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Please read on below and you EV-curious gas car drivers may be thankful too by next Thanksgiving. I’m approaching my 11-year anniversary driving electric cars as my primary or only vehicle. I’ve driven an EV north/south from Lake Superior to Southern California and east/west from North Carolina to California. I’ve driven 5 times from Utah to Wisconsin and back in an EV. I’m approaching 200,000 miles driving EVs, so I’m somewhat of an expert on the subject. I will give you reasons for purchasing an EV, but I won’t sugarcoat it, I will give you the downsides as well.
- Range Anxiety: I don’t get it much. I’ve run out of gas 3 or 4 times in gas cars over 70 years, but I’ve never run out of electricity in my EVs in ~11 years and ~200,000 miles of driving. I came close to being stranded in an EV once because of a leaking tire and no spare. However, the car warned me of low tire pressure and I managed to make it home. Now I carry an electric tire pump in my car. You definitely monitor your state of charge in an EV more closely than your fuel tank level in a gas car for two reasons: A) the range of most EVs is usually less than that of a gas car (200 to 400 miles) and B) out of charge in an EV will require a flatbed tow truck while out of fuel in a gas car requires a kind soul with a gallon or two of fuel.
- Fueling (i.e., Charging): I own a Tesla Model 3 Long Range with ~300 miles of range. Crossing the country from east to west and north to south, Tesla’s marvelous Supercharger network has long been spaced frequently enough on Interstate highways that you don’t run out of service and the stations are never fully occupied.
Tesla’s Superchargers use what’s now called the North American Charging Standard (NACS). Going forward, virtually all EVs in North America will use this standard. Then all EVs will have access to Tesla’s marvelous charging network and will have the same availability and reliability. When my wife and I drive cross-country, we do about 500 miles/day, which is the same as we did in our gas cars. With charging, our EV day takes about one hour longer. However, we do much of our charging during bathroom and meal breaks.
At home, my fueling (i.e., charging) station is in my garage. Can any of you gas car owners say that? I start every morning with a full charge. With 300-mile range, I never need to charge during a day of local driving. For local driving, because I start every day with a full charge, I think about range even less than I would in a gas car.
- Cost of Fuel (i.e., Electricity): We like to say that the electricity to run your car at home costs about ⅓ the cost of fuel for a similar size gas car. However, there are a lot of variables: A) The price of gas, B) The price of your electricity, C) The efficiency of your gas car, and D) The efficiency of your electric car. On the road, the price of Supercharging/NACS charging is about the same as fuel for a similar size gas car. However, my charging at home is free because I have solar panels. I’m driving on sunshine! My Supercharging cost has also been zero for the last 6 months because many of my readers use my referrals (see final paragraph). In that case, the reader gets $500 to $2000 off the price of a new Tesla and I get Tesla Credits to use for Supercharging.
- Convenience: A) For local driving, an EV wins hands down! With overnight charging in your garage, you never have to make special trips to a gas station and handle smelly gasoline. You never have to spend an hour in a smelly Jiffy Lube doing an oil change. You never have to visit a mechanic’s smelly garage for an emissions check. B) For cross-country driving, an EV will only take a little longer for 500 miles a day because much of your charging time is spent during bathroom and meal breaks. However, a 1500-mile cannonball run will take significantly longer in an EV.
- Reliability: EVs have a simple electric motor and a simple one-speed transmission. They don’t have an extremely complex internal combustion engine (ICE) or complex multi-speed transmission. They don’t have a complex cooling system or complex exhaust system, with muffler and catalytic converter. Bottom line: It will cost you less to maintain an EV than a gas car
- Acceleration/Power/Towing: Even low-cost EVs accelerate like a rocket, smooth as silk and noise free! This is particularly useful passing cars and trucks on two-lane highways. EVs are particularly good at towing because they have massive amounts of instant torque. However, there is a big downside: A trailer or even a bike rack does a huge number on your aerodynamics. It drops your range as much as 50%, which can make it a challenge to get from one Supercharger to the next. Also, most Superchargers are designed to be backed into. This means that you will often have to detach your trailer when charging.
