I’m facing a really tough situation right now and I could use some input from others who may have gone through something similar.
Basically, my wife and I are considering purchasing or leasing an electric vehicle as our next car. We are having difficulty finding knowledgeable people to talk to. It seems that auto dealers are not really interested in talking about EV. They try to steer us away from such a vehicle and point us toward their hybrid or ICE vehicles, basically stating EVs are not perfected enough to satisfy the average person and further try to dissuade us because of the high upfront purchase price. When we do find salespersons willing to somewhat talk about EVs, they seem to focus mostly on the fact that they are great to use around town but not really suitable for over the road use due to the lack of charging stations. Additionally, we found that the few dealers that do sell EVs only have one or two in stock and are usually hesitant in offering a test drive for some reason.
Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation? How did you handle it? How did you end up? Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help.
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You might try asking in the /r/electricvehicles Weekly Advice thread or /r/EuroEV Weekly Advice thread if you’re in Europe.
Basically, there is an EV that will fit most needs, unless your budget is terribly restrictive or very unusual (e.g. medical courier that does 400 miles a day).
For me, at least, I just started reading about BEVs. Specifically, the reviews of cars I was interested in… and, quite frankly, of reading comments in /r/electricvehicles and /r/electriccars to see the sorts of issues and praise people had regarding BEVs.
Thank you for your speedy reply. I just came across r/electricvehicles last night. Thank you for suggesting r/electriccars aa well.
Not hard. There’s a wealth of information on YouTube as well as this sub and others. I learned everything I needed to know via those sources.
Thank you for your speedy reply. Thanks for your comments. I have begun that as well after discovering the information I disclosed in my above post.
So there is a national Electric Vehicle association with local branches. I dont even remember how i found my local branch, but Iv’e been to a few of their meetups - one at an earth day event in a park, one at a coffee shop on a saturday morning. There were owners there really happy to show you their cars and talk about what they liked about them. And then a used EV lot opened up in my town a few months ago - I stopped in 2 weeks ago and spent an hour chatting with the sales guy and sitting in cars (I just wasnt in the mood to test drive). So look for similar local resources!
As paulwesterberg suggested. Hydroplaning on warm snowy days should be carefully considered, especially on dry roads.
If you can’t test drive, move on. This applies to all vehicles not just EVs.
I’ve done several road trips exceeding a thousand miles each, however I did them in a Tesla which has the most comprehensive fast charger (Supercharger) network in the U.S…
Look up where the nearest Tesla Center is to you. They are not dealers because all Teslas are purchased via their web page. With no commitment, schedule a test drive. It can be a fun outing and it will give you a reference point. Ask them all the questions you like, they don’t get paid to sell you a car, they are paid to answer questions and provide test drives. Even if you’re anti-Tesla, it’s still fun and will provide good information. They are not there to sell you a car!
One important part about having any EV: Home Charging. Yes it’s possible to function without it but home charging makes everything easy and cheap.
Ultimately choose the EV you like but you absolutely need to drive a Tesla to have a point of reference, both good and bad.