Thoughts on having a PHEV for a year

 

I have had a Plug-in Hybrid RAV 4 for over a year now. I wrote about my experience here. I have charged in the Montgomery County public garages in Bethesda and Silver Spring on a regular basis. The cost is quite reasonable at 13 cents a kilowatt hour, but some of the chargers are broken. 

 Charging at publicly available chargers in other places is less convenient, there aren’t too many of them and keeping track of which network they are on is a hassle. The Volta chargers are free, but there are only a few of them I don’t go out of my way, but if they are there I’ll use them. The downtown Bethesda Safeway has them as does Montgomery Mall. I’m glad the public chargers exist, but I wish there were more of them and they were kept in better repair.

Here are the highlights of the longer article (but read it for more context):

1. If you can charge at home or at work, PHEV’s are a great option, they save money on fuel and are better for the environment

2. I drive about 80% of my miles on electric. All my local driving including work commutes is electric, long distance trips are in hybrid mode.

3. Overnight charging using a simple 120 volt outlet is convenient and I don’t miss trips to the gas stations.

4. Charging during the day rarely adds a useful amount of miles. (but if I could charge at work it would be great)

5. My home electric rate is 14 cents per KWH, this works out to the equivalent of $1.50 a gallon gas.

6. I wish all PHEV’s supported at least 6.6KW AC charging and DC Fast Charging. This would make them even better.

7. All hotels should have at least a Level 2 charger. This would make overnight trips much easier. Even having 120 volt electrical outlets would also be useful for me, not many hotels have those either.