We have been here for 5 days. Haven’t seen a single EV plugged in. And we are in a very EV - friendly location. And there is a doorman and the valet right out front (where the charger is). Unlikely anyone can mooch any charge. Unless they slip the valet $$$$ and the darned thing actually worked.
That’s why I was always afraid to rent an EV when I needed a rental. Most car rental companies require that renters return their EVs with certain level of charge or face hefty charges. You can’t quickly recharge a rented EV on your way to the airport.
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Well…and the power is out again. This is about 5.5 days of outage in the last 7. Fancy Pants car app was scheduled to start charging…you guessed it…right after the power went out. So…off to spend 35 mins at the local super charger. I do love this car. It is an engineering marvel and super cool to drive.
However, it has solidified my decision to NEVER be dependent on only EV vehicles. The irony of power outages occurring when one might MOST need to use their vehicle to get out of the area (fires, storms, earthquakes) has been highlighted this past week.
We had planned to give the Nissan Murano - which the Fancy Pants car was to replace - to our DS. Now I’m thinking it might be best to keep the ICE vehicles in our own stable.
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But if the power goes out on a large scale (eg hurricane) won’t the gas pumps be out too (unless the station has a generator). And, alternatively, get a generator for your home. DS has a generator and solar panels.
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We have a whole house, auto cut over generator. My last propane fill was $4.10/gal. So very, very expensive. Also, the generator runs down about 5% of the propane take for each 24 hours of use. And that is if we don’t run the dryer or the electric ovens or the hot tub. The propane company will only fill tank if it is at 37% or less. So, the worst situation is the power outages hit while tank is low. And we have to prioritize. Heat, food and showers. Plus som entertainment.
And while gas stations do need electricity to run, unless the problem is extremely wide spread (think large earthquake) the chances of driving to a nearby area with power is pretty good. Lot’s of times when the power is out on our end of town - it’s fine on the other end.
So in case of emergency use the ICE car…quick fill of tank (2-3 minutes) vs supercharge - where I spent 35 minutes this morning.
But… if there is likely power nearby, you can go to a supercharger.
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100%. Love the EV that I drive, and it is fine for Interstate destinations, but looking at various remote destinations where we like to do long weekends, too much charging anxiety involved. Might swap out DW’s current SUV with a hybrid SUV next time around.
Yes. And if I need or want to get our of the area quickly…I can either sit at a super charger for up to an hour…or fill at a gas station in under 5 minutes.
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Or have a solar panel backup battery that allows you to store energy?
Superchargers don’t take an hour unless you let your car go down to almost no charge, and you plan to charge it to almost 100%. You don’t have to “top It off”. You can charge enough in 15 min or so to get the heck outta dodge.
In colder weather it takes time to precondition the battery. We don’t let it ‘run down’. However, super chargers will charge faster if you are at 20% battery or less…as the wise App informed me.
Power outages tend to occur during storms…so no solar to be had. And as far as Tesla batteries for the house…it’s a large investment. Easier to just put the EV into a ‘fun as heck to drive, amazing car, love it…but the ICE is the backup plan’.
Today, with a cooler temperatures and thus a cold battery it took 35 minutes to charge to from 106 miles to 230 miles - which is 80%. That would take two minutes at the gas station.
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I know all this. I have one. It’s just not likely to be as big a catastrophe as you seem to make it. Besides, if the roads are jammed cars will run out of gas sooner than ev’s will run out of electricity.
The third row seats were almost unusable in my daughter’s Volvo XC90 and especially so when they had carseats in the second row. A few months ago, they retired their 7 year old Volvo to be a train station car and got a new Mercedes GLS. You press a button, the 2nd row seat glides forward, seat back falls forward, giving you plenty of room to access the third row. Press the button again, the 2nd row seat slides back into place. Easy.
Young people now wouldn’t think of buying a minivan. It’s just not cool enough.
We regularly have adults (5’10" - plus) in the third row of our XC90 for 4+ hour drives. Again, they actively prefer it over using the middle seat of the second row. It’s a usable row, unlike the “fake” third row of many SUV’s like the Tesla. As I said, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s certainly not useless. I wouldn’t even bother paying the premium for the extra row in the Tesla.
We all have different life experiences which shape our approach to our lives going forward. To me, and ICE with a full tank of gas (we don’t run those down any more than we run down the charge on the EV) is as basic and simple a requirement as is having an earthquake preparedness plan, an emergency contact list and an away bag with meds and minimum requirements for personal health and safety.
YMMV
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But…. If your car was charged up (“full tank”) we wouldn’t be having this conversation! I usually set my car to charge overnight (up to about 84%) unless it’s pretty low (below 25-30%) at which point I charge it when I get home.
We were in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina was coming into town. The lines at the gas station were crazy and many stations were out of gas. I also live in an area subject to fire and earthquake. Getting gas can be an issue when there is no power. Even with a generator for the pump they can’t process your credit card. My husband tries to get all of us to always have at least 1/2 tank. During a recent big storm with risks of flooding and slides both my daughter and I hit the gas station to fill up. Lines were long and I was no way in and out in minutes.
I know lots of people with Tesla vehicles and they travel. I also know many who have a Tesla but the 2nd car is a traditional gas engine or a hybrid. I’ll likely buy an all electric next time and range isn’t super important to me as I don’t drive a lot of miles. My husband has a plug in hybrid that doesn’t have a huge range but it gets him through his daily driving on electric. When we go on a long trip we usually have a few dogs in the car and take our gas engine car more for the added space not due to fear.
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