Electric Cars: Living With an EV

Living With an EV

Imagine waking up in the morning and getting ready for work. You are ready to leave and walk into your garage to find your EV fully charged and ready to go. You sit down in the driver's seat, turn the key, and here that reassuring "click" which means the motor has started. You pull out of the garage and onto the street without making a sound.

You look at your dashboard and see that the outside temperature is 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Pretty cold. You see your neighbor warming up her gas-powered car and smile to yourself because you know that you didn't have to wait to warm up your EV. You press the accelerator and your car quickly responds as you zip down the street.

You approach an intersection, see the red light and gently apply the breaks. The car comes to a dead stop. Most people would think that they had stalled the car, but you remember that an electric motor cannot be stalled. As you wait for the light to turn green, you realize that your car is not consuming any energy like the gas-powered car next to you. As light turns green you recall that electric cars reach full torque immediately unlike the gas-powered car that is now far behind you.

There is another red light ahead. You apply the breaks again knowing that your regenerative braking is taking the potential energy in the motor and converting it back into electricity and recharging your batteries.

You decide to take advantage of the EVs superior cornering ability as you whip in and out of the traffic in front of you and pull into work. As you walk to your desk, you hear one of your coworkers complaining about how much it cost him to get a tune-up and oil change so his car would pass DEQ. You laugh as you think to yourself that you'll never have to get other tune-up, oil change, or smog check again.

When you leave work to go home, you realize that the sky cleared up and it is pretty hot. You get into your car and crank up the air conditioning as you put it one of your favorite CDs.

You arrive at your house quickly and pull into the garage. You get out and plug in your EV for the night. You program the computer to fully charge the batteries starting in 15 minutes.

As you go to bed later that night, you sleep well because your EV is one thing in your life that will not cause stress.