Electric cars still falling short on long-haul trips…”you need to plan lots of extra time”…”an absolute no go”
What follows is a written personal experience on a trip using an electric car. German Anton B. reports on his journey in a Tesla rental car, where he travelled from Hanover, Germany, to the 2023 World Handball Championship in Poland last month.
Image cropped from Tesla website
His conclusion: “Never again electric car!”
“His assessment is devastating,” reports the online Berliner Zeitung (BZ) here.
According to Anton B., the trip of course had to be planned differently due to the limited charging possibilities. Recharging and refueling are things that normal internal combustion engine car drivers never need to worry about.
Depending on the model, Tesla cars are claimed to be able to travel 500 km or more on a single charge, thus theoretically the 800-kilometer trip to Poland should be possible with just one single charging stop halfway. But that would not be the case, as Anton B. (28) describes in the BZ.
Already after just 250 kilometers, the car had lost 90% of its charge, forcing a 50-minute long recharging between Magdeburg and Leipzig. The second recharging was needed in Dresden, where the charging time was “much longer”.
“In the end, we were on the road for almost eleven hours, and we spent almost two and a half of them just charging. We missed the 3:30 p.m. match,” With the combustion engine, we would certainly have made the trip in eight and a half hours with a short break,” Anton B. reports in the BZ.
Anton B. also describes the hassles of not being able to charge at the Tesla stations and having to charge at general ones, “which cost money and more time.” There it took the battery over an hour and a half to charge. According to Anton B., you need to plan lots of extra time when travelling long distances.
He also described Tesla’s assistance systems as “undeveloped” and whích caused the vehicle ” to automatically brake on the highway even though no other car was visible ahead”.
No heat
But things got even worse on the trip back to Hannover: “We had to make three big stops to charge for an hour and a half each time at a non-Tesla station.” Next the heating stopped working – “not a nice experience at -2 degrees”.
Anton B. concludes that a Tesla is not at all suited for long trips, rather it is only practical for short distances around the city, where there are enough charging points.
“For longer distances, especially in winter, an e-car is an absolute no-go for me as of now,” he reports in the BZ. “Such a vehicle cannot keep up at all with diesel or normal gasoline engines.”
Makes no sense
Anton B. also noted that the energy for the Tesla was twice as expensive as the fuel for a conventional gasoline car. “These conditions mean that it makes no sense at all for me to drive such a vehicle; instead, I will rely on internal combustion engines for as long as it is possible.”
“Anton B. concludes that a Tesla is not at all suited for long trips, rather it is only practical for short distances around the city, where there are enough charging points.”
That’s exactly the point. They want us as reliant on the government as possible. You want to go on vacation? Your EV ain’t going to get you anywhere, so you must take a train or a bus. Oh, would you look at that. Seems like you’re behind on your boosters. Sorry, we can’t allow you on public transport like this. No, I don’t care you booked everything already. Next time get the booster without being told.
But it’s not going to be great inside cities either. More and more cities will start enacting climate lockdowns. City centres will be either car free, or you’ll need to pay a tax to enter. So really your EV is going to be good only for commuting to work and back. Until they stop subsidising energy, in which case your EV will turn into a tombstone which says “Here lies the biggest freedom in the history of humanity: The Personal Car – RIP”
Makes me wonder whether evs are a sinister plot to keep people from going anywhere.
You can stop wondering.
a means to an end; the end of private transport.
There isnt enough cobalt, Lithium and copper in the world for everybody to have an EV. You will own nothing and be happy.
My truck (gasoline) sat for a week with the temperature at freezing or below. An EV would have lost much charge just sitting.
I started it up and it was ready to go the full distance, between 400 to 500 miles. [640 km to 800 km] That would be with careful driving. If I needed a break the off and on time is about 7 minutes. Twice that, ’cause a potty break would be needed. No trouble finding a fueling site. This in Washington State where the temperature was -14°C last Monday morning.
I guess people buy EVs without learning about the issues. There is nothing new in this person’s report. Had he been reading NTZ, he would have known.
Some buy them to go 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds.
If electric cars had been commercially competitive in the recent much-freer market at any time during the century and more of automotive transport, consumers would have demanded them in preference to less desirable choices and manufacturers would have become rich supplying the electric-car demand. There is no sales stimulus like buyer demand in a free market, not even massive advertising or propaganda. Marxist economics evidently doesn’t include that lesson, but it does assure that if you don’t take what is offered you get nothing.
In my opinion the most striking point is that he had to test one in order to come to a self evident conclusion.
Electric vehicles are experiencing mobility problems that spells doom for all electric vehicles. Good luck getting anywhere. The cost of the battery and charging times are factors that are proving to be huge negatives. Add the danger of potential thermal runaway in the expensive battery, purchasing an EV is not a good investment.
Hybrid automobiles makes sense. You have a short range for a battery to power the vehicle, an engine for longer hauls. One vehicle can do both.
General Electric’s locomotive division builds diesel-electric train engines that can pull a hundred loaded freight cars using two or three train engines and they can go hundreds of miles on 1500 gallons of diesel in the tanks.
A diesel-electric hybrid automobile would take you places with very little worry.
A car to buy would be a Toyota Prius, they are a sharp looking vehicle these days.
Everyone knows diesel is a superior fuel to gasoline, you get more power from a diesel engine. A Tacoma with a diesel engine would come in handy too. You can always make some diesel fuel with canola oil or peanut oil, the original diesel fuel.
Tough to cut off the supply of diesel when it grows in fields everywhere you go.
If a hybrid were cheap enough that after about 40k km you’d paid back the price differential over an ICE vehicle then it would be the ideal vehicle. 5 litres per 100km (60 mpg).
I know of an early Prius which has done nearly 200k miles (320k km) with no major problems.
Electric cars are ideal for 15-min cities they are planning. LOL
It seems that he made the trip when the temperature was below freezing and he wanted to use the heater. This must be a double hit on the expected range.
Even more so if it is raining too; that would be an additional hit.
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