Cooperative Living July 2018 - 26

CloserLook | by Paul Wesslund, Contributing Writer
Is an electric vehicle right for you?
S
hould your next car be an electric
vehicle? The answer could depend
on where you live.
Electric vehicles account for just 1.2
percent of the U.S. vehicle market, but
sales are booming, growing 25 percent
last year. And they're getting better and
cheaper as researchers improve the
batteries that power them. Here's a guide
to help you decide if an electric car is for
you - or if you just want to be smarter
about one of the next big things in energy.
The first thing to realize about
electric cars is they can drive more
than enough miles for you on a single
charge, even if you live out in the
wide-open countryside.
Location Issue #1:
the Distance Myth
Try keeping track of your actual daily
use, advises Brian Sloboda, a program
and product manager at the National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
" If you're an insurance salesman,
you're logging a lot of miles, so an
electric car's not going to be for you, "
he says, noting that a typical range for
an electric car today is over 100 miles,
and ranges of 150 to 250 miles are
becoming common. " But if you look at
how many miles you drive in a day, for
most people in the United States, even in
rural areas, that number is under 40 miles
per day. So if your car has a range of 120
miles, that's a lot of wiggle room. "
According to the Federal Highway
Administration, the average American
drives 25 miles a day, and for rural areas,
that average is 34 miles a day.
Sloboda says another reason it's worth
thinking realistically about your daily
mileage comes from the most likely
way an electric car would be refueled.
When an electric car is done driving
for the day, you can plug it in to recharge
overnight. Essentially, you're topping off
24 | Cooperative Living | July 2018
the gas tank while you sleep, giving you
a fully charged battery every morning.
There are three ways to charge an
electric car:
Level 1 - The simplest charging
technique is to plug the car into a
standard home outlet. That will
charge the battery at a rate that will
add from two to five miles to its range
each hour. That's pretty slow, but
Sloboda notes the battery might start
the charging session already partly
charged, depending on how far it's
driven that day.
Level 2 - Faster charging will require
a professional installer to upgrade the
home's voltage for a unit that will add
between 10 and 25 miles of range for
each hour of charging - a rate that
would fully charge the battery
overnight. Sloboda says installing a
Level 2 charger in a house or garage
would run $500 to $800 for the
equipment, plus at least that much for
the labor. Timers can also be used to
charge the vehicle in the middle of
the night when electric consumption
is typically lower.
Level 3 - DC fast charge requires
The economics of electric vehicles are affected by geography,
climate and how your electricity is generated.
specialized equipment more suited to
public charging stations, and will
bring a car battery up to 80 percent of
capacity in 30 minutes. Sloboda
warns this high-speed technique
should only be used for special longdistance
driving, since it can degrade
the battery over time. That's also why
DC chargers shouldn't be used to
bring the battery up to 100 percent.
Location Issue #2:
Off-Peak Electric Rates
What you pay to charge your electric
car could also depend on where you live,
says Sloboda. He advises checking to see
whether your local electric co-op offers a
lower rate to charge an electric vehicle
overnight, when the utility has a lower
demand for electricity.
" It's different depending on where
you are in the country, " says Sloboda.
Some local co-ops have fairly stable
electric demand throughout a typical
day, so they may not offer a special
electric vehicle rate. He adds, " There
are areas of the country where the
on-peak, off-peak difference in price
is extreme, " so that it might make
financial sense for the utility to offer
an overnight charging rate.
Another factor affecting the
economics of an electric car is, of course,
the cost of the vehicle.
" These cars are really in the luxury
and performance car categories, " says
Sloboda. As electric cars improve,
projections put their cost coming down
to match conventional vehicles by about
the year 2025. But today, the average
electric car costs close to $40,000,
compared with less than $30,000 for an
internal-combustion engine.
Location Issues #3 and #4:
Environment and Geography
For many people, one of the biggest
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Cooperative Living July 2018

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