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Yep. We need the electric equivalent of a starter car with good range and basic hardware. I'd take a car with roll-up windows, physical buttons, single A/C cont
by ssgodderidge 4y ago
Yep. We need the electric equivalent of a starter car with good range and basic hardware. I'd take a car with roll-up windows, physical buttons, single A/C controls, 4 doors, 300 mile range, and a backup cam.
Would the masses take it? Who knows. But I'd be all in on that one.
- detritus 4y agoCount me in for one of those too.
- JohnFen 4y agoI'd take it. I wouldn't even need the A/C, as I live in a part of the country where it wouldn't get used more than a week or two in the year anyway.
- kube-system 4y agoIf it has a heat pump, which I argue it should, ”AC” is basically free.
- jvanderbot 4y agoSign me up. I hate everything about my Tesla except the drive.
- paxys 4y agoThere are plenty of them out there if you are willing to give up the Tesla brand. Look up the Nissan Leaf, Volkswagen ID.4 or Chevy Bolt.
- ladberg 4y agoUnfortunately the ID.4 is a bit too techified for my taste. The smart system to control windows and mirrors crashed while driving on the highway once, closing the mirrors inwards so I couldn't use them and stopping me from rolling down the windows.
- BryantD 4y agoI love my ID.4 very much but it is not the entry level EV described at 40K and up. The Leaf and the Chevy Bolt clock in at under 30K which is much closer.
- FireBeyond 4y agoNeither is the Model 3, either, which is the point of comparison. The Model 3 will still set you back a minimum of $47K (plus taxes, title, yada yada).
- BryantD 4y agoI agree. The ID.2 and ID.1 are the likely entrants in the cost category we’re talking about.
- paxys 4y agoNot entry level, but still a very attractive price when compared to Model X, Model Y and the equivalent segment.
- trilbyglens 4y agoWas going to post about Volkswagen and škoda!
- nyargh 4y agoThe Renault Zöe is a good contender too
- rnk 4y agoAlmost anything but the leaf. Doesn't charge much. Terrible battery lifetime because they don't have a battery management system (heat/cool the battery). Only charges with chademo, not ccs, 50kw. They are cheaper. Buy the chevy bolt, that's the best starter/low end basic car.
- selectodude 4y agoThe majority of the cost of any EV is in the batteries. They make them faux-luxury to justify the price that they cost. A stripper EV is going to cost only a couple thousand less than anything out right now. Maybe relax on the 300mi range and get a Nissan Leaf.
- ianai 4y agoMy rav4 prime has a combined range well north of 500 miles and I need every bit of it-because I live in the sticks and we’re not to the point of being able to charge comparably. Something’s got to give.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> Something’s got to give. Living in the sticks? ICEs enabled housing sparsity, reversing that is part of the solution.
- ianai 4y agoI’m guessing you don’t realize how offensive that statement is. I’d like to know what percentage of GDP is done “in the sticks”. It’s one of the more viable ways to address NIMBYISM and locality problems.
- selectodude 4y ago20 percent of the population, 10 percent of GDP. So the entirety of rural USA has a GDP 3 points higher than the NYC metro area. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/redefining-rural-america/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/redefining-rural-am...
- bumby 4y agoA couple things: That census definition of urban/rural is different from the colloquial definition. The census link allows an "urban" classification as low as 2,500 people. Colloquially-defined rural areas have been decimated by globalization in the last 40 years. The "rural" area I grew up in had thousands of manufacturing jobs; now it may have 200. The drop in GDP goes far beyond urban sprawl enabled by ICE vehicles.
- bri3d 4y agoI think the big issue is that this hypothetical car would still cost $30k-$40k before tax benefits. While I think plenty of buyers yearn for a "traditional" car, it's hard to justify one with the added base cost of electric. The Nissan Leaf got pretty close to this (albeit with less range) and while it sold OK, it was far from a barn-busting success. The marginal cost of adding gizmos and gadgets to an electric car is not very high due to the large base cost sunk into the platform, so we get gizmos and gadgets.
- bumby 4y ago>The marginal cost of adding gizmos and gadgets to an electric car is not very high due to the large base cost sunk into the platform This may be plausible, but is there data to support it? Because, anecdotally, all the add-ons of "gizmos and gadgets" options can blow up the price. For example, a base F-150 is $43,325. The Platinum options package adds over $23k in just options. I suspect the more likely culprit is manufacturing cost and efficiency. It just makes more sense to make electric windows the default when the majority of people are going to pay for them anyways.
