Ask Lemmy

I had one and severely miss it. Well, I don’t miss the one I had but I miss the EV part of it.

I had a 2015 BMW i5 which apparently that and the 2014 models had a whole host of problems, especially if you were like me and had the range extender which was basically a small motorcycle gas engine seated in the back and could be used to charge the battery. Being BMW’s first generations, it’s not too much of a surprise that they’d have issues but there was more beyond those like the small form tires that didn’t last long, were rare, and expensive and the 12v battery which was also expensive, rare, and difficult to replace…

Beyond all that, I just miss the simplicity and the feel of the EV drive. Stepping on the accelerator and you feel it accelerate. It has much lower maintenance, with the only trade off being that tires usually don’t last as long as an ICE because the battery adds so much more weight and the battery replacement can be pricey. But other than that, no oil changes, no transmission worries, no smog checks, no needing to let the car warm up…just hop in and go. I also miss the charging aspect of it. Sure, it sucked not having the same range as a gas/hybrid where I now get about 500 miles on a full tank, but I actually liked going to charging stations and just sitting there while my car charged. I also liked the price difference, so much cheaper. I also liked that I could be lazy. I didn’t have to “fill up” when I was tired on my way home or early the next morning because I would charge at home and have a full “tank” to use the next day.

I only got rid of the i5 because of the host of problems and got a hybrid instead which has been fine and a better car in many ways, but I still long to go back. I’ve been thinking very strongly about going and trading in for an EV each weekend that passes by. I’ve been researching possible EVs to go to and have a few in mind I’d like to check out now that the prices are way down.

See how you feel about it after watching this: Aging Wheels/Technology Connections EV Road Trip

I love mine, Chevy bolt. The biggest downside is that you need to plan road trips more carefully with them, and road trips will just take longer. Once you accept that, it's actually kind of nice to periodically take 20-30 minute breaks while on a trip.

These problems are greatly alleviated if you also have a fossil fuel car. My partner has a gas car, so if we're just going for a weekend or there aren't good charging options, we just take the gas car so we don't have to worry about charging.

Downsides: Have to go to a gas station to find a squeegee to clean the windows.

Upsides: You have no other reason to go to a gas station.

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'm very pleased. I have a 2023 Bolt.

For us there was no way we'd get one without a home charger. It's great because every day you wake up and it's like a full tank of gas.

My wife still has a gas car and we bought the electric planning that we'd still use the gas one for road trips. The Bolt in particular doesn't have super fast charging (probably like 45 minutes to get to 80% using a fast charger) so if we didn't have the second car that might be my one concern.

My wife wasn't sold when we got it, but the electric was for me so we went ahead. Now she likes it. I'm banking on better EV options being available when we get our next car but I think it will be electric too.

Yeah, I bought a Tesla and now regret it because Elon is a dipshit.

That said, I've gone over 38,000 miles for less than $900 in electricity. I haven't had to deal with oil changes or any other maintenance items other than tire rotations and tire replacement (the latter was of my own accord they actually said I didn't need to yet, at the time).

I recently did a nearly 4hr trip with no need to charge on the way, and at my destination basically filled back up in something like 25 minutes while checking in to my hotel. So, no range anxiety for me.

The ride is nice, the features are helpful to me, and I have had no other issues with the vehicle.

So if it weren't for Elon I'd love it. I still like it, but I just hate being seen in it now. It's paid off so the financial cost of getting some other EV doesn't make a ton of sense right now, so I guess I'll just drive it until it dies...which at this rate might be a long-ass time.

I love mine. I live in Kansas and that shapes some of my needs differently than most of the audience here, but have a Ford Lightning and it’s great.

I had to install a charger in my garage and unless you have a lot of public fast chargers near you then you’ll need that.

I’ve driven long distances with it and most of the Love’s truck stops have dc fast chargers which worked perfect on the interstate.

Weather, speed, and payload are the biggest factors for range for me. The only time any were a real problem is when the temp was near zero, but I could mitigate the severe range loss some by letting it warm up for an hour or so before I departed, which can be controlled in the app.

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.

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.

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.

Bought an egolf way back.

Kind of regretted it but not really, it was just barely usable for commuting.

Bought a model 3, only regretted it because covid started later that month.

Bought a plug in suv, the plug in part is great, Toyota has such trash software I don't think I'll ever buy one again, though the car itself seems reliable as a rock otherwise.

Evs chance the reliability game because there are a fraction as many parts in the drive train, you don't feel like you have to worry about reliability as much.

Musk is a shit in various stages of psychosis, but the tesla was revolutionary, even though the self-drive is a complete lie, what it has is thoughtful software which is what we really need.

if ur planning to keep the car for a very long time and maybe hand it down to your kids some day, - i wouldnt go electric. These things wont last as long. The current ones on the market are all new, which is why people dont think about that yet.