EV ownership - anything you wish you knew?
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Anonymous
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Just got a new EV for a second car, and plan to use it mostly for driving locally. Just looking for tips from other EV owners/things you wish you’d know from the start. Any perks/benefits, or things to watch our for? Any good spots to shop and charge in MoCo? (Rockville/Bethesda area) I do have home charging but am a fairly low mileage driver and a quick top up at a public charger would last me a while.
For anyone considering EV, lease deals are great right now. |
Anonymous
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Just be aware of how different range can be depending on temperature. I charge a lot more in the winter.
I love my EV. What no one really tells you is just how easy these cars are to drive. The acceleration is incredibly smooth and responsive. And I drive a Chevy EV. |
Anonymous
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A friend of mine got a Ford EV that is electric only.
She went through way more power than she thought because of using the heat, charging kids iPad, her phone etc. something that wouldn’t have occurred to me Also all chargers are not the same. The tried to use one at a Tesla dealership because she was out of town and couldn’t find much in the area. But you can’t charge a Ford at a Tesla charger without an adaptor. |
jsteele
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I just got my third EV, this one on a two year one payment lease for $5,430 out the door. If you are going to do any amount of public charging, give extra thought to your strategy. You didn't mention what make or model your car is, but for most of them you will probably need a different app for almost every brand of charger. You can alleviate that by using apps that work with multiple brands. For instance, the Chargepoint app can work with EV Connect, EVgo and some others in addition to Chargepoint. Sometimes your car's app can charge with all of these brands so look into that as well. Get used to using an app like Plugshare to research chargers in advance so that you don't arrive and find a bunch of surprises. For instance, on a recent road trip we knew in advance that a station at which we normally stop had half of its chargers out of commission. Plugshare said there were long lines most of the time. So, we avoided that station and went to another one where there were available chargers. The charger situation is a little complicated. If you have a non-Tesla, you probably have a combination J1772 and CSS1 charger. The J1772 is used for level 1 and level 2 AC charging. Both plugs are used for level 3 DC fast charging. Teslas use NACS connectors for both AC and DC. You can get an adapter to use Telsa AC chargers. There tend to be a lot of those at motels that you use free if you stay there. So one of those adapters is a good investment. My wife used a Tesla charger at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and got free charging while visiting the museum. So our adapter was handy for that. Whether or not you can use Tesla DC fast charging depends on your car. If you can, another adapter will be necessary for that (unless you have a Tesla of course). |
Anonymous
Thanks, this is very helpful. It’s a Kia. Enjoy your new car. |
jsteele
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Thanks. You too. You are lucky because you will be getting a free NACS adapter to use with Teslas Superchargers. I don't like the idea of putting money in Musk's pocket, but there are times when that is a better option than having your battery go dead. Just to reiterate, the adapter you will be getting will not work for using Tesla Destination Chargers which are the slower AC chargers. You will need a separate adapter for that, even though the Tesla connectors look the same for both AC and DC charging. |
Anonymous
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If it’s a KIA, you might be eligible for Hyundai’s free charging through Electrify America. We just leased one and it 1-2 years of free charging at that particular type of charger. There are several in our area so even though we have a charger at home we tend to use the free one which is faster, near our house and Starbucks.
Flooding screws up any car but electric ones can catch fire. If your garage seriously floods, which is a different big problem, park on the street during torrential rain. EV cars are heavier so don’t drive crazy on switchbacks or slick roadways. If you run out of power, you have to be towed. It’s not like AAA can bring you a gallon of gas. Battery life decreases over time and usage so if you bought a used one pay attention to how quickly you draw down. Heating and cooling uses battery. If you are switching back and forth be careful about getting too reliant on the automated driving features. |
Anonymous
| Look up any local benefits for EV’s. I get free city parking and can drive in hov lanes in my area. You may also be eligible for the rebates for installing a home EV charger, etc. |
Anonymous
| The only thing I didn’t anticipate was the extra wear on the tires. Not a deal breaker but certainly notable. |
Anonymous
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Charge at home. One of the great things about EV is not going to gas stations. The price at charging stations can vary a lot and you have to pay attention. Chargers close to the highway charge more vs other locations.
Little maintenance and even the older batteries(pre 2018) are lasting over 15! The new batteries are projected to last over 20 years. The batteries are also much safer vs gas tanks. |
Anonymous
This is what we do. Our EV is used for local driving only, and we never use public chargers. No reason to. We just plug it in overnight every couple days. |
Anonymous
Don’t buy a Tesla ever Or a Hyundai Kona that have battery issues |
Anonymous
we just leased one. they're dumping inventory via lease deals. was never looking at EVs so didn't know anything about battery/tire/range etc. but it's a good deal so we pulled the trigger. got 3-mo free supercharge so we're also saving some gas money nominally. |
Anonymous
And supporting evil. So good job there |
Anonymous
| Another place you can charge is at car dealerships. A friend uses that option with his Chevy EV |