Is the electric vehicles better or worse?
In: Other
I rented a Volvo Polestar last year to go from Vegas to Phoenix and back because that’s all Hertz had. They’re pretty fun and cool to drive, I really like the feel of one-pedal driving (the car regeneratively brakes when you ease off the accelerator, feels like an ‘infinite’ engine brake on a manual transmission). You can also pass someone lightning fast on the highway if you need to. Climate control was pretty cool – I could keep it running for a set amount of time while we were away from the car, which is a big plus in the desert.
The major tradeoff is getting a charge back into the batteries for road tripping. We relied exclusively on the Electrify America DC Fast Charging network, which were sparse, broken, or all parked up. It takes about 40 minutes to get to 80 percent, and that does not include waiting for a space. You had to stop at every station along the way– the charging stations were so far apart, that you couldn’t skip a station due to the battery being too small. I broke down the cost of using DCFC and it was approximately the same cost as if I were to use my subaru Impreza 2013 for those same miles.
It was definitely nice to find “level 2” chargers at public (at a mall) or private (flamingo casino) parking garages. These were free and added a small fraction of miles back while we were up to other things, I’d say 15% in 4 hours each time.
I would consider purchasing an EV if I still had a gas car for roadtrips, upgraded to level 2 in my garage, and still worked from home. They’re good for city driving but the charging infrastructure is not quite there yet.
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