OT: Electric Vehicles--anyone driving them or seriously looked at them?

[dgauthier]

Originally Posted by tuxbailey

Just put a deposit down on lease for a Polestar 2 with the recent Costco Rebate. Quite excited, liked the car a lot after the test drive.

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I've driven the first gen polestar 2 and it was a great little car. Super handling and great fit and finish.(...)

For those not following along, the Polestar 2 is manufactured by Geely in China. It's a great car.

[gravelreformist]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

Agreed. It was worse than expected and makes me never want another hybrid. Great in the city but we’ve already been disappointed in the mountains of arizona with its performance.

I definitely agree that the weight and speeds impacted the mileage, but I am one of those rare birds that never speeds, cruise, when using it, was pegged to the speed limit. Interstate speeds for the vast majority were 70mph with earlier western bits at 75mph.

It's hard to imagine how you got that bad of mileage unless the car is seriously under-powered. We regularly road trip in our Pacifica Hybrid with a full-width roof box, 5 people in the vehicle, and 4 bikes on a hitch rack. It gets 30mpg highway loaded like that.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

Should’ve gotten the non hybrid sport model then. Same thing but a better engine.

I just drove from arizona to Tennessee in our accord hybrid, and it averaged 21.8mpg with a single bike hitch rack and Yakima coffin up top. Our previous car, an x3 bmw, did just slightly better with a less aerodynamic setup (bike up top plus coffin) and was a lot nicer inside the cabin. The battery of the accord hybrid was depleted for the majority of the drive so it sounded like a buzzy lawnmower revving all over the rpm range. The small 10gal. tank meant our range was about 150-175 miles before I needed to consider filling again. I’m buying a new car before I return in 6 weeks

COVID, none available anywhere..He was lucky to find the one he bought. Had to be black..part of the 'issue'.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

Agreed. It was worse than expected and makes me never want another hybrid. Great in the city but we’ve already been disappointed in the mountains of arizona with its performance.

I definitely agree that the weight and speeds impacted the mileage, but I am one of those rare birds that never speeds, cruise, when using it, was pegged to the speed limit. Interstate speeds for the vast majority were 70mph with earlier western bits at 75mph.

Your experience does not relate to this test report: https://www.cars.com/articles/toyota...s-best-467707/

Real-world fuel economy: Both cars outperformed their EPA gas mileage estimates on our 200-mile real-world fuel-economy route, but the Camry Hybrid was a little bit more efficient than the Accord Hybrid, with a trip computer and pump average of 52.6 mpg versus the Accord’s 51.3 mpg.

[Likes2ridefar]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Your experience does not relate to this test report: https://www.cars.com/articles/toyota...s-best-467707/

Real-world fuel economy: Both cars outperformed their EPA gas mileage estimates on our 200-mile real-world fuel-economy route, but the Camry Hybrid was a little bit more efficient than the Accord Hybrid, with a trip computer and pump average of 52.6 mpg versus the Accord’s 51.3 mpg.

Apples to oranges. My car as already mentioned had a Yakima coffin on top plus a one up single bike rack on the hitch with a bike on it. The trunk was loaded completely full as was the coffin and the car had two adults and one small kid plus a 45lb dog and small cat.

Reading others experiences recently online it tracks quite closely. TLDR for this car is great for city (we are back to low 40s in slow driving rural TN) but not a great choice for extended highway driving at high speed. Our touring model gets 36mpg in our normal driving conditions of mixed highway and city in Arizona which also tracks to others experience.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

Apples to oranges. My car as already mentioned had a Yakima coffin on top plus a one up single bike rack on the hitch with a bike on it. The trunk was loaded completely full as was the coffin and the car had two adults and one small kid plus a 45lb dog and small cat.

Reading others experiences recently online it tracks quite closely. TLDR for this car is great for city (we are back to low 40s in slow driving rural TN) but not a great choice for extended highway driving at high speed. Our touring model gets 36mpg in our normal driving conditions of mixed highway and city in Arizona which also tracks to others experience.

If I did all that to my 50 mpg Prius, I would get dismal mileage too, or drove it with my foot mashing the gas pedal all the time. Your experience is an outlier, and is not typical at all of the mpg performance of that vehicle.

