I'm not a 'car guy' - cars are a necessary evil for me rather than a passion. I'm retired, so I don't have the daily commute to consider; for that reason, distance driving is the factor that I think about. I would love to have an all-electric vehicle, but I think that there are a couple of technical hurdles standing in the way at the present time - battery life, and charging infrastructure. Hybrids address both concerns, b ut are necessarily more complicated since they have both ICE and electric drive systems. As an engineer, that's more complicity that I want to consider.
This summer, one of the YouTube technology guys organized a comparative 'race' comparing an ICE vehicle (Audi), a Tesla, and a Ford Mustang Electric. All three cars were sent on a road trip that started in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City, went north to Lake Placid and then wet to Niagara Falls on the first day, and then returned to New Jersey via Scranton, PA the next day. They started out with batteries fully charged, and the gas take on the ICE vehicle also full, and all recharging/refueing was done 'on the road' - while they had an ovenight stay in Niagara Falls, they did not refuel or recharge during that rest period.
The key Takeaways they reported were:
1. The ICE vehicle was able to make the trip with about 1 hour less travel time than the Tesla, while the Ford took quite a bit longer (for reasons discussed below). The difference in travel time was due to the fact that ICE vehicles can refuel faster than electric vehicles can recharge, even with 'fast charging'.
2. The cost of the fuel consumed by the ICE vehicle was about 25% greater than the cost of the electrical energy purchased by either of the electric vehicles at charging stations. In performing this calculation, the organizer of the test looked at the actual cost of the elecgtrical energy consumed by the electric vehicles, and factored out any discounts or rebates offered by the vehicle manufacturers.
4. Both electric vehicles have software that monitors remaining battery charge, calculates remaining driving range, and navigates the driver to a charging station before the battery is fully discharged. However, the Tesla appears to perform that calculation using idealized mileage rates while the Ford allowed for more margin (ie, the Tesla driver was taken to charging stations with very little charge remaining, while the Ford algorithm left the driver with much more unused driving range.
5. The Tesla software integrates the vehicle with its proprietary recharging network, so when the vehicle arrived at a charging station, it was functional and available for use. Conversely, the Ford software knows where recharging stations are, but it doesn't know the status of those stations, which means that the vehicle can be directed to a recharging site that is temporarily out of order. This is why the additional margin in driving range is important. In this road trip, at one point the Ford had to make a significant detour to find a functional recharging station, and that led to several hours of additional road time compared with the other two vehicles.