I need a new car, and I really want to go full electric. I’m wondering if anyone regrets buying one? What are the downsides?
I would get a hybrid, but I have nowhere to charge an electric car. I live in an apartment, and unless you’re rich you can’t afford an apartment with charging stations. I’ve never even seen one, personally.
Not yet, but are there any electric cars that aren’t spyware with touchscreens on wheels?
lol. As opposed to the 6 inch rectangle in your pocket
God damn this thread is depressing. We need a carbon tax yesterday.
I have Kia Niro, the range isnt as advertised and the gauge is not accurate. I barely made it hom when I should havenhad 40-50 km left in the charge.
I occasionally drive three hours to the office and same back necessitating two stops to charge.
The 200v chargers are more expensice than regular fuel. I have paid 100 euro for that return journey above.
The big question is if you can charge at home. Depending on the car, it’s feasible to do so on a normal outlet if you drive ~30 miles or less per day. A 240 volt outlet can be a game changer on top of that though. My setup charges my car 0-100 in about 6 hours (you know, overnight, when I’m not doing anything and electricity is cheapest). But if I were in an apartment and had no access to overnight charging I’d consider other options.
(Chevy Bolt EUV)
Yes, I ended up selling and buying a hybrid. Super happy with the hybrid.
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Basically instant “recharge” speed.
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Longer range.
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More vehicle options.
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Don’t have to worry about heat or cold draining my fuel.
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Can leave the car stationary for long periods of time without the fuel draining.
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More fueling stations.
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More reliable fueling stations (chargers may be broken.)
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Less software bullshit. (Tesla)
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Less possibly breaking updates. (Tesla) No joke. My car’s software literally crashed on the freeway once and I was essentially driving blind because all the screens went blank.
I drive a lot and for long distances. Switching to hybrid made trips shorter by an hour.
And I still got to keep fancy drive assist features. It’s like 80% of autopilot, if not more.
Oh! And big one! Even though an electric car may say something like 500km range! That’s NOT the usable range! You’re not going to be driving the car to 0km. You’re not even supposed to charge to 100% most of the time! So most of the time you’ll charge to 80%, that’s 400km in the battery. But, you probably wanna play it safe, so you’ll want to recharge with 50km to 100km left in the battery. Leaving you with about 300km of usable range.
Then the heat, cold, and time will slowly drain your 300km…
Meanwhile, my hybrid has about 700km of usable range, regardless of time and weather.
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Other than the fact that I overspent a bit, I don’t regret it. Especially since I live in Florida and didn’t have to deal with the gas shortages due to the hurricanes. As long as you have a reliable means of charging at home (or at work), you are good 95% of the time.
If you do any regular long-range driving, be sure you get one that can support that distance. Public EV chargers can still be hit-or-miss, and that’s the biggest downside in my opinion. They aren’t too frequent, and a lot of times they just don’t work. You also generally need to get an account for each charging network, or else it can be hard to pay or you just pay more. But I can live with that, because it is very much an exceptional part of my driving habits.
Privacy and security concerns, most of them are like big tech on wheels. See Telsa and others spying on users during intimate moments. Also most have major security vulnerabilities.
This is the case with all newer cars. If you’re avoiding EVs for privacy then the same reason applies to any car with OnStar, OTA updates, apps for your phone (remote start, locate, etc.) Or pretty much any car made in the last 10 years or more.
I definitely appreciate wanting to protect your privacy and will readily acknowledge that any EV will make that a problem. But almost every car made since the Tesla Roadster has the same problems. Now, if we could get our respective governments to pass laws stopping this BS, that would be really nice.
I got within an extremely close distance to getting a Model Y this year during the price cuts; I secured the loan and was looking into the insurance costs which is what ultimately killed my decision.
My car is paid off and I only pay for gas (I have the Prius Aqua 2016, ~53mpg, 4.44L/100km)
When I looked into the Y, first of all they don’t allow you to get an insurance quote without first putting a down payment. If I had gone through with the purchase, I’d be looking at almost 570$/month on the car loan alone with the trade-in, plus another 140/month (I currently pay 80$/month, roughly) for insurance through my current company (this is only a ballpark figure based on me pulling a VIN number online and feeding it into a quote; that number could possibly be significantly higher). That puts my excess car expenses conservatively at 650$/month just for a new car. The literal only problems I have with my current car is that it can’t tow my horse trailer and that it’s a “dumb” petrol car with no infotainment and a physical key. I’m probably going to put a 12" iPad in the center console for infotainment and call it a day and keep that around for another 4 years until Apple CarPlay 2 trickles down to affordable EVs.
In summation, I really don’t think EVs are worth it unless you absolutely must buy a new car. There are new infotainment options on the horizon like Apple CarPlay 2 and Android Automotive with Android Auto as standard… right now is the literal worst time to buy a car. Not to mention that NACS is going to replace CCS in the USA in the 2026 model cars. Your resale value in the mid 2030s will be absolute dogshit if you don’t wait for the NACS port in next year’s cars.
