I don't like to discuss EVs in public because things quickly devolve into an inquisition if one doesn't fully embrace the messaging, but I'll bite.<p>From an enthusiast perspective, I have no issues with an electric powertrain. The concept has a lot of promise once the implementation matures. The current issues I have with electric _powertrains_ (not vehicles) are: Relatively short battery lifespan, high replacement cost. Unrealistic range estimates. I live in Germany and the range is pathetic when traveling at actual Autobahn speeds, which is further worsened during the times of year when heating or cooling is required. Poor high speed performance, except in higher price brackets.<p>The thing that these enthusiast-directed EV articles always seem to miss is this point.<p>> Most car companies are adopting use of modern operating systems in their new cars. Most companies seem to couple this generational leap in in-car systems to their EV launches. If you, like me, want the best UX of the in-car system the quickest, it’s an EV you need to get.<p>I'm not interested in an iPad on wheels. The ideal UX in a car should be as unobtrusive as possible. I should set my destination, select my playlist, and never have to interact with a touchscreen until I arrive at my destination. I have yet to see an EV that sticks to this philosophy. The new Porsche Taycan climate control vents are controlled via touchscreen, for example. This is insane.<p>As for the environmental aspect, well, I'm probably going to regret saying this openly. We live in a fully industrialized world. Unless we're all willing to go back to using wind power to transport cargo and carriages to transport people, while simultaneously getting the world population back to pre-industrial levels, it's a bit too late. I don't think you're going to be saving anything with your EV. The messaging around this topic is akin to a man who burned his house down and is now discussing smoke alarms. It's too late, my friend.
> It’s like the old-school nerds refusing to adopt graphical user interfaces in the 80s. It’s a mindset that once gotten rid of, looking back you can’t understand why you ever thought that way.<p>… which is exactly what most power users are still doing with terminals and tooling that is as old as modern computing. Did he just inadvertently argue against his own point?<p>There are many great arguments for EVs, but this text missed the mark completely.
Agreed.<p>However... I'd still argue if you have a car today that you own... Stretch ownership to another 5 years.<p>I'm currently on vacation in the lake District in the UK and the car I have is Volvo T8 twin engine. I can't charge this thing anywhere. Charging spots in hotels aren't available to non residents, the solitary charging spots in car parks are taken, and the cottage I'm in has a very strange weak circuit that I can't charge the car from. Anecdotally I've seen no Tesla's or Porsche Taycan, or even Leaf's... Those were left behind at the M6.<p>It feels like infrastructure has yet to really catch up to need. It will. But today, if you still own a hybrid, ICE, twin engine... Keep it a while longer.<p>By that time Polestar and the like will have incredible cars available for less than the current price. The wait will be worth it.
Still doesn't work for my use case. I commute on public transport, live in an apartment with only on-street parking, there is limited on-street charging but it's massively oversubscribed.
Mostly I drive longer distances for hiking trips, weekends away music festivals, visiting family etc. Very few of these destinations have charging options.
I've seen how this can work, I drove an electric Hyundai Ionic as a hire car in South Korea a couple of years ago. The car was great and there are chargers everywhere, but we're nowhere near that point in the UK as yet.
Petrol cars have significantly longer driving range, which is important for transport efficiency.<p>Petrol cars are significantly cheaper to buy.<p>Petrol cars refuel significantly faster than electronic cars recharge.<p>Petrol cars don't have a costly battery which degrades over time and pollutes.
Lots of us petrolheads like electric cars.<p>What we don't like are cars plagued by build quality issues and that we're not even _allowed_ by the manufacturer to wrench on it ourselves (a quality we also strongly dislike about modern ICE cars as well). The black box nature is what makes it antithetical.<p>The rates that Teslas are getting totaled out for what should be repairable issues are also a hot issue for us.
Alternative: Why your next city should be walkable<p>Your gut (more burnt calories), wallet (no vehicle expenses) and family (less commuting and more family time) will thank you.
> The first car I bought (after driving a self-repaired / built junk) was a Honda Civic type-R<p>Yeah, no, not all of us have enough money to have had as our first car a "Honda Civic type-R". Probably the title should read be more like: "If You're At Least Comfortably Middle-Class The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric".<p>But of course all this push to EVs is a huge regressive tax applied to the less-off people which is constantly ignored from the public discourse, so this type of attitude does not surprise me at all.
