I’d say I’m pretty much in the same boat as you.
Living with EV
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For me it is mostly great. A lot of the same common sense stuff you do with ICE vehicles also translates to EV. If you drive it like you stole it, your range will suffer greatly. The EV torque is very fun, but once you've stomped it a few times you probably won't do it all the time. If you run heat on full blast, your range will suffer about the same as running the AC on an ICE vehicle. But, I will say this is minimal for me as I live in South Carolina and it does not get super cold. AC does not hurt range very much in the summer though. Keep your tire pressures set correctly...same as ICE. Tire choices make a big difference. I know most Scouts will get some sort of beefy tire and that will hurt range, but it is an offroad vehicle so it is what it is. I will be opting for an all season (hopefully EV tuned) tire or mild all terrain. Use navigation with route planning every time you anywhere. You never know what traffic or road conditions every minute. I often find myself on slightly different routes everyday with the navigation constantly optimizing and that makes a big difference on kW usage. If you can charge at home or work with a level 2 charger you will be good to go. In addition to ABRP, I suggest taking a look at Plug Share and start seeing how many public chargers and what type (brand and output) are around you. See which ones get better scores than others. If I had to, I would hop in my EV and drive cross country without hesitation at this point.
For 90% of my driving I do about 700 miles a month so I think EV works for me. Maybe about 23 miles (not always) a day except for weekends where I may do about 40/50. I still opted for the Harvester for times I may go to Atlanta (350/400 miles round trip) or Indiana which is more like 500 one way (once a year). If I trusted infrastructure I could probably survive just fine with the non-harvester option.
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There is value in speaking directly to real-world owners that pay their own hard-earned cash for their trucks. I would encourage people to have those conversations live. I have had hundreds of conversations with people that want to know about my truck, and I always try to stop and take time to give them my direct perspective.
ABRP is a great desktop tool for exploring & planning road trips - particularly if you are not familiar with a route, or where you might find charging infrastructure. You can adjust your settings in the app based on your vehicle, battery, road conditions, real-time WX, etc.
99% of the time, I don't need any planning or route assistance since I have almost 300 miles of range. The native software in my truck is very good, and since Rivian acquired Iternio (creator of ABRP) they have made their native route planning even better. The Rivian app is great for planning and sending routes from your phone to your truck. There is more planning involved if you are going into the backcountry or off the beaten path where there may be less infrastructure, and there is more planning involved when taking into consideration colder temperatures, for example.
My daily commute is 23 miles each way plus about 10-15 running around in the evenings. Usually, that is about 10-13% battery usage. I know that varies based on the battery pack size but it was the same percentage use in my 2 previous Tesla Model 3s (74kWh usable) and current BMW iX (105.2 kWh usable). I am only guessing, but I would suspect the Scout will have a similar size pack as the BMW iX. By the way, Atlanta is about a 320 mile trip for me that I have made several times. If you start at 100%, that is a one charge stop for about 20 minutes if you want to arrive with roughly 10% battery remaining.
PHEV/EREV has a lot going for it for any vehicle that leaves town. I'd be happy with a 60 mile EV range EREV/PHEV. I would only burn gas a few times/year with that much EV range as most of my driving is local.
Also for Road trips, not only does gas have better availability and less hassle, it usually less expensive to run on Gas, than on Public Fast Chargers because of the high cost of fast chargers.
Average DCFC KWh is .46c/KWh:
https://stable.auto/insights/electric-vehicle-charger-price-by-state
Average Gallon gas is $3.11:
https://gasprices.aaa.com/?Country=US
A truck getting 2Mile/KWh = ~23 cents/mile.
A truck getting 20mpg/ = ~16 cents/mile.
a large majority of people who own EVs charge at home so dont have to deal with 3rd party chargers. there's always trade-offs for any vehicle over another and its no different with an EV. imo EVs are easier to live with day to day than a gas powered vehicle - no stops to gas station, no oil changes, less maintenance overall.
on long road trips you absolutely need to set your expectations to stop more often but its less frequent and shorter than you wrote. not sure where you got your info. with the Tesla supercharger network, that immediately improved access and availability of chargers for road trips so for most areas of the country, its a non-factor. also remember the Scouts are supposed to be based on 800v architecture which means it should have a peak charge rate of 350kWh which is a lot more than Rivian which tops out at 220kWh, or any other Tesla (other than the Cybertruck) or other vehicle with 400v architecture, so you should spend less time charging the Scout.
be aware, even though an EV might be rated to go 300 miles, you don't get the full 300 miles per charge. lets say you get to about 5-15% of the battery before you charge, so lets say roughly 25-45 miles range left, which means youre getting about 255-275 miles per charge. i recently did a 2400 mile road trip and at times it was painful to have to stop more often but that comes with the other pros of owning an EV, which is worth the tradeoff for me.
if you road trip a lot an EV can still be great with the right expectations. maybe the Scout model with the generator might be a better option for you since it'll extend your range to ~500 miles, decreasing the number of stops. if you tow long distances, i would probably stay away from a battery only EV since your range is effectively cut in half. again, maybe the extended range model of the Scout a good option for this.
