Amy Byers: 00:00:04

Welcome to season three of MTE's Plugged in podcast.

Amy Byers: 00:00:08

This season we will continue to explore the world of electric vehicles.

Amy Byers: 00:00:12

Whether you're a seasoned EV driver or you're just beginning your journey into electric vehicles, this podcast is for you.

Amy Byers: 00:00:18

For a more enhanced experience, be sure to watch the video version of this podcast that will be linked in the show notes.

Amy Byers: 00:00:24

Hello everybody and welcome to MTE's Plugged in podcast.

Amy Byers: 00:00:27

I'm Amy Byers and as always, I'm here with Brandon Wagner.

Brandon Wagner: 00:00:31

Hey Amy.

Brandon Wagner: 00:00:32

And hello everybody and welcome to the MTE Plugged In Podcast.

Brandon Wagner: 00:00:37

In today's episode, we're going to talk about a topic that many of you have brought up to us.

Brandon Wagner: 00:00:43

It's the difference between battery EVs and plug in hybrids.

Brandon Wagner: 00:00:47

And as a resource for us Today, we've asked Mr.

Brandon Wagner: 00:00:49

Steve Griffin, an EV car club member and an owner of both a battery EV and a plug in hybrid, to come share his experience with us and help us learn a little bit more about this.

Brandon Wagner: 00:01:00

Steve, welcome to the podcast.

Steve Griffin: 00:01:01

Thank you.

Steve Griffin: 00:01:01

It's my pleasure.

Amy Byers: 00:01:02

This is not your first time on the podcast.

Steve Griffin: 00:01:04

No, it's not.

Amy Byers: 00:01:05

No, it's not.

Amy Byers: 00:01:05

You were one of our featured cars that we talked to at the Supercharged EV event last year when we were in Franklin.

Amy Byers: 00:01:15

So we have talked with you before about your Mustang and now we have kind of brought you back in because you know, you have that habard now, so we want to get into that.

Amy Byers: 00:01:27

But before we get into your, you know, your all electric versus your hybrid car, let's learn about Steve.

Amy Byers: 00:01:34

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Steve Griffin: 00:01:36

Well, I was born in Evanston, Illinois, spent the first 10 years in Evansville, Indiana and then moved up to Wheaton, Illinois, which is a western suburb of Chicago.

Steve Griffin: 00:01:46

I went to University of Illinois in Champaign, Urbana, and then on to dental school at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Steve Griffin: 00:01:55

Went into the Navy after graduating where I served in Great Lakes Naval Training center and on the island of Guam.

Steve Griffin: 00:02:04

When I returned, I took a position with a group in Elmhurst, Illinois, which is another western suburb of Chicago.

Steve Griffin: 00:02:10

I practiced there for 34 years and during that time we got it was a fairly large group.

Steve Griffin: 00:02:17

We got interested in purchasing some other practices so I went and got an MBA degree at night and used that to help with that effort.

Steve Griffin: 00:02:27

And then in: 2004

Steve Griffin: 00:02:41

We're known as Halfbacks and so it made it easier for her to travel to us and also for us to travel to our other daughters, one of which is in Raleigh Durham area and the third one is in France.

Amy Byers: 00:02:56

Oh wow.

Steve Griffin: 00:02:57

So I have a lovely wife and we live in Thompson Station, Tennessee.

Amy Byers: 00:03:03

Well, great.

Amy Byers: 00:03:05

So as I mentioned earlier, we had interviewed you to talk about your Mustang Mach E.

Amy Byers: 00:03:11

Was that your first electric vehicle?

Steve Griffin: 00:03:15

It was when we moved to Tennessee.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:18

After a while we decided that perhaps we didn't need two cars.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:22

So we gave our second car to our daughter who lives in Raleigh Durham.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:26

And about a week or two later we found that we had multiple appointments where we needed two cars to get to.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:33

So I said, well, we're going to get another car.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:35

So I was kind of interested in EVs because my son in law and daughter in France had at least a Tesla Model X and I had experience riding in that and driving it.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:45

So I started doing some research and initially I was interested in the Ioniq 5, but they weren't being sold in Tennessee at the time because of the ZEV mandate.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:55

And so I happened to stumble across the Mustang Mach E.

