I’ve totally got the money to buy a new car. My 2005 forester is getting long in the tooth and i’m ready to replace it.
I want a smallish car with the same basic features: AWD, 4door, boxy rear so I can toss a full size mtn bike in there, good in the snow, etc.
My distinct impression is that the manufacturers want to sell high end (all the options and $$) but don’t give a shit about usability. Chevy volt comes close but can’t take a bike.
Just buy a toyota sienna and come over to the dark side.
the gentle sound of a smoooooth sliding door reveals an entire living room in the back of the minivan (what the hell how much space is there back there is that a pool table??), lounge music begins playing
come in… you know you want to
would you like… a vacuum massage? The center console comes stock with a nice hose.
When I bought my Volt 10 years ago, I knew more about the car than any of the dealer sales people. I doubt the situation has changed much. That being said, I would hesitate to recommend an EV to a non technically inclined person, because the charging situation is still rough even in CA. Stations are often broken, or the billing doesn’t work, or they are in inconvenient areas. Gas is still the idiot proof option. We will know we’re really in the future when you can go to most grocery stores or strip mall and charge with tap to pay (no stupid app to pre-configure). There has to be 95% reliability. Right now I’d say about 1/5 of stations I visit have something wrong with them in terms of no internet connection for billing, slow charging, illegible UV-damaged screen, or just outright broken hardware. https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/nema-14-50-mobile-charger-lucid-air
Same situation, I have the bolt and volt cars and I drive about the same with the caveat that I coast more often to a stop and make full use of being plugged in at home for warming up or cooling down the car. Really, all you need to know about driving an ev or a hybrid. Everything else is just extra stuff to take care of and make better use of the dollar savings you get with an EV.
On the flipside, I know too many people who don’t care how hard they drive the accelerator and brakes that they would rather get a gas car because of how fast they consume and prioritize time spent fueling vs charging. Really, I save close to 2k/year more than those who drive semi efficiently, and about double that amount vs. the people who are economically irresponsible. Also, I meet a lot of tesla owners who do users using the tesla superchargers who are complaining about how garbage their battery life after 3 years of driving for Uber(20% of degradation). It makes sense why people don’t want to drive an EV. They just don’t want to slow their lives down. They want to constantly keep doing stuff and do it fast. It’s amazing how much instant gratification has made everyone’s lives worse. Even people like me who go slow have to deal with their BS.
I wouldn’t say gas stations have the same frequency of problems honestly. 19 times out of 20, my gas is dispensed without issue. And I’m able to buy it without joining a program or going out of my way. Electric charging is not yet that convenient, and it should be.
Regulating that all petrol gas stations also have charging stations for electricity would be a step in the right direction. That way somebody will be on duty to deal with situations that you’ve mentioned above.
I believe in large the reason for all the malfunctions at charging stations is because they’re unmanned.
You are very wrong. The product most definitely does not suck.
Petrol cars are unbelievably good right now even from bad manufacturers like Chrysler the reliability is through the roof.
Electric cars have come a long way they still have their hiccups but in general they function perfectly fine now. I most definitely will not recommend getting a Tesla from 2013 but something like a Chevy volt or a Volkswagen or a mustang EV are very very good cars.
Subscriptions to use any part of my car and even more tracking than my ICE car are part of the product, and that sucks. I beg to differ on me being wrong, on those two counts specifically.
No matter what the stability, reliability, and safety are, the two things I mentioned are each sufficient grounds to not buy pretty much any of the modern cars, EV or ICE.
What a weird outlook you have. I don’t even have a way to rebut it. You simultaneously agree and disagree with me. And at the same time still your only qualification that makes a car bad is the software which you personally do not like.
There are a myriad of cars out there that don’t have this kind of software built into it. There are even EVs that don’t have the software built into it.
I even agree with you I drive a Volkswagen id4 and the software in it is beyond horrific there have been times where I had to sit around poking around menus trying to figure out how to make my car actually run.
However, in my interpretation the benefits significantly outweigh the negatives of owning an electric vehicle not being tethered to gasoline is an extremely freeing experience. It is also significantly cheaper.
I feel like you just made something up so you don’t have to like EVs.
I feel like you just made something up so you don’t have to like EVs.
The fact that this is your takeaway from my messages (in addition to your general tone) just shows you are trying to push a self-righteous agenda without properly identifying who are your allies and opponents. I abhor ICEs and would have bought an EV by now if not for the scummy companies producing them, and the fact that I basically do not drive anymore so switching my relatively unused car out for any replacement vehicle does not make sense. I’d sooner just sell the car and wash my hands of them entirely.
What a weird outlook you have.
