Bye LEAF, Hello Niro

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Today the Niro became available for test drive and purchase, and I got the next available appointment. CarMax was super busy and they weren’t able to see me until nearly an hour after I arrived (ugh) but the process went pretty well.

I gave the car a test-drive and found that I really like it, and the OBD check showed no battery degradation whatsoever, so I decided to go through with the purchase. So now I have the nicest car I’ve ever owned (after giving the LEAF a little pat and telling it I appreciated our time together).

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Car update

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I ended up paying the $700 to get the Niro EV shipped to my local dealership and reserve it for my purchase. All of the reviews of this particular model are quite stellar, and this specific car is an incredible deal (as far as I can tell it’s deeply discounted since it was a former lease vehicle but it’s still in immaculate condition). I should be able to give it a test drive in a week or so.

This isn’t my dream car but it’s a hell of a lot better than my current car in every way that matters. Plus, all of the reviews that touch upon winter driving say that it actually has really good traction control and only experiences minimal range loss. And it still has a much bigger (2.5x) range to begin with.

It’s annoying to be spending this money right now but I’m fortunate that I can swing it and don’t have to go into debt as a result.

Electric vehicle charging and carbon offsets

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One of the reasons that people buy an electric vehicle is to reduce their carbon footprint. Even if you live in an area where electricity is primarily generated by fossil fuel, the amount of emissions that come from generating electricity to power a vehicle is much lower than the equivalent emissions than you get from an internal combustion engine, due to things like carbon capture and the overall economy of scale that comes with power generation. And, of course, many areas are moving away from fossil fuels for power generation to begin with; electricity is fungible and with the increase in renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric, electric vehicles' overall environmental footprint will improve along with the electrical grid.

So, of course, one of the more maddening trends in environmental policy of late is the purchasing of “carbon offsets” or “carbon credits,” where polluters spend money on things that will supposedly make up for their pollution. Many of these offsets are a total scam, where the offset is just buying into not making the environment worse (for example, by not bulldozing a forest that was already protected to begin with).

The intersection of these two things is that many of the electric vehicle companies (both manufacturers and charging networks) are selling carbon offsets — against the very same customers who are paying good money to do their part to reduce emissions in the first place. This negates the environmental benefit of electric vehicles, and most EV owners would probably like to know which companies are double-dipping in this way.

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More rambling about electric vehicles

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I don’t know why my brain keeps on fixating on EVs. I already have my Leaf SL, and I’m really happy with it all in all. I try to be excited about future tech and this usually manifests in me starting to think about what car I’d buy next, which then starts to feel like me planning to buy another car, even though I really don’t need to.

Anyway, a lot of my thoughts about the current cars worth mention have changed since that last article, and here’s my current thoughts on things.

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Electric vehicles in 2023

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I’m a pretty unabashed fan of battery electric vehicles.

Well, I am slightly abashed in the fact that I feel like it’d be much better if mass transit were more accessible in more places, and even the most efficient BEV still has some pretty severe ecological issues associated with them (lithium refinement, impact of manufacturing the vehicle itself, parking space, road space, externalities of power production, etc.), but as a form of harm reduction in the society that we are stuck in within the vast majority of the continental US, they’re still way better than internal combustion engine cars, for those whose lifestyles require a car and can accommodate the (vanishing) limitations of a BEV. Even in areas where most electricity is generated by fossil fuels, the environmental impact of charging a BEV (with emissions generated in a centralized location) is much lower than the impact of carrying a little inefficient fossil fuel combustion source everywhere you go.

So, BEVs are an improvement. The thing is, the state of BEVs is pretty abysmal in general, at least in North America. In other parts of the world there’s some pretty compelling vehicles available (such as the MG4) but the US auto market is currently emphasizing large “crossover SUVs” and pickup trucks, and combined with the fascination of maximizing the car’s range, most BEVs coming out here are forced into a situation of having a gigantic battery, raising the overall vehicle price, and therefore meaning that every electric vehicle ends up being some ultra high-end luxury car.

Update (1/16/2023): Added some stuff about the Hyundai/Kia duality that I’d missed previously. Also a change of opinion on the EV6.

Update (3/31/2023): Chevrolet is making a very bad decision

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An open letter to Gov. Jay Inslee

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I have some concerns about the way that taxes are being levied against owners of electric vehicles.

I have recently acquired a used Nissan Leaf to replace my internal-combustion engine vehicle. I opted to do this replacement specifically because I don’t drive particularly much, and I wanted to reduce my environmental impact primarily for maintaining a vehicle that I only drive minimally.

It is very rare that I drive even 1000 miles in any particular year, and usually it’s more on the order of 250-500 miles. As such, I was typically buying around $50 worth of fuel in a year, as an upper estimate.

So imagine my surprise when I got my first car registration tab, and was on the hook for $150/year in a gas tax offset! Given that the Washington State gas tax is assessed at a rate of around 13% of the cost of fuel, that’s a personal increase of around 2200% for me.

On top of that, the additional $75/year surcharge for building and maintaining more EV infrastructure is a bit shortsighted. I definitely believe that EV infrastructure should be developed, but it should be as an incentive for people to switch to EVs — meaning that it should be assessed to drivers of internal-combustion vehicles, not those of us who have already invested in making the switch. Or, at the very least, should be applied to the vehicle registration fees for everyone.

This infrastructure fee is even more concerning when the proposed charging costs will be the same as the commercial stations, the reason given being that they do not want to compete with private enterprise. In that case, why even bother providing a public infrastructure option, instead of simply encouraging more private charging stations to open up, or encouraging individuals to make their infrastructure available to others on services such as PlugShare?

The current tax structure is actually disincentivizing people from making a switch to electric vehicles, and only puts even more of a burden on those of us who have decided to help the planet.

Just to be clear, I do absolutely agree that those of us with EVs need to pay our fair share in maintaining road infrastructure. But it needs to be a fair share.

Thank you for your consideration.

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