I Wish I Knew This Before I Bought my Electric Vehicle
Friday. Friday. Well, the sea was angry that day, my friend. Driving through the middle of Cape Raten Island right now from Sydney to Halifax again. And I thought I’d take a moment and discuss a couple of things that I’ve been sort of ruminating over. There’s a nice word, ruminating. Uh ruminating over. Uh, it’s been about 2 months uh since I bought my Equinox EV and um I’ve learned a few things. Uh, I’m looking back to the process I went through when I purchased it. And um, for those of you that have seen this channel from the very beginning, I I kind of told my my story. Let’s turn that down a little bit. There we go. um kind of told my story at the time where um had a September where I had burnt an inordinate amount of fuel and it caused me to really look at my transportation situation. So, um, anyway, that led to, uh, purchasing, uh, an electric vehicle, but there’s a lot of things I didn’t know at the time. And, uh, since had, uh, I I do kind of get fixated on some things, and I I’ve really enjoyed sort of taking a deep dive into the electronic vehicle world. Uh, the technology, the culture, uh, the geographics of it all. Um, it’s it’s one big huge Rubik’s cube that I’ve enjoyed spinning the the wheels and sides of. So, uh, I thought I’d come up with a list of things that I wish I knew when I bought my EV. So, uh, in no particular order, here we go. Tires. So, um, I was subtly aware, uh, through the zeitgeist in culture that tires for EVs were different and were more expensive. So, it turns out after having bought a set of tires and installed them and am driving on them right now, um, the facts behind tires are such that, uh, no, EV tires are not extra different. They do make high quality tires that are particularly suited for EVs. Uh but I really honestly I don’t think that qualifies them as EV tires. Uh as I was aware of them in the um uh in the culture. Um the word on the street being that EVs are a lot more expensive and you needed uh extra or sorry EVs are a lot heavier and you needed uh much more sturdy excessively stiff tires in order to support all the weight. Um and um it turns out that’s just really that part of it especially is just not not true. Uh the weight of the vehicle is actually held up with good tires filled with air. Um, and yes, they do make tires that are specifically suited for EVs. Um, but that’s been part of a trend in tire manufacturing since the 1970s. So, um, one of the things I’ve since learned, uh, I was expecting to have to pay a lot more for tires, and it turns out that although tires are not cheap, uh, it turns out that there aren’t any special requirements. You can pay more for a tire that has a lower rolling resistance. It might give you better efficiency. You can pay more for a tire that has a foam insert that reduces noise. Um, but you could in theory do that for a gas powered car as well. So, first item, tires. The next thing I wish I knew before I bought an EV was uh software. Uh, the software that comes with the car is uh dramatically different depending on the vehicle that you’re driving. I think I was mostly aware of uh the software the software situation in an electric vehicle like a Tesla um for whatever reason. Well, I guess they are they are the predominant electric vehicle manufacturer. They’ve sold more EVs than anyone else and uh their software is better known because of because of that. Um, so I was aware that um EV software uh or potentially had a whole lot of um car controlling features. Oh, look at those waves. The sea was angry that day, my friend. Um, so I I was I was aware of EV software in relationship to uh the Tesla. Um, so I bought an Equinox EV and the software situation in the Equinox is not a Tesla. Uh it seems to me that there’s a lot more specific control um and and many options for monitoring uh the different systems in the Tesla vehicle. Um they’ve got uh they got a mode where you can kind of dig into and diagnose uh problems uh built in right into the software and uh Equinox EV does not have that. So I’m a little disappointed on that front. Uh, I just kind of assumed that everything would be of of Tesla, if I could say Tesla quality. Uh, but I’ve also since learned that other uh car manufacturers software is not quite as good as Chevy software. So, there’s a there’s a strata there. there’s uh a different playing field for each manufacturer and in some cases different cars, different cars from similar manufacturers um in the uh features that are available in the software. So, if you’re looking at purchasing an EV and uh having control over the system or at least being able to monitor um and um uh and uh sort of I say work on your own car, but but having uh having the ability to sort of monitor the internals, the mechanics and the the the current state of charge and the performance of the motors and everything is important to you. Uh don’t just assume that you’re going to get the same level of uh features