Lessons Learned on Range Anxiety

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I've never seen a rapid (DC Fast) charger at a hotel as part of the hotel services. I have seen DC Fast Chargers in hotel parking lots, but it was not part of the amenities; the charge provider was likely leasing the parking lot space from the hotel.
Many hotels have Level 2 chargers, and some offer a 120 volt outlet or a 240 volt outlet. Some hotels have an added fee for EV charging. Some hotels don't charge extra for the EV charging. Many hotels don't have EV chargers available.

For some clarification:
Level 1 charging = 120 volts AC, 12 amps = 1.44 kVA = 1.44 kW nominal power.
Level 2 charging = 240 volts AC, up to 80 amps = up to 19.2 kVA = up to 19.2 kW nominal power.
DC Fast Charging = DC up to 1,000 volts, up to 1000 Amps = up to 1 MVA = up to 1 MW nominal power. At this time. This will increase as the standards evolve over time.

Level 1 chargers (technically the charger is built into the car, but that's a pedantic engineer concern) are slow, inefficient, and very common at homes and as part of a kit one brings with them in case they need to charge in odd places. These are cheap--you can get one for a couple hundred dollars if you're picky about the brand or $100 or so if you're willing to entrust your $50k car or $500k home to a non-UL electrical device. These are fine for longer stays or even at home if you drive less than about 10kWh worth of energy in a day (my Mustang can go >40 miles on 10 kWh; my Lightning can go around 30 miles on 10 kWh).

Level 2 chargers are the most common chargers (about 80% of publicly available chargers are Level 2). Almost every home owner with an EV eventually gets a Level 2 charger installed, usually they set it up to provide 32 or 48 Amps at 240 Volts (7.6 kW or 11.5 kW). These are the most common options at hotels. They can be "smart" (connected to the internet) or "networked" (part of a network and able to be set up to require payment--this is the common option for hotels). A smart L2 charger for home installation is around $250-$750 + labor, depending on options. A networked L2 charger for a business (hotel, for example) is often around $5k to $10k, depending on options. These are great for overnight stays. These are also great to have at shopping locations, dining locations, etc. Many parking garages and apartment buildings have L2 chargers available for their patrons, either for a cost or for free, depending on that business' decision-making process. Offering EV charging brings customers who might otherwise go somewhere else, just like many other kinds of offered perks attract customers.

DCFC are the only real option for fast charging when you're on a road trip and don't want to stop for several hours. They're expensive to install ($100k+++). They're expensive to maintain. The cost per kWh to the end user is high. The only "free" ones are generally in the form of charging credits that auto manufacturers offer to buyers as an incentive to purchase a car. About 20% of publicly accessible chargers in the US are DCFC.
Google says a it will take 4-10 hours to charge and EV on an L2 chargers, which to me is overnight. If you roll in to a hotel at 8pm, are you expected to disconnect and move your EV at 1 or 2 in the morning? What is considered rude within the EV community? I myself would be looking to plan trips around stopping and charging while stopped. .....but am I learning this is more of an inconvenience than a good strategy to EV road trips? Guess resorting to @R1TVT advice of not planning for it and considering it a plus if it is there is the way to look at it. Hopefully hotels catch up to this. I'm fine that they make a buck off of it just to have the convenience of it.
 
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Google says a it will take 4-10 hours to charge and EV on an L2 chargers, which to me is overnight. If you roll in to a hotel at 8pm, are you expected to disconnect and move your EV at 1 or 2 in the morning? What is considered rude within the EV community? I myself would be looking to plan trips around stopping and charging while stopped. .....but am I learning this is more of an inconvenience than a good strategy to EV road trips? Guess resorting to @R1TVT advice of not planning for it and considering it a plus if it is there is the way to look at it. Hopefully hotels catch up to this. I'm fine that they make a buck off of it just to have the convenience of it.
I agree with @R1TVT to look at it as a convenience. Although, I do look for hotels that have it ahead of time. Typically, I ask the desk if there are any other guests using the chargers.
 
