Am I crazy? Model Y without home charger...

[jmd2024]

I am in the market for a new car, and with the tax credits and being a nerd, I have finally begun to consider an EV. Test drove a MY last night and really liked it, but here's the catch.

I live on Staten Island, and my landlord will not be installing a charging option at home. I know there is currently one Supercharger site which is ~10 minutes away from me. The mall has a bunch of public/free chargers, but like 8kWh or some such experience. There is another SC site coming soon which I found out about on the site, and there are some SC sites between my residence and where I work (I have customers between Philadelphia and Long Island).

So here's my ask, since I know of no one around me who owns a Tesla, or any EV.

Am I crazy even considering going EV and relying on the charging infrastructure? Odds are slim I will be anywhere but here in 3 years, and odds are nil that the landlord budges on the charging. I know the prices for SC sites aren't posted, so I am curious if any of my island neighbors can indicate rough costs there, since that's my likely best bet as a frequent fill-up spot. mostly hoping to see that if I did go MY and SC, that my weekly costs would be under the 40ish dollars in gas I am spending currently. If it's 20-30 bucks, and i can do some en route work? No biggie. If it's 30-40 which is basically the cost of gas...then I get to thinking now is not Tesla time still. And, will it be an issue if I am not regularly charging to 100% (like, if its every couple weeks versus every week?)

the other vehicles I was considering are an Ioniq5, which I would be even more limited with on the island for charging, or an ICE Nissan Rogue, which may win out but my company GM is pushing hard for me to get a Y like him lol

thanks in advance!

 

[nate704]

Supercharger rates are about 4-5 times more than home charging cost, so your fuel savings will be minimal at best.

 

[kpanda17]

I am in the market for a new car, and with the tax credits and being a nerd, I have finally begun to consider an EV. Test drove a MY last night and really liked it, but here's the catch.

I live on Staten Island, and my landlord will not be installing a charging option at home. I know there is currently one Supercharger site which is ~10 minutes away from me. The mall has a bunch of public/free chargers, but like 8kWh or some such experience. There is another SC site coming soon which I found out about on the site, and there are some SC sites between my residence and where I work (I have customers between Philadelphia and Long Island).

So here's my ask, since I know of no one around me who owns a Tesla, or any EV.

Am I crazy even considering going EV and relying on the charging infrastructure? Odds are slim I will be anywhere but here in 3 years, and odds are nil that the landlord budges on the charging. I know the prices for SC sites aren't posted, so I am curious if any of my island neighbors can indicate rough costs there, since that's my likely best bet as a frequent fill-up spot. mostly hoping to see that if I did go MY and SC, that my weekly costs would be under the 40ish dollars in gas I am spending currently. If it's 20-30 bucks, and i can do some en route work? No biggie. If it's 30-40 which is basically the cost of gas...then I get to thinking now is not Tesla time still. And, will it be an issue if I am not regularly charging to 100% (like, if its every couple weeks versus every week?)

the other vehicles I was considering are an Ioniq5, which I would be even more limited with on the island for charging, or an ICE Nissan Rogue, which may win out but my company GM is pushing hard for me to get a Y like him lol

thanks in advance!

Typically when you buy and even better with a trade in, you get free miles of charging from Tesla, then no, you are not crazy.
But eventually you will want to charge while you are somewhere, work, at the apt with a long extension cord, etc. and you will say wow to a charged vehicle when you drive next.

 

[fholbert]

I am in the market for a new car, and with the tax credits and being a nerd, I have finally begun to consider an EV. Test drove a MY last night and really liked it, but here's the catch.

I live on Staten Island, and my landlord will not be installing a charging option at home. I know there is currently one Supercharger site which is ~10 minutes away from me. The mall has a bunch of public/free chargers, but like 8kWh or some such experience. There is another SC site coming soon which I found out about on the site, and there are some SC sites between my residence and where I work (I have customers between Philadelphia and Long Island).

So here's my ask, since I know of no one around me who owns a Tesla, or any EV.

