I want to buy an electric car, but I have a pretty long commute that takes me 45 minutes each way. Would an electric car work for me or would I run out of juice before I got back home?
. There are only a handful of models you’d want to avoid.
The under-150-mile range of some of the cheaper models (ie. the Nissan Leaf or Mini Cooper SE Electric) might not give you the enough battery life to give you a nerve-free ride to and from work, but most any other model can easily get you from home to the office and back.
But there a few other things you might want to consider before deciding to commute using an electric car:
Your living situation. If you rent or you don’t have off-street parking at home, charging your car every night might prove to be difficult.
The climate you live in. EVs work wonderfully in areas with moderate or warm temperatures year-round. But if winters are long and cold where you live, you might want to reconsider. Battery range drops considerably once temperatures get lower than 20° F outside.
Your budget. The only current EVs that start under $40,000 and can easily handle your commute are the two versions of the Chevy Bolt and the Hyundai Kona Electric. You could look into prices for used EVs, but the ongoing chip shortage has kept average prices pretty high, too.
That said, there are plenty of ways to keep EV ownership costs down. Federal and state governments offer a long list of tax credits, grants, vouchers, and discounts to incentivize people to switch to electric.
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