Google says a it will take 4-10 hours to charge and EV on an L2 chargers, which to me is overnight. If you roll in to a hotel at 8pm, are you expected to disconnect and move your EV at 1 or 2 in the morning? What is considered rude within the EV community? I myself would be looking to plan trips around stopping and charging while stopped. .....but am I learning this is more of an inconvenience than a good strategy to EV road trips? Guess resorting to @R1TVT advice of not planning for it and considering it a plus if it is there is the way to look at it. Hopefully hotels catch up to this. I'm fine that they make a buck off of it just to have the convenience of it.
Generally speaking, and with all non-DCFC chargers, if you are plugged in for the night at a L2, you are good... You just wake up as you would normally, and do the courteous thing and free up the space when you can. Nobody looking for a L2 charging is going anywhere fast.

The only charger angst I have seen comes at a DCFC... In rare cases, some knuckle head leaves their car for hours doing only god knows what. The car is at 100% and the owner is nowhere to be seen. Has only happened to me a couple of times. A DCFC is for FASTER charging, and that is why they charge idle fees when you bail and create an inconvenience for others, AND prevent the station from recognizing revenue... Idle fees can be STEEP for this reason!
 
Google says a it will take 4-10 hours to charge and EV on an L2 chargers, which to me is overnight. If you roll in to a hotel at 8pm, are you expected to disconnect and move your EV at 1 or 2 in the morning? What is considered rude within the EV community? I myself would be looking to plan trips around stopping and charging while stopped. .....but am I learning this is more of an inconvenience than a good strategy to EV road trips? Guess resorting to @R1TVT advice of not planning for it and considering it a plus if it is there is the way to look at it. Hopefully hotels catch up to this. I'm fine that they make a buck off of it just to have the convenience of it.
Yeah, L2 is overnight. The expectation when you use L2 chargers at a hotel is that you're staying the night.

I plan trips that involve an overnight stay with the intention of staying at a hotel with chargers. I rarely stay anywhere that doesn't have one these days (we're all electric, so charging at hotels on a road trip is a great benefit). I think it's very good strategy to plan that way. BUT be aware that it might be that the chargers are full because you arrive at 11:00 PM and nobody wants to go out and move their car. Or the charger is offline. Or the charging spot is blocked by a gas vehicle. Lots of possibilities that are remote but non-zero.

I plug in when we arrive, talk to the people at check-in about charging, make changes to my plan based on that conversation, if necessary. Usually the plan is to leave the car plugged in overnight and unplug in the morning. Nobody with any sense of community gets upset about this. When it's time for me to do my bedtime routine, I'll check the charge. If it's high enough for our drive the next day, I'll go move the car in case someone else might need it. If it's not charged enough, then I leave it until morning. When I'm out getting coffee, I'll move the car--it's almost always fully charged and if it's not, it's charged enough.

Most people seem to leave it once they plug in, and I'm totally not going to judge that. Some people leave a note on the charger/car/plug saying, "Sleeping--if I'm full, please feel free to unplug for your use." Unlike a gas nozzle, as soon as the plug is disconnected from the car, it's a new session and if there were any fees for charging, I won't pay for your charging after you plug into your car. The cables are long enough to reach another parking spot, sometimes two parking spots.
 
2,763 miles round trip

Only 1 hotel had 2 chargers and both were in use when we arrived. Otherwise hotels we stayed in did not have chargers of any kind, couple of hotels were really close to Tesla super chargers and it had us charging at bing chargers a few times as well as a dealership in Eagle Pass

Did see a few public chargers at new truckstops and the few chargers we saw on SPI all had lines (traffic was insane) strange a tourist destination does not have any Tesla chargers

Saw several Tesla cars and at least 5 cyber trucks (1 was in Trumps motorcade) at Boca Chica, can only assume they have private chargers somewhere

Did not go looking for chargers, we have a set route with set hotels and wanted to see how EV compared trying to keep it as close as possible to apples to apples comparison

According to ABRP it would have taken us an extra 10.4 hours charging & that’s counting detour time/miles
 
As a non EV owner (yet) this has for the most part been a very useful thread - thanks to everybody for sharing their real world experiences.

I think as technology and society advances "range anxiety" will go down just like "solar anxiety". Here's what I mean by that:

I live in Colorado, and have wanted solar panels for years. 10-15 years ago we had multiple companies do an assessment of our house, and the way it's situated is not ideal for solar, so none of them would take the job. I think several things contributed to this, but primarily that the available incentives at the time had minimum production thresholds that had to be met, the companies fear of bad social reviews and the fact that most of them seemed to have more business than they could handle. Take the easy jobs first, I would do the same thing.

