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Thanks to discounts and subsidies, we bought an electric car, a Chevy Bolt, 4 months ago. The final cost ($26K) wasn’t much more than an equivalent gas car—less, I bet, with fuel savings. Some preliminary pros/cons, purely in terms of its function as transportation. 1/10
Pros: It has snappy pickup and handles great, thanks partly to the flat, heavy batteries in the floor. And it’s quiet! Not having the engine blare is terrific. (In general, Chevy put on their A-list designers—lots of nice little touches. Good to know they *have* an A-list.) 2/10
EV engines are stupid simple. No toxic, explosive fluids sloshing around, no Rube Goldberg gizmos to flush byproducts into the air. Way less stuff to break and replace. Goodbye air filters and PCV valves! Our dealer sez he hates selling EVs, because they don’t need service. 3/10
A surprising number of people (all but 1 female) have told me that they hate going to gas stations. They dislike the smell, the gas on their hands. One woman told me she washes her hands every time. Guessing many Americans would be happy never to visit a gas station again. 4/10
Cons: The official quoted range is BS. The Bolt’s range is supposedly 248 miles. In winter it drops by ~1/3. We rarely drive more than 10 miles/day, so for us it’s OK. If you have an 80-mile commute, tho, EVs are not yet for you. You need a real winter range of ~300 mis. 5/10
There’s lots of charging stations and apps to find them. Nonetheless, charging in a strange place remains … adventurous. Sometimes they don’t work; sometimes people park in front of them. Most EV owners will want a gas car for the occasional long trip. 6/10
Charging at home is easy for us—a $400 charging station from Amazon plus a dryer-type connection. But what about people in apartments? I’m imagining NYC landlords asked to rewire their garages. I don’t know how that happens. 7/10
From our experience, the EV is great—**if** you’re a middle-class, 2-car family with a short commute and a detached house with a garage. Most of the rest of America will have to wait. 8/10
Tl;dr: From Day 1 it was clear to me that EVs will ultimately replace most internal-combustion vehicles. They are great tech--easy and simple and fun. “Ultimately” is doing a *lot* of work in that first sentence, though. 9/10
Personally, I LOVE the quiet. I put on music, I can hear stuff that was drowned out before. Now when I get into our other car, the motor noise bothers me. It’s like being in a too-noisy restaurant. This is a big plus for me, but YMMV. 10/10
