Survey Finds That People Are Aware Of Tesla, Yet Many Are Still Uneducated About EVs

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cwerdna

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2011
Messages
13,674
Location
SF Bay Area, CA
http://insideevs.com/survey-finds-people-aware-tesla-many-uneducated-evs/

All I can say is the survey results are a head scratcher and some are ummmm.... haha, wishful thinking and a case of people respond to a survey one way yet they'll do something else. Under "How many would buy an electric car?" the next time they lease/buy a car within the next 5 years, about 40% said they would. Yeah, right with pure BEV penetration rate in terms of new auto sales in the US at 1%, I find 40% way off, even if you include countries where EV adoption is greater.

The EV brand awareness survey is pretty hilarious. Nissan's not even there and look at the others on the list, esp. Toyota. :lol:

Kinda on this note, I was at Fry's in Campbell, CA last night, which is basically surrounded by San Jose, Saratoga and Los Gatos and would be considered part of Silicon Valley. The cashier saw I had a shirt from an EVent on saying essentially "buying gas is so last century..." He asked me about it and I said I drive a pure electric vehicle. He asked "which one?" I responded Nissan Leaf (I also had a Nissan Leaf cap on). He remarked he'd never heard of it! He knew of Tesla and made some goofy guess that Teslas and Nissan Leafs were possibly made in the same place. My answer was basically "no, mine was assembled in Smyrna, TN. Tesla's plant is in Fremont (CA)."

Sigh... there are so many Leafs running around in the Bay Area. We have dozens at my work besides tons of other BEVs and PHEVs. Chargepoint HQ itself is in the same city as that Fry's (https://www.chargepoint.com/about/contact/), but arguably it's buried in an business park/industrial area. Near home, I've sometimes headed down a nearby expressway to have 4 other Leafs on the same side of the road going in the same direction, all within a few hundred feet or less of me.

Also, every now and then, I see Nissan Leaf ads on TV. I guess that's why he's a cashier at Fry's?
 
If only EV owners respond the results are different than if you would poll only rural Wisconsin farm folk
 
cwerdna said:
Kinda on this note, I was at Fry's in Campbell, CA last night, which is basically surrounded by San Jose, Saratoga and Los Gatos and would be considered part of Silicon Valley. The cashier saw I had a shirt from an EVent on saying essentially "buying gas is so last century..." He asked me about it and I said I drive a pure electric vehicle. He asked "which one?" I responded Nissan Leaf (I also had a Nissan Leaf cap on). He remarked he'd never heard of it! He knew of Tesla and made some goofy guess that Teslas and Nissan Leafs were possibly made in the same place. My answer was basically "no, mine was assembled in Smyrna, TN. Tesla's plant is in Fremont (CA)."
My eldest son was here (sporting his "WWED" T-shirt) along with his cousins this weekend and they were talking about my son's Tesla.

I pointed out that my son does not have a Tesla. Instead, he drives a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid. What he actually "has" is he has given a $1000 interest-free loan to Elon Musk for a car which does not yet exist with no real idea when he might get to purchase the rest of it. He also has no place to charge his Tesla if-and-when he receives it since he lives in a condominium.

I then pointed out that we have been driving an *actual* electric car for over five years now and that we had driven nearly twice the circumference of the world in that time, with nearly all of the fuel for the vehicle being produced via PV panels on the roof of the house.

It just goes to show you that vaporware beats hardware every time!
 
I can already guess how this survey will go. I run into people nearly every day who discount EVs as an option for increasingly little reason. One couple who asked me how much it cost for me to plug in once thinking I would say some astronomical price and was shocked to hear I had been using nothing but free charging for over 2 weeks.

They became interested because gas has gone up about 30 cents a gallon in last few weeks and they were driving a 15 MPG SUV but immediately dismissed the idea of converting at least partially (one had commute of 50 miles RT, the other roughly 20) because the range wouldn't allow them to go visit their "best" friends who live 200 miles away. I asked them how often they visited their friends and they couldn't even agree on the year of the last visit!

