Current EV owners…are you staying BEV or switching to Harvester?

[N Wilson]

That’s excellent news! I have switched my reservation to a BEV Traveler.

I have a couple questions.

Did you have any misconceptions going into this that now you realize weren’t valid?

Any pain points at all?

Did it take you a period of time getting used to driving it?

Is there anything you don’t like about it?

Thanks!

Thanks to the many detailed posts on this forum by @SpaceEVDriver and others, I had a very realistic expectation of EV ownership before making the switch.

It took about a day or less to get used to driving it.

I can't think of anything I don't like about it, but lots of things I do like, such as instant acceleration, quiet, smooth ride, low cost of ownership (maintenance, fueling-I have solar) home backup power for power outages, etc.

 

[Westfork]

Thanks to the many detailed posts on this forum by @SpaceEVDriver and others, I had a very realistic expectation of EV ownership before making the switch.

It took about a day or less to get used to driving it.

I can't think of anything I don't like about it, but lots of things I do like, such as instant acceleration, quiet, smooth ride, low cost of ownership (maintenance, fueling-I have solar) home backup power for power outages, etc.

Second that. Good information from all. Never would have considered BEV. Now it is a consideration

 

[DJG]

A couple of thoughts on this topic that reinforce why I don’t think most people need the EREV. Most of my thoughts are already covered.

Even with an ICE, you have to stop for gas. It’s not like the stop to charge is something you only have to do with an EV. The stop is maybe 10 minutes longer, but maybe you were going to take a longer stop anyway.

Fast charging stations are becoming more plentiful and will continue in that direction. I did take one road trip in particular where charging was a challenge. More recently, chargers have been more reliable, less lines, etc. Stopping to charge has not been a burden, and most of my road trips are with my 3 and 5 year old kids.

I do tow with my R1S. My range with my trailer is about 130 miles. That’s not great, but most of my trips are in that range. When at the campsite, I have been able to charge for free at the electric hookups. This has been nice. If I thought I wanted to make a cross country or otherwise long trip with a trailer, I don’t think I would do it in an EV, but that’s about the only scenario I can come up with where the range extender might be nice.

One other thing to think about with the range extender is that while your stops may be less frequent, you will need both gas and an electric charge. The overall time may not be much of an improvement.

Anyways, I don’t think most people need to spend their money on a range extender. I think the added convenience will be minimal, and it’s another thing that will need maintenance. That said, if the money isn’t an issue and it gives you piece of mind, go for it.

 

[6-ScoutFamily]

Here’s a disconnect I’m seeing with this issue. SM says up to 350 miles on the BEV. If the “130-ish” kWh battery is accurate, that’s 2.7 miles/kWh. I believe that number with the Traveler, not the Terra—until real users are on the road with production models proving otherwise—I’m assuming 2.0 miles/kWh. @SpaceEVDriver and others are reporting better than this number with the Lightening, and I’m glad that’s happening for them.

Two miles/kWh means a 260 mile range for a BEV Terra. Even though 95+% of my driving is around town, this number makes me queasy (I would still want the Harvester on top of that). A round trip to the KC airport for me is about 240 miles, and that’s on an Interstate corridor with lots of DCFC. Once I have my Scout, I may well want to travel more with it. The places I will want to go are not ‘DCFC dense’. I may be a complete Luddite here, but… “I’m from Missouri…”.

 

[DJG]

Here’s a disconnect I’m seeing with this issue. SM says up to 350 miles on the BEV. If the “130-ish” kWh battery is accurate, that’s 2.7 miles/kWh. I believe that number with the Traveler, not the Terra—until real users are on the road with production models proving otherwise—I’m assuming 2.0 miles/kWh. @SpaceEVDriver and others are reporting better than this number with the Lightening, and I’m glad that’s happening for them.

Two miles/kWh means a 260 mile range for a BEV Terra. Even though 95+% of my driving is around town, this number makes me queasy (I would still want the Harvester on top of that). A round trip to the KC airport for me is about 240 miles, and that’s on an Interstate corridor with lots of DCFC. Once I have my Scout, I may well want to travel more with it. The places I will want to go are not ‘DCFC dense’. I may be a complete Luddite here, but… “I’m from Missouri…”.

