Grandfathered car certainly changes the math and a few extra hours of time is an annoyance to some and an adventure to others.

I get it. I like the cars really. Cheaper to own and operate than a BMW no doubt, a closer offset. But not cheaper than a prius. Don't get breakneck speed in a prius either.

I mean a grandfathered Model S has depreciated as much as a new prius and 12k$ worth of california priced gas to go 100k miles.

Cost and convenience to roadtrip, the math is easy. Other factors or comparison to nicer cars is a different thing

You answered your own question. Those extra hour or two mean a lot to some people. I'd rather spend a few bucks on gas than waste the most precious resource there is...time.

100% if time is of the the essence I'm not taking the Tesla on a road trip that requires multiple charging stops.

I do the 600 mile drive to Tahoe or Bay Area a few times a year. With any EV, that means two full recharging stops, sitting in a hot car for most of an hour, 2X. Would make a 10 hr drive into a 12 hr drive. Also would force me to stay on the Interstate instead of a better route to Tahoe. Just not practical.

There are reasons to not own an EV, road trips are not one of those, IMO. We happen to own a model 3 and a model S. (And for reference the model S is 2 years old next month with 70K miles on it and the Model 3 was 2 years old in July has 45K miles on it.)

The model 3 has a range of about 280miles and the model S range is 400 miles. Both my husband and I have jobs that require us to drive anywhere in South Carolina. We have family in Raleigh and Jacksonville Florida so we drive a lot and have taken many road trips in these cars.

On average: I can drive 3-4 hours round trip on either car without stopping to charge. Now, that can change based on how heavy footed I am. If on a road trip, the most I have needed to sit and charge is 25 minutes but most of the time it is 15-20 min. For me, bathroom breaks are a requirement because I have a typical woman's bladder, Lol. By the time I go in, have a potty break and get a drink or snack, the car is usually charged and ready to go. My average super charge cost is $15 to fill up from 20%-90%.

Now, if I was going somewhere off-road or towing something regularly, I would not get an EV. If I lived in an apt where there was no charger and/or the superchargers around me were always full, I would not get an EV. If not for the Tesla super chargers, I would not have an EV unless I was only using it locally and could charge at home. The stories of traveling the South East and trying to find a charger that is not a Tesla Superchargers would dissuade me.

For right now, the great thing is we have choices. You can have an EV or you can buy a hybrid or you can buy an ICE car.

Therein lies the rub because the rhetoric is that in 10-25 years time we won’t have a choice.

We have a trillion dollar infrastructure problem in the US and a complete reorganization of the energy source for travel would leave us without a road or bridges to drive on.

its a road trip ... the point is to go slow and enjoy the trip, not get to the destination fast. you wouldnt be driving across the country if you just wanted to get somewhere fast. you would fly if you wanted to get there fast.

Interesting about the instruments. Electric AC sounds good when stuck idling often.

Right, life's too short to make a fun car boring. I've thought about it, but I just can't. Since most of my driving is interstate with relatively low traffic levels, I set my cruise 95% of the time to keep myself out of trouble, or at least, to try to minimize it.

Here's a ted talk on the environmental comparison between hybrids and ev's. Jump to about 7 minutes if you just want the comparison part:

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One thing that I never understood is why it won't add charge to the battery when in "hold" mode. I use "hold" when I'm on the highway and it would be great if the generator would add charge to the battery beyond what the charge level is at when you hit "hold." There are times when going down hills that energy is wasted. Driving on a hilly highway you can increase the charge level by switching to "normal" at the top of the hills and back to "hold" at the bottom of the hills. This should be automatic.

I never got that deep into it, using mine as a commuter on relatively level ground. Wouldn't the regen feature automatically add to the charge going downhill with no accelerator applied or with the brakes applied?

So for your road trip, the EV added 4-6 hours to the trip?
I'm guessing the big difference is what folks are considering a "road trip", or maybe not. For some folks a road trip might be 400-500 miles, for others it might be 1500+ miles. Still, leaving cost aside, since anyone driving a model S is probably not worried about spending some money on gas or charging.

I suspect it's going to depend upon how you do road trips or the type of road trip. My road trips have always been about "A to B". I know that some folks include the journey as a big part of a trip. If the journey is a part of the trip, then a little extra time probably isn't as big a deal because that time can be spent having experiences. If I'm making a trip and want to get to a destination, and a long drive is the cost, then I don't want to add a lot of time. I find that on long drives, I often drive faster towards the end because I'm ready to "be there."