**edit** ok curiosity overwhelmed me and I read the survey and glad I did. After all, laughter really is the best medicine and Congrats to Toyota for engineering what has to be the most effective ad campaign never launched! :shock:
 
Tesla is the only game in town when it comes to long-distance EVs. It's not even close. Range is nice, but then you eventually want to go another 200 miles, right?

http://www.greencarreports.com/news...238-mile-electric-car-shows-challenges-remain

what a joke.

Where exactly does one charge on a long-distance EV trip? GM dealership at 50 kW? not fast, not convenient. One station per location? not going to cut it for the masses.

Will Leaf 2 get me out of state? My current Leaf has been awesome. We have a very decent DC charging infrastructure here in the PNW, but I now know I want an EV that can get me out into the rest of the US of A. There's just ONE company doing this right now and ever expanding it's network. a few people agree with me.

https://electrek.co/2016/10/27/tesla-model-3-700-million-customer-deposits/

Tesla Superchargers. Get on board or get run over.

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/24/tesla-superchargers-blowing/

Please. It's embarrassing that other EV makers have no clue.

And just the facts. Tesla is real.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/13/1...release-date-unveiling-elon-musk-electric-car

why would u bother with anything short of this kind of EV? It's a complete gas car replacement, not a town run-a-bout.
 
finman100 said:
why would u bother with anything short of this kind of EV? It's a complete gas car replacement, not a town run-a-bout.

Simple. I, like many others here, have more than one car in my driveway. My wife and I each commute in opposite directions, hence we have two cars. The Leaf fits our lifestyle very well. We use it for all local errands and one of our commutes which adds up to about half of our annual miles. Pretty much anytime we go farther than 25-30 miles, we take the CMax. A Tesla would be great to replace the CMax, if I could afford one. Until then, the Leaf is much cheaper, so that's what I have.
 
why would u bother with anything short of this kind of EV? It's a complete gas car replacement, not a town run-a-bout

It's all relative...

Some people would argue that why would you bother to drive 400 + miles to another state when you can hop on a plane. Does that mean that ICE cars are obsolete too and that everyone should just take a plane everywhere they go. Now that I think of it, I'd love to have a little commuter plane. Hmm, strike that ;)

Speaking strictly as a used Leaf owner in a region where gas is getting crazy expensive, a Leaf is the ideal car for local driving. When I go on longer trips in the summer, I rent an ICE car - kind of like the way people "rent" a seat on a plane for even longer trips ;)

FYI, even after renting an ICE car for when I need it (seldom), I'm still saving over $3K a year on what I used to pour into my 2003 Santa Fe's gas tank.

A Tesla isn't even close to being in my price range, nor is a new Bolt.

In a perfect world, I'd have a $10K EV that goes 400 miles on a charge. I just need to wait 10 years :)
 
alozzy said:
why would u bother with anything short of this kind of EV? It's a complete gas car replacement, not a town run-a-bout

It's all relative...

Some people would argue that why would you bother to drive 400 + miles to another state when you can hop on a plane. Does that mean that ICE cars are obsolete too and that everyone should just take a plane everywhere they go. Now that I think of it, I'd love to have a little commuter plane. Hmm, strike that ;)

Speaking strictly as a used Leaf owner in a region where gas is getting crazy expensive, a Leaf is the ideal car for local driving. When I go on longer trips in the summer, I rent an ICE car - kind of like the way people "rent" a seat on a plane for even longer trips ;)

FYI, even after renting an ICE car for when I need it (seldom), I'm still saving over $3K a year on what I used to pour into my 2003 Santa Fe's gas tank.

A Tesla isn't even close to being in my price range, nor is a new Bolt.

In a perfect world, I'd have a $10K EV that goes 400 miles on a charge. I just need to wait 10 years :)


As far as a 400 ish mile trip, and using commercial flights, It would take longer to fly than drive, with all things considered. We should take an Aerocar!
 
