this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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I'm in the market for a BEV. Have been for 3 years. The reason I don't have one is:
A. The cars that are large enough for my use case (weekend getaways with kids and or friends) are all super expensive luxury vehicles with poor ratings.
B. Availability. Other than the Mustang Mach-E, nothing is available here (Canada) without a minimum 6 month wait list. (Ioniq 5 is 1 year).
C. Poor reliability and/or features. (See the disaster that is the Chevy Blazer EV).
At this point I'm waiting for the Ioniq 7. Hopefully it will be as well reviewed as it's sister the EV9.
The reason GM and Ford are not selling well is because nobody wants what they're selling. But they're framing it as an general EV issue and not a crap product issue.
The media and those apposed to EVs are buying it of course.
Is it so much to ask that I be able to get a vehicle that's just...normal but also an EV? Not a monster truck, not some space ship looking thing, just like a Honda Accord but an EV...I don't think that's asking so much but apparently automakers disagree.
The Hyundai Ioniq was like that, sadly they discontinued it
It goes hand in hand with the prices. If you're going to spend that much more on a BEV, you want it to be different. And making it look different doesn't cost significantly more.
Also, car shape and style has so much to do with ICE vehicle design necessity.
I mean, I don't want it to look different. I want a regular sedan or small vehicle like a Honda Fit (which is what I have now and it's a good size). I just want it to be an EV. So maybe there's a market for the weird looking cars and have massive SUVs but that's not what I want. I wouldn't be caught dead in a cyber truck or this 80s TV show sentient vehicle looking thing.
That's my 2 cents but I don't think I'm the only one.
Small vehicles are no longer "normal," EV or not.
Honda discontinued the Fit for a reason. Same with Toyota and the Yaris. Ford has basically pulled out of the entire non-truck/SUV market.
There are plenty of "normal" EVs because "normal" these days is a midsize crossover SUV. The Chevy Bolt is the closest thing you're looking for.
I disagree on Tesla. Their minimalist interface is a huge turnoff.
Their policies on automated updates, garbage QA, and recall history are huge turnoffs. Oh, and attachments to Elon Musk.
Agreed.
I got a Peugeot 208. It's small, and ok in all aspects except the software. Typical bad car UI. It works with cabled Android Auto, so for long drives that's more than fine. But touch screen is still old, and the app/site hasn't let me log in for a few weeks now... So I can't remote start heating.
But it's a great car that I bought used, for driving to and from work. Looks good, yellow color, parking sensors and rear camera for my blind ass. But is also probably not available in America for all I know, I live in Europe.
No Peugeot in the states sadly :((. Once in a great while you'll see an import, but it's about as common as seeing a LHD classic JDM car.
I'm considering to get a Polestar 2 for many reasons but also because... No waiting time 😉
Oh yeah, forgot that one. Way too small for me, but a really nice car. If the Polestar 3 wasn't so stupid expensive, I'd love to get that.
What did it cost you?
Not gonna be able to afford that as a first car but I think that's a reasonable price. Hopefully I'll be able to buy an EV like that after a few years of working. Would be cool if there was an EV I could afford as a first car tho but the used market is probably just not there yet.
I got a lyric and I love ot
I still find it super weird. A (remote) coworker bought an ioniq 5 after 9 months on a wait list... 3 months later, I went to a dealership. they had one on the lot (3 actually). Was able to get one with 0 wait.
Looking at their website, they have 4 2024 ioniq 5s available right now, an SEL, SE, and 2x Limited.
So apparently my local dealership is the sweet spot. Or is this purely a Canada vs US thing?
Yes, availability in the US is much better. You can find a base ioniq 5 here easily now, but nobody wants those. Everyone wants the long range AWD.
I want a long range RWD Limited but apparently those are unicorn cars. The AWD only gets like 240 miles of range while the RWD is over 300.
Its GM, Ford, Rivian, Lucid.
Tesla only managed to get close to their targets by dropping prices dramatically.
Rivian and Lucid are exclusively luxury brands. Not shocked that they're having a hard time pushing cars over 100k CAD. I don't think they're atracting the same media attention either.
Audi and Subaru are also doing poorly with their EVs.
And even Tesla had to drop prices dramatically to move inventory, the sales continue even today.
Its honestly looking like an EV-industry wide problem. The car companies doing the best right now are like, Toyota and Honda, because of their ICE lineup.
It's because interest rates are 5x higher than they were a couple of years ago. Nobody wants to finance a $70k car at 8%.
Except all the Range Rover buyers. That $90k car is selling like hotcakes right now.
Audi: too expensive, poor reliability Subaru/Toyota: released a shit compliance car.
Again, overpriced junk. My point is that it's not that nobody wants EVs. It's that nobody wants the crap these makers are selling.
Okay, so....
People want EVs, just not the ones Ford, GM, Toyota, Subaru, Audi, Tesla, Rivian or Lucid are making.
Do you realize how insane that sounds? At some point, it's clearly the EV part and not the brand.
Meanwhile, the ICE side of these companies are doing excellently. Tons of F150, Toyota Corolla, Honda Accords, Rav4s, and Jeeps getting sold.
Is it the EV part, or is it the upper-middle to upper market segment part? The Dacia spring is pretty popular in Western Europe and actually affordable.
Some of the top selling cars of Feb 2024 (lowest days of inventory metric) of USA is like Range Rover Sport ($90k), Lexus GX ($64k), and BMW X4($65k).
Yeah, I want a Mach-E (at least in theory) ... but I want it to have a good 500-600 mile range (or for the charging network to be much bigger than it is)... It's unfortunate really
Is the charging network that bad in the US that you need to get that far without charging?
So for me I make a trek to my parents house ~150 miles away a few times a year.
In good weather (and good battery condition), I could maybe skip hitting the chargers all together, or get a little bit of charging at my parents house from a wall outlet.
Unless my parents (or my grandfather that I also visit fairly regularly who lives the same distance in a different direction) installed a better charger at their place... In colder weather (e.g. Christmas), I'd almost definitely need to use a charger while going at least one direction.
The problem is, in both cases, there are like 5-10 charges total (not charging stations, chargers) where as there are like 5-10 gas stations all right next to the interstate each with at least 4 pumps, many with 8+ pumps.
I'm concerned that during peak travel in cold weather (e.g. Christmas time travel), I could easily find myself in a bad situation where I can't get a charger because they're all too far away, broken, or in use. There's just not enough redundancy.
I'm in the market, and the answer is kinda, for non Teslas. I do a road trip up the east coast a few times a year and the Tesla will reliably add about 4 30 minute stops on each half of the trip. A non Tesla also requires four stops, but they could be anywhere from 20 minutes best case to 1 hr plus, depending on the availability and status of the unreliable chargers.
A lucid with 400 miles of true range would probably cut it down to two stops, but I don't have $140k
The charging network actually is about to get much bigger, as Ford will be able to use tesla superchargers starting sometime within next few months. (and is providing a free adapter to owners). I've had my Mach e for 6 months and couldn't be happier with it.
The charging network expansion is something I'll be watching. I decided the very soonest I'll buy is after they've switched things to the Tesla connector (which seems to be the one that's going to win).
The adapter is definitely nice but I'd rather not have yet another unnecessary connection adapter in my life lol.
I test drove the mach-e and really liked it. And it has a surprisingly large amount of storage due to the well designed frunk. The California edition has more than enough range for me. However, the abysmal charging speed has me worried about battery condition. If it's that slow to charge it means the battery isn't good under load.