Just the other day I was driving back to the city from the suburbs after visiting family, and was in a rush. Of course, when I’m running late to meet friends is when the gas light on my little Honda Civic Coupe turns on! Frustrated that I needed to stop for gas when I was already pressed for time, I started thinking… How much time have I spent filling up at gas stations? And why is this rarely quantified and noted as a benefit to owning an electric vehicle (EV) where you can plug in at home and often times at work?
So I did a little calculation based on my experience at the pump.
Assumptions:
- It takes approximately 10 minutes to fill up my 13 gallon gas tank from empty to full—from driving up to driving away from the gas station.
- My car is pretty efficient, so I probably only fill up once every two weeks.
- I have owned my car since 2005, so about 9 years.
Based on these simple assumptions I calculated, over the time I’ve owned my car (9 years) I’ve spent almost two full days (~39 hours) just standing at gas stations! And if I commuted to work by car or had a less efficient car, I would use a lot more gas and that amount of time would be even larger.
Photo: Jim Crossley
As far as “time-wasted” goes, this is not a very large number, but the thing that struck me is that EVs have the opportunity to basically give that time back to me.
If I plugged in an EV at home it would take seconds, not 10 minutes. And more importantly as I’m driving down the road, splitting time between visiting the many people I care about, I’d have that little extra time with them that I wouldn’t have to spend at the gas station.