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I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip

10 points by mortenjorck 4y ago

mwint 4y ago
It’s comically obvious they didn’t do ten seconds of research about how EV roadtrips work in a non-Tesla. This sentence proves it: > “Should we just drive straight through to New Orleans?” I finally ask desperately, even as I realize I’ve failed to map out the last 400 miles of our route
mortenjorck 4y ago
https://archive.ph/i1DvU https://archive.ph/i1DvU
clouddrover 4y ago
> I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping. Rather than trying to plan their own route they should have just used A Better Routeplanner for their route and charging strategy: https://abetterrouteplanner.com https://abetterrouteplanner.com New Orleans to Chicago is possible in a Kia EV6 AWD Long Range with only 1 hour 34 minutes of charging. Even if charging went slow and it ballooned out to 7 hours that's still much better than what they did. > He suspects our car is the less-expensive EV6 model with a range not of 310 miles, as listed on Turo, but 250. He says he can’t be sure what model we were driving without physically inspecting the car. Yes, you need to know what car you're driving and what it will do. EV infrastructure isn't as good as ICE infrastructure yet. You need to know what you're about before you start.
spoonjim 4y ago
Well maybe it’s because renting an electric car for a road trip is stupid? Everyone knows that road trips are the worst scenario for electric cars. I do road trips maybe once every 5 years so am fine going all-electric and renting a gas car when I want to do a road trip.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I got the sense they weren't renting an EV for a road trip to see if that would make sense for other people to do, but rather so they could see whether EV buyers would realistically be able to use them on road trips. It was a useful article for me to read, from that perspective.
simonblack 4y ago
Until we get a dependable range similar to a non-electric car, and we get sufficient infrastructure for electric vehicles, we won't be able to change from petroleum-based to electric-based cars. The unmentioned elephant in the room is the capability of the electrical grid to handle charging hundreds of millions of electric cars on a daily basis without it blacking-out or browning-out. That necessary expensive upgrade of the country's electrical grid always seems to get swept under the carpet.

10 points by mortenjorck 4y ago

It’s comically obvious they didn’t do ten seconds of research about how EV roadtrips work in a non-Tesla. This sentence proves it: > “Should we just drive straight through to New Orleans?” I finally ask desperately, even as I realize I’ve failed to map out the last 400 miles of our route

mortenjorck 4y ago

https://archive.ph/i1DvU https://archive.ph/i1DvU

clouddrover 4y ago

> I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping. Rather than trying to plan their own route they should have just used A Better Routeplanner for their route and charging strategy: https://abetterrouteplanner.com https://abetterrouteplanner.com New Orleans to Chicago is possible in a Kia EV6 AWD Long Range with only 1 hour 34 minutes of charging. Even if charging went slow and it ballooned out to 7 hours that's still much better than what they did. > He suspects our car is the less-expensive EV6 model with a range not of 310 miles, as listed on Turo, but 250. He says he can’t be sure what model we were driving without physically inspecting the car. Yes, you need to know what car you're driving and what it will do. EV infrastructure isn't as good as ICE infrastructure yet. You need to know what you're about before you start.

spoonjim 4y ago

Well maybe it’s because renting an electric car for a road trip is stupid? Everyone knows that road trips are the worst scenario for electric cars. I do road trips maybe once every 5 years so am fine going all-electric and renting a gas car when I want to do a road trip.

gnicholas 4y ago
I got the sense they weren't renting an EV for a road trip to see if that would make sense for other people to do, but rather so they could see whether EV buyers would realistically be able to use them on road trips. It was a useful article for me to read, from that perspective.

simonblack 4y ago

Until we get a dependable range similar to a non-electric car, and we get sufficient infrastructure for electric vehicles, we won't be able to change from petroleum-based to electric-based cars. The unmentioned elephant in the room is the capability of the electrical grid to handle charging hundreds of millions of electric cars on a daily basis without it blacking-out or browning-out. That necessary expensive upgrade of the country's electrical grid always seems to get swept under the carpet.