Electric Cars Kick Your Car’s Boot — 8 Ways How

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Originally published on Planetsave.

“Boot” = “trunk” in British English. It also sounds a bit like butt. Hence, the headline.

It’s no secret at all to people who own or have driven electric cars — electric cars totally kick the ass (or boot) of their gasmobile cousins. It’s not simply a matter of how nicely they drive, but there are probably a dozen reasons why we see them as being much more awesome. I’ll quickly run down 7.

http://youtu.be/bYlToxn9Mhs

1: It’s all about the pickup, baby!

From 0–60 MPH, they may not always take the top spot, but one of the most wonderful things about electric cars is their awesome pickup (aka, torque or acceleration). They offer “instant torque,” which lets you jet off the line, and often reminds me of that Star Trek spaceship jetting into hyperspeed or whatever that was called. The feeling is great, and it’s even more awesome than if a gasmobile could do it because it’s smooth and quiet at the same time. Smooth power is hard to beat!

Furthermore, it’s not just about the feeling. This excellent acceleration is super useful when doing normal driving. It makes accelerating into traffic so much easier. This offers a major improvement on what I find to be one of the least pleasant things about driving — the stressful times when you need to make a quick dart into ongoing traffic or across lanes in which traffic is going in the opposite direction.

For more on the enjoyable pickup that comes with torque-lucky electric cars, check out:

  1. Electric Cars Are Totally Bloody Awesome (Missed Messaging)
  2. Chevy Spark EV Commercial Boasts Of More Torque Than A Ferrari
  3. 2014 Chevy Spark EV Test Drive (CT Exclusive)
  4. Chevy Spark EV Kicks Chevy Spark Gas Ass, Consumer Reports Finds
  5. BMW i3 Review (+ VIDEO)
  6. Volkswagen e-Up! Review (Full Review + Test Drive Videos)
  7. Nissan Leaf vs Volkswagen e-Up! vs BMW i3 (Exclusive EV Reviews)
Nissan Leafs Barcelona Spain
Nissan Leafs spotted in the wild in Barcelona, Spain.
(This image is available for republishing and even modification under a CC BY-SA license, with the key requirement being that credit be given to Zachary Shahan / EV Obsession / CleanTechnica, and that those links not be removed.)

2: Goodbye to gas stations!

Stopping at the gas station and pumping gas = fun(!!), right? Of course not. Smelly, dirty, noisy — these are not places you want to spend weeks and weeks of your life. But they are, if you drive gasmobiles a lot. With an electric car, you can bypass that forever (more or less). In the huge majority of cases, electric car owners just plug their cars in at home in the evening (or, more common is actually to do it every other day) and then unplug the next day when they leave. The convenience of not having to go to gas stations is hard to quantify, but if you feel comfortable coming up with an hourly value for your free time, and figuring out how much time you spend at gas stations, I encourage you to give the quick math a shot!

Oil-Kills-2

3: Hello, clean air.

Some people claim to actually enjoy the smell of gasoline. But even if they do, that shit is tearing up their insides. And diesel exhaust do the same, with a number of studies proving that it causes cancer.

Electric cars? They emit nothing. 😀

VW eUps Barcelona Spain
VW e-Up! electric cars at Arc de Triompf in Barcelona, Spain.
(This image is available for republishing and even modification under a CC BY-SA license, with the key requirement being that credit be given to Zachary Shahan / EV Obsession / CleanTechnica, and that those links not be removed.)

4: Global warming Jedi, they are.

Yes, bikes trump EVs in the global warming Jedi world. But if you’ve decided that you want an automobile in your household, nothing beats an electric car. Of course, if you are charging up on solar or wind power, your car has no emissions. But even if you charge on the grid, your emissions are much lower than that of a gasmobile. Also, those emissions aren’t in your house, neighborhood, etc.

Ford and SunPower inaugurate program pairing EV Focus with rooftop solar system to keep it charged


5: You can plug your can into the sun!

Want to be a true cleantech rockstar? Go solar and charge your car on energy from the sun. Gallons and gallons of light (actually, an insane number of sun rays) are waiting for you. Free to use. Clean as can be. And mighty rockstar-ish.

nissan leaf winning

6: Save massive moola!

By the way, electric cars top the list of the most fuel efficient cars on the market. They don’t just top the list — they are the list. All top 10 (and more) of the most fuel efficient cars are plug-in electric cars. With ratings like 119 MPGe, 118 MPGe, 107 MPGe, they even leave conventional hybrids in the dust.

All of that means that you are landing huge fuel savings. Furthermore, electricity is in the lowest demand at night (when most people charge their electric cars), which allows many drivers to get extremely low electricity prices at the times they charge. Of course, free public charging stations are also available in some place. And(!), if you decide to take advantage of #5 and go solar, you can save thousands or tens of thousands from your free solar fuel.

Oh yeah, you’re also helping the country to save massive amounts of money, as you’re helping to keep us out of oil wars, reducing our need to maintain a military presence in a ridiculous number of countries, and reducing oil imports from countries that don’t like us.

BMW-i3-charging-station
BMW i3 at EVS27 in Barcelona, Spain.
(This image is available for republishing and even modification under a CC BY-SA license, with the key requirement being that credit be given to Zachary Shahan / EV Obsession / CleanTechnica, and that those links not be removed.)

7: Smooth, quiet.

Well, I noted it above when talking about the smooth and quiet yet powerful acceleration that electric cars offer, but it’s worth being completely clear here: electric cars are smooth and quiet essentially all the time. If you’re addicted to the rumbling of an inefficient engine, just get over it — enjoy the peaceful, easy, enjoyable zen of a quiet and smooth electric motor.

BMW i3 Barcelona Spain
BMW i3 at Arc de Triompf in Barcelona, Spain.
(This image is available for republishing and even modification under a CC BY-SA license, with the key requirement being that credit be given to Zachary Shahan / EV Obsession / CleanTechnica, and that those links not be removed.)

8: Essentially maintenance free.

I know you love it when you have to take your car into the shop. Who doesn’t? Oil changes, broken pumps, old tubes, complicated engine problems, transmission disaster… unfortunately (if you’re masochistic), that’s all gone with electric cars. Electric motors are super simple and don’t need any of that. The only thing you’ll likely need to change are your windshield wipers, tires, and every 8 years or so, your battery (but, at that point, you’re likely to have already moved on to a new car.

Even your brakes are likely to last much, much longer thanks to the regenerative braking options that are the norm in electric vehicles.

So, I think those are 8 pretty darn good reasons to go electric. But feel free to chime in if you want to add some more (there are more out there).

Bonus for the Guys: Girls dig you more

If you’re a dude, you may also like to know that surveys have found girls are more into guys who drive clean, green, intelligent cars than guys who drive gas-guzzlers. Not a bad bonus feature.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7317 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan