Electric cars

[Anonymous]

So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

There *are* chargers, especially along 95, but you have to stop more often because your range isn’t that great and it takes longer to charge because your chargers are slower.

If you don’t mind multiple, long coffee breaks, you’re all set.

We stop either once on the way to/from New York (halfway, for 20-25 minutes) or twice for about 10 minutes each. It's possible to do it with less total charging time, but then we tend to arrive back in D.C. with under 20 percent battery, and I'd rather spend a total of an extra 8 minutes on a 4-hour drive to avoid needing to worry about range. The stops usually line up with when my kids want food or to use the bathroom, anyway.

When we did the same trip in a gas car, we stopped about as often for maybe a grand total of 10 fewer minutes, so for us, using the EV for this trip is essentially the same thing.

I guess if you don’t mind 30-40 minute stops then you’re all set. Plus the time to hurt down a non-Tesla charging station. That’s assuming the charger is at the place where you’re eating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

I would absolutely get a PHEV when the range increases. Right now I think they top off at 40 miles. That doesn’t even cover my relatively-short round trip commute.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

Actually no. Tesla's are not reliable enough for a long road trip. Nope not at all. 19 out of 24 per Consumer reports 2021 they were 27 out of 28. I would not say 2022 was a big jump for reliability. Plus getting stuck somewhere won't get parts so fun fun fun.

Tesla's are garbage. As EV's go others are way better.

There just aren’t that many components to go wrong in an EV compared to a ICE vehicle. They probably get a low score because getting them serviced is a nightmare.

I will never buy another Tesla again because Musk is a DB but they drive well, have good range (for an EV), and have an extensive charging network.

Fortunately, other car manufacturers are catching up, but Tesla is still the leader in many aspects.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

Why would I use an old car to make long road trips? Shouldn't you have a newer car on hand for that? Also, for the charging along the way, the length of time it takes to charge is an issue for us. We are waiting until the charging is faster and less frequent.

This. A friend has a non-Tesla EV (a VW, I think) and based on their description of a recent road trip to Pittsburg, they had to wake up early in get the car charged (had to hunt around to find a place but couldn't get a full charge for some reason) and also needed to stop after about 2 hours to get a full charge (which took them over 30 mins). Now Pittsburg is about 4 hours away and that's a non-stop drive for me in my ICE vehicle. I certainly do not want this anxiety-inducing worry hanging over my head, especially during winter road trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

Love my Prius Prime plug in hybrid!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

We just bought (reserved) a car. We were deciding between PHEV and straight hybrid. Ultimately, PHEV was 5-8k more than equivalently trimmed hybrid. The car we wanted was not eligible for the tax credit so the math did not work out. The idea of the PHEV was interesting, but the annual fuel cost savings in DC with home charging cost was maybe $600/yr. Was not worth it to us to pay more for the PHEV and then have to install charger here and vacation home (another $8-10k combined).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

Love my Prius Prime plug in hybrid!

what is your electric-only range?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

There *are* chargers, especially along 95, but you have to stop more often because your range isn’t that great and it takes longer to charge because your chargers are slower.

If you don’t mind multiple, long coffee breaks, you’re all set.

the average range for a new EV right now is 300 miles, and charging speeds are increasing as well. Going from here to NY might require a 10 minute stop.

In a Tesla at a supercharger, sure.

Average range for non-Tesla is more like 200. And with a slower charger? Not 10 minutes.

For new EVs coming onto the market now 300 is average. The Mach-e, the EV6, the Ioniq 6 are all rated at or above 300, altho it can depend on trim line. And 10 minuted of charging could easily be enough because NY is only about 200ish miles away so you certainly don’t need two full charges to get there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

We just bought (reserved) a car. We were deciding between PHEV and straight hybrid. Ultimately, PHEV was 5-8k more than equivalently trimmed hybrid. The car we wanted was not eligible for the tax credit so the math did not work out. The idea of the PHEV was interesting, but the annual fuel cost savings in DC with home charging cost was maybe $600/yr. Was not worth it to us to pay more for the PHEV and then have to install charger here and vacation home (another $8-10k combined).

You don’t need to install a L2 charger for a phev— any electrical outlet will do fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what do we think about Plug in Hybrids as a bridge to going electric. I'm planning to buy a new car next year and I feel like there are big jumps coming in range and charging capabilities in the next 5 years.

I would absolutely get a PHEV when the range increases. Right now I think they top off at 40 miles. That doesn’t even cover my relatively-short round trip commute.

PHEV ranges have not increased much if at all in the last 5 years— industry seems to have decided that 30-40 miles is enough and I think it probably does cover most people’s commutes.

