Thoughts on EV ownership
Moving from gas to electric is as big of a life improvement as moving from dial up internet to cable was - apparently this is still a secret
I previously shared the odd reactions online when purchasing a new Tesla Model 3 (read it if you haven’t). That was several weeks ago and I’ve been using the car daily since taking delivery. I thought it would be helpful to share a bit of my experience for those who don’t know much about electric vehicles or are considering the purchase of a new car. Because I feel these companies don’t do a great job marketing what life is actually like with an EV, maybe reading this could prove useful.
Much of the commentary I received when posting about EVs has been wrong, misguided or outdated when compared to my actual ownership and driving experience. So I feel somewhat gaslit by the responses (as usual what people say online is incongruent with reality: some think this one is actually a psyop against EVs, others say it’s simply an education issue). This particular topic is fascinating because the vast majority of people commenting have never owned one: electric vehicles represent around 1.4% of all cars on US roads today in 2025 . However, they now feel like a mature product category, and in my opinion even the cheapest models from the top EV makers are superior to gas vehicles (in performance, reliability, cost, user experience, longevity etc). It’s not merely a better car. It’s an entirely new product. Given the largest maker of EVs does no advertising at all, perhaps they should to clarify some things.
First up, owning an electric vehicle will improve your life significantly if you have a place to charge it at home. Our new home has a 240V port in the garage which enables fast enough charging, but if you don’t have one it’s a simple install, not expensive and you’d recoup the cost quickly. On the Tesla we have, the machine can go ~370 miles on a full charge (some have tested further). We actually moved a bit away from the city, but this is more than sufficient range for a trip into the city to multiple destinations and to return home with plenty of charge left. And even if you don’t have your own private charging port at home, shared works fine (you don’t need to charge it daily).
Range anxiety with an EV is a common stopping point but you don’t need to have this with the new generation of electric vehicles. You’re not going to get stuck anywhere. You typically charge high capacity batteries to 80% to maintain battery health (and to 100% for road trips or if you’re an Uber driver) but for daily, predictable routes that’s plenty of capacity. The new models go quite far. Of note, ultra fast charging isn’t necessary for normal daily usage so I don’t know why so many think this is a killer feature coming from China/BYD. Other than road trips or Uber drivers which I mentioned, you will never need it, and it’s already quite fast from superchargers when you do (15 minutes, go stretch your legs). To me it’s clear the commentariat doesn’t own an EV or understand actual product usage. Many also charge at work and don’t even need to pay for power at home. Getting your employer to pay for electricity is pretty sweet, I know people in Bay Area who do this.
I did my research prior to purchasing and decided the Tesla was the right brand as I shared before. The reason being, and this was confirmed true with some test drives, the legacy automakers are phoning in electric vehicles. They’re stuck in the hard place of maintaining legacy lines and technologies and haven’t gone all-in on EVs, which would require radically rethinking the product with 2025 technology. It’s the classic innovator’s dilemma (they even think odd things like adding sound is what users want, it’s somewhat comical). This is noted by the fact that the pure EVs designed from first principles by Tesla and Polestar are significantly better machines (whatever you buy, just make sure it is compatible with the Tesla charging network). They exclusively produce electric vehicles and do not manufacture internal combustion engine (ICE) or hybrid machines. Speaking of hybrid, these are by far the most likely to actually catch fire, with gas second and EVs least. So people have that particular fear backwards.
Below is a chart of comparable electric vehicles in terms of price and performance I asked the AI to make: you’ll note Tesla has the best range, performance and price. They also have full self driving (this worked well for us), along with the best software and mobile app experience. It just all felt finished. The other EV tech felt very similar to any of the bad smart home devices you curse every time you use, whereas the Tesla felt like a Google or Apple product with proper software engineers working on it. Small touches like ability to schedule service in the app, monitor your car from your phone, etc make it clear how much was thought through.
I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you purchased the Polestar either, my friend who has one loves it as do reviewers, but it’s more money for not many more features I personally needed. The BMWi4 is alright I suppose but you’re paying for the brand for less car (might as well get the Model 3 performance which is in supercar territory if you really wanted to go fast). The Hyundai Ioniq is fine on paper but looks strange (the back feels like it’s slouching) and the inside console experience feels clunky in comparison to the Tesla.
The other thing about the Tesla is that they are a true technology company, not just an automaker that considers software as an afterthought. So not only does it get over the air updates improving the product, but they’ve iterated on the platform over time. EVs aren’t new but I waited until 2025 to get a Model 3 because at this point the platform is mature, and they’ve worked out the kinks from previous versions here (the old ones were loud inside for example, an EV should be quiet). An easy way to think about it is it’s now similar to where the iPhone or Google Pixel were when they became very good, future versions didn’t improve your life that much more. This means you can hold onto it for many years and not have FOMO about the latest versions. If you have FOMO every time a new iPhone comes out something has gone wrong with how you process the world, and you likely have the wrong definitions of status (it’s not what you buy, it’s who you are and what you do for the world). I didn’t mind early adopting a phone but I’m too pragmatic to do that with a car. Now you don’t have to. People now waiting for the next version for slightly better battery or whatever are putting themselves in a ‘waiting for Godot’ situation. You don’t live that long and can have better technology today. There are no more dimensions left a slight improvement really changes things.
