Given my current situation with my car, I decided that now might be a good time to look into buying an electric car.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. The Nissian Leaf gets 100 miles on one charge.
There’s even the Chevy Volt which is a gas/electric hybrid. It gets 35 miles on an electric charge and 340 miles additional mileage on gas.
The idea of having a fully electric car in the city is very appealing. My average commute to work is 6 miles round trip so I would be there perfect audience.
But what happens if I want to go out of town? How far could I really make it?
I built the map below that shows all electric car charging stations in South Carolina.
Data provided by Plug-in Carolina.
As you can see, it’s very sparse. There are stations in Greenville, Union, Spartanburg, York (Rock Hill), and Columbia.
If you were to buy a Leaf your travel options would be very limited. Greenville is 103 miles away from Columbia. Spartanburg is 93 miles away, Rock Hill is 68 miles away and Union is 72 miles.
Granted, these are towns that provide dedicated charging stations and you can still plug your car in at a friend’s house but will that stop you from traveling with your electric car?
Here’s another Google Map I’ve found by a user, Jim, while searching for EV stations. His map has a few extra additions my doesn’t.
So the big question is, with most large towns spread out around South Carolina will you be willing to take the risk of traveling to these towns in a fully electric town?