The thing that I tend to think about on Earth Day every year is the transition to sustainable energy and transportation. That starts with the electrification of cars. When we started with a Nissan Leaf in 2014, even with the limited range it was pretty obvious that it was workable. The next year we got the Model S, and began driving all over the east coast in a fully electric car. While the cost was absurd, it did prove that the technology existed even then for a long-range, fully electric car. For nearly a decade now, we've been without gasoline. I can't imagine ever going back. It's extraordinary to have home be your "gas station."
Back then, only a fraction of a percent of cars sold in the US, and indeed the world, were EV's. Today, it's globally expected to be nearly 1 in 5, and here in the US, 1 in 10. In Norway, an enormous country that gets very cold, they're nearly at 90% electric for new cars. What makes it especially great is that there are so many options now, and nearly all can use the nearly ubiquitous Supercharger network. I still maintain that public charging isn't that important, but it seems to be the biggest hangup that non-EV owners have. (We haven't used public charging in about two years.) There are still anecdotes people put up about why they "can't" go electric, but other than the cost, which still starts in the low $40k range, I don't think that most of the reasons are particularly valid. I mean, there are Uber drivers putting 100k miles on EV's per year now.
The cost difference is interesting, because the cost to drive is less than a third than if we were buying gas. Diana has driven about 14,000 miles in the last year, using about $600 in electricity (some of which generated by our solar plant). Assuming a gas version of her car could get 25 mpg, and gas averaged $3.20 per gallon, the gas cost would have been about $1,800. So even assuming our entire draw was from the grid, even though it's more like 45%, over five years the fuel cost savings is $6,000. Maintenance cost is less too, with no oil to change, and brakes that effectively never need to be replaced.
I wish the transition was going faster, but Norway shows that it's largely a matter of will. It is our future, and not a question of if, only when.
Oh, and our solar has produced nearly $14,000 in electricity in seven years. That puts us on schedule for a 10-year return on investment.
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