People arguing about the price of gas, but as soon as someone mentions driving an EV they're "stupid" and woke
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Most EVs hold a charge for over 400 miles, that's the same as a tank of gas now. For the vast, vast majority of Americans that will do for most of their driving habits. Most Americans commute to work and run errands around their house, even on busy days most Americans won't come close to 200 miles in a single day. Charging every night at home then makes it very reasonable.
For myself, we're a 2 car house, one EV and one gas, and gas is only used now for those (very rare) long journeys. Even those though are so rare that honestly renting a car is a valid alternative (while we're building the charging infrastructure).
The only real excuses right now are if you
regularly drive over 400 miles in one trip, so for most people that's across their entire state, and plan on not being able to charge at all in the middle (which, if you're on the interstates now is pretty much a non-issue, and remember you can always rent a car if you're going on a super long road trip too if you're really worried about it. Even in the Midwest that was maybe once or twice a year that I went on road trips long)
Rent or live where you can't install an EV charger in your home. This is a valid one, and I hope we start pushing for chargers in rental properties.
Not only are the points you made on EV good, but you can also fill up an EV at home. You never have to leave the house in the morning without a full tank ever again.
I don't think they realize this. If you have a garage with a charge port (which can be added fairly cheaply now) then you never have to worry about getting gas before work again. You just always leave with a "full tank"
And if you have solar panels and a smart charger, you can do it with just the excess power you'd be sending to the grid otherwise. Under the right circumstances you could just drive for free.
You can't fill up an EV at home if you rent, most of the time. Higher wattage charging requires a charger installation.
I'm a proponent of EVs and I'm looking forward to getting one at some point but "most" EVs don't hold a charge for over 400 miles. Many are offered with a high range option that almost meets this mark, but that's also under ideal conditions. I have several coworkers with EVs and we talk a lot about the range effects in the winter, or in hilly areas, etc.
Also you'd have to be crazy to plan out a trip that depletes your battery all the way, so that wouldn't be for a 400 mile trip.
One thing that's turning me off from EVs (currently) is the constant battling over charging standards. This creates more uncertainty than I'd like.
Ha, we posted around the same time and said basically the same thing. Nice!
I'm just tired of the "what about this niche thing I did one time" argument. Like I said in the other comment, unless you tow like, once a week or even once a month then fine, maybe you need a truck, but even then Ford claims the lightening can tow for a good chunk of miles and so can the rivians.
Most people if they really analyzed their driving would find that they usually just drive around town, which is the perfect use case for EVs, and most other cases could be solved by renting a vehicle for a couple of days a year. Surprisingly enough, we do not need to drive massive trucks around every day when we're just going into the office.
But if you do want that sort of status symbol, like I said the lightening and rivians are there.
And if you have this use case, why wouldn't you want everyone that commutes 50km/day or whatever in their Camry to use an electric car instead? That just means cheaper petrol for you, and less of a line at the petrol station to boot. Imagine how cheap it would be if we could go back to only needing to use the oil that basically bubbles up from the desert floor by itself instead of spending millions sifting oil out of tar sands up in Canada.
Could not agree more!
That said, I did call out one legit problem with widespread EV adoption in apartment dwellers. I really hope something is done soon, either governmentally or through the market, to make EVs a more viable option for renters.
Towing and cold weather also play an important factor in the range as well.
I'll agree to add towing, but again unless you're a professional truck driver that's a very rare instance, and I'd point to my 2-car household thing as a solution. (Call me crazy but for those rare times I need a truck I rent one. The only times I toe are when I'm helping friends move and the only time I've needed a truck is bringing something big home from home Depot, and for both U-Haul has charged me max $20 bucks for the day)
For 99% of driving an EV is fine. The cold misnomer was true in the early days of EVs, but is pretty much solved now, but even then the 2-car household solves that again.
For the other 1% of driving you can easily rent a vehicle that suits your needs. After all, we don't all own moving vans just because we move occasionally.