My issue with the Kia and Hyundai is they are too small. And they drop well below an estimated 300 mile range for the AWD models. They seem promising for those who don’t care about range and are fine with small vehicles.
Are you looking for a big SUV or truck?
It’s lame that most of the charging networks require you to maintain a prospective balance in their apps rather than just charging for actual use.
SUV. I have pre-orders in for the Rivian and EX90 so far. I considered the iX but BMW handled it so badly that I backed off. If the Rivian had CarPlay and a more established company and service network, and was actually available, it would be pretty close to the optimal vehicle.
Typical news story that likes to play up the negative in anything. Some of it is accurate, some is just factually incorrect, like this quote from the dad that bought his daughter an EV, " There isn’t a good software tool that helps EV owners plan their trips." Sure there is! Has been for years. I favor “Plugshare”, but a lot of people in the EV community like “A Better Route Planner”. Both are exactly what he is asking for.
Odd one out here. I actually will be replacing my Volvo sedan with another sedan or a very very small SUV style car. When I ditched my van, I swore I would never drive anything big again…and I haven’t.
Yeah, I do not like driving large vehicles. We still have our POS Honda Odyssey and long years ago had a Nissan Xterra. I don’t like something that big although that van can haul a metric $#!% ton of stuff.
See now, we have a different perspective—though we finished hauling kids to/from college 6 yrs ago, our huge Sienna minivan will be driven into the ground as it now serves as our substitute pickup truck.
We don’t drive it on road trips, but it’s great for a trip to IKEA or Home Depot, etc.
In December, Quiroga was in Florida driving BMW’s luxury i7 all-electric sedan. He watched as its range dropped from 240 miles to 220 as soon as he turned on the heat.
“You use the luxuries … and the range plummets,” he said.
This made me chuckle….heat is a luxury?
Typical American here – what Europe would consider monstrously huge I consider mid-size. For example, to me an XC90, Highlander, X5, MDX, etc., are mid-sized SUVs, while things like the Expedition, Tahoe, Suburban, etc. are large SUVs.
I literally hope to never have to drive a sedan again. I have had to occasionally as a rental car and hate everything about it - how low I am to the road which impairs my field of vision and situational awareness, lack of storage capacity and utility, lack of ability for people to spread out (if we have 5 people in the car, someone always prefers the optional 3rd row over 3 in the second), roominess of the seats, etc. The only thing worse are these newer “compact” SUV’s which are really just tall sedans. In some of those my head literally hits the roof even with the seat in the lowest position and I have to move the drivers seat so far back that it would be impossible to have anyone in the seat behind me, not even a baby car seat – the third rows of our XC90 and Pilot have more leg room than the second row of those cars after the front row is set comfortably. No thanks.
We still have an old Odyssey too. Don’t love it (terrible drive, constant little issues) but I think we will miss it when we eventually let it go because its literally a bottomless pit of storage utility – way more than even our SUVs because of how low the floor is. And that comes in handy on average about once a month, which is why it has clocked more miles in slightly less than 10 years than our even older Pilot has logged in 15 years. I suspect probably a couple times a year I’ll end up needing to rent a vehicle after we lose the Odyssey simply because none of our other by then 3 SUVs will have that capacity we need for the activity.
There is no activity we need our Odyssey for any more with the kids out of the house. The only thing it is useful for is moving large pieces of furniture like a bed. We are going to help a friend’s parents move with it soon, but otherwise it just sits and takes up space. It has an intermittent issue with the ABS coming on w/o touching the brake (not so fun while going 65 mph on a highway) so you have to pull the ABS fuse to drive it safely.
We had an issue with one of our cars once and insurance paid for a rental. The only vehicle the local Enterprise had available was a Dodge Ram pickup. It was horrible. I literally could not see over the hood of the thing to go down my driveway. We ended up taking it back to Enterprise and just making do w/o a rental.
I hate big vehicles like that.
AC in an ICEV increases consumption. While heat is free in an ICEV, that is because the ICE wastes a lot of energy which is given off as heat, whether the heat is used to heat the cabin or radiated out.
I have found that getting in and out of a third row seat of any non-van is rather inconvenient. Perhaps a small agile child can do so easily, but if you want a third row that is convenient for adults, a van makes the most sense.
Yeah, but if you live in the north, heat is not a luxury. It is a necessity. They should make the EV manufacturers publish range data for when the heat is being used. Otherwise it’s deceptive for those of us who live in cold areas.
Our Kia Niro EV decreases range by about 10% in the winter. But we run the heat sparingly, which we are able to do because of the seat heaters and steering wheel heater. So I usually set the heat on about 67°; my husband doesn’t run the heat at all and just uses the seat heaters.
The third row (versus 3 people in the second row) preference has held in our vehicles even as our older kids and their friends have aged into mid-20’s adults. I’m sure there’s a magic line where someone ages out of preferring the third row over sharing the second row, but it seems top be higher than small kids.
H and I were seated in 3rd row of my BIL’s new vehicle (not a van). It was the MOST uncomfortable either of us had ever been in a vehicle—absolutely NO foot or leg room. We both vowed never again. It’s probably fine for little kids but very uncomfortable for adults. H andI could manage getting in and out, it was the actual sitting in the seats for any period of time that was utterly miserable.
Some businesses put such stickers on their chargers to discourage non-patrons from mooching. This is what a couple of wineries here do. 