first world opinion.
The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
21–30 of 114 posts
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#22I can't charge it in front of my house, so no.
I have to travel long distances for my job occasionally, and I don't get paid to wait at a charging station.
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#23The available options in the market filtered to your needs should tell you what your next car should be, not some article.
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#24Petrol cars have significantly longer driving range, which is important for transport efficiency. Petrol cars are significantly cheaper to buy. Petrol cars refuel significantly faster than electronic cars recharge. Petrol cars don't have a costly battery which degrades over time and pollutes.
> Petrol cars have significantly longer driving range, which is important for transport efficiency.
95%+ you charge at home or at work and a single fully charged battery is by far enough for daily use.
> Petrol cars are significantly cheaper to buy.
Life-time analysis of anything but very cheap cars this doesn't really hold up.
> Petrol cars refuel significantly faster than electronic cars recharge.
Not relevant most of the time. If you actually road trip long distances most experience reports suggest that even just going to the bathroom and eating is enough to recharge enough to get to the next stop.
Very few people use their petrol cars to do road-trips in a way where the natural stops are not enough.
> Petrol cars don't have a costly battery which degrades over time
Petrol cars have much higher maintenance cost and an engine that degrades over time. If you take minimal care of your battery it will hold up for multiple 100k miles and even after that it will have significant resale value.
> and pollutes.
Far less then petrol.
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#25Still doesn't work for my use case. I commute on public transport, live in an apartment with only on-street parking, there is limited on-street charging but it's massively oversubscribed. Mostly I drive longer distances for hiking trips, weekends away music festivals, visiting family etc. Very few of these destinations have charging options. I've seen how this can work, I drove an electric Hyundai Ionic as a hire car…
Hmm, interesting. In London at least it doesn't look like the on-street charging is particularly over subscribed, although it obviously would become so if everyone followed this without drastic improvements. I think it really depends on the area but parking by my old flat had chargers in the lamp posts, by my friends there are proper electric only bays with faster chargers, etc. If your main use case is long trips th…
Another anecdata point - an acquaintance got Tesla. And now instead of just rocking up to a nearest petrol station he's in constant mode of planning trips, checking for available charging stations, leaving the car few blocks away for charging, etc, etc. He's still happy apparently, because it's very pleasant ride and so on. But from my point of view it's a massive downgrade in comfort.
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#26> The first car I bought (after driving a self-repaired / built junk) was a Honda Civic type-R Yeah, no, not all of us have enough money to have had as our first car a "Honda Civic type-R". Probably the title should read be more like: "If You're At Least Comfortably Middle-Class The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric". But of course all this push to EVs is a huge regressive tax applied to the less-off people which i…
I am an adherent of bangernomics[1]. I don't care at all about cars. But right now I just don't have the knowledge to buy a second hand EV. It's too risky and things are changing too fast.
I'm afraid until there's a healthy and predictable second hand EV market, you are quite right.
[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/motors/bangernomic...
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#27Still doesn't work for my use case. I commute on public transport, live in an apartment with only on-street parking, there is limited on-street charging but it's massively oversubscribed. Mostly I drive longer distances for hiking trips, weekends away music festivals, visiting family etc. Very few of these destinations have charging options. I've seen how this can work, I drove an electric Hyundai Ionic as a hire car…
Same experience. The infrastructure simply isn't there yet in most towns or cities.
Those who think otherwise forget that a large number of people in OECD countries don't own their own parking spots or have the legal right to run electricity or install their own chargers.
They also seem to greatly underestimate what it would cost to saturate street-side parking spots with car chargers.
Charging will eventually become convenient for people who don´t live in detached housing or happen to be in a small handful of forward-thinking towns or cities, but it's going to take a fair amount of time.
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#28I need it to cost 50K AUD or less, be able to tow, be able to go at least 500k on one "tank"/Charge and fit at least 5 adults comfortably.
After that I don't really care too much and would love to buy electric.
But I don't see much in that space that fits that bill. (in my state/country anyhow)
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#29I'd buy a EV tomorrow if it was cheap enough to do so for a practical commute vehicle, eg a small four door hatchback like a hyundai i30.
For charging, EVs aren't an issue for me since I'd use mine for commute and the range of most of them is plenty sufficient enough I'd only need to recharge every week. For country driving I'd still be relatively ok if I had a trailer.
That trailer requirement is not for fun. Its not optional or a "nice thing to have". I'd expect a EV to be a real vehicle and not some entertainment or otherwise toy. I frankly don't care about EVs for status purposes such as a sports car used to impress. It would be replacing my current workhorse commute vehicle and frankly none of the current EVs are actual competitors yet in realistic ways.
Re: The Next Car You Buy Should Be Electric
#30I don't actually like cars or driving enough to deal with being an early adopter. That's basically for enthusiasts to deal with. Though lately the idea of a hybrid pick up has been enticing. Seems like they are just starting to exist. The new ford one looks almost perfect except its not 4wd.
The section about noise though is right, idk why we torture our selves with noise pollution. And how did people ever start to think they're cool by making more noise. Theres very few engines that sound good, and even then like the article said theres only very few times they should be heard.
In general Im frustrated by this whole idea of fixing the climate by having individual consumers change their habits. We all know its pointless, we know what the big problems are and yet we still want all of us little people to pitch in. We really need to start going after the big polluters. Us little people will be doing plenty of "pitching in" after corporations punish us by passing their new costs on down to consumers.