I’ve rarely needed to fast charge over the past year. I’ve almost exclusively charged at home. The point in mentioning this is that you shouldn’t let the availability of fast charging take undue prominence in any decision to go electric. The most important thing is to really understand your typical driving profile. In my particular case, even though I use my truck a lot, fast charging is much more of a nice to have than a must have, because the driving that we do can be supported entirely with home charging.

 

maybe where you are. my first public charging experience with the chargepoint one at my hyundai dealer said $0.48/khw. so i avg 25mi. per 10% battery or 7.7kwh, so i think of 10% like a 'gallon'. so that's 7.7x0.48 which is $3.70, around the same price as regular gas in florida. so not such a bargain.

from your posts, it sounds like charging is likely to improve a lot before you have an ev.

thanks, yep, not gonna lie i was a little apprehensive about this trip to tampa because of charging speed variation, reliability reports, etc.

headed back home tomorrow from tampa, and will stop at same charging station tomorrow. have about 35% right now (est. 86mi.) so stay tuned for another exciting installment.

obviously it should take prominence if one takes any trips and also the availability of chargers. with a terrible charging situation one should not get an ev unless it's ONLY an around town/area car.

makes sense, for you, and actually me too.

 

It's ok, ya'll can laugh at me if ya want to.

Yes, I want my blackberry back! Haha

Might be a while for an EV but I'm watching and learning.

 

That sucks 😕

 

This forum is not too make anyone feel bad or feel pressured into buying an EV, but for people to share their experiences, talk about the latest EV news, and ask questions. And to have a little occasional fun 😊

I still have my BlackBerry, believe it or not. Battery is long dead, I was actually considering buying a refurbished one on Amazon for $9, but I think it only supports analog and not digital signals. It's also locked to a carrier that no longer exists... Cingular mobile

 

I totally get that, thats my thought process too. I don't like to stop, period. If I eat I go through a drive thru and eat in the car. I can't drive 5 hours without stopping to pee anymore (damn you Father Time) but when I could, I literally would drive a 350 mile trip and never stop.

My other issue is, what do I do when I get where I'm going? If there is no DC Fast charging anywhere around where I am?

I have no interest in having my Blackberry back lol

 

So I was ready this morning to head back from Tampa and went to the same charging place since I was at 29%.

most of the 8 spots were taken including several Ioniq 5s and an ev6. I plugged in, nfc reader still didn't work but now I know to just pick the charger from the app and swipe on screen to start and away it went. 19 minutes to go from 29 to 76. Time passes fast because everyone there wants to talk about electric cars

 

I learned a lot about other brands while charging at EA chargers, my wife was always amused about how complete strangers walk up to you to ask you about your car and share their experiences. Tesla chargers are more like gas stations, people plug in then sit in their cars. I think once a guy asked me about the glow in the dark covers I put on my handles.

Enjoy it while it lasts. You'll soon have all these EA chargers to yourself after EVs go away 😁

 

ha. my gf was also amused and said it's nice that the charging stations are like little social clubs, haha.

one guy there was a certified electrician and was trying to advise another non-techie guy who had asked me about home charging. the non-techie was an uber driver who had operated for 2 years with free charging but no home charger. we did some math for home showing how much home charging would cost him given his use (200mi. a day ) - we worked out as $7 in overnight charging. he was elated.

now now, do better

 

Its kind of like having a boat and being at a marina lol

 

exactly, except i hate boats, and this is a much shorter and less expensive stay.

saw some nice boats in tampa...



well maybe not this one

 

That second one is my kind of boat lol

 

I like the sign on the wall behind that boat. I want to be in the A** Crew 2002.

 

Hahaha, I didnt notice that

 

learned something from a person at the EA charging station the other day.

so i knew that "i-pedal" driving mode (like 1 pedal driving mode for tesla) isn't so efficient on my ioniq at least because awd is engaged all the time, so i use the next level down (3) normally. that's great and slows the car considerably when taking foot off the accelerator pedal, but the car does not stop, unlike i-pedal. however, you can pull and hold the left paddle behind the steering wheel at any time to engage 'max regen' which does stop the car. so that's a nice workaround if i want regen to stop the car.

learned another thing yesterday that my utility company has a program to encourage people to charge their ev's at home off-peak (12am-6am) by giving a $7/mo. discount on their bills. not huge but since my monthly ev charging bill appears to be about $1 a day, that's still a ~25% saving on that at least.

i still haven't done solar at home but i'm still interested, even though the numbers don't make much sense to me unless i'm staying in the home for more than 10 more years (unlikely).
i don't like the idea of putting panels on my nice new metal roof, but i have tons of space to put a standalone solar array in a back field, so may still do that at some point.

i'm still trying to wrap my head around certain aspects though... my neighbor's huge system he put in last year apparently NEVER provides electricity to his property, it ALL goes back to the grid, and his home is powered by the grid, and he is billed (or credited) the difference. since he wanted to be able to carry on off the grid, he put in a whole home generator as well and a 1000 gallon propane tank in the ground (not so green, LOL). i guess the other way to do it would be battery packs, but i figure for a days outage you'd need several at tens of thousands of dollars

i believe now you can have an array actually power the house, but of course only while the sun is shining! doesn't do you any good at night. but charing the car with the sun sounds appealing, although at $1 a day cost today, my savings would not be significant, LOL

the ev adventure continues...