So I suspect "it depends" is the answer, but I think most of the time for many/most people having a lot of extra time being added to the trip would/might be a deal breaker.

On road trips, I don't normally make 15-30 min stops. I try to keep stops as short as possible, which usually means <5 mins.

Hey Stephanie, how many miles are those trips. I've taken several 800 mile trips and one 2500 mile trip. The supercharger system out here on the west coast is darn good and gives you lots of options when traveling North/South. Was wondering how it was on the eastern part of the country.

That is YOUR view of a road trip...and that's just fine--for you.

One of the things you haven't yet seemed to realize is not everybody thinks like you. SmileWavy

On short-medium trips, I prefer to drive becuase I hate what air travel has turned into. Doesn't mean I want to take 3 days to get to my destination...I just don't want to deal with air travel. I drive rather fast and stop only for gas (unless we're truly on an "exploring" trip).

Everyone's different. That's what makes life cool. :cool:

Exactly. Added about 6 hours. But we definitely didnt continue the trip when we could have. We stayed longer at some places just looking around.

Years ago when I was in the Army stationed at Fort Ord which was in Monterey California. I would occasionally drive home to Portland on a long weekend. I was a poor young soldier who couldn't afford a plane ticket, but had a craving for my mom's home cooking. These trips were gas and go, there and back. It was all about the destination. An EV wouldn't have worked for me.

Now 30 some years later, I'm just never in that much of a hurry, although the speed that I like to drive, might imply otherwise. If I need to be somewhere quick, I'll fly. Otherwise it just doesn't bother me to stop 25 minutes to charge every few hours.

Oh a few years ago we needed to go see a dying family member. It was expensive for 4 of us to fly, rent a car ect. So we took my daughters ICE vehicle. Didn't have time to fiddle fart with charging.

Toyota is working hard on the problem. :D
https://autos.yahoo.com/butt-plug-allow-toyota-build-150500450.html?

Our last raod trip was 3400 miles and we stipped at several national parks and historic sites along the way. Many did not have fast chargers. Our van can pump 300 miles per minute at a gas station. Since it is a van we carry healthy snacks and drinks with us. It gets 540 to 580 miles per tank so we can stop when convenient. Another point is there are no ev minivans and a minivan is an awesome people mover for efficiency (30mpg average on the trip) and volume. We had 4 people and luggage for two weeks plus snacks and 2 coolers in the vehicle. Our prior trip was to my late brother in law's funeral and had to haul stuff in the van plus tow a uhaul trailer with 2 motorcycles and tools. Would have been a long trip in an ev truck stopping every 100 miles for 45 minutes or so on the way home.

Not in "hold" mode. Which seems odd to me. If you switch to "hold" at 50% battery power, it will maintain 50%, but not add to it. Driving in the mountains I play around with it, charging the battery by running it up the hill in "hold" and switching to battery power for the ride down. It never made any sense to me that it wouldn't do that automatically.

We just got back from a 700 mile trip. Got 42 mpg on gasoline the whole way.

400 miles is about the limit my body will take. Even driving hard (for us) that's over 6 hours. My back gets sore and my eyes get tired after 6 hours. To be a safe driver I'd have to have a good rest. A model S would suit us just fine.

So many people are terrified that some day in the near future they won't be able to buy an ICE car. You can still by a Model T if you want one. ICE cars will be around when my grandson is too old to drive. By then I won't care, and neither will he.

I just bought a new Honda CRV hybrid sport touring and it is fantastic! Holds lots of stuff , 40 mpg , 500 plus range ,fills up in 5 minutes! My wife drive a lot to our hospital 100 miles round trip several times a week. I love this car.

But what about the Corvette E-Ray ?
I'd never even heard of it until I saw on Leno's Garage last night.
https://www.chevrolet.com/performance/corvette/e-ray

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I can always get more money

Harry Metcalf’s look at EV’s vs PHEV. Like his channel, he is always very thoughtful

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Check this out, it should be first on the list when comparing Hybrids to EVs. The EOE (Electrification Of Everything) is not good…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thebakersinstitute/2021/03/25/sf6-the-little-gas-that-could-make-global-warming-worse/

"...While the promise of electrification is in part climate related and to address energy poverty, "

Of the two, our energy poverty is the most serious. Our entire economy is based on petroleum - a globally traded commodity over which we have little supply and little control. We are trusting the countries that do have the petroleum to play nice, and except for a blip in the early 70s they have so far, but the idea that the strength of our economy is ultimately in the hands of countries that don't necessarily like us should scare the crap out of us.

