Changing times

 We have our Ram 1500 Hemi for our tow vehicle and our Kia Soul 2.0 for our run about vehicle. I have been giving thought to a small camper we could tow with the Kia Soul which has a hitch with a two hundred pound hitch capacity and the Kia having a two thousand pound towing capacity. Have looked at the Mypod Little guy campers but not sure we could adjust to that small of a camper. Would be nice though having a small camper that's easy to tow and that gets good MPG.

Originally posted by StephenH I'm not saying that EVs won't work for some people. For some, they are great. I just don't think they are in any way suitable for everyone or for all situations.

Certainly EVs dont work yet for all uses. But the problem I see is that there is a tendency to view the merits of a particular piece of technology based solely on what it doesn't do as well as what it replaces, and not to give enough credit for what it does better.

In the case of EVs there are so many benefits over ICE vehicles, not even counting the environmental ones, that the case for them is compelling. Once you view it that way it becomes much easier to accept a few minor inconveniences in order to get the benefits the rest of the time. Long trips are the one area where EVs fall short, but they're still quite doable.

And long trips are a small part of most folks vehicle usage. The average daily vehicle use in the US is 29 miles. Heck, for most folks you could just rent an iCE or hybrid vehicle for that rare long trip and still be ahead cost and time wise driving an EV the rest of the time.

I think that is a non-starter for any light-weight trailer. It would also likely bring the cost of a trailer up to the cost of a motor home. It compounds the charging problem as then not only the tow vehicle would need to be charged, but the trailer's battery would need to be charged also. How long would that take? I think anyone in line to charge behind such a rig would be very unhappy.

People worried about range and charge times are not (yet) fully cognizant that you just don't drive and "fill up" an EV like you may have had to with an ICE vehicle. First you need to realize that you will never go to a gas station again. You will never change the oil or filters again. All of the people I know with an EV rarely use a "charging station", as they can fill up other places as part of their usual routine. They charge at home, they charge at the grocery store, they charge at work. Generally, charging happens when you're doing other things and you don't have to carve out time to do it.

StephenH touched a problem that many of us face.  Lots of us are retired and our vehicle purchase options are limited.  I'd love to go out and buy one of the Ford EV -f-150's, but I'll be driving my Ecoboost until I stop towing a trailer because the purchase of a new $50K+ vehicle is simply not possible on my retirement income.  The same applies to our 2015 Mazda CX-5, I'm hoping it'll last until I'm no longer able to drive because I can't afford to replace it with an EV.   As Woody Guthrie once observed, it all boils down to: "if you ain't got the do re mi."