My mileage in my Rivian varies a lot based on how I drive. I can get closer to the rated range if I accelerate at a modest rate and put it on cruise control on the freeway. It might drop 10-20% if I am driving even a little aggressively. Around town, I don’t pay too much attention to it, but on the long drives, I absolutely change my driving style to get more range.

At one point on the Rivian forum, I saw someone do a calculation. They basically determined that you could cut out a charging stop by driving something like 70 mph vs 80 mph on a long freeway drive. Based on what I’ve seen, this is probably accurate.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Here’s a disconnect I’m seeing with this issue. SM says up to 350 miles on the BEV. If the “130-ish” kWh battery is accurate, that’s 2.7 miles/kWh. I believe that number with the Traveler, not the Terra—until real users are on the road with production models proving otherwise—I’m assuming 2.0 miles/kWh. @SpaceEVDriver and others are reporting better than this number with the Lightening, and I’m glad that’s happening for them.

Two miles/kWh means a 260 mile range for a BEV Terra. Even though 95+% of my driving is around town, this number makes me queasy (I would still want the Harvester on top of that). A round trip to the KC airport for me is about 240 miles, and that’s on an Interstate corridor with lots of DCFC. Once I have my Scout, I may well want to travel more with it. The places I will want to go are not ‘DCFC dense’. I may be a complete Luddite here, but… “I’m from Missouri…”.

There are a fair number of Lightning owners who struggle to get 2.0 miles/kWh, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to plan for 2.0 on the Terra.

I will say a 240 mile road trip in a 350 mile nominal truck is something I never even begin to worry about. We regularly take a freeway-based 250 mile trip to the Valley and back without charging. While it’s downhill on the way there, we have to climb about 6000 feet on the way home, and as we all know, it’s more energy intensive to come back up than you save going down.

But we also don’t worry about arriving home with <5% state of charge. I believe that’s a thing that requires experience to feel comfortable doing.

 

[cyure]

There are a fair number of Lightning owners who struggle to get 2.0 miles/kWh, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to plan for 2.0 on the Terra.

I will say a 240 mile road trip in a 350 mile nominal truck is something I never even begin to worry about. We regularly take a freeway-based 250 mile trip to the Valley and back without charging. While it’s downhill on the way there, we have to climb about 6000 feet on the way home, and as we all know, it’s more energy intensive to come back up than you save going down.

But we also don’t worry about arriving home with <5% state of charge. I believe that’s a thing that requires experience to feel comfortable doing.

That’s the thing that will take getting used too. In my ICE vehicles I would be freaking out.

 

[J Alynn]

There are a fair number of Lightning owners who struggle to get 2.0 miles/kWh, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to plan for 2.0 on the Terra.

I will say a 240 mile road trip in a 350 mile nominal truck is something I never even begin to worry about. We regularly take a freeway-based 250 mile trip to the Valley and back without charging. While it’s downhill on the way there, we have to climb about 6000 feet on the way home, and as we all know, it’s more energy intensive to come back up than you save going down.

But we also don’t worry about arriving home with <5% state of charge. I believe that’s a thing that requires experience to feel comfortable doing.

I think that last sentence is key. I’ve rolled into gas stations on a few occasions where I had less than 2 miles of range and let me tell you-.the pucker factor was quite intense . Guessing even more so with a new EV when you are 100% new to that technology

 

[MaddMatt]

My 2cents, for what it's worth:

Almost one full year into our BEV "test" vehicle, an Ioniq5 - switched my reservation from Harvester to BEV within a couple months of owning the Hyundai, and have no desire to switch back.

Our use case is probably pretty typical of the average American - it's my wife's daily, 6-12 miles per day, and the only vehicle we drive when the two of us are together - unless we are hauling big/dirty things or the dog, then we take the Xterra. I wish we had sprung for the Limited package on the Hyundai, as I find the leather seats in the Xterra way easier to get dog hair and muddy paw prints off of, then the cloth seats in the Ioniq.

