6 Tips To Help You Get Used To Driving Electric
Whether you’re in a fancy electric Tesla or a luxury Lexus hybrid, it’s become more stylish, more practical, and more sensible to switch to a battery-powered car, and that fact only grows more true with time. However, if you have never owned an electric car before, then you can find that it comes with a few extra caveats and demands that owners have to be aware of. In time, you get used to these needs just as easily as any car owner gets used to their own vehicle’s needs. Until then, here are a few tips on how to make it a lot easier to own and drive an electric car.
Keep battery health on your mind
Just as the engine is the most important component and the heart of traditional cars, the same goes for your EV’s battery. Knowing the basics of how to maintain and improve your battery health can help you see a lot more use out of your vehicle. There are a lot of ways to avoid battery degradation, such as avoiding letting it fall to 0% charge or charging it up to 100% charge. Similarly, you should be aware of how weather, especially the cold, can affect batteries. Keeping under a winter cover or indoors in a garage can help it last longer.
Always know where your nearest charge station is
The one drawback of electric cars most likely to affect most drivers is that they do not have as great a distance that they can travel without needing to fuel up. Of course, with hybrids, your engine can take over when your battery is running low, but you want to avoid relying on fossil fuels too much, so having an app that can always tell you the location of your next charging station is well worth keeping on hand.
It can be worthwhile having the number of a reliable towing service to assist you should you not be able to charge your battery or unexpectedly run out of charge while you get used to how far you can drive on a charge and where charging points are along your most frequented routes.
Have a charging station at home
Knowing where you’re able to charge your car while you’re out and about is all well and good, but if you’re not able to help bring your car up to max while it’s sitting at home, it can start to feel very inconvenient indeed. There are a lot of adapters that people use to charge from their mains, but ordering an electric car charger home installation can be a lot more useful if you see yourself sticking with electric cars for the foreseeable. More and more homes are adding their own charging stations.
Mind your tires
Electric vehicles are built differently from traditional cars. Fully electric vehicles are going to be lighter without a full-size engine. As such, there are tires for EVs that you might want to look into, specifically. You should be more mindful of your tire health, too. Good tire pressure is more important than ever, as it takes more juice from your battery to get your car moving if your tires aren’t able to grip the road. Poor tires can lead to you finding that your battery doesn’t get you as far as you expected.
Keep your vehicle light
Like any car, an electric vehicle is going to need to consume more energy to move when it has more weight in or on it. As such, you should make sure that your car is running as efficiently as possible by making sure that you’re not carrying anything that you don’t need to. It’s easy to forget that you’ve left this or that in your trunk but, over time, those little additions can start to make a real difference in your budget, not to mention the range of your vehicle.
Enjoy the financial benefits of driving electric
The running costs of an electric vehicle tend to be lower, in large part because you don’t have to spend nearly as much on fuel. The cost of the electrical energy used to charge a battery, by comparison, is significantly lower. But you could also enjoy the benefits of tax credits that the government offers when you buy an electric car. If you don’t yet have an EV, then you should take the time to see if you can qualify for monetary benefits. What is available to you is going to largely depend on where you are, however.
Driving electric offers a lot of benefits, including lower running costs and the feeling that you are doing some real good towards helping the environment. It can just take a little time to get used to living as an electric driver, but the tips above can help you do it in much less time.