I've driven an Electric Vehicle or EV for a little over 3 years. It's a 2013 Smart Car Electric Drive. I bought it when we needed a third car and I wanted to buy something inexpensive, so I bought it used. I had wanted to experiment with an EV for years but converting one of our vehicles wasn't something I was willing to get in to and the industry just wasn't there yet.
I'm constantly amazed at the amount of misinformation that has made it in to our general knowledge about EVs. There has been an intentional movement working against the move to EVs in the US and to some extent in Australia. So there is a lot of bad information out there about them.
Ford recently did a survey about electric vehicles. Beyond the misinformation that is out there, there is a general lack of understanding about EVs here in the US. Here's what they found with my responses below each point.
42% of Americans said they believe electric cars still run on gasoline.
I plug my Electric Vehicle (EV) in to a charger in my garage. It's connected to a 220 volt circuit. It uses only electricity, no gas. I'm estimating that I use between $25 and $35 a month in electricity to operate my EV. It equates to about 2 or 3 cents per mile. Compare that to our Honda Insight that gets over 43mpg and runs a little over 5 cents per mile. There are vehicles called Pluggable Hybrids or PHEVs that are sort of like an EV with a built in generator. The Chevy Volt and the BMW i3 are examples of this. They drive on electricity only for daily driving then have a gas engine that kicks on when the battery runs low. They plug in to charge but have gas as a backup for longer drives.
67% said electric vehicles have no towing capacity.
I recently pulled a 900 pound trailer hauling about 1300 pounds of landscape blocks from Lowes to our house. Yes, it used a lot more power and no I would not do it all the time. But it works in a pinch. I might add that it actually had a lot of power while pulling the trailer. If a Smart Car can do that, imagine what a modern EV can do.
65% said they would not consider an all wheel drive electric vehicle.
Until you've ridden in a Tesla Model 3, Model S or Model X with all wheel drive, you've missed out on one of life's great joys. They'll pin you to the back of the seat.
80% said electric vehicles don’t work in hot or cold conditions.
While EVs do loose range, they operate in all kinds of weather just fine. My EV has been my daily driver for over 3 years with no issues due to weather. Yes, there is a pinch of range anxiety at first but that goes away in the first few weeks when you learn about what the car can do.
So I put this out there because I'm sure there are people that might have questions. If you have any questions about EVs, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm connected with a bunch of great people through a local group called Drive Electric Dayton. So if you have questions about a specific model, don't hesitate to ask.