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Makes me really happy with the Nissan Leaf I bought a few years ago. It’s a Nissan Versa with an electric motor and battery in it. That means most of the parts

by api 3y ago

Makes me really happy with the Nissan Leaf I bought a few years ago. It’s a Nissan Versa with an electric motor and battery in it. That means most of the parts on the car are standard and the body is cheap to repair. Lots of higher end EVs have stupid high repair costs from minor accidents due to this not being the case. It has a dumb infotainment system that I just plug a phone into and use as a screen. All the car’s critical functions are physical buttons that are ergonomically placed. Acceleration and handling is fine. In fact it out accelerates most gas cars. It has one pedal driving. The adaptive cruise control and auto steer work great. If you are stuck in traffic it just guides you along leaving a selectable distance between you and the car ahead. Steering assist has never tried to kill me. 220 miles of range is more than enough for a city car and I can charge it at home for stupid cheap. (It’s like $8 to fill from zero off home power, about 1/4 to 1/6 the cost of fueling an efficient gas car.) It’s small and electric and is called a “Leaf” so it does nothing for one’s penis. But I am secure in that department. Literally the only sucky thing about it is its CHaDEMo fast charge port which is chonky and a fading standard. Makes it not great for road trips but we have an old gas second car for that. Make a model of this with a bit more range and NACS and Nissan would have the ultimate boring competent EV that I want. I like the car enough for its boring competence that I’ve looked into CCS or NACS conversion. Apparently it’s possible and there are people working on kits but I’d have to find someone to do the install since I don’t have time for such a project. PSA: anyone who knows high voltage electronics well could design and crowdfund a NACS to CHaDEMo dongle on Crowdsupply no problem. It would be non trivial though because it would have to be powered. But there are enough cars with that older standard to make millions on such a device. I’d spend as much as $1000 or a bit more for one.

matthewowen 3y ago
That’s great, but you have a second car to cover the things your primary car can’t do! That might make sense if you do a daily commute that makes the convenience and running costs of the smaller car worth it. In general I see a lot of snark about people driving (eg) trucks around that people assume they can’t possibly need. But the reality is that people buy their vehicles based on the most challenging routine thing they need their car to do. I mostly only have four people in my minivan, but the extra space is great for road trips or when the grandparents visit. A lot of people have trucks because they want the towing capacity a few times a year, or they want the space to haul dirty stuff. IDK, I find the dismissiveness of “must be compensating for something” a little tiresome and honestly kind of incurious.
- api 3y ago
  I was intending to joke about how the auto industry caters to image and fashion not utility and many cars are encrusted with things people don’t need… whether it’s being excessively big and jacked up or a bunch of bloatware on an infotainment system. What you say is somewhat true but we really do have a ridiculous oversized car issue in the US. The irony is that many of the people who really could use these trucks can’t afford them. They are high priced status symbols. What I was ultimately getting at was that the car industry does not want to sell practical cars. The margin on those is lower. They want to sell puffed up chonkmobiles or overly complex bloatware machines. Then they want to double dip with surveillance. Enshittification for cars.

by api 3y ago

matthewowen 3y ago

That’s great, but you have a second car to cover the things your primary car can’t do! That might make sense if you do a daily commute that makes the convenience and running costs of the smaller car worth it. In general I see a lot of snark about people driving (eg) trucks around that people assume they can’t possibly need. But the reality is that people buy their vehicles based on the most challenging routine thing they need their car to do. I mostly only have four people in my minivan, but the extra space is great for road trips or when the grandparents visit. A lot of people have trucks because they want the towing capacity a few times a year, or they want the space to haul dirty stuff. IDK, I find the dismissiveness of “must be compensating for something” a little tiresome and honestly kind of incurious.

api 3y ago
I was intending to joke about how the auto industry caters to image and fashion not utility and many cars are encrusted with things people don’t need… whether it’s being excessively big and jacked up or a bunch of bloatware on an infotainment system. What you say is somewhat true but we really do have a ridiculous oversized car issue in the US. The irony is that many of the people who really could use these trucks can’t afford them. They are high priced status symbols. What I was ultimately getting at was that the car industry does not want to sell practical cars. The margin on those is lower. They want to sell puffed up chonkmobiles or overly complex bloatware machines. Then they want to double dip with surveillance. Enshittification for cars.