Drove from NoVA to the NW part of SC today in my 22 Bolt EUV. I used ABRP to route to chargers and put the addresses into Google maps to check reviews and GPS me there. The car is J1772/CCS, but I bought an adapter ahead of time to make use of Tesla/NACS chargers.
Unfortunately, this car only has a max charge rate of 55kW, so my refueling stops are either more frequent or longer than I would like, but I don’t do road trips often and this car was half the price of the ioniq I wanted.
I had one issue today. A Tesla supercharger I stopped at just wouldn’t initialize the charge. I even tried plugging into another one right next to it, but no dice. I’ve since learned that V2 superchargers won’t work with my car even with an adapter, so I guess that’s what that one was? I have no way of knowing. ABRP and Google maps don’t specify. Maybe the Tesla app does? Thankfully, there was an Electric America charger just a couple miles away, but I was pretty stressed out since I was pretty well drained and didn’t know where I was.
The hotel we’re at has level 2 chargers, so I shouldn’t need to deal with unfamiliar chargers again until we head back to NoVA. In the meantime, I’ve deselected NACS chargers from my ABRP vehicle options. It’s possible that my adapter just died after only a few successful uses, but the location I had an issue with had a review of somebody else being unable to charge, so I think it’s just that V2 issue.
In summary, the difference has been that it takes a little longer, it takes a little more planning and preparing, and there is a risk of some anxiety, but it’s easier to drive, less chance of “car trouble” events, and especially right now it is significantly cheaper to refuel. But get something that accepts at least 100kW charging lol. I think the ioniq does like 240kW? With that, you basically plug in, use the bathroom, grab a coffee, and you’re ready to go.
Yeah… Reasons I won’t buy a fully electric vehicle in their current state:
What needs to happen before better widespread adoption (IMO):
I would love a Honda Accord Sport Hybrid so I don’t need to charge it but still get 50ish MPG. It’s a kind of happy medium with space, weight, no charging much lower emissions.
Can’t wait to see a Sodium Ion battery hybrid and how that does since it’s capable of “charging faster”, so I wonder if somehow it could use more battery assist while using engine momentum and/or regenerative braking to recoup energy quicker- which in turn gives even higher potential ranges. I’m hoping for 70mpg+ in a mid-size sedan! 🤞
Even if you of a long tailpipe emissions analysis of pure coal power, the total emissions are still lower than a comparable gasoline powered engine.
Coal emits about 2.31 lbs (1.05 kg) of carbon dioxide per kwh.
Gasoline emits about 20 lbs (8.9 kg) of carbon dioxide per gallon burned.
So a car that gets 3.5 miles per kWh and is purely charged on coal emits about 0.3 kg of carbon per mile. A car that runs on gasoline and gets 30 miles per gallon is about the same.
In comparison, natural gas is about 0.96lbs of CO2 per kWh, so that EV charged on natural gas would emit roughly the same as a 74 mile per gallon vehicle.
Note that currently, in the US, coal is about 16% of electricity production, and natural gas is 41%. If you compare the emissions to the overall mix, you’ll get even lower numbers for the EV emissions.
Sodium batteries have a lot of advantages and will make a huge difference when they are widely available.
But so far, power density is not one of those advantages. The technology has a great chance of taking over the bulk of EVs from LFP batteries. However longer range vehicles are (currently) using other chemistries with higher power density. We can’t know where the market will head but so far Sodium batteries are not likely for longer range EVs
incredibly confusing* comment.
it’s too heavy? grid power fossil fuels? did you use ai to make this list? actually, i kinda hope you did, because yikes. ‘often times lack of servicability in certain areas’? what the fuck are you even saying? you want a propane based generator but lament grid fossil fuels? bro, this is utter nonsense.
*edit: original unnecessarily harsh, apologies.
Clearly you’re a city dweller who doesn’t understand people don’t all live in or near a major city smh.
A. Yes, apparently you didn’t realize that electric vehicle are often significantly heavier due to the massive battery packs. Look up the GMC Hummer weight, Cybertruck, even the Model Y is over 4000lbs (1891kg). This stresses smaller roads or did streets that aren’t built for the additional weight (some trucks surpassing 6000lbs) as well as the higher cost of special tires to handle the load and replacing more often.
B. Yes, not only are a lot of power plants burning fossil fuels, Trump rolled back regulations on coal, oil, and Natural gas, so they’re being used A LOT more now. Not everything is wind, solar, hydro, or nuclear. OH, also, xAI is using jet turbines to power its AI data centers in TX. I think it’s over 30 now. Task about a waste of fossil fuel… LPG, btw, is a by-product of the refining of natural gas, but burns far cleaner than oil with a lot less emissions. It could function as a direct oil replacement. If you ever rent a truck from Home Depot or Lowes, many of this are converted to propane to be cheaper to refuel.