I’ve been wanting a plug-in hybrid, where you’re fully electric under ~40mi of daily travel, and if you exceed it switches to gas for backup. RAV4 prime has been my dream car lately…
I have a 10 year old Chevy Volt. 95% of our households driving is on the 38 miles of battery range. Oil changes every 2 years.
I own 2 Teslas and an electric lawnmower since 2018 and I live in the Arctic Chicago area. No regrets besides Elon turning out to be a shitlord.
I’m in New England and have had a Tesla for 3 years now. Two years ago we drove it down to South Carolina & back. No issues at all thanks to their supercharger network.
I am exactly you except I live in the south.
Enjoy the nice weather then, unless you’re so far south your life is at risk… In which case please don’t store your lithium batteries where you store your standing water.
Yeah, I bought a Tesla and now regret it because Elon is a dipshit.
That said, I’ve gone over 38,000 miles for less than $900 in electricity. I haven’t had to deal with oil changes or any other maintenance items other than tire rotations and tire replacement (the latter was of my own accord they actually said I didn’t need to yet, at the time).
I recently did a nearly 4hr trip with no need to charge on the way, and at my destination basically filled back up in something like 25 minutes while checking in to my hotel. So, no range anxiety for me.
The ride is nice, the features are helpful to me, and I have had no other issues with the vehicle.
So if it weren’t for Elon I’d love it. I still like it, but I just hate being seen in it now. It’s paid off so the financial cost of getting some other EV doesn’t make a ton of sense right now, so I guess I’ll just drive it until it dies…which at this rate might be a long-ass time.
Same boat here. I bought mine back when Elon was just “juvenile weirdo who makes dick jokes and smoked weed with Joe Rogan”. Best car I’ve ever owned hands down, no intention to buy anything Elon is selling ever again.
My biggest non-Elon complaint is the lack of Vehicle to Load. That is such an amazingly useful feature that’s ONLY AVAILABLE on the garbage cybertruck.
Isn’t the Cybertruck pretty bad in that regard as well for its size?
I don’t know, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.
I read somewhere that people have bumpersticks and stuff that say things like “I got the car before he went crazy” or “if I knew him then, I wouldn’t have bought it”
I’m not a huge fan of bumper stickers, but I might make an exception for this 🤔
I’ve gone from the Chevy Volt, to the Bolt, to a Polestar 2, to a Ford Mach E. 7 years in EVs, around 100k miles, with no regrets and no intention of going back to ICE.
I’m not even sure what the downsides are. Maybe longer trips require a tiny bit more planning? The infotainment systems do all the work though, telling me where to stop and how long to charge.
Dang 4 cars in 7 years?
Yeah that’s insanely wasteful
Probably leasing. Which is blowing a lot of money, but also means he isn’t buying an $80,000 car that won’t be worth hardly anything after it hits 100k miles, because more and more people in the used markets are figuring out when an out of warranty battery goes bad it can cost you $15,000 to $25,000 extra to replace a battery.
Probably. I had a neighbor that leased an Acura yearly. Always got a different vehicle but always in white.
Always white? How damned boring.
I mean, presumably he isn’t just taking them to the junkyard… Someone out there is probably still driving those cars
And leasing is a thing
Yep and someone got to buy a lightly used EV
I recently bought a used Nissan Leaf. No regrets so far, hoping the battery needs to be replaced before my warranty expires. There’s a good chance…
People get so weird and judgey
Downsides: Have to go to a gas station to find a squeegee to clean the windows.
Upsides: You have no other reason to go to a gas station.
I bought my very own gas station squeegee at a car parts store . Life-changing events.
I better get mine, soon.
Recharge the car when you’re away from home?
Most large gas stations I’ve been to have chargers now.
Good to know. I do more road trips now that I’m not driving an ICE car. Plugshare does list those stations. I have a certain antipathy for ‘petrol’ companies. Something to do with the demise of the human species, to which I’m reasonably concerned about.
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Speaking of doing research, thoughts?
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5074064/ev-gas-cars-environment-skepticism
LoL. Lavender Lad, get on your bike and ride off that anger. It’s not harming anyone apart from yourself.
Sometimes you need to check your tire pressure, too.
The general reduction in scheduled maintenance requirements is really wonderful.
Too bad if you buy one with a long enough range to completely replace the need to also own an ice vehicle you weigh so much that you have to buy more expensive tires and still need to replace those more often.
My EV has onboard pressure monitoring. And came with a little electric tire pump.
What about for gas station sushi?
Good name for a band.
Heh. Now that’s a party.
Probably Angela Chao.
Sorry shit answer, I just hate Mitch.