A
Anonymous
Guest
Hi everyone - this is a tremendous community . I wanted to share my commuting schedule in my Spark EV. When we bought the car used my wife only needed to get around town, but she just took a job in Irvine and we are not in a position to get a different car. We don’t have DC fast charging option.
The office is 79.5 miles from home taking the I-5 north to Irvine from San Diego.
Assuming my wife gets an average of 4.3mi/kWh@65mph, this trip is possible with a slight inconvenience/stop. She puts the cruise control on 55mph and only uses seat heater - no heat.
We are driving a 2014 Spark which shows between 66-75 miles on a full charge depending who drove last.
About halfway, she stops at Oceanside Transit Center where there are 7 blink chargers. Only having the 3.3kw charger makes this slightly more inconvenient but still possible. She charges for 30 minutes while going inside and drinking a coffee / starting email.
That gives her enough to comfortably make it to work and plug in for 5 hours and get a full charge at a ChargePoint. She then does the same coming home but in reverse.
We have AAA with 100 miles of towing if something goes wrong, and she knows she can always just park and get in an Uber.
I guess my question is - is this insane? We literally just bought the car this year and to have to sell it and get a new one we’d take a loss on the sales tax of the Spark. Plus there really isn’t anything else available for <$10k that goes 100 miles on a charge. I looked at the Focus EV but the newer ones with the +100 mile range haven’t come down in price yet on the used market.
Thanks!
The office is 79.5 miles from home taking the I-5 north to Irvine from San Diego.
Assuming my wife gets an average of 4.3mi/kWh@65mph, this trip is possible with a slight inconvenience/stop. She puts the cruise control on 55mph and only uses seat heater - no heat.
We are driving a 2014 Spark which shows between 66-75 miles on a full charge depending who drove last.
About halfway, she stops at Oceanside Transit Center where there are 7 blink chargers. Only having the 3.3kw charger makes this slightly more inconvenient but still possible. She charges for 30 minutes while going inside and drinking a coffee / starting email.
That gives her enough to comfortably make it to work and plug in for 5 hours and get a full charge at a ChargePoint. She then does the same coming home but in reverse.
We have AAA with 100 miles of towing if something goes wrong, and she knows she can always just park and get in an Uber.
I guess my question is - is this insane? We literally just bought the car this year and to have to sell it and get a new one we’d take a loss on the sales tax of the Spark. Plus there really isn’t anything else available for <$10k that goes 100 miles on a charge. I looked at the Focus EV but the newer ones with the +100 mile range haven’t come down in price yet on the used market.
Thanks!