Likewise EV ranges are hitting 300 miles now but I wouldn’t expect that to increase (or certainly not increase at the same rate it has been). At some point it’s not worth building in extra range and there seems to be some suggestion that maybe 300 miles is enough.

Of course maybe I’m wrong or maybe some car lines try to distinguish themselves with extra long range.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

There *are* chargers, especially along 95, but you have to stop more often because your range isn’t that great and it takes longer to charge because your chargers are slower.

If you don’t mind multiple, long coffee breaks, you’re all set.

We stop either once on the way to/from New York (halfway, for 20-25 minutes) or twice for about 10 minutes each. It's possible to do it with less total charging time, but then we tend to arrive back in D.C. with under 20 percent battery, and I'd rather spend a total of an extra 8 minutes on a 4-hour drive to avoid needing to worry about range. The stops usually line up with when my kids want food or to use the bathroom, anyway.

When we did the same trip in a gas car, we stopped about as often for maybe a grand total of 10 fewer minutes, so for us, using the EV for this trip is essentially the same thing.

I guess if you don’t mind 30-40 minute stops then you’re all set. Plus the time to hurt down a non-Tesla charging station. That’s assuming the charger is at the place where you’re eating.

There's no time involved in "hunting down a non-Tesla charging station" because I just drive right to it. And it's one 20 or 25-minute stop on the way up (or two 10-15 minute stops) and one on the way back, so it's not 30-40 minutes of stopping. I mean, you're just not going to persuade me that this is not convenient; I do it every couple of months. I could stop at the non-Tesla stops at highway rest areas, too, but I go to the Electrify America ones instead because I don't have to pay for those.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

There *are* chargers, especially along 95, but you have to stop more often because your range isn’t that great and it takes longer to charge because your chargers are slower.

If you don’t mind multiple, long coffee breaks, you’re all set.

the average range for a new EV right now is 300 miles, and charging speeds are increasing as well. Going from here to NY might require a 10 minute stop.

In a Tesla at a supercharger, sure.

Average range for non-Tesla is more like 200. And with a slower charger? Not 10 minutes.

For new EVs coming onto the market now 300 is average. The Mach-e, the EV6, the Ioniq 6 are all rated at or above 300, altho it can depend on trim line. And 10 minuted of charging could easily be enough because NY is only about 200ish miles away so you certainly don’t need two full charges to get there.

Still not true. A handful are 300+. And that’s the estimated range, in the real world you use a/c and don’t go from 0 to full charge.

How many miles does 10 min of charging get you at a fast charger? Half as much as a supercharger.

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Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

There *are* chargers, especially along 95, but you have to stop more often because your range isn’t that great and it takes longer to charge because your chargers are slower.

If you don’t mind multiple, long coffee breaks, you’re all set.

We stop either once on the way to/from New York (halfway, for 20-25 minutes) or twice for about 10 minutes each. It's possible to do it with less total charging time, but then we tend to arrive back in D.C. with under 20 percent battery, and I'd rather spend a total of an extra 8 minutes on a 4-hour drive to avoid needing to worry about range. The stops usually line up with when my kids want food or to use the bathroom, anyway.

When we did the same trip in a gas car, we stopped about as often for maybe a grand total of 10 fewer minutes, so for us, using the EV for this trip is essentially the same thing.

I guess if you don’t mind 30-40 minute stops then you’re all set. Plus the time to hurt down a non-Tesla charging station. That’s assuming the charger is at the place where you’re eating.

There's no time involved in "hunting down a non-Tesla charging station" because I just drive right to it. And it's one 20 or 25-minute stop on the way up (or two 10-15 minute stops) and one on the way back, so it's not 30-40 minutes of stopping. I mean, you're just not going to persuade me that this is not convenient; I do it every couple of months. I could stop at the non-Tesla stops at highway rest areas, too, but I go to the Electrify America ones instead because I don't have to pay for those.

You take time to go off route to go to an EA, which are harder to find than superchargers. Are you including time there & back in your time estimates? Plus, are the EA stations at places where you’d actually want to eat and use the bathroom? That could be extra time as well.

And you really stop twice between here and NYC?

Many people don’t want to add that much extra time to their drive every single time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tesla still has an advantage in long distance networks, esp for some trips but that’s a dumb reason to say they are the only choice for an EV.

First most people don’t use a long distance charging network that often. Some have a second car that’s ICE, some just don’t road trip a lot. I go up to New England once a year and the charging network is perfectly adequate for that trip. Why would I buy a car I’ll drive every day just to cover the few days a year I am driving long distance. Hell I’d rather rent an ICE than buy a car I don’t want for those couple days.

