Could EVs Actually Be the Better Option for Road Trips?
Genevieve Fraser
· 4 min read
While
electric vehicles
(EVs) are becoming more common than they used to be, many consumers are still hesitant to get on board.Concerns about range, accessibility, and charging time make them a less appealing option than gas-powered cars for some potential buyers. To find out whether these concerns were valid, a YouTuber recently did an experiment to compare gas and electric cars.
A YouTuber compared EVs and gas-powered cars
Business Insider
recently gave the rundown on an interesting experiment designed by YouTuber Marques Brownlee, who has over 14 million subscribers on his channel.The YouTuber went all out for this test. He and his teammates planned a two-day road trip in the state of New York with three different vehicles. This includes a gas-powered Audi Q5 and two electric vehicles, the Tesla Model S Plaid and
Ford Mustang Mach-E
. Whichever vehicle completed the journey in the least amount of time would be crowned the winner. To make the contest fair, all vehicles started at the same place with a full tank of gas or a full battery.
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The experiment's results may not surprise you
MORE: Tesla's Powerwall Owners Can Sign Up to Help the Energy Grid
When all was said and done, the gas-powered Audi took home the prize for first place. It completed the two-day journey in 18 hours and 39 minutes.
As you would probably expect, this was mainly due to the fact that gas-powered vehicles can travel much farther between fill-ups than an EV can travel on one charge. Refilling a gas-powered car is currently a much quicker process than
charging an EV
.The Tesla didn't do too badly, though, all things considered. It crossed the finish line just an hour and a half behind the Audi. But Ford's Mach-E was a different story. It was on the road for more than six hours hours longer.
So, why the big difference between the two EVs?
How did the EVs stack up against each other on the road trip?
Tesla certainly leads the pack in terms of its EV charging network, offering more than 1,000
Superchargers
across the U.S. and plenty more regular chargers.It wasn’t this fact alone that set the Tesla apart; there were accessible chargers for the Ford as well. But, there was a vast difference in the quality between the charging stations used for the Ford and those used for the Tesla. This was the main factor that contributed to the Mach-E’s slow completion time.
Ford navigation directed the Mach-E to stations that didn’t function on two occasions during the trip, forcing the driver to take detours to find working chargers.
The FordPass app is meant to help drivers find charging stations from a variety of different networks, but there seems to be delays in updates and navigation when a charger goes offline.
The team made significant gains on Tesla’s time for the second leg when they switched networks, from FordPass to Electrify America. Perhaps FordPass shouldn’t shoulder all the blame, though, as Business Insider noted that human error could have potentially affected charging early on in the trip.
Nevertheless, the Mach-E did have at least one point in its favor over the Tesla: it was much better at estimating remaining charge. The Tesla Model S often overestimated in this department, something that Business Insider said is a long-recurring issue.
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