I really want my next car to be an EV, but I am finding incredibly difficult to justify spending 35k on a car that has ~480 km range (effectively 400km as charging to 100% takes way too long).
I do understand the arguments about 90% of the driving is done within 200kms, but the obly reason for me to own a car is the long distance trips. Most of the Europeans are in the similar situation.
> but the obly reason for me to own a car is the long distance trips. Most of the Europeans are in the similar situation.
Unless you drive very often you can rent something like a brand new VW Polo for 30 euros a day (40 with extra insurance), realistically in Europe you should have about 5 weeks of vacation per year so you'd have a car for your long distance need for <1500 euros per year, no maintenance, no long term parking issues, &c.
I’m an EV fanboy and I find this argument very unconvincing. I don’t want to learn the workings of a new car when I’m on vacation. I don’t want to add two trips to the rental place. I want to go on vacation!
But is that sentiment worth paying 35k upfront and all the other ongoing assle/fees associated with owning a car in the EU, vs the 1.5k for a vacation rental for you?
Same for me, daily driving is to and from the office, which is 35km each way. And activities for the kids, often that's 15-20km. I don't need a 400km range EV with all the weight and cost, I can do this with a 75km hybrid so I can make it to the office and back.
The other part of my driving is holidays and long distance family visits, a 400km range EV does not cover that. Especially things like going skiing where the charging infrastructure isn't very good and you end up in traffic jams waiting to charge.
These are what I have my eyes on - a small battery to do 10-20km trips within the day (and easier parking as there are designated charging points for charging EVs in my city). Any personal recommendations for a a crossover type car?
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is very good (and is available without a wait). It differs from some of the other PHEVs in that it is really an EV (with 2 electric motors) and uses the gas engine primarily as a generator. This means it drives like an EV (no transmission, no power bands, just smooth acceleration at all times). A downside is that when running on gas, it's not as efficient because of the losses of going from mechanical energy to electrical energy back to mechanical, but I regularly get 70-80km on a charge, so the engine only kicks in on long weekend trips.
Apologies, none I could personally recommend, but I've heard very good things about the Toyota's PHEV offerings.
Problem is, they are so good that they have a massive dealer markup on them, even if available. Iirc, americans have great difficulty getting a RAV4 PHEV in any state.
We tried the Kia Nero EV, and it's navigation voice, while having decent pronunciation, had such a weird rhythm and intonation when speaking that I had significant trouble understanding what it said.
I've never come across that with any artificial voice before.
And I'm fairly good at understanding both Swedish and Danish in addition to my native Norwegian, so used to variety.
The price drove us away, but had it been cheaper we'd likely not gotten it due to that poor voice, given the other options on the market. It just wasn't usable.
Heh yeah it's a bit weird. But when you're driving a new place in traffic, the voice guidance is a nice safety factor, not having to take your eyes off to look at the center console screen.
We ended up with a Renault Megane e-Tech. In addition to having a much better voice system, being based on Android Automotive, it supports putting the map in the driver console, ie replacing the dials (speed reading gets overlaid of course).
edit: I guess it also says something about how uniform these cars are, feature-wise. Few are radically different, so it quickly boils down to these minor features.
It's not for sale in the US this year, they're testing a to-be-released car. In fact Kia said it won't arrive in the US at all until 2026, at which point it may be called the [model year] 2027 Kia EV3
Please tell me I'm not the only person that thinks this thing is unfathomably ugly.
There is am amazing wealth of design language that could be used for electric cars, but for some reason, most manufacturers seem to land between "metabolic syndrome power ranger" and "criminally battered emoji".
To me, it looks like shares a lot of cues with a Kia Soul.
For years and years, I thought that the Soul was a nearly unspeakably ugly vehicle. (Not as bad as a Pontiac Aztek, but we don't talk about Azteks.)
But due to circumstances, I got to spent a few months driving one on a regular basis. That changed my perception enough that I can talk about it.
The Soul had a feeling of lightness that is unusual in even actually-light vehicles. It felt stiff, like the unibody was very rigid and that left the real work to be done by the suspension (as is right and proper). It was practical: The shit in the back folded down flat-enough to spend a long evening at a drive-in movie with someone rather close, or to go car-camping with them for a weekend and use it as a bail-out "the rain happened, and then the tent blew away" plan.
Instead of associating that shape with being simply ugly, I instead began associating it with being quirky, efficient, flexible, and rather fun.
YMMV. The form of the EV3 doesn't turn me off at all -- not even a little bit.
(I probably won't ever buy one -- despite my very positive time driving a Soul, I'm still a fan of vehicles that are either much more compact or which are much bigger and more utilitarian -- but it's probably a good fit for lots of folks. If shape were the only concern, I would support an SO's decision to buy one if they felt it was a good fit for them.)
