this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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Makes sense.
My wife and I don't commute very far so an EV is fine for us even if we can only charge it with 120V initially (until we install a proper charger in our garage). We've got a BMW iX on order.
Tesla is opening superchargers to all brands eventually. That'll help a lot, as will the inevitable changes that'll happen to gas stations where they replace some pumps with EV chargers.
Range is definitely an issue, but it's improving over time. 10 years ago, the average EV range was around 100 miles. I know BMW have tested a prototype car with ~600 mile range, and that tech should hopefully come with their Neue Klasse vehicles some time in 2026/2027. The Lucid Air gets around 500 miles range. Our current gas car (2012 Mazda 3) only gets around 360 miles until the gas light comes on, so it's not actually that different for us.
Yeah, we're right in that awkward window where EVs are almost good enough to replace the family car, but not quite.
We can usually get 400 miles out of our minivan, and filling up gas only takes a couple minutes. We usually pack lunches and whatnot for these road trips, so there's really no reason to stop any longer than that. I guess it's nice to stretch our legs or whatever, but we'd really rather just get to our destination and relax there.
With an EV, we'd probably get about 250 miles range since highway speeds are about 70-80mph in my area (probably a little less since fast charges aren't everywhere), and then 20-30 min waiting to charge. For a typical 700-800 mile trip, that's 3-4 stops, so if it's 30 min each time, it would add 2 hours to the trip.
If we could get 400-500 miles range, we could recharge once, which is totally reasonable. But we're not there yet, so we're looking at hybrids for the family car and an EV for around town driving.