Second Tesla is losing ground every day on this “advantage”. EV America has billions to spend, the feds are spending billions— that’s why Tesla will make their network open to all, because there’s no way they will have a better network than every other entity combined. I’m not buying a car for the next 15 years based on a network that I use a couple times a year and will be obsolete in 5 years.

Maybe you use the long distance network every weekend— then maybe tesla is right for you, or maybe an ICE is. But declaring that as of today every other EV is garbage is just Musk fanboy nonsense

All good points. Since we are an ev only household, teslas are a must. And since the batteries are warrantied for 150k miles and we hope they will make it to 500k+ miles, these cars are going to be going on many more road trips! Ideally, eventually every household will be 100% ev, powered by solar and an extensive UNIVERSAL charging network. Would love to see solar powered city car shares like the citibike scheme.

DP. Do you drive 250–300+ miles EVERY DAY? No? Then you’re charging at home 99% of the time and not using that awesome Tesla charging network. That was pp’s point, which you missed or ignored.

I’ve had a non-Tesla EV for over a year and 99% of the time it charges at my house. The few times I’ve gone on the road with it I haven’t had a problem finding a non-Tesla charger. I haven’t tried it out in rural bumwhatever, but then again I haven’t had any reason to go there.

Making it all about Tesla’s charging network is a red herring.

It actually is important to people who do take road trips often and/or hate waiting to charge. I barely stop in our ICE car so stopping for 30+ minutes multiple times just wouldn't work for me.

We have a Tesla and a non-Tesla EV. The Tesla is barely tolerable on shorter road trips and only because of the super fast chargers (15 min to add 200 mile range) and longer range (~400 miles). The non-Tesla is strictly for in-town driving.

Well no wonder you’re obsessed with Tesla’s chargers. You reserve the Tesla for longer trips and your gas car for shorter (in-town) trips. Not the choice most would make, but you do you. The rest of us are using our EVs to drive to work and charging them at home at night.

Re-read. Our other car is a non-Tesla EV. We use it for daily driving and charge it at home every night. I would absolutely never take it on a road trip.

And I’m a DP.

You do you. Lots of us don't mind, in fact welcome, having to get a coffee at the station while the EV charges. We must not be in as much of a hurry.

Enjoy all of those coffees.

I hate Musk but, for road trips, Teslas are still the best option - by far. Charging speed and network are important. Hope we get better alternatives soon.

+1 Loathe the man and will not buy one of his cars. Partly because of him and partly because his cars have quality issues and the service model is scary to me (I don't trust Tesla). Having said that, the supercharger network is heads and tails ahead of everyone else. If you have a home charger and your use is mostly in/round town with maybe one distance trip per year it isn't an issue, but if you have a 2nd home hundreds of miles away and/or you travel distances and across the country the charging network is not there yet. This article was one of the things that convinced us that for our use EV was not for us (yet). https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/

We haven't really had any significant problems with a non-Tesla EV going on road trips from D.C. to New York or to the Delaware beaches (and charging on the Eastern Shore is generally pretty bad, but not so bad you can't make it work). I guess if you do much longer road trips very frequently, that might be an issue, but we go on a total of about six or seven D.C.-NY or D.C.-Del. trips a year, sometimes more, and it's been fine and is improving rapidly.

This. Unless your commute is 200+ miles daily, finding chargers away from home is a non-issue. Ditto if you only make a few DC-NY or similar trips per year. If you take longer trips on a regular basis, keep an old ICE around until the technology catches up, because most families have second cars anyway.

There *are* chargers, especially along 95, but you have to stop more often because your range isn’t that great and it takes longer to charge because your chargers are slower.

If you don’t mind multiple, long coffee breaks, you’re all set.

the average range for a new EV right now is 300 miles, and charging speeds are increasing as well. Going from here to NY might require a 10 minute stop.

In a Tesla at a supercharger, sure.

Average range for non-Tesla is more like 200. And with a slower charger? Not 10 minutes.

For new EVs coming onto the market now 300 is average. The Mach-e, the EV6, the Ioniq 6 are all rated at or above 300, altho it can depend on trim line. And 10 minuted of charging could easily be enough because NY is only about 200ish miles away so you certainly don’t need two full charges to get there.

Still not true. A handful are 300+. And that’s the estimated range, in the real world you use a/c and don’t go from 0 to full charge.

How many miles does 10 min of charging get you at a fast charger? Half as much as a supercharger.

well duh. If I thought you could get a full 300 miles driving here to NY at highway speeds there'd be no reason to stop at all since NY isn't 300 miles away. Point is you can get enough charge in 10 minutes to get you to NY without running too low, and Tesla's range isn't unique. In fact every advantage Tesla has now is decreasing by the day.