Am I crazy even considering going EV and relying on the charging infrastructure? Odds are slim I will be anywhere but here in 3 years, and odds are nil that the landlord budges on the charging. I know the prices for SC sites aren't posted, so I am curious if any of my island neighbors can indicate rough costs there, since that's my likely best bet as a frequent fill-up spot. mostly hoping to see that if I did go MY and SC, that my weekly costs would be under the 40ish dollars in gas I am spending currently. If it's 20-30 bucks, and i can do some en route work? No biggie. If it's 30-40 which is basically the cost of gas...then I get to thinking now is not Tesla time still. And, will it be an issue if I am not regularly charging to 100% (like, if its every couple weeks versus every week?)

the other vehicles I was considering are an Ioniq5, which I would be even more limited with on the island for charging, or an ICE Nissan Rogue, which may win out but my company GM is pushing hard for me to get a Y like him lol

thanks in advance!

Yes, you are crazy. If you can’t charge at home, don’t buy an EV.

Charging at a Supercharger all the time is expensive and a hassle.

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[Leftlane22]

Without home charging driving an EV is a major PITA. Don’t worry about what your GM thinks unless he is paying for the car.

 

[Mike728]

I would not have bought our Y, if I couldn't charge at home.

 

[legendsk]

You haven't provided enough information for anyone to offer suggestions. If you live several floors up in an apartment building and your car sits outside in the weather at ground level, you are pretty much stuck with superchargers and that will make the cost around 2x home charging.
But the math is: YMMV but you will likely use 200 - 250 watt hours per mile driven. Electricity cost (Staten Island) appears to be $0.10 => $0.35 per 1,000 watt hours. Probably can assume SC cost will be about double that ~~ $0.50 Now just multiply the number of miles you drive per month by 0.225 kwatt hours/mile. Multiply that by $0.50 to get your fuel cost. In rural Texas home charging costs me around $0.025 per mile, because kwh cost around $0.09 each. On trips where I use SC an 80% fill up generally costs around $10 to $12, probably be some more in NY. If you are presently driving an economy car, fuel cost won't save all that much, but no more trips to the filling station, oil & filter changes, etc. The real savings comes with less maintenance, insurance, etc.

 

[EVSince2011]

We had charging at home installed when we got our first EV in 2011. We got the ok to install two charging stations in the marina parking lot when we moved to our floating home in 2015. We would not have moved here if they hadn't allowed us to install them. Charging at home is a big benefit, as much for the convenience as the cost.

 

[ucmndd]

Supercharger rates are about 4-5 times more than home charging cost, so your fuel savings will be minimal at best.

This advice is so general and location dependent as to be almost meaningless.

There are several supercharger stations around me that are CHEAPER than my lowest off peak home electricity rate.

 

[MeagHeish2021Y]

I’ve had my model Y Long Range for one week. LOVE IT. Don’t have a home charger yet so I’ve had to use a supercharger. To put it in perspective, I’ve charged probably 5 times this week and I drive 50-70 miles/day (?) Still cheaper than gas but it takes 20-40 min at a supercharger. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat. Cant wait for my home charger.

 

[jmd2024]

Thanks for the responses so far, it's good food for thought.

I park on the street, for what it's worth. that + landlord being against it, and that's my pickle.

I am coming from a BMW 330. 4 cylinder turbo charged, does really well on the highway but around the island (say, for errands or getting the kids around) it's under 20mpg usually
But, if I get away from brakes and oil changes and all that, and gas vs charging is slightly better...possibly worth it maybe.

Also, thus far I have not found insurance for a new MY to be less than replacing my 2021 BMW. If i keep my current provider and trade the BMW for the Tesla, my insurance cost actually goes up almost 1600 per year, which I was not expecting.

my honest hope is if I got the Y, the landlord (never been in one or drove one) would borrow it and change his tune. long shot, but who knows. i never thought i'd be looking myself. and not something I can gamble on of course

downside to all this...i liked the MY a lot more than I expected. a month ago, i was basically set on the Rogue, where now I don't want to even drive it...looked at a few hybrids and nothing really piques my interest. Neighbor has a hyundai hybrid, they seem happy but

 

[jmd2024]

And as a ConEd customer...I just perused their site and I can see where i would want to convince the landlord to change his mind. a separate meter for the EV would be ~18 per month flat, and then it seems TOU pricing would be 2.18 cent per kWh from 12a to 8a. which is where that savings would really kick in, never mind the convenience.