Some time went by, and we finally got our panels installed during Covid. Estimates were that our panels would produce at best about 70% of our energy consumption, but to everybody's shock they have been producing more than we can consumer since day one! In our first year our real dollar savings in electrical fees was well over $1,000 and I can only assume that the cost of electricity has gone up since then. Honestly I haven't bothered to do the math. Xcel energy has since gone out of their way to hide what we are really producing vs. consuming, but I do know that my typical utility bill (including electricity, gas (furnace, hot water heater, fireplace) fees and taxes is around $30. This is a 4 bedroom house and we use the AC to keep it like a meat locker in the summer, I hate to be hot. Last month the bill was -$3.61. The only months I have "solar anxiety" are January, Feb and March. Short days and often snow on the roof, the rest of the time we don't think about it.

So I'm hoping, when my Scout with the Harvester option (although this thread has me rethinking if I need that option) arrives the charging options will have continued to evolve. In the meantime, I'm getting bids for a new electrical panel (mine is 100amp and maxed out) which will allow me to put a charger in the garage, a heat pump water heater, and eventually a battery bank for the house.

This thread has helped me be more confident in that decision, so thanks everybody for your real world input!
 
As a non EV owner (yet) this has for the most part been a very useful thread - thanks to everybody for sharing their real world experiences.

I think as technology and society advances "range anxiety" will go down just like "solar anxiety". Here's what I mean by that:

I live in Colorado, and have wanted solar panels for years. 10-15 years ago we had multiple companies do an assessment of our house, and the way it's situated is not ideal for solar, so none of them would take the job. I think several things contributed to this, but primarily that the available incentives at the time had minimum production thresholds that had to be met, the companies fear of bad social reviews and the fact that most of them seemed to have more business than they could handle. Take the easy jobs first, I would do the same thing.

Some time went by, and we finally got our panels installed during Covid. Estimates were that our panels would produce at best about 70% of our energy consumption, but to everybody's shock they have been producing more than we can consumer since day one! In our first year our real dollar savings in electrical fees was well over $1,000 and I can only assume that the cost of electricity has gone up since then. Honestly I haven't bothered to do the math. Xcel energy has since gone out of their way to hide what we are really producing vs. consuming, but I do know that my typical utility bill (including electricity, gas (furnace, hot water heater, fireplace) fees and taxes is around $30. This is a 4 bedroom house and we use the AC to keep it like a meat locker in the summer, I hate to be hot. Last month the bill was -$3.61. The only months I have "solar anxiety" are January, Feb and March. Short days and often snow on the roof, the rest of the time we don't think about it.

So I'm hoping, when my Scout with the Harvester option (although this thread has me rethinking if I need that option) arrives the charging options will have continued to evolve. In the meantime, I'm getting bids for a new electrical panel (mine is 100amp and maxed out) which will allow me to put a charger in the garage, a heat pump water heater, and eventually a battery bank for the house.

This thread has helped me be more confident in that decision, so thanks everybody for your real world input!
When you're furnace and AC are due to be replaced get yourself a cold-climate heat pump too. They're magical devices and you'll be able to get rid of your gas line entirely (we did!).

You can thank me later.
 
As a non EV owner (yet) this has for the most part been a very useful thread - thanks to everybody for sharing their real world experiences.

I think as technology and society advances "range anxiety" will go down just like "solar anxiety". Here's what I mean by that:

I live in Colorado, and have wanted solar panels for years. 10-15 years ago we had multiple companies do an assessment of our house, and the way it's situated is not ideal for solar, so none of them would take the job. I think several things contributed to this, but primarily that the available incentives at the time had minimum production thresholds that had to be met, the companies fear of bad social reviews and the fact that most of them seemed to have more business than they could handle. Take the easy jobs first, I would do the same thing.

Some time went by, and we finally got our panels installed during Covid. Estimates were that our panels would produce at best about 70% of our energy consumption, but to everybody's shock they have been producing more than we can consumer since day one! In our first year our real dollar savings in electrical fees was well over $1,000 and I can only assume that the cost of electricity has gone up since then. Honestly I haven't bothered to do the math. Xcel energy has since gone out of their way to hide what we are really producing vs. consuming, but I do know that my typical utility bill (including electricity, gas (furnace, hot water heater, fireplace) fees and taxes is around $30. This is a 4 bedroom house and we use the AC to keep it like a meat locker in the summer, I hate to be hot. Last month the bill was -$3.61. The only months I have "solar anxiety" are January, Feb and March. Short days and often snow on the roof, the rest of the time we don't think about it.

