Excerpt from deseret.com
When Mark Nienow bought his 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric it was still difficult to buy a used electric vehicle in rural Montana. So he had it shipped from a dealer in Vermont, setting aside his nerves about spending so much money on a car he’d never seen, let alone driven.
Two years later, Nienow’s put about 12,000 miles on the vehicle, which he mostly uses to drive 100 miles round trip south to Billings for his weekly shopping trip from his home near Roundup, Montana.
“For some people, it’s just not going to be a good fit. But for me, it’s perfect,” he says.
Perfect with a few caveats.
“Infrastructure is an issue, especially in this part of the country,” Nienow says. A trip to visit Yellowstone (a 212-mile drive) required far more planning than it normally would to ensure he’d have a place to charge.
His experience isn’t a singular one and is a perfect example that even if the United States seems primed to experience an electric vehicle renaissance of sorts, the infrastructure out West needs a slingshot to catch up with EV policy and manufacturing.