i’ve driven test driven many evs, and now a PHEV in EV-only mode, although none of those drives were for longer than 10 miles, and i agree comfort is very high, but i still rate modern hybrid engines are almost as quiet and the two types have a very similar experience. cars just got better in the last decade. many of the beaters from 80s and 90s are off the road.
Its not just the actual driving. The convenience of never having to think about fueling is huge. The convenience of never having to stop for fuel is huge*. Having no regular maintenance needs is awesome. No oil changes or tune ups or whatever other annoting shit you have to do on a regular basis with ICE cars. Just get in and go, every day, hassle free.
*long road trips aside, but even then is not much of an issue.
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yeah, although with phev flavor we are looking at, i think regular maintenance is still a thing.
My brother bought a Tesla last year which I’ve driven a few times. The acceleration is fun, but it just feels cheap and plasticky to me, it doesn’t feel like a $50,000+ car. The seats remind me of the new seats they’ve been putting in on budget airlines.
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Here’s some Devil’s advocate stuff. I’m in the market for an EV myself (never owned one), here are some thoughts I have had.
I actually think that from a mental standpoint, filling up is easier. I have a gas station a 2 min drive from my house and I pass it all the time. With an EV, apparently it’s not good for battery life to just plug it in every day. Instead you have to wait until the battery drains to a certain level and then recharge. I feel like that requires more mental energy. Also if that time comes and you’re in a hurry, then you can’t really make it go faster.
tires?
Tires? Roughly half the cars I’ve owned have were sold with the same tires I bought them with.
I don’t think driving an EV until it’s at a rechargeable level and then plugging it in is any more difficult than driving an ICE until it is at a refillable level and putting gas in it. A smart charger should know how to fill the battery in the most appropriate way anyway.
This isn’t a thing, you set your charge limit on your car and just plug it in. The car is smart enough to maximize battery life from that.
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I thought EVs are heavier so they need frequent rotations and replacements.
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Thanks. It makes sense that something like this exists. So you just plug in every day and the car figures it out?
Nah its fine to plug in all the time. The cars can adjust when and how much they charge when plugged in. I set mine to charge to 80%, and plug in every other day or so. Literally never have to think about it other than deciding if I want to take the extra 5 seconds it takes to plug in when I get home or if I’d rather not bother.
As for tires, mine have 32k on them and still have plenty of life left. My parents have 40k and are fine. I expect to get 50k+ pretty easily. If you are launching from every red light then yea you’ll need to replace them sooner, but it’s really not much of a concern long term. Maybe you’ll go through 1 extra set of tires every 250k miles? Tire rotation is the only regular “maintenance” I’ve done. I rotate them every 7-8k miles, takes me about 30 minutes to do on my own. Had mobile service do the first one and it took them 10 minutes, but cost me $50.
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I’m glad to hear the excitement for EVs in this thread. I’ve spent the last 12 years of my life as an expert on diagnostics for internal combustion engines. I got laid off at the end of March. Thankfully the job market is good and I’ve been fortunate to land several interviews and offers.
One of them is for a company called Scout Motors. They are an EV startup under Volkswagen. If any of you are familiar with the International Scout from the 60s and 70s, it’s coming back but as an EV. The thought of going to an EV company was scaring the shit out of me right now, especially with the Tesla and Rivian recent layoffs. It’s still a small % of the new car market, but growing year over year. There’s been a bit of a slowdown and hence the layoffs. But Scout feels different, I feel like they are doing it right, and have the full financial and technical backing of VW. I start there at the end of May. I have never even driven an EV before.
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I have a Bolt EUV (thanks to this thread and specifically Fatboy8 recommending it) and it’s actually a few hundred pounds lighter than most cars its size and Chevy recommends rotating the tires every 15,000 miles. I’m playing it safer and having them rotated every ~7500ish and we’ll see what the tread looks like when I take it for the second rotation on Saturday.
The saying on the Bolt subreddit is “ABC, always be connected” because even if you’re not charging you can still take advantage of things like preheating the cabin without using up a tiny bit of your battery.
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I’m never rotating tires on my own. It’s free when I take it in, but it’s just a time suck.
Do they need to be rebalanced every time also? I assume that’s not a DIY thing.
Every 7K miles is about my oil change interval, so that won’t change much. However, my car always needs other stuff. So if all I do is a rotation that often, I’m still coming out way ahead.
A good shop will rebalance tires for you when they rotate. Definitely not a DIY item, although I googled it of curiosity and was surprised you can get wheel balancers in the 1-2k range. It helps keep the wear even on the tread and can extend the life. In extreme unbalanced cases you’ll feel some vibration while driving. The tires are actually an important part of your vehicles suspension and ride quality.
My tires rotate thousands a time a mile, not sure why you guys wait for thousands of miles?
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I got my tires balanced for the first time in my life a couple of years ago. It was a pretty dramatic difference just driving off the lot.
Despite the massive upgrade in ride smoothness, I’m lazy AF and never got them balanced again.
Apparently my Costco will rotate but not balance. So I have to take them elsewhere for balancing. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I go to costco on the reg, so just setting up a rotation appt to coincide with a shopping trip is not too bad.
I’ve had my hybrid for going on 6 years and have only replaced the tires once before driving from Colorado to Washington state. But it’s only a hybrid, not an EV.
OMG OMG OMG! I had a Scout Travelall and loved it! It was a cream cycle, bright orange with a white top, a little like this:
Except no white detail on the running board. I drove it from Oregon to Ohio, it was awesome! 18mpg fully loaded or empty. Not sure what a new model looks like, but I love them!
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Yeah, I kind of want to hunt one down now. They’re cool looking vehicles. All we have on the new ones are some rough concept sketches, so who knows.
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I don’t think they’ve aged very well, I sold mine because a year in Ohio and it was rusting out. I liked them because they didn’t look like all the Broncos etc that all were looking the same back in the 90’s when I had mine.