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

ah very interesting *dunks your video in this fire suppression tank*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNN7TKcy0do

damn that fire got suppressed bigtime

Ok, I finally have an answer to why I don't drive an EV.

Here in San Francisco, vehicle length limits parking spots especially in neighborhoods with lots of curb cuts for driveways. Every car I've driven for the past twenty years has been shorter than 180 inches.

The BEV's on the market that are shorter than 180 inches all either have very poor range (<200 miles) or very limited room.

That situation has definitely gotten worse over time and I have no idea why other than car companies suck.

do you need >200 mile range in SF? i mean i know you may want to go to tahoe etc. but seems like the charging infrastructure should be pretty built out there

Well, I think you've highlighted that I need to make a choice: Either I have a car that can get all the way to the Sierras on a single charge, or I have a car that I can use about town.

Now, mostly I can and do avoid driving around town, so maybe I get a longer car with a longer range.

Now do I really need 200+ miles? I would only use it a few times a year, but it would mean adding an hour to a four hour trip in those cases.

Or...I could just get an internal combustion car, get all these things, and mostly not use it day to day.

get a phev, besta both worlds baby

I guess I have been persuaded that phev's are (a) as used in practice, rarely as efficient as people would hope (b) just more parts/maintenance (c) unlikely to remain a market niche in the long term.

that has not been my experience

yeah, my father says his is his favorite car ever.

(*currently in the shop because he stacked a bunch of paint cans on a weak shelf over the front end, which proceeded to break and spill paint all over)

automakers are switching to hybrids in general https://www.autoblog.com/news/first-ford-now-honda-why-automakers-are-all-in-on-hybrids-for-2026

I like this guy on YouTube, and he is a way more demanding car owner than me, and if he says a hybrid is ok then it's ok with me (jump to 4 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-qaSvW6DXI

The biggest things than run on oil (ships) are all “hybrids” of a sort - the fuel powers turbines that generate electricity that then actually works to move the boat - so it seems to make sense that eventually everything except maybe aircraft will converge on this sort of power train

Still though even with PHEVs it’s hard to find a skinny ass car that you can park on the street in a crowded city. This is why we had to ditch Chevy after 7 years of loyal Bolt driving, they only had chonky cars and we needed something we could reliably fit in front of our home. Thanks to Volvo for charging us a bunch more money for a weird car, at least it’s easy to park

i like superfast matt but a hybrid 4runner is against the spirit of the thing, but then again so is a 4 cylinder turbo, rip the spirit of the 4runner

y-o-y EV sales are down 40% in the US

saw an interesting graph yesterday showing that if you electrify everything, and swap hydrogen for all the fuels you can’t electrify, you end up needing only about 60% of the total energy to power all that stuff because electricity is so much more efficient. those efficiencies show up most in motor vehicles (i think EVs are something like 4x as efficient)

that's not good obvs, but the thought that most of those purchases would probably have been Teslars makes me happy xp (https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g64540955/bestselling-evs-2025/)

ev tax credits expired in september so prob not responsible for all of the drop tho gotta be for a nice chunk of it

tho i guess idk what time period were talking about there

guess it is the subsidies

As widely forecast, sales of new electric vehicles (EVs) in the U.S. fell sharply in the fourth quarter, following record-breaking results in Q3. With government-backed sales incentives revoked at the start of October, total EV sales in Q4 plunged to 234,000 units, down 46% compared to Q3 and 36% lower year over year. Sales in the final quarter of 2025 were at the lowest point since Q4 2022.

While the Q4 collapse will command headlines, total EV sales in calendar year 2025 tell a different story: Thanks in part to record volume in Q3, total EV sales last year came in just shy of 2024’s 1.30 million. In fact, 2025 was the second-best year on record for EV sales in the U.S., and the EV share of total market sales was a strong 7.8%, down from 8.1% a year earlier, according to Kelley Blue Book estimates.

but dont worry people stocked up before the subsidies went away everyones got at least couple evs in the the attic now

Looking into buying a second hand MG5 and I'm in the middle of used car buying hell. I've test driven three, discounted two for various reasons, Found one we're happy with, except the battery health is only 94% and the other ones were reported as 97 or 98%. Maybe I shouldn't be quibbling over 3 or 4%, maybe 6% degration is normal over four years (it's a 2022 model). Idk!

i googled it and some study said 2.3% per year is average so youre doing good on that one according to some study

i couldn't believe that MG was actually engineering electric cars so i did some googling... looks like it's a badge engineered chinese EV which i approve as the chinese make the best EVs in the world right now

The MG5 is pretty popular as an Uber vehicle in London so I've been in a couple - they're very nice imo

silly mg mustang prob others where the names of cool cars are being used to promote generic evs that bear no resemblance to the original not sure what the point is even no ones going to be like damn look at that hot rod

guess with mg at least its a defunct badge that they can trade in on the name recognition they dont care about the heritage or whatever they just want people to say oh ive heard of that, ford putting out a mustang crossover is wild tho

would be so sick if MG (SAIC) put out an actual teeny little two-door EV coupe

good news

https://i.postimg.cc/6QNGHNVB/image.png

hrm

“here’s that new EV boss”

“oh great”

“nice and sexy just like you wanted”

“terrific!”

