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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Technology
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I'd wager it's just marketing.
Hybrids sell where EVs cannot.
To wit, I want an EV, but I live in an apartment with no place to plug in and work from home; charging would be, at best, a hassle.
So, instead, I got a hybrid.
I drove 2 hybrids until I got an EV. Will never go back. Concerns about EVs melt away once you've driven one. Charging is less of a hassle than you think.
I have driven several EVs, and I've had the opportunity in the past to basically use one as the "work" vehicle during the day. But that vehicle was able to be parked at the office, plugged in to a charger (or at least, near one) when not in use.
In apartment life, that's not an option for me. I literally, where my car is parked, do not have the option to plug it in to any kind of charger, including an orange extension cord running out the bedroom window kind of thing. The only chargers available to me would be public ones, which means I'd have to take time out of my day to go find one and like, hang out at Walgreens or something for half an hour every few days, assuming they've got L3 chargers out front.
I would love nothing more, but until there's an outlet somewhere near my parking spot, I'm sort of stuck.
Absolutely the best kind of car to own. Period. Virtually no maintenance, extremely high reliability, quiet and safe. The quantifier is, only if you can charge it at home or at work. Relying on DC fast charging for 100% of your driving is a royal pain. It takes much longer than filling a gas tank, the charging stations are harder to find than gas stations, and your car won't go as far as on a tank of gas. And the battery will commonly lose 1-2% per day of charge just sitting there keeping idle systems running. I've been an EV owner since 2016 and absolutely would not want to own one if I didn't have a garage at home to plug it in.
Your points are valid for all brands outside of Tesla, btw. Virtually no vampire drain now whereas a few years ago your statement was correct. And I can get from 20->80% in about 20 minutes. Really not an issue to supercharge with how common Tesla superchargers are. All of the advantages outweigh the mild disadvantage of having to charge at superchargers.
The biggest 'vampire' drain on teslas is cabin overheat protection and sentry mode, but those can be turned off. And yes, tesla superchargers are almost everywhere and convenient but still 20-80% is only 60% of the charge of the battery. Imagine if a gas car took 20 minutes for every 7-8 gallons of fuel added how annoying that would be. 60% of the battery will get you maybe 160 miles of range. In America the average driver drives about 15,000 miles per year. At 160 miles added per 20-minute charge thats 1800 minutes or 30+ hours spent charging. That is only under ideal scenarios with only using fully functional 250kW v3 superchargers. I've very frequently found supercharger stations to provide much slower charging speeds caused by faults or other issues with electric demand. It can sometimes take 45 mins to up to 1 hour to get that level of charge each time.
It works out fantastic on roadtrips because it forces you to stop and take a break, stretch and maybe visit some local restaurant, store or roadside attraction that you wouldn't otherwise see. But, spending 30-40 hours per year at the same local neighborhood supercharger just sounds like no fun to me.