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HF and electric cars

longhaireddwb

W9WDX Amateur Radio Club Member
Oct 8, 2008
555
30
38
Colorado Springs, CO
Ive been kicking around the idea of getting an electric car as i drive about 50 miles to work 6 days a week and with the price of fuel...

Anyway, has anyone thought about how well hf/radio without an amp would work in this type of car? Noise? Battery drain? Any comments on this or things i should think about?
 

Ive been kicking around the idea of getting an electric car as i drive about 50 miles to work 6 days a week... things i should think about?

the radio issue aside,.......

have you actually computed how long it will take to just break even, considering the initial sale price cost difference and the cost of charging and replacing the battery?

when you add in maint, battery replacement, cost of electrical charging, ect, the numbers just don't work......... YMMV (pun intended):D
 
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I havent checked into all the numbers yet. Right now its just an idea. Checking out some forums is a good idea! Thanks for that one m42duster. Ill do it.
I get lots of ideas and most of the time they dont pan out.
 
Don't take this the wrong way, but why would you spend tens of thousands of dollars on a car in order to save a few dollars (more or less) on fuel? :blink: How many years of fuel "savings" will it take before those savings pay for the car itself?
 
Most of the taxi companies here run toyota hybrids with no problems, but the comms are uhf.At our current fuel price( about $1.60 a liter, after dollar conversion and 4 liters per US gallon, thats $6 Usd a gallon) it doesn't make financial sense for the average motorist to go hybrid just Yet.Give it a few more years and it will be problem we will all have to face like it or not.
 
I know a guy in town who bought an electric car, tesla I think it was, years ago before the electric car really caught on in the mainstream market. They are made in the states and he got it new for like 10 or 12k and he lauded that car. He would recite all the math on his savings, I think it cost him a penny a mile at the time...of course that was 8 or 9 years ago. But I still see him driving it around town in it.
He definitely got his monies worth.
Id say if you are in the market for a new car, go for it.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk 2
 
Thanks for the reply.
I seen the tesla sedan on tv the other day. They had a interview with the guy who designed them. Hes got more money then all of us put together. He also builds rockets for nasa. They say right now they sell for almost 100k but trying to design a lower cost battery and it should drop the price down to 30k. Nice looking vehicle for a car. Of course computer driven.
Ill keep doing my investegating on this but its is sounding cheeper to run and maintain although know one says anything about battery life as i can see so far. Thats a biggie!
 
I did the math on the electric cars when I was commuting 80 miles a day round trip. It doesn't pan out for us average income folks. I think the electric car thing is for the wealthy so they can talk about how they are helping the environment by driving an electric car. I was looking on the Tesla site yesterday and they start around $70k and are cool looking cars. I'll just keep paying $3.70 for fuel, cheap insurance and drive my paid off 1999 Mazda pickup until the wheels fall off. Thankfully I only have a 12 mile round trip to work now.
 
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I guess electric would work as every house has a supply of it. One of the problems of biofuels is that they are pushing up food prices a lot.
 
I did the math on the electric cars when I was commuting 80 miles a day round trip. It doesn't pan out for us average income folks. I think the electric car thing is for the wealthy so they can talk about how they are helping the environment by driving an electric car. I was looking on the Tesla site yesterday and they start around $70k and are cool looking cars. I'll just keep paying $3.70 for fuel, cheap insurance and drive my paid off 1999 Mazda pickup until the wheels fall off. Thankfully I only have a 12 mile round trip to work now.

Yep. Simply put, the math usually never works out. You may be "saving" money on fuel, but you've just borrowed, at interest, a minimum of $20K to save a few dollars at the pump. Then there's the immediate increase in your electric bill. It's like spending a dollar in order save twenty cents.

From a financial standpoint, it's simply cheaper to keep your gas guzzling vehicle -- ESPECIALLY if it's paid for. ;)
 

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