Steve Griffin: 00:03:59

I got interested in that, got on the forum and talked to a dealer and ultimately ordered one.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:05

He was very helpful in that regard.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:07

And then 10 months later I got the car.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:09

So it was a long process and during that time I did a lot of research and learned a great deal.

Amy Byers: 00:04:15

Well, I.

Amy Byers: 00:04:16

And I may be wrong about this, Brandon, you may have to correct me, but I think you were one of our first members of the car club.

Amy Byers: 00:04:22

Is that right?

Brandon Wagner: 00:04:23

I think so.

Amy Byers: 00:04:25

You jumped on the car club, you know, bandwagon pretty early.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:28

So that's where I got some of my knowledge base while I was waiting 10 months for the car.

Amy Byers: 00:04:34

So you were a member of the car club before you got your car?

Amy Byers: 00:04:37

Okay.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:37

Yeah.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:38

And in fact, I think I conversed with somebody regarding the benefits of installing an EBSE at home and whatnot.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:47

Might even have been new.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:47

Brandon, I can't remember.

Brandon Wagner: 00:04:48

And I think you came to our Murfreesboro.

Brandon Wagner: 00:04:52

That was before you had your Mustang, correct?

Steve Griffin: 00:04:53

Yeah, I talked to Robert White quite a bit there.

Steve Griffin: 00:04:56

Yeah.

Amy Byers: 00:04:56

And he's on his second Mustang now.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:00

I saw him at the last event and it was interesting.

Brandon Wagner: 00:05:03

Now recently you shared with me that your wife got a new vehicle and it wasn't a total battery ev, but as Amy mentioned, it was like a plug in hybrid.

Brandon Wagner: 00:05:13

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Steve Griffin: 00:05:14

Yeah, we had a larger SUV and for one reason or another it came to be where we weren't Going to need that to haul children and grandchildren around who were visiting for one reason or another.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:28

And so we looked to get sort of a smaller vehicle.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:31

And since I already had the Ford and we had the evse, I thought a plug in hybrid would be ideal for her.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:39

And so we bought a Ford Escape or ordered one and again took several months before we got it.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:45

It's worked out very well.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:46

She puts most of her miles on that car on electric.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:51

As you probably know, most people on average drive 25 miles a day.

Steve Griffin: 00:05:55

And so the, that car serves her well and also serves us well when.

Amy Byers: 00:06:00

We travel longer than when you're going to visit your daughter.

Amy Byers: 00:06:04

You're taking the plug in hybrid?

Steve Griffin: 00:06:05

I do.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:07

I wasn't real confident, even though others have done it a lot to take the all electric.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:12

But now, particularly since Ford and others have given us the adapter for the Tesla superchargers now, I wouldn't hesitate to do that for, for the time being we travel with that car.

Brandon Wagner: 00:06:24

And you talked a little bit about your motivation was somewhat traveling, but also that you had the EVSE at home.

Brandon Wagner: 00:06:31

So I don't know a whole lot about the hybrid.

Brandon Wagner: 00:06:34

So does it use the Same, I guess, J17, same connector?

Steve Griffin: 00:06:41

Right.

Brandon Wagner: 00:06:41

Okay.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:42

And it's obviously a smaller battery.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:44

The range on that particular vehicle is 37 miles, weather permitting.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:48

You know, it's very handy for that regard.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:50

Typically she drives almost every day somewhere and so we charge it every day to some degree or another.

Steve Griffin: 00:06:56

Mine is maybe every week or two.

Amy Byers: 00:06:58

So when you're going on a trip then where like with a regular EV you can go 200, 250 miles.

Amy Byers: 00:07:07

If with the hybrid, then you're really only getting out of town.

Amy Byers: 00:07:11

And then if you can only go, what did you say, 37 miles, then you're switching to the gas.

Amy Byers: 00:07:16

So it's really, the hybrid is really just your.

Amy Byers: 00:07:20

Around town.

Amy Byers: 00:07:20

Because once you, once you're out of town, you're all gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:07:25

That's right.

Amy Byers: 00:07:25

Is that what you're saying?

Steve Griffin: 00:07:26

That's right.

Steve Griffin: 00:07:26

It has basically three settings.

Steve Griffin: 00:07:28

You can run it just on electric and then it automatically switches.

