Less than 30 seconds in the evening, less than 15 seconds in the morning.
Not trying to be (too) glib, but unless you’re outdriving your overnight charge on the regular, you likely won’t even notice it. My car fills to full on a normal plug overnight.
I don’t have a long range EV (mine only goes about 90 miles on a full charge), so I can’t speak to charging away from home specifically because I just don’t do that (grand total of twice since owning the car), but from what I understand, DC or super charging will get you 80% of a full charge in 30 minutes on longer range vehicles.
Range and charging networks are ever expanding. Range doesn’t matter much for commuter cars, but as one that might get used for occasional long drives I’d want one with at least 200 miles of expected range. If you have to take a break every few hours on a long drive, that isn’t too bad.
yeah, but if you are going to make a 1500 mile journey it is going to be a serious change in travel habits to stop for an hour or more every 250 miles
I’d rather have fun getting from Point A to Point B.
I drive my wife’s hybrid, and I’m always trying to get the best mileage out of it. I’ll drive the speed limit on freeways (right lane, not in Lane #1 like an a-hole), slowly accelerate to the speed limit (but not slowing down drivers behind me, like an a-hole), etc. It’s a different kind of fun, and less fun.
We generally don’t drive more than 3 hours without some one needing a break anyways (although the last time I drove 1500+ miles was 2002).
If this is a trip you make regularly, I would say an EV isn’t for you, yet.
Yup. The good news is that EV manufacturers are working to bring charging time down, I think 30 min will get you ~300 miles of range in some cars now and that is decreasing. We also need more chargers, Tesla has done a good job but we’ll need something like gas stations rolling out EV chargers nationwide before there will be a sea change.
And we’ll need to see about cost. Charging at home is very cheap, you’d probably need to get something like 80-100mpg on gas to be as cheap per mile (depending on local gas/elec prices). But Tesla charges an arm and a leg, it’s more expensive to drive on Tesla electrons than gas, last I looked, assuming you get 30mpg+.
I guess if you live in an area without traffic, then “having fun” might be an option. But in cities and suburbia, you can only go as fast as the car in front of you.
I’d rather have a more comfy seat to sit in and soft ride characteristics, as well as have a cargo capacity large enough to haul around the things I want to haul around. Those are my main criteria (besides perceived quality and durability)
Of course I live in an area without a lot of traffic. Traffic sucks.
My seat is comfy, but it’s a harder ride. It can also haul 8-foot fluorescent tubes from Lowe’s to home, and from home to the special trash place. And recently I took home my new grille in its huge box (lots of foam protection) from Costco. So that is a main criterium for me. Also, when I drove to see the total solar eclipse, I slept in the back, back seats folded down, on a blow-up mattress that fit inside with the hatch closed. So, pretty versatile, and will be difficult to replace. Quality and durability are also important for me. That’s why I still have this car after 18 years. So, I wait.
2013 Chevy Trax. I figure I can squeeze another 1-2 years out of it.
Agree. My road trips are usually under 500 miles, so one stop isn’t too much of an inconvenience. If you are driving long distances frequently an EV is probably not a wise choice.
2016 Mazda 3 (new in 2018)
Has a 6-speed stick. I like it and get close to 30MPG around town and 35+ highway. WFH now I only need to fill up about every 6 weeks.
Yes, charging networks are expanding. The problem is that unless charging times decrease you will need proportionally more charging stations than gas stations on interstate exits. My nightmare is the lightly traveled routes looking like NJT Service Plazas. But the good news is that battery tech is still changing, and is likely to lead to better charging times in the next several years.
What do you pay when you visit a charging station? Do you pay with a CC like you would pay for gas at a pump?
Are there issues with plug designs? Do different manufacturers make different styles of connectors so that you have to search out not only a charging station, but a station that has your type of plug (tangent: it bothers me that 18V power tool batteries are not interchangeable among brands. )
And what has it cost anyone (willing to volunteer such data) to install a 220V charging station at home?
I heard that Chevy was installing them for free for new Volt/Bolt owners.
Buy a new Chevy Bolt and GM will install Level 2 charging in your house - Roadshow.
Google says “average range” is $1000-$2500, but can be as low as $300 and as high as $4500. So, “extreme range”?
Putting one in is a pretty serious commitment to buying all-electric (or plug-in hybrids) forever. Might also be a positive factor when selling home.
For me to buy one (EV), it would have a shitload cheaper than any fun car I could buy (lack of fun has to be compensated). And, I’d be driving it only to the store and back (maybe to work and back if I have to go in). No long trips ever. It would probably be tiny, like a Smart or Fiat 500e. So, I’d keep my current (heh, “current”) car, since it has hardly any trade-in value, for longer hauls and heavy hauls.
So Chevy is building it into the price of the electric car itself, which I seem to think is a good idea.
I had heard of a number like $2500. That is a big commitment, and it is also the equivalent to buying about 1000 gallons of gas, so the overall ownership cost savings, at least on the first electric car, are going to take a hit. I guess that you do not need to rebuy it for the second electric car, unless you buy a different brand and the charging station is incompatible. Or even if you stay with the same brand and the charging station becomes incompatible. (I think of all the phone charging cords I have purchased over the years, android usb, original apple, apple lightning, etc)
In Illinois, you cannot get an electrician to do anything for you for less than $1000.
For me the electric problem isn’t really long trips- I do them, but I’d be fine if we had to stop and recharge every 500K. The problem is I spend a week every year in the bush by Cochrane Ont. Cochrane is the last road before James Bay. I don’t see them getting charging stations any time soon. So even if I managed to drive there with an EV, I probably couldn’t come home again.
That’s likely a common problem in Canada, with long distances and not a lot of population.
Yeah, so you wouldn’t drive your EV there. You’d drive some other car.
Tesla owners tweet death threats toward owner of another brand of electric vehicle.
220, 221 whatever it takes.
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Highly variable. Labor cost depends on location. Amount of labor depends on how much wire needs run and how hard it is to do that. Future garages may come pre-wired, which likely adds a few hundred bucks, if I had to guess.
My cost? I paid about $500 for a Siemens charger with good reviews. I was already adding a separate service to my (detached) garage, so the marginal cost to add a charger was about $50 extra for bigger wire to support a 100A service, plus 30 extra minutes of the electrician’s time, plus maybe $100 for a fuse, the 8AWG wire, and a box with a recep in it. So I spent $700 but I’m sure that’s on the lower end due to my circumstances, including labor rates in Kansas.