gas cars: what companies push on us to suck in our gas and repair money
EVs: what customers really need to go from A to B.
What do you think will happen to all the gas stations when the ICE vehicles go away?
EV owner. Can confirm.
I’m on vacation and rented a plug in hybrid. It’s been 4 days and my brain is still not quite grasping that I need to press the brake pedal to make it slow down.
Regenerative braking has to be the best innovation in driving in decades.
Public charging is still annoying as hell, though.
I betcha that EV drivers pass by gas stations nearly every time they go on a drive, reminding them of the costs they no longer have to pay to keep their car moving.
It’s not even the cost, it’s never having to divert from my commute to put fuel in the car because I’ve been putting it off for a week and now it’s both critical and more inconvenient than ever.
I just learnt this in the last few months.
We got a Rav4 Prime and I had only put gas in it for the first time for our normal drive two weeks ago.
What a pain in the ass and it was only a few minutes for the detour.
I see the lineups at fuel stations in Russia and think about how happy I am to have solar panels and an EV.
At the start, then they stop looking at the signs unless the gas prices have been in the news recently.
Until a road trip where they wish chargers were as obvious as gas stations. Enough exist to make the trip, but are not as common and are not on the beaten path so you need an app to find them.
When I make a road trip I’m often traveling on roads I’ve already looked up and I don’t wasn’t that voice yelling at me so I’m not using a GPS most of the time. We still use the gas car for road trips, but I often play the game “it had been 150 miles where is the nearest charger without using an app” I typically don’t find it the next 50. An app would find one in sure but that isn’t something I should need.
For short trips my EV passes them all and like you say I’m glad I’m not paying those prices. Until I pull into a charger because it is there and discover they have weird pricing systems. yesterday has would have been cheaper because I didn’t know I would have to move so fast and so I paid a minimum charge more half hour worth of charge was worth. (The group tour said meet here I thought it was to unload not drive into normally of limits areas.)
BC Hydro has been very good about adding high speed chargers on all the hwy routes and many gas stations also have added chargers. It keeps getting easier to use an EV although 90% of my charging is at home.
I’m old enough to remember when driving long distances in an ICE car had some of the same range anxiety due to low milage and small tanks, which is why there are abandoned gas stations all over the place. Imagine having as many charging stations around as there are, or were, gas stations?You might have to worry about that, like at most, once a month, for going places where you wouldn’t already have been familiar with charging places including backups if one is closed.
I’m thinking of yearly trips. My in-laws live far enough away that it is a major trip to visit. Flying the family is expensive so often we make it a two or three day road trip. We try to see something weird everyday so it won’t be the same roads or stops. The general plan is head southwest until we hit i10, about 3 pm we book a hotel that we will arrive at around 6, and use GPS to ensure we do, but otherwise there is no reason for using any particular road.
this is… an interesting argument. as an EV driver, you’re essentially saying ‘I want giant signs and chargers on every corner’ which is how you’d find them without needing a map. this seems unlikely to really ever happen because we simply have better options now, but I guess we’ll see.
I guess Im old because having charging stations like gas stations where you can simply pay with cash or card and no app sounds so, so much better than the current situation.
UK has a law (or similar) that you have to be able to pay with contactless on new charger or older ones above 50kw
im driving a ev for 2 years now and not even once used an app to pay. also i havent searched once for a charging station manually. (but that means that the car has internet access wich opens another can of worms. i really dislike that part since the car uses google services for that functionality and wish car manufacturers would allow alternative software for the infotainment system)
In a lot of European countries, rest stop signs (along the highways) announce what amenities are available at the rest stop. Those signs include symbols for things like toilets, restaurants, gas stations as well as charging stations. Here’s a German example. Pretty solid solution in my opinion.
In the USA most exits have those signs. Most places that target travelers will have a large sign some place. Gas stations though are always right on the end of the ramp so they don’t need a sign.
rest stops are a public good that won’t have gas though.
Anecdotally, this is not really the case any more in Sweden. There’s a fully sufficient amount of fast chargers along the road for all the road trips I participate in on a regular enough basis.
Basically this is a problem that goes away as EVs continue to get adopted
I expect the same here, but we haven’t reached that yet. I have no doubt in twenty years finding gas will start to become a similar effort.
I just use a better route planner and with ionna building out new good chargers I never worry on trips, I make the same 5 hours trip almost every 2 months and the only time I got worried was when my normal spot was filled and took a chance on a circle k charger and they don’t accept payment on the machine. Thankfully they are getting replaced.
BC Hydro chargers are like Crown Corporation Petro Canada pumps but better.
It was a love story until I got stranded twice at ungodly hours due to the 12v battery failing on my EV6.
ICE cars can and will strand you with mechanical issues just the same.
Probably. Never happened to me though. I had to call assistance for that battery which is a known issue in EV6. Which also happens to be a 3 or maybe 4 years old car - typically not within a normal failure range.
My old Alfa Romeo Giulia ICE car did this once, luckily while I was at home. The car was a little over year old and overnight somehow flattened the battery. Nothing was left on, no open doors/boot open, just some kind of software glitch.
New cars are often sold with shitty tires and batteries to lower the purchase cost. 4 years is not unreasonable to replace them on a new car.
I’ve had serpentine belts fail on 3 old beaters, sure, but in each case I could drive for a while after that at least (enough to get home in two cases, one was too far from home but I got to where I needed to go and then got towed and fixed at friend’s workshop, I already had the belt in the car, just hadn’t changed it yet). But these were all nearly 20 year old cars. And could’ve easily been prevented by me not being too cheap to spend 100 euros on a new belt, tensioner and pulleys - however, each of those happened when I was way too broke to get a lease on a brand new EV, so 100 euros on a belt kit was also an expense I didn’t want without knowing first that I do indeed need it.
The first year is great. Then it becomes the new normal and driving ICEs is only possible with physical discomfort.
Must not have a GM without car play support. I made that mistake and constantly hate it. In not playing another subscription for my car.
That’s got nothing with it being an EV though. Buy a gas GM and you still get no car play.
Seems like GM is the actual problem
Having money does tend to do that.