Steve Griffin: 00:07:31

Or you can run it, you can set it to save the electric so that you run on gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:07:36

And then whenever you want to, it'll run on electric, which.

Steve Griffin: 00:07:39

And then you can also charge it like a regular hybrid while you're, while you're driving, which that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but from what that means.

Amy Byers: 00:07:49

Well, I was fixing to ask that because I know we had at the utility we had A escape.

Amy Byers: 00:07:58

When they first came out, it was just a hybrid.

Amy Byers: 00:08:00

So it wasn't plugging, it was just hybrid.

Amy Byers: 00:08:02

And that's what it would do.

Amy Byers: 00:08:03

As you drove, it was charging, I guess, the battery.

Amy Byers: 00:08:08

So on the plugins you have that option, but you're saying you don't really use it, you just plug it in at night, let her go around town and then when you go on trips, just fill up the gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:08:18

Yeah.

Steve Griffin: 00:08:18

If you're on a long trip, you're not going to be using the electric anyway and otherwise you're just using.

Steve Griffin: 00:08:24

You're getting worse mileage running on gas if you're charging at the same time.

Amy Byers: 00:08:28

How do the cost of purchasing and maintaining the EV compared to that of the hybrid?

Steve Griffin: 00:08:37

The ev, the maintenance is very, almost nil.

Steve Griffin: 00:08:40

Basically change the tires or rotate the tires or change the tires.

Steve Griffin: 00:08:44

The brakes, almost never because it has the regenerative braking in it and so it doesn't really wear down the brake pads very easily.

Steve Griffin: 00:08:53

The plug in hybrid, of course, you've got the best and the worst of both worlds and that you need to do maintenance just like a any other gasoline vehicle.

Steve Griffin: 00:09:03

However, ours I did some Almost, I think 90% of our mileage on that car has been on electric.

Steve Griffin: 00:09:12

So the only time we're running it on gas, almost the only time is when we're on a trip.

Steve Griffin: 00:09:17

And so that lowers the need for any additional maintenance.

Amy Byers: 00:09:24

Can you go longer between like the oil changes because you're not putting as many miles on it in the gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:09:31

To the extent that within a certain time period you need to change the oil on the vehicle?

Brandon Wagner: 00:09:37

Yeah.

Amy Byers: 00:09:37

Okay, well, have you noticed any differences in your electricity or your fuel expenses between the two types?

Amy Byers: 00:09:44

Which I guess would be the obvious.

Amy Byers: 00:09:45

If you're going on a trip, you're going to be paying for some gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:09:50

Well, I did some research before I came over and I found that with the help of the mte, I was able to determine how much on average we spend on gas and how much we spend on electric just for the electric vehicles.

Steve Griffin: 00:10:07

And we average $10 a month for both vehicles together for electric and $11 a month for gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:10:15

But that excludes any trips that we went on.

Amy Byers: 00:10:17

So have you noticed any performance and driving experiences between the EV and the plug in hybrid?

Amy Byers: 00:10:25

I know that on the EV everyone loves to get you in the car and slam on the gas and you're like plastered to the backseat.

Amy Byers: 00:10:33

But can you do that with a hybrid or, you know, what's the driving experience?

Steve Griffin: 00:10:38

Not quite as much.

Steve Griffin: 00:10:39

You know, the Mustang and most of those are performance vehicles, I would say.

Steve Griffin: 00:10:45

And the Mach E that I have is the second slowest one or second to the slowest one, I should say.

Steve Griffin: 00:10:55

But it's plenty fast enough for me.

Steve Griffin: 00:10:57

The hybrid, it's got enough acceleration for our tastes and even with the gas and the electric, both of those are adequate.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:07

But it's nothing like driving the Mach E.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:10

But it's an easy drive.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:11

I would have preferred probably a different vehicle than the one I bought.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:15

However, I got the Escape because it had similar user, the UI was similar and whatnot, and all the features were similar to operate and I thought it'd be easier for my wife.

Amy Byers: 00:11:27

So any more, anything that I've not asked that you've experienced between the two vehicles?

Steve Griffin: 00:11:32

Well, the interesting thing for me when I switch is that because I drive with the one pedal driving, which is the regenerative braking, and I've seldom put my foot on the brake unless I misjudge the distance between where I want to stop and where I wind up.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:48

But when I get in the other car, it doesn't have that.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:50

And so I'm.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:52

I take my foot off the gas waiting for it to stop and it keeps going.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:56

So that takes some adjusting when I first get in the car.

