With gas prices rising, people in more and more cities and towns are switching over to electric cars. This is something that could possibly be big in smaller towns in the states across the map. Although purchasing an electric car could be pricey in the buying process, the possibility of having to only pay for electricity instead of gas is very exciting!

With a bit of help from the internet, we estimate that it would cost around $0.30 – $0.60 per Kw to power an electric car.  A small battery would cost $11 – $23 to fully charge and a larger battery would cost around $23 – $45. Compared to gas prices that isn’t bad, but charging the battery can take between 30 minutes and 8 hours to completely charge. With fuel it only takes minutes to fill up and be on the road again.

Gas prices today are still continuing to rise with no sight of a decline in the upcoming future. Across the United States the current average price of gas is around $4.23 cents per gallon, which does not account for very much gas if you are putting $20 in your tank. That is about only 4.70 gallons of gas. Many people go paycheck to paycheck, most of them going towards gas, which isn’t the ideal way to spend the hard earned money you have worked for.

I asked students and staff around school how much they spent on gas before the rise and after the rise, and it’s clear that there is a huge difference.

 “Before gas prices I was spending maybe 25 dollars per paycheck, but now I am spending 40 dollars per paycheck on gas,¨ Tyler said. ¨I would definitely switch over to electric cars in a heart beat.¨

Mrs. Hyde said, ¨ I would not switch over to electric cars because I don’t like anything about them, but before the rise on gas prices I was spending about 35 dollars per fill up, and after gas prices raised I am spending around 50 per fill up.¨ 

It is a hard choice to make because we live in small towns, and we don’t have access to public charging stations within 20 minutes of us, so we would have to charge them at home. But if you travel short distances like me and spend a decent amount of money on gas to get back and forth, it might be a wise idea to switch over to electric cars. The closest public charging station is in Vincennes, and if you have a full charge, an electric car will go around 300 miles.

Every day places are adding and changing their ways of life, evolving in the upcoming world. Electric cars, and charging stations are both going to continue to evolve and be a part of our future. I think that electric cars will become the new normal with the way gas prices are continuing to rise. It may be a minute until smaller towns like Robinson and Palestine would get some electric charging ports, but there is hope for the future!