OT: Electric Vehicles

trj said:
I'm a vain and shallow guy. Are there any that make me look cool and that I am a straight up baller when in reality I am neither?:)
Click to expand...
Tesla has a roadster coming out that looks pretty cool. It will do 0-60 in 1.9 seconds and 250 mph top speed with 620 miles of range. I can't swear it will turn you in to a baller but ... if you have the coins they'll sell you one.

https://www.tesla.com/roadster
 
You mentioned that you bought a new car not long ago.

What about your trusty old pickup? Did you finally sell it? Or did it pull into that big garage in the sky?
 
Wife fell in love with a Smart car. Problem is it only had a 50 mile radius for every charge and 3 hours for a full charge.
Something like that would be ok in a major metro with reasonable public transit. In driving to the train station from home every day. Even between Peoria and Chicago it's a no-man's land with regard to EV stations. If one live in the Windy City or on the East Coast with train stations aplenty I'd look at it.

But there is the Rivian plant south of town here that's supposed to be a cooperative effort between Ford and Amazon. I haven't seen where they're offering those trucks around here.

With anything automotive there's a guy on YouTube, Scotty Killmer who has a pretty no-nonsense take on anything with wheels.
 
Fryowa said:
The other thing I think about is service. The closest (Tesla) service center to us is three and a half hours away. If he had a warranty issue or say, needed to fix a small broken item, etc., it'd be a humongous ordeal.

Not sure how the Chevy Bolt or BMWs are handled by dealers. I've been too lazy to look.
Click to expand...
I would never, ever buy a car I couldn't get serviced locally. Trust me on this. EV's are not for people living in the sticks. We're 10 years at least for that to be an option.
 
I bought a Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid in 2018, and it's done just what we got it to do. It gets 45-60 miles per full battery charge (in warm weather), so my wife uses it to commute to work and back, runs errands, and we sometimes go months without using any gas. It's also a Camry-sized sedan, so it's larger, more comfortable, and quieter than a Prius or Leaf. The hybrid aspect of it is great 'cause you can take it on cross-country trips if you want using regular gas...we met our adult sons in Denver and traveled some distance with 5 people and all our luggage. Also nice that it charges on a simple 120 outlet in the garage. Battery mileage does drop rather dramatically in the winter: here in Waterloo it would drop down to 30-35 miles per charge when it gets subzero -- lowest we've ever seen is an estimated 29...but even that allows my wife to get to work and back. Unfortunately, Honda never advertised the car, and now they sell it only in CA and a few in OR and WA.
 
SmokeTownHawk said:
Wife fell in love with a Smart car. Problem is it only had a 50 mile radius for every charge and 3 hours for a full charge.
Something like that would be ok in a major metro with reasonable public transit. In driving to the train station from home every day. Even between Peoria and Chicago it's a no-man's land with regard to EV stations. If one live in the Windy City or on the East Coast with train stations aplenty I'd look at it.

But there is the Rivian plant south of town here that's supposed to be a cooperative effort between Ford and Amazon. I haven't seen where they're offering those trucks around here.

With anything automotive there's a guy on YouTube, Scotty Killmer who has a pretty no-nonsense take on anything with wheels.
Click to expand...

I've listened to a lot of his videos. He's definitely a Toyota fan followed by Honda.
 
I want to know who's had an EV over 8 yrs old and their experience. Battery performance? Cost to purchase new batteries? Etc..
 
Northside Hawk said:
You mentioned that you bought a new car not long ago.

What about your trusty old pickup? Did you finally sell it? Or did it pull into that big garage in the sky?
Click to expand...
Nope, neither actually. I have a 2nd unattached garage and it’s sitting in that driveway. I called a salvage place to come pick it up but I can’t find that title and I’ve been way too lazy to get a new one. Need to get that done.

I’d keep it but it needs new tires and the steering rack leaks like a mofo. Tires would be $500 mounted and the rack + power steering pump + a belt with labor would be $650. Truck isn’t worth that and I’m not as ambitious as I was when I was 20.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
I've listened to a lot of his videos. He's definitely a Toyota fan followed by Honda.
Click to expand...
Yup, he loves them rice-burners. Can't argue with the quality. I've owned enough Fords and Chevys in the 70s. Put way more money into keeping them on the road than I ever should have.
 
