Ask Lemmy

I’m also considering getting a full electric car, but have a little range anxiety mixed with a general feeling that the improvements over the next couple years will make current electric cars obsolete, so I am following along with this thread!

I went from an 08' VW Rabbit to a '21 VW id.4 a few months ago. Got the $4k tax rebate passed onto the dealer to bring my price down to $19k [~$21k after taxes/fees], it's the AWD Pro S, and doesn't have the Gradient Package [some silvery exterior bits and slightly larger wheels]. I love the car, my family loves the car. The only nitpick I reaaaaaally have and that most people have for the VW evs is the damn driver side window switches lol. You get 2 and have to tap a touch sensitive bit to switch it to the back. Makes no sense. The steering wheel touch inputs for cruise control and media are another controversial choice, but I've gotten used to it.

As far as an EV in general goes. Like most have said, check out the charging network you have where you are and where you plan to be. I've only done one road trip in my id.4 [from buying it in Chicagoland and bringing it home] and while the range was "OK" [about 150 highway miles per charge], since I was along a string of L3s along the turnpike, I wasn't worried about making it to a charger. My immediate area had a couple of L3s, but now there's probably about double/triple around me now that's opened in the few months I've had my car.

That being said, my circumstance have the car as mostly a commuter, so I tend to last on a charge all week, and then L1 charge it Sun-Tues morning to start all over. Any around town stuff during charging time doesn't really make a dent since it's all within a few miles of my home. I also am able to charge at work for free, though sometimes spots get filled. Initially I was thinking about getting a L2 EVSE, but between home and work, I don't really feel the need for one. I'd also need one with a good 50' cord since I park in front of my house, otherwise wife and I would have to re-arrange the cars whenever I wanted to charge.

That being said, if stuff happens and we do go up to my sisters about 40 miles away or something happens to where I do need to charge at a L3, the price per "tank" has been about $15 and taken 20-ish minutes. Most of the time I'm watching a few youtube videos, or going in for a restroom break and by the time i get back the car's about ready.

My car, and I think most EVs nowadays will have a setting limiting the charge to 80% to help with keeping the battery healthy. If I'm not using air conditioning at 80% my estimated range is about 190-200 miles, if it's hot and I'm using AC, it'll go down to 185ish. First upcoming winter, so I'll get to see how much my car is impacted. I don't usually worry about range. I did at first because I had a couple of close calls about charging stations not being available while doing some longish trips back and forth, but I think in general my immediate and surrounding areas that I might frequent have gotten more stations recently.

OH. Insurance for me wasn't much more than what I was already paying, but registration in my state tacks on another $200 dollars a year, presumably since having an EV you're not paying into the gas tax. Some states don't have EV fees, some do. So might want to check that. My co-worker just found out about that and wasn't happy lol.

Model 3 owner (before the crazy) and I love it still. auto pilot is amazing, I hate elon but honestly the super chargers are so much better than the other plug. I may consider something besides a tesla if they get an auto pilot thing and adopt the plug, but unfortunately for the time being i’m stuck giving money to the jumping dip$h1t.

It all depends on your use case. For me with a 20 mile round trip daily commute and a 200 mile drive every other week where the car is then parked for 36-48 hours at a hotel with a level 2 charger before returning home an ev is great. If you can charge at home I think it's a no brainer if you're looking to buy new or slightly used. If you're constantly driving hundreds of miles in a day then no probably not. Downside are longer road trips, as some other people said in places where charging is sparce you're looking at 50-100% more time for distance traveled. But if you don't mind being more leisurely and chilling out at a restaurant or what have you then it's not a big deal. And initial price. They are still expensive.

The big question is if you can charge at home. Depending on the car, it's feasible to do so on a normal outlet if you drive ~30 miles or less per day. A 240 volt outlet can be a game changer on top of that though. My setup charges my car 0-100 in about 6 hours (you know, overnight, when I'm not doing anything and electricity is cheapest). But if I were in an apartment and had no access to overnight charging I'd consider other options.

