My neighbor has been trying to buy a Mach-E since they were announced. They're so backed up his current plan is to buy a new gas car to tide him over until they become available and then he'll upgrade.
If you can't get 100% electric, then getting to 95% electric is still a reasonable drop in emissions. Furthermore, PHEVs might have fewer greenhouse emissions over its lifetime than EVs: those Li-Ion batteries are pretty bad for the environment, and PHEVs use a fraction of them compared to pure electrics.
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Something like the Prius Prime, Rav4 Prime, Honda Clarity , or GM Volt will get you 50-miles per charge and 300-miles on gasoline.
Worst-case scenario, you have a gasoline engine (probably for 2-hour or 4-hour drives to the beach). Best case scenario (aka: most days), you leave your garage with 50-miles of electric range. Most PHEV owners suggest that they go months between gasoline fillups, often burning most gasoline to prevent stale fuel / maintenance purpose, rather than out of necessity. If your day-to-day is often within 50-miles between chargers (ex: 50-miles at home, and 50-miles from your work charger), you very well could cut out over 95% of your gasoline usage easily (with the remaining 5% the maintenance gasoline-burn offs)
Particularly galling was the fact that their website advertised a RAV4 prime for $45k, and when I emailed to buy it, I was told "That one is gone. But we have an exactly similar one that we can offer to you for a $15k fee". It felt like a scummy bait and switch, and I ended up getting my Model Y for less than I would have paid for that rav4.
Except his goal wasn't to buy an EV. It was to buy a Mach-E.
> They're so backed up his current plan is to buy a new gas car to tide him over until they become available
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If your goal is to buy electric, why would you switch back to 0% electric, when you could have gotten 95% electric instead from say, Honda Clarity? (Where 95% of your energy on that car comes from electric, and 5% of your energy comes from rare multi-hour road-trips and maintenance burn-offs once a year?)
But I recognize that brand-recognition is a big thing for many car buyers.
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When I look at cars, I see what they're good for and kinda group things together. Hybrids, PHEVs, Electrics, Trucks, SUVs, Minivans, etc. etc.
Once I form a category for what I want (or what I think someone else wants, if I'm talking cars with someone else), I then list off all cars that match that category until there's a style / color / set of detailed options that matches their tastes.
But the category / overall fundamental car build comes first and foremost. Function determines form, as the architects like to say.
Everyone's definition of best is different, and it is perfectly valid to differentiate by brand. E.g. you are unlikely to go too far wrong if you blindly assume Toyota == reliable.
When faced with the inability to buy the car they wanted, they decided that they will need to buy something else with the important new parameter that they will only own this car for a short time (until they can buy a Mach-E). With that new parameter, it makes sense to buy a gas car (cheaper to get into, TCO is much less of a factor, etc).
I'm guessing 90% electric / 10% gasoline, maybe 95% / 5% split. Based off of online chatter, and various simulations I've done myself (distance I travel each day, how often I take long road trips, etc. etc.)
I argue that PHEV is closer to 90% electric (because that 50-mile all electric range covers well over 90% of your travels: especially if your office has an electric charger available like mine), and 10% gasoline (because you have to use some maintenance gasoline... + the road trips you take)
I don't regret missing out on an EV since the Volt was significantly cheaper at the time, but I look forward to my next car being one.
I still have hundreds+ mile trips. These trips are nominally 2 to 4 hours long, with planned breaks at specific locations that hold cultural significance to my family. (Yeah, its a bit silly, but certain stops, like a Cracker Barrel, hold significance to my nieces and they'll likely want to stop there on the next road trip. No electric chargers in sight yet, but plenty of gas stations)
Even then, changing a 4-hour trip into a 4-hour 30-minute trip for electric charging is just not going to work with kids in the car.
Having the car wanting to have a 30-minute break in an area where the kids don't want a break is just going to add additional, unnecessary hassle to the trip.
