We've Owned an EV for 3 Years, Was it Worth it?

0:00 Intro
0:48 BYD Tangent
1:32 Do We Like It?
1:49 Don't Have to Pay for Gas
2:07 Home Charging
2:42 Little Maintenance
3:28 Quiet
4:27 Instant Torque
4:54 Our Car Specifically (2021 ID4)
5:08 Turning Radius
5:34 Lane-keep Assist
6:13 No Hump!
6:32 What We Don't Like
6:59 Need More Chargers
9:18 Thoughts Overall
10:05 Factor
11:35 Conclusion

MY USUAL PLACES

SOURCES

Expensive?

Reliability

EV Sales

BYD Overtaking Tesla

[TOracle]

Driving an EV through the woods with the windows down so you can hear the nature around you, is a blissful experience! 😊

[recharge]

Since owning an EV, I found my power bill has only gone up about 40 or $50 per month. I'm a lyft driver, so I drive around 2000 miles per month.

[fromtheblonx]

I was a sceptic. I used to dish out all the standard 'against' arguments. None of them, so it turns out, are valid. Not once have I wished to have had an ICE since we got our Skoda Enyaq. 300 miles of range. 25 minutes to fully charge on AC, which we've only had to do once in 4 months. We charge at home mostly which costs us next to nothing (about £4 to fill the battery), it is super clean, super comfortable, fast, reliable and good for the family. I'll never go back!

[KristopherReed]

I've had my Model 3 for six years and have put over 100k miles on it with no issues. It is my first EV and I'm never going back to gas cars.

[chaiusvult]

From India and it's been so great here with EV scooters. They're silent and don't release any exhaust fumes (which is a blessing for other riders). In the city I live in there are a good number of charging stations. And the scooters and bikes are only getting better

[zachazlett]

We’ve taken our ID.4 from southern Ohio to Galveston, Chicago, and Durham in a bit more than a year. Each trip was pretty uneventful. We love the car!

[Artofcarissa]

I’m so glad you gave a shout out to Hank Green’s putty car video cause that was the first thing I thought of when I saw yours 😂😂😂

[stephenbaxter]

Had a BYD EV for 2 years now (I'm in New Zealand so we have cheap Chinese EVs!) and i still love it every time i drive it. In fact we just got another EV and traded in our petrol car. No more gas station visits for me, unless its for snacks. Thankfully our charging infrastructure is pretty good (at least one fast DC charger every 44 miles) and getting better all the time - a 9 hour drive is literally driving the length of our North Island and we would never do that without multiple stops anyway. So plenty of opportunities to charge while we eat and stretch our legs.

[acmulhern]

We've had an electric car for 7 years now and the charging station availability has really made it so much easier over the years.
We live in Europe and many european countries now have fast chargers at every gas station on the motorway, which is amazing. You can drive from Amsterdam to Paris without even planning your route, as long as you keep to the main road network.
Availability of charging stations really is key to the shift to electric cars.
My dad, who has always been sceptical of electric cars, was shocked when i took him on a road trip and we'd just plug in the car every few hours, go for a quick toilet break and it was charged enough to move on again. He thought there'd be massive queues at charging stations because people would need to charge for at least 1 hour.

[JosephWillingham]

There is ALWAYS an 8 year/100, 000 mile warranty on the battery (at least)

US federal guideline

[SALVATlN]

My favorite part of owning an EV? Turns out I hate going to the gas station. Who knew 🤷

Every 2 car household should have one EV, and one gas. It just makes the most sense.

[ChristianBehnke]

Glad to hear you're enjoying your EV, and I'm sure we all have the same thoughts about the negatives... But we're still in EV's infancy! It will improve!

[skumancer]

Also, for a country like Panama where I live, we have a great charging infrastructure, with chargers readily available in malls, super markers and parking lots. I can say there are more chargers per EV here than there are in Texas, where I last rented an EV and had A HELL of a time trying to charge.

[Gwenx]

We will get an EV when i finish my drivers license, 2 years ago there where NO charging stations in a huge range of our town.. We live in an apartment so we would not have had any chance to set up a charger on our own.. But yea in just 2 year all gas stations has chargers, and we got parking spaces with chargers where we live! So now we are a 100% getting an EV!
My dad also got an EV recently and damn that thing drives so smooth it was a dream to just sit in, he also showed us those features you mention with keeping the lane, and it can be set to drive a specific speed, and it will keep more then the minimum distance to another car in front, so cool!

[jon]

I own a Bolt and a Tesla and the difference in road tripping is night and day. I owned the Bolt for 2.5 years before I got a Tesla, and road trip planning was extremely important because the charging network was unreliable and 25% of the chargers I would find on america/ABRP/Volta/Shell Recharge/google (Yes I have 7 apps installed just to find and use chargers) would be inoperable. I would spend hours planning routes and alternate routes just to make sure if one charging station was down I could reach an alternate. Road trips were completely doable but there was always a little bit of anxiety, not about range, but about charging infrastructure. Things have gotten a lot better in the past 5 years but when I got my Tesla I couldn't believe how simple it all became. Put your destination in the car and it figures out routing, charger locations, charge times, pre-conditioning to optimize charging... everything. All of that charging stress just went away. Tesla has far more charging locations and much higher reliability than any of the other major DCFC companies. So since I bought my Tesla 2 years ago I haven't thought about charging, at all. I still use the Bolt for my commuter but the Tesla works great as our kid hauler/road tripper/camper puller.

*One note, EVs do have differentials, without them, you couldn't turn. The "hump" in the middle of the car is a tunnel/channel for the drive shaft if you have a front engine with rear wheel or all wheel drive. EVs have separate motors in the front and rear so they don't need to mechanically transfer power from the engine bay to the rear of the vehicle.

[nelsonoliveira]

I have owned my EV coming up this Oct for 3 years and driven 50 thousand KMS or 30 thousand miles. No regrets and would do it again. I charge from home at a cost of $20 a month. This is my main reason for going to EV and saving $5K a year on fuel.

[Girlbrush.Threepwood]

I've had a 2015 LEAF since 2021 (I'm the 3rd owner), and besides the range I absolutely love it. We have a charger at home and one at work, and I mostly do small distances. I'm in Canada and in the winter I lose about 20-30% range, but I just charge more often.

[MrTekniqs]

As a person that wears hearing aids. I could not hold a conversation in a gas vehicle with any music on. In my electric car, I Can Hear EVERYONE. Even people in the back seat. It's so great being able to hear people when they're riding in the car even if they try to whisper (with music off). So for the people like me with hearing issues that can use hearing aids to assist. This is a great experience, I think.

[rdyer]

I believe the number you quoted was the turning diameter. The turning radius should be about half of that. (blame Euclid)

[thorbjrnhellehaven]

I've driven an EV in Norway for 9 years.
I totally agree with you. I never regret it.

About your prospects of the future; I believe you are spot on. We have 85% of new cars being EVa and 25% of all cars are EVs. The charging infrastructure is decent, but if you travel on busy days, there might be a cue, however there were way less complaints about that this summer than previous years, while the number of EVs have increased significantly.