Steve Griffin: 00:11:59

But other than that, they drive very similar.

Brandon Wagner: 00:12:03

One of the things that people like about EVs is they're very techy.

Brandon Wagner: 00:12:07

And the Mustang has an app.

Brandon Wagner: 00:12:11

This is a question, I guess it's kind of specific to the Escape, but is there an app?

Brandon Wagner: 00:12:16

Are there some technical technological advantages to a hybrid Escape versus a traditional Escape?

Steve Griffin: 00:12:25

It's got, it's.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:26

Again, it's a hybrid.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:27

So it's got some features that.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:30

Technical features that apply to the electrical part of the vehicle and then others that apply to the gas vehicle.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:36

But they're common features that are found on a lot of cars.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:40

So.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:41

But the user interface, actually there are some advantages to the Escape over the Mach E.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:47

So it's.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:48

Yeah.

Steve Griffin: 00:12:49

In terms of things you might do on a daily basis with the, with.

Brandon Wagner: 00:12:55

The app range anxiety is a.

Brandon Wagner: 00:12:59

Is an issue for a lot of folks that are maybe thinking about an ev, but it's there.

Brandon Wagner: 00:13:06

And one thing that's interesting is I think when I talk to folks that are nervous about that a hybrid is a great compromise for them.

Brandon Wagner: 00:13:14

But in your situation, I think it's.

Brandon Wagner: 00:13:16

I've met several people that got a hybrid first and then got a battery ev.

Brandon Wagner: 00:13:21

In your situation, you had a battery EV and then added a hybrid.

Brandon Wagner: 00:13:25

So I'm Just kind of curious if you would speak a little bit to, and you did a little bit with the traveling and that sort of thing, but range anxiety and maybe some things that the hybrid might have that would people need to kind of think through if they're, if they're trying to decide if they want to go full battery, EV or hybrid.

Steve Griffin: 00:13:45

When I bought the Mustang, my, even though I spent a lot of time on the Mach E forum and it's got a wealth of information from a lot of very knowledgeable people, engineers and so forth.

Steve Griffin: 00:13:57

And so I learned a lot.

Steve Griffin: 00:14:00

But when I got my Mach E, I wasn't interested in using that necessarily for longer trips, even though I thought about it.

Steve Griffin: 00:14:08

But as I spent more time on the fort and found some of the problems with our current national network, I thought, well, that may not be a great idea.

Steve Griffin: 00:14:17

And actually I have never charged a public charger with that car because I really never needed to.

Steve Griffin: 00:14:25

And so when we went to consider the second car, it was sort of the best of both worlds in that my wife could use the car and we could reduce our bill, even though long term, at my age it probably wasn't cost effective.

Steve Griffin: 00:14:41

It turns out that our bills are much lower and we don't spend as much time on gas and we don't have as much maintenance.

Steve Griffin: 00:14:48

And I would say that if a person is considering one or the other, if they're just going to use the car for local driving and running errands and so forth, commuting short distance to work, then the EV is the way to go.

Steve Griffin: 00:15:01

There's no reason to have the gasoline engine along with that.

Steve Griffin: 00:15:04

But if you're going to use it for longer trips, even with the Tesla adapter, there's still a lot of planning involved.

Steve Griffin: 00:15:12

And of course it takes, despite what some people might say, you're still, your stops are going to be longer to charge than they would be to fill up with gas.

Steve Griffin: 00:15:19

And so that would be more in line with using it for travel, the hybrid or the plug in hybrid.

Steve Griffin: 00:15:28

Some utility companies have really great incentives to install EVSEs in the home and some don't throughout the country.

Steve Griffin: 00:15:40

And it's kind of interesting to see how that varies from area to area.

Brandon Wagner: 00:15:45

Speaking of incentives, I know I get calls a lot from people asking what's the current tax credits that are out there?

Brandon Wagner: 00:15:55

I'm a little more knowledgeable on the battery side, but were you aware of any tax credits for the hybrid when you made your purchase?

