Choosing the right electric vehicle is a bit different from buying a traditional gas-powered car or a gasoline-electric hybrid. You need to think more about range and charging than you do with a gas car, and you need to learn the language of electric vehicles.
Buying an EV is also different than buying a regular car. You'll want to select a dealer who understands EVs and incentives, or choose a carmaker that skips dealers altogether and sells online.
In the following sections, we'll take an in-depth look at the factors you should consider if you're looking to buy or lease a new electric car.
How Do You Choose the Right Electric Car
Like any car purchase or lease, picking the right electric car starts with your needs, budget and lifestyle. But then there's more you have to look at, starting with how you use your vehicle, where you're going to charge it and what incentives are available.
Look at Your Needs First
The first step you should take is looking at what you need from a car.
Where Do You Drive, What Do You Carry?
While today's crop of electric cars performs admirably, there are some tasks they're not quite ready for. If you need to tow heavy loads, regularly travel long distances in areas with few EV chargers or don't have a reliable place to charge your EV, you might want to wait a couple of years until there are better options.
You can easily find EVs that can carry five people today, but only a couple that can carry up to seven. Need more seats? There just aren't any options available today, but there will be in the coming years.
With those exceptions, there's probably an EV that's right for you in today's market. Offerings vary from affordable compact hatchbacks with decent range and peppy performance to electric cars, crossovers and SUVs with breathtaking performance and price tags to match.
Where Will You Charge?
Suppose you're living in a home with a dedicated space where an electric vehicle charging station can be installed, or your employer provides workplace charging for employees. In that case, the decision to buy an electric car is easy. Like most EV drivers, you'll charge at home or the office, and your vehicle will be ready to go when you wake up in the morning, or you leave work.
On the other hand, if you don't have a dedicated parking space, park on the street or your apartment parking area doesn't have chargers, the decision to buy an electric vehicle becomes more complex. Getting an EV without having a reliable charging strategy is a recipe for disappointment.
Range
Once you've decided that an electric car is right for you, and you have an idea of your needs and budget, it's time to start shopping.
At or near the top of your list of considerations should be the range of the EV. When thinking about EV range, it's important to consider how far you reasonably need to drive between charging. Underestimating your required range will leave you with constant range anxiety, thinking about how soon you need to find a charger.
Buying a car with too much range can be costly. Unlike a gas tank, which is lighter as it empties, a battery pack remains the same weight no matter whether it's empty or full. Why carry the extra weight of a high-capacity battery if you don't need it.
The ranges of the electric vehicles available today vary greatly. At the lower end, you'll find cars and SUVs with ranges of around 100 miles. That's plenty for most daily commutes, but if you regularly take longer drives or stress out anytime your fuel gauge gets below half, you'll want something with a longer range between charging sessions.
A few longer-range models can travel more than 300 miles on a single charge, though those vehicles come with steep price tags.
Most EVs on the road today can travel between about 180 and 270 miles on a single charge. You'll find everything from subcompact SUVs to high-performance sedans and crossovers with single-charge ranges in that band.
The official range of electric vehicles must be certified by the EPA before a car can go on sale. However, most EV makers will announce an estimated range target when they debut the vehicle. Note that a manufacturer's estimated range can vary substantially from the final EPA numbers. Sometimes an automaker will publish an estimated range based on the European testing cycle. That measurement is not equivalent to a car's expected EPA range due to substantial differences in how the vehicles are tested.
