For EV newbies, the things to consider when selecting the right EV can seem daunting. I’ve been driving plug-in vehicles for 12+ years now, so let me give you some advice.
EV or PHEV?
Lately, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are all the rage. The EV novices, due to the media constantly saying that charging infrastructure is unreliable and EVs need more range, are thinking PHEVs are a better way to go than a fully battery electric vehicle (BEV or simply, EV). I think that’s not the case, but it depends on your use-case scenario and where you want to go. There is no one-size-fits-all vehicle. So the first step is to determine what sort of driver you are:
- Commuter – You almost never take long (over 100 mile) road trips. Your car is mainly for getting around town and a daily commute of 50 miles or less. I recommend a BEV for this use case because almost all EVs, have enough range that you’d only need to charge overnight (at home) or out in the world every 5 or 6 days. This could be at a public DC fast charger (similar to going to a gas station). If you can charge at home, even if using just a standard 110V outlet, you can recoup the miles you drive each day while you have dinner, watch TV and sleep. DC fast charging is much faster, but expect to spend 20 minutes to an hour at a public charger. If possible, select a fast charger with a restaurant, coffee shop, bookstore, movie theater or some other diversion nearby. Make it a weekly event but don’t just sit in the car. MULTITASK! Do something fun while your car is charging. One last thing: When you get an EV, no one confiscates your gasoline driving license. Want to take a long road trip? Use just a fraction of the fuel and maintenance savings you’ll get from driving electrically and rent the biggest, baddest 3-row SUV for your trip. You’ll still come out ahead financially!
- Super Commuter – If you’re like the Commuter above, but your commute is over 50 miles per day, you may benefit from a PHEV’s versatility. Most plug-in hybrids, unlike traditional or “mild” hybrids, can exclusively run on electricity until the battery is empty and then, seamlessly switch to running the internal combustion engine (ICE) as an electric generator, supplying electricity to the drive system. That means, if your battery is getting low, and your gas tank is empty, you stop at a gas station and fill up, just like any ICE vehicle. I’ve driven from Fort Worth to Chicago in a PHEV. On a road trip, you treat it like an ICE, never stopping to charge the battery. Due to this, most PHEVs have no DC fast charging capability. You never have range anxiety, unless you’re in an area with no chargers and no gas stations. I think of PHEVs as “training wheels for EV ownership.” My experience of driving a PHEV gave me the confidence to move on to a BEV without worry. That being said, I believe Mary Barra was right, back in 2019, when GM stopped making the Chevrolet Volt, saying that the age of PHEVs was over. They’re still a great idea for Super Commuters because, if they can charge (using a 110V or a 240V outlet) at work as well as home, they are effectively driving a BEV. In 2017, I drove over 14,000 miles on just 6 gallons of gasoline in my PHEV! However, PHEVs have two drivetrains, electric and ICE, so they’re more complex vehicles with more things to break down or wear out over time. If an EV can handle most of your driving needs, seriously consider one over a PHEV.
- Road Warrior – You live on the road, either because of your career or your love of travel. You drive over 100 miles per day on a pretty regular basis. When road-tripping, you like to put 500+ miles on the odometer per day. Believe it or not, I encourage Road Warriors to get a modern BEV with at least 280 miles of range, if their routes take them through areas that have decent charging infrastructure. Chargers are being installed across America at an amazing rate that is increasing dramatically, so it’s important to keep an eye on this, as you are vehicle shopping. It is also important to select an EV that has very fast charging capabilities, as not all fast charging is equal. (more on this later)
- Long-haul trucker – You regularly drive long distances, like the Road Warrior, but you do so towing a heavy load (travel trailer, boat, horse trailer, etc.). Yes, I am going to say this out loud, because I want everyone to get the best vehicle for their lifestyle: You should stay in the ICE world… for now. There is hope on the horizon for the Long-haul Truckers though. RAM has announced a PHEV version of their pickup with over 100 miles of electric range! Days when you’re not towing, you have over a 100 mile range EV and the peace of mind of a backup ICE, for unlimited range, when needed.
- Families with multiple vehicles – It would be pretty rare for every member of a family to have the driving habits of a long-haul trucker. If your family is fortunate enough to have more than one vehicle, it is highly probable that all but one of those vehicles is required for the heavy-duty tasks outlined. The others can be replaced by an EV, when the time comes. Here’s the part you won’t expect: Your family members will fight over who gets to drive the EV. The driving experience, especially for commuting, is really that much better.
Range vs. Charge Speed
Just because the EV you’re considering has a lot of range doesn’t mean it’s great for road trips.
