I agree. If I was frequently driving more than 200 miles a day, then an EV might not be for me. As it is, I can go to Vancouver, Canada, or Portland Oregon any day I want without a stop. I’ve gone on only one trip since I bought my car in June where I had to stop for a charge. (I was going to fly, but I wanted to test the infrastructure). It was quick and easy (there are several apps that give you all the information about chargers on your route, including if they are in use or having technical problems.)
Thing is though, the additional expense of having to hire that vehicle can easily wipe out any financial benefit from fuel savings.
Best estimate I can get is that an EV costs, at best, a third of the price per mile than does a ICE.
I currently spend about £1000 per year on fuel. In the best scenario I may be saving £600 a year. A two week hire for that European trip can wipe out that saving straight away and so I’m financially no better off and I still have the hassle of hiring a car, and one big enough to take 4 people and ski equipment. (actually the financials are even worse because 4000 of my yearly miles would still be done on fossil fuels in those hired cars)
Currently A single 5 minute top-up once every two weeks takes me 600 miles in my ICE car and it can swallow everything I throw at it and I can buy a brand new one for £20k. An equivalent capacity EV would be double the cost and have much less range and limit my ability to refuel.
I don’t doubt that EV’s will eventually satisfy all these conditions but not yet. It may mean that ultimately I have to change how I undertake those journeys but I’ll continue to take the cheaper and easier option as long as possible.
My point is that not all minutes are the same. Five minutes on the way home from work is nothing, even if you do it frequently. An hour when I’m frantically planning to get out of town is a big deal – a big enough deal that we’ve driven both cars rather than do it, even though neither of us loves to drive.
But I think the largest problem with the EVs on the market right now is that the batteries wear out faster than other parts of cars. And they are VERY EXPENSIVE.
My C-max only gets 60% of the electric range it got when it was new. Because it also drives on gas, that’s not a problem. But we do have a lot of trips that we used to complete on battery, where we now burn gas for the last mile. And old electric vehicles with dying batteries have poor resale value because of the cost of replacing the battery.
I dunno about you, but I’ve certainly had quite a lot of those “5 minute, nothing” gas stops occur right when I was already running late for a meeting.
Batteries are getting cheaper all the time, and car makers are learning how to make them last longer too. One simple method is to just oversize the battery so it never gets fully charged or fully discharged. I understand the Chevy Volt is an extreme example, it only uses the middle 2/3 of the battery capacity (16.5 kWh battery, 10.9 kWh usable). My 2013 Volt still has ~10 kWh usable charge.
Hybrid electric for the win! I almost never need gas, and plugging my car in at night takes 5 seconds.
Multiquote isn’t working for me, so assume these are directed at each and everyone of you, especially those just lurking.
Re: 5 minutes after work verses an hour on a trip. And I’m just the opposite. I’m often rushing to get home in time to take over child care so my spouse can leave in time for her evening activity. The last long road trip I took was in a gas car. A three hour drive would become a four hour drive, because it was impossible to have a stop that lasted less than 40 minutes. Between waiting on the bathroom, buying drinks, going back through the line to buy snacks, waiting on the bathroom a second time…
Re: Tesla competing with established automakers. It’s been hashed through a few times on the old “Waiting for a Model 3” thread, but building a good EV is way harder than buying some third party components and slapping them into an existing chassis. Today, Tesla has a big lead, and they are not slowing down. If the majors are smart, they’ll play to their strengths regarding luxury, build quality, and manufacturing efficiency. The Audi E-tron is probably a better luxury SUV than the Model X, but I don’t think it is a better EV than the Model X. 10 years from now (maybe even 5), things could be much different. If the majors are serious about EVs, rather than just neglected compliance cars, then they should be able to reach parity with Tesla eventually. During that time Tesla is becoming established, though. How long was it from the Japanese car entry in the US market to go from quirky niche products to dominating the big three?
Re: Rentals. It’s also necessary to factor into the cost of a rental car the savings in not putting the wear and tear on your own car. The 2019 IRS mileage deduction rate is $.58/mile. That’s supposed to be inclusive of gas, but also maintenance and other costs related to car use. So the actual cost of the rental may not be $600, but maybe $400, after taking into account oil, tires, brakes, depreciation, etc.
