Ahh, so you do not have a requirement to make the LA-Vegas round trip on a single charge. You have a requirement to make the trip at a similar level of convenience to your ICE. Those are unrelated requirements, but unfortunately this kind of thinking is widespread and a barrier to EV adoption.
Most likely, many of the hotels already have EV charging stations, and if they don’t, they will soon (due to the greatly increasing sales).
Just about all EV manufacturers now offer 300-mile cars. LA-Vegas is just under 300 miles, right? So you start your day with a full charge, arrive at the hotel, plug in, do your stuff, and then drive home. The hotel will probably ask you to move your car once charged in order to not occupy a spot, but that takes less time than going to a gas station. And unless you have a vehicle with a very large tank, you’re actually comparing against two refueling stops; once before you left, and another along the way.
Nope. You are also assuming a full charge at the start. But the rest of your post is spot-on and when Wynn gets their charging stations in, it will become an option. Especially since most of the rest of my driving is around the local area.
There are a lot of cars now that will go from a 10%-80% charge on the order of half an hour at a supercharger. Some more like 20 minutes. Filling up a regular car with gas might take 5-10 mins. So an extra 10-20 minutes at a charging station once per trip is enough to make you never buy an electric vehicle, even if it saved you thousands of dollars per year in gas and maintenance?
Take the Hyundai Ioniq 5. 488 km range, It will charge from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes at a supercharger. Or, you can get 100km added to your range in 5 minutes. This is getting really close to the time it takes to fill up a car with gas.
LA to Vegas is about 388 km. The Hyundai would get you there with 100 km range left. Hit a supercharger for 15 minutes and you are good to drive home.
Yes. This is typically the case for EV drivers with dedicated parking spots. The car always starts the day on a full charge, because it charges overnight. Granted, if you live in an apartment then you may not yet have this capability.
I can (almost) unquestionable guarantee they’ll all be doing that eventually. EVs are going to gain more and more of the market share over the coming years. I’ve heard of hotels allowing guests to charge their car overnight, but at this point it’s little more than just putting a few 120v outlets near the lot so you can plug into them, though that’s not going to give you a whole lot of range, even overnight. I’d guess over the next 5ish years, you’ll see independent hotels putting 240v EVSEs out there. They’re not all that expensive and they’ll cost the hotel, what, 10 bucks to fully charge a car. Less that that even if they charge the user for some or all of what it costs them. Plus, since offering that service will undoubtedly bring in more guests because they’re in situations like yourself, the big hotels will likely install their own soon as well.
The big places could probably afford to install super chargers, but since most people sleep at the hotel, it’s not really needed, at least not yet.
Looking at a map, that round trip is, I’m guessing, less than 600 miles. My Kia Niro can go 300 on a charge. EVs are still in their infancy. I don’t know when you’ll be able to go 600 miles on a single charge, but I bet it’s in the next 10 years.
And the savings is great. 600 miles at 3m/kwh (I get 3-4.3ish depending on the weather) costs about $30.
600 miles in a car getting 30mpg would require 20 gallons of gas. So $40 if gas was normal price, over $80 today.
And no oil changes.
ETA, to be fair, if I was making lots of long distance drives, I would probably have stuck with an ICE car for a few more years until finding a charger doesn’t require an app (or multiple apps). I go on, maybe, one 6 hour drive a year. It’ll take some planning the next time I have to do it.
Also worth noting, Tesla is supposedly going to allow any vehicle to use their super chargers at some point. Super charges are much more prevalent, or at least much easier to spot just driving down the road. If you live in a major city, you probably have some nearby.
As a mild aside, I finally look a decently long road trip in my Tesla. Bay Area to Sacramento to Mojave to Anaheim to Hollywood to Sacramento to the Bay Area. I didn’t keep track of the exact miles, but probably 1200+.
It was great. Although the total charging time was on the order of a few hours, the actual extra time was negligible, since we aligned the sessions with lunch, bathroom breaks, etc. You plug into the Supercharger, walk to a nearby place to eat or do some shopping, and by the time you’re done the car is charged. Plenty of chargers along the way, even in tiny Mojave, and the car did an excellent job of scheduling stops. It actually did a better job at predicting range than I could have, taking traffic, altitude, and seemingly even wind speed into account.
The only mild annoyance were running into some older Supercharger stations that only hit (gasp!) 60 kW charge rates. That’s pretty slow compared to the peak rates I saw, like this one:
It says 30 min charge time remaining, but that was for like an 85% charge. We could have left earlier, but snacks+bathroom at the McDs took that long anyway. Note that at the visible rates, it’s adding 16 miles per minute of charge time. It only slows down once you get to higher charge levels.
I keep seeing super chargers at big (grocery) shopping places and I’ve seen 120v outlets at gas stations marked EV Charging. I assume gas stations will install L3 chargers as the price comes down and they’re selling less gas. However, I still think the places that will do the best with L3 chargers are fast food restaurants on the side of the freeway. If I need to stop and charge, I’d much rather kill that time grabbing something from McDonalds than staring at the side of a gas station or wandering around a Kroger/Meijer.
Basically I see three different categories of charging locations: shopping centers, malls, and dedicated places near fast food, etc. The shopping centers are the nicest as you get a better variety of food choices, often a step up from basic fast food, and also often with a Target or something in case you need to stock up on supplies. The malls are my least favorite and I usually just hang out in the car, since it’s unlikely I actually need anything from the mall. The dedicated locations are fine; there is still food/coffee/bathrooms available, but maybe with a bit less variety.