Road Warriors especially need to pay attention to this: 250+ mile range EVs are not created equally! A spec you need to understand is maximum charge rate. Some EVs are designed to charge relatively slowly. Some charge very quickly. When you plug your EV into a charger, they “talk” to one another. The EV tells the charger how full or empty the battery is and how fast it can accept electricity. This is stated in kilowatts (kW). The charger then sets its output rate at a rate at or below the EV’s maximum charge speed. Some DC fast chargers charge at a speed of only 25 kW and others can go as high as 350 kW, so to get the fastest charge speed your EV can handle (and the shortest time to recharge) you have to a) have an EV that can handle a fast charge rate and b) locate a charger that can support that rate. Fortunately, websites and apps like A Better Route Planner and PlugShare can be set to filter out slower chargers. I used both of these to plan a recent 2,000 mile road trip and it went flawlessly.
One other thing: The rate the charger outputs electricity is not a constant. Once the battery gets to about 80% full, the charger will slow down to be gentle on the battery. The output rate can drop down to only adding about 120 miles of range in an hour of charging. For this reason EV drivers, unlike ICE drivers, don’t top off their batteries at a fast charge. It’s just not worth the wait. Once you hit that 80%, get back on the road and have fun!
MATH: Most EVs go about 3.5 miles per kilowatt hour (kWh) of charging. This may seem confusing, kW vs. kWh, but here’s how simple it is. kW is the rate of flow. A max rate of 25 kW is like one of those gas pumps that is running so slowly, the gasoline seems to be almost like syrup coming out of the hose. A rate of 25 kW would add about 87 miles of range per hour you’re EV is plugged in. A 250 kW charger would add about 875 miles of range in that same hour (if your EV had a battery big enough to accept that much range. It doesn’t).
Bottom line: Check charger speeds along your route using the apps I mention above, when planning a long road trip.
So what’s a kilowatt hour (kWh)???
Think of a kilowatt hour as a quantity, like a gallon of gasoline. Its ability to get you down the road is like 1/10 of a gallon of gas, but the good news is that it costs costs much less than 1/10 gallon of gas and your EV uses that energy much more efficiently that your ICE uses gasoline or diesel. At my home, a kWh costs about 1/23 the price of a gallon of gasoline. Remember kW = flow rate, kWh = a quantity, like a gallon or a pint.
Free fuel: The one instance that charge speed doesn’t matter is at a hotel, while you’re sleeping. Many hotels are adding slower Level 2 chargers and not charging for the electricity they put in your EV. Level 2 chargers are 240V chargers, like you can install in your home and only add about 25 miles of range per hour of charging. However, that can fill your battery to 100%. Since it’s a slower charge rate, there’s no reason for the charger to slow down the energy flow, as the battery fills up. This allows you to fully recharge your EV while you sleep. When planning a trip, make sure to book hotels that have chargers. Hotels are not the only places that give away electricity to EV owners. Bars, restaurants, movie theaters and shopping centers are doing the same. PlugShare has a listing of free EV chargers that is crowd-sourced. In other words the EV drivers populate the database. If you use this, please add free EV chargers to the database, when you come across them.
One last thing: Some EVs, like PHEVs, don’t have DC a fast charging capability. The Chevrolet Bolt EV, for example, has DC fast charging as an option. Some Inventory Managers at the dealerships didn’t understand the importance of this option and left it off many of the vehicles they put into inventory. Salespeople were largely unaware of how to differentiate between the two versions, so you need to not only check the maximum charge speed of the model, you need to make sure your specific vehicle has the DC fast charging option (most do these days).
Charge port: it’s VHS vs. Beta all over again… but it’s over
You may have heard that only Tesla vehicles have a port that can accept a Tesla charger plug. That was true, but is changing. In the U.S. market, there have been 3 type of plugs on chargers: 1) Tesla (called NACS), 2) the plug adopted by most other U.S. & European OEMs (called CCS) and 3) the plug adopted by some Japanese OEMs (CHAdeMO). CHAdeMO was the first to bite the dust. CCS is next. This year, almost all OEMs have announced that they are moving to the Tesla (NACS) plug, but it’ll take time for that transition to occur. More importantly, the existing vehicles will still have the old charge port. Some manufacturers are providing their vehicle owners with a Tesla-to-CCS adapter and Tesla has added a CCS plug to some of their chargers. That being said, if you’re buying a preowned EV, make sure you check a) the port type, b) if it has DC fast charge capability and c) if it already has a Tesla adapter or if the OEM will give you one, as the EV’s owner. If not, you can find adapters, but they can cost $200.
