I wonder if you could have done the trip in the same amount of time without all the hour-long layovers and charger panic with a 20mph Yamaha golf cart. Of course, I doubt that Vermont has any more golf cart lanes than they do charging stations.

Which car rental company did you use that would force an EV on you? I'd like to avoid that company!

Plus too cold in a golf cart. Brrr.

I wonder how many people live in a house without the ability to plug in - ever. Can your house be upgraded to plug in ? How much ? I remember odd even days for parking on the street. It's a bluff meant to move the ball forward some. Necessity (real or artificial) is the motherhood of invention ! How about this one - want your 19 year old college freshman granddaughter pulling into a charging station at midnight to make it home ?

The company I work for has 17 new car dealerships. I can assure you, what you quoted is exactly the case. Everyone who wanted an EV has bought one. The rest of them are sitting in dealer inventories or manufacturers lots, costing a small fortune, due to interest rates.

If something isn't done about CAFE and the governments insistence on EV's, the auto industry is in for a world of hurt. Hybrids are the answer, but the Greenies want EV's.

Tell them to put a trailer hitch on each one, and one of those transport shelves that connects to the hitch. Then, a gas generator. Instant hybrid!

I can't picture a reputable car rental outlet that would have only one car available.

Was this a national rental company or a mom'n'pop operation? If the latter then I would suggest it is a case of "renter beware".

Your friend wasn't an idiot for buying an EV, He was an idiot for buying an EV given his situation.

I bought a Tesla Model 3 in 2019 UpNorth. I had a 220v 14-50 outlet installed in the garage which was convenient, but proved unnecessary. I love, love, love my Tesla. BUT-BUT-BUT I rarely drive more than 75 miles in a day, and I have a garage to plug in overnight. I don't even need to charge every day. With a 250 mile capacity, a recommended 80% charge to 200 is generally enough for 4 days. Then I plug in overnight (even a regular 110v outlet is enough) and am back to 200 the next morning.

Yes, if you drive 200+ miles a day, or don't have a garage, you are an idiot to buy an EV.

I obviously also have a garage here and rarely drive more than 50 miles in a day in TV, so I just bought another Tesla for Florida. Standard 110v outlet already in the garage works fine. Wife has an ICE vehicle if we need to take a road trip. Tesla is awesome IF you are the right fit for it.

Whoever asked: Tesla has a different plug than all the others, but they sell a converters on Amazon for either to the other for less than $20.

To the OP who got an EV from a rental agency: Just say no. If you reserved a regular ICE auto and they failed to provide one, I would write a nasty Google and TripAdvisor review, copy corporate, and go to another agency. EVs are not suitable for travel.

And lastly, IMHO, Climate Change is more about control than the climate, and anybody who gaslights you into thinking EVs will solve more problems than they create is not your friend. That said, EVs are great IF you are the right fit.

There's a ton of chargers in Montpelier, VT, and Vermont in general.

Just a moment...
The Plugshare app can also help out.

The Chevy Bolt has a CCS plug and a J1772 compatible adapter. Plug that into Plugshare and you can see where to charge.
Chevy also makes the Tesla adapter, if your car had one of those you could have charged at a Tesla charger, those are everywhere. You can see for yourself on the Plugshare website, picking Tesla, Tesla (fast) and J1772 as well as the native Bolt CCS/J1772.

There's a reason why all the automakers in North America are adopting the Tesla charging ecosystem (More automakers plug into Tesla'''s EV charging network | Reuters), they're one of the big reasons Tesla adoption is so high vs. other EV's. (Tesla'''s rivals scrap for thin slices of US EV sales | Reuters).

Also, the Tesla Model Y is the biggest selling car in the world (The Tesla Model Y Is The Best-Selling Car In The World | GreenCars).

Sorry to hear your trip wasn't very good, I'd blame that mostly on the car rental place. They shouldn't have given you an EV without you fully understanding it. And the Bolt EV isn't a very good car and hasn't sold very well. I wouldn't take one if someone gave it to me (Chevrolet Bolt EV Sales Figures | US Car Sales Figure)

I doubt hybrids are the current answer: Consumer Reports: Reliability

EVs have 79% more problems than ICE vehicles, according to CR’s survey. CR excludes problems with commercial CD fast chargers from the report. Your browser is not supported | freep.com

From the article, "“The problems with internal combustion engines are mostly sorted,” Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports senior director of testing, told me."

I blew coffee out my nose at that point I laughed so hard!

And further down:
"The Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T fared poorly with CR readers."
"Tesla, despite its own well-documented quality issues, has a pretty low bar to clear when it finally begins delivering meaningful numbers of its long awaited Cybertruck."

What does the data say? So CR Readers rated the Ford and Rivian poor, but what about the data for Tesla? Hmmm....

There's a novelty. An EV owner who recognizes the truth. You're 100% right. They have their place and they surely aren't for everyone. For the right person, under the right circumstances, they can be a great solution.

What do you mean "what about the data for Tesla"? They just started delivering the Cybertruck - there is no data. Regarding the rest of their lineup, they are in the middle of the pack with regard to initial quality issues.

The day the government stops interfering with the free marketing of automobiles, is the day that EV's revert to what they always were ... glorified golf carts.

They are an impractical solution, to a grossly exaggerated problem. A fraud, perpetuated upon another fraud as its basis. First you have to buy into the global warming (now "climate change") nonsense, then you can buy right into the so-called emissions problem and the supposed fossil fuel availability issue.

I owned a 1970 Pontiac GTO. About 300 horsepower and it got about 15 mpg on the highway.

My 10 year old, 365 HP Jaguar, gets 30 mpg on the highway and my 335 horsepower BMW gets 34 mpg on the highway.

If we put the same resources into ICE as we do EV's, we'd have cars that get 100 mpg, with emissions below detectible range.

So why haven't the manufacturers done that?

Surely if one came up with a car that did 100mpg it would vastly outsell those doing 35mpg?

Sorry, I can’t imagine myself looking for charge stations, it’s enough to look for, gas stations as it is on long trips. With all the wonderful things that EVs can do, like the high end Teslas, it is still not worth it for me. I’ll wait till there is enough infrastructure to support EVs without the inconvenience and the expenses associated with them now. At the rate they’re going it might not be in my lifetime.