C. Fuck no did I use AI for that list.
D. I had a customer buy an all electric KIA or Hyundai model a few years ago and when her battery had issues, the nearest dealer was over 50 miles away that has a certified tech to work on it. She eventually got the dealer to trade it back and got the hybrid. Now yes, this was a few years ago 2023) but still, not interested until other areas have improved.
So no, not utter nonsense, you’re just not educated or understand anything outside you’re little bubble.
You seem pretty hostile which makes your statements come off as hate rather than anything else
He’s just fishing for excuses, they always default to an anecdotal story about a guy with an EV that is fabricated.
I have talked to a bunch of mechanics through the years. All of them told me to not buy an EV, because they once got one into their shop with a fucked battery, that cost a lot to replace. They seemingly don’t understand survivorship bias (or I suppose the opposite) when it’s an EV. Same people have seen brand new engines rendered completely useless, but no. It’s always a single broken battery that’s their reason for never owning an EV…
Right, my story about the Hyundai was TOTALLY fabricated, you’re so right! Definitely not a real-life run-in while working in the insurance world dealing with 100s of customers on a monthly basis.
Here’s another made up one just for fun and rather irrelevant. A guy had his Tesla serviced at work (I guess they came out to him bc there’s no dealership technically?) and noticed when he got back to his car, it was in a different spot. Customer asked how it drove and the tech said he didn’t need to drive it. Confused, the customer asked why his car was moved then and the tech got a little defensive. Customer dropped it, not wanting to cause trouble.
Comes in to my office a few days later, says he noticed some damage to his car, and tried to check camera footage, all of it was erased, like, nothing at all left. Called tesla and asked about recovering recordings and the data and they’re no help. Says impossible. 2nd level tech “restores” it and gives him a download link. Customer manages to get on flash drive but not know how to use it. Asked for help while filing a claim. All the video was for the complete wrong dates. In the end, no claim filed as there’s no real evidence or proof, and didn’t want to claim hit-and-run at work, either. I don’t recall, but idk if there was a way to check daily mileage on the app or something as proof more miles were driven on one day than another.
So basically tech took for a drive, caused damage, flees, parks it in wrong spot, wipes any video evidence, plays dumb. I think it’s super shady of Tesla to give techs remote access to get in anyone’s car, plus, I mean it’s run by a psycho pedo, so…
I enjoy my privacy, I enjoy keeping big brother at a distance. I am decently versed in both IT and insurance and knowing all the data these companies have on us is disgusting. I might even go as far as any “new” car to me, requesting any modems or eSIM be deactivated.
I CANT BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD DO SOMETHING I WOULDNT DO
Only hostile towards the ai.
B: so you’d rather have pollution at the plant and at home (though your car), rather than just at the plant? Got it
No, I’d rather not destroy the grid with the lack of support for ask these BEVs, depleting rare lithium, and work to resolve issues a stated above. Charging, OP pointed out, is at least greatly improved. But I don’t think several million cars/trucks, etc needing to tax the grid along with issues trying to support data centers, is the right path. Ask that means is the cost of electricity would sharply rise as everyone become dependent on that.
Overall, I think we need to focus on improving batteries, charging capability, and self a sufficient-ish with a hybrid system of sorts. Personally, I live in a truck and large SUV area and it freaking annoys me everyone buys stupidly large cars. New truck hoods are the height of my roof of my sedan. I wish people would go back to smaller more economical vehicles.
Your original point was about pollution. Now it suddenly shifted to the grid infrastructure and the rare (one of the most common elements on earth…) lithium.
Thanks. I’ve heard enough.
Smh, my original post had many points. You’re the one who said pollution.
A: complete non-issue.
B: entirely separate fight from ev vs ice vehicles. xai running methane generators doesn’t fuel evs anyway, why bring that up like it’s relevant? you choosing ice over ev isn’t helping the problem, either. and even if the only way we had to make electricity at all was fossil fuels, evs would still be more effiicient because power plants run huge generators at stable rates for peak efficiencies for far more power per unit of fossil fuel even accounting for power conversion loss. you also save on transporting tanker trucks of gas vs electricity over power lines.
C: good, but also yikes.
D: okay, this one is valid. it just made no sense as you first wrote it. still a minor inconvenience especially considering how fewer moving parts means far less often maintenance in the first place. and it’s another area like charging stations that has rapidly become more and more of a non-issue as adoption of the tech spreads.
i’ll give a pass on the insulting, as i regrettably went there first.