and control from every electric vehicle. Another thing, connectivity. Uh I kind of just assumed probably naively I should have known the difference. Uh I probably should have assumed uh did or shouldn’t have assumed that uh the connectivity to the internet uh which enables a lot of the convenience features uh in an electric vehicle and in I guess most other vehicles now as well because a lot of those features um such as u you know starting uh the vehicle remotely and uh checking on different uh battery condition or different states of states of charge or whatever. Um, uh, that does require connectivity. Uh, didn’t even really think about it at the time. Uh, I am a bit of a I computer guy, so I should have known the difference. Um, again, I I think I got I don’t want to say I got away lucky. Um, the the the sales staff when I bought the car told me that I had eight years connection. Uh, and I just assumed that that was a good thing. Uh 8 years seemed like a long time to me. Um so that’s good. Uh I kind of thought I guess that that was a universal thing and I never thought that the car manufacturers themselves would effectively be paying for a data plan for your car. Um and that not all manufacturers do that. Uh I’ve seen um just reports of some manufacturers and some vehicles where they don’t come with data connectivity where they come with two years data connectivity. Um, so it’s definitely something you need to ask about uh because uh connecting to the internet and getting all the features and all the value out of your electric vehicle is something that you’re definitely going to want to do. So, make sure you ask that question about uh data connectivity. Okay. Charging range. Charging range. Uh the manufacturers will give you a total charging range for the vehicle. So, and they’re getting into pretty decent ranges. Um, on the Canadian side of the border here, uh, we like seeing ranges that bring us up to, uh, like 500 kilometers. Um, and on the American side, 300 350 miles, uh, range is a number that gets thrown around as um, you know, as a preferred number, as a preferred range to have anything above 300 miles. So, um, I kind of uh, took that for granted. That meant, okay, I could drive 300 miles. But what I didn’t do was slice the battery up into uh its appropriate range of use. So, what I mean by that is um when they say it’s got, you know, 500 kilometers of range, that typically means from zero to 100% or from 100% to zero% of your battery. um you really don’t use your electric vehicle from zero to 100% of your battery. So effectively on most daytoday cases, you’re you’re really looking at uh I’m going to say an 80 down to 10%. So the uh range that they state uh it’s probably a better thing to sort of slice that into a 70% chunk in the middle um and consider that as the range that you’re going to use on a dayto-day basis. So you want to ask yourself uh how many kilometers do I travel? Is it within that range to go and come back and, you know, do my uh do my my chores and pick up my groceries and get the kids from soccer? Uh you’re going to want to take into account that uh you really are on a day-to-day basis looking at 70% of what the total range of the battery is. Again, on the battery topic, uh something that I uh wasn’t really told. it was out there to see. Uh but it really didn’t mean much to me without comparison. Uh which would be the total kilowatt hours of the battery. Now those two items are linked and connected. Um but there’s stats about the battery that you really should know. Not all batteries are connected are created equal and not all manufacturer use batteries that are the same and equal. Um, so first off, um, the 85 kilowatts is the total capacity of the battery. Um, and that, uh, is indicative of a certain amount of range, and they’ll they’ll probably tell you that. Uh, but the details they don’t get into as much, um, are, uh, charging time and longevity for the battery. So um not only do you need to know or should you know what the uh what the um kilowatth rating and the total capacity of the battery is you probably would be best to know also the voltage of the battery. Um they they group batteries EV batteries into two general categories 400vt batteries and 800vt batteries which in itself is also a little bit misleading because 400vt batteries for example is is a classification of batteries. So, uh, anything between 250 to 400ish plus volts is thrown into the 400 volt category. And the lower the voltage, uh, usually the slower the charge is. Um so 400vt category batteries generally charge slower than 800vt battery category batteries. Um and not all 400 or 800vt batteries are rated the same. So you can get, you know, 650 volt batteries that are in the 800 volt range and you can get 280 volt batteries of which the Equinox EV is um in the 400 uh in the 400vt range. So um it’s also it’s good to know the um it’s good to know the voltage of the battery because that’s indicative of uh the charging speed of