This is the thing people don’t understand for the most part. They’re used to owning and operating a car in a certain way. Most people for many decades without change. They can’t get their arms wrapped around the idea that there are other approaches to operating that are functionally equivalent, simply different (or better, in the case of home charging and waking up with a full ‘tank’ every day should you like).
ETA… Which reminds me of another better aspect of operating an EV, for road trips to boot: there are an astonishing number of hotels with EV chargers on site. I’d guess that the # of hotels with a gas pump on site is pretty close to zero (truck road stops perhaps? but, no thanks). Yes, there may be a gas station nearby, but the point is you have to go there and take the time, however brief, to fill up. But I can charge my EV overnight at the hotel and hit the road in the morning without making that stop.
You can do that because there are still relatively few EVs on the road. If everyone staying at the hotel had an ev, there would be a lot of competition for those chargers. And for what it’s worth, we travel a lot and stay in hotels a lot. I’ve never seen an ev charger at any of the hotels I have stayed at. These are mostly lower end Marriott or Hilton brands in the south off of interstates.
No I checked Plugshare. Magic.This is a snapshot toggling the Lodging filter (i.e. hotels with charging stations). 250ish hotels, thousands of chargers.
Your snapshot has about 15 states it. So 250 hotels in 15 states is pretty thin. I can see a couple of the areas that we are staying in on the map you posted and there are no hotels in those cities with chargers So now I supposed to change where I am going in order to find places to charge? In my opinion there is not adequate charging infrastructure in many areas that I regularly travel to. I’m not buying an ev until that infrastructure is in place.
Very surprising to me because here chargers are ubiquitous; even larger wineries have EV chargers. Plenty of lower end hotels of those brands with chargers. Most Superchargers along I-90 here are located near or in hotel parking lots.
No. You’ve obfuscated the original point of this particular discussion, which is that charging at a hotel overnight on a roadtrip is a benefit you may afford yourself with an EV.
But you don’t need to. There are thousands and thousands of EV charging stations on/just off the roads, including, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the roads you travel.
At what point do you acknowledge that not all areas have a plethora of chargers. There are areas where people live that are not set up with the charging infrastructure yet. People travel places that do not have enough charging stations. People have different needs and that’s ok. Not everyone is ready for an EV yet, and that’s ok. Diversity of thought, diversity of needs, diversity of living situations, diversity of income. No need to paint with a broad stroke and assume that because it works for you it will work for everyone.
One of the things I noticed is that the availability of EVs from the same car rental companies is highly uneven across the country. In parts of the country, particularly cities along the West Coast, EVs are often among the cheapest cars to rent (even though they may be more expensive to purchase). Before I rent an EV, I’d check with the hotel to make sure that it has charging stations. And so far, every one of those hotels (in locations where car rental companies promote EV rentals with competitive rates) has them.
When I go on a trip I gas up my car and hit the road. I don’t need to do my homework to map out where to charge. When I stay in any hotel I choose(because I don’t require a charger), I get up and drive away. Why would anyone assume I need to go to a gas station immediately? That’s the magic of ICE vehicles. Magic.
My hubby was talking with a neighbor over the weekend about neighbor’s current EV.
Neighbor had a different EV originally, and liked it, but….opted to trade it in for a Tesla; bc so many of the nonTesla EV chargers are broken in our city but also in nearby areas., too. It was becoming a problem to charge he said when traveling (they camp a lot).
So….not only does one need to make sure a hotel has multiple chargers, but that they aren’t all broken either.
Boy, sounds like there is a LOT of fear of the unknown on this thread.
If any of you have genuine questions about EVs instead of just wanting to pass along stories about your cousin’s friend’s step-dad’s uncle’s neighbor who had this problem with his EV one time, I’m here for you. Been driving an EV since 2015. I’m a mom. Our kids were in elementary school and middle school when we got our first EV. I live in the South. We have traveled to mid range hotels throughout the south that have charging.
Y’know what you can use to charge your EV overnight? An electric outlet. ANY electric outlet. You do not have to have a supercharger or a fast charger.
