Can’t Buy An EV Right Now? Some Things To Make The Wait More Bearable & Sustainable

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Quality EVs with decent power and range are cheaper than they’ve ever been, but, sadly, that doesn’t mean that literally everyone can go out and buy one yet. Young people who haven’t gotten into a good career (hopefully yet), retired people on limited fixed incomes being eaten alive by inflation, and people who have gone through some bad times and are still recovering—these are all good examples of people who can’t lay down $10,000 of cash or even take on a small car payment. There are also many, many people who have the dough but probably shouldn’t buy an EV because they live in places without access to charging.

If you’re in the above paragraph right now, you’re in good company. I’ve been there, and I’ve climbed out, and I’ve been there again. It happens, and nobody should judge you for it as long as you’re still trying. When I bought my first EV, I made the poor decision of picking up the only one I could afford: a 2011 Nissan LEAF with a heavily-degraded battery pack. If I had known how terrible that vehicle was going to be, I would have stuck with ICE for a little longer to get something better.

In fact, I’m about to jump into the EV non-ownership boat again soon to raise the funds I need to build myself an even better EV. My Chevy Bolt EUV is a great commuter vehicle and I’ve taken some foolish road trips towing with it, but I miss the trucks of the early 2000s and I’m going to convert one of those to something that will be better than my Bolt in every way, including for towing and road trips.

To bridge the gap while I build the truck, I picked myself up a used 2001 Chevy Suburban (pictured in the photo at top) to drive around town and do some camping trips. After the first truck is done, I might convert this one, too.

What I’m Doing To Modernize & Improve Efficiency

The first thing I’m doing is picking up hypermiling again. I used to see how much better than the EPA ratings I could get my ICE vehicles to be, but when I bought an EV with sufficient range, I didn’t see much benefit from super efficient driving. Exceeding EPA ratings requires some real skill and practice, so I can’t cover all of that in one article. But here are a few things you can do to not waste too much money on fuel:

• Take it easy and slow down on the highway.
• Maintain your vehicle, including keeping tire pressure above factory recommendations, but below max sidewall pressure.
• Let off the gas early and coast as much as possible. When coasting, fuel injected vehicles use little to no fuel.
• Shut off the engine when you’re going to be somewhere for a while.
• Combine trips to do more driving on a warm engine.
• Get a Bluetooth OBD reader or a ScanGauge to watch your current MPG figure. You’d be surprised at how tiny adjustments can greatly improve efficiency.

Another thing you can do to burn less fuel is to simply drive less! This sound obvious, but Americans tend to drive on many trips that we could just as easily walk, bike, or take transit on. I have several e-bikes collecting dust in a shed that I need to be riding more, both to save fuel and for my health.

Finally, there are many little things you can do to make an older vehicle more pleasant.

First off, work on fixing all of the little things that are probably wrong with it but don’t seem like they’re worth the time. By using YouTube to learn how to fix each little problem and then buying the part cheap on Amazon or eBay, you can make your older vehicle a lot more fun and pleasant. Having a car that isn’t a busted up rattlebox makes things a lot nicer.

Many normal maintenance tasks can be done by just about anybody. Brakes, oil changes, and monitoring fluid levels are all easy to learn on YouTube, and you can save money and build personal pride by doing at least some of the maintenance tasks yourself. If any repairs or maintenance tasks are too much for you, then find somebody to help, but do what you can for yourself.

Finally, look into doing some upgrades.

My first upgrade on the Suburban was installing LED lights. Unlike most people, who just buy a set of LED headlight bulbs on Amazon and swap them in, I decided to take the opportunity to adjust the headlight housings and lower them down a bit to avoid blinding people with the low beams. I then adjusted the high beams up a bit for better highway visibility. Next, we upgraded all of the other exterior bulbs to LED to not ever give police a dumb reason to pull us over, but this required upgrading to a newer flash relay unit and installing resistors on the tail light bulbs to keep the cruise control system happy.

Next, we upgraded the infotainment system. It had a broken CD player, missing knobs, and even a tape deck, which we removed. Then, we put in a head unit that runs Android and included a backup camera. Even without Android Auto or CarPlay, the unit can run apps like YouTube Music, Waze, and Google Maps entirely on its own. It even has a slot for a SIM card that I can use to give it its own internet connection on my phone plan.

The only thing that’s left now is to put on a fresh coat of paint and put on some new all-terrain tires and I’ll have a decent vehicle for family hauling and camping trips while we build our next EV!

Finding Other Ways To Pitch In While Driving An ICE

It’s important to remember that EVs aren’t the only way to clean up your emissions and pitch in toward a better world. They are also far from the only way to save money. Doing other things, like running at least some of your daily activities on solar power, riding bikes or scooters instead of driving the ICE, and improving your home to be more energy efficient are all cheaper ways to improve things and save some money.

Featured image by Jennifer Sensiba.