Let’s talk about charging: with any EV that has a 300+ mile range (I wouldn’t buy one with less, personally) this is ideal for a daily driver to replace your gas vehicle. The way to think about it is you now have a gas station at your home, so you leave your house each morning for work or errands with a full tank (aka full charge). If you’re currently driving a gas car, think about how often you get gas now. Maybe once or twice a week? So you don’t have to worry much, even our driving (living decent distance away from the city in hill country) still means the vehicle has sufficient charge for anything we need to do over multiple days, with extra room if there was an emergency. We charge to capacity every evening regardless (it doesn’t even take the whole night, it’s quite fast on a L2 home charger, couple hours and done).
As for full self driving, the Tesla comes with this, and no matter what you hear online it actually works well. It’s not perfect but definitely close, and combined with the success of Waymo it’s pretty clear humans aren’t going to drive themselves one day in the not too distant future. That’s all to say driving an EV is so much fun, I find it much more enjoyable than gas. They’re faster, more responsive, instant power available at all speeds just hits different and the new models are absurdly well-engineered machines. So I’m not personally planning to use the self-driving feature much, not because I don’t trust the Tesla engineering team, but because I enjoy driving and don’t want to outsource this task to machines just yet.
The other benefit of owning an EV is it’s a much simpler car: there’s no spark plugs, no oil changes, no transmission to worry about. It’s all electric motors and a battery, with far fewer moving parts than a gas engine: no timing belts, no fuel injectors, no exhaust system, no catalytic converter, no alternator, and no complex multi-gear transmission. This means maintenance is minimal: no need for coolant flushes, fuel system cleanings, or emissions tests. Brakes even last longer thanks to regenerative braking, which reduces wear on traditional brake pads while simultaneously adding range and making the driving experience better after you adjust (single pedal driving is so cool).
With fewer things to break, maintain, or replace, EVs simplify car ownership in a way that I can already tell would be difficult to return to. I was tired of taking our gas car for maintenance ever 5,000 miles, and now won’t need to nearly as much (only really needs tires replaced every 30-40,000 miles). If you don’t drive like a maniac the tires will last the same as any other car. Also note the EV engine should easily go >1M miles perhaps requiring a battery replacement at over 500K miles, but even that should still be fine. The average gas vehicle taps out at 150-250K.
I spoke about home charging, which is a simple and joyful experience (not having to pump gas is great) but even better is the cost savings here. One Tesla owner reported saving around 20K in gas over 150,000 miles on his car, another calculates he saved 25K (in either case this alone pays for half the car). This is a common experience, because electricity is not only cheaper but far more efficient. If you were to add solar panels to your home, your car is now literally powered by the sun. The future is very cool.
You no longer are a guinea pig purchasing an electric vehicle from a brand like Tesla. Some people may feel going with the large automakers is safer, but the opposite is true: the pure electric car makers are now lightyears ahead of the traditional autos. It’s not just greener for the environment, the experience is higher quality and there’s a measurable improvement on your life. And yes you can take them on road trips as many people have done, the car will automatically plan your route along the charging network. Still slightly easier with a gas car today, but how often are you doing road trips anyway? For daily driver an EV really feels like the superior option now. I’ve never had range anxiety. The car is fast and fun. Really there’s no drawbacks any longer, and if you waited like I did you get to leapfrog all the bugs and just enjoy the innovation. I can’t even remember my last gas station visit.
I mentioned fast: it’s absurd how much quicker EVs are than gas. Watch Tesla’s family SUV outperform a Lambo in the quarter below. As a commenter on the video noted, this must be similar to witnessing when automobiles could finally go faster than horses: watching a new technology out class the best example of a well-honed older technology. Note, the normal trims are plenty quick, you don’t even need to pay for the fast models, none of the Teslas are underpowered.
Final comment: no deranged people have tried to harass me or my car (they have sophisticated monitoring so you’d be fairly dumb to do this). In fact the only thing that’s happened is some people asked if it was the new Model 3, and I said yeah it’s an incredible car. I’d say I wish I bought one sooner but really I don’t think the car was perfected until the newest version that was just released.
I can’t recommend the Tesla enough at this time, as I said on Twitter/X, we love it. I own no Tesla stock, my only motivation with sharing this is helping you save money and live an easier life (no more time spent getting gas, waiting at service centers, doing emissions tests, etc). I hadn’t driven our gas car in a few weeks and went to drive it the other day. It’s a 2020 vehicle but in comparison it felt 50 years behind the Tesla.
A blog post can only say so much about a car, and the right car for you is personal: I’d suggest going and test driving a new EV if you haven’t driven one or only driven earlier models. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Bonus: if you’d like up to $1,000 off a Tesla vehicle, they gave me a link to offer that to friends here. Combined with $7500 credit from the government this is one of the best deals on the market right now.
I've still got at least 5-10 years to go on my gas car, but this has definitely made me consider moving up my timetable. Thanks Adam!
As a South African, where we have loadshedding issues (this is just politician speak for rolling, planned blackouts because the "demand is more than supply"), I'm still not convinced it's for everyone. But you are making me see it in a different light.
Two things though: "(E)ven the cheapest models from the top EV makers are superior to gas vehicles (in performance, reliability, cost, user experience, longevity etc)" - on this will see in the long-term.
Secondly: I have my doubts re: long road trips (definitely in SA, at least), vs older tech. There is a saying in Africa, which I'll paraphrase in two sentences: Most people drive a Hilux or Land Rover when tackling the continent. Maybe they do prefer it, but it's also way easier to get parts in, say, Karasburg if it breaks down.