Who Should, And Should Not, Buy An Electric Car, If You Have a Garage With Enough Headroom

A lot of people who bought electric cars don’t want to buy another and a lot of people who bought electric cars, like me, will never go back to gas. So who should buy an electric car?

I’m on my third electric car and I tried going back to a gas car and really didn’t like it. But I rarely drive over 15 miles distance, and a long drive for me is 100 or so miles so I have yet to need to charge my current electricity at a public charging station. We have a plug-in hybrid (Volve XC60 Recharge) for distance, and it has a blended range of 540 miles (gas plus electric). So, we are covered for those rare times we need to drive farther (less than once a year) and both cars mostly live on electricity.

So here is my take on who should and should not consider an electric car.

Who Should Consider An Electric Car

If you have a garage, have enough electrical headroom for a Level 2 (about 50 AMPS), or a Level 2 Flex (around 80 AMPS) charger, and commute round trip under around or under 50 miles than you’ll love having an electric car. It will generally be cheaper to run than a gas car, you’ll never have range anxiety (even if you miss plugging it in, you should have enough range for another commute to and from the office) and you’ll generally avoid most of the aggravating things about an electric car including range anxiety, broken or vandalized public charging stations, and getting stuck someplace with an empty battery. 

Most of the people I know, and I include myself, that have electric cars and love them fall within this window and I didn’t realize how much I hated going to a gas station until I went for a long while not going, and then had to go again when I initially replaced my I-Pace electric car with gas powered Audi TTS (great car, but I missed the acceleration and being able to charge at home rather than buy gas). 

Back around 1900 women loved electric cars because they were so reliable and easy to drive, and I expect spouses that are home makers, men, or women, would love an electric car as well.

Who Should Avoid Electric Cars

People who have only one car, don’t have a private garage, don’t have sufficient headroom to install a Level 2 charger, have a commute over 50 miles (I’m talking about cars that have a 240-mile range, if the range goes up 100 miles from this your commute can go up 25 miles without risking range anxiety).

People who loan their car out to others including their kids should avoid electric cars. The reason for this last is I’ve seen people who borrowed tesla’s try to put gas in them (particularly women) and kids and the kind of performance and electric car provides tends to end with dead kids. I’d add people with poor impulse control or anger management issues should also likely avoid these cars because they’ll get into trouble if they use the power in their car inappropriately.

Finally, people that don’t like change should avoid these cars because they are very different to their own and people that don’t like differences will be annoyed with the differences.

Now the reason you need to have both a garage and an indoor Level 2 charger is because, if you charge outside, people may attempt to use or steal your charger when you aren’t at home, and if you have to charge on the street, you are likely to be sited for a trip hazard and most indoor parking lots for apartments or condos don’t have the power headroom to run enough chargers to make charging work at a parking lot scale. 

This will change when the range approaches 1,000 miles but, for the near term, folks in this group would be happier (granted there will be exceptions) with gas powered rather than electric powered transportation.

Wrapping Up:

I love driving my electric car, it just puts a huge smile on my face when I pull it out of the driveway. But electric cars aren’t yet for everyone. For those where this car fits their behavior and home configuration well, they’ll love the car, others will grow to hate it. Know which group you are in and then buy accordingly.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia, and follow his articles on Forbes, on X, and LinkedIn.