It's insanely cool to charge your car from your own solar panels, and drive almost for free. The only "cost" is what you would have received from selling the electricity instead, and selling electricity is for peanuts compared to buying.
At least that's how it works here in Denmark.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Indeed it is. Unfortunately for most people without subsidies this is difficult to achieve.
The US needs to subsidize the crap out of EVs and solar, once people start experiencing this they will never go back but gotta get people over the adoption hump.
There used to be subsidies. Then everyone decided it would be cool to vote for Trump.
Hey not everyone! Just enough dum dums.
There are no subsidies on solar panels here! And EV cars just have lower registration tax, they aren't actually subsidized.
ICE cars have higher taxes because they pollute more, and we have tax on gas to limit the use of it.
USA has failed on such policies for half a century. Which is a major reason why American cars pollute about twice as much as European cars on average. USA is an environmental villain, that never lifted their share of the burden of protecting the environment for the future.
Being clean should not need to be subsidized, but polluting should absolutely be taxed.
Well Americans are also culturally stupid unfortunately. They need to be handed a carrot and beaten with a stick in order to do the right thing.
The rest of the world isn’t this dumb.
The rest of the world isn’t this dumb.
You’re forgetting about Alberta, Canada.
Why the hate on Alberta specifically?
They're trying to hold a referendum to leave Canada and join the US
Should just set up a citizenship exchange program, swap the separatists with the persecuted minorities the US is so hellbent of getting rid of.
Alberta does very dumb things. It's the Florida of Canada.
True, but I bet most Americans can do what we did just as cheap. It's just that NOT doing it is way cheaper in USA, because polluting is free in USA.
For us putting solar panels on the roof, and buying a decent EV, and changing the heating system to an air to water heat pump for central heating of the house, will combined be almost as expensive as it was to buy the house.
So yes investments are required, but today about 80% of Scandinavians buying a new car are buying a BEV.
That alone is a HUGE step, because even when charged from the grid, our electricity is about 80% renewable!
I’m sure they can, but I’ll refer back to the dumb culture issue. It’s not a matter of being able to do it, it’s that they won’t because engine go brr with dino juicies.
It’s that stupid, you can’t reason with stupid.
I know that's true for about half the population, that they don't give a shit about the environment, because fuck the liberals.
But obviously it's not all. There are good Americans, although it seems to me they are a minority.
But yes as a society you are right, USA is way way behind most of the developed world.
Don’t understand what this means. What is the “right” thing?
It's even more of a no-brainer in Quebec, where gasoline is almost $2/litre (USD $5.50 per US gallon), but electricity is only about $0.07/kWh.
I drive about 1500 mi/mo. Switching to an EV dropped my monthly fueling cost from $150-200 to $50-60. Plus the savings from not having to get oil changes every 5-6 months...
Cool, can I borrow 50k for a non piece of shit one?
I bought mine for 23k. Good deals are out there
I wish there were more plug-in hybrids. I know there's added complexity in the mechanics, but I've been enjoying 99+% electric driving for almost 10 years now and I feel like more would be willing to try it out if they had that "just in case" gas backup instead of having to take a full plunge all at once. They may find that they don't need that extended range as much as they'd think.
PHEVs accomplish exactly this. It's good to hear that people are actually mostly charging their PHEVs according to this recent Toyota study.
U.S here, and I'm legit considering selling my CR-V and getting a used electric if I could find one, provided it could go more than 40 miles on a charge and wouldn't need a ridiculously expensive battery replacement in like 3 years.
I drive like 45 minutes to and from work, and filling this little tank multiple times a week is BRUTAL.
Thing is, we're still paying off the SUV and I was worried it'd be all stupid over-inflated like everybody would be doing this due to gas prices...maybe?
...and no, I want nothing to do with Tesla and their "swastikars" and "kampfwagens".
I just wonder which electrics would be at least a LITTLE user-respecting...the car spyware lately is ridiculous. We really need FOSS cars and firmware...
...but now I'm ranting...lol
...Is it still possible to switch without being rich or am I too late? Haha.
All cars spy on you not just the electrics. But it’s simple enough to disconnect the TCM or bridge a resistor across the antenna terminals.
If you really want out of box no spying get an old Nissan leaf. They use 3G and 4G radios and were never upgraded to 5G so when the towers shut down they had. Nothing to communicate with.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/03/youve-got-20000-to-spend-on-an-ev-here-are-some-options/
There are still plenty of deals on electric cars, especially used ones.
