One major issue for EV’s is the fire risk. It takes much more water to extinguish an EV fire, sometimes more water than fire engines can possibly carry. The lithium ion batteries also have a tendency to re-ignite, occasionally it happens multiple times.
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Already linked these articles upthread, but here they are again:
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ucb, It is common knowledge that there is currently excess capacity at night. Will that excess capacity be adequate to handle tens of millions of EVs charging at night?
Do drivers get on a queue for the charging stations? All that I see at rest stops are always occupied so do you reserve the spot before you get there so you don’t have to wait for another car to charge?
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Sis has an all electric car. But since they like road trips on the scenic back roads they have to have two cars, the other being gasoline fueled. There are few charging stations on the backroads of the desert southwest.
We took a trip to the Oregon coast. I hauled six people in my gasoline powered van. They had two in the electric car. They had a two hour delay while they charged at a place on the coast. To carry six people would take two electric cars. So is that efficient or energy saving?
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When we travel a distance by car, we have decided we are not in a hurry. At all. So stopping for charging is fine with us.
Like I said said in my OP to this thread, our next two cars…one will be a hybrid (so no charging absolutely needed on long trips), and the other an EV (for shorter trips and around town). I could also consider a plug in hybrid as the around the town car because I seldom go 40 miles a day!
Future thoughts for me. I’m finding the responses here interesting.
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I also live in Ca in a high fire area and I have the same fears even with a gas engine. Sitting on the 101 trying to evacuate in stand still traffic. Trying to get gas at stations that without electricity can’t pump or process credit cards. For these reason I always try to get gas when I’m at 1/2 tank. My kids haven’t learned and still drive till almost empty.
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They make 6 and 7 seater EVs. Just because your sister has a smaller car doesn’t mean they don’t make bigger ones. What a ridiculous argument.
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I won’t buy either one. A gas car is still more cost efficient than either an electric or hybrid, even with high gas prices. A Tesla has a $600-$700 a month car payment, while my gasoline bill has only gone up by $150 a month in Texas. Adding the gasoline bill to my current car payment (almost paid-off), at worst, it’s a wash compared to Tesla. Since I drive a Toyota, I expect the car to run for several years after it’s paid-off, making it far more economical in the long run. Right now, we don’t even have enough infrastructure to handle the 3% of electric cars on the road. These aren’t iPhones you can just plug in and go to sleep. If everyone charged an electric car overnight in their garage, it would literally take down a power grid. Therefore, you might need a gas powered generator as a backup…which I think is funny…because now you have a gas powered car!
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Your $$ math does make sense for you personally. Of course if you have an ICE car that runs just fine, it would be not very economically feasible to replace it (we have a Y2K truck and still use it; don’t plan on getting an F-150 until that old truck croaks). But the power grid failure boogeyman has been addressed ad nausean here. 
To address the charging timing concerns… We can plug our car in and control the time it starts to charge either from the Tesla itself or from the Wallbox. I expect other car makers have similar features.
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I’ll pass. For the same price, I can get a car with heated seats…assuming there’s a semiconductor available to make those work
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I got a PHEV with heated seats. No issues except to wait two weeks for the car to be delivered earlier this year.
Works well.
You’re comparing getting a new car with the excess price for gas.
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Probably depends on the kind of car and other circumstances. I like to use Plugshare and it does have a spot for users to report if they are at a charging station and how much longer they will be there.
But again charging stations ≠ gas stations. If I’m not taking a trip somewhere I pretty much never use a charging station. In everyday driving you don’t need to since you start off each morning with a full battery from charging overnight at home. Since April I have spent $16.81 charging away from home and that’s with going to the beach and going to the mountains multiple times putting thousands of miles on the car.
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I was just curious for road trips.
With Teslas, the map displays in real time how many ports are available at every Tesla Supercharger. Tesla will ding you if you overstay your welcome at a supercharger. $1/minute if you don’t move the car in 15 minutes after you’re fully charged, so folks don’t just leave their cars there in perpetuity. Of course, if a redneck or a punk parks their car… but that’s what towing services get their big bucks for.
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Heated seats are standard on pretty much all EVs. My Chevy Bolt has heated seats and a heated steering wheel. The new ones have cooled seats, too.
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EVs will NOT take down the power grid, although y’all certainly need to beef up your grid in Texas. Please read the links I posted up thread.