(Chevy Bolt EUV)

I love mine. Hyundai Ioniq 5.

2 years so far and it's been great. Wouldn't ever go back to gas. I don't even have a charger at home, but there is charging at work. I only need to charge it like 2 shifts per week, maybe 3 if I did a lot of driving, so it's not hard to keep it topped off just from work. Every once in a while the work parking lot is so damn full every single day that I can't charge there all week... So I have to suffer the inconvenience of... Going to a gas station and using their fast charger. Ugh.

Road trips take a bit more planning but I don't go on many road trips anyway. One per year, at most.

Weekend mountain trips and camping/skiing is great, though.

I almost bought a Chinese EV but decided to hold back and not support China because of their support for Russia. Got a 2nd hand ICE Mazda for now which I hope will last me until there's some non Chinese EV competion in my region or China finally grows some balls and starts doing the right thing.

So… the work i do requires a truck. I bought a lightning last year. The electric part i loved. Charging at home was awesome. FL sucks on charging stations outside of major cities though and are expensive. In the end i went back to Ram mostly due to how horrible ford’s onboard software is. Everything else about the truck was great. I’ll give manufacturers another 3-5 years to get things figured out and hopefully by then prices will be reasonable and things will work properly.

I got within an extremely close distance to getting a Model Y this year during the price cuts; I secured the loan and was looking into the insurance costs which is what ultimately killed my decision.

My car is paid off and I only pay for gas (I have the Prius Aqua 2016, ~53mpg, 4.44L/100km)

When I looked into the Y, first of all they don't allow you to get an insurance quote without first putting a down payment. If I had gone through with the purchase, I'd be looking at almost 570$/month on the car loan alone with the trade-in, plus another 140/month (I currently pay 80$/month, roughly) for insurance through my current company (this is only a ballpark figure based on me pulling a VIN number online and feeding it into a quote; that number could possibly be significantly higher). That puts my excess car expenses conservatively at 650$/month just for a new car. The literal only problems I have with my current car is that it can't tow my horse trailer and that it's a "dumb" petrol car with no infotainment and a physical key. I'm probably going to put a 12" iPad in the center console for infotainment and call it a day and keep that around for another 4 years until Apple CarPlay 2 trickles down to affordable EVs.

In summation, I really don't think EVs are worth it unless you absolutely must buy a new car. There are new infotainment options on the horizon like Apple CarPlay 2 and Android Automotive with Android Auto as standard... right now is the literal worst time to buy a car. Not to mention that NACS is going to replace CCS in the USA in the 2026 model cars. Your resale value in the mid 2030s will be absolute dogshit if you don't wait for the NACS port in next year's cars.

Other than the fact that I overspent a bit, I don't regret it. Especially since I live in Florida and didn't have to deal with the gas shortages due to the hurricanes. As long as you have a reliable means of charging at home (or at work), you are good 95% of the time.

If you do any regular long-range driving, be sure you get one that can support that distance. Public EV chargers can still be hit-or-miss, and that's the biggest downside in my opinion. They aren't too frequent, and a lot of times they just don't work. You also generally need to get an account for each charging network, or else it can be hard to pay or you just pay more. But I can live with that, because it is very much an exceptional part of my driving habits.

No regrets, coming up on a year …

• if you can charge at home, it’s a no-brainer, but I know people who say it’s no big deal to go to a charger every week
• level 2 charger was $400 + electrician was same as a stove circuit, so less expensive than I expected. I could get away with less
• you don’t need trip chargers nearby, but you do want them on route you’re likely to road trip. The closest one I’ve used is 100 miles away
• you really need to be able to use Tesla Supercharger network. It makes travel so convenient

I did get range anxiety for a while, but never an actual problem. 1,200 mile road trip fixed that. The first leg from VpBoston to Virginia, my excellent (Tesla) trip planner scheduled charging stops of 10, 10, and 4 minutes, whereas I’d normally expect two stops and a meal, so not really noticeably longer. The final leg was a bit tougher, returning from upstate NY, but mostly because a lack of chargers. It ended up no big deal

Downsides are you can’t drive as far, usually, before needing to fill up, and quick charge takes about 25 minutes, instead of the usual 5 for gas.

