Hyundai/Kia seems to be doing a great job with their electric cars, in terms of design, fast charging, etc.
But it appears they are only selling them in a few states, and in pretty small quantities. With dealer markup problems in some cases.
The Genesis version is the most appealing to me. I'd strongly consider buying it... except they are not offered where I live, in the middle of the country.
If they can increase quantities, it would be great to reach where Tesla has been for years: fill in a form on your phone anywhere in the US (and various other countries) and pick one up for the published price in after a (sometimes short, sometimes not so short) delay.
I have the old Ioniq model (2017-2019) and it has truly gone under the radar with many car/EV enthusiasts. The top of the line model has most features us in colder climates (heated steering wheel, seat warmers for the rear seats, even cooled seats for the summer) as well as nice tech features such as a pretty good lane assistant and CarPlay/Android Auto.
Charges from 20% to 80% in about 20 minutes at maximum speed (70kW) and can go 200km on a full battery.
It has to be the "best of the rest" when it comes to budget EVs and it definitely seems reliable due based on me browsing the used models online and seeing how the Ioniqs didn't have a lengthy list of fixes that are attributed to a make or model (kind of like the several problems that plague slightly older Model S).
The only thing missing from the old gen is a smartphone app connection to preheat (newer Ioniq has this, but has a slower fast charging speed).
For someone with a predictable driving pattern in Europe I can highly recommend it.
If the Ioniq 5 is as high quality as the old Ioniq, and the 6 builds upon that more, it should be an exciting model.
Why would you need to charge your car in 20 minutes at home? By far the most common home charging use case is to charge when you're home for the night, which is usually 10+ hours for most people.
The car has long enough range for daily commutes and errands, so home charging only needs to complete overnight. Fast charging is only necessary during long road trips. At least, that’s true for the vast majority of people. In the edge case where you drive two hundreds miles, come home, then start another long drive, you’d need to go to a rapid charger.
The use pattern is different. You leave it overnight on a standard socket and it will charge fully. Or leave it charging while going to work.
I don't have charging at home at all and charge at work which keeps me comfortably topped up. If I lack any charge on the weekends I just top up once in a fast charger for about 10 minutes. Fast chargers are probably now or very soon more common than gas stations around Southern Finland.
Most gas stations in Norway have or is in the process of getting charging stations. The only thing that sucks big time is the payment process. With gas you present your card and then fill your tank. Easy. With chargers you have to download an app, register an account, put in your payment details, find the charger in the app and then you can charge (if it works). And there’s tens of different charging companies, all with their own app. Infuriating.
I should have been clearer as people who know EVs intuitively know I meant fast charging. Home charging speeds vary quite a lot since the vehicle comes with a normal household plug charger as well as a dedicated EV charger cable for <22kW.
I've recently built house in the USA. Everything is electric. Standard service is 200A. I asked to double it just in case, but haven't exhausted first half yet. Electric company did not have any issues with it.
I also got 10kw gas generator that I can plug into house if there is blackout. It will power essentials like heating, fridge, hot water. And yet I still can roll it into my truck and take it with me on a road trip if needed. It is heavy and loud. But it was something like $1300 from Amazon delivered, so I am not complaining.
Many places in North America use electric for almost everything - heating, cooling, hot water. 240V 100A used to be common (24kW) but people would run up against that limit, so most new houses have been 200A for a while (48kW). I don't know where that person is that a 400A service is the most common, but I've never seen it outside of wasteful mcmansions (4000+ sqft with associated excessive heating and cooling requirements, hot tub, sauna, heated pool, every room gets a 20A breaker or two, etc.)
I installed 400a service on my 1100sqft home. I was getting solar installed, and my panel had to be updated anyway from an old fire-trap Zinsco. I asked the company how much more to do a 400a service and they said $500 more so I went for it planning on eventually being able to charge 2 EV’s at max amperage in the future.
Silicon Valley. However, my understanding is that max is quite simply that: max. I have no idea what you'd actually be able to pull during peak hours. Houses are also coming pretty much standard with electric car hookup stations in the garage, so that's part of it.
7kW sounds low to me, no one around goes under 10kW, with 12-15 being typical. That said I never heard about home connection over 30kW. Power company charges monthly for available power, so no one goes with huge 3phase connection just in case they might need it.
Spain here: everybody around me gets surprised when I say I have 6,5kW installed, they think is crazy high. A quick google search tells me our average is between 3,45kW and 4,6kW.
It might be easier for them to iterate/refine with a smaller initial market size. One would assume once they lock in the design, manufacturing, and sourcing that they'll go full tilt boogie in selling them.
AFAICT they're much more widely available in Europe. Hyundai has no trouble meeting US CAFE standards without electrics in the mix. OTOH in Europe they get to sell a couple more gas cars for every electric they sell.
Hyundai requires dealerships to completely re-certify to be an authorized EV repair shop and add Electrify America charging stations at dealership costs. This is all very expensive and many dealerships can't afford the upgrades or don't see a great ROI.
Distribution and price probably hinge on tarriffs and dealership negociations (which are influenced by price, as it directly dictates how much it will sell).
It’s Hundai’s job to deal with that as a seller in the US, but blaming them for being cold feeted when other markets are easier to deal with is a misgided IMO.
People get triggered when I say this but I’m holding out for something over 400 miles in range.
By the time you account for the range being exaggerated, then that you’re not supposed to charge to 100%, and then that you want to be able to drive fast on the highway, your available range is dropping fast.
My goal would be only making one charging stop a day on a road trip for going at least 600 miles.
But how often do you actually make a 600 mile trip? (and how often in a day? That's a good 10 hours of driving) Carrying around all that extra battery weight for your daily 20 mile round-trip commute doesn't seem very efficient (energy or moneywise). And if you did make a 600 mile trip in a day, well, you've gotta stop to eat, right? The car can be charging while you're eating.
The problem is people don't appreciate the new patterns you use with an EV.
I pay zero for my fueling because I do it at work or a local free level 2 charger where I'll drop it off then walk home and do other things for a few hours and come back. I'm in an apartment btw.
It's not the same as pulling up to a gas station but it's just about as easy, the cars handle better and it's a smoother ride.
You might have to be a little cheap to bother to logistically coordinate free charging, but when I drove a gas car I never got free fuel. It's pretty remarkable that it's an option.
Also they're way cheaper to maintain. I literally do not know where I'd even take my EV to get it repaired because its never happened. I'm on year 5 of EV driving btw.
People believing in FUD over EVs, I have given up on. Whatever, be wrong, it's fine. Also, I don't like Teslas. There's lots of great options on the market, Hyundai and Kia's lineup are fine choices. I'm considering an Ioniq 6 myself, probably mid-next year just to make sure there's no issues.