Steve Griffin: 00:16:02

e Mustang at that time we got: 7500

Steve Griffin: 00:16:08

It's sort of interesting because they passed the new laws and they went into effect in March of 23 or maybe April 1st of 23, and we closed on our car two days before the new laws went into effect.

Steve Griffin: 00:16:23

So we've got $6,843 tax credit.

Steve Griffin: 00:16:27

Yeah.

Amy Byers: 00:16:28

So what car did you drive here today?

Steve Griffin: 00:16:29

Mustang.

Steve Griffin: 00:16:30

Sure.

Steve Griffin: 00:16:31

I drive that whenever I can.

Steve Griffin: 00:16:34

It's so much fun to drive.

Brandon Wagner: 00:16:36

So you mentioned some misinformation about hybrids and battery EVs that came to your mind when we were talking about doing the podcast.

Brandon Wagner: 00:16:45

Can you share a little bit about that?

Steve Griffin: 00:16:47

Yeah, it's always kind of funny on one hand, but also discouraging to see all the misinformation that's out there, particularly concerning EVs.

Steve Griffin: 00:16:57

It's been highly politicized, but whether it's issue of EVs are so heavy they're causing parking garages to collapse, or they're so heavy that they're polluting the highways with tire dust, even though the most popular vehicle, I think, sold in the US type of vehicle is a pickup truck, which is, on average, is as heavy as the average EV is, or heavier.

Steve Griffin: 00:17:22

And, you know, just, it goes on and on and on.

Steve Griffin: 00:17:25

They're so prone to fires, even though there's 50 times more fires in gasoline vehicles per 100,000 cars than there are in EVs.

Steve Griffin: 00:17:35

I was standing in line at the county clerk's office getting my registration done and struck up a conversation with a Tesla owner who was in the line that was snaking throughout the room.

Steve Griffin: 00:17:49

And we were talking about all the things we loved about our cars.

Steve Griffin: 00:17:52

And suddenly this man behind me chimed in and said, well, why do you have to buy a new battery in two years?

Steve Griffin: 00:17:57

You know, you just want to slap your head and say, well, it's either.

Steve Griffin: 00:18:02

It's either a lot of EV hate, which is not really understandable, or ignorance.

Steve Griffin: 00:18:09

And it's unfortunate that it's been so politicized.

Brandon Wagner: 00:18:13

Yeah, we Try to say EVs are fun and our car club is about having fun.

Brandon Wagner: 00:18:19

And so it's pretty neat to see such a group of people bonding around just a common interest.

Brandon Wagner: 00:18:26

And so that's why we like having you on and some of the guests we have, because we want to be a resource for folks, because we try to tell everyone we're not really pro EV or anti EV.

Brandon Wagner: 00:18:38

We're just, we feel like EVs are coming, we're trying to learn about them and give people access to some good resources.

Brandon Wagner: 00:18:45

And I want to say just a big thank you to you for being a big part of the car club for a long time since we started it.

Brandon Wagner: 00:18:52

You're always very quick to encourage Amy and I and we're very appreciative to that as well.

Steve Griffin: 00:18:58

Well, thank you.

Steve Griffin: 00:18:59

And I, I've enjoyed my time in the club and I learned a lot.

Steve Griffin: 00:19:03

And the nice thing I think about the club is no, with maybe a few exceptions, nobody's all about their own car.

Steve Griffin: 00:19:11

Everybody is interested in everybody's car.

Steve Griffin: 00:19:12

There's no my car is better than your car type of thing.

Steve Griffin: 00:19:15

And so it's always a pleasure to talk to those people.

Amy Byers: 00:19:18

It's just nice being around with people that are as passionate about this topic as you are.

Amy Byers: 00:19:25

And I think that's what we saw at our car club event this year is just every year it seems to ramp up a little bit.

Amy Byers: 00:19:33

We get more people there and more people that are just want to talk to everybody and see what everybody else is doing with their ev.

Amy Byers: 00:19:39

So it's a great thing.

Amy Byers: 00:19:41

So again, as Brandon said, thank you so much for joining us today and thanks everyone out there who is listening.

Amy Byers: 00:19:49

If you have any questions about MTEs, EV Ready, program, night, flex rate or anything EV related, email us at evcarclubte.com and for more information on MTE's Drive EV programs or the EV Car Club, visit driveev.com or email us@evcarclubte.com and until next time, plug in, power up and drive safe.