Do EVs suck at towing because of battery life? I thought electric engines were often superior to comparable internal combustion engines regarding torque.
Do EVs suck at towing because of battery life? I thought electric engines were often superior to comparable internal combustion engines regarding torque.
That said, if it's not the towing but the bed you need, the range but isn't nearly so bad.
This is exaggeration. A half hour for a well-loaded truck, sure, but an hour is generally exaggeration.
And as for five minutes for a fill up, it's usually more than five for a regular fill-up on a regular passenger car for me compared to just continuing on.
I don't know what your family does on the gas station, but my wife and 2 small kids can cover toilet visit (as long as there was no accident) for all 3 combined under 5 mins. So can I with paying, so at the end its 5 mins stop total all counted in. Eating as in lunch is once a day, and when we travel we certainly don't need restaurant experience of sitting around, quick sandwich is more than enough, driving on full stomach sucks anyway.
Never understood people loitering around gas stations for long time, but then again when we travel its often 500km or more, the typical trip cca 2x a year back home is 1500km.
EVs are not for us for quite some time, US EVs seemingly never.
It takes a few minutes just getting the kids in and out of their car seats. No way everyone is getting out of the car, through the bathroom, and then back in the car ready to go in 5 minutes.
Seriously, time yourself sometime. You're way underestimating the actual time you spend at a stop.
But take a look at it from another perspective. Its another 10-15min on a several hour road trip. On a 5hr road trip that's like 3-4% more time for the total time of the road trip, assuming you're definitely doing a fast stop on that 5 hour trip and not sending the kids through the bathroom and you're not stopping for a quick meal. Is adding 3% to your travel time really that significant?
And as pointed out, if you're having to get the family through the bathroom or stop for a quick bite (even just sandwiches in the parking lot, although I usually pull off to a rest stop when traveling in an ICE car when having a quick bite) its not even more time, its the same total time.
On the route I often drive for a road trip (between DFW and Houston), I'm normally going to stop for lunch or dinner anyways somewhere on the route. I just stop where there's a charger (a few good options), have a quick bite, and hit the road. I'd usually do that even with my gas cars even if I didn't need gas, normally stopping at one of the rest stops on the way to stretch my legs, have a quick snack, use the restroom, and continue on my way. On paper taking the EV adds something like 15 minutes or so to the trip (which my EV isn't really great for road trips compared to others: smaller battery AWD Mach-E) but in practice for how I road trip its practically the same.
And that’s a race thy would be amusing to watch.
Feed and toilet a family of four and also refuel the car. How long?
Forget that. Take your time. Be comfortable. You've got a few more hours to go, enjoy yourself. Stretch, have your snack outside of the car so it doesn't get as messy and you're not hungry in a little bit (and as the driver, so you're not distracted trying to eat while driving). Don't get me wrong, don't just be idle at the stop, do what you need to do and get moving again. But you don't need to rush. Its not going to make that big of a difference in the end.
But even when you, the amount of time is not 60minutes. If you have kids, the time to go to the restroom, grab a coffee and come back is usually already around 20min, which tends to be enough to charge from 20-60% or even to 80% in newer vehicles. If you have a meal and take around 40minutes, you are probably already hitting 90% or higher.
EVs are 90% efficient at converting their chemical energy to useful work. This is a good thing in general, but it also means that drag and extra losses hurt its range much more. If 90% of the energy goes into useful power, than anything that requires 50% more power is going to almost halve the range. Whereas with an ICE engine, the high fixed losses mean that demanding 50% more power doesn’t increase fuel consumption by 50%. Pair that with the higher energy density of gasoline and you’ve got a bad comparison for EVs.
I really think the first obvious use case (aside from bugout vehicles) would be something like the early road rangers - driving all over a farm and bringing back crates of produce from muddy fields without getting stuck or needing a lot of maintenance.
Charging infrastructure was always the key for EVs and it's still relatively behind.