For Thanksgiving, we had the chance to spend a couple days in a cabin in the mountains, about 5,000' higher than where we live, so lots of highway climbing to get there. ABRP said we would get to the cabin with 35% remaining, so I charged to 100% and we set off, with the general locations of a couple fast chargers in mind. Drove "spiritedly ", since the endless torque, AWD and heavy weight of the Hyundai make it a fantastic canyon/mountain car, and actually still had 50% charge when we got there.

I was kind of looking forward to seeing if the 50% was accurate, but also didn't want any drama during a holiday, so I plugged in the Level 1 charger I carry for a few hours the day before we left for home. In hindsight there was no need, we burned 50% on the way up, but only 24% on the way down - as I said the drive up was spirited, and the drive down is a lot of downhill, so lots of regen - we keep it on level 2, so the car drives exactly like a regular ICE automatic. Had I not charged at all on this trip, we would have made it home with well over 20% remaining.

My wife and I had this very discussion on the way home, we have a reservation for a Rivian R2 for my wife which should line up more or less with the end of our "tester" lease on the Ioniq - BUT the Ioniq is without question, after one year, the best car we've ever owned, if the R2 is not very, very special, we'll just be getting another Ioniq, but the next one will have all the options. We may look at buying a lease return "limited" Ioniq5, as leasing doesn't sit right with me, but that's just me. After 2008 it took 11 years to climb back out of debt, and leasing feels like backsliding. In any case an ICE or hybrid for her car is out of the question, she's never going back....

The Scout reservation is for me, and I'll keep driving the Xterra until its ready. We discussed maybe keeping it, so we have an ICE vehicle "just in case", but I'm staring to wonder: in case of what?

As long as there is a 300m+ range in the Scout, it will work for the vast majority of what we do way better than any ICE vehicle - but part of adapting to a BEV is being willing to adapt to change. At this point I am fully willing to add an hour to a long road trip day to accommodate charging stops, and in the big picture I would have saved much more than that hour between road trips, because I NEVER go to gas stations. When I do fill the Xterra I find the whole experience expensive and annoying, but it was such a part of my life for decades before that I never questioned it. I'm questioning it now; plugging in the car on my wife's days off is way less intrusive than going to gas stations every week. The kids are grown and the parents are gone, so hopefully my holiday 900 mile day road trips are over anyway? If not, much safer and more fun to find a charger near a restaurant and relax for 30 minutes.

If I towed regularly for long distances ( I tow a boat in the summer, but only 50 miles each way,) I'm looking forward to seeing how the Scout handles that, if I even still own the boat by then, then I might feel differently, but for now I"m more than happy with the tradeoffs of switching to BEV - I'd say for us the benefits far outweigh the costs, and like @SpaceEVDriver, the panels on the roof more than cover the costs of charging the car. We still haven't gotten around to installing a level 2 charger, for our use case we just don't need it. Driving free and loving it....

 

[cyure]

My 2cents, for what it's worth:

Almost one full year into our BEV "test" vehicle, an Ioniq5 - switched my reservation from Harvester to BEV within a couple months of owning the Hyundai, and have no desire to switch back.

Our use case is probably pretty typical of the average American - it's my wife's daily, 6-12 miles per day, and the only vehicle we drive when the two of us are together - unless we are hauling big/dirty things or the dog, then we take the Xterra. I wish we had sprung for the Limited package on the Hyundai, as I find the leather seats in the Xterra way easier to get dog hair and muddy paw prints off of, then the cloth seats in the Ioniq.

For Thanksgiving, we had the chance to spend a couple days in a cabin in the mountains, about 5,000' higher than where we live, so lots of highway climbing to get there. ABRP said we would get to the cabin with 35% remaining, so I charged to 100% and we set off, with the general locations of a couple fast chargers in mind. Drove "spiritedly ", since the endless torque, AWD and heavy weight of the Hyundai make it a fantastic canyon/mountain car, and actually still had 50% charge when we got there.

