We’ve been trying to decide whether it’s time to replace my Forester. We are considering a hybrid CR-V or RAV. We probably won’t spend enough to get the plug-in version of the RAV. I’m not convinced the difference in cost makes it a good value but it’s hard to tell what mileage we could do in our real world. Also concerned about battery replacement cost for the plug-ins, but we are finding that some manufacturers warrant the battery for as long as we would be likely to keep the car.
We went and drove a Ford Maverick hybrid the other day as well. It seems like a viable option, if we could get one that fell out of contract. It seems to happen frequently. I’m just not sure I’m a truck person!
But we have a tool chest with multiple tools, to extend the metaphor. Since we’re not a single vehicle family, we don’t need to have every car be the best for everything. And since no vehicle is, we have the luxury of prioritizing some features over others so we can benefit from different things with different cars.
Have also looked very closely at PHEVs (zero interest in another mild hybrid). It would allow doing simple daily local activity entirely with battery power but still having the flexibility of gas on longer trips. But there are trade offs. You still have all the typical maintenance of an ICE vehicle which we’re like to avoid (not primarily a cost issue but a convenience issue). And the vehicles have the weight of both the engines and the motors and batteries. And they typically don’t have the same fun instant responsiveness. Plus, I like tech and most of the best new tech and info systems seem to be going into the EVs rather than the equivilent PHEVs.
We love having a Bolt for around town and trips under 250 miles and also having an ICE AWD SUV for road trips, hauling things, and bad weather. If we were a one car household it would be tougher to decide what to do.
We road trip in our Bolt. Took it to Philly a couple of weekends ago. That’s 900 miles roundtrip for us. It holds a lot of stuff!
The Bolt handles great in rain. We don’t get enough snow to drive it in snow, but I have read from folks in colder climes that it works well in snow with snow tires.
We will go all electric soonish. Gotta get D22 through college before we spring for another major expense, but I think if a used Bolt pops up for the right price my husband will sell his Volt plug-in hybrid and snap it up.
We road trip and haul stuff in our X. Last night we discovered that a large roll of drainage pipes fits perfectly fine into it. It is also our car for bad weather to drive up and down our icy hill. But I draw the line at dirt and stumps. That’s why we are still holding on to the 23 yr old truck. As soon as someone makes an EV pickup with a full size bed that can fit in our garage, we will be buying. So far, the EV pickups are ether “city slickers” (Rivian), too big with too small of a bed (Ford etc.), or butt ugly (the future offering from Tesla).
Seems like the problem you face is that the pickup market in general has moved to crew cab short bed pickups, with long bed (usually one row cab) pickups being uncommon.
Of course, if you are considering solar with batteries for your house, the F-150 Lightning may be a way to get the batteries with pickup thrown in.
Our junk Tundra has a shorter version of an extended cab with refrigerator-style doors. It is also slimmer width-wise than other trucks of similar hauling capacity. Our SIL’s newer truck had to have its side mirrors folded to be able to fit into our very standard garage door. My husband just doesn’t want that hassle even if he could settle for a short bed!
Didn’t know about the club, but it turns out I’m a member. I’ve put over 7000 miles on my Bolt EUV and my lifetime miles/kWh is 4.7, which equates to 310 miles per charge. Counterintuitively, it gets its best mileage in traffic jams.
My EV is great for anything under 250 miles RT. Anything over that, I fire up one of the ICE cars.
Well if you wanna join go to the r/BoltEV subreddit!
I don’t mind the charging stops too much. It would be nice if it charged faster, but I usually need some time to walk around and stretch my legs, get a snack, go to the restroom, etc.
