why don’t you drive an EV?

After a great deal of sturm und drang (we hadn’t had a car for over a decade prior), my family leased a Bolt EV in late 2018. With the exception of having massive transmission / transaxle issues about a year in (all taken care of under warranty) it’s been great. Well, we also have to make sure to get the right street parking spot in order to charge it at home, but that’s only been a problem once.

Who else drives electric? If not, why not, or how soon do you anticipate you will be able to switch?

at the time of our last car purchase (v much due to situation out of my control) we couldn't afford an EV and there weren't chargers in my building. Now it's two years later, EVs are cheaper, and there are chargers, but I'm stuck w the car we got >:(

but I will switch at the first opportunity

Last summer I bought a RAV-4 hybrid. It’s the bees knees. I wanted an EV, but I’m a renter with a difficult landlord who wouldn’t let me consider plugging in. Still, I get ~40 mpg, which ain’t nothin.

“ass hat landlord” was not a rationale I had considered before.

The weirdest thing btw is the sloshing sound that the battery pack makes shortly after I plug it in. I assume it has something to do with the thermoregulation of the battery cells. Or perhaps the whole thing is like the mop in fantasia.

I don't own a car, but if I did, I would buy electric. The only thing that would make me think twice is remembering a friend's experience during the California wildfires last year. The Tesla was pretty much useless for getting them out of an evacuation zone due to power outages: they ended up leaving it behind. Vicious cycle, yeah.

i would like an EV or hybrid, but my main use for a car these days (besides a v short commute to work that can also be done by bike but not by public transportation) is stuff like camping/covering long distances in the fifth largest state in america aka not conducive to EV at least until there's a an e-truck with good mileage and ground clearance (aka the rivian, which i cannot afford)

ideally i'd take one of these fellas to work: https://www.urbanarrow.com/en/shorty

and have a not-often used truck for trips outta town

I've got a hybrid Fusion, supposedly gets 42 city/40 highway but the average MPG is more like 35, which is pathetic for a hybrid. though maybe the cold has something to do with that.

will probably be getting a full EV as my next car, whenever that happens

The NHTSA mandates that reversing an EV or hybrid produce a certain amount of noise at certain frequencies to alert pedestrians that there’s an otherwise silent car in motion. For this reason, whenever I back out of my parking spot, some MIDI noisemaker under my hood produces a shriek that sounds like an army of mosquitos.

Supposedly the best thing for EVs in really cold weather is to have them plugged in all the time.

I was stlil under the impression new non-luxury cars are like ~$15k. I am very wrong.

I don't drive an EV because I don't own a car and the car share doesn't do EVs yet. I'm busy building a charging network and trying to covert uber drivers to electric right now.

specific user such as imago

is ~40mpg considered.....good.... in the states

Miles are like twice as long as kilometers. Think of it that way.

here is a picture of the most popular car in america

https://i.imgur.com/vlOVuV7.png

^^ also twice as long as a kilometer.

Coming down a two-lane one-way the other day, one of those trucks tried to get past me, but had to slow down because a Hummer was parked in a space next to his lane. Good times.

da big boys

Gas drops below $1.50 and everyone gets frisky.

lotta litres in a gallon

ballpark 100 liters per

I’m still impressed that they doubled the number of doors on pickup trucks at some point and I barely noticed.

We got a Nissan Leaf last January and we’re very pleased with it. It was a scary step but there has been no downside so far. We still have a minivan for longer trips or hauling stuff.

You know who drives the Tesla on our block? The Pentecostals.

I know, right? Like you didn't think they could be even bigger assholes, but there you go.

our regular car lease is up in 2021 so starting to look around now

got my eye on this https://www.caranddriver.com/kia/soul-ev, successor to https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a26144426/2019-kia-niro-ev-driven/ from which i steal this:

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/niroev-sidebar-edit-1556807455.png?crop=0.757xw:0.714xh;0.136xw,0.133xh&resize=768:*

also this one i guess but i think we want to the cargo https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/05/another-competent-korean-car-the-kia-niro-ev-reviewed/

If the Kia EVs were available in the dc area we probably would’ve gotten one of those instead.

Meanwhile Ford has apparently been hard at work building an unlistenable banshee that only runs for 45 minutes on a single charge

https://jalopnik.com/my-brain-cant-process-the-noise-the-seven-motor-ford-mu-1844483324

Yay for crazy R&D though

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/07/kia-denies-report-that-the-soul-ev-is-cancelled-for-america/

we have to change cars next november (lease runs out). this was top of my list. looks like it's not going to be an option :(

was really hoping a 3 year lease was going to get us to a world where there were more options for family sized evs.

