Here are my thoughts after one month of EV ownership...
I'm not likely to go back to ICE vehicles... that's it, this is my thought...
Okay joking aside, it's been a very pleasant experience. My wife and I have learned a lot in a very short period of time... We'd spent over a year toying with the idea of getting her a new vehicle. We visited countless dealerships and test drove dozens of SUVs, many of them hybrid or plug-in hybrids. It wasn't until this fall that we really got serious after I took her vehicle for a short trip and felt a lot of grinding when accelerating from a stop (power transfer unit was failing and eating itself into glitter soup) and I knew we had to dump her vehicle before it really grenaded.
It took a couple weeks of crunching numbers with her, really drilling down into how many miles per month/week/day that she drove; what her typical fuel costs per month/week were; etc. Even with all this information and comparing efficiencies of EV vs gas/hybrid options and current electric rates vs gallon of gas, this transition was by no-means easy. Range anxiety is a real fear, it's a fear of the unknown...
We came to agreement, after many many test drives, that a full EV was the best value, in her words "as long as it has close to 300 miles of range and it can be ready to go the next morning". Oh and we had to be able to keep it running (heating and cooling the cabin) for at least 60 minutes with no one in the vehicle and the doors locked... You'd be surprised how difficult this one request is on so many vehicles or at the very least how many hoops you have to jump through to bypass auto shutoff.
Once we looked at all the current and available vehicles out there that could meet our needs, we narrowed it down to the Equinox EV based on cost. There are a few that met our needs but were priced in the 50K+ range and that wasn't a number i was comfortable with her having to make payments on once it was broken down on a month per month basis.
I did the initial get it home and home charger installation write-up in my first post... so now the day to day review.
She adapted very quickly to home charging, it's a non-issue now and she enjoys just coming right home and plugging in. We've purchased several accessories to ensure we can "weather" the seasons and made sure to have appropriate adapters for any NACS plugs we may need if we decide to road trip in the Equinox EV. The wife averages around 2,000-2,500 miles per month for work so this vehicle will/is getting used and any bugs hopefully show up sooner rather then later.
I've gotten the chance to drive it as well and the smoothness in acceleration is pretty cool, the electric motors just pull and it feels so effortless to gain speed very quickly... and it does it with almost zero noise... I could really get used to that tranquillity...
Within the last few days I noticed that the car seems to be adjusting its estimated range based on current driving style. It used to display 280-281 miles at 90% SOC and now it's showing 290-291 miles at 90% SOC. Current efficiency is 3.0 mi/kWh and on a trip by trip basis I've seen it as high as 3.5 mi/kWh.
Current mileage is 2,635 miles
Current energy consumed from the grid over the past month (Nov 26-Dec 26) stands at 983.4 kWh
Current energy cost from our provider over the past month (Nov 26-Dec 26) stands at $129.31
Previous car was a 2020 Ford Edge SEL awd that averaged 25 mpg mixed use.
2,635 miles / 25 mpg = 105.4 equivalent gallons (estimated).
Current price for gas in our area is Sheetz unleaded 88 (15% ethanol) at $2.99 a gallon or $2.96 a gallon with Sheetz discount.
105.4 gallons x $2.96 a gallon = estimated $311.98 dollars would be spent on gas to travel the same distance.
So right now, this month, we're saving $182.67 dollars in fueling costs... This number is likely to increase in the spring summer and fall months if the vehicles efficiency increases with warmer temps...
@SpaceEVDriver has already done the math for the full size vehicles and I believe that even at 2.0 mi/kWh I'd likely be saving quiet a bit of money over my current 17-20 mpg I see from my Expedition.
Right now for my wife's use case going EV has made so much sense.
Want to touch on insurance as well. Previous monthly payments for the two vehicles we have was roughly $180 per month. Insurance did creep up to $220 per month but we added a brand new vehicle and included GAP on the Equinox as well. So overall this is a very small increase and the vehicle is covered in the event of it possibly being wrecked beyond ability to repair.
Edited post so that it's neater and just has attachments instead of the large photos embedded in the post.