the of the car. Um, now why do they have uh two categories? Well, obviously some batteries are quicker to charge than others and you’re going to pay a little bit more for that often times. Um, so the uh the 800vt batteries are I’m going to say maybe a little bit of a newer technology or newer within the within the price point um that are being sold. Um, and uh you’ll find that they are a little faster. Um, I think uh a lot of the Hyundai uh cars, EVs are using 800 volt uh category batteries, which I think are actually 650 to 700 volts or 680 volts or something in that range. Um, and the um the Equinox uh car Equinox EV uh with u the other the other um uh EVs in Chevy’s lineup. I think they’re all running on the uh uh Ultium platform which is a 400 volt platform uh which they’ve done for standardization reasons which you know means that they can uh create more batteries in a in a consistent price point uh and sell cars at uh at a lower price than maybe other people that are selling 600 volt technology. So, uh there are reasons uh there are reasons for all those decisions, but uh know the voltage. Uh consider the charging speed um and uh and uh you’ll be a little more aware of what you’re purchasing when you uh buy your first EV. Another thing for our list is charging on the road. So, uh, first of all, I’m going to recommend that, um, anyone who has and who wants to buy an EV, uh, should install a level two charger at home. Yes, you can get by with a level one charger, which is just what you plug into the wall in the on the outside of your house or in your garage should you have one. Um, but a level two is uh 20 uh 220 240 volts. Uh, it’s the same voltage that your dryer would run on at home. So, uh, you probably want to just build that into, you know, the the, um, the expense of getting into the EV world. Um, but road charging is different. Uh, road charging, uh, there’s a variety of different chargers and they’re not all the same. Uh, you can look at multiple chargers from multiple providers and they are available in a wide range of um of, uh, of speeds. So, for example, you could have a 175 kWh rapid charger. You could have a 50 kilowatt per hour rapid charger. They’re both DC fast chargers. Uh, but there’s different ranges available. And DC fast chargers now are going um you know up to oh gosh I think the newest newest ones that are just being rolled out uh by Tesla in the states are um in the uh 600 800 kilowatt range. Um and those are just literally hitting the market at this point. I think I saw a video the other day where they’re testing them. So uh they’ll be a while before they uh they reach uh Canada, let alone Eastern Canada. Um, so we’re finding generally on the road here, there’s my Royal Vi again. Uh, I find generally on the road here, the 175, 180 kilowatt hour, uh, chargers are usually about the best that you’re going to you’re going to get on the road. And you’re going to find a number of 50 kilowatt hour chargers as well. So, um, when you’re looking at, uh, say you’re looking at doing road trips and you’re looking at planning your stops, you’re going to want to know where the faster chargers are. The other thing related to that is that charging on the road at these DC fast chargers is much much much more expensive than charging at home, which is why I started talking about putting a uh level two charger in your in your house. Um uh here in Nova Scotia, uh Nova Scotia Power charges us 18.5 cents a kilowatt hour. Um so in my case I can go from you know 20 to 80% for 12 $13. Um on the road you uh you go from the let’s let’s call it 20 cents for rounding it out. You go from 20 cents to 45 cents and 60 cents and in some cases 69 cents a kilowatt hour. So, uh, depending on the charger you go to, you’re going to find that they have different rates. And, uh, they also have, uh, either, uh, they split into chargers that, uh, charge you by the hour or minute, um, or charge you by the kilowatt hour. So, um, not only are there different speeds, there’s different prices, and there’s different billing models. So, charging on the road is kind of like the Wild West. you’re going to roll into Dodge and you’re going to have no idea what the ground rules are in that town. So, when you’re pulling up to a Charger, um, on its face, you really often don’t know what the ground rules are, except if you, uh, use a platform like Plug Share or, uh, ABRP, a better route planner, uh, or or there’s other apps for specific charging networks that might come with your vehicle. um they uh they sometimes or in the case of Plug Share exists to tell you about the individual chargers, what the rates are, what speed they’re at, and give you reviews on the different chargers. So, uh I didn’t fully understand the network for uh for charging on the road. Uh I didn’t really understand how uh it was much much much more expensive than charging at home. uh and I didn’t really understand the dynamics of the different speeds available depending on the chargers