Princeton Satellite Systems has been marketing SunStation electric vehicle charging stations for some time. We are also EV enthusiasts. One employee owns a Tesla Model 3. I now own a Ford Mach-E. It replaces a Nissan Leaf that was purchased in 2012.

Before we purchased the Mach-E we looked at the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Volkswagen ID 4 and the Kia EV 6. They are all nice cars. It was a close decision between the Mach-E and the Ioniq 5. The good thing is that there are many EVs from which to choose. Even within models, there are many options so that you can pick the car that meets your needs. EV-specific requirements are range, charging network, and charging speed. Otherwise shopping for an EV isn’t much different than shopping for any other car. EVs are available in almost every form factor, including pickup trucks like the Ford F-150 Lightning.

The Mach-E is a 2021 model rear-wheel drive Premium Model with an extended range battery.

This gives a range of 335 miles, 10% more than the EPA value.

The Level 2 charger is in the background. This is more than sufficient to reach all of the places we visit without charging along the route. The FordPass app will find a route for your trip and tell you when and where to charge. For our planned trips, it is showing that no en-route charging is needed, as long as we start near full charge. Tesla has an extensive Supercharger network that makes intercity driving really easy. All other EVs rely on networks such as ChargePoint and EVGo. There are many apps, besides FordPass, that will plan your trip including required charging stops.

We have a Level 2 charger at home that we bought for the Leaf. We also own a Prius Prime Plugin. The Prime is a plugin hybrid with about 30 miles range using the battery. The charging pattern during the week, when the Mach-E is used for commuting and shopping, is much like a gas car. We typically only charge the Mach-E once a week using the Level 2 charger at home. It takes about 10 hours to fully charge the battery. The Prius charges in 4 hours using a Level 1 charger. That is done daily.

If you owned a Mach-E and didn’t have a charger at home, it would mean you would only have to charge at a DC fast charger once a week if your driving patterns were like mine. If only Level 2 chargers were available, you’d need to find a Level 2 charger where you could park for 10 hours. In my town that would be hard because there only 6 Level-2 chargers!

Most recently we drove from Princeton to the Berkshires, then to Boston and then back to Princeton. The trips were made without any charging on the way. We used Level 2 chargers at our destinations. The Williams Inn, in Williamstown, had ChargePoint chargers, as did the Cambridge Marriott in Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA.

A great resource for those interested in EVs can be found at

Electric Vehicles 101: Everything You Need to Know

Our cars are charged mostly by our solar power system. This is supplemented by PSE&G’s network which gets a large portion of its power from a nuclear fission plant. We are working on compact nuclear fusion power plants. Perhaps, in the not too distant future one of our PFRC reactors will be the source of power for EVs.