Why you should buy an EV before the end of the year!
The US federal government is giving a $7,500 refund for buyers of certain EVs that are primarily sourced and manufactured in the US, and lessors of any EVs. President-Elect Trump and even his (you won’t believe this) righthand efficiency man, Elon Musk, have promised to stop the refund when Trump assumes the presidency.
Why you should buy a Tesla before the end of the year!
Until recently, Tesla could sell every car they made in their four huge factories in Fremont, California; Austin Texas; Shanghai, China; and Berlin, Germany. However, in the last year, Tesla has had to offer incentives to continue sales growth. Tesla has particularly attractive incentives at the end of each calendar year, which are as follows right now:
- 0% interest on car loans
- Deep discounts on inventory cars
- 3 months of free Supercharging
- 3 months of free Full Self Driving (see below)
Note: After that, you can get FSD for $99 per month or a permanent subscription for $8,000.
Tesla’s Full Self Driving (Supervised) Automatic Driving
This is an incredible system developed by Tesla that works with all of its EVs built after early 2019. It works on any highway, road, or city street in North America. It operates using only a system of cameras and a mini HW3 supercomputer installed in all Tesla cars after that time. It works quite well on snow covered roads, in most lighting conditions, and in light to medium rain.
Tesla calls it Full Self Driving (Supervised). FSD (Supervised) will drive you automatically to any location you ask for (using voice commands) or enter manually into your navigation system, most of the time. It’s usually very smooth and drives like an expert human driver. However, it’s not perfect! (Hence the “Supervised” moniker.) You have to be prepared to intervene at any instant. But it will do the following:
- It will handle all steering, turns, turn signals, acceleration/deceleration, etc. on city streets and interstate highways. This includes sharp turns and rotaries/roundabouts.
- Steering is generally smoother and more accurate than it is from most human drivers.
- It will slow down automatically for sharp turns.
- It will respond correctly to two-way and four-way stop signs and traffic lights.
- It will pass slower-moving vehicles on multilane highways and return to the right-hand lane.
- It will respond correctly to traffic barrels closing a traffic lane on multi-lane highways.
- It will change lanes automatically on multilane roads, including fitting into short spaces in the adjoining lane. The camera system doesn’t have blind spots, so it’s not going to sideswipe another vehicle.
- On two-lane roads, it will respond to speed limit signs slowing down when entering a town and speeding up again when leaving.
- It will move left just the right amount to avoid cars, trucks, trailers, etc. parked in your lane on city streets.
- It will move left just the right amount to avoid pedestrians, cyclists, etc. in your lane on roads and city streets.
- It will move right to avoid oncoming traffic on narrow roads.
- It will slow down properly for speed bumps and even deep dips in the street.
Many of these capabilities have come with recent updates to the software.
FSD (Supervised) has the following faults:
- It will sometimes pick the wrong lane at an intersection (i.e., a turn lane when the navigation calls for going straight).
- It won’t slow down for 20 mph school zones when the light is flashing.
- At slow speeds in a Box Store parking lot, the steering wheel turns in a herky-jerky fashion. Also, you may find yourself at a dead end in a big parking lot.
- It’s a little slower than most human drivers at stop signs, so a driver behind you may become impatient.
- It’s subject to phantom braking from time to time (braking or slowing for no apparent reason).
- When joining a busy highway or busy street, it may take excessive time before merging into the traffic.
Referral Program: If you are buying a new Tesla, Tesla has reactivated its referral program. If you find any of my articles helpful to you, please use my referral link: https://ts.la/arthur73734 (be sure to use it when you make your order). If you are buying a new Tesla and use my link, I believe you’ll receive $1,000 off the purchase price of a Model S or X, or $500 off the price of a Model 3 or Y. You will also get 3 months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Just be prepared to intervene immediately if it screws up.
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