provider manufacturer and setup. So another thing I didn’t know about uh charging or specifically DC fast charging uh was that uh the batteries have something called a charging curve. So, when you look on um on the side of your pump, I’ll call it pump your charger when you’re on the road. Uh it’ll tell you it’s a 180 kilowatt uh charger. Great. You can get 180 kilowatts on that. But no, you can’t. uh your car depending on its voltage and construction and uh and your and your inverter uh and the programming uh will actually have uh will actually play a factor in how much energy you can draw from the charger. So, it might list 180 uh kilowatt hours, but you might only be able to get 120 or 130. Or it might list 75 kilwatt hours and you might get 50. So, when I say you might get 50 or 130, the other feature of this uh of this charging uh scenario is that uh you don’t get that through the entire level of the charge. Um what happens is uh as the battery gets closer to being full, closer to say 80%. Um the charging speed slows down. So you might start off at 120 kilwatt hours and after 10 minutes it might go down to 80 and then after 20 minutes it might go down to 60. Uh, and after 30 or 40 minutes, it might go down to 30. Um, and that depends on uh on how the car is taking the electricity and how full it is. Um, and the longer you leave it on and the more you fill your battery, the slower it gets to the point that it almost becomes negligible the amount of charge you’re getting at the very upper end of your batteries capacity. So, um, there is, uh, an unwritten rule that you really at a DC fast charger shouldn’t charge above 80%. For a couple of reasons, it’s really slow. you might have been getting, you know, 60, 70, 100, 110 kilowatt hours at 60% full, but by the time you get to 80, you might be down to 30, 35. Um, so you’re going to spend longer and longer. You could spend longer getting uh that 80 to 100, uh two or three times longer getting from 80 to 100 than it took you to get from 10 to 80. So, uh because of that, um you really don’t want to be camping on a charger. Uh it’s also bad etiquette in that you’ve got other people potentially waiting behind you so that uh you know you’re spending a long time trying to fi trying to stuff 5% more into your battery while they’re waiting so they can get their 10% battery charged up to 50 and then move on down the road. Uh it’s not as good for the battery. uh batteries as they heat up you’ll get more degradation as you try to push more electricity in them. Um single individual uh events themselves won’t uh won’t destroy your batteries capacity, but if you’re in a habit of sitting on a fast charger and always charging to 100% uh you’re going to find that your battery is going to degrade quicker. the the um the long-term studies on batteries have been good. Um they do they do if you’re treated well, they last a long time. The manufacturers warranty the batteries expecting that you’re going to give them average service. Uh but just like a car if you refuse to change the oil or refuse to give it you know a new air filter or a new oil filter or or regular service um you know electric cars although the maintenance list is shorter the items you do have to take care of such as being respectful of your batteries capacity um those are those are important. So, with the charging curve, um, you sometimes will be able to look on your, uh, your EV’s dash, it will show you a physical graph, showing you your curve. Sometimes on the pump, it will have a graph that shows you the curve. And basically, it is a line that decreases as time goes by, and it plots the uh, degradation in the amount of electricity that uh, the rate of that electricity that’s being uh, pumped into your battery. uh in charging your car. So, um being familiar with uh the car’s charging curve, knowing what its maximum charge rate is. So, for example, in my Equinox EV, my maximum charge rate is 150. I will not get 150. In order to get close to 150, I’d probably have to be in a 250 or 300 watt charger uh that had the power to push that much that much electricity into the car. Um, more typically, uh, I’d find myself with a, you know, 180, 200, 150, uh, kilowatt charger. Uh, and I would be happy to get ecstatic to get 110, 120, uh, for the initial part of the charge. Oh, look at that sunset. Something else that uh, no one really tells you in the showroom floor is that uh, you should become familiar with a term called battery preconditioning. uh or uh fast charge prep. Like ourselves, like humans, batteries like to live at moderate temperatures. So we like things to be 15, 20, 25°. Batteries like to be at 15, 20, 25°. Um so um if they’re colder than that, um batteries will be slow slower to release their energy and also to take a charge. So, in order to combat, most new cars have a heat pump installed that uh can help to manage the temperature of the battery. So, in cold temperatures, uh the heat pump will actually heat the battery up to