I need a new car, and I really want to go full electric. I’m wondering if anyone regrets buying one? What are the downsides?
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
what do you do if you just straight up run out of charge out on the road?
Get towed or grab a generator and get ready to wait. Or get a plug-in hybrid for the best of both worlds.
A coworker had a problem with one that decided to do a software update in a parking lot that ended up bricking the car. After that, they went back to a gas powered car.
Sadly, that can happen with a modern ICE car, too.
Holy crap. That’s an expensive software update. Did the manufacturer provide any kind of remuneration?
Nope
Your coworker should be able to sue them then.
I saw someone on the news talking about having a friend whose family member had an EV, and they also had a bad experience. I think they were just complaining that their electricity was expensive though.
I mean modern ICE cars can have this same problem.
Enough to brick the car from starting?
I have an older car I don’t have any experience with that.
For real. Id like to see any article where an ICE was bricked and couldn’t even drive simply by an update.
My boss has a Land Rover that was in the middle of an OTA update at one point in the first few months he owned it. Wouldn’t start and appeared basically dead, and he didn’t know it was updating. He had it towed to the dealer and it had finished the update by the time it got there.
I would be very, very angry about that.
OTA updates are not an EV thing. That is all modern cars.
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.
Fisker Ocean owners that paid full sticker price I am sure.
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.
Yes but it all depends on your use case. If you travel a lot for work that involves some mountain passes or states with low EV adoption due to politics you are gonna have a rough time or be very limited in your options.
If your use case is less than 200 miles a day and charging infrastructure is built up in your area then you are all set.
Depends on vehicle and load requirements too, if your load it just only you and sometimes passengers then getting a car that can do 10% fast charging for only 15 minutes and still go pretty far is great. On the other hand the Silverado EV is best range EV truck available as of 2024.
The 10 percent challenge from our of spec is best one I found for road tripping scenarios. https://outofspecstudios.com/10-challenge (mobile browser not recommended ) their other graphs are really nice too.
Unfortunately, the only cars that do get proper range from the 10 percent challenge is just too expensive, such as the Porsche taycan(especially 2025 version being insanely fast charging with efficiency) and Lucid sedans.
I’ve been wanting a plug-in hybrid, where you’re fully electric under ~40mi of daily travel, and if you exceed it switches to gas for backup. RAV4 prime has been my dream car lately…
I have a 10 year old Chevy Volt. 95% of our households driving is on the 38 miles of battery range. Oil changes every 2 years.
Privacy and security concerns, most of them are like big tech on wheels. See Telsa and others spying on users during intimate moments. Also most have major security vulnerabilities.
This is the case with all newer cars. If you’re avoiding EVs for privacy then the same reason applies to any car with OnStar, OTA updates, apps for your phone (remote start, locate, etc.) Or pretty much any car made in the last 10 years or more.
I definitely appreciate wanting to protect your privacy and will readily acknowledge that any EV will make that a problem. But almost every car made since the Tesla Roadster has the same problems. Now, if we could get our respective governments to pass laws stopping this BS, that would be really nice.
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.
Yet another reason to love Love’s. As someone who drives a LOT for work, there’s no place I’d rather stop.
See how you feel about it after watching this: Aging Wheels/Technology Connections EV Road Trip
My Hyundai Ioniq 5 is my favorite car ever! We’ve taken it on two long road trips with very few issues. The biggest issue was one charging station in a rural area had a 2 hr wait to use it. But we typically only take 15-20 mins to charge from 10%-80% on road trips.
Not sure where the top commenter is getting their range issues from. Our level 2 charger at home adds ~250 miles of range in 4 hours. In hindsight probably would have gone a cheaper route of a simple exterior 240V outlet on the wall and a compatible cord to save a few hundred dollars.
Otherwise there’s very minimal maintenance and the car is super easy/fun to drive. Love the 1-pedal driving mode after a short learning period, it’s so responsive that the car feels like it reads my mind on where I want to go/how far to be behind the next car.
Edit: the 2025 Ioniq 5 models are coming with the Tesla charging port, so that will open up a lot more charging stations!
I’m really intrigued by the Ioniq. It isn’t cheap, but it looks great.
Same boat as the other reply, I really like the look and features of the Ioniq. How much space do you have in the boot and in the interior in general?
There is plenty of space for passengers and storage. We traded in a Ford Fusion sedan and the Ioniq 5 has much more storage space than that did. One of the long road trips I mentioned was a camping trip. We were able to bring two big tote bins, a big cooler, a canopy tent for the picnic table, folding chairs, sleeping bags, air mattresses, extra blankets, and two dogs on the back seat. As a bonus, we got an adapter that plugs into the charging port and can power a hotplate for boiling water faster than a camp fire (also serves as back up power for my house if the power goes out, can run an extension cord down to the freezer). There is a small frunk, we mostly use that for emergency supplies.
