- Joined
- Aug 5, 2022
- Messages
- 368
- Cars
- Air Touring
The two answers to the OP’s original question about why drive an EV are: 1. To save money. But, you must charge at home. 2. To have fun with a really great vehicle, enjoy it as a once in a lifetime technology shift in the realm of personal transportation. My Lucid is the best car I ever owned. Including my BMW M5.
Two further comments.
A. Many people buy EV’s to save money. My sister has a Chevy Bolt. Probably the all time best use case. She drives 100 miles per day to babysit her grandkids. 4 mi/kWh, $.10/kWh with a time of use rate to charge overnight, she saves hundreds per month. The car cost maybe $22k. Urban/suburban use and charge at home is THE use case for saving money. I think it’s a cute car. Silly stupid old battery tech but that’s a different topic. Home solar is another very cool opportunity to save even more in some regions.
B. Fast charging for road trips in my experience is getting worse not better. EV sales are growing the EV fleet faster than charging capacity is. I have never failed to get a decent charge at an EA station after 16 months and 10,000 miles of many long distance road trips and dozens of charges (Midwest region and Midwest to Florida). I plan ahead using PlugShare, but I did have wait wait 1 hour once. Until Tesla chargers become widely available this will get worse before it gets better. The economics of fast charging are horrible on all sides of the equation. Govt subsidies are mismanaged and not helping. It is discouraging my plans for future road trips. Large EV’s with lower efficiency make less sense to me right now. I will trade in my Air for the new midsized model ASAP and use our ICE vehicles for road trips.
Two further comments.
A. Many people buy EV’s to save money. My sister has a Chevy Bolt. Probably the all time best use case. She drives 100 miles per day to babysit her grandkids. 4 mi/kWh, $.10/kWh with a time of use rate to charge overnight, she saves hundreds per month. The car cost maybe $22k. Urban/suburban use and charge at home is THE use case for saving money. I think it’s a cute car. Silly stupid old battery tech but that’s a different topic. Home solar is another very cool opportunity to save even more in some regions.
B. Fast charging for road trips in my experience is getting worse not better. EV sales are growing the EV fleet faster than charging capacity is. I have never failed to get a decent charge at an EA station after 16 months and 10,000 miles of many long distance road trips and dozens of charges (Midwest region and Midwest to Florida). I plan ahead using PlugShare, but I did have wait wait 1 hour once. Until Tesla chargers become widely available this will get worse before it gets better. The economics of fast charging are horrible on all sides of the equation. Govt subsidies are mismanaged and not helping. It is discouraging my plans for future road trips. Large EV’s with lower efficiency make less sense to me right now. I will trade in my Air for the new midsized model ASAP and use our ICE vehicles for road trips.