Heat pump vs. traditional heater
Some EVs use heat pumps rather than a traditional heater because it is more efficient and has less of an impact on driving range. If you’re going to go on long winter road trips, you may want to look for EVs that have this feature.
Sound insulation
EVs are very, very quiet. Watch out for pedestrians that walk out in front of you in parking lots. They don’t hear your EV because they’re used to listening for ICE vehicles.
Another issue is that, due to their lack of engine noise, if not insulated well against road noise, it makes the road noise much more noticeable. If you enjoy listening to music or audiobooks while driving, pay attention to road noise when test driving.
Storage
This is where EVs are AMAZING. Many EVs have motors located somewhere other than under the hood, opening up that area to be used like a trunk on a traditional car. In fact, these front storage areas are called the “frunk.” Some of these frunks have drain holes in the bottom so you can fill them with ice and beverages for a day at the beach or tailgating at a football game (or is it headgating now?).
Since most EVs don’t have transmissions and driveshafts, there is no “hump” in the middle of the floor, so you have more room to store… your legs!
Many EVs also have storage beneath the floor at the rear of the EV. I have a Tesla Model Y and am amazed at the amount of storage it has and its utility for camping trips. Make sure storage is part of your vehicle comparison checklist. You’ll be glad you did.
Camp or Utility Mode and natural disasters
If you’re into camping, make sure you find out if the EV has what Tesla calls “Camp Mode” or what Kia and Hyundai call “Utility Mode.” This allows you to run the heat or air conditioner and the entertainment system for the entire night, even though the car is what ICE drivers would consider to be turned off. This is a wonderful feature for camping, as it allows you to sleep in comfort in your EV instead of in a tent. Because this feature exists, companies have started making beds, privacy screens and more, custom-designed for specific EV models (usually crossovers and SUVs).
An even more critical benefit of this feature is in the case of natural disasters. I grew up in Houston and much of my family is still there. This year, hurricane Beryl hit Houston dead on and my brothers had no electric service at their homes for over a week. It was hot, humid and unbearable. An owner of an EV with Camp Mode can at least get some respite by sleeping in an air conditioned vehicle all night long. Before you say, “But what about having an EV when the electricity is out?” Remember that gas pumps run on electricity as well. When we used Camp Mode in the Rocky Mountains, we camped at 8,000 feet above sea level where it was 35℉ at night. Camp Mode only used 14 miles of range to heat the Model Y for ten hours. It automatically stops if the battery gets to only 20% of it capacity left, so we could have camped in the car for 18 nights before we’d have to head into town to recharge. My brother didn’t need to drive much, since there was nowhere in Houston to really go after the storm, so he and my sister-in-law could have used Camp Mode for the entire week without electricity and then still have plenty of range to get to a charger, once the power came back on.
An added bonus is that, without an ICE, we had no risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. This makes an EV with this feature great for evacuations as well. Hotels along the evacuation route booked up? Blizzard gets so bad the freeways shut down and you’re stuck in a traffic jam? No worries!
V2X
Some newer electric vehicles have a capability called V2X, or vehicle to whatever. It is the ability to output electricity for other uses than driving. There are several flavors to this:
- Vehicle to grid (V2G): This allows the vehicles, through a bidirectional charger, to send electricity to the grid, when it’s under strain. In some states, like Texas and California, virtual power plants (VPP) are being tested. A virtual power plant is a collection of batteries at the homes of thousands of people, joined together to act as a normal power plant. This can earn good income for the owners of those batteries. The VPP pilot tests are currently (pun intended) using stationary batteries, but EV batteries could participate in the future as well.
- Vehicle to home (V2H): This allows the vehicles, through a bidirectional charger, to power your home in the event of a grid outage. When Ford introduced the F-150 Lightning, they specifically mentioned a winter storm in Texas that left homes without power for days, in some areas of the state. Ford stated that the F-150 could power a home for up to 3 days. More and more EVs are being announced with this capability. The only downside is that it requires a bidirectional charger, which is considerably more expensive than a unidirectional charger.
- Vehicle to load (V2L): This allows the vehicles to power a small number of items in your home during a grid outage, like a freezer, wifi router, television, etc. This does not require a bidirectional charger, because the items that gets powered by the EV is disconnected from your home and plugged into the EV. The EV may have the old cigarette lighter 12V plug type, requiring an inverter to convert the battery’s DC current into AC or the EV may have a 110V or 240V outlet, just like those in your home. In this case the output inverter is built into the car and it converts the DC to AC without adding a separate inverter.
- Vehicle to vehicle (V2V): This capability is available in some EVs and allows your vehicle to send electricity to another EV. Think of it like siphoning gasoline from one car to another.
