I’M OFTEN APPROACHED BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE QUESTIONS about my EV (electric vehicle) when I’m out and about. Since many people will be considering the purchase of a new car within the coming years I decided to write about what I’ve learned to pass it on. Electric vehicles are all the rage yet there’s a good deal of misinformation and myth passed around about them. As an owner I can offer my experiences good, bad and otherwise. A number of other folks on Village Hill also own EV’s and would likely be happy to tell you about their experiences too!

RANGE IS NOT AN ISSUE! — TRUE 👍
Anyone concerned about range should relax. Most EV’s are now reliably providing 200 to 250 miles of range on a charge. That’s approximately four hours of non-stop driving at highway speeds. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand more than 2-3 hours without a break anymore. My Volkswagen ID.4 provides about 275 miles on a charge. I commute 160 miles on my weekly round-trip to eastern MA and I have no problem with range. I typically arrive home with about 120 miles of range remaining.

Joanne and I have made three cross-country trips in our VW. Twice we’ve driven to Tennessee to visit family, and once this summer to Pentwater, Michigan on the eastern shores of the lake. We stopped at multiple charging stations with stops as short as 10 minutes and as long as 40 minutes (lunch break!). Our car can charge from 20% up to 80% in about 25 minutes (charging to 100% while traveling is considered poor form because the time required to charge that last 20% could be twice as long as the first 60%). We used commonly available phone software to plan the route and find the chargers on the route. The software can even tell you when chargers are in-use, or available before you arrive. Chargers are typically spaced out about 50 miles apart on major highways, although there are larger gaps and voids in some more remote locations. We did not encounter any such gaps on our trips. We both feel that EV road travel is more pleasant than any experience we ever had previously in gasoline vehicles.

An EV with a 250 mile range can drive from Northampton to Philadelphia non-stop. You can get to Montreal with a single ten minute charge stop en-route. And stretch your legs or have a road snack at the same time. The average person needs no more than 200 miles of range for 99% of their vehicle journeys. Keep in mind you have to pay for greater range because the battery size increases, and much of the cost of an EV is in the battery. Would you really want to pay an additional ten thousand dollars to get 80 miles of additional range that you use once or twice per year—versus charging one extra time while on the road?

YOU CAN’T DRIVE EV’S IN THE WINTER — FALSE 👎
I’ve driven an EV all winter for four years now. I’ve never had any problem. The heater works better, and faster than any car I’ve ever owned (as does the A/C in the summer too). The defroster is a beast that can clear the window in moments. Nearly every EV comes with heated seats and steering wheel to help conserve battery power (and they are toasty warm!) My mileage range does drop in winter but it varies according to temperature. In extreme cold temps (0° to 10°F) my range will decrease by 20-25%, but even gas cars lose similar range in those temps*. You’d be surprised how much your gasoline car’s MPG drops when the temperature goes below freezing. At 20° to 30°F my EV range loss is about 10-15%. The lowest estimated range I’ve seen in my car is 205 miles and that was right around 0°F. Later that day the temps were up to 25° and my range increased as well.

*According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fuel economy tests show that a standard vehicle's gas mileage is roughly 15% lower at 20°F than it would be at 77°F. This rate can plummet even further (up to 24%!). A Honda Civic that gets 360 miles on a full tank drops to 273 miles at 5°F—or percentage-wise, just about the exact same amount an EV would.

THERE ARE NO CHARGERS AROUND HERE — FALSE 👎
Actually there are quite a few, and more being built all the time. There are four new chargers in the parking lot of the North Common apartment building that are nearly unused at this time. Chargers come in different “levels”. The kind you see downtown in Northampton are Level 2 chargers that run at 240 volt current and will charge a car at about 20-25 miles per hour. Not fast enough for long road trips, but adequate if you plan to park for a couple of hours. Level 3 DC Fast chargers are typically found on major highways and they run at 480 volts (with plans for 800 volt systems in the very near future). They charge a car at much higher speeds—in the hundreds of miles per hour range (depending upon the car). That means you can add one or two hundred miles of range in 15-30 minutes for most cars. Some newer cars like Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 will double that. Charging is getting much faster every day. There are twelve Tesla Level 3 chargers behind the Pride convenience store/gas station just across the Conn. River in Hadley. Tesla is opening its charger network to ALL cars soon so any EV will be able to obtain a DC Fast charge at that location. There is also a brand new bank of DC Fast chargers from EVGo located in the Stop & Shop parking lot on route 9 in Amherst. Level 1 chargers plug into standard wall sockets and run at 120 volts. They’re easy and abundant to use but very slow to charge. My car requires more than two full days to charge from 10% to 100% on a Level 1 charger.

GAS CARS ARE MORE RELIABLE — FALSE 👎
Nope. Not even close. EV’s have ONE moving part for propulsion and the motor will likely last for millions of miles. EV’s have none of the pollution controls or sensors, exhaust systems, oil changes, tune-ups, radiators that present a constant cost to the owner. My car doesn’t even have scheduled maintenance except for a cabin air filter that they recommend be changed periodically. It costs $8 online and can be changed by anyone without tools. Brakes are the only “friction” part on the car and they last far longer than gasoline cars because of the Regenerative Braking that’s common to all EV’s. As a result the brakes are used much less and last longer.