Meh. At this point in our lives we never go further than a couple hundred kilometers and usually less. Not to mention there is good DCFC services in our valley, (some of them still free). A bigger battery would just be a penis size thing so meh.

Having said that when we retire in a few years we'll go with whatever is the medium size battery at the time. Will probably make longer trips then.
 
I consider myself a tech savvy person, but not necessarily a car guy. I purchased our Prius in 2007, more for the technology than the gas savings. After researching the Prius I discovered it was a very reliable car. 105k miles and 10 years later my experience has born that out.

For the past 13 years I've driven a 98 Camry purchased used, averaging 5,500 miles a year (107 mi a week). I had been toying with the idea of retiring the car soon. A Nissan Leaf was nowhere on my radar. I had even talked to someone a few years ago who purchased one of the first Leafs in our area. A chance meeting with a Leaf owner several months ago changed all that. I realized a Leaf was perfect for my use. A few short weeks later I purchased a 2014 Leaf SV with 8,700 miles for $9,800. In short order I've become a convert. I'll never buy another ICE car.

As EV enthusiasts we need to spread the word. EV's simply haven't gained the attention of the average person, educating them about the benefits of EVs is another matter. I still meet people who are fearful of the batteries in a Prius!
 
DesertSprings said:
I work at a relatively small office, and I'm amazed at how many people have a hard time getting their head around the fact my car is pure electric.


Was at a job location and the guy was asking about my LEAF and I was amazed that after I told him the Bolt was all electric, he kept mentioning his friend and gas. I told him his friend had a Volt cause he had it before the Bolt was available here but he kept going back to gas... over and over and over....
 
I was at a fast food place recently and the worker actually asked me all sorts of stuff about EVs since I was wearing my Leaf hat and might've been wearing an EV related shirt.

A customer overhead us and said something like "I hear for electric vehicles, you really need to get an extended warranty." Uhh... I asked, which make and model. He thought about it for a bit and said Honda. :roll: I replied basically with "Honda only has a Fit EV which is lease only, not available for purchase."

Remember, I'm in Silicon Valley where once on the way home, I had 4 other Leafs visible in front of me on the same side of the expressway. The fast food place was under 1.5 miles away from Chargepoint HQ.
 
People are aware of Tesla because the company is plastered all over the news, social media, popular media, etc. Tesla is the Apple of the EV car world - that's how I look at it. Even within the EV car world, you can't read or watch anything without Tesla coming up a hundred times.

Seeing as how I am relatively new to the EV car world, this is what I know/knew of them when I started looking into them and I would imagine this is similar to the general public:

EV cars have limited range - generally true and hence the whole "range anxiety" issue.

EV cars are expensive, Tesla even more so - also generally true unless you consider a $30K to $40K car as "affordable" (more for Tesla). Why should I buy an expensive no frills car for that price (which is what I consider the Leaf), that can only go like 80 miles realistically, when I can buy a fully equipped luxury high end model for the same price, maybe less, sitting next to it on the dealer lot?

Charging availability is limited - I would argue this is generally true, but will obviously vary on where you are located. If you are in California or something, probably not an issue. In my neck of the woods, nowhere that I need to go on a daily basis has charging stations.

EV dependability is limited - this is a Nissan Leaf board, anyone say reduced battery capacity? Someone used the cell phone analogy earlier and I think that is valid. Maybe it's gotten better, but it's still an issue that comes up.

Again, some of this will be subjective on the individual owner and where they are located at, but it's stuff that started popping up when I began researching these cars. So I can only imagine other people come across the same information. The fact that many of the companies who make these cars also do not seem overly concerned with advertising or pushing the product is not helping either. How many people have had experiences when they went to look at an EV and they were steered towards ICE cars instead?
 