Upside is that only matters on road trips. If you have an outlet at home, like we do, your car is just always charged.

Short answer no. I now have two in my house. VW ID4 & ID3. So nice to drive, cheap to run and the maintenance costs are basically 0.

Have owned one for 2 years. I have made precisely one trip where I was mildly inconvenienced by having to charge one times too many. (That trip was >700km long).

All of the other times it has been amazing. Don’t overthink it too much, really. Just look at all the electric car owners out there - there’s enough of them and as far as I know no one is complaining.

Go for it.

Fisker Ocean owners that paid full sticker price I am sure.

Do the numbers! Check that the range is at least double of that you need. Check if the purchase price makes economic sense. Put priority on wants and needs. Think of resale value, because you never know if some life changing event can happen.

I avoided that bullet in 2017 when my e39 blew the headgasket. It was either a modern EV or hybrid or a cheap second hand gas guzzler. At less than 5000km a year the numbers told me what I needed to know, and looking back, my Mondeo ST220 has been much cheaper overall, fun and dead reliable.

I would get a hybrid, but I have nowhere to charge an electric car. I live in an apartment, and unless you're rich you can't afford an apartment with charging stations. I've never even seen one, personally.

No regrets. Polestar 2 MY22 long range AWD. Ride is a lot harsher than in the BMW i4 for instance (family member has one). But overall I wouldn't want to switch.

We've had three EVs for a few years now and they been great, had four in total and replaced the first one a bit over a year ago as its lease expired, so no regrets.

Lengthy road trips aren't a problem if you plan out your route in advance I get not everyone wants to do this so if this you then wait till there are more charging stations for your region. We plan stops based on charging stations that have a lot of high speed chargers (over 100kw) so we are never waiting more than 20 minutes and never waiting for a charger. It is faster to charge twice to around 80% on one of these than it is to charge to 100% once due to how much charging slows down as the battery nears completion. I would not even consider a car that does not have a 800v architecture due to the slower charging speeds if you plan on road trips.

We have done 1200 mile round trips, probably small fry for Americans but a lot for us, especially as we towing for all that. Its achievable with planning in most western countries. I want to stop at most every three hours as I want to use the loo, are people who are driving 6 more hours non stop peeing in a bottle or something?

Cost per mile is stupidly low as we charge at home when not on trips over 280 miles, 8p per kwh, with a monthly cost between the three cars of £40 for around 2000 miles a month (more in summer, about that in winter). Good luck doing 2000 miles on £40 for an ICE car. Charging when out is more expensive the faster you want to charge, ultra rapids work out about the same per mile as high economy petrol ICE, rapids or lower a bit cheaper but nothing significant. Its only going to be cheaper if you can charge at home and your energy provider has a suitable EV tariff as we do.

Absolutely zero chance I would buy an EV right now as depreciation is already horrendous and the rate of change for EVs is rapid unless you know the car will meet your log term needs and those will not change. We lease so that all the cost of the risk is with the leasing company and we know we want the improvements.

Edit: Plug in hybrids are fucking useless BTW, you are either doing a ton of miles and using the ICE all the time, or you are using the battery all the time and very rarely the ICE. It means carrying around both a full EV setup and a full ICE setup, so you have more than twice the complexity of either and more weight than an actual pure EV with the same battery that impacts both EV and ICE economy. Plus recent studies have shown that hybrids are far harder on the ICE part than a pure ICE, which is fucking awful for long term ownership.

They were only ever meant as a stop gap until battery prices dropped, which they have and its now possible to get EVs with over 400 miles of ACTUAL range not just promised range.