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

Xiaomi is pretty much the car maker of the future rn

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, March 10, 2025 7:49 PM

tell me more!

FWIW, I *do* drive an EV now. A Hyundai Ioniq 5, the mid-level trim (SEL? I forget what it's called). I leased it for three years. I love driving it. The range is a bit of a lie. I haven't had the guts to take it on a long roadtrip yet, and the one time I had to fill it at an away-from-home station it took like 40 minutes even at a "fast" charger.

I have other issues with it, like the infotainment screen being confusing - I always have trouble finding the audio controls for example, and the climate controls are slightly confusing. But it has Apple Carplay, which is good.

Mainly I just love how fast, smooth, quiet it is and how well it handles. It works for my purposes which is mostly short commutes, trips into the city, trips 1-2 hours upstate, errands, etc. I have a home charger, which was pricey, but it costs me almost nothing to charge it at overnight electricity rates.

tell me more!

We're seeing the end products of what Ed was outlining two months ago. The end products of an integrated industrial system irrespective of who's paying for it. My father-in-law prefers German cars. If you ask why he won't tell you anything about performance or safety - he just believes Germans build better cars.

Of the cars I like the Xiaomi SU7 a lot, if I needed a truck - BYD Shark.

Hyundai infotainment screen is bloody awful, just plug in a phone and do car play or android auto.

I hosted a team from Korea trying to improve the charging location data a while back but they had no mandate beyond that.

The trend in chinese EV interiors seems to be wall to wall terracotta leather and plastic right now which is deeply horrible to be inside.

I’m one month shy of three years with the Mach-E. I figure that I’d keep it for at least six or seven years and as the next gen of battery and motor tech is is coming online I’m nerding out a bit because I like cars.

The MME is great. I love driving it. Ms. T loves it and it’s easily the perfect car for driving all over Southern California and taking some stuff with you. Not once did I anticipate taking a job where driving up Angeles Crest Highway is a requirement but it’s just about the perfect car to do it with if you have to do it all the time independent of weather or traffic conditions.

That said, three years into EV ownership has brought the capabilities and shortcomings of what the MME can or can’t do into sharp relief. I get longwinded about this on MachEForum.com but at risk of crossing the streams, feel free to read “Evacuating the Eaton Fire with my Mach-E — some notes and a suggestion to Ford” for a recent example.

Software and hardware interoperation is everything. I love CarPlay because the native Ford software is fucking awful and slow. I remember a review of one those insane BMWs from the 2010s starting off “Driving; Fred and Ginger. Using it: HAL 9000."

https://www.theverge.com/news/626311/vw-physical-controls-buttons-coming-id-2-all

between this and the $22k EV i'm all in on VW (after xiaomi of course)

fwiw the EVs i saw most often in china last year were BYD (dominant market leader), xpeng, nio... and a bunch of random manufacturers

since china does soup to nuts ev manufacturing it's super easy to start an EV company i think

so many car companies trying to phase out physical buttons is a weird sitch do they not test their products, and im sure there must have been so many designers telling them not to do it, the engineers and bean counters no doubt love the touch screens tho, except it does become a problem when people wont buy your cars

People say they love screens, which they do, but they also love buttons ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I demand an EV with controls that are like the old "Tempest" arcade game, a dial and some buttons

people definitively do not like the screens otherwise you wouldnt have auto exces saying things like this

Mindt also says the decision to bring back physical buttons was based on customer feedback. “Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone: it’s a car,” said Mindt. “We understood this.”

honest mistake who amongst us hasnt confused a car for a phone before

its crazy this shit gets to production, first of all the car companies should just know better, but even if they dont its turning up in testing, conclusion they were just like well feed those pigs this slop and theyll like it

Volkswagen isn’t the only automaker to have a physical-over-digital epiphany as of late. Last year, Hyundai said focus groups were “stressed, annoyed, and steamed” when they couldn’t control something in a pinch. Hyundai and Kia took a touchscreen-heavy approach in their EVs, such as the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Kia EV6. Meanwhile in China, Xiaomi has accessory options for customers to add their own physical controls.

my car (a 2021) still has physical buttons but the higher trim options had a bigger screen with more things like ac controlled via screen, felt like paying more for a downgrade, also the tall long screen in the middle looked dumb and produces a big glare when the sun hits it

screens in cars are dangerous too, tho i guess in a world where half of drivers are on their phones its kind of an after thought

but they cant grey out the seat heater button because you havent paid your seat heater subscription if its a physical dial

toyota would never do that 2 me

even apple has been slowly adding buttons back to the iphone. from now on new gen of the iphone is gonna have one more button. this tim apple has commanded

yeah i have an old iphone with a home button and i was trying to use someones new one the other day and i was like how do i get home

still have the home button which they can pry from my cold dead arthritic phone-mangled hands

love to double tap the home button in order to see my apps

i have the on-screen "home button" turned on on my iPhone - gets in the way sometimes but you can push it to anywhere on the screen.

settings-->accessibility-->touch-->AssistiveTouch (toggle on) -->customize top level menu, tap the minus sign until only the home button icon remains, then tap it and choose home

having a screen people prefer to use over their phones is theoretically safer because the car maker can control the interaction model, turn off distractions when the car is in motion etc

also you can have both a screen and physical controls, it’s not like they’re exclusive.