That. ICE drivers don’t mind driving 20 min to refill but for god sake 30m drinking a coffee is unthinkable. And apparently none of them has spotted that recharging points are everywhere.
The range expectations are also completely crazy - driving more than 2 hours without a break is just unsafe and advised against. I wonder when the GP even goes to the bathroom.
While I agree that EVs make sense in a lot of cases, I feel like you're min-maxing your values here to be as beneficial as possible to EVs.
Filling my (non economical, okay mileage) car takes ~5 minutes. I get ~300mi range from it. 30 minutes waiting for my car to charge up to 1/4-1/2 the mileage is a hard sell for some folks, depending on their workflow. I unfortunately can't run 240 at home, don't have ability to charge at work, and often find myself places that don't have many chargers in the area.
For many, EV totally works. But to say it's 20 vs 30 minutes is a little silly, IMO.
Not to mention that many people drive more than 2 hours without a break. I get that it's advised against, but I still want that ability in my car without being forced to stop.
> Filling my (non economical, okay mileage) car takes ~5 minutes. I get ~300mi range from it.
Your median wait to “fill up” an ev for many/most people is 0 minutes, because they do it at home.
> Not to mention that many people drive more than 2 hours without a break.
This is standard in teslas, it’s standard in the Ioniq 6, and it will be standard in most mass market EVs in the near future (there may be a niche market for local-only cars).
EVs are only an issue for two types of folks:
1. Folks who can’t charge at home/work, and don’t have a natural place to charge while they are doing something else. Imho, this is an infrastructure issue that will be solved.
2. Folks who frequently take long road trips in a cannonball run style. Even this will be solvable with advance in battery tech (rumors are that Tesla have this tech in hand). 500-600 mile ranges with reasonable battery weight will be a thing.
My ICE car right now costs $1100 in insurance. For me to insure an 2022 Acura NSX is $1500 a year to the same level.
A Bolt to be insured to the exact same level is $$4200 a year. A Tesla Model 3 would ring me $5700 a year. A Porsche Taycan is $7300 a year. None of these are as expensive as the NSX.
And the cost for me to install the additional circuits to the garage went up significantly since my last quote; it's now $2500 to run an additional circuit into the garage. I don't know what it would cost to upgrade the mains panel as well if it's needed (I have only a 100A) but I've heard it's averaging about $5000 or so.
So yeah... not exactly FUD at least from where I'm standing.
I pay $1200 a year to insure my Tesla Model S at the max liability coverage, with comprehensive and collision. Admittedly, I've filed that I drive a max of 6k miles a year and I have the highest deductible set on both comprehensive and collision, but I have strong doubts it'd quintuple in price to insure if I went and set those to more typical settings.
How old are you? I bought a model 3 performance when I was 27 and sold it a year ago. I was paying 285/month with Allstate (before Tesla started offering insurance). I drive my old ICE now and pay 108/month. Clean record.
From what I understand the older you are the less you pay.
Canadian dollars. I don't pretend to understand the reasoning, the insurers have their own logic. But anything with a battery (even PHEV's) seem to command a much higher premium; I was quoted $3400 a year last year for a RAV4 Prime.
The garage is detached one fed by a single 120V circuit buried in PVC conduit, and it is enough for everything in there at the moment. But if a car's charging at the same time say someone open's the garage door, it's going to trip the breaker.
So at least I'd have to pull a second circuit dedicated for charging. To do that, the old conduit needs to come out and be replaced with one that is up to code for handling either more then one circuit, or can handle a 240V circuit. The cost of digging the old one out and installing a new one is a very substantial portion of that quote.
Now granted this was a quote for a full 240V circuit with a subpanel; the quote last year was around $2000 ish. Inflation rate, increasing labor costs, and continuing supply chain issues caused the jump. I didn't get a chance to ask what the quote was for just a second 120V circuit though.
The mains upgrade cost is just what I've heard second hand from others upgrading their 100A service to 200A. I haven't gotten a quote for myself but it doesn't sound wrong to me. Just filing the paper work for the permit from the is a $160 fee. The permit itself IIRC is an additional $200 or $300. I suspect the electrician would have to get the utility involved as well to disconnect and upgrade the main lines coming from the street to the house to accommodate the increased possible amperage.
That's not entirely true. There are load calculations that get done to figure out if a new circuit can be added. If you're going to trip the main breaker while charging and cooking dinner at the same time, you'll probably need a service upgrade per electrical code
That's weird. I pay $350/yr in insurance. I hop insurance providers every couple years. That's a separate trick though. I had to go check since I round it down to 0 in my head.
My costs went down so substantially when I switched to electric they are for all intents and purposes, effectively 0
For me it's a substantial cost increase. My gas is only about $2000 a year and maintenance is roughly $200 a year. So roughly speaking I'd be paying $900 a year more to drive an EV then to drive an ICE. That's even before you start factoring in the higher upfront purchase price and the one time costs for upgrading the home.
>Sorry if you can't figure it out.
I'm honestly not sure if you're genuinely sorry if it's not working out for me, or if you're snarking.
Ok, so what? Why am I on the hook for single handidly solving the economics of global EV fueling in a tiny reply window, in this conversation, in order to defend my preference?
I haven't had to pay for fuel in half a decade. Theoretical abstractions and rhetorical slights of hand don't change that.
Right, so what? Some people own homes and I can't do what they do. Others live close to a supercharger and I can't do that.
Some work from home and there's no charger at the office and so they can't do what I do.
This is like if I said I charge my smartphone on my nightstand when I go to sleep and you say "aha, what about people without nightstands! Checkmate!"
A diversity of exacting detail doesn't make something infeasible. We still all say
eat meals or communicate with words despite vast differences in how these things look and operate among all of humanity
Again it's not my personal responsibility to itemize all theoretical dimensions here.
It's that you can't define one system in another's terms.
Someone who lives in say Tokyo would probably see private car ownership as incredibly expensive and inconvenient while someone living in rural Montana probably can't conceive of how to live their life using public transit.
An inability to imagine new ways is inherent to any system change. I'm sure people can adapt just like I'm sure someone from Montana can get used to using trains if they went to Tokyo.
I don't know all the patterns but I've got faith that people can modify their behaviors as required by at least this amount.
But I get it. You can't really see it until you do it and then it's obvious and easy.
I had a bunch of conversations after that with people at greenlots, chargepoint, evgo, blink, and flo about bringing sanity into things ... The industry is smaller than you think here and my impact is nonzero. Near zero, but certainly nonzero!