SmokeTownHawk said:
I would never, ever buy a car I couldn't get serviced locally. Trust me on this. EV's are not for people living in the sticks. We're 10 years at least for that to be an option.
Click to expand...
Oh I’d never buy one. Even if I lived in an area conducive to it.

My vehicle costs me $35 to fill from empty and I can get it filled in mostly any town in America. In less than 5 minutes I can go from 0 miles range to 450 ish miles.

There’s just no reason at all to buy an EV unless you’re committed to the whole 0 emissions thing (which if you look at the resources needed to mine lithium isn’t really all that clear cut), or you think it’s cool to have. I got no beef with either reason.

It’s actually my buddy who’s dead set on buying one, I’ve been trying to talk him out of buying one due to the nasty ass NE Iowa winters. But it after reading @Hawk1960 ’s replies it sounds like maybe it’s doable here.

Not something I’m interested in but everyone gets their skirt blown up in different ways. To each his own.
 
SmokeTownHawk said:
Yup, he loves them rice-burners. Can't argue with the quality. I've owned enough Fords and Chevys in the 70s. Put way more money into keeping them on the road than I ever should have.
Click to expand...
I bought a new Sorento a couple months ago. 10/100,000 power train and 5/60,000 bumper-bumper. It’s friggin nuts what Korean and Japanese car companies do for warranties these days. I don’t know if I feel better about the warranty itself, or that they trust their stuff to last long enough that they’re comfortable putting that long of a warranty out there.

One of my friend’s experience with his ‘12 Sorento sealed the deal for me. He’s got 246K one owner miles on it and not even a minor problem with it in all that time other than maintenance stuff like brakes/tires/etc. he was always a trade every five years type of guy but now he’s just keeping this one because it’s comical. He turned it into an experiment and the damn thing won’t die.
 
Last edited:
Fryowa said:
I bought a new Sorento a couple months ago. 10/100,000 power train and 5/60,000 bumper-bumper. It’s friggin nuts what Korean and Japanese car companies do for warranties these days. I don’t know if I feel better about the warranty itself, or that they trust their stuff to last long enough that they’re comfortable putting that long of a warranty out there.
Click to expand...
I've got a Nissan Rogue with close to 100K miles on it. Not a wimper of a problem. Regular maintenance is all.
 
I was one of the first EV owners in MN. We bought our first Nissan Leaf in 2012. The car had a range of about 80 miles and served as a good daily driver for my wife.
I've seen a lot of comments and questions about cold weather and the batteries. That isn't really an issue. The batteries are insulated and they have heaters. There's a small draw on the batteries to keep them from getting too cold.
The bigger draws are the in-car heater and defrost. On the 2012 Leaf, it would knock the range down to about 50 miles. It wasn't good when you have to trade off comfort and/or safety for range.
In the 8 years that we owned the car, we probably spent about $500 total on maintenance--we kept it on its maintenance schedule.
The only item we had to replace were the tires, once. We also had to replace the charger in the house, $400.
It cost us about $10 a month to charge the batteries.
I compared the cost of owning the Leaf to the gas cars that we've had. I would say that the electric car saves about $1000 per year.
We exchanged that Leaf late last year for a 2020 Leaf with a 250 mile range. All the trade offs and range anxiety are gone.
It uses more electricity, we're probably closer to $20 a month when we're commuting. With our quarantine, we filled the other car once.
 
SmokeTownHawk said:
Yeah the Rogue was made in Tennessee if I remember correctly. No such thing as an "American" car anymore. Not for a long long time.
Click to expand...
Nope. I was choosing between the Sorento and a Traverse. Blown away on how expensive the Traverse was for not as nice an interior or ride. It was trimmed out slightly higher (Kia and Chevy trims don’t exactly line up perfectly) but not $8,000 worth. The warranty is less than half, and I heard a lot of horror stories about the timing chain issues that require a motor pull. And they like to happen 5,000 after warranty lol.