We did have one stop right beside a gas station, but it was a tiny town and there wasn’t much else around, so it made sense for both to cluster around the only fast food, etc.
Since last November I drive an VW ID.3 with the 47kW/h battery (smallest)
For my normal commute it is a perfect car. I can go 2 to 3 round trips without charging. Ridiculously fast compared to all but the fastest ICE cars; I still get a kick from the totally effortless (I’m used to driving manual cars) and drama free acceleration, comfortable and silent, big enough to transport my bike without a rack.
Recently I made my first longer trip with this car (~500km one way) I was a bit apprehensive about this, as it would involve 3 different countries. It was a total non-issue. the car had much better range during continuous use. going from about 10% to about 80 takes only around 20 minutes, long enough for a coffee and a potty break. My trip was only about 40 mins longer than the GPS said. In my last car, a diesel with 1000km+ range I would drive such distances in one go, but I found I really don’t mind getting out of the car a couple times.
TL;DR electric cars work as long as you are somewhere with decent infrastructure.
I can get 300± miles in 4 mins in my current car. I have 3 500+ mile trips in the next month (I do about 8± 500+ in a typical year); all to rural areas. By your stat, I’d get 100km in an EV in the same time I’m getting 500km in an ICE & not only is it longer to charge but I’d suspect I’d have to drive out of my way to find chargers in those rural areas, which would add more time, & more miles, possibly enough for an extra charge to make it home.
I did see a Lucid Dream Edition the other day; that’s approaching the range of a trip but at a cost of $169,000; that’s more than every car I’ve ever bought…combined! (I also have need for a large rear opening - wagon, hatchback, or SUV & that car is a sedan)
I’m sure I’ll get an EV some day; but until the range, refueling speed & refueling infrastructure/locations match what is currently available for ICEs, uh-uh.
I don’t know if I’ll ever end up owning a home in my lifetime. In the meantime, apartments in my area don’t seem to be sporting many (or any) EV charging stations and the place I work doesn’t have any either. I’m not big on the idea of not having a place of my own to charge. In theory, I could make a point of charging either on the way to work or on the way home at some nearby station, but that feels like a bit more inconvenience than I’m prepared for, even if it’d only be once every couple weeks.
Washington has a few laws on the books that should help matters as time goes on. New buildings already have a requirement for charging stations:
EV Charging in the Building Code: Washington State already requires new buildings to wire 10% of parking for EV chargers, which was the strongest law in the country when adopted in 2019.
Hopefully, existing apartments will figure out on their own that installing some stations will attract more tenants. Or maybe some additional laws will require retrofits.
It’s true that home charging is a real game changer. I’d still drive an EV without that, but the benefits and annoyances would be much closer to a neutral balance. But starting each day with a full charge tilts that balance to massively favor the EV. Even L1 (slow) chargers are enough to get almost all the benefits here.
I’m approaching 60. I hope to finish my driving in a conventional gas car.
I’ll probably end my driving within 20 years. I live in an area with heavy traffic. Drivers need fast reflexes to safely get on the roads. I’ve noticed already that people are more impatient and less courteous. Getting cut off or aggressively passed is a daily occurrence.
A small electric vehicle would be great for driving a few miles to run errands. I’m not sure if it’s safe on today’s congested roads.
Translation: just about any electrical vehicle is going to have much better pickup starting from zero than pretty much any conventional gas car. It’s very noticeable. If you’re worried about the difficulty of getting onto the road, you should be looking for an electric to drive.
I charge at home, and I’ve never started a day with less than a full charge. It makes no sense to assume the EV needs to charge up before a trip. If you can charge at home, it charges while you sleep. And while my Tesla adds travel time to long trips, it saves time every week. I no longer have to allow extra time in my commute to fill up with gas. I never have to wait in line to get gas. And I don’t care how much gas costs, either. I’ll never buy another ICE car.
For example, you spend the day running errands and going to a doctor appointment. Say it required 3 hours to top off the charge in your EV. What did that cost?
Ideally the charger should show the cost. Just like a gas pump. IDK if it does.
EV has a environmental challenge. Batteries contain toxic metals and require special handling. I assume they’re working on better recycling.
Pretty much all chargers show you the cost. On my Tesla, it shows up on the main interior screen. Other chargers show on a display on the charger itself (more like a gas pump).
Unfortunately, the amount you’re charged is somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes it’s per unit energy, sometimes per unit time. I believe this varies per state.
Most EVs go roughly 4 miles per kWh. Charging at home, with cheap nighttime rates of $0.10/kWh means you can go 40 miles per dollar. Compare to a 40 mpg gas car at $5/gal that only gets 8 miles per dollar.
Public rates are more expensive. Tesla Superchargers are usually around $0.25/kWh, but here in California it’s higher. It’s still under half the cost of gas.
When electric semi trucks start to show up–which will happen in just a few years–it will become very apparent that it’s actually the diesel trucks that are unsafe to be on public roads. I’m sure we’ve all been stuck behind a semi going up a hill at 40 mph, or had to change lanes quickly because one merged into traffic at 30 mph, or had to wait for one semi to pass another while going just 1 mph faster. It’s because diesel motors powerful enough to have good acceleration are big, expensive, and inefficient. So trucks have the smallest motor they can get away with.
Electric trucks don’t have this problem. As SunUp said, they have incredible torque starting from zero. And because the motors are efficient at any speed or power level, electric semis can have excellent burst power for going up steep hills or using a short on-ramp. Even with a full load, they can accelerate like cars.
I hope that once people start seeing this–not to mention the lack of soot–old diesel trucks will gain a bad reputation and people will demand more modern vehicles from transportation companies.
