87,000 miles. Three EVs. Three and a half years. All electric.
I sat down the other day and did the math on how much carbon I’ve actually kept out of the atmosphere since going electric. The number blew my mind!!
The Numbers#
So I ran every mile across all three vehicles against what I would have burned in a gas SUV averaging 25 MPG. That’s the kind of vehicle I’d need for life in the Cascades. I used 2026 EPA Well-to-Wheel data and Washington’s actual grid emissions, because being honest about the grid matters! EVs aren’t zero-emission. They’re only as clean as the electricity that charges them. In Washington, that electricity is really clean, over 70% hydroelectric. But it’s not zero, and I’m not going to pretend it is.
Here’s the breakdown:
87,000 miles at 25 MPG would have burned 3,480 gallons of gasoline, producing 38.6 metric tons of CO2. That fuel stayed in the ground!
But charging three EVs over 3.5 years consumed roughly 33,962 kWh. On Washington’s grid, that generated about 7.8 metric tons of CO2. That’s real and it counts.
Net offset: 30.8 metric tons of CO2!!
Let that sink in. That’s seven years of an average American’s total carbon footprint! Same as planting 1,240 trees and letting them grow for a decade! Or skipping 62 cross-country flights!
And the thing that really gets me? I didn’t do this by downsizing my life! I didn’t buy a tiny commuter car and limit myself to errands around town. I bought big, capable SUVs. I drove them across mountain passes in snowstorms! I road-tripped 2,400 miles through the Rockies with my dog! I lived the exact life I wanted to live, and the planet was 31 tons better off for it!!
That’s the argument for going electric that nobody makes loudly enough. It’s not about sacrifice. It’s not about giving things up. It’s about doing the same things, or bigger things, without the cost to the planet. The technology is here, right now!
So how did I get here?
ICE to Electric#
I love cars! Always have. I’ve owned several ICE vehicles over the years and my absolute favorite was a 2013 BMW X5. That thing had presence! I may write a blog post about all my cars someday - It’s not like I had Jay Leno’s garage lol, just something personal to me.
In August 2022, I’d recently moved to Washington for my job in tech. Pacific Northwest was the new home, I had a 60-mile round-trip commute from the Cascade foothills to Seattle down I-90, and it felt like the right time to try the electric life! The only real good option at the time was the Tesla Model Y, so I got the Performance model. Black, fast, and ruthlessly efficient at 3.5 mi/kWh.
Man, I loved that car! The instant torque, the tech, the silence. The only thing I didn’t love was the harsh ride, which I fixed a little by swapping to all-terrain tires on 18-inch wheels. Meanwhile, the Acura RDX just sat in the driveway. I loved that car too, but after the Tesla arrived it barely moved. It was the gas-powered safety net I told myself I still needed for snow runs or hauling gear. It was also the thing keeping me from being able to say my household was fully electric!
The Comfort Problem#
OK so here’s what nobody tells you about the Performance Model Y. After tens of thousands of miles of commuting, you start to feel every single one of them! The ride never really softened up, even on 18s. And the seats. Look, seats are personal, but for us — three days a week on I-90 from the foothills to Seattle and back — we never got comfortable. We’d been spoiled by the BMW X5, the Acura RDX, the Infiniti FX37. The Tesla seats just didn’t do it for us.
We wanted something bigger. Something more comfortable. Something that didn’t make a 70-mile commute feel like an endurance test! That’s how we found the Rivian R1S. From the very first test drive, it was obvious. The R1S was what the Model Y wanted to be when it grew up! Everything the Tesla did well, the R1S did better, and it was built for people who actually put miles on their cars.
In March 2024, I traded the Acura for the R1S. Black. Quad motor. That was the moment the driveway went fully electric. No more gas vehicles, period! Then in October 2024, I traded the Model Y (33,000 miles on the odometer) for a Green R1T as my daily driver. Two Rivians. Zero gas. What a time to be alive!!
The Efficiency Tradeoff#
Now here’s the tricky part. Moving to Rivians meant accepting 2.2 mi/kWh instead of the Tesla’s 3.5. That’s a 37% drop in efficiency! How does an environmentalist justify that?? By staying fully electric for everything. And I mean everything. No gas backup. No “oh we’ll take the other car for that trip.” Every single mile, electric.
The Road Trips#
These aren’t garage queens! I drive my cars! The Tesla took us to Portland twice and up to Vancouver, Canada. That was my first taste of long-distance EV travel. But the Rivians are where the real adventures happened!
The R1T handled an Oregon coast trip without breaking a sweat. And the R1S… oh man, the R1S Quad is the best car I’ve ever owned, full stop! It checks every single box. We took it on two epic road trips to Denver and back, 2,400 miles round-trip through the Rockies with Korra in the back seat! One of those trips was in the dead of winter through actual snowstorms. Whiteout conditions on I-70, and the R1S just powered through like it was built for exactly that moment. Because it was!!
I wrote up the full story of our winter Denver road trip — the charging stops, the route planning, the Moab detour, Vail Pass at night in the snow. All of it!! And that trip is actually the reason I built TrailSpark. More on that in the post.
I cannot get enough of this machine! I loved the BMW X5, I loved the Tesla, but the R1S is something different. It’s the first vehicle I’ve owned where I never think about what it can’t do. I just drive it and it handles everything!!
Before the Rivians, I needed the Acura as a gas backup for anything the Tesla couldn’t handle. The Rivians eliminated that entirely. Less efficient per mile, but every single mile is electric. That’s the tradeoff, and I’d make it again in a heartbeat!
What’s Next#
I started as a car guy who loved ICE cars. The BMW X5, the iconic Infiniti FX37. I miss them all! But nothing — and I mean nothing — beats EVs. I love my Rivians. Over the last 3.5 years driving electric, I’ve kept 31 tons of carbon out of the sky! I traded efficiency for utility, gave up the gas backup entirely, and in exchange? I get to live the exact outdoor life I want without wrecking the outdoors I’m out there to see.
The odometer keeps climbing. So does the offset. We’re just getting started!!