Looks like the rubber is finally hitting the road. Got an offer from Rivian to lock into a vehicle I could receive delivery on in 4-6 weeks. Unfortunately it’s not the configuration I want, because I’d have to pay significantly extra for a feature I don’t think is worth it. (I suspect a lot of others feel the same which is the only reason I am getting this offer.) So may not pull the trigger. But since this is by far the most interesting EV on the market right now, it’s tempting. At this point it’s a race between the Rivian R1S or Kia EV9, whichever actually has the configuration I want sooner, or unless something else interesting comes along (which isn’t looking likely).
Varies depending on model. In terms of warning, the battery charge indicator may change to a brighter yellow or orange color, warnings may pop up, etc. In some cases, the displayed 0% is not the actual 0% (somewhat analogous to ICEVs where the fuel gauge shows “empty” when there is still fuel left).
Our X begins to warn before the battery juice is not sufficient to reach the nearest charging station and suggest the place to charge. Not an issue in the city where chargers are plentiful. Once my husband forgot to plug it in overnight after driving to about 15 miles of charge left, and the car just wouldn’t go. At all- until he charged it above 50. Not sure how a Bolt would handle charge management.
There’s ample warning from most EVs when battery charge gets low.
AAA already has charger equipped fleets in some regions, which will add enough charge to get to a charger.
Unless you’re in the habit of running out of gas frequently, this is unlikely to be an issue for you with an EV. You start every day charged to 80-90%. You can clearly see when the charge drops, so you charge up.
This is not the guessing game that comes with the old school gas gauge. You know when the charge is at 21%, then 20%, etc. What you don’t know is what sort of buffer is built in below 0, but I don’t know anyone who feels a need to test that.
We generally keep our cars between 20-80%, although we’ll let it creep down below 10% on trips to familiar areas as the charging is faster (or in cases where we know we’ll reach our destination and can fully charge overnight).
Depends on your car, but usually you get a warning light to charge soon similar to your gas light. But EVs go on to try to be nicer than that and will often ask you if you want the car to find the nearest charging station (again depending on the make & model) and then if you still haven’t charged when it gets down even lower will reduce propulsion so that you slow down to about 35 mph so you can limp to a charger.
There are some roadside assistance services that have chargers in some parts of the country. I know AAA has some.
Also you can plug your car into any outlet in the country. You don’t have to go to a dedicated EV charger. It will take awhile on 110 but there are far more 110 outlets out there than there are gas pumps! And if you absolutely can’t get to a charger you can plug in to get a few more miles to get a little closer to a fast charger.
The Bolt doesn’t do that. It reduces propulsion when you get below a certain amount of miles left. I believe it might be 17, not sure. I have done it once but it was on purpose. I was in my town and knew I had enough juice to get home, so when it reduced propulsion to 35mph it was no problem because the streets I had to drive on to get the 3 miles home were 35mph or less.
I should have clarified: 15 was when he left the car overnight parked in the driveway. I suspect the car demanded charging because the range fell below drivable overnight because the Sentry eats some charge. So the car decided the closest charger was in our garage.
I decided to find out in my Tesla on a trip from SoCal to the Bay Area. Entered the planned supercharger for stopping, which is usually doable.
It was winter and cold. Temps down to the low 30’s in the Grapevine. When I hit the Valley, ran into a headwind.
But undeterred, I was moving at 75+ where I5 allows it. Within a few minutes, the computer told me that I needed to slow to <65 to make my destination. After an half hour, it suggested I slow to <60 to make my destination., so I got in behind a few trucks.
About 20 miles out, the computer told me it would start to turn off stuff to save teh batterry, first the heater fan, then seat heaters, then radio, and finally, the emergency computer braking.
All the while telling me to go find someplace to charge. Computer said I had 20 miles of battery left at my current speed/condition, and I knew that the supercharger was only 12 miles away, so I soldiered on. (Did I mention that the Tesla computer in the sky was also sending me texts to go charge?)
Pulled into the supercharger with 7 miles left per the computer. But things Ive read online is that Elon planned for folks running out of juice, so Tesla’s are designed to have more reserve once the main battery gets to ‘zero’ on the screen.
