(Music) My name is Craig Lang.

I'm the managing partner here at Garber Chevrolet in Midland.

Today we're going to talk about, EVs and hybrids and kind of the differences between the two of them.

Key points about EVs and EV stands for electric vehicle is a sole battery powered vehicle.

They're plug and play.

And by that, I mean you plug them in after you drive them to make sure you have, the best amount of travel available.

In that battery.

Ease of operation is very easy.

There's no oil changes.

there's no lubrication, so to speak.

Internally sealed seal parts is what's typical on an EV, really ease of ownership.

And in the standpoint that all you really have to do is rotate your tires.

There's going to be some random checks when you come in for, for servicing your vehicle.

But other than that, it's a very seamless ownership It's plug and play as I said.

And what you can do, there's an onboard cord that comes with every vehicle that you can plug in to a regular outlet, a little bit slower paced and charging, but it will do the job.

There's also chargers that you can have installed at your home, and home systems, through the manufacturers and what they'll do is they'll just have a more rapid, charge, availability.

Most people are probably going to charge when they go home.

Some people have the availability while they're traveling or when they go to work.

Chargers are available for them there.

And it's really up to what works best for, the situation.

Most people, I would say with an EV vehicle would have a charger at home.

The concerns about EV is mainly the travel.

There's a few things that impact an EV.

Temperature, right now is it's cold outside.

That battery It has to keep itself warm.

In order to do that, it uses its own energy to keep itself warm, which depletes the amount of travel you can do.

In addition to driving the vehicle and the power that you need to drive the vehicle, there's also accessory power that you're going to need to use, such as for your lights, for your air conditioning So there's an additional draw on that outside of just your normal travel, okay.

That's one concern.

The other concern is, how do I get to where I need to go if I have to take a trip?

And there's all sorts of different apps that are available while traveling.

That you can use that can, kind of edify your trip and maybe you'd say, golly, in our trip, we're going to be a little bit more adventurous.

We're going to drive for about three hours.

We're going to find a, a charging station, pay to have the vehicle charging while that vehicle's charging.

We'll go have lunch or we'll do a little bit of shopping or something like that.

So the trip might be complicated a little bit.

That way the best scenario for an electric vehicle is someone who has, their, their daily influence doesn't take them too far.

In other words, if they had to go more than 100 miles away and back, they might want to start to think about what's my backup charging plan?

It complicates it a little bit.

However, some of the vehicles that are coming out now, such as the Silverado, have over 400 miles of range.

Now, again, there's some temperature fluctuation with that.

I on a beautiful 70 to 80 degree day.

It's not going to have as many issues.

And it probably you could probably have a more extended drive on a very, very cold day in the teens, sometimes zero.

You're going to really deplete the amount of, of, circumference.

You can, let's say, or radius, you can travel, Key points of hybrids would be mainly the fact that, hybrid has a little bit more extended range and has a lot more flexible.

Hybrid has an on board generator powered by a fuel cell, fueled by gasoline or diesel or whatever.

The choice would be mostly gasoline right now, that generator is the propulsion that goes through the battery system to drive the car.

Typically, what happens is you'll drive on your your battery until the battery is at a low, a low point where it can't give you any more, energy.

Then it will transfer over to, hybrid, which would be fuel centered power.

And and that's where the flexibility is in.

You still can use the battery day to day.

And you could probably if you were a local commuter and you didn't do too much driving, could solely operate on the battery only.

However, the difference is, if you happen to take a trip somewhere, you're more apt to be, not on a chain, so to speak.

Have to stop and charge because that onboard, system will will recharge the battery.

Hybrid.

It's highly adaptable.

It still fits the needs for people that want to be energy conscious, so to speak.

In, in it really is a lot more flexible.

And we're starting to see some manufacturers trend in that area right now.

Not to say that the EV will ever go away.

EV works for a lot of people.

It for the people that are commuting back and forth to work every day and they don't travel too far, maybe a 40 to 80 mile distance or so.

It's very practical.

What we're seeing is most families right now are buying two vehicles.

They're buying a nice vehicle, the internal combustion engine.

And they're buying an EV.

The nice dual purpose to that is very simple.

They can get the economy they want out of a battery, but they can also, if they want to travel, have the flexibility of traveling and not worrying about, anything happening to them and their travels and still being extremely flexible in their travels.

the incentives right now, and this is where there's a lot of confusion out there, with, the, president coming in, President Trump, he's kind of announced that he's going to make some adjustments to this.

First of all, there's a lot of things that have to happen for that to happen.

But there still is a $7,500 credit right now.

Will that change?

Nobody knows.

And then there's manufacturer incentives, manufacturer incentives are solely based on how many vehicles are being sold and how much inventory is in stock.

Right now.

There's a pretty plentiful stock right now.

So we're starting to see a little bit more manufacturer push in that area right now.

And you can see incentives up to, 3 to $5000 on these vehicles.

In addition to the, the tax incentives.

Yeah, there's a lot of choices these days and where you can get information.

And I always really suggest you talk to somebody that is a current EV owner.

They're going to give you some realistic, guidelines and some experiences they've had that are real time in real life situations that will probably help you make a decision is EV for everybody.

I think it can be.

But again, as I talked about before, you have to be fairly adaptable if you are to vehicle family.

And I think the best way to accomplish that sometimes is to get the best out of the energy.

You can get an EV, and then also have a backup plan to be able to do what you want to do without restraints.

But try to talk to other people that have been in the situation before previous owners, talk about hybrids, talk about the options that are out there.

And there's several manufacturers that are doing a lot of things right now in this area.

And it's really something that has a size for everybody.