I was kind of looking forward to seeing if the 50% was accurate, but also didn't want any drama during a holiday, so I plugged in the Level 1 charger I carry for a few hours the day before we left for home. In hindsight there was no need, we burned 50% on the way up, but only 24% on the way down - as I said the drive up was spirited, and the drive down is a lot of downhill, so lots of regen - we keep it on level 2, so the car drives exactly like a regular ICE automatic. Had I not charged at all on this trip, we would have made it home with well over 20% remaining.

My wife and I had this very discussion on the way home, we have a reservation for a Rivian R2 for my wife which should line up more or less with the end of our "tester" lease on the Ioniq - BUT the Ioniq is without question, after one year, the best car we've ever owned, if the R2 is not very, very special, we'll just be getting another Ioniq, but the next one will have all the options. We may look at buying a lease return "limited" Ioniq5, as leasing doesn't sit right with me, but that's just me. After 2008 it took 11 years to climb back out of debt, and leasing feels like backsliding. In any case an ICE or hybrid for her car is out of the question, she's never going back....

The Scout reservation is for me, and I'll keep driving the Xterra until its ready. We discussed maybe keeping it, so we have an ICE vehicle "just in case", but I'm staring to wonder: in case of what?

As long as there is a 300m+ range in the Scout, it will work for the vast majority of what we do way better than any ICE vehicle - but part of adapting to a BEV is being willing to adapt to change. At this point I am fully willing to add an hour to a long road trip day to accommodate charging stops, and in the big picture I would have saved much more than that hour between road trips, because I NEVER go to gas stations. When I do fill the Xterra I find the whole experience expensive and annoying, but it was such a part of my life for decades before that I never questioned it. I'm questioning it now; plugging in the car on my wife's days off is way less intrusive than going to gas stations every week. The kids are grown and the parents are gone, so hopefully my holiday 900 mile day road trips are over anyway? If not, much safer and more fun to find a charger near a restaurant and relax for 30 minutes.

If I towed regularly for long distances ( I tow a boat in the summer, but only 50 miles each way,) I'm looking forward to seeing how the Scout handles that, if I even still own the boat by then, then I might feel differently, but for now I"m more than happy with the tradeoffs of switching to BEV - I'd say for us the benefits far outweigh the costs, and like @SpaceEVDriver, the panels on the roof more than cover the costs of charging the car. We still haven't gotten around to installing a level 2 charger, for our use case we just don't need it. Driving free and loving it....

I love all these real world experiences. Keep them coming!

 

[J Alynn]

My 2cents, for what it's worth:

Almost one full year into our BEV "test" vehicle, an Ioniq5 - switched my reservation from Harvester to BEV within a couple months of owning the Hyundai, and have no desire to switch back.

Our use case is probably pretty typical of the average American - it's my wife's daily, 6-12 miles per day, and the only vehicle we drive when the two of us are together - unless we are hauling big/dirty things or the dog, then we take the Xterra. I wish we had sprung for the Limited package on the Hyundai, as I find the leather seats in the Xterra way easier to get dog hair and muddy paw prints off of, then the cloth seats in the Ioniq.

For Thanksgiving, we had the chance to spend a couple days in a cabin in the mountains, about 5,000' higher than where we live, so lots of highway climbing to get there. ABRP said we would get to the cabin with 35% remaining, so I charged to 100% and we set off, with the general locations of a couple fast chargers in mind. Drove "spiritedly ", since the endless torque, AWD and heavy weight of the Hyundai make it a fantastic canyon/mountain car, and actually still had 50% charge when we got there.

I was kind of looking forward to seeing if the 50% was accurate, but also didn't want any drama during a holiday, so I plugged in the Level 1 charger I carry for a few hours the day before we left for home. In hindsight there was no need, we burned 50% on the way up, but only 24% on the way down - as I said the drive up was spirited, and the drive down is a lot of downhill, so lots of regen - we keep it on level 2, so the car drives exactly like a regular ICE automatic. Had I not charged at all on this trip, we would have made it home with well over 20% remaining.