Where's that? I just got one, it took some work calling dealers for a few weeks, but you can't order them, you have to find the one you want on the lot. All dealers have their inventories on their website and Hyundai's site has a master search for all of them. The exact car I wanted showed up, the dealer had it, so I had to drive from NY to PA to pick it up. I hired a car transport to bring it to my house the next day. So it took me a little less than a month to get it. In the tri state area there's a good deal of ioniqs in stock.
I don't think you realize how scant charging is if you live in an urban area. No charger at most apartments, and your workplace might not even have parking. Amazon offices in Seattle are notorious for occupied chargers. "Then why have a car?" We like to drive out to the mountains on the weekend, frequently. So then we drive a lot on the weekend and barely get a chance to charge on a weekday. You might have to set aside several hours at a parking lot at a mall to charge it which quite a chore.
My Tacoma only has 380 mile range and I still get range anxiety sometimes with finding gas. RAV4 Prime with 600 mile range is the dream, but you can't buy them unless you pay $10k markup.
Driving a lot + urban (not suburban) living makes electric cars a tough sell.
The Cascades are well under 90 miles from Seattle. A complete trip to the Cascades and back can be done in well under 250 miles, and regen breaking will be your best friend on the way back home!
I'll grant that going to the Olympic national forest is 122 miles one way, so some range issues there for sure.
> AV4 Prime with 600 mile range is the dream,
Boise is 500 miles one way!
The entire point of living in Seattle is to that nature is insanely close by. (Sure as heck isn't for the friendly faces on the street or the affordable tasty food!)
> you can't buy [RAV4 Prime] unless you pay $10k markup
Quite frankly, many people can't buy a RAV4 Prime at any price regardless of markups due to availability. My local dealer just quoted me a wait time of up to 18 months for a non-pluggable RAV4 Hybrid because there are simply no chips to go around.
In the Bay Area, even in San Francisco it’s fine? There’s a bunch of fast chargers everywhere at Safeways and Whole Foods, most big companies have fast charging, and most old buildings with a garage have at least a 120v plug on your meter?
The basic idea is enough range for 2 4h segments on highways, going uphill into the cold mountains & and the heater on with a break in the middle for lunch and charging. The rating is 400 miles, but those 4 things will drop it a good chunk.
If you're doing a 600 mile road trip in the USA, it's already hard enough at times to find worthwhile places to eat without also limiting your choices to those with fast chargers nearby. Same for lodging if it's a really long trip.
This isn't an important use case for a lot of people, but's it's much more important to me than commuting :)
Lodging only requires a Level 2 charger (because you charge the car while you sleep) and many hotels have them. Most don't even charge you for the electricity, in my experience.
There are many more of these "destination chargers" in the US than fast DC chargers.
Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. Going to the grocery store a mile away involves more elevation changes than people living in Florida go through in a year. Seriously, tons of hills in every direction.
Driving around the city, my current compact ICE, 1.6L turbo, tiny hatchback, gets around 22 miles to the gallon.
My other car, ICE, subcompact, 2L engine, 140 horse power, barely hits 20 MPG.
For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.
> For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.
I thought your conclusion would be the opposite. Hills kill EV range.
I've had a few Fiat 500e EVs, with a flatland range of about 90 miles. But commuting here involves some good hills (~2000ft elevation change) so the true range was more like 40 miles. Which was just about barely enough to get to work. Good thing there was free charging at the office.
It sounds like your source is your personal experience? EVs are far better than ICEs at navigating hills, because the moment you can no longer coast and must apply friction braking (either through your brake pedal or engine gearing) you lose 100% of the energy going to friction. In comparison, EVs typically recover the majority of the breaking energy (mine recovers 70-80%). This is the same reason that both EVs and hybrids substantially outperform ICEs in city driving - lots of application of friction brakes.
In addition, EVs tend to have a better coefficient of drag, so if you were tempted to go higher speeds down a hill, you'll find EVs get substantially better efficiency than ICEs there too.
I'm struggling to think of a hill-traversing scenario that doesn't overwhelmingly favor EVs for efficiency both in theory and practice.
Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency? In which case, I would offer that a 90m range EV is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel. That kind of range is fairly niche nowadays, and I expect will eventually be largely phased out.
Maybe the Fiat 500e was particularly bad at regenerating, not sure. I haven't driven newer models on these hills.
With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side.
> is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel
This is local travel, it's just that the area is hilly so going anywhere is going to inevitably involve hills.
> Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency?
To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range.
> With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side.
Yeah, if you aren't riding the brakes, I agree with you that it sounds related to the Fiat. 35mi of range for 20mi of hills seems off.
> To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range
Sure, but efficiency is a factor in range. What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range (much less so than an ICE).
I don't know a lot about the Fiat, so perhaps something strange is going on with its regen breaking. For example, with its smaller battery capacity, it's likely to have a lower max regen limit. Perhaps you're driving in cold weather and it poorly regens under those conditions. It looks like the Fiat does blended braking, so perhaps your using more of the friction brakes than you expect. Etc.
> What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range
While I have not driven some of the most recent EVs and have no doubt they are better, the above statement surely contradicts physical reality.
It takes more energy to go up a hill than to drive on flat ground, so it is inevitable that a trip uphill will drain available range far faster than driving on flat ground.
> It takes more energy to go up a hill than to drive on flat ground, so it is inevitable that a trip uphill will drain available range far faster than driving on flat ground.
Yes, but real world trips that involve hills tend to be somewhat balanced (round trips rather necessarily so) and it takes less energy to go down a hill than to drive on flat ground (and, while some of that advantage is wasted by excess speed from gravitational acceleration, regenerative braking can get a lot of that back, too.) So, the range impact on a trip with an uphill component will often not be substantive if you have enough energy to handle the uphill portion itself, if you have a car and driving pattern that uses things like regenerative braking efficiently.
> So, the range impact on a trip with an uphill component will often not be substantive
All I can say is that didn't match my experience as an EV owner (leaser) at all.
At 100% battery, indicated range was 90 miles and on level ground that estimate was just about right.
But on the commute over a hill, 30 miles, I'd arrive at work with only ~10 miles left. So it used up 80 miles of indicated range to travel only 30 miles! Due to the uphill portion. Recovery on the downhill is minimal as mentioned in earlier post, just a couple miles of indicated range.
This is my experience, but the point is that in a gas car you'd get even worse milage because it would be working hard going up just like the EV but it wouldn't regenerate anything.
Indeed, very true. But on ICE cars I don't worry about that because the range is 300-450 miles (instead of 90 miles) and recharging takes 5 minutes (instead of 5 hours).
