Maybe you’re smelling your own gas ? :highfive:

Dealers will lie about electric carts & never go for the hard sell because they make a ton of money in service charges with gas carts. Electric carts are pretty much maintenance free with very few components. Gas carts are a goldmine for the service department due to their complexity and maintenance including oil changes, filter changes, belts, hoses, coolant, injectors, starters, etc. It's the same at car dealers; they want you to buy a gas powered vehicle not an electric one.

?????? Our three gas carts have been relatively maintenance free for over 8 years. With the exception of a blown leaf spring, nothing but very easy DIY annual tune ups that takes me about 20 minutes per cart. Electric carts also have leaf springs, and they are more likely to blow out with the battery weight.

Buy used then enhance it.
 

Buy a quality used one like below then add a couple 100 AH 48 volt Li-ion batteries running in parallel for $2000.
For well under 6 grand you will have a maintenance free cart for the next 10 years with range of 80 miles. And 1 cent per mile for fuel.

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48V 100Ah Lifepo4 Lithium Battery Solar 100A BMS Boat Golf Cart VAN RV Camper | eBay

Coolant ? There isn't any coolant. They are air cooled. Regarding the rest of the stuff, my Yamaha has been very reliable with minimal maintenance - about 1 hour per year by myself. "Complexity" is not a word I would associate with gas golf carts.

Electric Carts Are Junk
 

The electric carts they sell now are junk. They need serious upgrades in technology before I would buy one. A one way trip from Moultrie Creek to Lopez isn’t that desirable. I’ll wait till a cart can make it both ways 100% of the time.

The new lithium batteries are fantastic. They come with a 5 year warranty, and are designed to last 3000 cycles. (Lithium batteries are rated based on cycles, not years).

On my Evolution D5 Ranger with a 205ah battery, I can go 65 miles on a cycle, so that equates to a designed life of 195,000 miles. Even if I drive 5,000 miles per year that equates to 39 years! I'll be ready for a new cart before I ever have to replace the battery based on life expectancy.

Even if I had an early failure, say at 10 years, a new battery is currently $3K and the price is dropping every year. I'm pretty sure I'll save $3K in gas, oil changes, and clutch replacements over that 10 years.

The Evolution is $10K less than a comparable Star EV or Club Car and is loaded with features. Also $5K-$7K less than a Yamaha Drive 2 (my last cart), so there's enough savings to already purchase a new battery before I even drive it.

A public course near my house in Wisconsin uses Yamaha electric carts with lead acid batteries. They are awesome. Almost completely silent, much quieter than my EZGO electric carts. Good suspension. Yamaha offers an electric cart with the same 105AH RoyPow battery I used to retrofit my 2011 EZGO. They have a 38 mile range. I get 60 miles. Obviously a difference in the drive train. They need to improve before it's practical for The Villages.

I bought a Yamaha Battery cart from Villages Discount Golf Carts back in January and I have the large lithium battery and it get 80+ miles on a full charge. We went from above 466 down to Saw Grass and back around 3 hrs. and still had 46% left on the charge.

As it's been explained, multiple times, it's because golf course buy carts that will be used for a round of golf, and on rare occasions, two rounds. TV buys carts that will be used for PTVs. Completely different uses with completely different millage requirements...

But please, feel free to ignore that information, once again...

OK, so then WE (The Villagers) are MISUSING the golf cart for regular transportation. Which is probably why so many golf cart owners have jacked up the accelerator to give a top speed of over 20 MPH, which the engine and suspensions are NOT designed for. Maybe THAT and driver drinking are the reason for so many golf cart accidents. Also, the GAS engine carts have a high center of gravity (for the golf course) which leads to rollovers and poor cornering.
........Maybe some cart manufacturer should provide a model with a low center of gravity (E-cart) that is specifically designed for regular transportation that still has some golf course use capability. It might have a low range and a high range gearing.

Have you even looked at the latest carts? I had a Yamaha Drive 2 for a number years with upgraded seats and all the goodies. I now have the Evolution D5 Ranger with the upgraded 205ah battery. The seats are more comfortable than my Yamaha El Tigre seats, the ride is better, I have self canceling turn signals, high and low beams, an included soundbar with great sound, 4 forward facing seats (and the cart is only about 13" longer than a standard cart), an adjustable steering column, and display that looks like what you get on a car. All for $11K brand new (the cart is $9.5K with the smaller standard battery).

I live as far north as you can get in The Villages - just off hwy 42 near the VA. I have driven all the way to Southern Oaks (~23 miles), played 18, went home and had 25% battery remaining.

This cart is superior in every way to my Yamaha Drive 2. Ride, quality, features, and quietness.

Look at an Atlas cart...210ah(90 miles) for $15K. Far better value than a Yamaha. A few dealers in the area.

Current Golf Cart Models | Atlas Carts

Had relatives visiting last week. We went to LSL from my village south of the turnpike. Leisurely 15 mile drive in our gas Yamaha golf cart each way plus we made a couple of side trips there and back. Not that hard to start racking up miles in the cart when you're showing people around.

