So, my wife saw one in Blue Ridge Metallic at Amelia in March 2023. And she had to have one. We bought a Tesla Model S 60 in 2013, and it was wonderful, until hurricane Ian took it away on 9-28-22. By that point she had passed it to me as my daily driver and she had graduated to a 2021 Model Y (which I find terribly ugly). So she traded the Y last summer for the X5 plug in. We've driven it about 5000 miles so far. Nothing has broken. But I did do something I never do--I bought the extended warranty. It will break, and it will be costly to repair.
Probably 80 percent of the miles have been on full electric. We've done one trip in it to Gainesville and one to St Pete, mostly on gas, and it got 25 mpg. Gets about 40 miles real world electric range, which works for us.
It is a top heavy, ponderous thing, like all SUVs are. Made more overweight by the battery pack. But it tows, and it holds five people and two insane golden retrievers. I like it. It is very smooth. Florida roads are mostly flat and straight, so it works well here.
I think plug ins are a great way to save fuel, which is a finite resource. We will get solar panels for the roof of our place, although we are limited because of our crazy roofline and local wind regulations here on the coast. So our array will be small But the panels will be enough to offset our power to charge the car.
Lithium and cobalt are also finite resources, but hopefully the battery recycling infrastructure will pick up over the next decade. Massive investments in this area are being made.
By my calculations, even when charged by our local utility, which runs on natural gas, CO2 emissions per mile are about 1/3 of the emissions of an ICE car.
I love my ICE cars, and I love driving, but I think there are reasonable ways to reduce our CO2 emissions and this is one of them. But it is a baby step. The next step is to get my wife to turn up the temp on the AC. Massive battle!
Probably 80 percent of the miles have been on full electric. We've done one trip in it to Gainesville and one to St Pete, mostly on gas, and it got 25 mpg. Gets about 40 miles real world electric range, which works for us.
It is a top heavy, ponderous thing, like all SUVs are. Made more overweight by the battery pack. But it tows, and it holds five people and two insane golden retrievers. I like it. It is very smooth. Florida roads are mostly flat and straight, so it works well here.
I think plug ins are a great way to save fuel, which is a finite resource. We will get solar panels for the roof of our place, although we are limited because of our crazy roofline and local wind regulations here on the coast. So our array will be small But the panels will be enough to offset our power to charge the car.
Lithium and cobalt are also finite resources, but hopefully the battery recycling infrastructure will pick up over the next decade. Massive investments in this area are being made.
By my calculations, even when charged by our local utility, which runs on natural gas, CO2 emissions per mile are about 1/3 of the emissions of an ICE car.
I love my ICE cars, and I love driving, but I think there are reasonable ways to reduce our CO2 emissions and this is one of them. But it is a baby step. The next step is to get my wife to turn up the temp on the AC. Massive battle!