Re: Trip planning. I guess there probably are people who just get in their car and turn left, because they feel like going to Las Vegas (that’s to the left, correct?) without any planning, mapping, or other thought. Every road trip I’ve gone on I’ve done some planning for. I don’t think about exactly which station I’m going to get gas at, but I know I’ll need gas near Clayton, NM, are there any cool lunch spots nearby, or should I brown bag it? Which hotel is the optimum combination of cheapest, nicest, and has a pool (to entertain the kid) near Fruita? Adding “also has destination charging” complicates it a bit, but in some ways can make it easier, because now maybe I only have to pick from three places instead of nine.
Re: Range anxiety. I was talking to somebody who wants her next car to be an EV, but her partner has severe range anxiety, even in an ICE car—he always fills up at a half a tank. I reminded her that an EV is full every morning, if you bother to plug in.
Re: Cold weather. Just did a 20 mile drive where the average outside temperature was 23F, and the average temperature in the car was 71F. There was no range loss at all, and the car was operating at 101% efficiency (that means it used less power than base estimate). The reason for that is the average speed was 27MPH, and there was a 650 foot total elevation drop. Another important thing to remember is that heat in an EV may not be free (like in an ICE), but it is nearly instant. When I get in the cold soaked car after it’s been siting outside all day, I turn the heat on, and it’s blowing hot in a less than a minute. No freezing while waiting for the engine to warm up.
Bolding mine. I just bet that when automobiles overtook the horse and buggy, those areas of the country were just as resistant as they are today re: electric cars.
And thank god they didn’t have a huge horse PAC back then. We’d still not have cars.
23F is not cold. 
However, reports from Model 3 owners in my city (Saskatoon, SK) are that when it gets properly cold (-30ish) they’re looking at 60-65% normal range. That makes the inconvenience factor on road trips even higher, perhaps prohibitive, but isn’t going to make a difference if you’re in a commuting plus a few errands situation. People tend to avoid road trips in extreme cold even in ICE vehicles anyways. Charging infrastructure here still really sucks, but it is getting better. My next car will quite likely be electric, as I don’t plan to replace my current vehicle for 5 years or so and I expect the infrastructure will be much improved by then, and the initial price premium will be lower.
Cold batteries don’t work as well as warm batteries. So electric cars are designed to warm the batteries when the temp is cold, because that turns out to be more efficient than using cold batteries. So, as long as you are within the normal operating conditions for the car (and -30F might not be) the cost for driving in cold weather is basically a small drain per minute, not a % hit to the car’s efficiency.
So, cold matters if you have a little battery, like on my C-max, but it’s really not a significant concern on an all-electric car with anything like decent range.
The heater on the Model 3 is something like 4300 watts, so running that thing at full blast uses lots of power. That kills efficiency on short trips, but range doesn’t really matter if you’re just doing a short trip. On longer trips, the car will eventually warm up, so the heater’s draw will go way down. The worst cold weather related efficiency is in active snow storms, because the heater has to continuously run hard enough to keep windows from freezing, even though that might leave the cabin warmer than necessary for comfort.
The Model 3 does not have a dedicated battery heater, but the same coolant circulates through the motors, computers, and battery, so waste heat from the motors and computers will warm the battery, increasing cold efficiency on longer trips.
I remember reading an article in Automobile Magazine in the 80s by one of the columnists who lived in Alaska. I’m sure I’ll get the temperatures wrong, but it was something like: The block heater is good until about -20F; below that you have to run the car for 30 minutes to get the oil up to temperature; below -40F you have to leave it running all the time, or the gas will gel; below -60F just turn it off, because the tires are frozen and too brittle to drive on. Search youtube for videos of Russian truck drivers using fire to thaw their diesels if you need to justify cleaning the garage before the temperatures drop. Anyway, the point of all that is that in extreme conditions, EV, gas, diesel, are all really difficult.
My feeling with the whole criticizing EV things, is that there are lots of reasons to criticize them, and lots of use cases where they aren’t appropriate, so it is really frustrating when people come up with false reasons. I’ve put 12,000 miles on an EV in the last year. For my use case, which is probably similar to most white collar suburbanites, I think it is an excellent choice.
& how many chargers are there at a typical charging station? Most gas stations near me have at least eight pumps & frequently double that. I very rarely need to wait for a pump. I’d hate to pull up two minutes after you did & need to wait for you to charge & then me to charge as that would add a lot of time to my trip.
My supermarket has two chargers. I’ve never seen a place with fewer. That’s for regular EVs, not the Tesla, which has it’s own thing.