Concerning Tesla, they are keeping themselves in the news constantly, announcing some kind of news every few days. When is the last time you heard in the news an announcement by Nissan about the Leaf? None? Sounds about right. Even the sales force and employees at Nissan dealerships do not talk them up unless the customer is specifically looking for an EV. Just like Tesla, Nissan could issue a press release once or twice each week updating the public about the good things Leaf is doing, and what is happening on battery development, what is happening on tech improvement for new Leafs, etc. However, Nissan has, on a corporate level, decided to keep the public in the dark about what is happening. Maybe afraid that any announcement of future Leafs will hurt current sales. Who knows....

We are constantly educating people we meet about EV's. We have spent $0.00 on Leaf maintenance in 50,000 miles, although we do need to replace the two front tires soon ($200 each). The back tires have another 10,000 miles on them, I think. Our ICE also has just over 50,000 miles on it and we have spent several thousand dollars on routine maintenance and service checks. We have spent nothing on repairs yet. Do not know the exact amount and don't want to take the time to figure it out, sorry. Oh, and we probably should change the cabin air filter and windshield wipers before next winter's rainy season (at least in Southern California that is what we call it).

Not that saving money is the reason, but we just bought a new Tesla S 75D. This one DOES include the Unlimited Supercharger use. We will be using it on our various cross-country and regional trips. We estimate over 15,000 miles before summer is over. Anyway, the way I was looking at it:

Vehicle Cost: $100,000 (actually a little less than that, then get the $10,000 fed and state credit/rebate)

Useful Life: 1,000,000 miles

Cost per mile:

$0.10 Vehicle cost amortization
$0.05 Vehicle service and maintenance
$0.00 Fuel cost
$0.15 Total cost of operating our Tesla Model S 75D per mile

This is less than the cost of fuel for our ICE. Plus we have Autopilot for our long freeway trips.

Feel free to punch holes in my simple analysis. If you wish to call me on not including "Loan Interest", the rate is 1.49% so that amount is wrapped into the $100,000 cost. What about battery replacement? That is in the Maintenance cost. JMHO
 
Graffi said:
Concerning Tesla, they are keeping themselves in the news constantly, announcing some kind of news every few days. When is the last time you heard in the news an announcement by Nissan about the Leaf? None? Sounds about right. Even the sales force and employees at Nissan dealerships do not talk them up unless the customer is specifically looking for an EV. Just like Tesla, Nissan could issue a press release once or twice each week updating the public about the good things Leaf is doing, and what is happening on battery development, what is happening on tech improvement for new Leafs, etc. However, Nissan has, on a corporate level, decided to keep the public in the dark about what is happening. Maybe afraid that any announcement of future Leafs will hurt current sales. Who knows....

We are constantly educating people we meet about EV's. We have spent $0.00 on Leaf maintenance in 50,000 miles, although we do need to replace the two front tires soon ($200 each). The back tires have another 10,000 miles on them, I think. Our ICE also has just over 50,000 miles on it and we have spent several thousand dollars on routine maintenance and service checks. We have spent nothing on repairs yet. Do not know the exact amount and don't want to take the time to figure it out, sorry. Oh, and we probably should change the cabin air filter and windshield wipers before next winter's rainy season (at least in Southern California that is what we call it).

Not that saving money is the reason, but we just bought a new Tesla S 75D. This one DOES include the Unlimited Supercharger use. We will be using it on our various cross-country and regional trips. We estimate over 15,000 miles before summer is over. Anyway, the way I was looking at it:

Vehicle Cost: $100,000 (actually a little less than that, then get the $10,000 fed and state credit/rebate)

Useful Life: 1,000,000 miles

Cost per mile:

$0.10 Vehicle cost amortization
$0.05 Vehicle service and maintenance
$0.00 Fuel cost
$0.15 Total cost of operating our Tesla Model S 75D per mile

This is less than the cost of fuel for our ICE. Plus we have Autopilot for our long freeway trips.

