Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m going to hold on to my 12 year old ICE for a few more years because of this kind of inconvenience which doesn’t seem unique. I do applaud you for your good intentions in buying an EV but I think you may not have recognized all aspects.
TBF you did choose the busiest travel day of the year to make the journey, and you did so during peak traffic. You also chose to buy a (presumably cheaper) EV which didn’t come with an adequate charging network. I’m assuming Tesla pricing includes the cost associated with their network, but even Tesla owners experience difficulty finding open & functioning charging stations sometimes. No surprise Tesla doesn’t give away network access to other vehicles for free.
About half (>47%) of California’s electricity generation comes directly from fossil fuels, so with the additional emissions from manufacture of the EV & batteries and the mining and transportation of the materials to the factories you aren’t really saving a lot of emissions (approx 10-20% per annum), over holding onto at least one ICE vehicle for a few more years. Your round trip to France this summer generated over 8 tonnes of CO2 which is more than the average EU resident generates in one year, and over ten times the maximum amount we each can emit in one year to avert climate disaster. (I assumed 2x premium economy on a 777. )
There are also the extra potentially toxic emissions that will come from excess tire wear (EVs are heavier and go through tires faster) and the concrete & steel reinforcement of parking garages which we & our children will have to deal with in the future.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m going to hold on to my 12 year old ICE for a few more years because of this kind of inconvenience which doesn’t seem unique. I do applaud you for your good intentions in buying an EV but I think you may not have recognized all aspects. TBF you did choose the busiest travel day of the year to make the journey, and you did so during peak traffic. You also chose to buy a (presumably cheaper) EV which didn’t come with an adequate charging network. I’m assuming Tesla pricing includes the cost associated with their network, but even Tesla owners experience difficulty finding open & functioning charging stations sometimes. No surprise Tesla doesn’t give away network access to other vehicles for free. About half (>47%) of California’s electricity generation comes directly from fossil fuels, so with the additional emissions from manufacture of the EV & batteries and the mining and transportation of the materials to the factories you aren’t really saving a lot of emissions (approx 10-20% per annum), over holding onto at least one ICE vehicle for a few more years. Your round trip to France this summer generated over 8 tonnes of CO2 which is more than the average EU resident generates in one year, and over ten times the maximum amount we each can emit in one year to avert climate disaster. (I assumed 2x premium economy on a 777. ) There are also the extra potentially toxic emissions that will come from excess tire wear (EVs are heavier and go through tires faster) and the concrete & steel reinforcement of parking garages which we & our children will have to deal with in the future.