EV’s CATCH FIRE A LOT—FALSE 👎
Gasoline cars burn at a rate 60 times, and Hybrids 135 times more frequently than EV’s. The actual statistics are:
Electric vehicles: 25 fires per 100,000 sold.
Gas-powered cars: 1,530 fires per 100,000 sold.
Hybrid cars: 3,475 fires per 100,000 sold.

YOU HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO DRIVE ALL OVER AGAIN WITH EV’S — FALSE 👎
Nope. They’re just like regular cars. You put them in Drive and go. They have more safety systems built in that any previous gasoline vehicles. You can use all their high-tech wonders, or you can simply get in and go. The only difference most people note is Regenerative Braking, which is a fancy way of saying the car recaptures energy by using the electric motor to brake, and slow the car down to RECHARGE its battery. Many EV’s give drivers the option of adjusting how strong or mild the Regen. is, or turning it off, or so low it is barely noticeable.

THEY MAKE WEIRD SOUNDS — SORT OF TRUE 👍
At low speeds they do make odd sounds. They are a government mandated requirement to protect pedestrians. EV’s are so quiet while moving pedestrians often don’t hear them and may step into intersections without looking. The weird noises are intended to be audible to people, but quiet enough to avoid sound pollution. Each car seems to have its own signature sound which gradually softens and finally turns off when the car accelerates to 19 mph. The interior driving experience of EV’s in one of exceptional quiet since the only sound is wind and tire noise and most manufacturers are taking special care to keep that at a minimum. Quiet conversations are no problem in an EV.

EV’s COST TOO MUCH — SORT OF, BUT NOT REALLY 👎
All cars cost too much! But every EV that hits the road reduces carbon in the air and the incentives to buy one are significant. At present a qualifying EV will receive a $7500 federal tax credit (which you may or may not be able to use—check with your accountant) and a $2500 MA REBATE. That’s $10K off the price of a car. The costs to operate an EV are so much lower than a gas car that you will be pleasantly surprised. The cost of electricity to travel 100 miles in my car is approximately $7.87 (at .26¢ per kWh total electricity cost on our house electric bill, with my car getting 3.3 miles per kWh of battery power [100 miles / 3.3, multiplied by .26¢]). Gasoline for the same trip would be $16.00 (at $4.00 per gallon, getting 25 mpg). Even if you’re getting 50 mpg it’s $8.00 of gas, and still cheaper to drive an EV since there’s no maintenance, oil changes, etc. to figure in. If your home or condo has solar panels and generates excess power to the grid your cost to charge could be considerably less than .26¢ per kWh.

MANUFACTURING EV’S GENERATES MORE CARBON THAN GAS CARS — FALSE 👎
EV’s have around 15,000 parts when completely assembled. Gas cars have twice as many—around 30,000. Since every part is manufactured using some mineral, metal, or chemical resource along with energy, it’s easy to see that manufacturing gas cars generates far more carbon than EV’s. As a result car manufacturers state they can, and will achieve carbon neutrality by switching to EV production.

BEST CAR EVER? — TRUE 👍
My personal opinion is my EV is the best car I’ve ever owned. It’s pleasant to drive, is quiet and comfortable, powerful but not ridiculous, rides smoothly, has a spacious interior with a flat floor, plenty of cargo space, and is comfortable for short or long hauls. I’ve put 19K miles on it in just over a year, so it gets driven a lot and it’s been 100% reliable. And the actual operating cost is 50% less than a Honda CRV.

THE CAVEAT ☝️
Isn’t there always one? My EV, considered by itself is great. I have no issues or complaints with it. The electrical charging NETWORKS on the major highways however need improvement. My car came with three years of free charging at Electrify America (which happens to be owned by Volkswagen). They are the second largest DC (Direct current) Fast charging network behind Tesla. The cost to charge at one of these chargers is MUCH higher than at home—around .44¢ per kWh of energy delivered to your car. It’s these networks that make it possible to travel across the country. The problem is these devices run huge amounts of power through them and they are prone to a high rate of failure or breakdown, often as a result of high or low ambient temperatures. They’re quite safe for people to use because they shut down the moment there’s any kind of technical problem. As a result it’s not uncommon to pull into a charger station and find at least one “out-of-service” charger. If multiple chargers are broken and it happens to be in a busy location, there can be a line of vehicles waiting to charge, and their drivers will all be unhappy about the situation! The supply chain crisis that’s affecting everything, has also had a big impact on these charging stations. Getting parts for repair is slow and many stations languish for weeks before being returned to 100% operational service. This is not a problem exclusive to Electrify America however, as Tesla owners have also been reporting high rates of broken chargers.

My solution has been to plan to charge early and more often, before my battery level is very low. That way I can look for optional chargers on my route, as much as 50 miles ahead of me. Charging more often means SHORT stops…as little as 10 minutes. It also means I’m not risking a big delay by committing myself to wait at a charger with a line of cars in front of me.

The other positive note in this is the recently passed bill in Congress allocated a LOT of money to build out the charger network infrastructure. There are going to be many more chargers on the highway in the next couple of years. Plus Tesla has agreed to open their network to ALL EV’s…not just Tesla vehicles, in order to qualify for federal funds.

If you have any other questions about the “EV experience” feel free to ask!