Not likely subscription services and the car manufacturers tracking me is not “weird” it’s well justified. I don’t like my insurance company tracking me either which is why I heavily restrict the permissions their app has (and use a second phone for it). ICE and EV manufacturers have immense overlap and I’ve yet to hear of one that actually respects their customers and doesn’t turn their products into drivable spyware.
I don’t even have a way to rebut it.
Perhaps you should quit the contrarian behavior since you’re not putting in the effort to be one. You’ve already demonstrated you aren’t putting in the effort to read my messages by openly misidentifying me as an EV hater.
You said that reliability and all that is irrelevant, only the tracking and the software on the vehicles is why you don’t like them.
Your original comment said that modern cars suck or a crappy my rebuttle was that they are not they’re significantly more reliable than older cars even from crappy manufacturers.
What in your comments above has anything to do with that?
The world changes things become better and things become worse the fact that you don’t like it is completely irrelevant back in the 80s you could use a flathead screwdriver to start up a car you can’t do that anymore because of modern software and technology.
So circling back around you are wrong, modern cars are better than older ones. Aside from your personal preference of not liking how they make cars today with the technology that’s in them do you have anything to substantiate your claim?
Gotta push the EV infrastructure harder. No good pushing lots of EV cars when the infrastructure isn’t there to support them. Can’t charge at work. Can’t charge at your apartment complex. No charge at the shopping areas. Etc. Other than the high initial cost, I’d suggest that the inconvenience and irritation of trying to locate charging along with range limits is a major factor in people not wanting EV.
This is the #1 reason I won’t be able to get an EV any time soon. We live in a townhouse, and while the HOA gracefully ‘allows’ us to install chargers (because its illegal for them not to allow it), the way the rules are set up it’s practically impossible to actually install one.
For example, here’s our bylaws regarding EV chargers:
All Charging stations require approval – The application should discuss where the charging station will be mounted, the type of post used to mount it, and, in the townhouses, the path that the charging station wiring will use to get to the common ground. The townhouse owner is also advised that the installation of a charging station on HOA common ground requires a legal agreement between the HOA and the homeowner regarding maintenance and liability of the charging station.
Chargers of 120V (Level 1) or 240V (Level 2) are allowed. It should be noted that while it is possible to use a 240V extension and there are some 240V extensions sold as charging cables, at this time, the use of such extensions is illegal in Maryland and will not be approved in an application. All 240V outlet plugs must be directly wired to the electrical panels of the house.
Under no conditions is it acceptable for a charging line to be stretched across a community sidewalk. For a temporary installation of less than 6 months duration, residents may apply to have permission to place a tube under the sidewalk in order to run a 110V extension while their permanent charging station is installed.
All permanent electrical lines must be buried in conduit according to code and go under any sidewalks, ramps, or gutters. No 240V electrical wires are permitted to be installed under community sidewalks.
A charging station must be placed inside a single parking space. It cannot straddle the dividing line nor can it be centered in the parking spot as that would interfere with the numbering of the parking space.
For single family homes a charging station can be mounted directly to the house or garage or mounted on a post that allows easier access to the parking spaces. If post mounted, it should be mounted in the half of the driveway that is closest to the house.
There are a number of things in there that are contradictory. You can install a L2 charger, but if you’re in a townhouse, you’re not allowed to wire it up using 240V. You also can’t place it on your house, because the cord wouldn’t be able to reach and that’s not allowed anyway, because it’d cross a sidewalk. Neat.
Exactly right. The next best step would be for businesses to install them for employees and customers, but that’s a big expense and maintenance problem.
I really don’t know what the answer is. I’m completely for EV, but the unpredictable ,or lack of availability, of charging is a big deal.
but anti-EV is kinda pro enviromental in this case, since we shouldn’t be pushing EVs on everyone, we should be pushing for an excellent public transportation network.
Henry Ford designed the Model T to be a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person.
Volkswagon designed the Beetle to be a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person.
The first car company to design an EV that’s a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person will sell lots of them. Profit per car may be lower but perhaps we need to set the need for maximum profits aside on this particular issue?
My raises aren’t even CLOSE to keeping up with inflation. Rather hard to splurge on a fancy EV with tons of high-tech nice-to-have features that are just going to break anyway. All I need to do is to get from point A to point B and have AC, heat and a half-decent stereo system.
He’d be rolling in his grave if he saw the clickwrap agreements they have to get in a modern car now. Can’t start the ignition without sharing your personal data with the car maker and 799 of its “partners.”
Tangentially related, there’s a supermarket chain in my country that requires you to hand over your personal details to even apply for a job. The rough wording is something like: ‘all your personal information in perpitutity but only internally and with people we do business with.’ Except since selling my personal info would be a business transaction that clause includes potentially every human being on the planet.
