EV Road Trip in America, Is It Possible? – Electriccar.nl

A road trip is a unique way to explore America. The event is featured in many well-known American films and almost everyone who likes to travel has heard of Route 66. A road trip through the state of Florida and the American West Coast All Americans Hence road trips are very popular. Those road trips are almost always done with RVs or conventional fuel cars. We were curious if you too could take this kind of road trip with an electric car.

Electric cars in America

Electric cars are very popular in the Netherlands. More people prefer electric driving than conventional fuel car Sales are increasing. Good news of course, but unfortunately the Netherlands, with around 9 million passenger cars for 17.5 million people, is only a minor player in the global car market. What about electric cars in America? Signed by Joe Biden in 2021 Administrative order With a goal of half of all new cars sold being electric or hybrid. But is this goal really realistic? In a country of about 330 million people, known for cheap gasoline, V8 engines, but also for Tesla, there are about 280 million cars on the road.

numbers

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has projected that the number of electric cars sold (both fully electric and plug-in hybrids) will double to 6.6 million by 2021. No less than half of these, some 3.3 million electric cars, went to China. There are 2.3 million electric cars in Europe and 630,000 units in the US.

If we look at electric cars as a whole, we are talking about a total of 4.2 million cars, of which about 522,000 were sold in the United States and about 64,000 were sold in the Netherlands. If you compare these figures with the number of citizens of the country, you will notice huge differences. 0.37% for the Netherlands and 0.16% for the USA. Comparing the number of cars to the number of electric cars sold, the differences are even greater, at 0.7% for the Netherlands and 0.2% for the US. So there is still a long way to go.

Road trip through America

Although most Dutch people choose to vacation in France, Germany or Spain, tens of thousands of Dutch people also travel to the United States every year. In 2019, there were more than 100,000, according to CBS. A popular way to explore the country is by road trip in a rental car or motorhome. Most tourists who choose such a road trip, of course, opt for a conventional fuel car. We wondered if this was also possible in an electric car.

Are you planning to move to America? After Apply for ESTA. What is ESTA? Valid for two years after award. Each stay lasts a maximum of 90 days.

Road tripping in an electric car, is it possible?

In 2019, Wade Anderson has already driven more than 18,850 miles across North America in a Tesla Model 3. You can see its documentary. Network light. At the time, it was already possible to take a road trip across America in an electric car, although it required a lot of planning.

Three years later, the charging infrastructure looks completely different. John Carey wrote a detailed article about this in Lonely Planet. Period Limit anxiety Almost completely disappeared in the US, although driving an electric car requires a little more research. Fortunately, there are all kinds of mobile apps that can help you plan the best route with charging stops. You can read John Carey’s full article here According to.

What about prices?

While the charging infrastructure seems to be in good shape, finding a (cheap) electric rental car is a different story. We tried several major online comparators on different dates in several major cities, but only saw a few electric cars. Although there are a few electric cars for rent in every major city, the rent is much higher than gasoline cars. To illustrate: a cheap rental car with a conventional fuel engine is already offered for 40 or 50 euros per day, while an electric car quickly costs more than 120 euros per day.

Conclusion

Road tripping in America with an electric car is certainly possible these days. Charging infrastructure has improved significantly in recent years. Of course, loading takes a little longer than refueling, but for those traveling in a hurry, this shouldn’t be a problem. The main problem is finding an electric rental car at a good price. If you don’t want to pay a little more, sure!