2023 is well into its third act, and I’m preparing for my yearly holiday pilgrimage. Presents are getting wrapped, clothes packed, and the car is getting fueled up to make it from Denver to Chicago. However, this year is a bit different for me. The 1,000-mile journey will be the same, but for the first time, rather than topping off my tank, I’ll be plugging in.
Look around, and you’ll spot the growing segment of electric vehicles on the road. Electric vehicles accounted for 7.9% of industry sales in Q3 this year, up from 6.1% last year. Those numbers are expected to proliferate in the coming years. As more manufacturers commit to electric lineups and charging infrastructure rapidly expands, it’s easy to see why consumers are going all in.
Reducing the use of fossil fuels while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions are among the top reasons to switch to an EV. But when owning an EV, you begin to get used to many quality-of-life advantages. These advantages can make an internal combustion engine start to feel like a steam engine. Here are 10 lesser-known advantages to driving an electric vehicle.
Scheduled preheating, even indoors
Picture this. It’s 6 a.m., and before your alarm beeps, your car silently goes to work as scheduled. Tucked into its garage spot, the cabin warms, and the seats remove their chill. Once you’ve convinced yourself that you can’t quit your job and getting up is your only option, your warm chariot awaits. Since there are no emissions, this can be done while enclosed in a garage, and due to an EV’s instant heat sources, the cabin preheats much faster than a typical dino-powered car.
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Rethinking climate control
Similarly, since there’s no need for an engine to run to operate HVAC, you can keep your climate system running, maintaining the cabin temperature while you pop into a store. And if Fido wants to tag along, some manufacturers even include a pet mode, which will display the current cabin temperature with a message indicating their owner will return shortly.
Check out: The 10 best new cars for dog lovers
Security
Cameras are everywhere in 2023, and that includes your car now. Since there’s a massive battery strapped to the bottom of EVs, running cameras 24/7 isn’t an issue. Many are now equipping parking mode cameras that monitor 360 degrees around the vehicle, which records motion or break-in attempts. Additionally, these cameras can record while driving, which means your insurance company will love you.
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Design and storage
What happens when you remove the largest component of a vehicle, its engine? You free up a ton of room to get creative. The Rivian
RIVN,
R1T introduced a game-changing gear tunnel, Tesla
TSLA,
and Ford
F,
include massive front trunks in their EVs, and the fresh new Lucid
LCID,
Gravity even sports a bench seat where those power plants would typically be. Additionally, since there’s no bulky engine to house, car designers are no longer confined to the typical sedan or crossover silhouettes.
Traction control
We’ve all seen Tesla’s party trick, the 0-60 pull. The secret to this neck-snapping acceleration is power and traction. Electric motors deliver max torque at zero rpm and can monitor wheel slip hundreds of times per second. The result is 0-60 faster than most cars can do 60-0. Similarly, having wheel slip precisely monitored means incredible traction on the white powdery stuff.
Hassle-free charging
In my opinion, EVs are less hassle than their gas counterparts. Popular belief would tell you owning an EV means waiting around at chargers, but here’s the thing: most of the time, I don’t even think about charging. When I get home, I plug in my car, and it charges up overnight. Off-peak electricity rates give me a “full tank” for roughly $9. No more waiting in the cold for the pump, no thinking about when to get gas or for how much. Your car is topped up each day at the same price per kilowatt-hour. Personally, with 300-plus-mile journeys being a rarity, I’ll take the everyday convenience of charging.
Heavy equals agile?
EVs are heavy behemoths that — handle well? Hmm. It seems that the watt-powered varieties somehow have broken the laws of physics. While even small EVs tip the scales at 4,000 to 5,000 pounds, they remain agile due to their extremely low center of gravity. This also means they’re much less prone to tipping over in the event of an accident.
Elevated performance
For those of us who spend our time thousands of feet above sea level, an added benefit of an electric drivetrain means no efficiency loss due to thinner air. This means EVs provide maximum performance regardless of elevation. My second car, a Subaru Crosstrek, can barely breathe as I cross through the Eisenhower tunnel on I-70. When it comes time to descend that grade, EV motors work as generators, pushing electricity back into the battery rather than burning up your brakes on the way down. My Tesla Model 3 feels composed up and down some of the most challenging highways in America.
Check out: Four valuable lessons I learned taking a road trip in an electric car
Savings
As of writing this, in Colorado, you can get a base model Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive for about the same price as a Toyota
TM,
Camry, Nissan
NSANY,
Altima, or Honda
HMC,
Accord. After a $7,500 federal plus $5,000 state tax credit, that Model 3 comes to $26,490. Colorado does happen to have one of the largest state credits. Still, other states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and California, offer massive incentives to get you behind the wheel of an EV. Try finding that kind of discount on a gas car.
Be sure to read: How electric vehicle tax credits will work in 2024, and a list of cars that qualify
Reduced upkeep
Wiper fluid, tire rotations, and air filters. That’s your list of maintenance items. Fewer moving parts equals less maintenance; go figure. And OK, throw the occasional brake pad replacement in there. Though with regenerative braking, your pads can easily last 100,000-plus miles. It remains to be seen how EVs will stand the test of time, but on the surface, taking care of an EV is simple by comparison.
See: Electric vehicles vs. gas-powered cars: Which one is cheaper to buy and own?
The wrap
It’s easy to get caught up in the EV press cycle. Battery fires, Elon tweets, software updates bricking cars, they all grab attention, but at this point, the negatives are simply the loudest voice in the room. And while EVs certainly have drawbacks, when fitting an EV into my lifestyle, I find the positives far outweigh the negatives. EVs aren’t for everyone, but one thing is clear: They’re here to stay, and I am all for it.
This story originally ran on Autotrader.com.
