Automotility

Just a few stray thoughts. We’ve had our EV (a 2024 Chevy Equinox) for almost a month at this point. It’s lovely. We have a charger that can use 120V for slow charging (about 1.4kW/hr), or 240V for fast charging (I think like 11-12kW/hr, so much faster). We don’t have the 240V outlet yet, though, and would need to get a new breaker box for that to be possible, and it won’t be cheap. So for right now we’ve had to charge the EV for a couple of days to get it back up to 80%, where we ideally want it to be.

We don’t do a ton of driving, honestly. Our round-trip door-to-door to the office is about 33-34mi (about 16-17mi each way). I’m in-office once a week, and my spouse is in 2-3x/week. Hoping we can sell the old car sooner than later, and then it’ll just be the EV. It’s been an adjustment, but I really love it. My spouse has gotten sick of me talking about the car all the time, and I don’t mean to be annoying, but it’s a new toy for me and fun to play around with. I’ve been looking into different charging networks (ChargePoint, Blink, and most recently, EVgo) and making sure I have apps set up for them, since we may need public charging out and about.

We’ve mostly taken the EV out for errands and going around town in general thus far, nothing longer-distance, and it’s been very much fine. At 80%, the estimated range is about 280mi, which is totally reasonable for just about anywhere in-state. I love that it can live in the garage and be protected from the elements. Cameras help with pulling into the garage and making sure I’m in far enough to close the door. It’s really fun to play around with, and of course, also useful!

Today was the real test, though, of its range. We live about an hour from Denver, and we were going south of Denver to IKEA to get a new dresser for my spouse, and poke around for other stuff. We also planned on going to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see a couple of exhibits. It was an incredibly smooth drive on the freeway and elsewhere, and I was very happy with it. Estimating range for what we’re doing is going to take some trial and error, but it worked out just fine today. We went to IKEA after the museum, and IKEA happens to have chargers in their parking lot! (I scoped this out before we left, of course). We pulled into a spot, I fired up the app and held my phone to the terminal, and it recognized my account, and unlocked the charger. Once I plugged it in, it got right to work, and we went in to do our shopping. After what felt like the world’s fastest IKEA trip, success! Loaded the car, unplugged the charger (35min charge, about $0.65 USD, super cheap!), and got back on the road!

We started the day at about 76% charge after charging overnight. The charge at IKEA only got me maybe 1-2%, if that, since it wasn’t very long, but that was fine. By the time we got home, we had about 40% or so and had gone probably 160-180mi. So it wasn’t bad at all! I would have preferred to be a little more charged this morning, but it worked out just fine for our purposes, and we did a number of errands today and a lot of driving.

It’s going to be more trial and error, but that’s totally fine, I am looking forward to learning, and hopefully saving money in the long run on charging vs. gasoline. And of course, zero emissions. Ideally we can be using cleaner power to charge the things, but that will take time and effort as well, and will hopefully get better with time.

I’m happy with things and this has been a nice way to end the year. I am still floored that we have a brand-new car, it is the first time I have ever done this. Hoping we have this for many, many years.

Thanks for listening to me ramble about the new car. If you have an EV, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the experience, and happy for any tips as well! <3