EVA
Well-known member
Thought I heard the Rav4 is only available in California, you'd have to import it to the East Coast.
Tim - it would have been an adventure for you, and you can always change your mind. The car will do the commute in the summer, no problems at all. It is the winter that is the question mark. I was sure looking forward to your experience.
I did something really stupid on Saturday. It wasn't cold in Chicago, 40's. I decided to do an experiment with a fairly long drive - I knew I didn't have the range for the full round trip and would have to charge the car during down time. The place I was at all day was about 9 miles from a charging station. I had a plan that could have worked, sneaking away to charge during some downtime.
Everything went wrong. The biggest problem was what you would run into in the winter - the heater. JMueller, I get it, you are super hard core and that's incredible. No me, I love the cold, but I hate the cold inside the car. It has a heater, I should be able to use it - you know even at 60 degrees - that's warmth.
No the heater sucked a lot of range, even set at a cool 60 degrees. I think I lost around 10-14 miles. That was just enough to make this experiment fail. I'll never try this again, especially if a family member is involved.
I did make it to the venue and the charging station. But I had to charge for almost 2.5 hours to get the car home (especially considering the range loss the heater would rob). My son ended up taking a ride home with a friend, and I drove home late with my tail between my legs. Nobody was happy (although my son did laugh at me - he likes doing that).
Long story to say, you probably want to be comfortable driving for an hour or more. The heater is a necessity. And you'll take too big of a hit on range in the winter on a highway, if you want to stay comfortable. Or you would have to stop along the way and charge for 30 minutes to an hour. That just makes your commute all the more painful.
Maybe a bit more objective number for what the heater meant on that day - the car used 295Wh/mi with the heater running at 60 MPH and at 60 degrees (not even full heat); on the return trip the car used 231Wh/mi at the same speed, with the heater completely off (it warmed up enough that I didn't need heat). My wife sees about the same hit on her daily commute. I got those numbers from the MyFordMobile site.
Tim - it would have been an adventure for you, and you can always change your mind. The car will do the commute in the summer, no problems at all. It is the winter that is the question mark. I was sure looking forward to your experience.
I did something really stupid on Saturday. It wasn't cold in Chicago, 40's. I decided to do an experiment with a fairly long drive - I knew I didn't have the range for the full round trip and would have to charge the car during down time. The place I was at all day was about 9 miles from a charging station. I had a plan that could have worked, sneaking away to charge during some downtime.
Everything went wrong. The biggest problem was what you would run into in the winter - the heater. JMueller, I get it, you are super hard core and that's incredible. No me, I love the cold, but I hate the cold inside the car. It has a heater, I should be able to use it - you know even at 60 degrees - that's warmth.
No the heater sucked a lot of range, even set at a cool 60 degrees. I think I lost around 10-14 miles. That was just enough to make this experiment fail. I'll never try this again, especially if a family member is involved.
I did make it to the venue and the charging station. But I had to charge for almost 2.5 hours to get the car home (especially considering the range loss the heater would rob). My son ended up taking a ride home with a friend, and I drove home late with my tail between my legs. Nobody was happy (although my son did laugh at me - he likes doing that).
Long story to say, you probably want to be comfortable driving for an hour or more. The heater is a necessity. And you'll take too big of a hit on range in the winter on a highway, if you want to stay comfortable. Or you would have to stop along the way and charge for 30 minutes to an hour. That just makes your commute all the more painful.
Maybe a bit more objective number for what the heater meant on that day - the car used 295Wh/mi with the heater running at 60 MPH and at 60 degrees (not even full heat); on the return trip the car used 231Wh/mi at the same speed, with the heater completely off (it warmed up enough that I didn't need heat). My wife sees about the same hit on her daily commute. I got those numbers from the MyFordMobile site.
BUT I am thinking the uses market for electric cars will be very bad for a while and I plan on keeping it Long enough that it would save me money and that I would not care all that much about the value of the car.