id argue that renting a car might be less expensive. your argument doesnt consider the cost it takes to replace your tires often (the heavier your vehicle, the more often you have to replace the tires), which for some EVs already, is a pretty significant cost.
buying something for something youll use less than 1% of the time is a terrible monetary decision. its like the people who buy big trucks with high torque, when more than 60% of these truck buyers have never towed something.
These are real scenarios I have had to drive in my current car (Volt, so plug in hybrid) and my battery range can be halved (from 35+ miles under 20)
this is a problem specific to lithium ion batteries. salt ion batteries and some other batteries that are being considered do not have that problem.
How do sodium ion batteries help here? Driving into the wind and running your electric heater at full blast aren’t a battery issue, it’s just an unavoidable increase in power consumption that you need the extra capacity to deal with.
you dont get the condition of having your battery level halved due to cold weather, nor have the battery on an “always on” state because lion battery’s only operate at a certain temperature range. theres a lot of losses on cold weather caused by the use of lithium ion batteries in general.
just because battery capacities on cars should go down doesnt mean cars wont offer a “long range” option for users if they need it (tesla for example litterally does), its just the everyday one needs to go down. having extended range on all cars is a solution to a problem that affects the 1% situation, and is impractical to apply the fix to the general fleet.
