1500 mile road trip with EV: 12 stops and no heat
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Anonymous
Right now there are things an EV (car or pickup) is better for, a huge amount of overlaps where they are similar, and things where ICE is better. That’s the truth. If your use case is the things an ICE is better at— like driving from Michigan to Florida in the dead of winter— then get an ICE. But there are plenty whose use case is things where an EV is a good or better than an ICE. |
Anonymous
People have different reasons for buying different vehicles pp. I would buy an EV to driving around a major metro area with lots of traffic. Or I would buy an EV pickup truck if I was a contractor in a large metro area with a lot of traffic, or had a long commute. Like the DC metro area, which is the area this forum includes. I would not buy an EV to plan to go road tripping all the time. I would not buy an EV vehicle or EV truck to live out in Kansas with my family and commute to a job there, or even road trip out there. See how that works? Different types of cars and vehicles are better at different things and places! Who knew? |
Anonymous
Well put. We have a plug-in hybrid SUV for longer trips and a tiny full electric for daily short distance driving. Only buy gas for road trips now. |
Anonymous
So you need two cars rather than one. What a stupid idea. That's even worse for the environment than owning a single ICE, because you are consuming even more in order to make up for the shitty gaps EVs cannot reliably cover |
Anonymous
Why is it atupid. Many families have 2 cars for two working adults. We have a subaru and an EV. Use the little Ev for all trips around town and the subaru for hauling kids and road trips. |
Anonymous
| It is ridiculous to have stories like this out there and ignore the fact that Teslas do not have these issues. We road trip a chunk of what they did often in our Tesla (our only car) and it is very easy. Car does all the planning, chargers work, recharge fast. Also sounds like in this story the driver had no idea what he was doing and started off not 100 percent charged. |
Anonymous
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Exactly. We, a family of 5, have an EV and a minivan. EV for daily drive to work and up to 3 hours weekend trip. Longer than that, we use the van.
We have family in Austin, TX, and there is no way in hell I would drive. It's a 1500 miles trip and more than 24 hours of driving. Not even when I was single or a couple with no kids. We'd fly. |
Anonymous
This is not your best argument: Definitely a lot of people who buy pickup trucks don't do pickup truck things with them. The Ford F-150 is the top selling vehicle in America; people bought nearly 2 million full-size pickups in 2022. If you're trying to suggest every single one is used to haul stuff around, as opposed to just being basically an SUV with an open cargo area that people like as a matter of taste and preference, that seems naive. |
Anonymous
How many people do 1500 miles road trips? I haven't even done it in a gas powered car. The longest trip I have done was 700 miles. That doesn't affect most people. |
Anonymous
I’m middle aged and have regularly done roundtrip road trips that distance: DC-Maine, DC-Atlanta, etc. Also done cross country. Seems like it would be a lot easier in a Tesla and the main issue is that the Electrify America charging network sucks. My presumption is that the issue because it was done by VW as part of a legal settlement and not to serve customers, which is why so many are broken/don’t work. |
Anonymous
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Every single one of these threads eventually boils down to:
1) People who don't own EVs say it's obvious that you can't take an EV on a road trip now, so EVs are terrible 2) People who do own EVs say it's actually possible to take EVs on road trips We have a (non-Tesla) EV. We've taken it on road trips, including in the winter. We use the heat. It's quite possible. It is, at times, less convenient and/or requires more planning ahead than using a gas car would. Personally, I think it's worth it for a variety of reasons involving convenience (we just charge at home 99 percent of the time, when we aren't on road trips), climate (zero direct emissions + we have solar panels at home, so a lot of the electricity in the car is produced cleanly) and driving (the car is a better ride than our gas car is). But ultimately, I don't really care if you drive an EV or not right now. You don't want one because you think they're impractical? Great, don't get one. (Leaves more fast chargers unused for me on a road trip.) There's no need, however, for people to come on here and keep trying to insist that the things that make EVs seem impractical for you now also mean they're impractical for everyone else. I recognize that they may not work for everyone. I don't need to be convinced that they don't work for me. |
Anonymous
Supercharging network obsessive enters the room.... Most of us would fly to Michigan. That's a no-brainer. If you need to move something, you'd rent a Haul anyway. My EV has no problem doing my 1/2-hour commute each way every day, then a charge at home when needed. |
Anonymous
There are good apps for non-Tesla EVs: https://www.makeuseof.com/best-apps-ev-route-planning/ Sure, Tesla's on their list. But there are others. The "EV Hotels" app finds hotels that will let you charge your non-Tesla or Tesla EV overnight. The "A Better Route Planner" app says, "Unlike Tesla's app, which is limited to its Supercharger network, A Better Route Planner covers all the public EV chargers on your route. ... If you're not driving a Tesla, you can include your car model details on the app to calculate your range, charging time, and energy consumption. Beyond that, the ABRP app also tells you the road conditions, wind, temperature, weather, and routes to avoid—basically, everything you need to know to plan your trip without any hiccups. The "Plug Share" app says, "Unlike most apps, you're not required to register an account to find nearby public EV chargers. However, if you set up an account, you can include your EV car model to predict your range and charging time accurately. The PlugShare app will also tell you the compatible plugs for your EV in each charging station. What's more, you can use the app to locate amenities with lodging, dining, Wi-Fi, shopping restroom, valet, shopping, and groceries. The best part is that the PlugShare app is free and covers almost all countries worldwide." Even good old Google Maps will help you plan: "Even though you can't use Google Maps to estimate the range of your electric vehicle, it can tell you the charging speeds and available ports in nearby charging stations. If you're living in the U.S. and U.K, Google Maps will provide real-time data on available charging stations, so you don't have to line up." And there are other apps. |
Anonymous
Nobody is trying to tell you what to do. Some people who are contemplating getting an EV may read a thread like this or an article such as OP linked and incorporate all the opinions into their decision. |
Anonymous
The point of the article that people should come away with was that an EV wasn’t right for that couple. The secondary point is that there is a problem with maintenance and operability of third party chargers like Electrify America which is 100% the fault of VW. |