5 ms·

YMMV but I think the obvious thing to do for anyone who worries about range is to use an EV for daily and hire the right car for a long trip. I don’t buy a car

YMMV but I think the obvious thing to do for anyone who worries about range is to use an EV for daily and hire the right car for a long trip. I don’t buy a car for my 1% trips, I buy a car for my 99% trips. When I need a 4x4, I hire. When I go on a weekend away with lots of gear, I get a trailer or larger car. Big family outing, people carrier. Fetch furniture, Uber van. Getting a huge car and using it for shopping or dropping kids off is allowing the rare use case to dictate how you experience the typical use case. Harder to park, fuel, maintain. Hiring also means I don’t have the “wrong” large car which doesn’t fit the rare holiday where I need more seats or storage.

jbarham 3y ago
A cheap and easy way to increase the size of the car you already have is to buy a roof box. Our previous car was a small hatchback and interstate trips with our three kids in the back would have been impossible without the roof box. I only bought a bigger car when my oldest kid was pushing 6 feet and running out of legroom in the back seat of the hatchback.
- reassembled 3y ago
  And increase drag, resulting in lower fuel economy/range.
  - hr2016 3y ago
    Meh, I'm currently on a cross-island road trip with. Family of four in a >10 year old, manual, brown diesel grandtourer/station wagon. Trunk and roof box fully loaded. Long range fuel consumption at 5.3L/100kms, as usual at summer conditions. Of course, ymmv : - )
  - jbarham 3y ago
    Sure, but I only used the roof box on occasional long trips when we had lots of luggage (e.g., visiting the grandparents interstate for Christmas). So I might have paid a few tens of dollars extra in fuel, but it was certainly far cheaper than buying a bigger car when we otherwise didn't need the extra space. The roof rack and Thule box cost maybe $1200 AUD. But the rack was also useful for attaching bicycle carriers.
  - piva00 3y ago
    Needs to be done in comparison with a larger car that would fit the same cargo as the smaller car with a roof box.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    A larger car is likely going to have worse fuel economy and/or range than a smaller car. If you get the larger car, you take that hit every single time you drive it. If you get the smaller car and a roof box, you take that hit only when you mount the roof box. If that's most of the time, then sure, it probably makes sense to get the larger car. But I don't think that's the GP's use case. The larger car is likely more expensive to purchase in the first place than the smaller car plus the roof box.
tacker2000 3y ago
People are not gonna buy 5 cars or hire cars just for every use case. They want one car that can handle most of their needs. If the range on these vehicles doenst increase we will never see true mass adoption.
- adoxyz 3y ago
  Which is exactly what the poster above said. Buy car for 99% of use cases and hire out for the outlier. EVs are perfect if you road trip once or twice a year. If you’re road tripping every weekend then they may not be a good solution for you.
  - tacker2000 3y ago
    But i dont see how a road trip is an outlier. I get that needing a 4x4 is one, but most people go on some form of long trips a few times every year i would think.
    - veec_cas_tant 3y ago
      A road trip of >200mi at highway speeds where you also cannot stop for 20mins to recharge?
      - martin8412 3y ago
        Assuming there's not a line of cars waiting.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        You're replying in a thread where the issue at hand was more than two hours of recharge, and a bunch of stress around the car's trip planner being way too optimistic about the range of the vehicle in the first place. Maybe your statement is true in some cases, but clearly not all.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - 3y ago
eetus 3y ago
Haha, literally YMMV (your mileage may vary)!
kelnos 3y ago
You've inadvertently made me feel better about purchasing an ICE car last year. I'd been having some regrets that I hadn't worked harder to find an EV (or at least a plug-in hybrid) that met my other requirements. Since I don't commute to work, and usually take transit or walk for local trips, the bulk of my driving is longer trips. Range anxiety would kill me in an EV. I do think there are some cases where it makes sense to at least choose the features of a car with some minority-trips in mind. For example, I drive to a snowy, mountainous region 2-3 times a year. I decided to buy an AWD car (sedan, as I dislike driving larger vehicles like SUVs). With the trips I've made since then, the added cost between the AWD and non-AWD versions of my car has already been covered by the savings in not having to rent a vehicle with AWD. Tangential, but I was also offered an EV when I rented a car last week (after flying across the country), but I had no idea what the charging situation would be at my destination, so I turned it down and got an ICE car. Turned out to be the right call, as there were no charging facilities where I was going.
tzs 3y ago
A plug-in hybrid could be a good choice for probably most people. There are quite a few with an EV range of 30-45 miles (e.g., Prius Prime is 44 miles). In the US the average driver drives 37 miles per day which would be mostly or completely covered by EV mode.
- sheepybloke 3y ago
  I rented an Ionic PHEV a while back when I was in LA and was surprised how efficient it was! I drove the entire day, from West Hollywood to Santa Monica and then down to LAX and only used about 1 gallon of gas. It blew my mind at how efficient it was.

