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The cars don't quite seem 'there' yet. Tesla is the leader here, but I've heard many horror stories about owners' cars needing minor repairs being unusable for
by sathackr 9y ago
The cars don't quite seem 'there' yet.
Tesla is the leader here, but I've heard many horror stories about owners' cars needing minor repairs being unusable for months due to parts availibity [1]. They seem also to have the best charging network as the rest of the industry was split between CHAdeMO and CCS.
Nissan got the jump in America with the Leafs and CHAdeMO, but they don't have the range to be the only vehicle for most people.
I learned about the Bolt EV and went to the dealer, money in hand, to trade in my SUV for one, until I saw it up close and drove it. It's just not quite there yet. The car is $37,000 and doesn't have power seats. I'm not spoiled in that I can't use a manual seat, but for long distance driving, position is important and the seat only had the typical manual seat adjustments. No tilt, no height adjustments. The amount of space in the rear is quite small, and there is no frunk.
Charging and cost of charging was another problem. There are not quite enough CCS chargers in my area yet. And public chargers are bit pricey. The ones I found were $0.30+ per kwh. That price exceeds the cost of fueling a newer gasoline car that cost half as much. 3.5mi per KWh works out to about $0.086/mile. A car that gets 40mpg at $2.50/gal costs $0.063 per mile in fuel.
The Model 3 may change some of this, and of course, home charging is cheaper. But the numbers just didn't quite add up for me. I'm looking at a Volt now. The plug in range can handle about 60% of my driving, and I have an efficient gas engine that is cheaper to run on long trips than the equivalent electric cost. There is plenty of trunk space and I don't have to wait an hour for it to charge for every 3 hours of driving.
Not to mention that the Bolt EV is just ugly.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+cant+drive+body+parts&oq=tesla+cant+drive+body+parts https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+cant+drive+body+parts&...