People often say that their electric car is “just a better car”, or “a car from the future”. To explain what this means, here are some upsides and downsides I’v

People often say that their electric car is “just a better car”, or “a car from the future”. To explain what this means, here are some upsides and downsides I’ve observed during the last 15 months of owning a first gen Hyundai Ioniq: + Less noise. That’s one of the most important benefits to me. Long road trips become enjoyable, and are no longer scary. + Acceleration is smoother. My wife remarked it feels like a hovercraft or something. + Adjustable power - if I need to overtake, I enable sport mode and enjoy the acceleration. Other than that, I use economy mode which throttles the available power. + Less (or no) subtle vibrations from the engine that carry into the cabin. + Charge at home 80-90% of the time. No gasoline spills, no upselling in the gas station store. + Cheaper to operate. I save 60-65% in fuel compared to the old car. Teslas who accelerate strongly a lot, and non-ideally built cars (like a pickup) will not save as much in countries with expensive electricity, but might still save 30-50%. + Cheaper maintenance (-50%), and less appointments to take. + The heat pump heats up way faster in winter, like 2-3x faster than a normal ICE. + It looks like a small-ish car from the outside, but the trunk has proven big enough to go on vacation with 2 kids. + Destination charging at the grandparents’ is great. - The 28kWh battery will last me 175km in winter, and 200km in summer. A small battery is great for the environment, but I’d be happy about more capacity. The sweet spot for me would be 60kWh in this car (it was/is the most efficient EV, so other EVs will need more capacity to match it). When I drive a lot, I have to be way more mindful about charging than with an ICE, but this improves with every charger being added to my area. They recently built a “hyper charger” very near my son’s school, which basically eliminated range anxiety in daily driving. - Slow charging at home. Mostly not an issue, but if the battery is empty and I need to get somewhere, I need to drive to the next fast charger. Happens 1x a month or less. - Fast chargers are sometimes broken or taken. Don’t empty the battery completely (that’s bad for lifetime anyway) so you can get to another charger. Happened once for me, so far. - Tires might wear out early as it’s so easy to stress them with acceleration. So far, no signs of that though. +/- Virtual engine sound simulation is annoying (I often turn it off, but it re-enables every restart), but it has probably saved my cat once because he hid under the car and was startled away by the sound.