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Gas nears $5. Why aren’t electric vehicles selling in the US? (news.northeastern.edu)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/cars@lemmy.world
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[–] 13 points 5 months ago (13 children)

Is your daily commute less than 40 miles? Then a level 1 charger could be enough. Especially if you can charge at work. Worried about the occasional longer trip? Look into plug-in hybrids. You can run your daily commute on the electric engine but the ICE engine is there for longer trips.

You likely don't need to upgrade service, for a L2 charger either. I have 100 amp service and my biggest hurdle was making room in my circuit breaker. I just had to combine some circuits. I had a few circuits that were just lights. Every bulb I have is LED, so there was no problem combining them. Then I added a $100 device that monitors my whole house usage and turns off the charger if there's a chance of tripping the main breaker. But that never happens because I have the charger set to 30 amp, which is plenty for me. I'd have to be running the dryer, oven, and charger at the same time for that device to kick in, but I have the car set to charge after 9pm when we never cook or do laundry. I could run it at 50amp with this strategy, but it's way more than I need for my 20 mile commute.

If you're genuinely interested but think you can't because of your home charging options, then check outthis video from Technology Connections. This video about electricians unnecessarily hooking up 50 amp lines for EV chargers might be useful too.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago* (12 children)

    If they're rural enough that no gas station near them has a charger, their commute is more than 40 miles.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    I live rural and there are no chargers around me for almost 20 miles, the same as my one way commute. I easily charged that up in a night with L1 charging. I was also able to charge at work sometimes.

    Also, you don't save money when you public charge. It's about charging at home. Going EV requires a mental change in how you "fuel up." You don't stop to charge, you charge when you stop.

    I was on a L1 charger for a couple months and after the mental adjustment, I only public charged when I went on longer trips.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    I live in a moderately sizes city >100k people within 30 miles of two bigger cities and no gas stations have chargers in town. There are chargers, but they're in weird places like by the movie theater or tucked behind a brewery.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    Assuming you're in the US, you have at least two gas-station adjacent super charger locations within city limits of any 100k city, except in alaska.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    I don't know where you're getting that info, but I just checked google maps for my city and it isn't true. There is one single Tesla supercharger location, outside a coffee shop in the parking lot of a Walmart. The nearest gas station is 1.8 miles by car, .4 miles walking (lots of one way streets).

    I guess maybe my city is too small on a technicality? The 2020 census put us at 98k people, with 175k in the urban area.

    The nearest big city has a population of 299k (metro 800k) and apparently has two total superchargers near gas stations, though one is literally on the city line, so whoever is making that claim is operating entirely in lawyer speak and not how most people would understand that claim.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    You can’t only look at Tesla. They may be the biggest, cheapest, most reliable network, but there are lots of other brand chargers as well. You may need an adapter but it could mean a lot more convenience

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    I've never used a Tesla charger, my car can't without an adapter. But the commenter made a claim about super chargers, Tesla's proprietary charging network, specifically and it sounded like the info came from a PR promise Tesla made that isn't true in a practical sense.

    I've had no problems charging my car on road trips, but it has mostly been in e.g. Ford dealerships outside of towns with nothing to do but sit in my car.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    I’m same in reverse. I’ve never had problems finding Tesla superchargers on any trips. Most of them seem to be at shopping centers or malls, so there is usually something to do, but the trip planner usually schedules only 15-20 minutes so there’s little extra time

    I do see other brands and tried one once to make sure I could, only to discover I didn’t have the right adapter

    I have no idea where OPs claim came from but I do know there are a lot and they’ve been everywhere I’ve needed them. While rural areas won’t have any, even then most road trips will pass populated areas that will. Large unpopulated parts of the western us may be a different story

    Fwiw the nearest supercharger to me is adjacent to a gas station on a service road immediately off the highway. However I have no reason to ever try one so close when I can charge at home. Was it New Jersey that had them at some rest areas until the state auctioned off the contract to a vendor that had them removed

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Most of the time you are right. Last three contact jobs were well over 60 miles round trip. This job is about 30 mil it's round but trip. Problem is Im a long term contractor so once year I'm close, next few I'm not 🥺

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    I got a quote to put a 50 amp outlet for a level 2 charger in my garage for $600. This isn't free, but at your commute it will pay for itself quickly since then you can charge overnight. I run real numbers, but I tell people my electric car is like paying $0.30/gallon of gas, which is close enough for my area. I can't tell how much my electric bill has gone up since getting the EVs (last year without any I spent more in February than this year with two - that is my heat pump was working harder last year, and in turn costs more than whatever I'm spending to charge the cars)

    Do make sure you get something with plenty of range - in some cars winter range really is half summer so consider getting the extended range battery. Or just remember to find a charger when you are at those distant charges - odds are they are there just hidden.

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