THE NAVIGATOR

Over the past four years, a group of my friends have been participating in a project called Operation Frodo. We transport rescue dogs from Omaha, Nebraska to new forever homes in the Pacific Northwest, a trip of close to 2,000 miles (3,219 km). Automakers loan us vehicles from their press fleets to make the trip. For our most recent trip in early June, I suggested we include an electric vehicle in the convoy and, before long, we had four electric SUVs lined up and I was plotting a route to take our group of two and four-legged friends across the American West.

For more than a decade, when American consumers have been surveyed about their attitudes toward EVs, the most consistent reasons for not going electric are the cost of the vehicles, availability of charging, and the time required to charge. The four vehicles we drove were the Cadillac Escalade IQ, Lucid Gravity, Kia EV9 and Hyundai Ioniq 9. We selected models based on their interior size (we needed to carry at least 4 dog kennels in each vehicle) plus supplies for the dogs and our own luggage. Each of these EVs had a range of close to or above 300 miles (483 km) and relatively fast charging capabilities.