8 ms·

I'm kicking around the idea of an electric car, but the ranges of these things just utterly disappoint me. With some companies offering, or planning to offer 5

by axaxs 5y ago

I'm kicking around the idea of an electric car, but the ranges of these things just utterly disappoint me. With some companies offering, or planning to offer 500ish mile ranges, it would feel immediately outdated to me to throw 40k on something with a ~200 mile range. Is battery tech that different between companies, is it cost prohibitive?

black_puppydog 5y ago
I think if there was a perspective to upgrade to a more modern battery later on, that would make a huge difference for these decisions. I wonder how much the actual battery contributes to the production costs. It can't be trivial, right?
- axaxs 5y ago
  Absolutely. If the battery were easily swappable, either by me or a low cost service center, AND a promise of bigger batteries was made, I'd probably bite. But as it sits, it seems like batteries are very central to the car and rather cost prohibitive to swap out.
  - ortusdux 5y ago
    After swearing up and down that they would never do battery swaps, Tesla demonstrated a 90 second swap back in 2012. They held a few events in California to get enough swaps to meet ZEV benchmarks and get nearly $300mil. When they were called out they removed any reference to the program and pretended like it never happened. https://web.archive.org/web/20140331102655/http://www.teslamotors.com/batteryswap https://web.archive.org/web/20140331102655/http://www.teslam... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Controversies
    - munk-a 5y ago
      Battery swaps are incredibly costly for the company - those units generally cost more than 10k - sometimes as high as 20k. Given that they are the majority of the cost of the vehicle it's not a great business proposition for manufacturers to offer to replace a battery for anything less than the majority of the cost of a new vehicle which consumers simply won't go for.
      - freeone3000 5y ago
        You get the uncharged battery back, though, which you can then charge and give to another person. It's like a propane cylinder swap.
        tln 5y ago
        ...just 500 times more expensive. Propane capacity isn't going to go down as the tanks age; losing 10% when swapping in an older battery could really suck.
  - jgalt212 5y ago
    IIRC, when Formula E used to have pit stops, the driver would enter a new car rather than swapping out or charging batteries.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    There are companies upgrading the batteries in early Leafs. This seems to work because the newer model batteries are similar enough that they can be made to work. They aren't re-celling the originals. My guess is as the market grows this will become more common.
- Saris 5y ago
  >I wonder how much the actual battery contributes to the production costs. It can't be trivial, right? I would think it's a good portion, at say $200 per kWh of battery a 50kWh pack is $10k.
rorykoehler 5y ago
I’m not informed but it seems all the high range cars are also the expensive ones. Mercedes EQS and Tesla Model S for example.
- axaxs 5y ago
  Don't forget the higher end monstrosity of a cybertruck. Looks aside, something like that would interest me but I don't need the extras. I don't need extra motors and 4wd. Why not just offer the base version with the bigger battery?
  - grecy 5y ago
    > Don't forget the higher end Cybertruck will have 250+ miles of range for $39,900, which is the same as the ID.4 this article is about. what about it is "higher end"?
    - axaxs 5y ago
      There are three models of cybertruck. The most expensive, 70k version, has a 500 mi range. That's what I was referring to as higher end.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      Interestingly the average car price in the US crossed $40K last year.
  - valine 5y ago
    I believe the additional motors actually contribute to the longer range. The motors can be individually optimized for different speeds, ie you can have one motor be optimized for the highway and the other for low speeds.
stefan_ 5y ago
It's a huge cost and weight penalty that makes no sense 99% of the time. You seem to be stuck in a 2010 mindset - battery swapping in particular is a hilarious failure of an idea. Watch out for the world overtaking you.
- axaxs 5y ago
  As someone who drives about 300 miles each way rather regularly, for me it -is- a real concern. Re: battery swapping, are you referring to the idea of like, hot swapping batteries on the road, or swapping to an upgraded battery at some point? I'm only specifically interested in the latter.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    600 mile round trips are not a common use case. You are going to have to be patient with two full charging stops, or pay a premium.
    - kingsuper20 5y ago
      I agree. Honestly, I think if I were to drive a seriously long distance, I'd rent a car. Not only does it save wear 'n tear, but it's hard to find something that's more of a pain than a mechanical breakdown a long way from home with something you own.