I’ll start by saying thank you for commenting; I don’t want you to feel attacked just for engaging and giving your opinion. While your opinion is your opinion, I think there are details that can make you a little more open to EV adoption sooner rather than later, but less to convince you and more to care less because it’s really not the terrible decision you seem to think it is.
For nearly every situation, your list of issues is irrelevant:
Your wish list isn’t really realistic or necessary. I’d argue that widespread adoption has already happened. But I’ll check each item:
To be clear, as I’ve said before elsewhere, it does not make sense to buy an EV unless you can charge at home. And it might not make sense to switch unless you already need a new vehicle. I opted to sell my RAV4 because it was still in great shape and was therefore still worth a lot. I sold my 2016 RAV4 with like 70k miles for $14k and got my 2022 Bolt EUV with 50k miles for $19k. It cost me $5k. Great deal. And this road trip is the only time I’ve ever needed to stop and charge anywhere but home. This is the stress test, and it’s barely an inconvenience, even with my below average range and charge speed.
I don’t expect to change your mind. If it doesn’t work for your lifestyle, I don’t think anything will ever or should ever change your mind. If you just don’t trust it for whatever reason, nobody is pushing you to choose it, but I think that a lot of your concerns here aren’t or at least shouldn’t be concerns. The more I was reading up on this before making a decision for myself, the more I saw that it really doesn’t take much to make the change, and it’s a net benefit for almost everybody to do so. Ironically, cities are where it doesn’t work because of lagging charge-at-home options, but that’s okay because cities tend to have good buses and trains. Speaking of which…
EVs are the half measure. A lot of people think that hybrids are the half measure, but they’re really not. We should be aiming for public transportation for local stuff like shopping and commuting, and low cost high speed rail for long distance to replace road trips. There is absolute no reason why we can’t expect our country to make this a reality. Our car-obsessed culture and infrastructure is poisoning us, killing us, stunting our economic and cultural growth.
It won’t be long before the chokehold on the strait of Hormuz ripples to increased shipping costs, rippling to even more “supply chain” price hikes. Oil is a limited resource, and it’s probably a good idea to transition away where we pretty easily can. Medical grade plastics are harder to replace than oil and gas for our cars, and our addiction-like dependence on oil for every little thing is making us vulnerable to fragile bottlenecks. Without getting too deep into politics, if the current events of this year along with gas prices aren’t enough to encourage people to look more closely into how EVs could work in their lives, then those people will probably dig their heels in and pay $10/gallon before acknowledging that they’re holding out for a Grand Canyon road trip that’s getting harder and harder to afford in the first place.
Maybe some of your concerns have been massaged, and maybe you’ll be ready to reevaluate again within the next couple years. Idk, it’s your choice and only you know what your personal needs are, but I hate to see oil/gas talking points propagating without clarification or challenge. A lot of people believe it and repeat it, but the raw numbers and testimony unravel the vast majority of it. I encourage anybody who wants to understand this better to check out the YouTube channels Climate Town and Technology Connections. They discuss other stuff too, but most EV focused channels I’ve seen are either too dry or are generally unconvincing. Like one channel said that it’s more efficient in an EV to accelerate quickly up to cruising speed, but aside from maybe miniscule savings in terms of time spent on climate control, I just don’t see it.
Apologies for the absurdly long comment!
Oh, Bolt, OK so it must’ve been the Volt that was “electric” but when the battery was low it ran a small gas generator to generate electric to extend the range iirc. To me, that’s still more or less hybrid as you’re using a combination of energy sources. So my thought was propane that burns cleaner could replaced that gas engine to be better overall. With the better batteries and improved engineering on engines, I could see 70+miles becoming achievable. The hope is that adoption grows enough, cutting dependency on oil, and a demand drops, so would the price of oil.
That’s good about the charging faster, I didn’t realize charge speeds were that improved so that’s good.
I’ve driven as far as NE Florida to Birmingham and Fla to Maryland in my Tesla. On a long trip, I basically have to take 30 or 40 minutes to charge after 3 or 4 hours of driving. This is fine with me. 98% of my driving is when I’ve charged at home.
With an EV, I’m also trading for a vehicle with: 1/10 the number of moving parts, basically zero maintenance besides tires, no noise, no emissions, and no gas to buy. EVs are not at all perfect but they are way smarter than ICE vehicles right now.
This 'better wait another few years’answer is straight out of the ol oil and gas playbook.
Ignore this tool.
Glad you’re an expert. I don’t like oil any more than most, it’s just not logical for a lot of the country right now. Live in a city, sure, a lot of short distance driving. Many are not so fortunate for the pros to outweigh the cons yet.
I’m not going into detail of all the assumptions you made but let me just say there’s statistically a huge amount of combustion cars burning every day. It’s just normalized.
How about foot massages and BJs?