I'm sorry to hear your experience wasn't great. It sounds like we're at a bit of an impasse, because our personal experiences vary. If you'd like a demonstration in my vehicle, let me know.
This car covers 99.99% of your current car usage. If you want that extra .01% (driving all day without stopping), you can rent a polluting vehicle in 5 mins on your phone.
If it’s actually 99.99%, then sure. That’s an hour per year. If you’re only going to do a 24-hour road trip once every 24 years then of course renting is probably the best option.
People in areas like I grew up in often drive >100mi in a day since the nearest WalMart and decent chain restaurants are >30mi away. Major cities are 150mi away. My parents are currently driving around 250mi every single week day to get medical treatments in the city and will need to for the next few weeks. A hotel would save them that drive time, but driving is cheaper than that, so that's what they do. They wouldn't "charge while they stop to eat" because restaurants are much more expensive than their brown bag lunch they took.
80% of the US lives in urbanized areas and a good chunk of the remaining 20% live in relatively close proximity to urbanized areas. Rural areas in the east and Great Lakes are mostly not far from metros.
People like your parents are edge cases, although even their daily medical trip is just about feasible with an EV today. The number of people living in very rural West Texas or southwest are relatively small (and the mountain west is rapidly urbanizing unfortunately).
EVs don't have to meet every use case just like an ICE diesel pickup truck or a steel crusier bicycle wouldn't fit everyone's transportation needs today.
But they definitely can already meet the majority of Americans driving patterns today.
I live in South TX, I'd have to drive 600 miles just to get out of the state. Even if I did it once a year, I'd rather not pay several hundred dollars for a rental.
> People get triggered when I say this but I’m holding out for something over 400 miles in range.
I have almost the opposite desire! I want something that is maybe 100-200km range at a much lower price point. If I could buy something like an electric Mazda 3 with that sort of range at anything like the price point of the ICE version I'd buy one tomorrow. It would suffice for 99% of my driven distance, easily.
I think this car will sell for over $70k here in Australia, from a quick websearch. This pushes it straight into luxury car [tax] territory; I am not a car person & have no interest in dropping that much on a car.
I'm from AUS too, have you considered importing a smaller EV directly from Japan? It's a pretty easy process, and the options are starting to get really great and most are sub 40k AUD. The new Leaf looks really great, they've dropped the "Bubbly EV" aesthetic and it just looks like a regular hatchback now.
Then click "See prices", they're importing for around 30k AUD (which includes all shipping costs and compliance).
For me I still need a bit of extra range for inter-city trips (for those playing at home, that's thousands of KMs per trip), so I am looking at a Nissan Note Nismo, which is a series hybrid (electric drivetrain with a tiny petrol generator).
The main problem with the Leaf these days is that it's CHAdeMO whereas Australia has moved to CCS Type 2 Combo. Most fast chargers still have CHAdeMO plugs, but you'd be better off with a CCS car.
If you know for sure that you'll only be doing city driving and you won't need fast charging then it doesn't matter as much.
$9000 is a couple of years of fuel for a lot of people. Other incentives (cheaper rego, no FBT, etc) may apply to you depending on your position/state.
You're also likely to spend significantly less in maintenance due to simpler systems with less wearable parts.
> They're stupid inflated right now. Pre pandemic, they were selling for ~7500 used in the US.
Some stats indicate that second hand car prices are plummeting at the moment now that supply chains are normalising. I suspect this won't extend to electric cars which kind of have their own supply-side problems though!
Take a look at the older Ioniq (28kW and 38kW models).
They look like "normal" cars (since the same body was used for their PHEV version) and aren't that expensive.
The one with the smaller battery can do ~150-200km reliably, but charges really fast. The bigger battery one does an easy 250km in the summer, but has a hobbled charging speed.
I think so too, but Mazda MX-30 EV (matches the category, but not very cheap) was heavily bashed by who want longer range EV. People should understand that long range isn't required for every EVs.
In Australia you can get a 2012 Leaf for about 20k; typically about 100km range at that age. A 2017 Leaf is closer to 30k and is a nicer drive with more like 150km range.
Do they sell the Mini Electric there? US pricing is 34K which is about 50K AUS. Range wise it's 185km. I have a friend here in the US with one and she loves it.
Some plug-in hybrids seem to fit into that range bracket, and because they have a smaller battery than a fully electric car are at a lower price point.
Consider: your car can charge at some maximum rate. Let’s call it 200kw. That means you can add so many miles of range per minute of charging. Is it really that important whether that charging occurs during one thirty-minute stop or two fifteen-minute stops?
When you make the battery really big, you increase the weight of the car. The number of miles of range per kWh goes down.
Actually, it’s not optimal to use the entire range between each stop, because the battery car charge faster between (very roughly) 20% and 80%.
The most important thing is to have a lot of charging stations in spots that you can very quickly access from the highway. Then you can stop when optimal and minimize the amount of wasted time (your car’s navigation should tell you when).
At some point, putting even more batteries in the car will not get you there faster. Barring some big breakthrough in battery tech (or swaps), gas cars will have the advantage in miles per minute added during fueling.
There are cars with 400 mile range, but think hard about whether that is really what you want. It’ll cost you more to buy and charge, and the utility you get may not be worth it.
One of the real-world problems right now is that there are lots of places where it's not easy, practical, convenient, fun or even possible to charge. We have had an EV for four years and there are some trips where you end up standing at some boring industrial area because you can't make it to a better charger (one with for example decent food, or a playground). Or you have two choices: stop here now, queueing for 30 minutes because 4 out of 8 chargers are offline, or drive a bit further on fumes to get where you would really want to charge but, because there is only a single charger at that place, be prepared to call the towing company because if that charger is broken then you're not getting anywhere else today.
And while you're making those calculations in your head, carefully weighing each % of remaining charge against factors such as wind, rain and speed, you drive past tens of not hundreds of dino-soup stations that you cannot stop at because they don't have a power outlet you can plug into.
> Barring some big breakthrough in battery tech (or swaps)
Nio's cars can swap 100 kWh packs in 6 minutes. The swap station charges the packs to 90% so the swap is equivalent to charging the car at 900 kW for 6 minutes:
For swaps, the tech exists, and manufacturers just need to make it happen. I read a convincing article claiming that Tesla spiked the ball on their swap system because it was just a compliance program.
The problem of swapping is that it makes no sense at scale: you need to stock enough charged batteries at swap stations that you can do the swaps, with the equipment.
And batteries are not interchangeable, because they’re structural and to maximise packing. So you need to stock batteries for every car brand if not model at every station. And in the right capacities do you don’t downgrade users (or upgrade them).
