I just love owning an electric vehicle.
I love the little bit of hope in it. The belief that things really can get better. In a world that feels noticeably meaner in recent years, there is something amazing about the hope implicit here. It is a reminder that we, as a species, can solve problems. In a world where everyone is yelling, so many are working quietly, tending the garden.
Here is what I did last weekend: I drove my all-electric crossover 303 miles. They were not easy ones. They involved dirt roads and mountains and hundreds of miles on the highway.
They included a razorback section where I gained 4,600 miles of elevation over just 16 miles with a 55-mph posted limit. It’s enough to boil an old gas car’s coolant on the way up and boil its brake fluid on the way down. My Chevrolet Blazer EV—which I leased for less than it would have cost to lease a Honda Civic—careened up to the top silently. Then, I drove it 12 miles on dirt, and camped in the back. If the weather hadn’t been so perfect, I could have done it with the heater on.
My Blazer after 12 miles on a rutted dirt forest road.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
I crawled down a rocky, sandy road 36 hours after a monsoon. When I rejoined pavement, I went down the mountain. Blasting downhill at 55 mph on a twisty road and never once touching my friction brakes, I got to the bottom of the mountain having regenerated 4% of my battery. I got down in half the time it’d have taken me in my lumbering gas truck, and had more fun, too.
This technology is here. EVs are imperfect, but they work, and they are getting continually better. They are not exactly like gas cars; they are novel, with a few new compromises, but far more possibilities.
It’s a world with overlanding trails where you can actually hear the birds. It’s no oil changes, it’s 100,000-mile battery warranties, it’s commuting in silence and waking up every day with a full tank of fuel. It’s city centers that don’t smell like soot and varnish.
Are you really worried about not having 300 miles of range on the coldest day in January? That is a problem that the best EVs have already solved. Even the worst ones offer something more valuable in return. They can preheat in your closed garage, and if you jump in a cold one, you wait 30 seconds, not five minutes, for your heater to kick in. The first five minutes of your winter-time commute don’t have to be painful.
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Source: InsideEVs
In a million tiny ways, electric cars are easier to live with. They are gentler on the ears and the air and the mind. Your foot and the throttle are connected, one to one. They feel how you imagined a car would have felt as a kid, before you drove one: perfectly linear, perfectly instant.
They do not have the compromises of an internal-combustion engine, which—through tireless engineering—have become almost invisible to most of us.
Consider this: Your car weighs a couple of tons. What is the safe thing for a 4,000-pound object to do when you remove all inputs, and fall limp? If you are the owner of a gas vehicle with an automatic transmission, I hope your answer is “roll forward at 3-5 mph until it runs into something.” That’s what your car is going to do.
We can already build 1,000-horsepower electric super trucks that can rock crawl all morning and outrun Lamborghinis on a drag strip in the afternoon. The tech is here, we just need to make it cheaper.
Photo by: Mack Hogan/InsideEVs
Mine stops. It does so without brakes that turn precious energy into purely wasted heat. It snatches that energy back from the void, returning it to the battery and slowing you down at the same time. It is indistinguishable from magic, except it feels so ordinary. Gas cars remain relevant for many buyers because they are cheaper, and that is important. But EVs certainly make them feel archaic.
My 2001 Chevy Tahoe’s 5.3-liter V-8 is charming and potent, but when it roars, it is the cry of something that knows it’s going to battle for the last time. It’s palpably on the way out as a piece of technology. Trucks like mine served their purpose. They got us here. I love ‘em for it.
But the future is brighter. Electric cars are improving so much quicker than their internal-combustion counterparts. Already, they contain thoughtful, common-sense features that show promise. Camp mode gives you budget van life. Dog Mode means you no longer need to choose between keeping your dog alive and keeping your vehicle from being stolen. The smartphone you already have with you can just be your key. Once you solve these problems for a customer, you win them over for life. The experience is just plain better.
Tesla has proven that you can make common-sense, ultra smooth software for cars. Now, we’re just waiting for everyone else to learn how to do it, too.
Photo by: Patrick George
Because the electric vehicle is just a less compromised beginning point. They are simpler. They use the one source of energy that everything else that you own uses, and the one that is the easiest to convert into useful work. Electric cars are over 90% efficient; for gas cars, the number is closer to 35%. Almost all of the money you spend on gas goes not to moving your car forward, but towards creating waste heat.
EVs waste less. They work better. You fuel them at home, not at the dirtiest place in town.
EVs have only one substantive problem: They are expensive. Like all new technologies, it takes time to drive costs down.
Recall that the 2007 iPhone was a revelation, but it wasn’t for everyone. I remember the first one I saw, and it seemed impossibly unattainable. Five years later, I had one. Cars move slower than that. Redesigning one takes 4-6 years for most companies. The same story is playing out here: EVs are rapidly getting cheaper and better. It is just taking some time.
But while tomorrow’s electric cars will be more affordable and even more compelling, you don’t have to wait. If you have the means to charge one at home or at work, the modern EV ownership experience has already surpassed the gasoline ownership experience in many segments. Have you spoken to a Tesla owner recently? It’s like the iPhone. It’s like a religion.
The reason is simple. Once you find a charging solution that works for you, and an option you can afford, EVs are just lovely. They are quiet, and they are smooth, but they’re also more than that. They’re a necessary reminder that we can still build something better for tomorrow.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com