From the Forbes article
If all US cars were EVs, they would need a total of 1,106.6TWh, which is 27.6% of what the American grid produced in 2020.
In fact EVs may HELP the power grid in places like Texas and California that struggle. EVs can store power for our homes and the grid: Why 'vehicle-to-everything' technology is a must-follow investing theme - MarketWatch
Here’s a video if you prefer that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dfyG6FXsUU
There are tons of other EVs besides Teslas. Why you wanna compare to them? You could buy a used EV for around $20k. Why compare to a top of the line car?
I just added it up and I paid $17 in charging fees away from home in the past 4 months. Our electric bill is not hugely higher from charging at home either. We charge 4 cars, mostly off peak. Might add $50 a month if that much. Running the AC for the house is a much bigger drain.
EVs and PHEVs are EXACTLY like iPhones you can plug in and go to sleep! And you wake up with a “full tank” in the morning.
An EV can be used as a backup power source in case of a power outage and is a much better choice than a gas car in case of a crisis because they can go completely off grid and don’t rely on electricity to run the gas pumps. You can charge off grid on solar, wind, or other alternative electricity sources.
When the Colonial Pipeline went down due to ransomware my friends and neighbors were freaked out about getting gas and there were huge long lines at the stations, but not a problem for us EV drivers. When a hurricane or winter storm is forecast we just “fill up” at home before it hits.
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I tend towards moderation in a lot of our big purchases. That’s why I chose a hybrid (non-plug-in) Toyota RAV4. We’ve had it 6 yrs and we’re extremely happy with it. Yes, it has heated seats, cameras and AWD. It meets our needs in the Chicago area and has exceeded our expectations.
That said I appreciate and understand the hesitancy from some posters on this thread. We live in different regions and have different needs and priorities.
The adamant negativity toward EV that some have doesn’t discourage me in the slightest. I actually see the benefit from that attitude. The transition away from fossil fuels will benefit from an increasing demand that is not too quick in nature. The technology will evolve. The infrastructure to support the new technology will have time to grow.
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I think most EVs have heated seats and steering wheel. Some have massaging seats. Quite a few now have the ability to start heating or cooling remotely before the driver gets in the car. Really, if creature comforts is the goal EVs are as good or better than gas vehicles.
As far as cost, ownership cost of EVs is lower than that of comparable gas powered cars. There’s very little maintenance to be done. No hoses, belts, oil, transmission fluid, etc. The brakes last a very long time because the engine is braking the car and using that energy. To me the toughest part of transitioning was feeling like I should be spending on routine maintenance every year when in reality it isn’t necessary to nearly the same extent.
As far as purchase cost, people can make their own comparison. But comparing a cheap Toyota to a Tesla is not the right comparison. Tesla mostly is competing with luxury vehicles not Toyota (except perhaps top trim levels and/or Lexus). Nissan Leaf is the right comparison for Toyota. Polestar, Tesla, Volvo, Audi and a few others are the right comparisons for Volvo. After tax credits, right now you probably do pay a few thousand more up front for a comparable EV. Although typically those EVs are coming with more technology integrated so the comparison is hard.
Charging is a reasonable question for people to have. I think the key point that has been repeated here over and over but seems to be missed is that most EV owners don’t need to visit a charging station in their day to day driving. They charge at home and leave every day with a full charge. So every week they are saving time compared even to these folks who apparently can and must fill their tanks faster than an Indy 500 pit crew.
Road trips are not as challenging as they are made to sound. Personally I stop every few hours anyway because that’s what safe drivers do. But it sounds like some folks would need to change their driving habits a bit. Having lived with the convenience of EVs for so long it’s hard for me to understand why people wouldn’t want to do that, given that the net time spent waiting across an entire year is far less with an EV, but that’s me.
If hauling 6 people is the goal then get an EV that hauls 6 people. My gas powered car couldn’t haul 6 people either.
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How can we really know that the grid can handle millions of EVs? Most of the “experts” lately have missed their respective marks quite significantly so I don’t trust the “expert” opinion on grid failure. Also, would anyone involved with the push towards EVs and hybrids actually admit the grid could be at risk? IMO highly unlikely.
If there’s one truth it’s that public/urban planners have historically underestimated future needs in so so many areas….hard to believe this will be the one exception. If you read the article posted upthread it’s filled with qualifiers and assumptions and it does not make me feel confident.
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