The oil companies aren't our friends. They pump oil out from under our feet and sell it to the highest bidder. We need to base our economy on an energy source that can't be put on ships and sent to the highest bidder. So far it looks like electricity. We need to stop farting around with wind and solar and ramp up our nuclear capacity.

I agree, I think Hybrid is better but never understood why it needs to be a plug-in. If they really wanted efficiency they would put solar on the roof and hood and a wind powered generator in the grill to charge the batteries, they gas as a last resort.

Just my thoughts.

In the past 10 years, the United States has been energy self-sufficient. We are the most efficient in use of energy (lowest carbon footprint).

Wind and solar have their place, but nothing beats nuclear. The issue with nuclear has always been a focus on extremely large plants. We would be far better off with hundreds or thousands of smaller nuclear plants, say the size used for Nuclear Aircraft carriers. Basically, a civilian version of that nuclear reactor.

Or better yet, a Gen 4 gas cooled reactor, that can exceed 50% thermal efficiency. It would look similar to our Combined cycle gas turbine plants, just using nuclear heat instead of combustion gasses.

The other thing that we need is large scale reliable energy storage. That will help no matter the energy source.

Finally, back on topic, EV vs. Hybrid. When we were designing the solar energy systems for off-shore platforms and then for commercial/residential, a hybrid system was far cheaper than a solar only system. With solar only, you needed 3-5 days of batteries and an over sized solar panel system to allow it to ride through cloudy days and storms.

A hybrid system using 10% or so energy from a generator, reduced the battery size to 16 hours and the solar array to just produce a standard 24 hour day of energy. The cost for the hybrid system was about a third of the standalone solar.

For EVs, most of us could get by with 40-80 miles of range and then a small engine for the long trips. You would probably use the engine only about 10% of the time. It reduces cost and makes the car more efficient (lower weight). It just makes sense.

A Sr Men's club I belong to had a recent speaker for our monthly breakfast meeting. He is a Sr exec from the major regional energy provider and spoke at length on their program for the future which includes existing nuclear, new small nuclear plants converting old fossil steam plants on existing infrastructure, retain some existing carbon fueled, wind, solar, battery and hydro, sounds like a well-balanced program.
One major takeaway I got was when he said that if all of you decide to get EV's and all decide to charge them at the same time your neighborhood lights will go out. Huh? He went on to explain that on top of all the current increasing demand for power, for the foreseeable future there is no generation capacity for this scenario to work and even if there was there is not enough distribution capacity.

Hybrid just increases gas mileage but has very little driving range on pure electric power.
Plug in hybrid is a better option because it may allow to commute on just electrical power.
EV is not practical for mass adoption because the grid capacity just cannot support it, as mentioned above.

From the car maker perspective, EV is a better option because they save on many parts in the drivetrain. From a user perspective, PHEV gives the best of both worlds IMO:gas for long trips, and electrical for short commutes. Never risk to run out of juice, smaller, cheaper and safer battery. Recharge at work at drive back at company’s expense :).

Personally, from a financial and practical perspective, I still think a used high gas mileage ICE engine car makes the most sense. For example, a used Honda Civic that gets 40 mpg and costs less than $8k is hard to beat for usage cost…

Well said Red, especially the part about nuclear power and, at least in the interim, hybrid cars.
Not only have we been energy "self-sufficient" (a bit of a misnomer), we have been a net exporter of petroleum for the past 3 years.
But the US share of the technically and economically recoverable oil is a tiny drop compared to the global supply. Most estimates are that the US supply of T&E recoverable oil will last somewhere between 35 and 45 years. Technology and the economy are so fluid it is hard to make a solid estimate. Pumping as fast as they can and selling the surplus on the global market, as the oil companies are doing now, will put that at the lower end. We have a lot of oil shale that is currently too difficult and expensive to mine and extract, but who knows?
The most intractable problem we have with depending on oil is that the big players who set the prices and control the volume do so for political purposes while the US producers are profit motivated capitalists. Just this June OPEC+ cut supply to keep the price up for Russia's benefit. When we take away OPEC+ power to manipulate US gas prices we take away a lot of their global political power.
What does this have to do with hybrid cars? Not much. Hybrid vs Plug in is a short horizon problem. Long term, the less we rely on petroleum for energy the stronger the economy we leave for our great grandchildren will be.

EVs and the EoE’s (electrification of everything) may soon be protected from environmental impact studies. Buy stock in SF6.


https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4313447-biden-environmental-reviews-renewable-energy/