Car Show Highlights the Benefits, Ease of Owning an Electric Vehicle
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Electric vehicles may be the wave of the future, but there still seems to be a sizeable portion of the population that’s a bit skittish about charging and costs.
Last Saturday, the New Castle Sustainability Advisory Board in collaboration with Pleasantville Climate Smart Communities and Drive Electric Westchester held an electric car show at the Chappaqua Metro-North station to try and convince a swath of the general public that electric cars aren’t just good for the environment, but they’re easy to maintain and can save its owner money.
“This is about normalizing electric vehicle driving, and people still have a lot of questions about charging,” said Ben Serebin, who represented Drive Electric Westchester and is a member of the Climate Smart Committee in Pleasantville. “They still don’t understand how second nature it is. It’s like your cell phone; you plug it in at night, and then in the morning you use your vehicle. Very rarely do you charge outside of your home unless you’re leaving the state.”
The show featured about 16 local owners of electric cars that were available for people to talk to along with Jennifer Mebes Flagg and Kent Thomas, the co-chairs of the New Castle Sustainability Advisory Board. While there are plenty of people who have anxiety over range and getting caught with a car that loses its charge, Thomas said technology advancements continue to expand the distance a car can travel between charges.
There are some makes and models of cars that now exceed 400 miles on a charge, and the luxury Lucid Air can get up to 500 miles, he said. The quickly evolving industry is also researching and making for quicker charging.
“They keep on advancing and coming up with new technologies, coming up with battery chemistries,” Thomas said.
Flagg said charging becomes routine, and one of the few times that you think about having to charge is when you’re taking a long trip. She gets about 300 miles on a charge with her Tesla Model 3 while Serebin mentioned that his Tesla Model X goes about 350 miles.
Electric car skeptics may also not be factoring the amount of money that would be saved on gas and lower maintenance costs, Flagg said.
“If you look at the life of the car, you’ve got very minimal maintenance costs and you’re not paying for gas,” Flagg said. “So you’re paying for electricity, but it’s a lot cheaper than paying for gas.”
Chappaqua resident Ian Molloy, who brought his 2023 BMW X5 to display at the show, said he has written his own computer program that calculates price a gallon of gas and the price per kilowatt hour. He figures when gas is more than $2.31 to $2.35 a gallon, he’s saving money.
At the current prices, for every 10,000 miles driven, Molloy estimates that he’s saving about $820.
Another electric car owner, Justin Day of Chappaqua, said now that he has an electric car, a Volvo XC40, he doesn’t worry about charging.
“I really don’t experience range anxiety myself,” Day said. “Generally, I can go to the city and back on 30 percent. Frankly, I don’t even think to plug it in.”
When making longer trips, there are apps available that can let a person know where there are electric car charging stations for public use wherever you may be, he said.
Day also has a fast charger at home, which enables him to go from 0 to 100 percent charged in five to six hours. However, when a car has less of a charge, moving the number 10 percent goes far more quickly than if a vehicle is at 80 to 90 percent, he said.
Serebin said an area that the electric car industry still has to address is cost per vehicle. Currently, the price of a gas car is still less expensive than a comparable electric model.
“That’s what we need to focus on, the $20,000 to $25,000 range,” he said. “We’re not there yet.”
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