“it’s basically a giant erection”

“wait”

\ (^^) /

I do drive an EV now so I should recuse myself from this thread. But it's great. Obv the fact that it's far newer and flashier than any car I've owned before is a large part of the appeal but the instant acceleration aka oomph is great and though I was previously manual for life the one pedal driving (kinda) (with auto regen braking) is pretty sweet. Remains to be seen how nervous I will be on longer trips with its <200 mile range (the guessometer suggesting about 160 today).

> the instant acceleration aka oomph is great

maybe not for the passengers 8)

i did spot an mg in the next road over after you mentioned it here, but it was a 4 rather than a 5

my dad's on his second electric MG - he's a big fan. i see them everywhere now because of this... wouldn't have registered before!

(And of course the MG EVs seem to be not available in the US market)

its cause theyre chinese

Things I have learned driving an EV:

22kw charging stations only charge most cars at 7kw. I understand this is for complicated electrical engineering reasons but it still feels like a swizz and I wonder if it's caught people out on long journeys.

You need a lot of apps for charging. I have five so far. Not all necessary, a lot of stations do just have contactless, but not all; there is an app that is compatible with a lot of different vendors (electroverse) but again not all.

Charging stations seem flaky, more than once I've just had to unplug and start again to get it to charge. Maybe it's the car...

I saw the coolest footage of an electric truck in China hooked up to some kind of super-charger that was putting in 1000 amps instantaneous (!!)

feel like ive heard a lot about charging stations not working good or being broken

charging at home is a big part of the value proposition of evs but no doubt everyone has to use a station from time to time

Yeah just spent half a week at the in-laws charging at supermarket car parks, also got to use one of their friends home chargers.

There's a service station we didn't stop at because according to the app, out of 8 stations six were broken or under renovation or "obstructed".

someone left a pallet of monster energy in front of them

deliberately

choose your side in the energy wars

from the description to a youtube video its wild how many of these are just normal car things

I really like Rivian but this new Scout EV has solved all the day to day frustrations I have with Rivian. These include but not limited to:

Aesthetics
Normal door handles
Physical buttons &Vents
Range extender
Very Capable off-road
Roof options
Spare tire carrier
Able to modify
Size
Price

Let me know what else you’d add to the list and why you’d stay with Rivian.

car company: here is your car with a glass roof and electric door handles those add a little to the price but we know you want em haha

22kw charging stations only charge most cars at 7kw. I understand this is for complicated electrical engineering reasons but it still feels like a swizz and I wonder if it's caught people out on long journeys.

22kW is 3phase 7kw (3x 7 and a bit is 22 and a bit). Most car manufacturers skip it because in most parts of the world homes don’t get three phase. There’s a few German cars out there that have 11kW 3 phase AC and only get 3.6 plugged into single phase. 3 phase is the standard for German homes.

(America dos weird ass shit like phase to phase and delta 3 phase and I never want to deal with that power system again)

Charging stations seem flaky, more than once I've just had to unplug and start again to get it to charge. Maybe it's the car...

There’s a major design flaw in the CCS2 plug a socket system used in most of the world. There’s a pin that drops into the top of the plug from the charger to secure it and prevent the plug from being pulled out and a resulting arc flash. The charger won’t even start talking to the car until the pin drops in. Unfortunately manufacturing tolerances being what they are and some of the heavier cables used for fast charging the plug can be rotated down in the socket and the pin never engages. Supporting the plug with one hand whilst you wrestle with some CPO’s appalling lack of UX design generally helps this.

There’s also currently only one manufacturer of the chips that do the comms between car and charger. It’s a powerline comms chip by Qualcomm that was never designed for this purpose. There’s a lot of really stupid defaults that a lot of charger manufacturers and CPOs never correct. As far as getting charges starting there’s a really short timeout on the handshake that defeats a lot of Chinese made cars used to the Chinese GB/T standard, and people who move too slowly to the credit card reader if that’s how they are playing.

Oh and there’s a default security setting that allows you to rewrite the firmware on the chip, a couple of hundred bucks of hardware allows you disable the charger or do an injection attack (latter never demonstrated).

Plus there’s a wireless interference attack as well.

Basically all of this stuff is as shonky as hell.

Good to know!

They're amazing to drive though. Doing 50 behind a lorry when you come to a hill with an overtaking lane? Just tap your foot and you're up to 70.