Feel free to punch holes in my simple analysis. If you wish to call me on not including "Loan Interest", the rate is 1.49% so that amount is wrapped into the $100,000 cost. What about battery replacement? That is in the Maintenance cost. JMHO

I have also seen any number of people (supposedly business specialists, short sale specialists, etc.) who say that Tesla keeps itself in the news to divert attention away from their various past and current problems. They used examples such as them consistently not meeting deadlines, not being able to meet projected production figures, etc. That's just what I keep hearing and I am not going to pretend to be any kind of expert or anything, far from it ;)

The biggest issue I have regarding using maintenance as a justification for an EV is that, realistically, the average modern car is simply not that expensive to maintain. I have seen any number of estimates given as to average cost per mile, but the average seems to be about .05 cents per mile for the average (stress average) person. The average person drives around 15,000 miles per year, so you are looking at an annual cost of around $750 for maintenance (gas notwithstanding obviously).

The average selling price for a car in the U.S. is supposed to be something like $34,000. If you are paying $66,000 more than what the average car costs, that extra money would have paid for a LOT of maintenance costs (and fuel) over the next five to six years (average length of time for car ownership in the U.S.). Modern day cars are far more reliable than cars of the past and the reality is that most people are not going to have a major mechanical issue with their cars during the lifetime of the vehicle when purchased new (stress new - I'm not talking about someone picking up a third hand 15 year old car that was poorly maintained). If they do, chances are it will still be within the warranty period and will be covered (always exceptions obviously). I've seen plenty of people who have reported complete failures on their Teslas, so Tesla isn't immune from that either (those failures were taken care of by Tesla, so that's not a stab at Tesla or anything :) ).

I was actually playing around with this with my current car this morning (Fiat 500) trying to figure out if an EV would really save me enough money to justify the price. Now, I do not fit into the "average" definition as I probably driver around 8000 miles a year and I do all of my own work on my car. On average (for me), I figure I spend around $500 (and that is rounding up quite a bit) on maintenance and that ranges from oil/filter changes, air filters, tires, etc. This car gets me a consistent 36 to 38mpg and I figure I probably have around 28 gas fill ups a year at an average cost of around $800. So all said and done, this car is costing me about $1200 a year to operate which, if I had an EV, I would save. However, I purchased this car for $10,000 and short of buying a used Leaf, I can't touch an EV for anywhere near that cost. Even if bought a new model S for $30,000, that is still $20K more than my car cost and even if I only keep my Fiat for five years, that means my car would have cost me a grand total of around $16,000 to own and operate and that is still half of what a Leaf costs. I did find a site (think AAA) that tracked all of the current EV cars available and, on average, a person would have to drive them around 70,000 miles before they would hit the break even point when comparing operating costs of all electric versus gas. What would really impact that number would be to have what I would consider affordable prices on EVs. If they can start selling them for the $20K range (like the new Ioniq), those numbers could be tweaked much better. But frankly, if I could afford a $100,000 car, I don't think I would be stressing over gas and maintenance costs ;)
 
Graffi said:
Not that saving money is the reason, but we just bought a new Tesla S 75D. This one DOES include the Unlimited Supercharger use. We will be using it on our various cross-country and regional trips. We estimate over 15,000 miles before summer is over. Anyway, the way I was looking at it:
...
Useful Life: 1,000,000 miles
...
What about battery replacement? That is in the Maintenance cost. JMHO
Good luck w/a million miles on a Model S. If I does make it that far, I expect at least several drive unit replacements and battery pack replacements before the 8 year warranty/unlimited mileage warranty on those parts is over. After that, I suspect you'll find the car is a money pit, which you may start to encounter once the 4 year/50K basic warranty has passed. It will likely be increasingly uneconomical to continue spending $ to repair.

If you manage to do 1 million miles within 8 years, that's 125K miles/year.
 
cwerdna said:
Graffi said:
Not that saving money is the reason, but we just bought a new Tesla S 75D. This one DOES include the Unlimited Supercharger use. We will be using it on our various cross-country and regional trips. We estimate over 15,000 miles before summer is over. Anyway, the way I was looking at it:
...
Useful Life: 1,000,000 miles
...
What about battery replacement? That is in the Maintenance cost. JMHO
Good luck w/a million miles on a Model S. If I does make it that far, I expect at least several drive unit replacements and battery pack replacements before the 8 year warranty/unlimited mileage warranty on those parts is over. After that, I suspect you'll find the car is a money pit, which you may start to encounter once the 4 year/50K basic warranty has passed. It will likely be increasingly uneconomical to continue spending $ to repair.