prepare it to take a fast charge. If you just drove into a charger, a fast charger without preconditioning your battery, uh you’d find that it would take much longer to charge the battery. Uh, on the opposite side of things, the heat pump also can cool down the battery. So, if you live in a warmer climate, I live in Canada, it’s not that warm for that much of the year, so it’s not as big an issue for me with overheating, but there were definitely days that are really hot. And, uh, the heat pump in the vehicle and the car will uh will bring the temperature of the battery down and allow you to charge a little faster. So, preconditioning your battery is something that uh can happen in one of two ways. In some cars, not all cars for sale have a temperature control system to control the battery, so they they can’t preheat. Um, the Equinox does have actually what I found to be a pretty good heat pump. It heats the heats the vehicle’s cabin nicely, and I’m assuming it’s doing just as efficient a job with the battery, actually. So, um, what happens is, um, uh, when you’re going to a charge session, uh, what you want to be able to do is, uh, you want to be able to, uh, warm up the battery so that we’ll take a charge. Now, you can do that either with a manual control on the dash or by programming in your destination. When you program, you’re in your destination, either through you might have Google Maps installed in your vehicle or you might have an app built into the vehicle. um like a dedicated app um that will uh set up to preheat the battery or maybe pre-cool the battery, but preheat the battery um so that when you get to your charging destination, your battery is at an optimal temperature and will take a fast charge. Not all cars have that. Uh some cars have the automatic preconditioning. Some cars have the automatic and the manual preconditioning. And some cars have absolutely no preconditioning. For cars that don’t have any preconditioning, uh what the drivers will sometimes do, and I can’t believe they do this to tell you the truth, um they’ll go through this rapid cycle of accelerating quickly and breaking hard in order to get that regenerative energy being pushed into the battery. That kind of driving, it heats the battery. You could argue it overheats the battery, but um so aggressive acceleration and then and then rapid braking uh will warm up the battery, heat up the battery as the electrons are trying to flow into it in order to charge it during say regenerative braking. Um, so that’s a little trick that some car manufacturers have employ or some car drivers have employed um in order to uh in order to make up for the fact that they don’t have an actual preconditioning built into the car. So, it’s something you definitely want to check. Make sure you’ve got preconditioning and preferably an app that will let you manually do it and automatically do it. Okay. Another uh thing I wish I knew before I bought my EV. So when I was looking at the process of buying my EV, uh I was looking around uh my city and looking at the number of chargers that were there and the locations and their speeds, knowing a little bit about it. Um and I was heartened to a certain extent because um there actually is a level two charger at my place that works. So there’s a level two charger at uh Cape Breton University. And of course there’s a number of other level two chargers around uh around Sydney and around Cape Rock Island. Um so in doing that I thought, “Oh, that’s good. If I needed to charge at work, um that option was available to me.” And in fact, when I bought my car, one of the first things I did was when I went to work that uh that first time uh I looked at the charger, went in parked, charged for the morning um and did that uh did that change. What I really should have been looking at were chargers not really in my local area, but chargers and destinations and the routes that I would take uh in order to get to places like in Nova Scotia, Halifax or Yarmouth or Turo or maybe into New Brunswick or Prince Island. Uh those chargers were actually more relevant to me than the ones in my in my hometown. And what I didn’t realize was the level to which you really want to be charging at home. So the fact that there’s a lot of chargers if you have a home that you can install a level two charger in um you know if there’s a lot of chargers around you in your local situation that doesn’t really matter that much cuz you’re going to be charging at home anyway. um versus uh the trips that you might take uh either for business or pleasure or vacation and looking at uh looking at the charging situation in in those trips. Um so the weirdly enough the local charging situation is not really a big deal because you’re going to charge at home. You’re going to want to charge at home. It’s convenient to charge at home. It’s faster to charge at home. Less expensive to charge at home. um charging at home overnight just becomes a part of what you do and then you no longer