I’m above average height and can fully extend my legs in both front seats and never have issues with head clearance. I like the space between the two front seats as well being mostly open concept as opposed to the closed spaces in Teslas. Feels spacious for every day driving and on road trips can fit a soft sided cooler as well as a food bag.
No regrets, but I do acknowledge that it’s very different and has different challenges. The usual worries before buying about range, mileage, battery drainage, top speed, maintenance fees, towing capability etc, do not actually exist. I understand why people worry, but no, they are not actual issues.
In reality: Software. That’s an issue. Car mechanics do not know how to service software. Doesn’t matter if it’s a subscription to a service or a mandatory but malfunctioning pressure valve, it’s software and they don’t know about it. It usually not a serious issue, but it might be, especially for cars with a lot of gimmicks and shit. This issue also exist with new fossil fueled cars as well. For most part, it can be ignored.
The charger at home may be an issue. (Maybe i. Europe mostly?) Some cars only accept voltages with a very low resistance. Both Renault and Tesla require a better grounding than the building code in most countries. It’s not costly to fix, and it’s a one time fix, but it may be a surprise…(that you need to expand on your electric circuit just for this), but you should have done anyway).
I will acknowledge that range is a downside. Not in everyday use, but for longer trips, you will have to plan your trip according to charging. It has never been an issue for me, because I generally never drive that long without pause anyway. Time it to to your breaks is all there is to it.
For a comuter car with home charging, you will have absolutely no issues in switching. It does have many more surprising positives than negatives. Like, never having to set foot on a gas station. Never mind the cost, but the time spent on going there or stopping on your commute to do it, or holding the nozzle in the cold, or being tempted to buy stuff in the convenience store etc. In comparison, I go home and plug in to charge my car, exactly the same way that I charge my phone, so it’s ready for the next day. It’s not difficult at all. It might take 30 secons and more often than than fueling but it’s still much faster than stopping on the road, gas or not.
Only actual real downside for me is that I’m also a cheapskate. I prefer to time my charging to the variable electricity prices, but not everyone has that option and it’s completely voluntary… I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Sure, i save a few bucks, but the hassle of it is real. I am considering changing to a subscription model instead, just to avoid worrying about it.
The best advice that I got before buying was: “Just drive it”.
Don’t think about it: It’s a tool, use it. In a lot of ways an EV is much better suited for that, because you only need to worry about it being ready to use. You probably never thought of that for your ICE car, because you’d do refueling and other fluids on the road. If you fuel at home, you’ll also have to refill your sprinklers and remember to wash it every now and then… Maintenance is home based, not on a station.
There’s a whole lot of benefits to it as well, but you didn’t ask for those, and I think you should just go test drive one to see for yourself.
Tesla require a better grounding than the building code in most countries
Is this a European thing too? I’ve never heard of this limitation in the US, and I certainly didn’t have to get anything changed. I’m curious about the details
Yes it’s country specific, but more about old houses.
In my case the building code says the ground should have an impedance of maximum 1666 ohm. My installation was already grounded and had about 400 ohm.
The charger guidelines says 200 ohm, however the car refuses to charge on anything over 100 ohm. I had an electrician add a new ground spear, bringing the impedance down below 1 ohm.
The building code in USA already recommends 25 ohm, so it shouldn’t be an issue if the installation is up to date.
I’ve gone from the Chevy Volt, to the Bolt, to a Polestar 2, to a Ford Mach E. 7 years in EVs, around 100k miles, with no regrets and no intention of going back to ICE.
I’m not even sure what the downsides are. Maybe longer trips require a tiny bit more planning? The infotainment systems do all the work though, telling me where to stop and how long to charge.
Dang 4 cars in 7 years?
Yeah that’s insanely wasteful
People get so weird and judgey
Probably leasing. Which is blowing a lot of money, but also means he isn’t buying an $80,000 car that won’t be worth hardly anything after it hits 100k miles, because more and more people in the used markets are figuring out when an out of warranty battery goes bad it can cost you $15,000 to $25,000 extra to replace a battery.
Probably. I had a neighbor that leased an Acura yearly. Always got a different vehicle but always in white.
Always white? How damned boring.
Boring yes but easier to see, involved in proportionally fewer accidents, surface scratches are harder to see, remains cooler when parked outside, much easier to resell, always available, doesn’t attract attention, and the base white is normally cheaper…
I completely get it for a lease car. It’s a work vehicle, not a passion project.
I mean, presumably he isn’t just taking them to the junkyard… Someone out there is probably still driving those cars
And leasing is a thing
Yep and someone got to buy a lightly used EV
I recently bought a used Nissan Leaf. No regrets so far, hoping the battery needs to be replaced before my warranty expires. There’s a good chance…
Probably Angela Chao.
Sorry shit answer, I just hate Mitch.
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.