Battery swaps make sense on scooters because the cell packing is a lot less critical, so you can have a standard which is resilient and easy to manipulate and eat the loss of cell volume. The same might happen with trucks. If manufacturers can settle on standards in order to maintain travel rates.
> The problem of swapping is that it makes no sense at scale
They only have to scale to the number of cars that want to swap at a given point in time at a given location. EVs with swappable packs can also charge as normal. It's not exclusively swapping or charging, it's both swapping and charging.
> And batteries are not interchangeable, because they’re structural and to maximise packing.
I don't doubt that this is what you prefer, but for the foreseeable future it's going to be a heavy and expensive car. You'll be paying a pretty high price to save about 20 minutes on a 10-hour trip.
Currently leading solutions for fast road trips are rapid charging or battery swaps, but you will have to stop a couple of times.
The Lucid Air meets and the Mercedes EQS very nearly meets your 400 mile benchmark. The BMW iX xDrive50 did 345 miles, so a 600 mile trip could be done with only one charging stop with enough buffer to find a charger.
Due to the nature of EV charge curves it can be faster to stop multiple times and charge from a low state of charge to a maximum of 80%. The remaining 20% will charge slower to protect the battery pack.
The ideal would be a battery pack capable of a high and flat charge curve. A 100 kWh pack that could sustain 500 kW for the whole curve would charge 0-100% in 12 minutes. Still not as fast as fueling, but 12 minutes for a full charge would be very practical.
EPA highway range test is done at average speed 48.3 mph. It should be 70 mph like Inside EVs or 75 mph like Car And Driver or clearly advertised as EPA highway range at 48 mph.
The reason people will say that sounds unreasonable is the fact that the vast majority of people will probably be discomforted more by having to drive almost 1000 km with only one stop compared to having to stop two or three times to take bathroom breaks or eat. Not to even mention the fact that it is not safe for you or others to drive that long just one break.
Do HN readers even grasp the fact that most people in the world don't have a bunch of Tesla chargers on their highways? That you're writing your comments on the global internet?
That some people drive into nature where there is no electricity whatsoever?
Sure. A person regularly going off-grid and that doesn't have an effective charging network in their country or continent are probably not thinking of EVs.
I did SF to LA on one recharge with my Model Y. Wasn't very pleasant (physically painful) and I was following faster cars to get in their wind shadow. It works. I was going as fast as the fastest cars this way. Add hills though and it wouldn't work.
I wouldn't hold out if I were you. 400 miles range will eventually come but what's the point in waiting? EV cars are more pleasant to drive than ICE ones, full stop. Don't hold up, just upgrade to the 400 miles one when it comes out.
I’m actually the opposite but thought I’d reply to your comment since they’re opposing ends of needs.
I have a Spark EV that did 130 miles new, now ~100 highway miles after 6 years.
The warranty on the battery lasts another two years and they don’t make that battery anymore anyway. Replacement car would be a $27K Chevy Bolt, which is much longer range and way more expensive than I need.
I’d love to see a standard battery back that was around 100 miles range that cars would use 1-4 of them to achieve whatever range is desired.
Not to mention a standard form factor that would be available for 2-3 decades to prevent a car like my Spark EV with just 50K km from becoming landfill in a few years.
Your spark is "headed for the landfill" because it was a compliance car that was wildly unpopular, selling in very low numbers, and was plagued with problems. Even still, GM went to the effort to completely re-engineer the battery from using A123 cells to LG cells...and only just this year announced they were discontinuing availability for replacement batteries.
Someone will provide aftermarket battery servicing, if the market is big enough (it isn't, most likely. Protip: don't buy compliance cars for long term ownership...)
Nothing stops you from buying a used Bolt (or used EV from Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, VW, etc).
GM extended the battery warranties on Bolts that were recalled by something like 8-10 years.
And given GM probably sells more Bolts in a month than the entire production run of Sparks and has for years now, there's almost certainly going to be a large aftermarket scene for battery repair, just as there is for Priuses.)
That's really too bad. I loved my spark, and was hoping to get a used one as an around-town car for my kid. It was the smallest 4-door car on the market, could fit into any parking space, and really was a wonderful car for neighborhood and nearby-neighborhood driving. I still miss mine.
I never had any problems with it, and returned it at the end of it's lease because I had started a family, and needed a bigger car. I still get letters from lemon-law firms asking if I need help with a car I haven't had for years.
Charging to max range is only bad for certain chemistry. Teslas coming out of China with LFP packs say they can be charged to 100pct without issue, while the other models still recommend avoiding charging to 100pct unless you are doing road trips
I don’t know all your circumstances, but I have found good charging options matters significantly more than extra capacity. 300 mile range is enough to go 150 miles out into the woods and back, which is a good distance. A midway charge at, say, an RV park along the way brings you up to 300 out and 300 back.
Further, when traveling along the freeway, a large battery just gets you a little further off the initial charge. It’s really your charging speed that sets your trip time.
I will still shell out for high range models, because I do stretch things, but I shop the charge network more than I do the range.
edit: everything I said below is moot, as BMW's iX offers 600 mile range! I presume parent commenter will be promptly purchasing one, as the only thing stopping them from going EV was the inability to buy a 600 mile range EV /s
I think the reason people "get triggered" is because you're throwing around a lot of claims about EVs that at best are not any different from mileage/range numbers in ICE vehicles and at worst are not true...not just because you want over 400 miles of range. I mean, dude: Tesla drivers aren't speed demons but they're no hypermiling prius drivers. Every time I see one, it's being driven unremarkably - ie just like everyone else.
Also, there's such a thing as buying based off the vehicle you need +99% of the time, and renting for the 1%. I know someone who owns an SUV that doesn't get great gas mileage, and they rent a more fuel-efficient sedan for when they have to drive on a long business trip, saving miles on their own car and also making the writeoff really easy.
>My goal would be only making one charging stop a day on a road trip for going at least 600 miles.
Averaging 70mph (which is generous given traffic and probably having some travel on slower secondary roads) that's 8.5 hours. That's a lot of driving for just one stop. My car warns me around 2 hours in that I should take a break, for example. Around the three hour mark, I'm usually ready for a leg-stretch, bathroom break, and giving my brain a bit of a rest.
Given humans generally like 2-3 meals a day, maybe, just maybe, "I wanna drive for 8-9 hours with one stop and until I can do that in an EV, I'm not buying one" is just a tad on the side of excuse-making?
An Ioniq 5 (and most other 800v architecture cars) will recharge 80% of its range in under 20 minutes on a 250kw charger (which are spreading pretty rapidly, even in the US)...that's not a lot more than what "everyone hit the bathroom, grab some food/drink, stretch your legs, and meet back at the car" takes.
