400+ miles in an ICE rental as an 8-time, 300k+ cross-country mile EV owner

A few weeks ago, I had a wedding to attend in rural coastal Maine and was flying into Boston (fewer and far more expensive flights to Portland, ME). This about a ~200 mile drive each way with Tesla charging options along the way, but we were staying with friends and family without charging, so no destination charging.

When I rented, I selected "small SUV" as I knew would have a few bags and may need to have people ride with us during the trip. With my status with Hertz , I'm able to just pick the car I want at pick up from whatever is available. Due to travel delays, we arrived to BOS at 1am to pick up the rental and options were scarce - Tesla Model 3 RWD, Kia America Niro EV, Lexus IS, Chevrolet Bolt, Polestar 2.

Given those options, I was ready to settle on the smaller than preferred but much better charging options Model 3. I even brought my J1772 and CCS adapters in case this situation occurred.

As we were about to load up, a 2024 Kia Sorento pulled up and was available. I was tired, we had places to be and I didn't even know what charge SoC the Model 3 was at, but given the 200 mile drive, it likely would've either needed a charge along the way, a charge in the morning (nearest Supercharger to destination ~15 min away) or both to have enough charge for the misc driving over the couple days we stayed in the area before needing to head back to Boston for the flight out.

One of the main reasons I wanted the Tesla was because of Autopilot. It was 1am at pickup with a 4 hour drive ahead of us, and our flight home was a 5am flight a couple days later. While I made sure to be rest well enough to be safe to drive, adding lane keeping is safer and helps free me up to watch for deer, etc on dark country roads.

For those that don't know, most (all?) Kia and Hyundai vehicles have a version of Highway Drive Assist (higher trims have additional features, but basics like lane keeping and adaptive cruise in all HDA cars). HDA is very similar to Tesla's base Autopilot and a very competent driver assistance system.

I hopped into the Sorento to make sure it had it, and when I realized it did, we decided to take the Sorento instead of the Model 3 - as an EV enthusiast, this pained me, but knew it would also be good to get some perspective. I've daily driven EVs for years at this point and essentially have forgotten what it's like to drive an ICE car for more than a few miles around town.

We took it, hit the road and drove the nearly 200 miles and arrived with over half a tank remaining. The drive was comfortable and easy with HDA working great and getting ~30MPG in a 7 seat non-hybrid SUV.

Through the rolling hills, the 8-speed automatic transmission was a bit shift happy to maintain speed (direct drive of EVs is a huge advantage - I went from mostly 3-pedal cars to 1-pedal driving). I was able to shift it into manual mode to "lock" it into the higher gear for better efficiency and less annoying shifting.

I definitely found myself missing being able to cool down the car from my phone, but the key-based remote start was effective for remote start to cool it down a few moments before getting in.

As expected, when the Sorento was sitting, it didn't lose any range (it would be very concerning if it was leaking gas 🫣).

Boston to coastal Maine and back along with misc driving around the area totaled 430 miles in about 10.5 hours of driving and averaged 29MPG. This cost $55 and was about 5 min of fueling for the entire trip.

If I had taken the Model 3, it would've been at least 2 ~25 min Supercharger stops and probably close to the same cost (~130kWh at $0.38/kWh Supercharging = ~$50).

If I, as an EV enthusiast that knows the charging infrastructure in the area, made the decision for this use case to take the ICE option, we have a lot of work to do before an average traveler will take the EV option.

For a more normal use case of a rental car of under-100 miles driven, shortcomings of EVs would be solved by rental agencies simply allowing them to be returned at 20%+ rather than 70-80%+. This is also a matter of consumer education as many don't realize that EVs have plenty of range for this use case and a fair amount of hotels have charging, however, most renters are simply sent on their way with absolutely no idea how to charge the car.

It's astonishing how many EV renters I've helped get going at charging stations.

I think it was a useful "reset" experience to go back to what the majority of the population lives with everyday as that is what EVs will be compared to for the foreseeable future.

𝗪𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆.

𝙩𝙡;𝙙𝙧: EVs are not a convenient rental option unless the destination has charging and even then, only once rental companies are more flexible on return SoC. Returning an EV charged is a lot more effort / time than returning an ICE car fueled. The most basic ICE cars have as much or more range than EVs with the most range and range matters when charging isn't readily available. Teslas have made me accustomed to vehicles losing considerable range just sitting - this doesn't happen on other vehicles.