Smartphone, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto integration and voice commands
I am a big fan of Apple CarPlay and I really struggled with the fact that the Chevy Blazer EV and the Teslas do not support it. As it turned out, Tesla’s premium connectivity ($10 a month) gives me almost everything I had with CarPlay and it works well. Although my angst caused me to buy some hardware to add CarPlay to my Model Y, I no longer use it. Check to see what your EV manufacturer charges for their connectivity/telematics package. Prices range widely.
That being said, I love being able to stream my music, phone calls, audiobooks and more to the car.
I also like the ability to tell my EV what to do. Many OEMs offer voice control but their quality varies greatly. Since EVs have pushed the market toward touchscreens, realize that it can be dangerous to look away from the road and look at the screen. Unlike older cars, where you get used to where various buttons and knobs are, negating the need to look away, you never get to where you can use a touchscreen without looking at it. Find out if the EV you’re considering has voice commands and test it out as part of your evaluation. One day, I couldn’t find how to display the odometer, so I pushed the voice command button and tried saying, “Display odometer.” Much to my amazement, it worked! This is an important safety consideration.
Weight & efficiency
Yes, EVs are more efficient than ICE vehicles, but not all EVs are created equal! Some weigh 9,000 pounds, accelerate to 60 miles per hour in 3 seconds and get less than 2 miles per kWh. Some get twice as much range from a kWh but accelerate at a lower (but still brisk) rate. It’s simple physics. Heavier and/or faster EVs will give you less range for your electric buck. You have to decide what is more important for you, efficiency or power.
By the way, EV naysayers seem very concerned about the weight of EVs. Mine weighs about 4,400 pounds, around that of a Ford F-150. and about 10% over the Chevrolet Blazer (non-EV model). I don’t hear people worried about those vehicles destroying our roads and parking garages…
What about future-proofing?
EV technology is changing very rapidly. New battery chemistries are being discovered that will decrease charge time, increase energy capacity and driving range. New motors are being developed that use fewer rare-earth minerals. Autonomous driving capabilities are getting better. How do I keep from plummeting resale value as new advances come to market?
Leasing instead of buying is what I did in 2012-2015, for exactly that reason. The monthly payment of a lease is calculated by the financing company’s estimate of what the vehicle will be worth at the end of the lease. This is called the “residual value.”
Your monthly lease payment pays for the part of the vehicle’s life that you’re using. More miles on your lease means lower residual value and therefore higher monthly lease payment. So make the lease’s mileage terms as close as you can to what you’ll really drive. At the end of the lease, if your EV’s residual value is less than what you could buy a similar preowned EV of the same make, model and year, you should let the lease come to an end and return your car to the leasing company. On the other hand, and this happened to me twice, if the leasing company’s estimate of residual value was too high, your EV may be worth more than any other similar EV on the used market, so buy it, if you want to keep it or if you want to resell it and get your equity out of it.
Battery/electric drivetrain warranty
Warranties vary widely. Some EVs have a battery warranty of just 5 years / 60K miles while others have 10 years / 100K mile warranties. You’ll probably never have to use it, but make sure you’re aware of the warranty length and its terms. Since warranties are transferable, it may affect resale value.
Can’t get answers to questions that are important to your buying decisions?
Unfortunately, this is a common problem. Salespeople are paid on vehicle sales. If they don’t sell one, they make zero. If a vehicle takes twice as long to sell as another vehicle, they are taking an hourly pay cut to sell it to you.
Buyers, new to the EV world, have many, many questions. Salespeople don’t know the answers or don’t want to spend the time it takes to answer them. Some will just tell you anything to get rid of you. Salespeople are not the best source of answers. I experienced this at a Kia dealership, when I was trying to find out if the EV6 had something like Camp Mode. The sales guy had no clue.
So where do you go for straight answers?
Believe it or not, social media. There is probably a Facebook owner’s group or fan page for whatever EV you’re considering. There are people who have that EV and are dying to tell you about it (good or bad). They aren’t going to make a penny off you, so they’re a better source of the unvarnished truth than a salesperson. When you’re looking for an EV, go to these groups to ask your questions. Ask the owners what they like and don’t like about their EV. But, don’t stop there. Once you own an EV, those same owners groups are great places to get questions answered. Instead of waiting until the dealership’s service department opens, ask the group. Even at 3AM, I’ll bet you start getting answers within the hour!
Once you get your EV questions answered and you get your EV, pay it forward. Go back to the owner’s group and answer the questions of other newbies, as you gain expertise. You’ll not only help others, you’ll end up making some new friends.
We’re all in this together.