id recommend you rent an EV and test it out on a road trip of at least 400-500 miles to get a feel for what charging is like as well as the incredible performance and utility they can provide.
on long road trips you absolutely need to set your expectations to stop more often but its less frequent and shorter than you wrote. not sure where you got your info. with the Tesla supercharger network, that immediately improved access and availability of chargers for road trips so for most areas of the country, its a non-factor. also remember the Scouts are supposed to be based on 800v architecture which means it should have a peak charge rate of 350kWh which is a lot more than Rivian which tops out at 220kWh, or any other Tesla (other than the Cybertruck) or other vehicle with 400v architecture, so you should spend less time charging the Scout.
be aware, even though an EV might be rated to go 300 miles, you don't get the full 300 miles per charge. lets say you get to about 5-15% of the battery before you charge, so lets say roughly 25-45 miles range left, which means youre getting about 255-275 miles per charge. i recently did a 2400 mile road trip and at times it was painful to have to stop more often but that comes with the other pros of owning an EV, which is worth the tradeoff for me.
if you road trip a lot an EV can still be great with the right expectations. maybe the Scout model with the generator might be a better option for you since it'll extend your range to ~500 miles, decreasing the number of stops. if you tow long distances, i would probably stay away from a battery only EV since your range is effectively cut in half. again, maybe the extended range model of the Scout a good option for this.
id recommend you rent an EV and test it out on a road trip of at least 400-500 miles to get a feel for what charging is like as well as the incredible performance and utility they can provide.
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We have a opportunity to be in Washington DC 20 January & I’m currently looking at routes and charges using apps recommended in this group and overlaying that on the route we will take & planned stops to stretch & refuel
Normally we just roughly plan out trips without having reserved hotels days in advance, but this trip requires specific hotel /route planning as it’s about 1,850 miles each way
That is a great way to practice/train for EV use. I am pretty sure Plug Share will work/overlay with CarPlay. I am not sure about ABRP. Apple Maps will also show chargers, but their EV route planning is not available in every car or in every location. One thing to remember is that EVs are different in the way you "fill them up". When you typically stop for gas/diesel you fill it up. When you stop for a charge you typically only charge the amount needed to continue your planned route. Of course, if you decide to take a bypass, or other diversion your route planner will update. You just need to make sure your detour doesn't leave you without enough charge to get to the next station. All in all, these cars are very smart. You have to really try, or be completely oblivious, to run out of charge. The car will make every effort to get you to another charging station.
We normally use Apple Maps for navigation & in route for rough planning so this is a really good learning experience for me
We did use Waze but after it really got us lost in the Fredrick Maryland area I dumped that map
I have/had a variety of EVs since 2013. I live in the south so extended below freezing temps are not something I have to regularly deal with but the few times that I have experienced them, I have preconditioned (having the vehicle plugged in to warm the battery before I'm expecting to leave) and most of the cold weather range issues are removed. With my early EVs I had (the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3), range was an occasional issue but as the local charging infrastructure improved, it became less of a problem. Once I stepped up to vehicles with 250+ miles of range ('16 Model S), charging and range was no longer an issue. I have been using EVs since then for all of our long distance travels and it has only become easier as time goes on. We just completed an 1100 mile round trip vacation in the same time that our previous gas power cars had done the trip in our Model 3. We also have two Tesla NACS style level 2 (240V) chargers in our garage so charging at home is just as effortless. The reality is though, we never charge outside of our garage or at work (my work has free charging stations) unless we are on a long road trip. I would estimate that we have put around 300,000 miles on the various EVs we have had since 2013. We have never run out of charge either.
Preconditioning is fantastic...cold or hot. I love keeping the vehicle plugged in on "shore power" and letting the battery and cabin temperature optimize for driving and comfort.
That reminds me of an experiment I did with the '16 Model S I had. On one of the rare snowy days we have here, I decided to see how much battery power would be consumed if I just left the heat on. When I got to work, I set the heat to 72°f and just left it like that all day (8am to 5pm) and monitored the battery consumption throughout the day (I did not plug it in that day). The outside temp was ~28°f for the day and it snowed lightly the entire day (about 1" of accumulation). The car lost about 18 miles of range, was completely dry on the outside and was warm on the inside in a way that I had never experienced on a cold day. We all have gotten into a nice warm car on a cold day but this was different. There was not a single surface in the car that was even cool to the touch. No cold drafts, no cold armrests, glass, or anything. It was like opening the door to a different climate.
That’s not negative 28, that was approximately 28. I guess the ~ can look like a -…
That’s a good experiment - nice! Have you ever done it since on a cold day? Maybe have it warm up for a half hour or something like that before leaving work?
We have a regular departure time set on our cars so that the vehicle is toasty when it's time to go to the gym at 0-dark:00. Unlike with a gas vehicle, it's perfectly safe to do this with the vehicle in an attached garage.
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