Given most EVs these days come with lots of trip planning and there are numerous websites to help with it as well - allowing you to specify you want to stop at chargers near certain amenities, for example - I really don't get the concern.
People seriously need to get over this range anxiety stuff.
This analysis is highly dependent on where you live and where you drive. I live in the Southeastern US, and there are routes between my large city and popular vacation areas where fast chargers are not present yet. So it's less a matter of not wanting to stop as much as it is there's few/no chargers between here and there. I would imagine other parts of the world are in a similar part of the deployment curve. Even Tesla only relatively recently opened a supercharger on the interstate in that region; we are still early in the cycle.
(Also, it is not smart to put family in a vehicle and drive with only a single charging option for hundreds of miles around the area where you will exhaust your battery. What do you do if that charger is closed/out of service?)
I hear your push-back, but there are valid reasons to be concerned about using a technology that is still in the "deploying" phase. Everyone will adopt when it is comfortable to them.
> Also, there's such a thing as buying based off the vehicle you need +99% of the time, and renting for the 1%.
Yeah that's a complete non-starter for the average person.
People just don't care about EV any more they care about diesel vs mid-grade vs premium. What they do care about is not having to have a second car for the couple-times-a-year use cases, especially since the first car tends to be one of the biggest purchases they've ever made.
>" is just a tad on the side of excuse-making?
If the product is inconvenient, the only customers you'll get are fanboys. You're just not gonna get adoption without feature parity.
Honestly, it sounds like you want a plug-in-hybrid, unless you're only doing long trips. I looked at getting one with about a 35 mile range, which would cover >90% of my days driving, but I found it too expensive (because 2021 and because I prefer older used cars.)
It's the internet, if you breathe, someone somewhere will find that offensive.
That being said, inevitably someone will start with a question of, "Why do you NEED 1500 miles of range?", point out that most people commute less then that and state that you can rent an ICE for when you need it, and proclaim that's all you really need.
Edit: And there you go, someone's already chimed in with the question.
“Triggered” also sometimes seems to mean “disagreed with me”. I try not to use it, as it raises the temperature without contributing anything to the conversation.
The E-GMP platform shared by this car, as well as Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 is great.
The 800V battery can charge really quickly, making these cars viable for road trips. In summer temperatures they really need only 18 minutes to recharge for 2-3 hours of driving, and the 300kW charging networks already exist across western Europe.
Expect these teardrop Porsche 911-esque designs with long slopes on the back to become more common in EVs since they minimize drag to help maximize range.
For even more extreme examples see the Aptera or the Light-Year.
Those drop too quickly, the air separates near the top. It doesn't buy you anything. Compare to the first Honda Insight; that's about as perfectly aero as a practical car can be.
But I don't see that being a priority. They're selling well as-is.
I hope the Aptera gets made. Being able to charge with 110v and get a decent amount of range overnight seems like a good thing, especially or renters who may not have access to a quick charger where they live.
I got 50 to 60 miles of drivable range overnight on Level 1 last winter. Adding 12 kWh overnight can get you from Seattle to Everett and back, or to Kent and back.
Just make sure to drive an efficient vehicle, a Mercedes or Hummer EV ain't gonna do much with 12kWh.
And if you hire an electrician to upgrade the outlet to 20 amps you can add another 1-2mph. This can be trivially easy or somewhat complicated, depending on what kind of wire is supplying the outlet. But even in the latter case it's usually less work than installing a Level 2 (240v) charger.
Cars are usually at home for quite a bit longer than 8 hours and since can charge close to 4 miles an hour. The small difference is important, since average mileage is about 30 miles a day. If you average charge more than you average drive you'll probably use fast chargers less often than you'd use a gas station.
Nope, 120V/15A. We get about 5 miles per hour, and the car is generally parked for ~14 hours, so about 70 miles of charge per night. Our car uses about 240 Wh/mi, and a standard US outlet can safely deliver maybe 1400 Wh per hour, so it pencils out.
This is interesting because in European 230V sockets a 2kW power is safe and well under rated maximum of ~3kW. So if you park your car at around 7pm and leave at 7am you get 24kWh charge from a simple standard socket. It could deliver another 12kWh, if you have a charger that can be configured to go higher and you know you won't overheat any cables or connections along the way.
Some houses have the red plug, a three phase plug which can do 11kW continuous, around 7kW sustained and very safe.
Yep, high voltage can be useful heh. The US has 240V sockets for things like dryers and ovens, they're just not as abundant. Prospective EV owners here seem to fret about not having one in the garage, but it's not necessary.
These cars from Hyundai/Kia/Genesis are super cool, but there’s a catch. One must wait years to get them. Kia EV6 in average 15 months in Germany. This corporation wasn’t ready for success. On the long run this will heavily damage image of the brand. Looks like they prioritize Genesis car s delivery, so grab GV60 if possible.
For anyone wondering about the practicalities of an EV: cost trade-offs, home charging, and more, this entertaining video goes into extreme depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyp_X3mwE1w
This makes me even more pissed about the EV tax credit changes (only US-made vehicles count). Still don’t understand how it was legal for that to become effective immediately in mid-August.
I'm glad to not have my tax dollars subsidizing import car sales personally, so fine by me to limit that EV tax credit to domestic vehicles.
However, I would have preferred the fed not bailout big auto (or banks, or what's the latest socialized losses situation... Intel?). Either let it burn down when they fail or nationalize them and where's our national dividend?
Given how much “domestic” auto manufacturers produce abroad, does it really matter at this point? I am generally in favor of industrial policy and I understand why the sourcing rule was included, but this effective immediately rule is absurd. And if the real goal is to replace more ICE cars with EVs, further limiting the already extremely limited inventory that qualifies for the credit seems very counterproductive.
Someone really should analyze how much Norwegian, British, and EU tax payers funded Tesla in the past 10 years. I think a significant amount of their sales was subsidized by us.
I am sure it is against the wto rules; hopefully diplomatic efforts by Europe and others will have it stopped before implementation otherwise we will likely enter another unconstructive trade war.
It already is having a big impact. Even in California they cannot find any qualifying (under the new rules) inventory available by year end, which means those people who need a new car and were counting on offsetting their federal tax burden from this year are screwed. I’m actually a fan of industrial policy (check out the book Bad Samaritans), and would generally tell the WTO to stuff it, but this was designed extremely poorly.
I have to say that in the current economic climate EVs win against petrol vehicles so esaily when it comes to running costs that the tax credit is not needed in countries with a healthy amount of resale EV market. Discounts for city toll traffic due to no emissions should still stay in place to help protect air quality but running a reliable budget EV is definitely a winning strategy.