[saab2000]

Bringing this back to the top because I’ve offloaded my investment in Tesla and removed it from my watch list. I got too tired of the antics of the CEO and his monstrosity pay package and I no longer wanted to be part of that. I waited for a bit of a spike in the stock price and sold it all. I believe I came out ahead on my investment but nowhere near the gains I would have had if I had sold a couple years ago.

Keeping the car for now because it’s paid for.

[Gsinill]

Originally Posted by saab2000

Bringing this back to the top because I’ve offloaded my investment in Tesla and removed it from my watch list. I got too tired of the antics of the CEO and his monstrosity pay package and I no longer wanted to be part of that. I waited for a bit of a spike in the stock price and sold it all. I believe I came out ahead on my investment but nowhere near the gains I would have had if I had sold a couple years ago.

Keeping the car for now because it’s paid for.

Good for you!
I guess he would tell you to “go [fill in the blanks] yourself” 😏

[Gsinill]

Curious what VW’s $5B investment in Rivian will bring.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by Gsinill

Curious what VW’s $5B investment in Rivian will bring.

From what I understand it’s more of an investment in the customer-facing software and everyone is denying that there will be joint venture vehicles. That said, I suspect it could be a far reaching agreement if it goes well. Rivian makes pretty cool products but they’re struggling to become profitable. Hopefully this gives them an infusion of cash and they can claw their way to making a profit. I like their two vehicles, especially the R1S.

[bfd]

Originally Posted by saab2000

From what I understand it’s more of an investment in the customer-facing software and everyone is denying that there will be joint venture vehicles. That said, I suspect it could be a far reaching agreement if it goes well. Rivian makes pretty cool products but they’re struggling to become profitable. Hopefully this gives them an infusion of cash and they can claw their way to making a profit. I like their two vehicles, especially the R1S.

A JV vehicle between Rivian and VW could be a Golf as the proposed Rivian R3X looks a lot like one:

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by bfd

A JV vehicle between Rivian and VW could be a Golf as the proposed Rivian R3X looks a lot like one:

The automotive world needs a Golf-like EV instead of expensive weird cars. Just my $.02. I agree that it has the proportions of a 1980s Golf.

[alancw3]

Interesting article on the percentage of EV owners that would buy another EV:

https://www.motor1.com/news/724788/h...an-switch-gas/

[buddybikes]

Originally Posted by alancw3

Interesting article on the percentage of EV owners that would buy another EV:

https://www.motor1.com/news/724788/h...an-switch-gas/

Hybrid, 20 years and counting...

[robt57]

Wife still has Bolt, new 7/2021. She loves it, I like it a lot. I especially like it costs about 1/3 on average as much for fuel as the 41 MPG Honda Fit it replaced. Compared to 4.00 gal gas. Like that all I gotta do is plug it in and change cabin filter and rotate tires pretty much. Was under the Fit changing oil myself, and hate doing that stuff. But too cheap to pat dealer or trust jamokes to do it

I had a PHEV Pacifica got new 12/2020. Sold it to Carmax [4/2023] and bought Certified used 2018 KIA Sedona [15 months ago now].

The PHEV 45-59 MPG, Sedona 22-28 MPG. Now only driving 250 mile per month in retirement not saving enough on Gas. Plus I had a 10k note and 38.00/month interest that was not going towards propulsion costs. I did not want to part with the 10k pay it off, so I let Carmax take care of that.

I am left with empirical experience of a few things.

You need to drive a lot of miles to compensate for a few big costs. 1st the PHEV is 60k now. And your 60k car depreciates faster than an non EV/PHEV currently, and that % is on a more expensive car.

Not so sure in the end, especially if you are the one to have to pay for the new HV battery in 7-8 years the economy isn't a great amortization.

In the case of the PHEV you have the costs [and weight] of both ICE and EV systems as the car has both.

The Bolt saved approx $2500.00 in fuel cost in 35k miles VS 41MPG Fit. But it cost nearly twice as much too. Maybe not fair to compare cost of new 2018 LX Fit to a 2022 Bolt loaded up. But having said that, I think [no more Fits] a new Civic starts around $24-5k. Civic comparison to Fit seems fair compact car wise.

My 2 Cents, and worth it at 1/2 the price.