- hangonhn 4y agoIsn't that basically a Chevy Bolt? It's ridiculously good on value/price.
- burkaman 4y agoI don't think that quite exists, but the Chevy Bolt has good range, is the same price as like a Honda Accord, and everything critical has physical buttons.
- lnsru 4y agoReal 300 winter miles range means paper 400+ miles WLTP. And this is where expensive cars start. Real 300 kilometers look better, but still doable with rather expensive cars.
- greedo 4y agoYeah, I considered a Model Y last year, but the range in winter for EVs is a non-starter for me. People don't realize how significant a drop in range occurs in cold weather.
- rnk 4y agoDepends on how cold, and if you set your car to charge and warm up the battery before you leave. I have 10 years of driving to ski areas around the PNW. It's never mattered that much. But it doesn't get that cold here either. Parking it at a hotel where the high was 25 degrees did seem to reduce range a little, but not enough to matter. But there are stories of people driving them in below 0 F where if you don't warm it up in the morning (via setting the leave time when charging) they have real loss. This is another area tesla is way ahead, with the battery mgmt system working better in the cold, plus the heat pump. People in cold Quebec also suffer this cold weather.
- greedo 4y agoI live in the central Plains. It's normal for many days between Dec 1 and Feb 1 to be below 32ºF, and not unusual at all to be subzero in the day time. Even prewiring the battery won't help as much as you imply. Sure Tesla may be better than competitors at battery management, but that doesn't mean the battery life is any good in this type of weather. If your "normal" range is 300m, but drops to 180 in cold weather, then it dramatically affects your route planning since you'll need to recharge far more often. And while there are Superchargers in the Midwest, there aren't that many.
- garyfirestorm 4y agoLook into Toyota bZ4x
- hanniabu 4y ago> physical buttons I'd pay extra for that
- optymizer 4y agoTo me, rolling your windows looks as funny as cranking the engine. It's a simple motor that doesn't consume a lot of power as far as I can tell. It probably costs manufacturers $30/door for a huge UX improvement (at least for me), with no maintenance. It cannot possibly be the first thing in a list of conveniences to give up. We have villages in Eastern Europe that don't have plumbing or gas, yet they have fiber optic cable and free and fast public Wi-Fi, so you see horse-pulled carts carrying villagers with laptops. That's what I'd feel like in 2023 rolling my own window in an EV.
- dingaling 4y agoWindow motors require wiring looms through the hinge void, which can wear out, plus the motors, switches and a logic board to handle "one touch" operation. All cross-wired through the car so that the driver can command all windows.
- izacus 4y agoIn Europe, Renault Zoe is quite popular as just that.
- TremendousJudge 4y agoSurprised the Chinese automakers haven't been mentioned. BYD is currently the world's largest EV seller. The Dolphin for example is exactly what you mention -- as basic an EV can get, and probably as cheap as it can get as well.
- slaw 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Dolphin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Dolphin AUD$35,000 for small subcompact is not cheap.
- TremendousJudge 4y agoYeah I don't think it's cheap in absolute terms, just that it's probably as cheap as you can get it right now. I don't think they have left any corners uncut with that car.
- andjd 4y agoI have the opposite complaint. I don't need 300 miles of range, 100 would be more than enough. I can rent a traditional car if I need to take a road trip. But I do want a nice interior, and other "premium" features, such as a heads-up display, lane keeping assist, 360-degree camera, etc. For the car you're describing, check out the Chevy Bolt EV/EUV. It's the closest car to what you're asking for, although it doesn't have a 300 mile range. It may be hard though, Chevy is moving all they can make.
- gnicholas 4y agoA used EV with a fairly depleted battery could work well for your use case. Only problem is that lane keep assist was pretty lousy in many cars until recently.
- bmelton 4y agoCitroen seems to be the closest to making these a reality. The Ami and Oli are wild, weird, but absurdly practical starter cars marketed to a slightly-more-sophisticated-than-starter-car demographics. The Oli is especially impressive in that they've learned that you can sacrifice battery capacity, and if you just keep the car lightweight and aerodynamic enough, you can still get decent range. They're claiming a (pretty phenomenal) 6.2 miles per kWh, and for a car targeting a price point starting at $20k that offers the utility of a small city car, SUV, and pickup truck in a single vehicle, I find it compelling, even as the sort of person for whom this is the least viable car. And if $20k sounds like too much, the Ami is less impressive, but I think starts at closer to $10k.