The good news is it’s not like you can go anywhere

I’ve been driving Hyundai ioniqs around recently. That’s a nice mid-size family car. Enough room in the rear seats and a good sized hatchback boot. Slightly lacklustre DC Fast charging performance is compensated for being a really efficient car. (More km/kWh)

Supposedly the best thing for EVs in really cold weather is to have them plugged in all the time.

(Roy Scheider voice) you're gonna need a longer extension cord

why don’t you drive an EV?

Because we have a rock-solid old Subaru that seems destined to make it to the age of 30, but if it dies eventually, I'm thinking we'll go EV.

BTW we recently learned that the Chevy Bolt is apparently designed such that the box for a 55” flatscreen TV fits PERFECTLY in the back with the seats folded down. Like somebody had to have made a CAD volume with just those measurements and made sure it would fit.

https://www.carboncounter.com/

i'm actually considering getting rid of my car, as i am fully remote now

at least the pandemic has brought on a few good things

loooool https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2021/03/29/vw-volkswagen-name-change-voltswagen-electric-cars-tesla-competiton/7048576002/

*looks at calendar* uh premature 4/1 still seems more likely.

haha apparenty nope

We know, 66 is an unusual age to change your name, but we’ve always been young at heart. Introducing Voltswagen. Similar to Volkswagen, but with a renewed focus on electric driving. Starting with our all-new, all-electric SUV the ID.4 - available today. #Voltswagen #ID4 pic.twitter.com/pKQKlZDCQ7

— Voltswagen (@VW) March 30, 2021

lot of americans taking the opportunity to get priggish about VW's history while the most prominent car company in the US *right now* is run by a space fascist eugenicist.

would definitely drive an EV voltswagen microbus while wearing my patagonia baggies, grateful dead shirt, and merrell hydro mocs, for peak west coast awfulness, but it will cost around my annual salary so unfortunately it will only be a terrible dream

well apparently it *was* an april fools joke but now everyone is talking about their involvement with the National Socialist German Workers' Party so good job i guess?

Is buying a new electric car every few years better for the environment than maintaining an old car? I may have a bias as my car was built in 1973.

making an EV is marginally worse for the environment than making a regular car and much worse than making no car.

https://tnmt.com/infographics/carbon-emissions-by-transport-type/

making and then driving an EV is probably better than a clunker after a few years, but it's going to depend on how much you drive, etc.

I’m not buying a non peer reviewed study with that disclaimer attached.

Try this one that uses the Argonne GREET lifecycle emissions model.

https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/the-climate-change-mitigation-potential-of-electric-vehicles-as-a-function-of-renewable-energy

No car is definitely better but if you have to use a car it’s considerable better to use an EV

the disclaimer is pretty clear that it's back of the envelope, and nothing more than back of the envelope can be said in response to a vague question about whether to replace an existing ICE car.

but fwiw the abstract of that paper says:

"The lifecycle EV carbon emissions for a vehicle powered by the 2016 US grid is 30.82 metric tons... An average internal combustion engine vehicle (25.4 miles per gallon) is responsible for 68.38 metric tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime"

which is almost exactly consistent with the back of the envelope calculation which says an ICE car produces about twice as much CO2 as an EV if you amortize manufacturing costs. and it's a whizzy infographic that doesn't cost $5 too.

Is buying a new electric car every few years better for the environment than maintaining an old car? I may have a bias as my car was built in 1973.

― Peter Greenaway's Fleetwood Mac (S-), Tuesday, March 30, 2021 8:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

old cars - basically anything pre-90s iirc - are significantly worse for the environment in terms of emissions than regular ICE cars

No doubt. I barely ever drive anyway so I guess it's a moot point.

Actually I'm not even sure why I felt the need to reply to this thread, but hey, ILX right?

otm

tho obvs thatll grow as people get more comfortable with evs and new tech comes online and ultimately new regs force people to buy evs

who knows how tesla will hold up tho, they dont seem to be doing good with keeping their fleet up to date, seemingly been putting most of their energy towards increasing manufacturing capacity, and now looking oversupplied

Deliveries of the updated and higher-priced Model 3 compact sedan are expected to start in the fourth quarter, while a Cybertruck launch event is also planned later this year.

oh a cybertruck launch event ok

cybertruck will definitely reverse this trend

i still dont understand how the cybertruck is supposed to meet auto safety standards, all those sharp corners, do they crumple etc

safety standards are a symptom of the woke mind virus, wake up sheeple

the word “planned” possibly an overstatement

anyone walking in front of one of those is gonna end up planed

safety standards long since stopped being about peds, they are about protecting car occupants from other cars

people luuuv the fake gearshifts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N81QvAJRkI

my gas car has fake gear shifts, it has a cvt that is programmed to pretend to shift periodically, very silly

lol what

im sorry you had to find out about this

madness

even more ridiculous, it has paddle shifters, on a subaru outback, with a cvt, lmao

TS: fake shifting vs. fake interior engine noise

YOU DON'T NEED ALL THAT SHIT.