4 forward facing seats is what changed me from atlas to evolution. If I only needed 2 seats I'd be driving an atlas. Both carts are similarly equipped, evolution a little cheaper and 4 forward, atlas a little prettier.

You know what I like about your posts? You always have all the answers.

True Wonkism at work here. You're a miracle worker. I can't believe the whole world doesn't just shut up and do exactly everything you do or think is best because clearly that is the right way to do any and everything. The rest of us mere mortals are simply inexperienced and uneducated non-Mensa-member fools with zero common sense or understanding of world and human behaviors.

I'm especially impressed because, as you have claimed, you don't have a golf car, haven't had one in many years, and a couple years ago you went for a ride on a friend's golf car. How you have such a complete and sophisticated knowledge on such a varied use topic without any first hand experience is truly remarkable and highly impressive.

I appreciate you are here and am thankful that you are willing to impart your vast knowledge to the plebeian masses. Thank you.

:beer3:

Price on anything will NOT drop in 10 years. Name one thing has has dropped from 10 years ago? I be waiting for answer.

TVs and computers have dropped drastically over time. I think you can buy a public official for less now too....

The price drop on lithium-ion batteries is dramatic; about 5x in 10 years. See link below. Many areas of technology have experienced huge drops in price or the price has stayed about the same but the capability has increased. Computer are a prime example. Internet access is another. For example, I paid $45 per month for 1.2 megabits per second of internet access in 1998. In todays dollars that would be around $90. Today I pay $30 per month for 200 megabits per second. A 500x improve in price/performance in 25 years. Google is your friend.

Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Prices Hit Record Low of $139/kWh | BloombergNEF

Lithium batteries have a calendar life of maybe 15 years usually because of electrolyte and lattice breakdown...They won't last 39 years, yet.

Driving 5000 miles a year on a cart with ~80 mile range (210ah Star Sirius/Atlas): After 15 years and 75,000 miles you will use about 1000 charge cycles. The degradation on a LFP battery might be 10% after 1000 cycles so you will only be getting 72 miles per charge.

75,000 miles / 15 years on a gas cart would be 60 oil changes at $60 dollars or $3600. Just that one expense pays for a replacement lithium battery. Lithium carts cost one cent per mile in fuel - gas cart 10 cents per mile in fuel - $750 electric - $7500 gas. $6,750 saved.

Are you starting to see the value?

No gas cart ruckus, smell, and laughably awful throttle response. No gas cart maintenance and refueling inconvenience/expense.

The replacement battery 15 years from now will probably be Sodium Ion and cost $1500 in todays dollars.

To fill your automobile with gas might cost $50...Your electric golf cart charging will cost $50 per YEAR :)

The price of oil changes depends on whether you do it yourself. In which case, the cost is about $4 per oil change for my gas cart. Regarding the cost of "electric" fuel, my lithium-ion electric cart costs, at the electrical outlet during recharging, about 5 miles per kWh or about 2.5 cents per mile. My gas cart get 50 miles per gallon or about 7 cents per mile. Gas carts do have some additional "maintenance" items such as a new battery about every 5 years and maybe some belt replacements but these, along with the oil changes, are only about 10% of the fuel charges over 75,000 miles. I put the operating cost of my electric cart at about 1/3 of the operating cost of my gas cart or a 75,000 miles savings of about $4000. We will probably replace the 10 year old gas cart with another electric cart within the next couple of years.

I lease an electric vehicle. The range for it is about 230 miles with average mixed driving. Around town it's better, on interstates it drops. The same model car would get around 25 mpg average on premium unleaded at around $4/gallon at the moment. That equals $0.16/mile. Even at $0.14/kWh and 3.4 miles per kWh, that's a bit over $0.04/mile. Biker1 is right in that the maintenance on an EV is less than a gas engine, and the operating cost much less.

The rub is the lack of range and the time to recharge making a gas vehicle more desirable, plus the lack of ability to recharge away from home. You can find a gas station every 2 miles or so in this country. In a nutshell, this is why that EV for us is basically an around-town car.

2.5 cents per mile? My lead-acid cart did better than that!

The EZGO RXV Elite lithium does about one cent per mile.

Even using 5X instead of 10X it would be $3375

Doubtful. I put a watt meter on the cart while charging (you do realize the chargers are not 100% efficient? ) and measured about 200 watt-hours per mile to recharge. That is about 2.5 cents per mile at the current SECO total rate per kWh. The battery pack is 170 amp-hours and 60V and is good for about 60 miles. The battery pack is therefore 10,200 watt-hours or about 170 watt-hours per mile. This is consistent with the 200 watt-hours per mile to recharge when factoring in the less than 100% efficiency of the charger. If you were realizing 1 cent per mile then you cart would have a range approaching 200 miles (which it doesn’t even assuming a large battery pack of 210 amp-hours and 48V).

Pulling from SECO using a Kill-A-Watt.
EZGO Elite has regenerative braking.

Even the Aptera does 100wh / mile if driven gently.
Aptera Motors
Great vehicle for some in TV.

Polaroid did that as well.:icon_wink:

From the Yamaha catalog

Attachment 104015

That is pitiful. So at 15 miles you start to worry.