If you manage to do 1 million miles within 8 years, that's 125K miles/year.

And that's if Tesla continues existing as a car company. If not, people are going to have very expensive bricks in their garages when and if failures start happening (which they have - plenty of people have had complete car failures already. Some bad enough that they could not even open their doors or anything since the cars had zero power) ;)

Another thing I forgot to mention that I have been factoring into my cost benefit analysis with ICE vs EV is insurance. If I were to get a new Bolt, my insurance would go up $600/year. A Leaf would set me back an additional $560/year and an Ioniq would set me back about $500/year. So with that factored in, an EV is going to cost me more to own/operate when compared to my ICE because any money I saved in maintenance would be spent on insurance. Also, I would still have to pay for electricity to charge the car and I figure at that rate, I would actually be spending more money if I were to go EV than if I kept my Fiat. Again, this is my situation and not everyone is going to have those same numbers to work with. About the only way I would come out ahead would be to buy a used Leaf (since they are readily available for under $10K) and then take my chances on the battery pack :)
 
Graffi said:
Concerning Tesla, they are keeping themselves in the news constantly, announcing some kind of news every few days. When is the last time you heard in the news an announcement by Nissan about the Leaf? None? Sounds about right. Even the sales force and employees at Nissan dealerships do not talk them up unless the customer is specifically looking for an EV. Just like Tesla, Nissan could issue a press release once or twice each week updating the public about the good things Leaf is doing, and what is happening on battery development, what is happening on tech improvement for new Leafs, etc. However, Nissan has, on a corporate level, decided to keep the public in the dark about what is happening. Maybe afraid that any announcement of future Leafs will hurt current sales. Who knows....

We are constantly educating people we meet about EV's. We have spent $0.00 on Leaf maintenance in 50,000 miles, although we do need to replace the two front tires soon ($200 each). The back tires have another 10,000 miles on them, I think. Our ICE also has just over 50,000 miles on it and we have spent several thousand dollars on routine maintenance and service checks. We have spent nothing on repairs yet. Do not know the exact amount and don't want to take the time to figure it out, sorry. Oh, and we probably should change the cabin air filter and windshield wipers before next winter's rainy season (at least in Southern California that is what we call it).

Not that saving money is the reason, but we just bought a new Tesla S 75D. This one DOES include the Unlimited Supercharger use. We will be using it on our various cross-country and regional trips. We estimate over 15,000 miles before summer is over. Anyway, the way I was looking at it:

Vehicle Cost: $100,000 (actually a little less than that, then get the $10,000 fed and state credit/rebate)

Useful Life: 1,000,000 miles

Cost per mile:

$0.10 Vehicle cost amortization
$0.05 Vehicle service and maintenance
$0.00 Fuel cost
$0.15 Total cost of operating our Tesla Model S 75D per mile

This is less than the cost of fuel for our ICE. Plus we have Autopilot for our long freeway trips.

Feel free to punch holes in my simple analysis. If you wish to call me on not including "Loan Interest", the rate is 1.49% so that amount is wrapped into the $100,000 cost. What about battery replacement? That is in the Maintenance cost. JMHO


hole #1; your fuel costs are "slightly" understated.

hole # 2; there is no indication whatsoever that Tesla has the ability to build a car that will last 250,000 miles without major repairs.

hole # 3; as I understand it (and I will admit to not delving into this) just the basic yearly maintenance that Tesla requires or highly recommends or whatever is far beyond your 5 cents per mile which would not include any major repairs beyond your warranty period.

you may patch hole #3 if that is possible. pretty sure the other holes are not fixable.
 
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