The Evoque! Good choice. But the king of butt-ugly cars, imho, is the Mercedes Benz AMG GLE 63s coupe. Had to look it up.
That car blows me away. It appears bulbous, expensive, paradoxically small in cargo space and utility yet large in appearance. It's got that subaru-outback style plastic trim (why does every vehicle have this??) which giving it a poseur outdoorsy look, but with a grille so large and paint so shiny that nobody could be fooled into thinking it has ever left incorporated city limits. A tree has never been reflected in its paint. It's curved like one of those bumblebee airplanes whose radial engine is larger in diameter than the fuselage is long -- and I believe -- since those airplanes fly -- that they do a better job cutting through the air than this thing.
BMW copied them because they sell well apparently. I will never understand.
Ugly and huge. No one needs such cars where I live. A lot of people buy this things but it’s always one person inside going to his white-collar job, definitely not farmers or anything like that. It’s infuriating.
They could make it half the size and remove $10k from the price, but they don’t seem to want that.
Reducing the size of a vehicle does little to reduce the price. Size is mostly just sheet metal, which is cheap, and air, which is free. Most consumers don't want to be squeezed into a tiny penalty box, especially on longer trips.
If you want a vehicle that's $10K cheaper then the manufacturer will have to cut a lot of the comfort and safety features that US consumers have come to expect. Those who want cheap vehicles just buy used.
> They could make it half the size and remove $10k from the price, but they don’t seem to want that.
People keep bringing this up.
The massive size of American-market cars is thanks to regulations introduced by the Obama administration.
They effectively outlawed small cars.
Plenty of people would love to be buy a modernized take on an 80s or 90s car, but they literally can't be made or sold in the US.
I live in Japan, and have a Kei from maybe the early 2000s? My only complaint is that the A/C is like being coughed on by an asthmatic penguin, because otherwise, I absolutely love that car, precisely because it's like driving a Honda from the 1980s. Lots of glass, low beltline, all the rest.
You can't get EVs with a long range at much lower weight with current technology. Batteries are heavy.
The solution if you want smaller/lighter cars is to consider something like a Prius or similar hybrid. Those weigh less and can still drive 80% of the time electric. But they come with the downsides of having a complex ICE with the maintenance costs that go with it.
Reminder that Kia allegedly shares customer data with data brokers and also uses your location and driving habits to deny warranty claims. I wouldn’t take a chance with a company abusing my privacy that way.
Most companies, Tesla included, will do this. Hell, Tesla will happily use your vehicle's telemetry at a press conference to say "look, it was the driver, not the car".
It's hard to argue that driving habits and warranty claims are "abusing your privacy". If you took a TV back to Best Buy that was covered in mud, would you expect them to honor a warranty replacement without asking about the dirt and mud? Or would that be "abusing your privacy" to do so?
The example I found of this was Kia denying a warranty claim because it showed that that specific econobox model was consistently being driven at 100mph, and spent a lot of time at or near redline.
My Audi (an RS, so expected to be considered for performance) will track how many times the ECU has been flashed, so even if you remove the tuning, it is noticeable. It also does a thing called GFF which will capture any time the vehicle ran outside of the stock ECU parameters, and will flag your vehicle with the factory that you may be potentially liable for any drivetrain issues.
Data brokers? I don't know about that, but yes, it is more of a privacy concern.
If the car cannot be driven at a certain speed, then they should limit its speed artificially and advertise its limitations transparently. Otherwise it is their fault and they should still honor warranty claims.
Leaving that aside, I still consider it a violation of privacy. No one expects that what they do with something they own is being monitored and recorded in order to be used against them at some opportune moment.
As for data brokers, the allegations are that they sell data to Lexis Nexis who then sells it to insurance companies and potentially others.
As for what other companies do … I don’t own a Tesla but I sort of expect a car with futuristic self driving capabilities to come with some degree of data collection. I don’t expect a basic Kia or Subaru or Ford or Honda to do that. Either way, I believe all of these vehicles should not collect any data by default and should be opt in only.
They probably do say "driving this car in a way that makes the engine scream invalidates the warranty" in some way or another. That's an easy one to detect. If I slammed up and down curbs all day long and the suspension went it'd be harder to detect, but no less not a warranty problem.
Earlier this year, there was a report talking about how several car companies have been violating the privacy of drivers and reselling their information. GM responded to that investigation by shutting down their data collection program:
Really? I own a Niro and I'm 6''. Even in the back there's plenty of room. My only slight wish is the steering wheel could be adjusted further backwards but in the couple of years ownership we've done many 6+ hour drives without issue.
I do understand the arguments about 90% of the driving is done within 200kms, but the obly reason for me to own a car is the long distance trips. Most of the Europeans are in the similar situation.
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