Supercharger location #532 is not the Cracker Barrel where the kids want to take a break at. Realistically, someone is going to get the short-end of the stick here. And that'd be me: I'd likely have to stop at the Cracker Barrel (to make the kids feel good + get them the silly cheap toys they want to stay happy during the trip), and then I'll have to take another 30+ minute stop at the supercharger later to keep the car going.
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Have you ever traveled with kids before? When the kids are asleep: you wanna book it as far as you can go.
When the kids are awake, you need to take frequent breaks, far more frequently than your electric car demands.
If your kids are asleep, you are wasting precious "kid sleeping time" sitting around at a 30+ minute supercharger instead of making good progress. If your kids are awake, there's no damn way they'll want to wait until the next supercharger for a break.
No, it's probably somewhere interesting though. both Superchargers and ElectrifyAmerica in the US are in locations where there's interesting things to do or look at. Chargers are like every 40-50 miles or so, it's not like you have to wait an hour if you want to stop.
> Have you ever traveled with kids before?
Yes, a lot, in France, and I've never seen kids actually dictating when you stop.
Maybe it's a white American parenting thing, or an artefact of how French highways are built where you're not stopping if you just missed the rest area and they're all the same anyway?
American highways have terrible rest stops. (Okay, it varies at the State level. Ohio's rest stops are actually really good for example)
For actual comfort for a decent stop, you wanna stop at a highway town / tourist trap. These are towns scattered across the US Highway system. There are chain restaurants (ex: McDonalds) if you're trying to make good time, but a nice sitdown place is often more comfortable.
Cracker Barrel is a nice chain that caters towards the highway travelers in particular. It has a children-oriented gift shop approximately the size of the restaurant. Its a good place to stop if you have kids. They stock all sorts of games and toys (simple peg-puzzles like solatare, backgammon, chess, checkers. Harmonicas / Kazoos too but don't buy those unless you wanna be annoyed while driving lol.) while also offering a good sized dining area.
Its a good place to take a break as an adult, while the kids can browse for toys that will amuse them for the rest of the drive.
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That's the thing. I make a decision to stop there for the comfort of myself and the kids. That's a very different thing than going to a supercharger station for 30+ minutes out of necessity.
If you take enough road trips along the same route, the kids remember these locations and ask to visit again. The kids aren't the only ones who want to stop at the Cracker Barrel over there, I do too.
The other benefit is it is still efficient with gas, about 40-45 miles per gallon. The first generation volt required premium fuel but my second gen takes 87, so it is very cheap to operate.
Extremely reliable.
The drivetrain on the Volt is actually quite simple and elegant when compared to a typical ICE car.
Every 10k miles:
1. check all the filters and fluids 2. rotate tires
It is very well built, unlike any ford I have ever driven. Drove it for about a 100 mile trip in the Columbia gorge last weekend, it was a blast.
That said, even with 250+ mile highway range, my wife had a bit of range anxiety once the battery gauge dropped below 50%. Something that will hopefully go away with time.
Can't really get around the bit of anxiety about knowing that there aren't as many recharging options out in the wild as there are gas stations, but it's comforting to know that you'll be fine making it home.
For some reason charging stations seems to have a very high out-of-service frequency, and very often this status is not accurately reported in the various charging location apps.
It also doesn't help that certain apps tell you that there's an available charger when the reality is that the charging station has both CCS and CHAdeMO, someone is using the CHAdeMO so the CCS is useless. If you plug it in you won't be able to charge until the other one stops, and worse you won't be able to disconnect from the charger until then either. Yay!
Though this is usually just an issue on longer trips, and our car isn't exactly built for that anyway with its ~250km summer range.
Edit: Forgot to mention, it is an additional $600 option to get hands free driving feature.
But also you come to understand the connection between real world conditions and "km of expected range consumed per real km", which ranges from -0.8 (regen, long downhill, battery ready to receive charge), 1 (flat, 80 kph, 21 degrees outside), and 2 or even 3 (steep uphill with heater or AC on).
Or maybe you do if you're a HN reader... :)