  - shiftpgdn 5y ago
    Look at an EV charge map and see what's along the route. I think the main difference ICE drivers miss is that if you have a home where you can level 2 charge you're leaving the house every day fully charged. I've only used a public charger once just to see if my account worked.
MrRadar 5y ago
How often do you drive that far? The farthest I drive in one go is 350 miles and I only make that trip once every other year because it's exhausting. (If I could fly there I probably would.) A vehicle with a 100 mile range would cover pretty much all the other driving I do regularly.
- dhdhhdd 5y ago
  Funny. I would not fly for a trip of 350 miles. Being at the airport early, going through security, checking in luggage, all of those are unpredictable. Most of the time i leave home 3 hours before scheduled flight, it can take 1 hour to get to the airport (depending on traffic, usually 20 minutes), and then all of the above. 3 hours can get me almost 200 miles away, and then I'm left with 150 miles of driving.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    plus adding in (I think) the magic number is 400 miles when flying becomes safer than driving.
  - weehoo 5y ago
    NorCal to SoCal using regional airports (avoid sfo lax etc) can be less than 2 hours door to door. Online check in + no checked bag means you can show up at small airports 30 minutes before takeoff. 50 minutes in the air, 10 minutes to deplane and leave the airport, and less than 15 minutes driving on either end and you have 2 hours door to door (and a lot more leg stretching than driving the 5).
- jackson1442 5y ago
  I'm curious... are you in the US? 350 miles is definitely within the realm of reason here-- a couple friends and I made an impulsive 250-something mile trip a couple weeks ago, and my family took a road trip to Florida over the past summer (normally we'd fly, but COVID)-- that trip was actually in an electric car and ended up being about 4 hours longer than it would be in a gas car. Depending on where you are, 350 miles might not even get you out of Texas!
pilingual 5y ago
A used Premier Bolt with DC quick charging is a good compromise here. The car software is well done, and while it isn't updated often that just means you can expect less bugs than Tesla's constantly updated software. Downsides to the Bolt include OnStar, 3rd party quick chargers are often broken, and their app is absolute garbage. Other than that I think ~$15k for 200+ miles is amazing.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  What I don't think people understand is how quick these batteries can be charged. It is a plug in, get lunch, go to the bathroom, maybe stretch a bit, and get back on the road type of deal. How long does somebody really want to be driving/sitting in a car non-stop?
  - LeegleechN 5y ago
    If your list includes "get lunch" it's not a quick charge. A 1 hour charge time can be planned around but it is still quite constraining.
    - CameronNemo 5y ago
      Meh. If I am driving several hundred miles in a fraction of a day, I am going to be patient and grateful. Doing that on a bike, on horseback, or on foot would be absolutely grueling and take several days or weeks.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - dreamcompiler 5y ago
      I always stop for lunch on long car trips. Sometimes I grab a snack at a gas station but I prefer a sit-down meal as a break from driving. That takes about an hour. Now in my EV, I still stop for lunch; I just do so where there's a Supercharger nearby. The only downside is that a Supercharger fillup only takes about 20 minutes and Tesla will start billing me if the car is full and taking up a parking place too long, so sometimes I have to dash out of the restaurant and move the car in the middle of lunch. The solution I've found for this problem is to grab lunch first, then go recharge at the Supercharger and sit in the comfortable climate-controlled car and either have a post-lunch quicknap or watch Netflix for 20 minutes.
CameronNemo 5y ago
Do you have to buy a "Sport Utility Vehicle"? Sedans like the Model 3 have a higher range.
- axaxs 5y ago
  Unfortunately, I do. I am very tall with bad knees and while some sedans fit me fine, getting in and out of them is excruciating. About the smallest thing I've been comfortable with is a Chevy Equinox, to give you a size comparison. It's more about the ride height than the size of the vehicle, but they seem to go hand in hand.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    That is unfortunate. Driving extended periods in a cramped car is definitely a pain. Hopefully you are being compensated appropriately for these arduous trips.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  I like cargo space and don't like to bottom out on dirt roads or my driveway (also a dirt road). Although I doubt the ID.4 has enough ground clearance for me. edit: looks like it has 8.2 inches of ground clearance, so that would be fine. Too bad it's ugly but oh well. Cars don't have to be pretty.
sparrc 5y ago
Probably makes sense for you to wait then, I think most people are happy with 200-250 miles (I certainly would be)
