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?
Fisker Ocean owners that paid full sticker price I am sure.
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.
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.
We have a Nissan Leaf (30kWh) which has been great. No regrets.
The things you worry about before buying (range, battery life) are absolute non-issues. For optimal battery longevity you don’t want to use a fast charger very often, so just charge it at home which is generally more convenient anyway. You can make exceptions occasionally when you need to.
We use it for city driving, for which the range is more than adequate and we mostly only charge it every few days. We haven’t yet attempted to take it on a proper road trip; so far we just borrow a friend’s hybrid if we need to do that, basically to avoid having to think about charging.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you have a place to charge it and potentially another car to swap/borrow for road trips it is pretty much the best vehicle for city driving/daily commute.
- Charging at home is much cheaper and healthier for the battery. If you can’t charge at home I wouldn’t get an EV.
- Ask yourself how often you do road trips. Depending on where you live a 6-7 hour drive can easily turn into 12+ hours because of waiting around for charging if the chargers are not close enough to each other to utilise charging at the lowest battery % possible. Even the tesla supercharger network can be quite sparce outside of urban/wealthy areas.
- Price - EVs are still quite expensive compared to ice in general, and depreciation can be killer. A used tesla model 3 is basically half the price now compared to what it was a few years ago when new. Check what kind of tax breaks or other benefits you can get in your region or consider buying used.
My EV has been from Minneapolis to Key West, Seattle, Toronto and plenty of shorter road trips. I don’t stray far off the beaten path but I haven’t had issues charging.
I only regretted that I bought a BMW because it eventually broke down and I had to pay an exorbitant BMw tax to fix it. So high it wasn’t worth it. To be clear the fix itself wouldn’t have been too much if BMW didn’t block third parties from doing it.
Loved having electric though. Next car will definitely be electric. Full tank of ‘gas’ leaving the house everyday. Never having to go to petrol stations…
Sadly that’s not going to be BMW specific for much longer, they’re all taking a page out of that book. 2022 Hyundai, long story on how I managed to kill a single spark plug at 30k miles, but this time last year the part wasn’t listed anywhere. It was FORTY DOLLARS for a SINGLE plug from Hyundai. I’m sure there were alternates that would work but I wasn’t going to risk it over 40 bucks at that low mileage.
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.
You haven’t replaced the tires?
That’s still super low cost compared to all the regular repairs a combustion engine needs, especially when you consider that combustion cars also need tire replacements, just a bit less often
regular repairs
Are you driving an alfa romeo? An engine is just a part of a car that needs service and there are ICE cars with 500kkm on them that only had their oil and maybe a timing belt replaced. Neither is an expensive thing.
The electric cars also have suspension, brakes, comfort systems etc. And those need fixes or maintenance just as often if not more often then the engine (especially with more electronics and smarts these days). The electric propulsion system also isn’t a simple thing and I bet with enough time there are going to be brands or models to avoid because of expensive battery/drive train component failures.
That being said an electric brushless motor has much less mechanical complexity than an ICE. But saying that EVs are going to require significantly less maintenance needs to wait till we see twenty year old electric cars with hundreds of thousands kilometers on the odometers.
My Subaru needed head gasket twice, transmission failed, and needed a catalytic converter, among other things that don’t even exist on an electric car. Maybe if ICE companies and dealerships didn’t screw people over so hard, I’d consider buying one again. I’m going to try something different this time.
Dealer lied to me to get the sale in multiple ways, saying that the head gasket issue was fixed (it was, but not for the car they were selling me) and told me that the transmission fluid was not supposed to ever be changed (it was, and not changing it is probably why the transmission failed). Bunch of scammer scumbags, my next car will NOT be purchased from a dealer. If their business model requires a state law forcing them into the middle of a transaction, they’re parasites.
I’d donate to Trump by buying a Tesla before I’d purchase a car from a dealership again.
There’s no way you’re driving 500,000km in an ICE without replacing stuff like spark plugs, clutch, alternator, filters, sensors.
…And emissions valves, vacuum hoses, evap canisters, fuel cap/seals, possibly a valve cover gasket, serpentine belt, tensioner, and idlers, fuel filter, possibly the fuel pump. 500,000 kilometers is 310,685 miles for all the Yanks and Brits in the audience, and if you manage to drive a combustion car that far without needing all of those things, let alone any selection of them, I will eat my distributor cap.
I’ve driven a diesel Renault for 12 years (loke 300k km) and didn’t need to replace any of those. The only big unplanned cost I had was a faulty EGR valve, which happened at 600km and wasn’t warranty for some reason.
That said regular oil change for clutch and brakes were mildly expensive, but I guess even for EV you’d want the brake hydraulics replaced the same way.
Edit : just spotted filters. Yeah I replaced every filter every service, but with how grimy they look, even in EV I’d argue for replacing them.
Replacing brakes on an EV should be much less frequent, since regenerative braking doesn’t use the brakes
Funnily enough I heard mechanic friends say that EVs need the brake rotors replaced more often than combustion cars, because the EVs use the brakes so infrequently that the rotor just rusts so badly it needs replacing.
Actually yeah, forgot about having to do that on my 1st ID4.
I have driven an old Nissan leaf for 5 years as a commuter, and I love it I don’t pay for gas or maintenance the electrons are free, and the insurance is cheap. I’m waiting on some more robust options so I can have an EV as my main car.
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.
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.
We bought a used one and just use a little Android Auto server we built for online services. It’s a little extra work but works great, giving me more control and options. No money to Musk that way. He does get our driving data, but we can pull the SIM card out of the car if we want to stop that.
Nice project, thanks for the pointer
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.
