An Electric Car as Your Only Vehicle?

One question we've heard a lot is whether or not owning only and electric car is viable. It really depends on where you live, what you do for a living and what you do for leisure.

Many electric cars currently available are Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV), these are speed limited to 25 miles per hour and legally only allowed on roads with a speed limit of 35mph or less. If you live in an area that most of the roads have a higher speed limit than a NEV is not a viable choice. In an urban or campus environment these are an excellent choice as the low speeds and short distances will be a perfect fit for an NEV.

A highway class electric car would be a viable choice for someone who doesn't have a long commute and doesn't use a car to travel long distances. There are no legal restrictions on road use for this type of electric vehicle, the only limits you will run into is the range and the time to charge the batteries. A 300 mile trip that can be done in a long afternoon in a gas/diesel car would take days with a 100 mile range electric car that took 6 or 8 hours to charge. You would also have to find places to plug it in to recharge it at each stop.

Of course you could use a highway capable electric car as your primary vehicle and rent a car for the occasional long trip but if you frequently take long drives or live in an extremely rural area then solely owning an electric car just isn't a reasonable choice until longer ranges and faster charging have been achieved.

No comments have been provided.