 

[evrevo]

Not sure how much you pay in rent, but offer a little more say $50 or $75 a month (not sure what's reasonable) so that you can pay for your own charger installation. Also if he doesn't like EV charger, you can also run a NEMA 14-50 outlet where you can plug in a charger.

Other option is probably more expense is to rent a parking space with the strategy above. You can also check plugshare.com to see if you have any neighbor who has charger installed and maybe pay them a fee to use it.

 

[nate704]

This advice is so general and location dependent as to be almost meaningless.

There are several supercharger stations around me that are CHEAPER than my lowest off peak home electricity rate.

OP lives in Staten island, NY which is about 2500 miles away from you. I go to NYC area (NYC, Staten island, Long Island) all the time to visit my families and there are no superchargers cheaper than home charging rate.

 

[Sweed269]

I personally wouldn't do it.
For most people the hastle of longer trips is more than made up by the convenience of home charging.
Can you Yes.
Should you No.

 

[mborkow]

Talk the landlord into installing a charger. He can prob get a rebate from your local electric company (mine just sent me my $500 rebate check) which means someone just needs to install the circuit (offer to pay for that?).

 

[LoudMusic]

I would not own an EV if I was unable to charge at home.

How much driving do you do? It's very likely you could get enough charging for the majority of your driving using just a normal wall outlet. Those will charge a Model Y at about 4 miles of range per hour, giving you 40+ miles of range overnight. Even if your commute is longer than that, you might be able to catch up on the weekends, or go to a supercharger occasionally rather than using it exclusively.

 

[Tiger]

If you cannot get creative with the charging, simply move to a better location. Simple as that. Vote with your feet, don't stay and fight.

 

[E90alex]

Just here to reiterate that I would absolutely not own an EV without home or workplace charging.

The convenience factor of not having to make a dedicated stop to charge is a massive game changer. If you have to rely on supercharging, EV ownership becomes much more of a hassle than ICE. You will have to go charge probably 3-4x more often than you currently goto a gas station and each stop takes 4-5x longer if not more. Depending on your local supercharger rates, you may not be saving much or even spending more money than gas.

 

[phxazcraig]

I am in the market for a new car, and with the tax credits and being a nerd, I have finally begun to consider an EV. Test drove a MY last night and really liked it, but here's the catch.

I live on Staten Island, and my landlord will not be installing a charging option at home. I know there is currently one Supercharger site which is ~10 minutes away from me. The mall has a bunch of public/free chargers, but like 8kWh or some such experience. There is another SC site coming soon which I found out about on the site, and there are some SC sites between my residence and where I work (I have customers between Philadelphia and Long Island).

So here's my ask, since I know of no one around me who owns a Tesla, or any EV.

Am I crazy even considering going EV and relying on the charging infrastructure? Odds are slim I will be anywhere but here in 3 years, and odds are nil that the landlord budges on the charging. I know the prices for SC sites aren't posted, so I am curious if any of my island neighbors can indicate rough costs there, since that's my likely best bet as a frequent fill-up spot. mostly hoping to see that if I did go MY and SC, that my weekly costs would be under the 40ish dollars in gas I am spending currently. If it's 20-30 bucks, and i can do some en route work? No biggie. If it's 30-40 which is basically the cost of gas...then I get to thinking now is not Tesla time still. And, will it be an issue if I am not regularly charging to 100% (like, if its every couple weeks versus every week?)

I think it will eventually come down to what they talk about in the video below. In cities like yours, chargers will end up being put on the streets, probably starting with metered parking spaces. This company (Gravity Technologies) is on the right path. If they don't do this, someone else will. As others noted, Supercharging can be both expensive and inconvenient, though not as much as a non-Tesla. Slow chargers are fine if your car can be parked there for hours, like work, or perhaps shopping.

Depending on your battery type, you typically charge overnight to either 80% or 100% (LFP batteries). They end up with about the same range, but you can charge to 100% if you then pretty quickly drive and get it back down to 80 or lower. But going from 95 to 100% can take 15-20 minutes - it's slow at the top of a charge. Still, if you pass an SC site on the way to work, it could be very doable if you can combine charging time with eating breakfast.