Always amused when people call themselves "petrol head", really what they mean is just "car nerd".<p>"I'm not someone dorkily obsessed with an ordinary, everyday item. I'm a glamorous petrol head! Just like Jeremy and the boys."<p>Car. Nerd. :P
Of course, the rational arguments are almost all in favor of electric. But he's not going to win many friends here with that quote!<p>>old-school petrolheads screaming … that part of the fun is to be pat of the machine … It’s like the old-school nerds refusing to adopt graphical user interfaces in the 80s.<p>Give me bazaar-style composable UIs and I'll stop being an old-school nerd. Don't have any? Thought so!
There are good reasons for buying an EV but this article is not convincing. The author thinks an M3 is a “real sports car” (it’s definitely not), so no surprise that the article doesn’t talk about a big downside that makes EVs less fun to drive - their higher weight.
I'm gonna write what I'm writing every time this comes up.<p>I live in Munich, a big city in Germany. I know zero people who live in an apartment (like I do) who can reasonably use an EV. All the friends and acquaintances who own an EV have a house with a garage, and thus they have no problems charging (incidentally none of them reside IN the city with their houses, because they're not millionaires). I'd have to go the supermarket parking lot, which is the only charging spot in a 1km radius that I know of. I don't think (although I haven't asked) if the building owner would be up for putting up charging in our parking lot. I somehow doubt it.<p>I've yet to hear any even remotely sensible solution.
>"Why bother doing anything here as China is polluting so much? The reality is that we have to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. All. That includes every tonne we release here, in our home country. No matter what <insert another country> does, we have to stop our pollution here Now."<p>Exporting your CO2 emissions to other countries (in the form of battery manufacture) does not achieve this goal. If anything, it's worse, because other countries like China will happily burn brown coal to power their factories.<p>And if it really is so important to stop CO2 emissions, then I'm surprised the author of this article raved about the touchscreens and other electronic gadgets present in all EVs, as they are incredibly resource- and energy- intensive to manufacture (equivalent to the energy needed to drive 1000s of miles), and are not necessary. In fact, I'm surprised the author can tell us that we should enjoy the driving pleasure of EVs, which seems a completely luxurious thing in an article telling us we need to make significant changes to our lifestyle to save the environment.<p>Also - the author only managed 1000km in one year on an ebike? That's embarassing, and makes it hard to justify the manufacturing expense in energy and materials of the battery and motor. I've had to start driving to work on more days, as I don't have the energy now I have two kids, but I still manage 2,500km of commuting per year on a regular bike (which is older than me), and on a very hilly route.
Although I like a lot big heavy SUVs (I own a Toyota LC200 diesel), I recently bought myself an EV scooter. It appeared it is pretty much more convenient to navigate through downtown using this small EV - it is ubiquitous, faster, brings joy while riding and you don't care about parking lots as much. The only negative part is you have to care about battery charge which takes huge amount of time compared to diesel/petrol.
My next car will be a PHEV.<p>Most my city driving is within the electric only range, so I basically never need to fill it up, but with a full charge and tank of gas it’s over 1,000km of range.<p>While I’ll be able to charge it at grocery store or wherever if a charging spot is available to basically get free range, and charge it at home whenever I want, I won’t be reliant on charging and can get the best of both worlds when I choose.<p>I intend to drive it over the next few years which gets close to the 2035 goalpost many countries have of deprecating ICE cars, and as electric and charging becomes cheaper and fewer people use gas at all I can pick what type of fuel to use (petrol or electric) based on what’s cheapest that week/month.<p>PHEV are also up to half the cost of comparable full electric.<p>I think if I never had to consider longer trips (2-4 hours of driving into the country) and I had access to a reliable at home charging I’d go electric tomorrow.<p>I feel like for the next 1-5 years PHEV makes more sense for my situation.
