Fear Mongering About Range Anxiety Has To Stop — CT Governor Calls Out EV Opponents::Several state governors are fighting fear mongering as they attempt to reduce transportation emissions in their states.
I was among those worrying about range until I spent 5 minutes thinking about what I actually do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
We’d still have my wife’s ICE van, we both work from home, and 99% of the time my work-related travel is local (within 5 miles). My wife’s van can pull the camper for our camping trips, or for our longer drives.
I have no good reason not to get an EV for my next car.
I was among those worrying about range until I spent 5 minutes thinking about what I actually do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
I was too - that was until this year when I’ve had to do multiple 800km long trips and I’ve found out that mentally I can’t really do longer than 200-250 km without a 20 min break. With that in mind, most of the EVs would be perfectly fine for me.
This is still a problem when there is not enough charging spots for peak days.
In France most people go to summer vacation at the same time, and on those days when all the charging spots are taken and you have to wait 20 minutes for one of the owner to finish his break it’s a real problem.
I would actually consider if you actually need 2 cars at all given your description of the situation. If we’re worried about the environment flat getting rid of a car is a bigger win than an EV.
If a car sits in the driveway 99% of the year, it’s not hurting the environment for 99% of its existence. If they continue to use it as a daily driver, I agree with you. But keeping a second vehicle for situations where it is specifically suited isn’t really that big a problem.
Not driving a car for long periods of time is bad for the car. That means that they would replace it after a few years, and still have two cars, instead of keeping just the one. It takes a lot of resources to build a car, even more so for EVs.
I’ve very seriously considered that. Right now, we could probably go down to one car without issue. We have two reasons why I’d like to maintain a second, though. We have young kids, and we are already starting to run them around to different places at the same time. We’re looking to move soon, and the idea is to move outside of town where we have more room. That would make basically every drive longer, which would increase the likelihood of needing a second vehicle.
Either way, an EV should be fine. Depending on cost, I might stick with a small, used ICE this time, because I don’t need much. But I’m not at that point quite yet, so maybe things will change by the time I’m ready.
Because they are relatively new in the automotive world. I can take my '08 CRV to just about any auto parts store in America and get just about any part I need (or take it to about any third party repair shop with the same results). Good luck doing that with most EVs especially Teslas. Tesla is the most egregious example as they are anti right to repair and have seemed to take a page out of Apple’s book as far as locking down their supply chain for parts.
Hopefully this will get better with time as third party shops have time to acclimate themselves and their technicians to EV architecture, and EV-specific parts become more available. Though the latter I feel is highly dependent on manufacturers not trying to turn EVs into phones in terms of repairability/serviceability.
In the meantime, as an average Joe without a lot of money, I really like the idea of keeping my relatively low cost older ICE vehicles because if shit hits the fan, if I can’t fix it relatively cheaply, there will likely be multiple shops that can without it costing me an arm and a leg and/or taking weeks or months to wait on the manufacturer to supply the parts needed.
Because third party repairs are often unavailable or void the warranty. Cars are becoming a subscription service to dealerships.
Genuine question, not meant to be an insult:
If most of your trips are within 5 miles, why would you drive? It seems excessive when you could just walk, or cycle, etc.
Well, I’m in the midwest US, so winter can be a bit harsh for walking or biking (though not this year thus far). Most of the time I drive, I’m dragging kids somewhere. It’s inconvenient to walk with them.
I have been walking and or biking when it’s just me, and I don’t need to haul much. I’ve lost a lot of weight recently, so I can actually bike to work in the summer and not be a sweaty mess when I arrive, so that’s a nice change.
We are taking about moving outside the city to have more space, which means not driving will become less possible for almost everything. Today I have groceries, dentist, and doctor within half a mile, and I’ve walked or biked to those places many times.
Bottom line, most of the time I’m either dragging kids around or I’m in a rush. Driving is very convenient, and is hard to change.
I’m in the same boat. I make drives that require refueling even if I leave home with a full tank once every other year (Philly to Indianapolis). Even with a very high range EV, that would probably require multiple recharges each way, so that’s not a great use case for EVs, but you know what? That’s what rental cars are for. I’ll happily get an EV for the 99% of driving that I do within three hours of the Philly metro area and rent an ICE car for the at worst annual trip I take that isn’t convenient in an EV.
Of course, this is all theoretical for me because I drive a company car and so don’t have much choice in my vehicle, and I probably won’t have to buy my own car until that job perk goes away.
