Well, just as the title states, the wife and I are entering the EV world with a Mazda. She's been working in town now going on 5 years and we figured with the short tripping an electric vehicle, or in this case a plug-in hybrid, was the way to go. Mazda is claiming 26 miles total on electric only, which easily gets her through the day along with an errand or two on her way home.
My question is, is it worth it to put a 240v outlet in my garage for level 2 charging since the battery is so small on this car (10-12 hr to charge a dead battery to full on level 1), or should I not even bother? I see the typical scenario being coming home from work, plugging the car in and not unplugging until leaving the next morning. I really wished her work (a public school) had an EV charging station, but unfortunately they don't.
Overall, she's pretty excited to enter this world and thinks it'll save a little scratch. I'm just happy a vehicle won't be short tripped anymore (she drove my Ram truck last winter and I couldn't believe that truck could get 8mpg and it ran like crap). It literally took me a month of steady highway driving and a couple cans of fuel additive to get things right again.
I'm not wild about the 21" wheels it comes with, although they look really nice, I think ride quality suffers and tire choices are limited and spendy. The engine is pretty peppy for a 2.5l and I like that it's not a CVT transmission. I may actually throw a tow hitch on it at some point to tow my 2-place snowmobile trailer.
So, did I make a sound choice here? I've personally never owned a Mazda, but one of my co-workers recently bought one for his wife and his daughter and they can't stop talking about how much they love them.
My question is, is it worth it to put a 240v outlet in my garage for level 2 charging since the battery is so small on this car (10-12 hr to charge a dead battery to full on level 1), or should I not even bother? I see the typical scenario being coming home from work, plugging the car in and not unplugging until leaving the next morning. I really wished her work (a public school) had an EV charging station, but unfortunately they don't.
Overall, she's pretty excited to enter this world and thinks it'll save a little scratch. I'm just happy a vehicle won't be short tripped anymore (she drove my Ram truck last winter and I couldn't believe that truck could get 8mpg and it ran like crap). It literally took me a month of steady highway driving and a couple cans of fuel additive to get things right again.
I'm not wild about the 21" wheels it comes with, although they look really nice, I think ride quality suffers and tire choices are limited and spendy. The engine is pretty peppy for a 2.5l and I like that it's not a CVT transmission. I may actually throw a tow hitch on it at some point to tow my 2-place snowmobile trailer.
So, did I make a sound choice here? I've personally never owned a Mazda, but one of my co-workers recently bought one for his wife and his daughter and they can't stop talking about how much they love them.