>in the current economic climate EVs win against petrol vehicles so esaily when it comes to running costs that the tax credit is not needed
It doesn't really, if you're interested in keeping car costs low.
I bought a compact car new in 2014, and an estimate that significantly overestimates gas costs would put my total fuel expenditures at $7000. Throw in another $400 for oil changes. As I look at EV purchase prices (comparing a Honda Civic to anything other than a Leaf), the disparity is significantly greater than that even discounting any energy costs for EVs and neglecting NPV of the extra money tied up in the vehicle.
Well yes by definition if your car costs are already minimal and you live in a country where petrol prices are not high then an EV makes less sense. In Northern Europe the petrol prices are, to use American measurements, around $7-9 per gallon.
Although they've improved from their early days, Hyundai/Kia have never been one of the brands with a reputation for long term reliability, like Toyota and Honda. Any reason to believe they'll do better with their electric models?
And Hyundai/Kia like ruining their reputation by skimping in costs in ridiculous ways, like deciding to leave out basic hot wiring prevention that’s universally standard on cars these days. The result, TikTok videos demoing how to steal the cars for “lolz” and a rash of Hyundai/kia thefts.
Edit: although to be fair Tesla has a terrible reputation for weird part substitutions
I'm impressed with the risks Hyundai has been taking with their design language, especially on the EVs. This car is striking. Love it or hate it, boring it's not.
The Hyundai N Vision 74 really speaks to me. It is apparently inspired by a 1074 Hyundai prototype. I will be very surprised if it doesn't make it into some sci-fi movie soon. Here's a Top Gear video on it.
Maybe more than a decade ago, but recently? That Sony is just a recent concept, and Hyundai and Kia have released EV concepts themselves for years. I'm not sure about Hyundai, but Kia's design center is in Germany.
(1) The front end of the current Kia Carnival looks like a last-model Jeep Grand Cherokee.
(2) Last generation Kia Forte sedan was a essentially a last-gen Honda Civic.
(3) Current generation Kia Rio has the rear end of the Mk VI Golf.
(4) Current generation Kia Sorento has a rear-end similar to the Ford Mach E (specifically the tail lights).
None of these examples are enough to say Hyundai Motor Company is lifting their designs from other manufacturers, but the fact that there is a consistent pattern of design overlap is telling.
Looks like an Audi. Perhaps a bit of Porsche in there (i.e. more Audi). Makes sense when you consider the Audi people they hired.
I certainly agree with the sentiment that it is an improvement though. And that modern high-volume passengers cars (with some exceptions, like muscle cars) have in the past been so ugly.
> I'm impressed with the risks Hyundai has been taking with their design language, especially on the EVs. This car is striking. Love it or hate it, boring it's not.
Sure, in the sense that ripping off the Porsche Cayenne is risky at being sued for IP theft; it's sad but as it turns out the EV automotive design is about as stale as ICE is. That Dolorean Prototype Hyundai have been playing with was very reminiscent and likely borrowing off the polarizing hype of the Cybertruck--and since both are prototypes they don't need to do much other than the one off for PR reasons.
I disagree, Hyundai is doing what the Japanese started to do in the late 60's, that is apply their Industry know-how to European and American counterparts auto design, because quite frankly if you buy a Hyundai or a Kia it's quite likely it's for the cost and newly found reliability rather than the aesthetic aspect of the car.
This isn't to put down Hyundai, they were late enough to the automotive game that platform sharing was a thing and could pivot to EV in earnest; but the truth is that automotive design is simply a dead art and there is very little to no innovation going on, it's just rehashes of everything else.
I suspect if we fed any of these image based AIs all the cars and prototypes we've ever had we'd come up with something rather more unique than what we have now, the sad thing is because of standardization they would remain prototypes because of the costs and labour to get something like that to mass production.
Toyota is the best example of this, in that they are very visually boring cars but have optimized for QC and reliability to such an extent that you don't mind that much for what you get.
Personally speaking, I'm looking forward to the Hot-rod era re-birth when they will start to sell low cost EV swaps for old cars with minor fabrication kits: like how you can drop LSX into most chassis now. Because seeing a resto-mod 1940s Buick or Cadillac with a Model S Plaid power train seems way cooler than anything the OEMs will come out anymore.
Test drove the car during winter and they really did not design it for winter.
- Appalling charging speed (I believe they fixed this).
- Rear window gets covered with asphalt/dirt from studded tyre drivers.
- The car handles poorly in slippery road conditions, I got very poor traction cornering and accelerating in conditions that very not that bad.
- It is too wide, couldn't fit it in my friends parking space when visiting and also found it too wide for some narrow streets for driving it comfortably
I test drove an ioniq 5. Nice to drive. The console display is a bit naff in that important parts (speed) is hidden by the steering wheel and I had to adjust the wheel. The salesperson thought you could move the speed but couldn't figure it out.
However, my daughter said the middle back seat where she usually sits was uncomfortable. I tested a Kia ev6 too and she thought that was comfy and it drives slightly nicer as I guess it's lower to the ground.
Not an EV, but my 2021 Hyundai Elantra gets around 52mpg on the highway, though it's rated at "Up to 33 city / 43 highway" I've had an overall average of 46mpg with mixed city/highway driving.
I've liked Hyundai's I've owned in the past for this exact reason. But in case people get a little high on the Hyundai hype in this thread... every Hyundai model before 2019, iirc, is extremely easy to steal. If you live in an auto theft-prone metro area like I used to, I would avoid those cars. Kia as well.
IIRC it's so easy that a method of stealing a Hyundai using only a male USB port surfaced on TikTok a few weeks back. But it's been a huge problem in a few major US cities for the past 2+ years.
Perhaps there is an up-side to Hyundai's general lack of attention to basic security practices: Apparently it's just as easy to hack the onboard infotainment system. Someone recently published a procedure that allows owners to install a customized Linux ROM using the normal firmware update procedure. Hyundai literally used a default and well known signing key to authenticate their software updates so it's almost trivially easy to circumvent. The details were discussed previously on hacker news, I don't have the link handy but I believe it is possible to (easily) take control of the infotainment screen as well as CANBUS-accessible systems, including the door locks and very likely access all of the telemetry data destined for the dashboard instrument displays. There are probably even more possibilities that I haven't mentioned. I really wish I had more free time to hack on it because I think it would be really fun and interesting.
I believe this applies to 2020 and 2021 models as well. According to NPR[1] Hyundai/Kia only decided to finally install engine immobilizers part way through the 2021 model year.
The Bolt is one of the cars available through the carshare system in my city, and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked it. The combination of absurd torque and econobox look and feel was just fun.
