Our family bought a Model X and Model S Tesla in 2018. Since our EV purchase, my wife and I have not visited a gas station for four years. Having owned an automobile that relied on gasoline, driving to the gas station to pump gas became second nature. But since we got our EVs, we have stopped our weekly trips to pump gas with electric cars and now charge our vehicles overnight while we sleep. Owning an electric car feels very different because we never really stop to recharge outside of long trips of over 200 miles. That feeling of not having to take weekly trips to get gas or wake up early on the weekend to get an oil change is liberating.
Skipping the Gas Station is Liberating
While the feeling of not having to get gas is excellent, I wanted to try and figure out how much time you save by skipping the gas station. So the first step was determining how often the average person gets gas. A study found that most Americans refuel their vehicles once a week. So now I will assume that the average person spends ten minutes driving to the gas station and another five minutes pumping gas, paying, and leaving the gas station. That means the average trip to the gas station takes about fifteen minutes per trip. So with a weekly trip to the gas station, according to my estimate, the average person spends thirteen hours a year driving to and from the gas station and pumping gas.
By skipping the gas station over the past three years, we have owned our electric cars, and my wife and I each got 39 hours of our life back to use our time as we wished. In addition, charging our electric vehicles at home has been a seamless experience. We park our car in the garage and plug our car into the charger. The vehicle charges at home overnight when electricity is the cheapest, and we have a fully charged car in the morning. Plugging your vehicle into a home charger takes less than a minute. And while it takes anywhere from four to nine hours to charge an electric car, chargings occur overnight, so you are never waiting.
Charging at Home is Seamless
Also, the average American drives about 29 miles per day. And with the most popular electric cars able to drive at a minimum of over 200 miles on a single charge, the reality of most daily charging is topping off the battery, which does not take much time. So owning an electric car is a different experience, with far less maintenance and support to keep your vehicle running. So, in addition to skipping the gas station, we have not had to do any maintenance on our cars, which has saved us a ton of time.
To learn more about saving time and money, read our guide or visit Electric Driver.