I was wondering about that; can non-Teslas use the Tesla superchargers? How many different types of chargers are there? Is it possible to carry an adapter to use another kind of charger?
I also have never seen less than two. Often as many as eight. For trips you need (want) Level 3 chargers. They’re not used by people on a daily basis, like a gas station would be. I’ve never seen more than one other car, usually no one is there. That could change as EVs get more popular, but I expect the supply will keep up with the demand.
They’re working on it
For Tesla, at least, most US stations in permit/construction phase now seem to have between 8 and 14 stalls, occasionally 20+
Non-Teslas cannot use Tesla Superchargers or Destination chargers. Tesla has offered the use of Superchargers to other companies, with the caveat that they pay for their share of upkeep, but no one has taken them up on that.
The most common charger type is probably SAE J1772, which supports up to 20 kW charging. Tesla includes an adapter with every car. This isn’t really fast enough for charging on the road but it’s fine for overnight, at work, etc.
Another type is CHAdeMO. I don’t think these are that common in the US, but there do appear to be several hundred at least. Tesla offers a CHAdeMO adapter for $450, which is a bit steep considering that Superchargers are much more common. It also only reaches 50 kW; better than J1772 but not close to Superchargers.
Finally, there’s CCS. Tesla doesn’t have an adapter yet, but there’s one coming, and I anticipate it’ll be much cheaper than the $450 for CHAdeMO. European Model 3s already have a CCS port natively instead of the proprietary Tesla port. The Tesla adapter supports 120 kW charging, which is almost as good as a Gen2 Supercharger (but half a Gen3 Supercharger).
I’m guessing that CCS will beat CHAdeMO to be the standard of choice. For a Tesla owner, having a J1772+CCS port in hand will give broad coverage now and in the future.
The biggest one I know about is in Kettleman City, CA (along I-5). 40 stalls, and a nice lounge area.
I used to use an electric delivery van as my daily commuter (supplied by boss). Totally loved it.
We had a 24 amp charger in the office, which would charge it to full in around 3 hours or so. We used to manage electric cars on this charger - co-operating to make sure everyone had enough range to get home.
The longest commute was a 60 km round trip, which is considered “long” for this area. My personal round trip was less than 20km.
One thing that I found - you got VERY used to (and comfortable with) a “remaining range” of less than you would with an ICE car (fuel light on, range of approx 100km would induce a hunt for a gas station, however on an electric I was very happy to take a car home with 40km of range)
I also took a LEAF home some days - and this far outperformed anything in a similar size category (small hatch) that I have ever driven before.
Around here we can also access free charging at supermarkets (24 amp chargers, so will add approx 20km of range per hour to a LEAF).
Here - snow is rare (once in two or three years thing), and most cars are front drive, mid size family cars (think Toyota Corolla).
As a family we have two cars - my wife could easily live with a LEAF like car with a range of around 200km.
We have a garage to charge it (normal here) in our house that is more than 60 years old.
There’s a few things that I can easily imagine as electric cars become more common .
- People building new houses will allow for convenient electric car charging on 16 / 24 / 32 amp circuits. When building NEW, the cost of this will be negligible (less than $1,000 out of $200,000+)
- The vast majority of our power is emissions free (hydro)
- I have an ICE car that is bigger so is used for family trips anyway - and I can imagine many families here are the same
- With both an ICE and an electric car in the family - we would swap between the two at our convenience depending upon the trip and state of charge
Having used a full electric for some time - it is very very easy for me to imagine a future world (at least in my city) where 30-40% of the vehicle fleet is full electric. It’s not a solution for everyone, however as knowledge and familarity improves, so will uptake. Which is then going to have the spin on effects on infrastructure and convenience making an electric car even more convenient for longer trips.
And in the final accounting - a 30% reduction in emissions is going to make a very big difference
In my part of the country we STILL have horse-and-buggy drivers. To the point that there are a few Wal-Marts and other stores that accommodate them with covered tie-ups and watering troughs for the horses.
Yet we all manage to share the road and get around (well, the buggies aren’t allowed on the freeway, but those folks aren’t in a hurry anyway. If they are, they go by train or bus or hire a driver).
We have sedans and tiny cars and pickups and big trucks because different people have different needs, wants, and desires. As far as I can tell, EV’s are just another option. They work well for some, not so much for others, and are getting better and more flexible as time goes by. Yay. Options are good.