- datavirtue 5y ago
  250 sounds doable but not 200.
cbhl 5y ago
For an EV, maybe consider leasing. For a conventional car you'd sell after 5 years or drive it for ten to reduce TCO, so you'd want to compare that with the monthly cost for (say) a 36 mo lease.
dreamcompiler 5y ago
VW is pretty far behind Tesla in battery technology.[0] Still, this seems like a good car for a large number of drivers. The VW charging network is building out rapidly (I've noticed that VW's chargers are largely in the same locations as Tesla's superchargers. Wonder why?) The Tesla Model Y Long Range is rated at 326 miles and in my experience that's accurate and completely practical. As to your criterion of "500ish" miles, that's unrealistic even for most ICE cars. Granted gas stations are more common than EV charging stations but you also cannot recharge your ICE car at home or at your hotel or at an RV park. Owning an EV requires a mindset switch; if you approach the EV purchase decision from the ICE mindset and all you see is "OMG the range is too low and what happens if I can't find a charger?" then you're probably not ready for EV ownership. If, OTOH you are able to switch to a mindset where you keep your energy status in the back of your mind (and an EV car helps you with this a great deal) then you might be ready. For me this mindset switch was easy since I've been RV camping for decades; that's another lifestyle where thinking about such things as energy, water, and waste status are necessary. It's not difficult; it's just different. It requires an awareness that assumptions of infinite sources (of water, energy, etc.) and infinite sinks (for waste disposal) are incorrect, and now you must manage them actively. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx1O4kvjn0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx1O4kvjn0U
- varjag 5y ago
  ID4 has 310 miles on its 77KWh, I dunno what "pretty far behind" here is supposed to mean. It's not like Tesla uses some hitherto unknown cell technology…
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    "Has not been blessed by St Elon of Car", I assume. In reality, while many manufacturers have grandiose claims of amazing magical batteries Any Day Now (TM) the battery tech being used in real life cars that you can buy today is all fairly similar.
  - the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
    Also makes no sense to me. The advantage of tesla is not the battery capacity but the more efficient powertrain / drag coefficient. Teslas need a lot less energy in comparison.
dm319 5y ago
It's really the infrastructure rather than the range that needs to change (for most people). If high speed charging became ubiquitous, then you would only be stopping for 20 min every 2 hours with current technology. Driving any more than that without a rest in my country can result in serious consequences. Add to that a fully charged vehicle every morning without having to make a visit to a petrol/gas station at any point in the week, and you can start to see how it can become more convenient. All of this depends on where you live and what you use your car for of course.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  > Driving any more than that without a rest in my country can result in serious consequences. Fascinating! We drive hours upon hours on the regular in Texas, everything is so spread apart. I take weekend trips to see my family every once in a while and it comes out to 3-4 hours and I do that without really hesitating. One of my friends recently mentioned that one of their parents took a job that's 120 miles away from their house(!!) which, while it's definitely not "normal," certainly happens. If you don't mind my asking, whereabouts are you from?
  - dm319 5y ago
    From the UK, and not everyone is aware of this. But it has been tried in the courts, and I'm aware of one person (friend of a friend) who is in jail as a result if having an accident after driving for 4 hours. I have a friend who works in car insurance, and he's pretty firm about the requirement to not drive more than two hours straight. Our motorways are covered in cameras, so if something happens you generally can't pretend you took a different route or stopped in a (camera covered) service station!
01100011 5y ago
I'll take a range of 80 miles. Enough for a couple round-trips to work with some reserve capacity. I'd pay $20k for a tiny car that provides me with that and I'd keep my gas vehicle for road trips. In order to replace my gas vehicle, I'm going to need 500 miles. That's enough to cover my trip to see family along with a little overhead to handle degredation over time and running the AC in summer. I don't mind stopping to quick charge for 10 minutes once during the trip, but beyond that I'll stick with gas.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  If you are willing to go used, you can get any of several models of 1st gen EVs that get in the 75-100 mile range. I would recommend staying away from the early Leafs due to their poor battery management, but most others should be a good deal by now and would satisfy your needs.