So I'm hoping, when my Scout with the Harvester option (although this thread has me rethinking if I need that option) arrives the charging options will have continued to evolve. In the meantime, I'm getting bids for a new electrical panel (mine is 100amp and maxed out) which will allow me to put a charger in the garage, a heat pump water heater, and eventually a battery bank for the house.

This thread has helped me be more confident in that decision, so thanks everybody for your real world input!
Another benefit of having solar and an all-electric vehicle is that for most of your driving you'll be charging for free.
We had solar on our previous house and even factoring in the cost of solar install, the price per mile of driving our Mustang was much, much lower than the cost of driving the Golf we had before it. The added benefit of never having to go to a gas station is worth quite a lot to me.

We're in the middle of a 3000+ mile road trip for work and vacation with the Lightning. The last place we stayed for a few days had slow, Level 1 charging. We mostly didn't have anywhere to go since we were working and visiting at a family member's house, so we were able to let it sit and get to ~96% from <50% before we moved on to our next stop. We did a couple of runs with the Lightning to a couple of shops, and had to recover that which is why we weren't at 100%. But we didn't need even 50% to get to our next stop. The next stop has Level 2 charging, so we got up to 100% the first night.

So far, we've gone ~700 miles for less than $60, including some surge pricing that we normally would have avoided but our schedule didn't allow it this time. If you count the cost of electricity to our family member, it was probably $70 total. We're paying for the L2 through the rental, so that's wrapped into the price of the lodging. Total per mile is about $0.10/mile.

Gas costs $4.50/gallon in this area and more along the highways, so we'd be looking at about $0.28-$0.30/mile for a similarly-equipped gas Lariat. And the amount of time we'd have spent at gas stations is much more than we spend charging. Yes, the time is more concentrated for charging, but we didn't have to go on a fuel run at any time so far on this trip and don't expect we'll have to at all. We just refuel while working/visiting. It's a huge benefit to not have to go out of our way to refuel.

And of course, that's not counting the maintenance costs.
 
Another benefit of having solar and an all-electric vehicle is that for most of your driving you'll be charging for free.
We had solar on our previous house and even factoring in the cost of solar install, the price per mile of driving our Mustang was much, much lower than the cost of driving the Golf we had before it. The added benefit of never having to go to a gas station is worth quite a lot to me.

We're in the middle of a 3000+ mile road trip for work and vacation with the Lightning. The last place we stayed for a few days had slow, Level 1 charging. We mostly didn't have anywhere to go since we were working and visiting at a family member's house, so we were able to let it sit and get to ~96% from <50% before we moved on to our next stop. We did a couple of runs with the Lightning to a couple of shops, and had to recover that which is why we weren't at 100%. But we didn't need even 50% to get to our next stop. The next stop has Level 2 charging, so we got up to 100% the first night.

So far, we've gone ~700 miles for less than $60, including some surge pricing that we normally would have avoided but our schedule didn't allow it this time. If you count the cost of electricity to our family member, it was probably $70 total. We're paying for the L2 through the rental, so that's wrapped into the price of the lodging. Total per mile is about $0.10/mile.

Gas costs $4.50/gallon in this area and more along the highways, so we'd be looking at about $0.28-$0.30/mile for a similarly-equipped gas Lariat. And the amount of time we'd have spent at gas stations is much more than we spend charging. Yes, the time is more concentrated for charging, but we didn't have to go on a fuel run at any time so far on this trip and don't expect we'll have to at all. We just refuel while working/visiting. It's a huge benefit to not have to go out of our way to refuel.

And of course, that's not counting the maintenance costs.
That’s a good point to make. When stationary you don’t have the 5-8 minute drive each way from and back to hotel. Never thought about that angle. Everyone talks in relationship to highway drive time but gas station commute time is a factor in many vacation/travel scenarios
 
That’s a good point to make. When stationary you don’t have the 5-8 minute drive each way from and back to hotel. Never thought about that angle. Everyone talks in relationship to highway drive time but gas station commute time is a factor in many vacation/travel scenarios
Yep.

