we had to think days ahead to any big trip
Were you taking a lot of big trips without thinking about them before the Polestar?
Were you taking a lot of big trips without thinking about them before the Polestar?
Gas: get in car, drive until light turns on, pull into next gas station and get gas, keep driving.
EV(tesla): get in car, enter destination, car will route you to superchargers as needed
EV(!tesla): get in car, consult web sites like a better route planner, verify car's charge, verify that you have the app for each of the fast charging destination payment methods, drive to the first location and it's broken in some tedious way and now you have to hope you've got range to get to your b site.
With an ICE we just fill up the night before or morning of and we’re good to go with 500 miles in the tank.
It's not ideal, however; it's 66 hours continuously to add 200 miles of range to an older S; for more efficient cars (that get 4 or 5 miles of range an hour) it's still going to be 40 hours.
Such a setup is totally untenable if you're hanging an electric cord out your window and over a sidewalk or through trees or whatever, if you can even get a parking space within extension cord range of your car...
Also, broadly -- running a random outlet at 12a continuously for 60 hours may break things in unpleasant ways.
Seems like a nasty issue with that polestar or with whatever you were using to charge overnight. With an actual charger you'd get to 100% overnight.
With tesla you'd also have car adding detours for you towards fast chargers when needed, so much less to worry.
If we’d spent the £1,500 on the dedicated charger I’m sure my view would be different.
Either way I can get 500 miles out of an ICE and refill it in 2 minutes. EVs are great but for longer drives that convenience is hard to beat.
No, for longer drives multiple times per week with no return home in between them, an ICE is hard to beat. If you're driving 250 miles a day and returning home then it's a no brainer - you don't even need to stop for petrol.
Sure, but typically refill would be 30-40 min with a Tesla in a supercharger for long drives, which I usually need after driving 500-600km.
On the other hand, they're very fun to drive, the acceleration is insane. ICE cars that come close are twice the price and with much higher maintenance costs.
I'm not sure why you went with a polestar though.
Well, yeah, that's the issue. Without an "actual charger" you only get ~25% range overnight with a standard wall outlet. It's not a problem for most driving usecases, but for people who do a lot of long trips, it still an issue.
- visiting family, 2 lots, both over 3 hours each away
- mountain biking, 2 to 5 hour each way
- friends wedding, 3 hours
- airport run, 4 hour round trip … twice
- overnight work trip 5 hours each way
That’s a pretty common 2/3 month period for us. Oh and when we had the PS2 there was a daily commute to one of two office between 30 and 60 minutes each way.
In some places 3-phase power is very common (e.g. my small apartment in Copenhagen has a 3-phase supply), though in the UK it's less common. The upgrade might be £1000, or considerably more.
With 7kW (1-phase) it will be OK for a lot of trips — charging in 11-12 hours. This is more power than a normal domestic socket provides. In some countries there's a higher-power socket in the garage already, otherwise it's something the electrician needs to install.
A normal domestic socket is around 3kW.