My solar panel system will charge my CT during the day when not in use as a fully autonomous self driving vehicle that is earning money for me while I sleep...I need and want the V2G functionality...the last little piss ant storm, Zeta, that hit New Orleans had us out of power for 3-4 days. Still a plurality of traffic lights not working...don't need or want a loud, polluting natural gas generator when i have a 185 or better KwH power source in my 2 motor CT
Definitely not scraping by. Can afford the truck even by the Dave Ramsey rules. Just generally very frugal when it comes to buying vehicles. I generally buy 2-3 yr old vehicles and hold for 200k+ miles. Posted the question, because I wanted to see how other people worked it out in their heads. Maybe there was something I hadn't considered. Since it's not only my daily driver, but also my hunting truck, I do need the tri-motor range. We also make several CO to MO and MI trips annually. The 500+ was the only thing that even made me consider buying.
Or like me, living in northern Canada where there is 100km+ minimum between my town and the next one in all four directions, the Trimotor range gives flexibility on longer trips, especially in winter.
Good for you! Keep it up.
Yikes...you must be young. My insurance is $77/month for my truck and averages about $80/month across all 3 vehicles. All with full coverage and low deductibles ($500 per vehicle).
I know the $76k isn't out the door costs. Neither was the $32k.
Full stop (as they say in Canada)
Lucky you. I looked into putting in a solar array at my place in the country, a ground mount system, I tried to convince myself cause I really wanted one but the numbers in my area did not work. I only pay 9 cents per kWh and I could not justify the cost of the system against the cheap grid power. As for noise, there ain't none. My standby generator is situated 150 feet away from the house where my meter is, when I built the place on the 6 acres I put the meter on a pedestal on the property edge so as to never have any meter readers on the property and I have a perimeter fence they could not get past anyway. My house has solid concrete walls (ICF) and the generator only puts out 65 db so we don't even hear it. The cows in our area pollute more than my stand by generator. Just like to keep my options open and not be limited.
i was really fortunate in that i was able to self-contract my install. Went with Wholesale Solar. My contractor, whom i've known for a long time, did installs once upon a time. the biggest pain in the ass was the permitting required by the electrical utility but they were NOT gonna put me off. Ended up having to call the state Public Service Commission because of the "foot dragging". That lit the fire. Mine is on my roof. Installed in March 2020. Has SMA inverter which makes up to 45 KwH on my best day. It's a 7.7 Kw system and so far, so good. The utility here is extremely antiquated and we were out of power for 4 days with that little piss ant Cat 1 storm that made land fall. In some places, people were without power for months post Katrina. Hurricane Betsy in 1965 was a bitch. We ate sandwiches and Chef Boy o'De spaghetti out of the can for 11 days. I want to get off this damned grid!!!
45 kWh is enough to run a CT about 100 miles leaving nothing for any other use. It would take three and a half days to charge a CT to 80% at that rate. And that's on your best day. On an average day in June you will get about 3/4 of that i.e. 75 miles worth of charging if you use all of your production for that (warming your Chef Boyardee on a camp stove). In the winter you will have 30 - 50% of what you get in Jun. IOW your plan to charge the CT during the day for use as a taxi at night (you will have to drive) while your family sits in air conditioned comfort is totally unrealistic. Unless you live as Henry David Thoreau did (or, actually, claimed he did) you are going to need a much larger system than 7.7 kW to be totally off grid even without a BEV to charge.
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