It really is analogous to landlines and cell phones. We kept a landline for a long time, but also had cell phones. Now we don’t have a landline any more and my grown kids view wall phone jacks as archaic because everybody has a cell phone.
Maybe you’re not ready to give up your landline yet. That’s okay. You don’t have to, but one day you probably will be because the cell phone in your pocket can do everything your landline could and better and more conveniently for the most part. That’s an EV. Speaking as someone who has many years of driving both EVs and ICE vehicles and plug-in hybrids, I much prefer the EV.
And you don’t need to go to a hotel with a charger any more than you need to go to a hotel with a gas station next to it. It’s just a bonus convenience that some hotels have chargers.
I know a lot of folks who think their EVs are fantastic for car camping, BTW, because you can leave them on w/o drawing much juice at all and use them to power whatever you need or to just cool off or warm up.
So, if anybody has any questions about what it’s really like to drive an EV hit me up!
We own an EV and a hybrid (we live in NC). The EV is a 2017 Chevy Bolt, which we picked over the Honda Fit for having comparable total cost of ownership. I have told people for years that I would not be comfortable relying on only the EV for my transportation, but our last couple of road trips have convinced us we’ll be fine.
To the person who drives 600 miles a day regularly: that sounds awful. I just drove a moving van across the country and we aimed for 600 miles a day coming across. It’s exhausting to drive that much, I would hate for that to be my “normal”. But you’re certainly correct that regular 600 miles/day is a use case for which an EV is not the right car.
We take very short 70-100 mile trips each way maybe once a month, and 200-250 mile trips each way maybe 3-4 times a year. For these an EV is fine. In the Bolt we stop once on the way to eat + charge if needed, then just plug into a wall outlet at our destination to charge up for the return trip.
We don’t own a “real” charger at home. We just keep the Bolt charged up on a wall outlet. Our in-town auto usage is laughably low since we work from home. An EV is perfect for us.
My husband has set the Bolt up so that it can be used to power the internet, fridge, etc if there is a power outage. We used his setup last weekend. It cracks me up because he actually gets excited when the power goes out now.
I don’t think EVs are perfect for everyone but we’re ready to go ICE-free. We’re sending our daughter back to college this year with the hybrid and going EV only. I’ll come here and complain if it doesn’t work out.
600 miles in a day is close to 8-10 hours of driving. I can’t imagine anyone other than long haul truckers or bus drivers doing this on a daily basis… but those drive commercial vehicles.
For my wife and I it would seem that an EV would make sense. We have a house and a garage. We have normal outlets in the garage, and could add a 240 outlet if we needed it (there is 240 in the house and the garage is near the electrical box). The issue is mostly just to find the right vehicle at a reasonable (not cheap) price with a reasonable range.
However, both daughters rent. They do not have an “at home” place to charge. I am under the impression that slow charging is better for the batteries compared to always using a supercharger. I do not know how annoying it would be to always need to find a supercharger when you need to recharge, or if they could try to park near their apartments and run a power cord (and would the power cord get stolen or vandalized?). It is not clear to me whether an EV would make sense for them.
I also wonder how much the batteries lose when you do not use the car for a while. Would an electric vehicle be better or worse for someone who does not drive much? Does this depend upon whether you are able to keep it plugged in (such as in a garage)?
For those who doubt my 600 miles per day and feel the need to comment on it, we don’t do this every day but often enough to make it a consideration in what car we will buy. It’s from our home in MA to where we stay in FL and we do it in two days. Looking over the past year we had 14 of these long driving days. We have a long way to go and just want to get there. I guess we could do shorter days but that would mean paying for another hotel night each trip. If we had an ev, I think we would have to do this since adding in the extra charging time would just make it too long a day so that hurts the economics of having the ev.
I’m the OP of this thread. Thank you to those who have pointed out the need to know where chargers are located, etc. I understand this! I still have my main question….will you buy an electric or hybrid car next.
I’d also like to hear from anyone who has a plug in hybrid.