I don't actually like cars or driving enough to deal with being an early adopter. That's basically for enthusiasts to deal with. Though lately the idea of a hybrid pick up has been enticing. Seems like they are just starting to exist. The new ford one looks almost perfect except its not 4wd.<p>The section about noise though is right, idk why we torture our selves with noise pollution. And how did people ever start to think they're cool by making more noise. Theres very few engines that sound good, and even then like the article said theres only very few times they should be heard.<p>In general Im frustrated by this whole idea of fixing the climate by having individual consumers change their habits. We all know its pointless, we know what the big problems are and yet we still want all of us little people to pitch in. We really need to start going after the big polluters. Us little people will be doing plenty of "pitching in" after corporations punish us by passing their new costs on down to consumers.
I'd buy a EV <i>tomorrow</i> if it was cheap enough to do so for a practical commute vehicle, eg a small four door hatchback like a hyundai i30.<p>For charging, EVs aren't an issue for me since I'd use mine for commute and the range of most of them is plenty sufficient enough I'd only need to recharge every week. For country driving I'd still be relatively ok if I had a trailer.<p>That trailer requirement is not for fun. Its not optional or a "nice thing to have". I'd expect a EV to be a real vehicle and not some entertainment or otherwise toy. I frankly don't care about EVs for status purposes such as a sports car used to impress. It would be replacing my current workhorse commute vehicle and frankly none of the current EVs are actual competitors yet in realistic ways.
When charging is as fast and simple and universal as filling your tank with gas, it will start to make sense. I can go on a long trip, with brief interruptions for refueling/refreshments/etc. and expect to reach my destination in a reasonable amount of time. With an EV, I’m inevitably going to be stuck somewhere, having completed the other tasks, but waiting for the vehicle to refuel enough to continue onward. Worse, if I reach the destination and there’s no easy way to immediately recharge for the trip back, then the vehicle is effectively useless, except as shelter.<p>Until the EV infrastructure is as universal and simple as gas-power, it’s not an option.
It's all well and good but (a) they're expensive to buy and maintain, and (b) whilst UK charging infra might be good enough to get you there on a long journey, it's nowhere near good enough to do so in predictable time (which <i>is</i> important to a lot of us).<p>Also, basic practicalities: when I visit my parents there's no charging facility where they live so on at least some trips where the driving is more than just there and back I'd have to spend an hour driving somewhere, charging the car, and then driving back - time I'd rather spend with them given I'm often only with them for a day or two.
I would buy an electric car but the problem I have living in a terraced house is charging it. I don’t have off road parking and the street I’m on can’t easily accommodate chargers on the pavement.
I had made this vow.<p>The charging network in India is next to non-existent but I was OK to risk it and figure out a way to get it installed in my apartment.<p>To compensate for the lack of charging network I need the range to be 700-800 KM so that I can use it for highway runs. But the ones that are available advertise somewhere between 300-400 KM which translates to 200-300 KM real world.<p>So I bit the bullet and bought an ICE car. I really hope the range improves in next 5 years. Otherwise electric cars are only viable to those who can afford a 2nd car in India.
If I were in the market for a $25K-$40K car then I would definitely look at an electric. But I'm not. The next car I'm going to buy is for my daughter who has to move out of her college dorm for her last two years of undergrad (her school only has dorms for the first two years). I'm looking for something used, small, and not super expensive. I'm leaning heavily towards a Honda Fit.<p>Bottom line? The next car I buy is almost certain to have an internal combustion engine.
Whether your next car should be an electric really depends on when you think you'll need a new car.<p>If you need a new car right now, it's still cheaper and probably more practical to buy a petrol car.<p>If you do not need a new car right now, I think trying to keep your current car for another 5+ years then buying an EV may make sense (probably including for the environment).<p>EV are taking off but it seems to me that they are still mostly bought by people with higher-than-average income and/or who are engaged on this issue.
I can't charge it in front of my house, so no.<p>I have to travel long distances for my job occasionally, and I don't get paid to wait at a charging station.
we compromised with hybrid - because theres no electric charging in our building then we considered ones where you can take the battery inside and charge it but the range is ~60miles. Our commute is 80miles one way with no ability to charge at the other end. Next one will be electric though.
I need it to cost 50K AUD or less, be able to tow, be able to go at least 500k on one "tank"/Charge and fit at least 5 adults comfortably.<p>After that I don't really care too much and would love to buy electric.<p>But I don't see much in that space that fits that bill. (in my state/country anyhow)