Electric vehicles have come a long way in recent years, not just in appearance but in reliability and variety. But not everyone is jumping on the EV bandwagon in Idaho. Yet.

Could You Reliably Drive An Electric Car In Idaho

I’m honestly a fan of some of the new models of electric cars. The Tesla Roadster is exponentially more aesthetically pleasing than the Toyota Prius. The new Hummer EV is arguably just as tough looking as a gas-powered Hummer and most other EVs look like regular cars instead of tiny bug-looking vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and Smart Fortwo.

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Looks aren’t the issue anymore. Price might be a problem for some Idahoans as a recent study says we'd expect compensation of around $4,720 to make the EV switch. The real issue is whether you can reliably drive an EV car through the state.

Photo by Tesla Fans Schweiz/Vlad Tchompalov/Nissan on Unsplash with Canva
Photo by Tesla Fans Schweiz/Vlad Tchompalov/Nissan on Unsplash with Canva
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How Many EV Charging Stations Are There In Idaho

Idaho has a lot of open space between cities and that could be a concern for someone interested in an EV car but worried they’ll run out of juice on the highway. With a little research, I found that Idaho is full of charging stations for electric vehicles. Many stations are located at RV parks, hotels, and dealerships but there are also public-use chargers. Plug Share is a map that shows where each station is and what type of charge it offers.

What’s The Average Range Of An Electric Vehicle

The average range of an EV is 217 miles (see individual ranges on this EV cheat sheet) while the median range for gas vehicles is 413 according to the US Department of Energy. So, if you get an EV for long-distance travel, you’ll have to decide if it’s worth taking twice as many pit-stops on your journey. There is hope for EVs and long-distance travel though as the average distance per charge has been increasing over the last few years. But Car and Driver points out that you can’t always trust the EPA ratings (much like gas-powered cars) since the EVs they tested rarely matched the expected range.

Do Idahoans Have a Favorite Electric Car

We see a lot of Tesla EVs driving around Idaho, but does that mean it’s the favorite? Nope. Idaho has horrible taste in EV cars as the Nissan Leaf, the very car I mentioned earlier as being horrible, was named the favorite in Idaho. Yuck.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

Gallery Credit: Sophia Crisafulli

7 Gas Saving Tips that will save you money!

We look at seven gas-saving tips courtesy of AAA Idaho/Oregon.

Gallery Credit: KEVIN MILLER

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