minute.

I think I read it takes about and hour to fast charge a live wire. Man that works out to $21 dollars to go something like 70 miles at highway speeds. Cost per mile $.30.

My Harley Fatboy sucks lots of high octane gas, but I get around 30 miles per gallon.

Cost per mile $3.00 gas per gallon costs me 10 cents per mile. Three times the cost per mile, you can only go a third of the distance, your stuck at 60-70mph, then you have to wait an hour to charge. So drive an hour and wait an hour and spend three times to money.

Ok so I did not include oil and filters. BFD.

Your numbers are correct. H-D is partnering with Electrify America, which is the company created by VW as a penalty for Dieselgate. They charge based on what rate you're using to recharge, with most of the ones I've looked at being $0.30-$1.00/min. https://www.electrifyamerica.com/pricing

Originally Posted by https://www.harley-davidson.com/us/en/about-us/hd-news/2019/livewire-beckons-new-moto-experience.html

All participating authorized Harley-Davidson dealers selling the LiveWire model will offer a public DCFC charging station at their dealership. U.S. LiveWire customers will receive free charging on ChargePoint stations at participating LiveWire dealers for the first two years. Additionally, Harley-Davidson will provide U.S. LiveWire owners with 500 kWh of free charging service at Electrify America DCFC charging stations.

That helps ease the cost of charging, but every single L2 charger (mostly ChargePoint) I've seen around here is free, other than the one in the parking ramp at the arena (the city charges you to get into the ramp, then has a meter on the parking spot at the charging station too).

From the little I've seen of it, the EA network seems to have been built to make a profit, or at least not risk losing any money. I wouldn't mind paying actual cost for the electricity I use to charge, or even a little more to help cover the costs involved with the charging station. The LiveWire's battery is about the same capacity as the Volt, so it should be about $2.00 worth of electricity at average home rates. If you're paying $20 for that at a charging station, that's a hefty premium. H-D doesn't list exact charging specs, but at least it looks like the relatively slow "fast charging" should fall into the cheapest EA pricing bracket (though it would still fall into that same pricing bracket even if it were 3x as fast).

Once again, it feels to me like they went the route that looks the best at first glance on paper, but actually ends up being pretty crappy when you get into the details. Adding to my previous statement, I'd much prefer ubiquitous, free 2 hour charging over expensive, rare 1 hour charging and 10+ hour everywhere-else charging. For anyone who does buy a LiveWire, I'd try to use the free ChargePoint dealership chargers as much as possible for the first two years, and save your 500kWh (about 26 full charges) of free EA charging for after that.

Originally Posted by Cafe Racer

Why are there so many roof tops covered with solar panels in New Jersey?
Maybe because they are government subsidized. If they had to be profitable you would see zero panels in New Jersey. NJ got a low sun angle and lots of cloudy days. Now Austin Texas different story, 320 sunny days a year.

Keep in mind that Berlin is at 52.52°N. That's the same latitude as Newfoundland (i.e. north of the entire ConUS). A couple years ago, Germany managed to get 85% of their energy from renewables. At the peak of that, solar was providing about half of all the power.

Just a few weeks ago, an energy auction for the rights to produce electricity from wind turbines off the coast of Germany startled most observers when it resulted in record low prices despite the fact that no energy subsidies were involved in the tender. Critics of renewables like to harp on the fact that many renewable energy projects are partially funded by government incentives, conveniently forgetting that those same governments have been giving away taxpayer money to fossil fuel companies for a century.

We've been giving the oil companies so much money for so long that everyone seems to have forgotten about it...

Originally Posted by DannoXYZ

Yes, variable costs in dollars-per-mile with EV simply cannot compare with petrol. You've got additional conversion-steps in between that's not 100% efficient. Users reporting lower costs are having lots of their charging subsidised by their work, or malls or city.

I suspect it's another ploy by gov. and oil-companies to get everyone converted, then tax and raise prices.

Electric is cheaper than gas. ~$1.25 worth of electricity gets you about a gallon of gas worth of miles (~35mi in the Volt and similar EV cars). As long as gas is more than $1.25/gal, it's cheaper to use electricity. Besides just pure cost out of the consumer's pocket, there are other benefits to electric driving. Generally better performance, quieter/smoother ride, no ICE maintenance (or reduced, in the case of a hybrid), reduction in all the foreign issues related to oil, etc. Even if gas fell to $1/gal, I'd probably still choose to use the slightly-more-expensive electric as much as possible in my Volt, just because it's nicer to drive without an engine and refuel in my own garage.