Henry Ford? I think he’d be more likely to be impressed and jealous. He made an affordable car because no one had thought of selling the ability to buy a car in addition to the car itself in his time.
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deleted by creator
I’ve totally got the money to buy a new car. My 2005 forester is getting long in the tooth and i’m ready to replace it.
I want a smallish car with the same basic features: AWD, 4door, boxy rear so I can toss a full size mtn bike in there, good in the snow, etc.
My distinct impression is that the manufacturers want to sell high end (all the options and $$) but don’t give a shit about usability. Chevy volt comes close but can’t take a bike.
Hyundai Kona electric is a good option.
Just buy a toyota sienna and come over to the dark side.
the gentle sound of a smoooooth sliding door reveals an entire living room in the back of the minivan (what the hell how much space is there back there is that a pool table??), lounge music begins playing
come in… you know you want to
would you like… a vacuum massage? The center console comes stock with a nice hose.
A problem with EV is those cars are infected with DRM.
Remember tesla deactivate DLC ?
So don’t buy Tesla
I would have bought a plug in electric, but my apartment didn’t like the idea of me throwing extension cords out my second story window.
No one expects they should be able to install a gas station in their backyard to buy an ICE vehicle. The issue is infrastructure.
Sure they can. Just give the $7500 credit to an EV worth its price.
I agree with them but not for the reasons they would like, less pushing of EVs more pushing of good public transportation.
… in the US.
Fuck you. I could barely afford a Honda Fit.
It’s the super wealthy that are being prosperous meanwhile the rest of us are getting fucked.
Meanwhile every EV on the market is sold as a luxury car and they can’t grok why the fuck nobody’s buying. Gee I fucking Wonder…
When I bought my Volt 10 years ago, I knew more about the car than any of the dealer sales people. I doubt the situation has changed much. That being said, I would hesitate to recommend an EV to a non technically inclined person, because the charging situation is still rough even in CA. Stations are often broken, or the billing doesn’t work, or they are in inconvenient areas. Gas is still the idiot proof option. We will know we’re really in the future when you can go to most grocery stores or strip mall and charge with tap to pay (no stupid app to pre-configure). There has to be 95% reliability. Right now I’d say about 1/5 of stations I visit have something wrong with them in terms of no internet connection for billing, slow charging, illegible UV-damaged screen, or just outright broken hardware. https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/nema-14-50-mobile-charger-lucid-air
Same situation, I have the bolt and volt cars and I drive about the same with the caveat that I coast more often to a stop and make full use of being plugged in at home for warming up or cooling down the car. Really, all you need to know about driving an ev or a hybrid. Everything else is just extra stuff to take care of and make better use of the dollar savings you get with an EV.
On the flipside, I know too many people who don’t care how hard they drive the accelerator and brakes that they would rather get a gas car because of how fast they consume and prioritize time spent fueling vs charging. Really, I save close to 2k/year more than those who drive semi efficiently, and about double that amount vs. the people who are economically irresponsible. Also, I meet a lot of tesla owners who do users using the tesla superchargers who are complaining about how garbage their battery life after 3 years of driving for Uber(20% of degradation). It makes sense why people don’t want to drive an EV. They just don’t want to slow their lives down. They want to constantly keep doing stuff and do it fast. It’s amazing how much instant gratification has made everyone’s lives worse. Even people like me who go slow have to deal with their BS.
ICE vehicles suffer from the same problems, we’re just accustomed to them and understand how to work around the issues.
I wouldn’t say gas stations have the same frequency of problems honestly. 19 times out of 20, my gas is dispensed without issue. And I’m able to buy it without joining a program or going out of my way. Electric charging is not yet that convenient, and it should be.
Standardization is the key.
Regulating that all petrol gas stations also have charging stations for electricity would be a step in the right direction. That way somebody will be on duty to deal with situations that you’ve mentioned above.
I believe in large the reason for all the malfunctions at charging stations is because they’re unmanned.
Fascinating, have they tried sucking less?
No.
I’m not buying an EV not because of lack of infrastructure or lack of interest, but because the product sucks.
I’m not buying a gas car either for the same product sucking reason, and an active desire to never purchase a gas car again.
You are very wrong. The product most definitely does not suck.
Petrol cars are unbelievably good right now even from bad manufacturers like Chrysler the reliability is through the roof.
Electric cars have come a long way they still have their hiccups but in general they function perfectly fine now. I most definitely will not recommend getting a Tesla from 2013 but something like a Chevy volt or a Volkswagen or a mustang EV are very very good cars.