For our road trips, we generally have two stops to charge in a day, sometimes 3 if we're really pushing the distance. My median stop time is 20-25 minutes while on road trips. Let's ignore that we almost always stop during meal times so we rarely end up with an increase in our drive time. Let's also push the stop time up to 30 minutes each for those who are worried about range and charging time. Now subtract the time we would have spent for gas stops: 10 minutes each. So we're back to 20 minutes each for three stops (1 hour "extra"). An overnight stop is no extra time for us, but it's another 10 minutes to and from the station plus 5 minutes of refueling for a gasser, so subtract that 15 minutes out of our stop time (45 minutes "extra"). For a 3-stop trip, with about 220 miles per leg, 660 miles total, and averaging 65 mph gives about a 10.2 hour drive. An "extra" 45 minutes on that drive is about 7% extra time. Yeah, you drive 80 mph on the freeway, but all the time getting off the freeway, back on, etc., at very low speeds drops your average speed to about 60-65 mph. I find that a single traffic incident, a busy gas station, an extra-long restroom stop, etc., makes most of that 7% disappear. And like I said, we almost always have our charging stops timed with our eating stops. I don't like to eat in the car. So for us, we're not seeing any extra time due to charging except when we really push beyond two or three stops.

There's a huge amount of time saved at home too. We live about 15 minutes from the nearest gas station, so a gas station trip almost always had to be tacked onto some other trip, which extended that errand by at least 10 minutes. And if we forgot to get gas on one of those "to-town" trips, it sometimes added 30 minutes extra to our travel time because the freeway on-ramp is in the opposite direction of the nearest gas station. Driving around town, we had to get gas about once a week with the Tacoma. An extra 10-30 minutes each week adds up...
 
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I am so looking forward to charging at home. I hate getting gas on the way home because I just want to get home. And getting gas in the morning is right out - I am always running late. Not having to worry about that will be awesome. And there are chargers at work if I need them also! They aren't free (government agency so that isn't allowed) but I checked the prices once and I think they are similar to home charging prices.
 
Food is offered to everyone, free gasoline is not offered to everyone like how free electricity is offered to EV drivers

Someone has to pay for your free electricity & why should guests not driving an EV have to pay for it

It’s all about equality & treating everyone the same
Not everyone wants the food, nor the free WiFi, nor the tvs in the rooms, or ice, or printers, or fax machines, &c, but they all have a cost and are offered as guest convenience. If hotels decide it’s worth it to appeal to more customers, it’s up to them
 
Not everyone wants the food, nor the free WiFi, nor the tvs in the rooms, or ice, or printers, or fax machines, &c, but they all have a cost and are offered as guest convenience. If hotels decide it’s worth it to appeal to more customers, it’s up to them

Exactly it’s called having choices in what services one wants to partake in

However, when everyone pays for services only offered to a few we have problems

Why should everyone pay for something only a few people are offered
 
I am so looking forward to charging at home. I hate getting gas on the way home because I just want to get home. And getting gas in the morning is right out - I am always running late. Not having to worry about that will be awesome. And there are chargers at work if I need them also! They aren't free (government agency so that isn't allowed) but I checked the prices once and I think they are similar to home charging prices.

At times we stay on military installations and I’ve never seen any EV chargers available for privately owned vehicles on a military installation

We might be going to DC in January and the installation we are staying on does not have EV chargers but it does have a gate/access to Arlington National Cemetery & that’s an incredible view from while sitting on a porch & sipping a single malt beverage
 
I am so looking forward to charging at home. I hate getting gas on the way home because I just want to get home. And getting gas in the morning is right out - I am always running late. Not having to worry about that will be awesome. And there are chargers at work if I need them also! They aren't free (government agency so that isn't allowed) but I checked the prices once and I think they are similar to home charging prices.
This is one of the unsung benefits that I think deserve much more discussion (that and the relatively low cost of fuel for most at-home charging). Another is the minimal maintenance (10,000 miles for tire rotation, some fluid checks... Nothing serious until 100,000 miles).
 
This is one of the unsung benefits that I think deserve much more discussion (that and the relatively low cost of fuel for most at-home charging). Another is the minimal maintenance (10,000 miles for tire rotation, some fluid checks... Nothing serious until 100,000 miles).

