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I have rented several electric vehicles and while charging is more difficult than getting gas it isn’t really an issue.

The most challenging experience was an electric camper. It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue. The only pucker factor was around Silicon Valley where I struggled to find functional fast chargers. No shortage of chargers, just very few that work.

The state of chargers is atrocious. Many of them do not work and the apps are horrible. Signup flows that ask for too much information and don’t set form metadata for auto-completion. Just endless papercuts.

I used A Better Route Planner which does a good job of tracking what chargers actually work but still has an infuriating UI.

For a regular rental car situation I would not hesitate to get an EV. In fact that’s my preference now that I am over the learning curve.




> It had a 100 mile max range. I drove it from LA to Seattle without major issue.

uhhhhhhhh, you stopped to charge every ~2 hours (12 charging stops minimum)?


Yes. It’s a camper van. I took five days to do the trip, mostly on 101.

It was an older conversion, not intended for long range travel. This is a once a year thing to relocate from Joshua Tree to the Olympic Peninsula.

I made a snack or took a quick nap in the back when charging. Travel days were 1-2 charge stops.

One problem with such a small battery is how quickly it charged. I was often done charging before I could make food, eat, and do dishes.




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