I probably would have bought one if I didn’t have to street park somewhere where subzero temperatures (°F) aren’t uncommon. Ended up getting a low(er) mileage Ford Fusion Hybrid instead.
I've been driving a Bolt as our only car in a family of 4 (2 children) for a couple years and it's fine. Small, but gets the job done. We don't road trip at all since our vacations mean going back to the home country, so I understand it's not for everybody, but also it's totally a fine car. A joy to drive too.
Why? Risky in a regulatory sense, or in a safety sense? With so much other electronics in a modern car, I can't see it being particularly more risky than having a computer running the engine etc.
Also, the article does say, that, being not approved for US, the revised C.D. is higher than the original (being without mirrors).
The screen/infotainment system seems to be held to a lower standard of quality than the embedded electronics that control your engine/steering/other safety critical systems, maybe because before you put that visual on the screen, it's not yet safety-critical. I've definitely had backup/side video feeds freeze/stutter in cars before, really don't want that when changing lanes on a highway.
I would imagine (hope?) that they'd treat side-mirror-replacement-cameras as a safety critical system. I guess the valid metric would be a comparison of chance of the side mirror camera system failing vs chance of your side mirror being knocked off by a passing car (or the auto-retraction motors activating unexpectedly)
Screens don't provide stereo image nor focus distance the mirrors do, neither the displayed zone changes in response to moving your head.
Afair, reviews of Audi's e-tron's screen mirror were mostly negative and mentioned that it took time to adjust from looking at road to looking at sidemirror screens and back and that you couldn't look "around the corner" with them.
-- funny you're getting down voted we say this all the time here in Korea - we even copied the Japanese strawberry - but we make everything way better - so who cares --
I really want this car but I live in a full size SUV or F150 and above dominated area. Kind of need to be on guard. Plus charging is still too rare to just go and not worry about accommodating.
This doesn't feel like a complete assessment of the risk. Truck rollover risk is higher. Additionally, your risk of having a tragic collision with a pedestrian, which you would need to live with, is significantly higher.
oh, but regulation is bad, and annual car inspections are oppressive ... Afaik US is the only civilized country on this planed without legit technical car inspections.
Which state is that? the only one that tries (CA)?
Oklahoma - "inspector" doesnt even come out outside to look at the car he is certifying title change from _salvage to rebuild_, multiple times for a dude doing copart salvage flips selling dangerous wrecks to people (YT "Auto Auction Rebuilds", dude is shady af).
Florida - Taylor Ray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5wt8FpNy10 "LS Miata ABANDONED NEIGHBORHOOD TESTING!" LS powered full racecar straight piped miata, has title, inspection was going in and getting a stamp.
Oklahoma - no inspection at all, straight piped work trucks with rusted out frames are the norm.
Kansas - Hoovies Garage https://youtu.be/ZlwjXhdNd3Y?t=433 "Why buying an old Shelby GT350 race car WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA" Full leaking fuel racecar with no speedo lights windows, inspector doesnt bother to even see it in person.
Utah - M539 Restorations https://youtu.be/_a9rCI2zfPM?t=524 "Buying & Fixing Broken BMW E46 M3 5200 Miles Away From Home - Project Salt Lake: Part 1" tire shop "inspection station", only interested in plugging in OBD to do emissions, doesnt bother to come out look at the car, car so broken (wobbly wheel, etc) it cant pass emissions, gets temp tag anyway
tldr: brakes, tires, suspension, steering, corrosion, glass, wipers, emissions, lights (not only the mere presence, but full headlamp pattern test and certification, US symmetric lights are not legal), horn, number matching, millage gets logged. All standardized and going into same database. In Germany they go overboard requiring TUV certified everything nonstandard on the car, things like custom bodykits, non oem rims, bullbar, towing hitch need TUV.
The person you were replying to was making a statement about the toll killing another human being would place on one's psyche, not about their legal exposure.
Unfortunately I feel similarly, especially with a small child. SF has essentially stopped enforcing traffic violations, drivers are getting reckless, and a RAV4 is the smallest vehicle that feels safe to me.
The regulators are heavily funded by the auto industry, creates an environment where they don't want to upset the hand that feeds them.
I absolutely agree the "cars" have become too big, as well as too heavy. This has flow on effects on stopping distances, the force when there is a crash, road damage, parking spots and lanes needing to get bigger and so on
Exactly. I've had people try to enter my lane on the highway in my RAV4 Prime! Technically it can happen with any vehicle, but aging demographics sure don't breed confidence.
> I really want this car but I live in a full size SUV or F150 and above dominated area. Kind of need to be on guard.
This feels like a weird reason to not want a small car. Consider that a lot of highways are dominated by semis, but nobody suggests buying a semi to commute in.
I find it intriguing you call this a small car. Seems like it would be a medium sized car in my part of the world. Minis and Suzuki swifts and the like would considered small cars.
It's a full size car. I'm seeing 5.7-6.3" ground clearance, too, and they can be fitted with 20" wheels which may be the reason for the 6.3" or maybe it goes higher?.
I really do like this car. I just wish I didn't live in fear of being side swiped or rear ended by massive trucks/SUVs. Benefits of living in a rural area with lots of retirees.
Notably we also can get snow that shuts the place down in May/September.
If/when you do buy an EV, check the low temperature battery life.
My EV has a heat pump, but still looses a ton of range under 0F-32F or so (which doesn't matter at all around here). This varies widely from brand to brand.
On the other hand, the traction control is eerily good thanks to the computer controlled throttle and instantaneous response from the motor (it is RWD, not 4WD, and performs close our 4WD RAM on mud that is difficult to walk through)
Semi drivers are also more careful & qualified IMO. Put an 18-30 y/o behind a huge SUV, talking on the phone while driving, and it's a little different situation.
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes."
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."
It's different for sure. I wouldn't say it's any uglier than a Tesla though and it looks like it has a few extra tactile buttons inside with is a plus.
Tastes differ. I am way more excited about ioniq 6 design than I am about pretty much any new car released over the past few years, with the exception of the recent Nissan Z redesign.
I have sat and road in a NIO, and it is far and away better than a Tesla. However, I do think most any brand will struggle to keep up with Hyundai and Kia. They are going to be dropping EV models left and right over the next few years, and their early models are already seeing success.
But it appears they are only selling them in a few states, and in pretty small quantities. With dealer markup problems in some cases.
The Genesis version is the most appealing to me. I'd strongly consider buying it... except they are not offered where I live, in the middle of the country.
If they can increase quantities, it would be great to reach where Tesla has been for years: fill in a form on your phone anywhere in the US (and various other countries) and pick one up for the published price in after a (sometimes short, sometimes not so short) delay.