jbarham 3y ago

A cheap and easy way to increase the size of the car you already have is to buy a roof box. Our previous car was a small hatchback and interstate trips with our three kids in the back would have been impossible without the roof box. I only bought a bigger car when my oldest kid was pushing 6 feet and running out of legroom in the back seat of the hatchback.

reassembled 3y ago
And increase drag, resulting in lower fuel economy/range.
- hr2016 3y ago
  Meh, I'm currently on a cross-island road trip with. Family of four in a >10 year old, manual, brown diesel grandtourer/station wagon. Trunk and roof box fully loaded. Long range fuel consumption at 5.3L/100kms, as usual at summer conditions. Of course, ymmv : - )
- jbarham 3y ago
  Sure, but I only used the roof box on occasional long trips when we had lots of luggage (e.g., visiting the grandparents interstate for Christmas). So I might have paid a few tens of dollars extra in fuel, but it was certainly far cheaper than buying a bigger car when we otherwise didn't need the extra space. The roof rack and Thule box cost maybe $1200 AUD. But the rack was also useful for attaching bicycle carriers.
- piva00 3y ago
  Needs to be done in comparison with a larger car that would fit the same cargo as the smaller car with a roof box.
- kelnos 3y ago
  A larger car is likely going to have worse fuel economy and/or range than a smaller car. If you get the larger car, you take that hit every single time you drive it. If you get the smaller car and a roof box, you take that hit only when you mount the roof box. If that's most of the time, then sure, it probably makes sense to get the larger car. But I don't think that's the GP's use case. The larger car is likely more expensive to purchase in the first place than the smaller car plus the roof box.

tacker2000 3y ago

People are not gonna buy 5 cars or hire cars just for every use case. They want one car that can handle most of their needs. If the range on these vehicles doenst increase we will never see true mass adoption.

adoxyz 3y ago
Which is exactly what the poster above said. Buy car for 99% of use cases and hire out for the outlier. EVs are perfect if you road trip once or twice a year. If you’re road tripping every weekend then they may not be a good solution for you.
- tacker2000 3y ago
  But i dont see how a road trip is an outlier. I get that needing a 4x4 is one, but most people go on some form of long trips a few times every year i would think.
  - veec_cas_tant 3y ago
    A road trip of >200mi at highway speeds where you also cannot stop for 20mins to recharge?
    - martin8412 3y ago
      Assuming there's not a line of cars waiting.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      You're replying in a thread where the issue at hand was more than two hours of recharge, and a bunch of stress around the car's trip planner being way too optimistic about the range of the vehicle in the first place. Maybe your statement is true in some cases, but clearly not all.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3y ago

eetus 3y ago

Haha, literally YMMV (your mileage may vary)!

kelnos 3y ago

You've inadvertently made me feel better about purchasing an ICE car last year. I'd been having some regrets that I hadn't worked harder to find an EV (or at least a plug-in hybrid) that met my other requirements. Since I don't commute to work, and usually take transit or walk for local trips, the bulk of my driving is longer trips. Range anxiety would kill me in an EV. I do think there are some cases where it makes sense to at least choose the features of a car with some minority-trips in mind. For example, I drive to a snowy, mountainous region 2-3 times a year. I decided to buy an AWD car (sedan, as I dislike driving larger vehicles like SUVs). With the trips I've made since then, the added cost between the AWD and non-AWD versions of my car has already been covered by the savings in not having to rent a vehicle with AWD. Tangential, but I was also offered an EV when I rented a car last week (after flying across the country), but I had no idea what the charging situation would be at my destination, so I turned it down and got an ICE car. Turned out to be the right call, as there were no charging facilities where I was going.

tzs 3y ago

A plug-in hybrid could be a good choice for probably most people. There are quite a few with an EV range of 30-45 miles (e.g., Prius Prime is 44 miles). In the US the average driver drives 37 miles per day which would be mostly or completely covered by EV mode.

sheepybloke 3y ago
I rented an Ionic PHEV a while back when I was in LA and was surprised how efficient it was! I drove the entire day, from West Hollywood to Santa Monica and then down to LAX and only used about 1 gallon of gas. It blew my mind at how efficient it was.