So Many Benefits to Owning an EV

Heavy Duty Extension Cord

Do you wish you had a large battery around when the power went out last month? Back up for your groceries, heat, and lights?

We’re retired, but live in the “exurbs” in the foothills above metro Denver, which means my husband and I still need two cars. Both are now electric and we can’t imagine owning a gas car again.

Our first was a 2021 Nissan Leaf S Plus. The “S” could stand for “simple”, as it’s a fairly basic car as newish EVs go. No heated seats or steering wheel, but plenty of comfort and safety. The “Plus” means it has the larger (62 kWh) battery, giving it a range of ~226 miles. We love this car!

When a fellow EV enthusiast brought their newly-leased Hyundai Ioniq 5 to a car show in early November 2024, I took a careful look at it, then went home and suggested to my husband that we seriously consider leasing one (giving our remaining gas car to one of our grown kids). A visit to a dealership, conversations with other dealers, a bit of negotiation, and ten days later, we picked up our 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Limited AWD. This car ROCKS! Crazy comfortable, all the bells and whistles, and – of course – fast (especially helpful at certain U.S. Highway 285 short entries and cross-downhill-traffic exits).

A 77.4 kWh battery gives our Ioniq 5 a range of ~260 miles. With a “vehicle to load” adapter and extension cord, that battery also can provide backup power for our home in the event of a power outage. How much power? Enough to easily run our refrigerator, freezer, and miscellaneous lower-drawing appliances for ~10 days (with plenty of power remaining to drive to a charging station to refill after that). WOW! (Glad we didn’t invest in a diesel or natural gas generator for backup power.)

Twice this summer we had occasion to stop for one night in Forest Service campgrounds. We weren’t keen to set up a tent because we were arriving after dark. No worries, the Ioniq’s “utility mode”, climate control, and roomy hatchback make a mighty dandy “camper” for a night or two. We slide the front seats forward, put down the rear seat backs, and add a $45 “rear seat mattress extension plate SUV sleeping solution” device that bridges the gap behind the front seats. Voila, we have a sleeping space the size of a double bed. Two 3/4-length Therm-A-Rests (the old, non-tapered rectangular kind) fit perfectly to give us a decent mattress. We made notes about how to set lights, climate, etc. to have everything work to our liking. On the second trip, we discovered another advantage when the RV in the adjacent campsite ran a noisy generator right up to the 10p.m. curfew. In our Ioniq with climate control on and windows up, we could barely hear the generator (whose sound would have been fairly annoying if we’d been in a tent).

Extension cord from garage to house

The lovely $7,500 federal tax credit expired September 30, 2025, but other discounts and state incentives may be available (and great deals abound on used EVs, too), so come join the EV party. Compared to a car with an internal combustion engine, driving an EV is like using a smartphone instead of a rotary phone (I’m old enough to have used both)!

Large backup battery