On 9/30/2013 4:40 PM, damon henry wrote: [...]
Leaf or something similar, but the only OEM EV I would be willing to shell out money for at this time would be the Tesla S, and I am not even close to having that kind of money to spend on a car. The other tempting options for me then are OEM hybrids. I'm a big fan of both the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius although I have never actually driven either one so I can't say for sure. I really like the Volt because it is so EV like. I'm convinced that for my use it would be much more EV than Hybrid, and I like the Prius because I see it as equivalent in most ways to my Honda Insight which I have loved, but with room for more than two people. I know some on this list really get offended by hybrids, but I have loved my Honda Insight.
I bought a Ford C-Max Energi in March and I love it. I'm willing to be a bit radical and say that for MANY people in this country cars like the Energi and Volt are the ideal vehicle. In the EV world our stock answer for range anxiety is "well you need to own a gas car or rent a car to take those long trips." Well I don't. 90% of the time my C-Max is an EV. The car has 5800 miles on it and 4100 of those have been electric. The other 1700 are mostly accounted for by 2 trips to visit my in-laws in Maine--a 700 mile round trip. (I'll stand by 90% of the time while conceding 70% of the miles).
I have an 16 mile round trip to work and the C-Max will do 15-25 EV miles depending on whether the heat is on or not. After that it turns into a 41mpg hybrid. It is kind of a game for us to see if we can make it places without the gas engine coming on but it's certainly not anxiety.
The anti-hybrid crowd complains that I'm hauling around an engine and a tank of gas needlessly 90% of the time. True. But I feel that's slightly better than having that engine and tank of gas sitting in my driveway rusting and costing me additional taxes and insurance 90% of the time.
For me the Prius, with a best-case 11 mile range isn't really that great. Sure it would save gas but would still be using some every day. The 25 mile C-Max works well for me. The 38 mile Volt would might have cut a couple hundred miles of gas use off our driving since March but I really preferred the C-Max form factor for carrying stuff (I traded in an Escape hybrid for it).
My second car is a Ford Ranger EV. I drive it a lot but I do have to do that mental arithmetic every time to see if it will have the range for where I'm going.
--Rick _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