My wife and I had this very discussion on the way home, we have a reservation for a Rivian R2 for my wife which should line up more or less with the end of our "tester" lease on the Ioniq - BUT the Ioniq is without question, after one year, the best car we've ever owned, if the R2 is not very, very special, we'll just be getting another Ioniq, but the next one will have all the options. We may look at buying a lease return "limited" Ioniq5, as leasing doesn't sit right with me, but that's just me. After 2008 it took 11 years to climb back out of debt, and leasing feels like backsliding. In any case an ICE or hybrid for her car is out of the question, she's never going back....

The Scout reservation is for me, and I'll keep driving the Xterra until its ready. We discussed maybe keeping it, so we have an ICE vehicle "just in case", but I'm staring to wonder: in case of what?

As long as there is a 300m+ range in the Scout, it will work for the vast majority of what we do way better than any ICE vehicle - but part of adapting to a BEV is being willing to adapt to change. At this point I am fully willing to add an hour to a long road trip day to accommodate charging stops, and in the big picture I would have saved much more than that hour between road trips, because I NEVER go to gas stations. When I do fill the Xterra I find the whole experience expensive and annoying, but it was such a part of my life for decades before that I never questioned it. I'm questioning it now; plugging in the car on my wife's days off is way less intrusive than going to gas stations every week. The kids are grown and the parents are gone, so hopefully my holiday 900 mile day road trips are over anyway? If not, much safer and more fun to find a charger near a restaurant and relax for 30 minutes.

If I towed regularly for long distances ( I tow a boat in the summer, but only 50 miles each way,) I'm looking forward to seeing how the Scout handles that, if I even still own the boat by then, then I might feel differently, but for now I"m more than happy with the tradeoffs of switching to BEV - I'd say for us the benefits far outweigh the costs, and like @SpaceEVDriver, the panels on the roof more than cover the costs of charging the car. We still haven't gotten around to installing a level 2 charger, for our use case we just don't need it. Driving free and loving it....

Love you telling your story and hope many others on this forum who are on the fence find these stories “comforting” as range anxiety goes. I also hope @Jamie@ScoutMotors and others at SM are seeing these stories and realizing there are those of us who want BEVs. And I still believe they should come first because with all this positive experience on EV driving I think more and more vehicle owners will realize BEV is more desirable (unless you are an outlier that heavy tows or lacks chargers between mountain passes). Just love these positive EV reviews and always hearing- “I’ll never go back to ICE”

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

At one point on the Rivian forum, I saw someone do a calculation. They basically determined that you could cut out a charging stop by driving something like 70 mph vs 80 mph on a long freeway drive. Based on what I’ve seen, this is probably accurate.

Yeah, this is basically true. It does depend on the length of the trip. If you’re only going <=~400 miles, then 80 mph vs 73 mph doesn’t matter much either way for time savings; you’ll have to stop once and if you need to recharge to the same 80%, you save a little bit by going faster, but I don’t think it makes much difference. For longer trips, going faster really starts to eat into your time.

 

[sjbubbles]

I've been BEV since 2022 (Mach E GTPE) and I went with EREV. 90% of the time, the Mach E is PERFECT for what I do. But that lingering 10% of longer trips or when I just want to get where I am going without charging, that extra bit of range and flexibility is everything. I live in Texas and in rural areas or late at night, the extra range is appreciated as charging is not as plentiful here as when I lived in Colorado. I was looking at PHEVs for my next vehicle and none of them stack up, I want all electric for the majority of my driving and nothing out there comes close. I need at LEAST 100 miles of range, so the EREV is exactly what I want. I was thinking I would just stick to BEV with my next car until I saw this. The Scout is just cool as hell, owned a Wrangler before this and I've been wanting to go back to something similar, but haven't liked most of the EV SUV options. That said I will never go full ICE ever again, my BEV has been the best vehicle I have owned by far.