I’ve been told (have not researched this yet) EV’s need more frequent tire rotation and go thru tires quite a bit faster than fossil fuel vehicles due to weight & acceleration aspects of the EV and that tire companies are coming out with EV only tires

Wondering if this will be an issue with Scout vehicles

Not trying to compare vehicles or maintenance costs, just looking at pro’s & cons of the EV
 
At times we stay on military installations and I’ve never seen any EV chargers available for privately owned vehicles on a military installation

We might be going to DC in January and the installation we are staying on does not have EV chargers but it does have a gate/access to Arlington National Cemetery & that’s an incredible view from while sitting on a porch & sipping a single malt beverage
I work for the EPA so we have a few 😆
 
I’ve been told (have not researched this yet) EV’s need more frequent tire rotation and go thru tires quite a bit faster than fossil fuel vehicles due to weight & acceleration aspects of the EV and that tire companies are coming out with EV only tires

Wondering if this will be an issue with Scout vehicles

Not trying to compare vehicles or maintenance costs, just looking at pro’s & cons of the EV
There's a lot of fear-uncertainty-doubt (FUD) being peddled against EVs out there. I would seriously question everything that claims an EV is worse in costs or environmental impact and look at the source of that claim. Instead, ask the people (not the influencers who gin up controversy) driving them for their real-world experience or read a bunch of factual science papers about their costs and impacts, not the selectively-picked headlines driving an agenda.

I have >43,000 miles on my Mustang's original All Season tires and they still have 8/32 tread left (from their original 10/32). I have rotated them four times. I usually run them slightly overinflated (42 PSI instead of 39 cold, but I have them at 37 right now because of winter). I run them slightly higher because I like the way they handle. I really wanted these to wear out sooner because I wanted to replace them with something I like better, but I'm afraid they'll outlast their 55,000 mile treadwear warranty by at least 20,000 miles.

I've seen some people wear their tires out in 20,000 miles. Mostly, it's their driving habits. It's ridiculously fun to slam the go pedal down, but of course that's going to impact tread wear, even when it doesn't leave a strip of rubber (dang traction control working at 1000 Hz makes it unfairly difficult to squeal the tires). People who drive like they stole the vehicle might wear out their tires more quickly in an EV. But that's because it's more fun to drive an EV. That's not the same as EVs wear out tires more quickly. Some drivers of EVs wear out tires more quickly, just as some drivers of Corvettes wear out their tires more quickly.

Does the weight matter? Sure, some (for the same formulation of tire, it seems to be about 5-20% faster wear for every 1,000 pounds more weight, but that's highly dependent on the formulation, the air pressure, the road surface, and the driver). Tire manufacturers have been reformulating their tires every year or so for decades to provide better/different handling and they're learning to do that with EV-specific tires. Just like there are specific tires for light trucks or summer handling or mud or snow or whatever. If someone makes a poor decision of which tire to put on after they wear out their original tires, it may lead to unexpected tire wear, but that's a failure of the owner, it's not caused by the vehicle.

A driver of an EV who likes to use regen a lot can get significantly less wear on their tires than for a similarly-capable gas car. A taxi service in Scotland added a bunch of Nissan Leafs to its fleet and drove those alongside its diesel taxis with the same passenger capacity. They found they were replacing the tires less often on the Leafs than on the diesel taxis, despite the much better acceleration of the Leaf. Their brakes wear much, much less as well. They were also paying less in maintenance and energy costs.

Will the Scout wear out tires more quickly? With the 35s and 37s some people are talking about, I think many of those are going to wear out quickly simply because they'll be running big, knobby tires that sing to their drivers while on the highway, which is likely where most of their miles will be spent, just like they do on Jeeps and big pickups and SUVs. Will the weight of the Scout cause any additional wear? Some, yeah, but not as much as the FUD makes people seem to think. 33s and smaller tires at the proper inflation will see minimal extra wear compared with any other vehicle of similar capability with the proper tires and proper pressure. That is, except for the people who find it fun to slam the go pedal down. They're going to need to get new tires pretty regularly, as has always been the case.

Before I purchase any vehicle I do a total cost of ownership (TCO) calculation for all of the vehicles I'm considering. I wrote up some software to do this modeling and verified it works with past vehicles (I keep the receipts). These models include fuel costs, replacing tires, replacing fluids, loan costs, insurance costs, registration costs, other maintenance costs, upfront costs, resale value, etc. I've run these comparisons taking into account the fluctuating costs of energy, maintenance, labor, and other costs in >100,000 model runs per comparison (for millions of total model runs). For the 7,000 to 20,000+ miles per year of driving that we do, in 97-99% of the model runs, our Lightning Lariat TCO is cheaper than an equivalently-equipped F-150 Lariat within two years of purchasing. That is, after two years of owning the Lightning, I'm making money compared to if I'd purchased its gas equivalent. Our Mustang Mach-E is cheaper than an equivalently-capable mid-sized SUV within 3 years of purchasing.