What I can’t get over is how for the most part the Asian vehicles don’t have those big issues that a lot of domestics do. Like the old GM 3800s liked to leak the intake gasket, 3.6s had the timing chain issues, Ford and Dodge has their issues too. You hear of certain repeated stuff with Asian vehicles, but 1) they’re pretty few and far between, and 2) the warranties are so damn crazy that if they do happen they’re usually still covered.

I don’t see myself going back to domestic after this one. The Kia is just a way nicer vehicle for less money and double the warranty.
 
Last edited:
Fryowa said:
Nope. I was choosing between the Sorento and a Traverse. Blown away on how expensive the Traverse was for not as nice an interior or ride. It was trimmed out slightly higher (Kia and Chevy trims don’t exactly line up perfectly) but not $8,000 worth. The warranty is less than half, and I heard a lot of horror stories about the timing chain issues that require a motor pull. And they like to happen 5,000 after warranty lol.

What I can’t get over is how for the most part the Asian vehicles don’t have those big issues that a lot of domestics do. Like the old GM 3800s liked to leak the intake gasket, 3.6s had the timing chain issues, Ford and Dodge has their issues too. You hear of certain repeated stuff with Asian vehicles, but 1) they’re pretty few and far between, and 2) the warranties are so damn crazy that if they do happen they’re usually still covered.

I don’t see myself going back to domestic after this one. The Kia is just a way nicer vehicle for less money and double the warranty.
Click to expand...
I'm really wanting a Toyota or Kia after the Nissan is past its prime. Can't beat the quality. I'm done with domestics. They lost me a long time ago.
 
Let me get this straight. The reason you buy an electric car is to save energy? And because it doesn’t pollute the environment? You do plug this thing into an outlet right? Doesn’t this increase your electric bill? And doesn’t that electric come from a power plant that runs on oil? And doesn’t that electric plant pollute the air? Unless of course you get your power from a nuclear power plant, but I don’t think I wanna live anywhere near one of those. I think the only safe and economical usage would be if you got your electric from hydro-electric plants, but then there’s still that increase in your electric bill. Solar would be the perfect solution, but again, you would have to invest in thousands of dollars of solar panels to even get a half way decent charge. And then there’s the question about power outages. What if you only got a partial charge in before the power went down. Would you take a chance to go somewhere on a partial charge? Just playing devil’s advocate here guys. But it is something to think about before you go and make Elon Musk a little richer so he can fly around in outer space.
 
ModebaSan said:
Let me get this straight. The reason you buy an electric car is to save energy? And because it doesn’t pollute the environment? You do plug this thing into an outlet right? Doesn’t this increase your electric bill? And doesn’t that electric come from a power plant that runs on oil? And doesn’t that electric plant pollute the air? Unless of course you get your power from a nuclear power plant, but I don’t think I wanna live anywhere near one of those. I think the only safe and economical usage would be if you got your electric from hydro-electric plants, but then there’s still that increase in your electric bill. Solar would be the perfect solution, but again, you would have to invest in thousands of dollars of solar panels to even get a half way decent charge. And then there’s the question about power outages. What if you only got a partial charge in before the power went down. Would you take a chance to go somewhere on a partial charge? Just playing devil’s advocate here guys. But it is something to think about before you go and make Elon Musk a little richer so he can fly around in outer space.
Click to expand...
Those are all valid points Mode and some of the same reasons why I was skeptical when my son bought the Model 3. Your correct, the EV is only as "green" as the power source whether it be coal, natural gas, wind, hydro, nuclear would determine that. There really is no such thing as "emission free" because many energy companies have a blend of many of the above sources. Everyone has different value drivers. After driving in my son's car and seeing how he has gotten over the range issues I would definitely consider one now for my next vehicle. I'm an advid golfer. Whenever I go to a course that has a choice between gas or electric carts almost everyone prefers the electric because they are much quicker and very quiet. They also make sense because they return to a home base every night for charging and have fewer maintenance issues.

I also think some of the gas/electric hybrids make a lot of sense. You get the acceleration and performance, no range anxiety whatsoever and some terrific fuel mileage. They probably do have a few more maintenance issues because you have two power sources.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top