Most EVs being sold now will go at least a couple hundred miles on a full charge if you don't drive like a maniac. And if you find yourself stuck with a low charge, level 3 chargers are pretty widely available and can get you to 80% in a half hour or less. Kia and Hyundai are good options on a budget, just don't look at the high-end models like the Ioniqs. We bought a used Kia Niro EV last year. It's a great little commuter car for my wife since her employer is making her drive into the office every day now. Nissan Leafs are often pretty affordable used, too. I'm with you on Tesla. The dealerships were flooded with them when we went looking last summer, and they were desperate to sell us one. "Are you sure? I can make you a great deal on a Tesla!" Not interested.
Sadly, you might be about a year late for the really good deals, and the Republicans allowed the EV tax credits to expire in September. If you can't find a good deal on an EV, you might consider a hybrid, or pluggable hybrid (a hybrid with a larger battery that can be charged when it isn't running). A former co-worker of mine used to drive a Chevy Volt pluggable hybrid to work and bragged that he only filled the tank once a year.
Thanks so much for all the information! Yeah I got a pretty poor impression when a family member had a 1st gen Leaf, and the thing was a street-legal golf cart, basically lol.
I've been looking into it more based on all the good information from you and others, and I'm looking around at possibly Chevy Bolts or a newer Leaf, because I definitely require a solid heat management system out here in the desert! 🏜️
It really feels like a no brainer, if maybe I can private-sell this CR-V we're still paying down, or something.
We have ultra cheap KWh, and family already has solar on the roof and a hybrid with a charger installed. The city's got pretty good charge infrastructure too (as long as the cables are compatible? A lot of them are Tesla chargers. Ugh)
I really don't see myself going deep into the sticks anytime soon, and electric infrastructure is expanding fast.
Even still, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if portable charge tanks don't become a thing in a few years, or fold-up photocells for if one gets themselves stranded. 🤔
45 miles? Unless you're looking at one more than 10 years old you won't have a problem.
And on the battery... even with a battery problem you don't need to replace the whole battery. You need to replace the cell that's borked. There are battery repair specialists that will do this.
The car spyware problem is across all cars. ICE and EV
Not all battery packs can replace individual cells. Tesla models (Model S/X) use cylindrical cells glued into modules, while newer models (such as structural 4680 packs) are epoxied together to form a solid brick. Why? Because Elon Musk is an asshole.
All excellent information. Thank you so much! That's really cool about the individual cell replacement. I thought that was still on the horizon! The future can be very cool.
This is sounding more and more like a good idea. Especially with how fast this 15 gallon tank is dropping every week...
To give you a little more info as you seem genuinely interested.
- Taking the battery size in kWh and multiplying by 3 or 4 will give you a rough range in miles. Big heavy cars will be more like 3 miles per kWh. Small cars will be closer to 4.
- My 2017 BMW i3 (34kWh, tiny battery by today's standards) still gets 100-120 miles and it's coming up for 9 years old. That's why I say 45 miles won't be a problem.
- As somebody else stated, some more modern cars are making the battery less serviceable. Tesla's especially, but others too. Fact is batteries have lasted longer than we expected a decade ago so manufacturers aren't prioritising making them a serviceable component. That's good and bad.
- The exception is when the battery isn't cooled properly. Nissan leafs suffer with huge battery damage because the leaf didn't cool it's batteries during charging.
Thank you for the tips! Especially the quick offhand battery / range formula.
Yeah, I'm definitely looking into this. I'm mainly worried about all the nonsense with only having the 2016 CRV for like 2 years and making payments on it.
It's a good car. I just really can't stand another $2000 maintenance bill on top of skyrocketing insurance and gas... I'm hoping we're not "upside down" on the loan but I've never tried to do this before so I really gotta be careful with how many gotchas I imagine there are with this process...
(Ugh. Dealers suuuuck...)
The 2021 Chevy Bolt has my eye, though. It seems really roomy for being a small platform and the range is pretty great! I'm at least gonna go try and test drive one. They're running for roughly $17k, which is what I got our CRV for...
If it lasts even 5 years with all those reduced costs, it feels like it'll be pretty worthwhile...
Well that's a damn obvious finding.
Not as obvious as you might think. They're taking into account the emissions from electricity generation to charge the vehicle (which can vary widely depending on where you live), climate effects, traffic, and individual driving habits. Given all that, it turns out that it's still a pretty decisive conclusion, but when you start getting talking points from someone on the side of fossil fuels, it helps to have all the boxes checked.