I'll have to reevaluate the model inputs for the Mustang since the tires are lasting longer than I had anticipated and I'm spending less on maintenance.
 
There's a lot of fear-uncertainty-doubt (FUD) being peddled against EVs out there. I would seriously question everything that claims an EV is worse in costs or environmental impact and look at the source of that claim. Instead, ask the people (not the influencers who gin up controversy) driving them for their real-world experience or read a bunch of factual science papers about their costs and impacts, not the selectively-picked headlines driving an agenda.

I have >43,000 miles on my Mustang's original All Season tires and they still have 8/32 tread left (from their original 10/32). I have rotated them four times. I usually run them slightly overinflated (42 PSI instead of 39 cold, but I have them at 37 right now because of winter). I run them slightly higher because I like the way they handle. I really wanted these to wear out sooner because I wanted to replace them with something I like better, but I'm afraid they'll outlast their 55,000 mile treadwear warranty by at least 20,000 miles.

I've seen some people wear their tires out in 20,000 miles. Mostly, it's their driving habits. It's ridiculously fun to slam the go pedal down, but of course that's going to impact tread wear, even when it doesn't leave a strip of rubber (dang traction control working at 1000 Hz makes it unfairly difficult to squeal the tires). People who drive like they stole the vehicle might wear out their tires more quickly in an EV. But that's because it's more fun to drive an EV. That's not the same as EVs wear out tires more quickly. Some drivers of EVs wear out tires more quickly, just as some drivers of Corvettes wear out their tires more quickly.

Does the weight matter? Sure, some (for the same formulation of tire, it seems to be about 5-20% faster wear for every 1,000 pounds more weight, but that's highly dependent on the formulation, the air pressure, the road surface, and the driver). Tire manufacturers have been reformulating their tires every year or so for decades to provide better/different handling and they're learning to do that with EV-specific tires. Just like there are specific tires for light trucks or summer handling or mud or snow or whatever. If someone makes a poor decision of which tire to put on after they wear out their original tires, it may lead to unexpected tire wear, but that's a failure of the owner, it's not caused by the vehicle.

A driver of an EV who likes to use regen a lot can get significantly less wear on their tires than for a similarly-capable gas car. A taxi service in Scotland added a bunch of Nissan Leafs to its fleet and drove those alongside its diesel taxis with the same passenger capacity. They found they were replacing the tires less often on the Leafs than on the diesel taxis, despite the much better acceleration of the Leaf. Their brakes wear much, much less as well. They were also paying less in maintenance and energy costs.

Will the Scout wear out tires more quickly? With the 35s and 37s some people are talking about, I think many of those are going to wear out quickly simply because they'll be running big, knobby tires that sing to their drivers while on the highway, which is likely where most of their miles will be spent, just like they do on Jeeps and big pickups and SUVs. Will the weight of the Scout cause any additional wear? Some, yeah, but not as much as the FUD makes people seem to think. 33s and smaller tires at the proper inflation will see minimal extra wear compared with any other vehicle of similar capability with the proper tires and proper pressure. That is, except for the people who find it fun to slam the go pedal down. They're going to need to get new tires pretty regularly, as has always been the case.

Before I purchase any vehicle I do a total cost of ownership (TCO) calculation for all of the vehicles I'm considering. I wrote up some software to do this modeling and verified it works with past vehicles (I keep the receipts). These models include fuel costs, replacing tires, replacing fluids, loan costs, insurance costs, registration costs, other maintenance costs, upfront costs, resale value, etc. I've run these comparisons taking into account the fluctuating costs of energy, maintenance, labor, and other costs in >100,000 model runs per comparison (for millions of total model runs). For the 7,000 to 20,000+ miles per year of driving that we do, in 97-99% of the model runs, our Lightning Lariat TCO is cheaper than an equivalently-equipped F-150 Lariat within two years of purchasing. That is, after two years of owning the Lightning, I'm making money compared to if I'd purchased its gas equivalent. Our Mustang Mach-E is cheaper than an equivalently-capable mid-sized SUV within 3 years of purchasing.

I'll have to reevaluate the model inputs for the Mustang since the tires are lasting longer than I had anticipated and I'm spending less on maintenance.

Thanks, very interesting info