This is my second time renting an EV. First time wasn’t too bad. We stayed local and only had to charge once.
This Thanksgiving we had to drive from Chicago to Omaha to Minneapolis and back to Chicago. It was approximately 1400 miles total. $289 in electric charges. (that feels a lot more expensive than gas). We had to stop every 2 hours to charge for an hour so it extended our trips by 50%. This was quite challenging when we were in a caravan of cars and the ICE ones beat us by several hours. A 6 hour drive turned into 10 hours. I shaved off a few hours by always running the car down to the last couple miles and charging it to 100%. One time was not by choice as we almost ran out due to a dead zone. We were then charged $50 to fill up 3/4 tank at an EA in the middle of Minnesota. That was kind of our breaking point.
Some positives are it was a smooth ride and felt great in the snow.
We wanted to buy an EV but wanted to see how they fair on road trips in the midwest. This experience may scare us away for a while as it was exhausting stressful and expensive. Wondering what we did wrong since so many enjoy EV.
I am blown away by people who want to buy a car by its NYC to LA performance numbers. If you’re gonna drive across the country you rent a Van. No sedan, SUV is a comfy as a fully loaded Odyssey or a loaded AWD Sienna. But do you really want to drive a van 24/7? I wouldn’t mind but many people don’t want minivans.
We have a Tesla M3P and a Sienna AWD. While the Tesla is much better at long distance than the subject of this thread, the Sienna is the ultimate cruiser in comfort, especially with kids. I enjoy driving it on trips!
I completely agree. It amazes me that regular sedan limos are still a thing. If you’re going to be driven in luxury it should be in party bus or a super decked out luxury sprinter van.