EVs are better for daily commuting; ICEVs are better for road trips. This isn't a complex thing.
2% market penetration this soon isn't that insignificant when you consider the average car in the USA is 11.6 years old.
Ironically I've never been stranded by running out of electrons, but I have been stranded by running out of gas-- driving through NJ, which only has full service gas stations, and it turns out they stop selling gas at some point. Ended up having to sleep in my car that night in a gas station parking lot, which wasn't the best.
From a DD perspective, assuming you can charge at home or work, EVs are just stupidly better. Going to a gas station feels gross (dirty pump handles) and like a huge waste of time and money once you're used to charging at home. Beyond that, they're just significantly simpler machines to maintain-- no engine oil, air filters, spark plugs, coils, 02 sensors, clutches, seals, bla bla bla. Since I've started DDing the i3 I spend an average of $700 less per month on gas and $300 less per month on service. In exchange I spend ~$50 per month on electricity. I've also regained ~30 minutes per week I used to spend pumping gas (my commute is 100 miles/day, so the above probably won't be as extreme for most).
DDing an EV is also a lot more pleasant. Stop and go traffic is a one pedal affair, everything is more silent than a V12 luxobarge focused on silence. EVs are better at all the types of driving I wish I never had to do... which is sadly the significant majority of real world driving. Plus the car is warm in the winter and cool in the summer when I get in, as the heat/AC kicks on 10 minutes before I get in the car. And there's no warm up period where you have to be nice to the car-- you can just get in and hammer down.
All of that said, when we go on a road trip we take an ICEV. Could we take the i3? Sure. But, that seems silly to me when we still have 4 ICE cars. That said, DDing an ICEV also seems silly to me, to a bigger extent (because of how much more frequent DDing is than road tripping).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamb1t
I see an EV in our future. However the ones under $100k currently drive like a plastic fridges. Devoid of soul. Rolling appliances. So this prospect saddens me. If Mazda makes an eMX5....  |
Have you driven an i3? Carbon monocoque, rear motor, rear wheel drive, lowest COG of any BMW, 50:50 weight distro, 2700 lbs, instant accelerator response, quite spritely at non highway speeds. I think people get hung up on it looking like a space pod and the unusual contact patch direction, and assume it doesn't drive well as a result.