 

[cyure]

I've been BEV since 2022 (Mach E GTPE) and I went with EREV. 90% of the time, the Mach E is PERFECT for what I do. But that lingering 10% of longer trips or when I just want to get where I am going without charging, that extra bit of range and flexibility is everything. I live in Texas and in rural areas or late at night, the extra range is appreciated as charging is not as plentiful here as when I lived in Colorado. I was looking at PHEVs for my next vehicle and none of them stack up, I want all electric for the majority of my driving and nothing out there comes close. I need at LEAST 100 miles of range, so the EREV is exactly what I want. I was thinking I would just stick to BEV with my next car until I saw this. The Scout is just cool as hell, owned a Wrangler before this and I've been wanting to go back to something similar, but haven't liked most of the EV SUV options. That said I will never go full ICE ever again, my BEV has been the best vehicle I have owned by far.

Welcome to the community.

 

[J Alynn]

I've been BEV since 2022 (Mach E GTPE) and I went with EREV. 90% of the time, the Mach E is PERFECT for what I do. But that lingering 10% of longer trips or when I just want to get where I am going without charging, that extra bit of range and flexibility is everything. I live in Texas and in rural areas or late at night, the extra range is appreciated as charging is not as plentiful here as when I lived in Colorado. I was looking at PHEVs for my next vehicle and none of them stack up, I want all electric for the majority of my driving and nothing out there comes close. I need at LEAST 100 miles of range, so the EREV is exactly what I want. I was thinking I would just stick to BEV with my next car until I saw this. The Scout is just cool as hell, owned a Wrangler before this and I've been wanting to go back to something similar, but haven't liked most of the EV SUV options. That said I will never go full ICE ever again, my BEV has been the best vehicle I have owned by far.

Thanks for sharing your first post and welcome to the forum.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I've been BEV since 2022 (Mach E GTPE) and I went with EREV. 90% of the time, the Mach E is PERFECT for what I do. But that lingering 10% of longer trips or when I just want to get where I am going without charging, that extra bit of range and flexibility is everything. I live in Texas and in rural areas or late at night, the extra range is appreciated as charging is not as plentiful here as when I lived in Colorado. I was looking at PHEVs for my next vehicle and none of them stack up, I want all electric for the majority of my driving and nothing out there comes close. I need at LEAST 100 miles of range, so the EREV is exactly what I want. I was thinking I would just stick to BEV with my next car until I saw this. The Scout is just cool as hell, owned a Wrangler before this and I've been wanting to go back to something similar, but haven't liked most of the EV SUV options. That said I will never go full ICE ever again, my BEV has been the best vehicle I have owned by far.

I'm curious if the almost 100 miles more projected range of the Scout compared with the GTPE (260 miles) really doesn't cover 99% of your needs?

I've only driven through Texas once and it was in my Mustang Mach-E CA Rt-1 (312 miles EPA). I took farm roads from Amarillo to DFW then highways to Houston and Austin, then more small roads to the I-10 and west to El Paso (and then on to northern AZ). I had no charging issues. But it was only that once.

I wasn't towing nor trying to do a cannonball run kind of race, just drove to Houston for a meeting and then drove home.

 

[BeerParty]

One other thing to think about with the range extender is that while your stops may be less frequent, you will need both gas and an electric charge. The overall time may not be much of an improvement.

This is a misconception that a lot of people have, but it is not true. Jamie has already confirmed multiple times that the EREV will be gas-and-go - you do not need to charge the battery when on a long trip. You can simply fill up with gas (range of ~350 miles) and continue driving. The harvester generator will generate enough power to drive the truck and keep the battery above minimum charge, even while pulling a trailer.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This is a misconception that a lot of people have, but it is not true. Jamie has already confirmed multiple times that the EREV will be gas-and-go - you do not need to charge the battery when on a long trip. You can simply fill up with gas (range of ~350 miles) and continue driving. The harvester generator will generate enough power to drive the truck and keep the battery above minimum charge, even while pulling a trailer.

I do hope people who buy the Harvester are aware that the range while towing on gas only will probably be no better than 175 miles, which isn’t much better than the 150 miles range of the BEV while towing.*

Yes, for some trips the refueling options will be more plentiful for gas.

*Nobody will really know until there are some real-world tests.