by axaxs 5y ago

black_puppydog 5y ago

I think if there was a perspective to upgrade to a more modern battery later on, that would make a huge difference for these decisions. I wonder how much the actual battery contributes to the production costs. It can't be trivial, right?

axaxs 5y ago
Absolutely. If the battery were easily swappable, either by me or a low cost service center, AND a promise of bigger batteries was made, I'd probably bite. But as it sits, it seems like batteries are very central to the car and rather cost prohibitive to swap out.
- ortusdux 5y ago
  After swearing up and down that they would never do battery swaps, Tesla demonstrated a 90 second swap back in 2012. They held a few events in California to get enough swaps to meet ZEV benchmarks and get nearly $300mil. When they were called out they removed any reference to the program and pretended like it never happened. https://web.archive.org/web/20140331102655/http://www.teslamotors.com/batteryswap https://web.archive.org/web/20140331102655/http://www.teslam... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Controversies
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Battery swaps are incredibly costly for the company - those units generally cost more than 10k - sometimes as high as 20k. Given that they are the majority of the cost of the vehicle it's not a great business proposition for manufacturers to offer to replace a battery for anything less than the majority of the cost of a new vehicle which consumers simply won't go for.
    - freeone3000 5y ago
      You get the uncharged battery back, though, which you can then charge and give to another person. It's like a propane cylinder swap.
      - tln 5y ago
        ...just 500 times more expensive. Propane capacity isn't going to go down as the tanks age; losing 10% when swapping in an older battery could really suck.
- jgalt212 5y ago
  IIRC, when Formula E used to have pit stops, the driver would enter a new car rather than swapping out or charging batteries.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  There are companies upgrading the batteries in early Leafs. This seems to work because the newer model batteries are similar enough that they can be made to work. They aren't re-celling the originals. My guess is as the market grows this will become more common.
Saris 5y ago
>I wonder how much the actual battery contributes to the production costs. It can't be trivial, right? I would think it's a good portion, at say $200 per kWh of battery a 50kWh pack is $10k.

rorykoehler 5y ago

I’m not informed but it seems all the high range cars are also the expensive ones. Mercedes EQS and Tesla Model S for example.

axaxs 5y ago
Don't forget the higher end monstrosity of a cybertruck. Looks aside, something like that would interest me but I don't need the extras. I don't need extra motors and 4wd. Why not just offer the base version with the bigger battery?
- grecy 5y ago
  > Don't forget the higher end Cybertruck will have 250+ miles of range for $39,900, which is the same as the ID.4 this article is about. what about it is "higher end"?
  - axaxs 5y ago
    There are three models of cybertruck. The most expensive, 70k version, has a 500 mi range. That's what I was referring to as higher end.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Interestingly the average car price in the US crossed $40K last year.
- valine 5y ago
  I believe the additional motors actually contribute to the longer range. The motors can be individually optimized for different speeds, ie you can have one motor be optimized for the highway and the other for low speeds.

stefan_ 5y ago

It's a huge cost and weight penalty that makes no sense 99% of the time. You seem to be stuck in a 2010 mindset - battery swapping in particular is a hilarious failure of an idea. Watch out for the world overtaking you.

axaxs 5y ago
As someone who drives about 300 miles each way rather regularly, for me it -is- a real concern. Re: battery swapping, are you referring to the idea of like, hot swapping batteries on the road, or swapping to an upgraded battery at some point? I'm only specifically interested in the latter.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  600 mile round trips are not a common use case. You are going to have to be patient with two full charging stops, or pay a premium.
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    I agree. Honestly, I think if I were to drive a seriously long distance, I'd rent a car. Not only does it save wear 'n tear, but it's hard to find something that's more of a pain than a mechanical breakdown a long way from home with something you own.
- shiftpgdn 5y ago
  Look at an EV charge map and see what's along the route. I think the main difference ICE drivers miss is that if you have a home where you can level 2 charge you're leaving the house every day fully charged. I've only used a public charger once just to see if my account worked.

