I’m definitely going to see if it’s an option. I don’t know anyone who owns an EV, but I want to try it. I have a garage. Do you have your own charging station, or is that ridiculously expensive?
Discussion
I just use a plug-in charger, which plugs into a regular wall outlet. That draws about 1 kilowatt, which is like a few miles of range per hour. So if you have a typical commute (~30 minutes), you should be able to just get by with just a slow wall outlet charger.
Wow that’s actually very cool. I didn’t realize that was an option. Okay, I’m gonna have to study this some more.
Yeah, the thing is that people see ridiculous ranges like you have on a modern Tesla, then calculate how much time you need for a full charge from a regular wall plug, then realize it is an absurdly long time, doesn't fit overnight, then decide EVs are stupid and gas is better.
But they mostly forget than:
1. US has 110V and it is slow, but that is only a US problem, since EU for example has 230V.
2. You can always upgrade your electrical infrastructure or install a dedicated EV charger (level 1 vs level 2 charging). Around here, I've heard that a good charging box costs ~2000Euros. Then you must add installation costs. That is for level 2 charging (relatively fast, but not supercharge).
2. They probably don't drive more than 20-30 miles a day, so they don't need to charge 300+ miles per night.
3. Charging 20 miles per night on 230V-10A (2300W) in EU is, assuming ~25kWh/100mi : 5kWh -> 5000W * 1h -> 2300W * ~2h. A bit more than 2 hours. So overnight, you can charge from 80 to 120 miles easily.
Apparently, I can't count to 4 ....
If you are going to get the Tesla Model Y, I recommend getting the long range version with ~300 mile range per full charge. There is also a performance version that has higher top speed and acceleration but sacrifices the range. EVs already have crazy high speed and acceleration, so having longer range is more important (e.g., for road trips).
Most people freak out about range, want cars with same range as ICE, but actually only do 15 miles to go to work... And 10 more miles for groceries...
Then once every 3 years, they do a longer trip with the kids and at that point they really need the range.
I would argue that in that scenario you can plan your trip to include the charging stops, meaning: 1 during every meal, 1 for restroom stop, 1 for coffee in the morning, etc...
When you drive more than 5 hours, you should not be worrying about 1 to 2 hours lost :( That also means that the charging infrastructure must be good and cars must have modern high speed charging. That is only my opinion.
So in that department, Tesla is a clear winner for now. I've seen horrific videos from the canadians at "TheStraightPipes" about Canada/USA "regular" charging points :(
