Comment by gavinsyancey
1 day ago
If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
We had PHEVs that could do this <checks notes> ten years ago. All whilst looking like and driving like normal cars and not iPads on wheels.
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
You can drive hundreds of miles, but you'd only be able to charge 40-50. If your typical daily use is within that, you can go further at the weekend, or make an unexpected trip, and catch up over a few days (or at a fast charger)
Can confirm as this is what I do with my PHEV, has about 50km battery range (13kWh) but advertised range of about 900km overall.
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.