I demand an EV with controls that are like the old "Tempest" arcade game

One of the reasons I didn't want to get the higher trim on the Ioniq (aside from cost) is that it had this ridiculous video screen in place of a rearview mirror - it was not only pointless but actually distracting because it was so bright. Technological steps backward etc.

I also figured out how to turn off lane keep assist which made my driving experience infinitely better. Really do not need an overprotective assistant nudging my wheel on the highway.

I have complained bitterly about lane assist, that thing is a death trap.

Yeah it almost fucked me up on a weird exit on a regular route I take that comes up very fast. I resolved to figure out how to disable it after that.

Every car I've rented in the last 5 years has had it enabled unless I've turned it off. I stg going 80 on I-80 next to trucks and going in and out of construction zones with lane changes is risking your life.

The lane assist on my VW Golf generally works very well, gently nudging the car over if i start to veer too close to the lane divider but otherwise not making its presence known; I wish it worked at all speeds and not just over 40mph.

However, one time the lane assist inexplicably tried to steer my car into a road paving crew in the closed-off adjacent lane. Fortunately my hands on the wheel always take precedence, whereas I can't override the automatic braking thinking there's a threat ahead and slamming on the brakes, which has happened twice when uncalled for.

I think self-driving cars have the potential to make roads safer, but this halfway point of assistive technologies, and (increasingly) roads that mix self-driving cars and human drivers with completely different styles, is pretty dangerous.

assistive tech in particular, because it easy for humans to loss focus and/or get confused about their role

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02024-1

"we found that, on average among recent experiments, human–AI systems did not exhibit synergy: the human–AI groups performed worse than either the human alone or the AI alone."

i’m in china again and hearing that the hot new ev company is definitely xiaomi

but even more hotter than evs are… robots

not trying to be a prude but i dont think ppl should be trying to have sex with either

swap da battery bb https://insideevs.com/news/754041/catl-nio-chocolate-battery-firefly/

seems like a good system for making cars with smaller batteries more workable

It’s not though, small batteries are already workable for most people most of the time.

The concept here is you can save time on a long trip or maybe swap a small battery for a larger one when you go out of town.

I’ve been in a NIO and the battery swap stuff really compromises the space in the cabin. It pushes everything and everyone up towards the roof.

Plus you have a load more weight because the battery can’t be structural and has to be in its own structure.

This is just a way of making cars bigger and stupider which has been the mission of the auto industry since forever.

It’s not though, small batteries are already workable for most people most of the time.

The concept here is you can save time on a long trip or maybe swap a small battery for a larger one when you go out of town.

I’ve been in a NIO and the battery swap stuff really compromises the space in the cabin. It pushes everything and everyone up towards the roof.

Plus you have a load more weight because the battery can’t be structural and has to be in its own structure.

This is just a way of making cars bigger and stupider which has been the mission of the auto industry since forever.

NIO’s also come with an emotive smiley faced AI assistant in the middle of the dashboard to distract you from not driving into the back of truck in front.

It’s not though, small batteries are already workable for most people most of the time.

The concept here is you can save time on a long trip or maybe swap a small battery for a larger one when you go out of town.

― Ed, Wednesday, March 19, 2025 3:45 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

...

Obv Bezos can go fuck himself, but the Slate truck (basically an EV version of a 90s Ford Ranger) looks really nice and is basically all I want in an EV truck
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2027-slate-truck-electric-first-look-review

cool idea def, i do think it should come with a sound system tho

Looks like you can spec your own sound system.

saw a lucid the other day, didnt look like too much tbh, but i did see it

pretty blah design but easy to spot based on the light strip on the front

Xpeng P7 looks super cool
https://electrek.co/2025/05/15/xpeng-teased-next-generation-p7-sedan-video/

I’m being paid incredibly small amounts of money to write about EVs

https://thedriven.io/author/ed-lynch-bell/

Ed this is great! I love how brisk and opinionated (and informed by data) these are

someone made the compact ev pickup but it costs $40k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYe-QNRkdz8

doug keeps calling affordable, at this price point etc which i mean that would make sense