MrRadar 5y ago

How often do you drive that far? The farthest I drive in one go is 350 miles and I only make that trip once every other year because it's exhausting. (If I could fly there I probably would.) A vehicle with a 100 mile range would cover pretty much all the other driving I do regularly.

dhdhhdd 5y ago
Funny. I would not fly for a trip of 350 miles. Being at the airport early, going through security, checking in luggage, all of those are unpredictable. Most of the time i leave home 3 hours before scheduled flight, it can take 1 hour to get to the airport (depending on traffic, usually 20 minutes), and then all of the above. 3 hours can get me almost 200 miles away, and then I'm left with 150 miles of driving.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  plus adding in (I think) the magic number is 400 miles when flying becomes safer than driving.
- weehoo 5y ago
  NorCal to SoCal using regional airports (avoid sfo lax etc) can be less than 2 hours door to door. Online check in + no checked bag means you can show up at small airports 30 minutes before takeoff. 50 minutes in the air, 10 minutes to deplane and leave the airport, and less than 15 minutes driving on either end and you have 2 hours door to door (and a lot more leg stretching than driving the 5).
jackson1442 5y ago
I'm curious... are you in the US? 350 miles is definitely within the realm of reason here-- a couple friends and I made an impulsive 250-something mile trip a couple weeks ago, and my family took a road trip to Florida over the past summer (normally we'd fly, but COVID)-- that trip was actually in an electric car and ended up being about 4 hours longer than it would be in a gas car. Depending on where you are, 350 miles might not even get you out of Texas!

pilingual 5y ago

A used Premier Bolt with DC quick charging is a good compromise here. The car software is well done, and while it isn't updated often that just means you can expect less bugs than Tesla's constantly updated software. Downsides to the Bolt include OnStar, 3rd party quick chargers are often broken, and their app is absolute garbage. Other than that I think ~$15k for 200+ miles is amazing.

CameronNemo 5y ago
What I don't think people understand is how quick these batteries can be charged. It is a plug in, get lunch, go to the bathroom, maybe stretch a bit, and get back on the road type of deal. How long does somebody really want to be driving/sitting in a car non-stop?
- LeegleechN 5y ago
  If your list includes "get lunch" it's not a quick charge. A 1 hour charge time can be planned around but it is still quite constraining.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    Meh. If I am driving several hundred miles in a fraction of a day, I am going to be patient and grateful. Doing that on a bike, on horseback, or on foot would be absolutely grueling and take several days or weeks.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - dreamcompiler 5y ago
    I always stop for lunch on long car trips. Sometimes I grab a snack at a gas station but I prefer a sit-down meal as a break from driving. That takes about an hour. Now in my EV, I still stop for lunch; I just do so where there's a Supercharger nearby. The only downside is that a Supercharger fillup only takes about 20 minutes and Tesla will start billing me if the car is full and taking up a parking place too long, so sometimes I have to dash out of the restaurant and move the car in the middle of lunch. The solution I've found for this problem is to grab lunch first, then go recharge at the Supercharger and sit in the comfortable climate-controlled car and either have a post-lunch quicknap or watch Netflix for 20 minutes.

CameronNemo 5y ago

Do you have to buy a "Sport Utility Vehicle"? Sedans like the Model 3 have a higher range.

axaxs 5y ago
Unfortunately, I do. I am very tall with bad knees and while some sedans fit me fine, getting in and out of them is excruciating. About the smallest thing I've been comfortable with is a Chevy Equinox, to give you a size comparison. It's more about the ride height than the size of the vehicle, but they seem to go hand in hand.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  That is unfortunate. Driving extended periods in a cramped car is definitely a pain. Hopefully you are being compensated appropriately for these arduous trips.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
I like cargo space and don't like to bottom out on dirt roads or my driveway (also a dirt road). Although I doubt the ID.4 has enough ground clearance for me. edit: looks like it has 8.2 inches of ground clearance, so that would be fine. Too bad it's ugly but oh well. Cars don't have to be pretty.

sparrc 5y ago

Probably makes sense for you to wait then, I think most people are happy with 200-250 miles (I certainly would be)

datavirtue 5y ago
250 sounds doable but not 200.

