Comment by subpixel
25 days ago
I disagree. I really want a Lightning but live in a very rural place, weekend in an even more rural place, and need to pull a trailer pretty often.
I already have a plug-in hybrid that gets 40+ miles/charge and have opined all over the internet that the perfect car is one that gets 100+ miles/charge before firing any gas engine.
It sounds like the next Lightning will give me that though I don’t put much stock in their promises. Personally the Scout is too bougie but it does similarly.
I don’t get plug in hybrids. All other engine types save you more money compared to the next less efficient alternative the more you use them, but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them. Add in the approximately 25% price hike over the hybrid version when there is one and it makes no sense to me.
> but plugins get closer to the less efficient alternative (regular hybrid) the more you use them.
As long as most of your drive cycle fits within the EV range of the plugin hybrid, they are cheaper to operate than a regular hybrid. The crossover point depends on the drive cycle and the cost of electricity vs gasoline.
I had a plug-in hybrid SUV that got 2.2miles/kWh in EV mode, which covered 75% of the miles I drove. The net savings were significant vs an equivalent plain hybrid SUV in my area, which would get basically the same gasoline miles/gal.
But the problem is that means you drove a minuscule amount so if you’d bought a hybrid you would have still used very little gas and your car would have been much cheaper. Generously, the full range of a plugin hybrid is equivalent to about a gallon of gas.
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Using a plug-in hybrid as an EV can and will wear out the drive battery over the lifetime of the car. It doesn't even matter if you don't intend to keep the car for very long as a rational market will price this in. The cost ($10k or more) goes a long way at the pump.
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Depends on the car and driving patterns. I've got a friend with the PHEV Escape that he charges in his garage. It's the cheapest hybrid Escape that Ford sells, and he does all his driving on EV mode unless he has to do a longer trip outside of the city.
The Escape is interesting. I wonder how they manage to sell without a premium.
I drive it to avoid burning gas, while not being dependent on electricity alone - not to save money.
For three years my plug-in hybrid let me commute 50 miles daily on next to no gasoline.
I still don't think that perspective is rational. It saved at most 1 gallon of gas per day from being burned, and you still burn gas on longer trips.
I drive a plain ICE engine, but I plan for my next car to be a full EV for the reasons you state, plus the savings on gas for all miles driven (and I have driven 30k miles in the past year).
I disagree along with you. EVs would work for 80% of the population, there is a long tail of people who an EV will never (well foreseeable future) work for.
Thankfully, the mass of humanity that should be transitioning lives in populated areas and never tows anything for more than 75 miles. There is no need to get bogged down in back and forths with the small subset of people who an EV will not work for.
Surprisingly to many, rural and very rural places are actually a great location for EVs - if they have enough range.
Because even very rural places have electricity - almost always. I can find quite nice homes that are 20 miles from a gas station, but have power and could easily charge a vehicle. If I lived there, a vehicle I could use without a gas station would be quite desirable.
Yup. We also overestimate how much range we need. Average American driver drives 60km a day. The average Tesla has >500km range, meaning you need to charge fewer than once every 8 days.
Rural tends to mean space, and space tends to mean you can charge your car at home (that's different for a New York apartment dweller), making a once-in-8-day charge absolutely trivial.
In terms of economics, electric fueling of your car wins per mile.
And rural homes tend to have easy access to home-solar (again, good luck installing solar in a New York apartment rental). Electric cars tie into solar really nicely with a basic smart system, as it lets you charge at off-peak rates at night, or dump excess solar during the day into your car.
And what you've said before, it creates energy-independence, great when remote. Not to mention modern EVs allow bi-directional use of the battery, meaning the car can power your home essentials during an outage.
So I agree, EV is a great idea for rural.
Seems to me like the Chevy Silverado with the 200 kWh battery pack is the EV pickup to beat.