EVs Are Great Around Town, But.......

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by cajunfj40

Obviously, any hybrid is going to be a compromise, in that you'll be carrying extra weight/complexity around, and thus not be as efficient as an optimized EV-only or ICE-only vehicle.

I'd have to disagree with that. The problem is that the compromises often occur in the same drive. E.g. you need lots more power for reasonable acceleration & hill climbing than you do for steady-state cruising.

So you can have a hybrid - like the 1st gen Insight - that is more efficient than an ICE-only vehicle with the same performance, yet is nearly (if not more) efficient than a comparable EV but with unlimited range.

[oil pan 4]

I get around 130mpge with out even trying in my leaf.

[Angel And The Wolf]

Yeah, for how far?

[oil pan 4]

I usually only go to the next town over so usually 50 to 70 miles round trip.
The cost in electricity is like $1.
Im very on board with not buying gas. It's nice.

[Angel And The Wolf]

That's what EVs are good at. What do you do when you go on long trips?

[oil pan 4]

Take my wifes car.
With my portable CHAdeMO and 40kwh battery trips to Lubbock or Amarillo become a possibility.

[RedDevil]

If you go on a long trip you plan the stops at charge points.
You need breaks anyway. You only lose time when you need more charge than you need for your own convenience.
It is up to you to decide if the beyond-your-break lost time is enough to make it worthwhile to either hire another car for the trip or to buy/build, maintain, insure, store, etc. a pusher trailer.

If I had a first gen EV and wanted to take a very long road trip I'd hire a gasser for it.
If I had a Tesla or other 40kWh+ EV I'd take that and just accept the charge times on the way.
I don't want a trailer on a road trip. I have taken a road trip with a motorbike on a trailer. It tired the hell out of me.
Practically it will reduce your options for parking and the speed you're allowed to travel at: 130 km/h without, 80 with a trailer.
If I would choose to do 80 km/h I can do that in an EV too; that would stretch the range quite some, so when it finally needs charging I would really need a long break.

In my case, with our legislation and charging points everywhere, a pusher trailer would not be useful at all.

[oil pan 4]

We don't have EV charge points around most of the country at the moment.
There are some RV, camper, caravan parks that have registered as EV charge points on plugshare dot com.
These caravan parks usually have 50 amp 240v power available but you have to bring your own charger, so you won't be going anywhere fast with J1772 charging.
I have a portable chademo that gives me 7.2 to 8.1kw charging.

In the US you can drive and exceed the speed limit slightly with a trailer.

[RedDevil]

As more and more EVs hit the road the charging network will build up fast, just as it happened around here.
Two years or so ago one of my colleagues got an EV as a courtesy car for a few days and he was amazed how it showed charging points everywhere about.

But even in the US it becomes harder and harder to plan a trip which avoids charging points. And you don't need fast charging at an overnight stay.

[oil pan 4]

Mine only shows the ones I built.
I think the nearest public chargers available are like 400 miles away.
Don't know if they are j1772, chademo or nema 14-50.