Can I have a new iMac that plays the whole dial-up modem sequence whenever I log on, thank yo.

what about a car with a dual clutch thats too good it shifts so quickly and accurately that you barely notice its happening so the manufacturer programs it to shift more dramatically the levels of which you can control through the cars infotainment system, just an idea i had not sure if it exists probably does tho

i’ve never wanted any form of self driving but there may not be much of a choice soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/29/uk-drivers-make-claims-of-incredibly-scary-malfunctions-with-electric-cars

How a robotaxi crash got Cruise’s self-driving cars pulled from Californian roads

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/28/robotaxi-cruise-crash-driverless-car-san-francisco/

im not against self driving as an idea, it could make the roads safer and prob some self driving ish features already have, but! these car companies are straight up beta testing this shit on us

I can't even handle being in my friend's Tesla when it treats a bus lane like the edge of a cliff

https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami

this is apparently a real thing

I’ve seen one! Not technically a car but they’re pretty popular in France. No speakers or radio in them at all

doors open in opposite directions. in fact, apart from the spoiler on the back of the roof it looks rotationally symmetrical (cuts down on costs having to make only one type of door...)

lol thats insane

citroen giving it a good go with their cheap models. here’s a real car, for around £25k

https://www.citroen.co.uk/models/new-e-c3.html

there are going to be vauxhall and opel models based on the e c-3 as well

Guess the EU doesn't have regs against suicide doors?

https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/toyota-hilux-revo-ev-tacoma-america
https://www.motortrend.com/news/toyota-hilux-revo-bev-concept-first-look/

looks p sweet

complaining about not being able to get a small pickup has really swept the nation, i support it but its kind of a left field mania, and tbf im more of a complaining about not being able to get wagons guy but still solidarity with the small truck guys

fwiw it does seem like the maverick is proof of concept not only for small pickups but for more utilitarian pickups, tho tbf you can get a utilitarian full size one have you ever seen a base model f150 a classic fleet vehilce oof that is one shitty car, lots of talk that there will be competitors to the maverick soon, hyundai santa cruz could be considered such tho it doesnt really have the utilitarian aspect

https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/are-ev-sales-really-slowing-data

Not entirely unrelated, one of our best friends just replaced their family car with an EV (Kia), and even though they like the car, they've had to deal with a few headaches already. For example, it turns out the casing for the power line that was running from their house to the garage was inexplicably aluminum and corroded, so they had to get a new dedicated power line to the garage in order to adequately charge the car ($$$). Second, with the holidays coming up and family in St. Louis, they have to plan for their first EV road trip, and it's proving more challenging than they expected, especially with temps (and range) dropping. I'm curious what they decide, but I do know they pretty quickly went from being a two ICE family to a family that wanted to have two EVs to a family that wouldn't be comfortable without an ICE to supplement the EV.

I drive an EV now, I thought I'd drive both our new EV and our old ICE but the ICE basically just sits there most of the time, long roadtrips in the Midwest have been no challenge at all, to my surprise. The one thing I'd say is that I don't think we're saving money -- the increase in our electric bill is certainly more than we were spending on gas. But if the goal were to save money I wouldn't have bought an expensive new car!

isnt the fuel cost supposed to be fractional, wonder if you have some sort of leak

an electricity leak??

yeah, not like a puddle of electricity under your car but some sort of malfunction

Feel like I'd have noticed if it was just gradually losing charge without being driven

could be in the charger

Oh, like the charger could be drawing electricity all the time even when it's not charging the car? Hmm, interesting. I have no idea how I'd check for that.

For what it's worth, my friend with the Kia otherwise loves the car and doesn't think about the ICE car at all. He's just a little anxious about this trip to St. Louis, which based on his typical route apparently isn't necessarily amenable to charging. Maybe?

google with reddit at the end of the search lol, seems like the first step would be to try to figure out if youre actually spending too much on electricity xp

bro thinks electricity is a liquid

facts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_theory_of_electricity

had to drive my mom's Leaf to pennsylvania a couple weeks ago, the charger situation for long drives is really bad still probably even worse than a couple years ago, lots of the ones i used before are broken now and theres more EVs on the road. like they put one in at every rest area on the mass pike a couple years ago and now there are none on the mass pike, they all broke

feels right for the pike, get some jimmy johns, fail to charge your car

will it be better now that everybody's adopted the tesla standard?

Puddle of Electricity was my favorite 90s jam band

£17k Renault Twingo

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/renault/twingo/361507/renault-twingo-back-mission-make-electric-cars-affordable

China got these guys shook

The excuse I heard re: chargers is that a lot of places got grants to install chargers years ago, but those grants didn't cover repairs, and as they've broken or failed they've just kind of sat there, useless.