cbhl 5y ago

For an EV, maybe consider leasing. For a conventional car you'd sell after 5 years or drive it for ten to reduce TCO, so you'd want to compare that with the monthly cost for (say) a 36 mo lease.

dreamcompiler 5y ago

VW is pretty far behind Tesla in battery technology.[0] Still, this seems like a good car for a large number of drivers. The VW charging network is building out rapidly (I've noticed that VW's chargers are largely in the same locations as Tesla's superchargers. Wonder why?) The Tesla Model Y Long Range is rated at 326 miles and in my experience that's accurate and completely practical. As to your criterion of "500ish" miles, that's unrealistic even for most ICE cars. Granted gas stations are more common than EV charging stations but you also cannot recharge your ICE car at home or at your hotel or at an RV park. Owning an EV requires a mindset switch; if you approach the EV purchase decision from the ICE mindset and all you see is "OMG the range is too low and what happens if I can't find a charger?" then you're probably not ready for EV ownership. If, OTOH you are able to switch to a mindset where you keep your energy status in the back of your mind (and an EV car helps you with this a great deal) then you might be ready. For me this mindset switch was easy since I've been RV camping for decades; that's another lifestyle where thinking about such things as energy, water, and waste status are necessary. It's not difficult; it's just different. It requires an awareness that assumptions of infinite sources (of water, energy, etc.) and infinite sinks (for waste disposal) are incorrect, and now you must manage them actively. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx1O4kvjn0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx1O4kvjn0U

varjag 5y ago
ID4 has 310 miles on its 77KWh, I dunno what "pretty far behind" here is supposed to mean. It's not like Tesla uses some hitherto unknown cell technology…
- rsynnott 5y ago
  "Has not been blessed by St Elon of Car", I assume. In reality, while many manufacturers have grandiose claims of amazing magical batteries Any Day Now (TM) the battery tech being used in real life cars that you can buy today is all fairly similar.
- the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
  Also makes no sense to me. The advantage of tesla is not the battery capacity but the more efficient powertrain / drag coefficient. Teslas need a lot less energy in comparison.

dm319 5y ago

It's really the infrastructure rather than the range that needs to change (for most people). If high speed charging became ubiquitous, then you would only be stopping for 20 min every 2 hours with current technology. Driving any more than that without a rest in my country can result in serious consequences. Add to that a fully charged vehicle every morning without having to make a visit to a petrol/gas station at any point in the week, and you can start to see how it can become more convenient. All of this depends on where you live and what you use your car for of course.

jackson1442 5y ago
> Driving any more than that without a rest in my country can result in serious consequences. Fascinating! We drive hours upon hours on the regular in Texas, everything is so spread apart. I take weekend trips to see my family every once in a while and it comes out to 3-4 hours and I do that without really hesitating. One of my friends recently mentioned that one of their parents took a job that's 120 miles away from their house(!!) which, while it's definitely not "normal," certainly happens. If you don't mind my asking, whereabouts are you from?
- dm319 5y ago
  From the UK, and not everyone is aware of this. But it has been tried in the courts, and I'm aware of one person (friend of a friend) who is in jail as a result if having an accident after driving for 4 hours. I have a friend who works in car insurance, and he's pretty firm about the requirement to not drive more than two hours straight. Our motorways are covered in cameras, so if something happens you generally can't pretend you took a different route or stopped in a (camera covered) service station!

01100011 5y ago

I'll take a range of 80 miles. Enough for a couple round-trips to work with some reserve capacity. I'd pay $20k for a tiny car that provides me with that and I'd keep my gas vehicle for road trips. In order to replace my gas vehicle, I'm going to need 500 miles. That's enough to cover my trip to see family along with a little overhead to handle degredation over time and running the AC in summer. I don't mind stopping to quick charge for 10 minutes once during the trip, but beyond that I'll stick with gas.

Tagbert 5y ago
If you are willing to go used, you can get any of several models of 1st gen EVs that get in the 75-100 mile range. I would recommend staying away from the early Leafs due to their poor battery management, but most others should be a good deal by now and would satisfy your needs.