19,064 Miles in an EV

Electricity is really just organized lightening

George Carlin

Electric car ownership is on the rise.  In early 2019, the number of electric cars on the road worldwide rose to 5.6 million from 3.4 million the year before.  That amounts to a 64% increase!  As one of those 5.6 million I can share a few experiences that are different about the EV driving experience.

First, some background.  I drive a lot.  I live in the East Valley and drive 50 miles to work each morning and then another 50 miles to get home.  I’ve been doing this for almost 9 years now.  I haven’t moved closer because most of my friends are out here and it’s a really great and affordable part of the Valley.  There are no good public transportation options so driving is my only real option for getting to work and back.

For the last few years, I’ve been able to carpool with my sons Josh and Aaron who are attending Arizona State University.  We would drive in the carpool lane until I dropped them off and then I’d continue on to my job in Northwest Phoenix.  Then last year Aaron moved out and Josh’s schedule changed making carpooling no longer a realistic option.  Also, he was ready to get his own car so he decided to buy mine and I would get a new one.

I wasn’t planning on getting an electric vehicle, but a few things happened that pushed me in that direction.  First, my electric company, SRP, was offering customers a $3,000 discount on a 2018 Nisaan Leaf.  Second, the electric vehicle tax credit at the time would give taxpayers who bought an electric car a $7,500 tax credit.  Finally, I decided to take a test drive.  When the sales rep let me know that I could get the special cloud plate allowing me to drive in the carpool lane full time, I couldn’t think of any reason not to buy a fully electric vehicle.

So, on April 30th, 2018, I bought it.  Since then, I have gotten a lot of questions about what it is like to own and operate an electric vehicle, especially since I was the first person at my office to have one (in the last couple of weeks one of my co-workers became the second).  So, I decided to write a blog post about it.

First, range anxiety is real!  My car is rated to go 150 miles on one charge.  For the first several weeks, I was constantly concerned about how accurate that number was.  I knew that if I ran the battery down all the way, my options were limited.  Emergency charging via roadside assistance may be widely available in the future, however, currently you will most likely have to have the car towed to a charging station if you run out of juice.  Fortunately, I found that the predicted range is very accurate . . . much more accurate than a gasoline vehicle.  I’ve found that the estimated range will keep working until the battery is at 4% (about 6 miles of range) before you see the anxiety provoking three dashes replace the numbers.  The one time I did see this, I was less than a mile from my house, but it was fairly stressful the rest of the ride home!

Second, installing a Level 2 charging station at your home is essential.  The charging station that I decided on was the JuiceBox Pro 40, a 40-Amp smart EV charging station.  It connects to your WiFi and you can ask Alexa or Google about the current charging status.  The JuiceBox has gotten a lot of great reviews and bills itself as “future proof” since there are not any electric vehicles on the market (yet) that can take advantage of the full 40-Amps.  I had to have an electrician create a dedicated 220V outlet with a 50-Amp circutbraker in my garage so that I could plug it in.  In addition to at home charging, the Nisaan no charge to charge program provides free charging for the first two years that you own your vehicle.

Third, check with your power company to see if they have any special programs for EV owners.  My provider in Queen Creek, SRP,  has a special time of use plan available.  SRP offers an electric vehicle price plan that allows customers with an EV to take advantage of super off-peak prices from 11pm to 5am . . . just enough time to charge the 40kWh battery in my Nisaan Leaf.  Pricing during this time period ranges from 5.8 to 6.3 cents per kWh which is the lowest rate they offer.  Even at 6.3 cents per kWh, it only costs me $2.52 to go 150 miles!  As a result, it has only cost me about $300 in electricity to drive my car over 19,000 miles.

But what about the driving experience?  Well, it’s a lot zippier than I thought it would be.  The 2018 Nisaan Leaf goes from zero to 60MPH in just 7.5 seconds.  You are going to sacrifice some of the battery range, however, if you drive it like that all of the time.  For normal day to day driving, there is a cool feature called e-Pedal that helps extend the range of your battery.  By enabling the e-Pedal, you can drive the car by mostly using just the accelerator.  As you lift your foot off the accelerator, the car optimizes the regenerative breaking to maximize recharging of the battery.

Another bonus of owning an electric car is that the maintenance requirements are much less than a traditional gas or diesel vehicle.  The motor is sealed and doesn’t require oil changes or transmission fluid.  For my first maintenance at 10,000 miles, the dealership just rotated the tires and I was good to go.

I love this car.  It has saved me hours of commuting over the last ten months and saved me hundreds of dollars in fuel costs.  In the future, EVs will continue to get better range and more features, but for me, the time was right to buy my EV when I did.