Worst thing about owning an EV

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.
-Those of you who installed the charging stations at home, did you have to update your electrical panel?

-Has it significantly increased your electric usage?

-Is the increase more than offset by lack of need for gasoline?

Yes of course your electric bill goes way up but of course this is less than the cost of gasoline. That’s the whole point.

Ours hasn’t gone way up. It’s not a noticeable difference.

Then you don’t drive much.

Like the PP, we also haven't noticed much of a difference. We have had a PHEV and a full EV since 2016. Each car gets driven about 6k miles a year.

I also haven't noticed much of any difference in our electric bill, and I drive a lot. I have 39,906 miles on my EV and I've owned it close to 3 years. (And I love my EV. Like others, I'll never go back to ICE)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one charging spot and two electric vehicles, so it's annoying to have to rotate charging.

I also hate having to plug in when it's raining, as our spot isn't covered.

Ours is in the garage, but yes, it’s annoying to have two EV’s with one charging spot. The cord reaches both spots, but if the far one is charging, the cord blocks the near spot.

[Anonymous]

We put in two chargers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love my EV to drive. No issues with charging (my apartment building has a free charger and my office has one with low cost charging and I don't drive that much). I just charge it when I get down to around 100 miles, which is usually about once a week. Tesla charging network is super easy to use for road trips where I need it and getting better even in the three years I have owned. The biggest issue that I have is constantly being asked range anxiety questions by people who don't understand how it works. For example, people talking about road trip charging talk about the time to a full charge. I have to tell them that it almost never makes sense to wait for a full charge (unless you are eating or doing something like that where you want to stay anyway). Those last few miles take the longest to add when you are charging at a fast charger and the car will always tell you to get going on your trip below a "full" charge. Overall I never want to drive an ICE again.

Yes the lat 20% of the battery charging at a charging station is reduce power. Slow it is slow. This happens automatically to prevent batter damage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.
-Those of you who installed the charging stations at home, did you have to update your electrical panel?

-Has it significantly increased your electric usage?

-Is the increase more than offset by lack of need for gasoline?

Yes of course your electric bill goes way up but of course this is less than the cost of gasoline. That’s the whole point.

Ours hasn’t gone way up. It’s not a noticeable difference.

Then you don’t drive much.

Like the PP, we also haven't noticed much of a difference. We have had a PHEV and a full EV since 2016. Each car gets driven about 6k miles a year.

I also haven't noticed much of any difference in our electric bill, and I drive a lot. I have 39,906 miles on my EV and I've owned it close to 3 years. (And I love my EV. Like others, I'll never go back to ICE)

I looked over the bills and best I could tell the additional cost of the EV charge was $7-9 per charge.

[Anonymous]

Overall love our Model Y Tesla, but it was a real shock to find out that it costs $250 a month to insure through Geico. Has anyone found a better rate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.
-Those of you who installed the charging stations at home, did you have to update your electrical panel?

-Has it significantly increased your electric usage?

-Is the increase more than offset by lack of need for gasoline?

Yes of course your electric bill goes way up but of course this is less than the cost of gasoline. That’s the whole point.

Ours hasn’t gone way up. It’s not a noticeable difference.

Then you don’t drive much.

Like the PP, we also haven't noticed much of a difference. We have had a PHEV and a full EV since 2016. Each car gets driven about 6k miles a year.

Right. Do you don’t drive much. 500 miles per month is probably 20-30 bucks on your power bill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP.
-Those of you who installed the charging stations at home, did you have to update your electrical panel?

-Has it significantly increased your electric usage?

-Is the increase more than offset by lack of need for gasoline?

Yes of course your electric bill goes way up but of course this is less than the cost of gasoline. That’s the whole point.

Ours hasn’t gone way up. It’s not a noticeable difference.

Then you don’t drive much.

Like the PP, we also haven't noticed much of a difference. We have had a PHEV and a full EV since 2016. Each car gets driven about 6k miles a year.

Right. Do you don’t drive much. 500 miles per month is probably 20-30 bucks on your power bill.

On my power bill, 500 miles per month would be about $10 on our EV.

[Anonymous]

Like a previous poster said, cold weather can drop the range by about 20% (or more sometimes) and if you accelerate hard, hills, etc, the range will decrease faster.

[Anonymous]

We got our first EV in 2016 and our biggest complaint was range, range, range. And the decrease in range during extreme temps, particularly winter.
That said, we still drove it cross-country, but had to stop and charge every ~100 miles (typical range was around 210, factoring in some battery degradation over the years).
Oh, and the 1st/2nd gen EVs were kind of buggy - we had all kinds of body panel fit issues, tons of sensor issues, sensors breaking when it got hot, etc etc. Car spent a lot of time in the shop fixing those, all under warranty but it was still annoying.

Anyway, we traded in our 2016 car in 2023, and the range concerns are gone. Can go 330+ on a single charge, and plenty of public chargers everywhere. The best part was rolling over our free charging from the old car, so road trip charges are free. At home, it's a nominal increase in our electric bill - depending where you live you can sign up for various programs that incentivize you to charge during off-peak hours, we schedule our charge time to take advantage of that.

Our newer car has yet to be in the shop for anything, knock on wood.

Overall, given the relative maturity of newer EVs, I think they're a great option.

[Anonymous]

^ Forgot to add to the above - charging on the newer vehicles is much, much faster.
In 2016 it took > 1hr to get a full charge at a fast charger, now we can get to 260 miles in around 15 mins.
Not as quick as a gas fill-up perhaps but the gap is closing. The major issue is that you encounter different generations of chargers, and need to factor in the relative speed while traveling. If you plan well you can take advantage of stops at the faster ones.

[Anonymous]

Another (third) owner of an ID.4 here. Agree that flat tires are a pain because there's no spare in the trunk, probably because, as a pp said, EVs are too heavy for a jack. So you end up calling AAA for the tow.

After two years we had to take it on long road trips twice in the past two months. I had a lot of range anxiety, but it worked out just fine. Our hotel even had free charging.

Mostly we just drive it around town and charge it at home.

Otherwise I love the car, love not having to visit gas stations, love the cost savings on fuel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't our electricity powered by coal?

In the DMV, yes.

[Anonymous]

I got my first EV. I do travel a lot on the road. For Teslas, the infrastructure is great, and we have had no issues so far on long trips. At home, I have the wall charger, which works pretty well.

If you are only driving around town, you won't need a super charger. Try it out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Overall love our Model Y Tesla, but it was a real shock to find out that it costs $250 a month to insure through Geico. Has anyone found a better rate?

Shop around. Mine went up just a bit ($10) after changing my old SUV for a Tesla Y