Subscriptions to use any part of my car and even more tracking than my ICE car are part of the product, and that sucks. I beg to differ on me being wrong, on those two counts specifically.
No matter what the stability, reliability, and safety are, the two things I mentioned are each sufficient grounds to not buy pretty much any of the modern cars, EV or ICE.
What a weird outlook you have. I don’t even have a way to rebut it. You simultaneously agree and disagree with me. And at the same time still your only qualification that makes a car bad is the software which you personally do not like.
There are a myriad of cars out there that don’t have this kind of software built into it. There are even EVs that don’t have the software built into it.
I even agree with you I drive a Volkswagen id4 and the software in it is beyond horrific there have been times where I had to sit around poking around menus trying to figure out how to make my car actually run.
However, in my interpretation the benefits significantly outweigh the negatives of owning an electric vehicle not being tethered to gasoline is an extremely freeing experience. It is also significantly cheaper.
I feel like you just made something up so you don’t have to like EVs.
You said that reliability and all that is irrelevant, only the tracking and the software on the vehicles is why you don’t like them.
Your original comment said that modern cars suck or a crappy my rebuttle was that they are not they’re significantly more reliable than older cars even from crappy manufacturers.
What in your comments above has anything to do with that?
The world changes things become better and things become worse the fact that you don’t like it is completely irrelevant back in the 80s you could use a flathead screwdriver to start up a car you can’t do that anymore because of modern software and technology.
So circling back around you are wrong, modern cars are better than older ones. Aside from your personal preference of not liking how they make cars today with the technology that’s in them do you have anything to substantiate your claim?
Gotta push the EV infrastructure harder. No good pushing lots of EV cars when the infrastructure isn’t there to support them. Can’t charge at work. Can’t charge at your apartment complex. No charge at the shopping areas. Etc. Other than the high initial cost, I’d suggest that the inconvenience and irritation of trying to locate charging along with range limits is a major factor in people not wanting EV.
This is the #1 reason I won’t be able to get an EV any time soon. We live in a townhouse, and while the HOA gracefully ‘allows’ us to install chargers (because its illegal for them not to allow it), the way the rules are set up it’s practically impossible to actually install one.
For example, here’s our bylaws regarding EV chargers:
There are a number of things in there that are contradictory. You can install a L2 charger, but if you’re in a townhouse, you’re not allowed to wire it up using 240V. You also can’t place it on your house, because the cord wouldn’t be able to reach and that’s not allowed anyway, because it’d cross a sidewalk. Neat.
Exactly right. The next best step would be for businesses to install them for employees and customers, but that’s a big expense and maintenance problem.
I really don’t know what the answer is. I’m completely for EV, but the unpredictable ,or lack of availability, of charging is a big deal.
When GM killed the Bolt, I tried to buy one at two different dealerships near me. One wanted a $10k premium over MSRP and the other wanted $8k.
They also both had a non-negotiable “security” etching added and wheel protection whatever that I had to pay for.
It isn’t that I didn’t want one, it’s that your dealerships fucked it up.
Honestly, may have settled for MSRP, but they wouldn’t budge. Fuck off.
There’s a huge wave of anti ev propaganda coming out. Beware.
but anti-EV is kinda pro enviromental in this case, since we shouldn’t be pushing EVs on everyone, we should be pushing for an excellent public transportation network.
removed by mod
they are kind of in competition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1kOLhhSjl8
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-9hvqy-197d3609?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share
Henry Ford designed the Model T to be a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person. Volkswagon designed the Beetle to be a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person.
The first car company to design an EV that’s a bare-bones vehicle affordable for the everyday person will sell lots of them. Profit per car may be lower but perhaps we need to set the need for maximum profits aside on this particular issue?
My raises aren’t even CLOSE to keeping up with inflation. Rather hard to splurge on a fancy EV with tons of high-tech nice-to-have features that are just going to break anyway. All I need to do is to get from point A to point B and have AC, heat and a half-decent stereo system.
😡🤬 How dare you suggest we buy Chinese electric vehicles
He’d be rolling in his grave if he saw the clickwrap agreements they have to get in a modern car now. Can’t start the ignition without sharing your personal data with the car maker and 799 of its “partners.”
Tangentially related, there’s a supermarket chain in my country that requires you to hand over your personal details to even apply for a job. The rough wording is something like: ‘all your personal information in perpitutity but only internally and with people we do business with.’ Except since selling my personal info would be a business transaction that clause includes potentially every human being on the planet.
Henry Ford? I think he’d be more likely to be impressed and jealous. He made an affordable car because no one had thought of selling the ability to buy a car in addition to the car itself in his time.