I have just bought my first EV and now I am trying to understand if I still need my ICE. We live in suburban NJ and weekday car rides are around the village, with weekend trips to parks, beaches in Summer, ski areas in Winter - so likely would need to recharge on the go.
Are there any folks willing to share their personal experience if EV is suitable or do people tend to have to use ICE cars for that? Especially in Winter, when I expect performance to degrade?
I can look at plugshare maps, of course, and try to gauge charging availability, but I am asking for personal experiences.
I think the proper thing to do would be to look at your travel history (pre-covid), determine how many trips you took that were more than the total range of your vehicle.
See how those trips will increase or decrease in the future.
Obvious trial method would be drive everywhere this winter in the EV while you still have an ICEV, and then decide if keeping the ICEV is necessary.
Range anxiety goes away quickly for some people and not for others; hard to tell until you try it. Same goes for changing your trip habits to include charging mid-trip.
That’s what I’d normally do. Thing is, right now I am perfectly hedged - bought high, can sell high. Waiting till spring means I might not be able to sell high anymore…
How far are these beaches and ski resorts?
What are the chargers en route to each?
Are you talking Tesla supercharger or slow EA charger?
Which EV and how fast does it charge (this can vary by trim on the same make and model)?
My experience so far, wherever I travel regularly, I am making the investment of putting a 60amp wall connector into my destination property. I can do a full recharge of my model 3 LR in about 5 hours, so basically I am at max range (350 miles) every morning after charging overnight. Some areas, I travel to from NJ, like Vermont and the Jersey Shore, just don’t have very many supercharger stations.
I agree, omitting make was an oversight. I am driving an e-tron, so no Tesla SuperChargers for me.
As for distance, I am not trying to be scientfic. There are a lot of those destinations, and distance varies. I was looking for personal experience from people with similar lifestyles.
As other posters have said, everyone is different.
I know, from just a few brief day trips down to Irvine/Tustin, that charging on the fly is a PITA…you have to find the chargers, assume they’re empty and in working condition, pay, and then wait for the car to charge. All chargers seem to have different strengths too…it is not consistent.
Tesla, apparently, is much better than all the other manufacturers when it comes to charging while travelling with their Supercharger network. You can also get a model S with nearly 400 miles of range…which even during winter is still probably 200 at worst?
IMHO, an EV is fantastic if you do local driving (especially city) or have a weekend house within 150-200 miles…say Palm Springs or Santa Barbara here in SoCal. In NYC, it might mean upstate or LI. And of course you have a charger at your destination…you don’t want to have to spend your weekend charging the car!
Yeah, it’s doable… Lot easier if you had a Tesla as Supercharger speeds are much better. I recently took my Bolt to Vegas and prior to that the Tesla SR+… I’m in SoCal, 315 mile trip-stopped twice in the Tesla 15-20 mins with about 70 miles left, Bolt was about an Hour charge (some uphill on this trip but nothing too extreme)
I’ve been ICE free for a while now and charge public charging infrastructure only-no home charger.