have to visit a gas station. Um so uh the chargers at the destinations where you’re going matter a whole lot more. So in my situation, I’m in Nova Scotia. I’m in Canada and I drive from Sydney to Halifax, Halifax to Sydney. Um, and the other thing I was unaware of in that is that the drive from Sydney to Halifax is different than the drive from Halifax to Sydney. They’re not the same trip. So, the reason they’re not the same is that as I get closer to Halifax, there’s more and more fast chargers. They kind of stack up against each other because it’s a larger population area. As I’m driving from Halifax home to Sydney, there’s fewer and fewer charges. So my closest fast charger on my trip coming back home uh is probably in the vicinity of about 200 km from home. Um whereas after that point uh there’s probably a fast charger another 40 50 km after that and another 30 km after that and another 10 km after that. Um, so as you’re going in towards the capital of the province, you get more and more charging opportunities and as you come back, you get fewer and fewer charging opportunities. I’ve had a chance to look at Plug Share, the app, and look at the uh environment in Prince Edward Island and the environment in New Brunswick. Not that I go to Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick a lot, um, but cur curiously, I kind of wanted to know what the situation was. So, uh, it’s much more relevant to you, I think, uh, what the fast charging opportunities are in your common travel destinations than you are around your local home. Another thing I wish I knew before I bought my EV was uh, the cost of insurance. Now, depending on your insurance company, you’re going to find different rates and um you’re going to be quoted a rate depending on the vehicle you’re coming from and going to. Um in my case, um actually the insurance difference uh wasn’t too much. It was only $50 difference a year, and I was coming from full insurance on a Ram truck over to a midsize SUV. So, the difference in insurance in that case with my carrier wasn’t that different. tied to that. If you’re looking at cost of operation is um you’re probably going to want to be aware if uh the Department of Transportation in your province or state uh charges uh a road fee with your registration. Uh this is becoming more and more prevalent. uh states and provinces uh they uh levy tax in their fuel fees in order to pay for road maintenance and repair and uh con construction. Um so if you’re charging at home, uh you’re not paying that tax. One of the reason why EV charging is less expensive than than buying gasoline is because you’re not paying as much tax. Um, so you’re going to want to know if your state or province currently charges uh a tax with your uh with your registration. Uh so when you get your sticker for your registration every year or two years or whatever the whatever the uh um whatever the routine is in your uh in your home location, um you’ll also pay a fee for uh the amount of travel. Usually it’s linked to how many kilometers you travel. Uh, and you’ll pay that on top of whatever the regular registration fee would be for your your plates or your cart. Now, I Nova Scotia doesn’t currently have that routine. Uh, glad for that. Um, but I’m under no illusion that it’s not coming at some point. Uh, the roads don’t build themselves for free. I do like paved roads and snowplowed roads. Uh, so fair is fair. Uh but presently uh those fees are not being charged uh with uh with the registration of an EV in Nova Scotia, but it’s coming. So that’s it. That’s the list. The sun’s going down and uh you now know the things that I wish I knew before I bought my first EV. Things have been going all right for me. So I’m not unhappy. Uh I worked out uh things worked out pretty well with my list. uh most of the things on my Equinox or most of the things on the list my Equinox uh performs well in uh if you like the content, you like the channel, uh you can encourage me by smashing that uh subscribe button. Uh hit the like button. In fact, any button that’s down there, feel free to hit it. Thanks.
Letting go of the petroleum habit and embracing an EV lifestyle is a different experience. You’ll hear plenty of people say EVs are worse, and just as many claim they’re better, but the truth is, they’re simply different. With more than a century of familiarity, internal combustion vehicles have a strong advantage in what we’re used to, which can make the transition feel challenging. Once you understand those differences, though, it becomes much easier to appreciate the improved driving and ownership experience that electric vehicles can offer.
cover image by:
Ivan Radic from https://www.flickr.com/photos/26344495@N05/50981261653
00:00 – Intro
01:55 – Tires
03:58 – Software
06:28 – Internet
08:20 – Battery Range
10:20 – Voltage and Charge Speed
14:25 – Charging on the Road
18:59 – Charging Curve
24:34 – Battery Preconditioning
28:36 – Destination Charging
32:45 – Tax & Insurance
