Will you buy an electric or hybrid car next?

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1491

Speaking of naming things in a car, it reminded me of this old joke:

"The four Goldberg brothers, Lowell, Norman, Hyman, and Max, invented and developed the first automobile air-conditioner. On July 17, 1946, the temperature in Detroit was 97 degrees.

The four brothers walked into old man Henry Ford’s office and sweet-talked his secretary into telling him that four gentlemen were there with the most exciting innovation in the auto industry since the electric starter. Henry was curious and invited them into his office.

They instead asked that he come out to the parking lot to their car.

They persuaded him to get into the car, which was about 130 degrees, turned on the air conditioner, and cooled the car off immediately.

The old man got very excited and invited them back to the office, where he offered them $3 million for the patent.

The brothers refused, saying they would settle for $2 million, but they wanted the recognition by having a label, ‘The Goldberg Air-Conditioner,’ on the dashboard of each car in which it was installed

Now old man Ford was more than just a little antisemitic, and there was no way he was going to put the Goldberg’s name on two million Fords.
They haggled back and forth for about two hours and finally agreed on $4 million and that just their first names would be shown.

And so to this day, all Ford air conditioners show – Lo, Norm, Hi, and Max – on the controls."

1492

Hi sherpa!!!

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1493

I came across an interesting article about JD Powers Initial Quality Study for 2023 car brands. I was surprised that Dodge topped the list. Toyota, which I associated with reliability and quality, was just below the average index.

Tesla was not eligible for the ranking, but it would have been placed at the bottom.

1494

Stellantis’ Chrysler brand is near the bottom, though.

All of these Stellantis brands seem to have few models.

1495

I’ve been away from this thread for a while, but since my last post we purchased a Peugeot 208 GTI electric car (in France). This car is apparently unfortunately not available in the US, but it is a delight - lots of fun to drive, good mileage on a single charge, etc. I have always loved fast cars and swore I would never buy an electric car, but I honestly don’t see much if any downside to this car. I can’t imagine why the manufacturer apparently thinks there’s no market in the US, as it seems to me that cars like this will help to change people’s minds.

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1496

If it is a car rather than an oversized SUV or truck, it may not sell that well in the US, regardless of whether it is electric, hybrid, or not.

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1497

Yes, I guess you could be right - when we were in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee last month, we were amazed at how big the cars were. Here in France, probably because the roads are narrow, hatchbacks are more prevalent.

1498

I finally found my next hybrid…:wink:

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1499

As much as I love Ferrari’s, I’ll take this Porsche X EV with 1,500 HP:

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1500

Beautifully done ad! :sunglasses:

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1501

So I’ve had the Tesla X Plaid (aka Ms. Fancy Pants) for 8 months and am better able to assess whether I would bring on additional EV’s. In short…no I wouldn’t.

First off, I love this car. It is so much fun to drive and I still smile each time I get in her. The super charger network is fantastic as is the software that manages trip planning. We still mostly just charge at home. It is the only vehicle I have ever owned that continually gets upgrades once it’s left the sales floor (okay, sales parking lot). And although I cannot think of a time when I would actually NEED to accelerate from 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, it is still fun to do every once in a while. So I like THIS car not because it’s an EV but in spite of it.

Now, would I get another EV. Nope.

At local Kwh rates I’m not saving much, if anything, on fuel. We have an additional baseline Kwh amount due to medical equipment. Our power provider said to stay with that plan because it is better for us than a time of use/EV plan. So, basically paying .42 kwh to charge. Local super chargers have slightly higher rates unless one charges between midnight and 4 a.m.

We have been a Toyota Highlander family. The one we bought new in 2004 had 180K miles on it and was sold for $5000 K (well, actually $4500 because H learned the buyer was a single mom and just threw in a discount) in 2020. A few weeks ago we sold the 2007 model which we’d purchased used for 23.5K in 2010. It had close to 180 K and sold for $7500. Both of these vehicles, if maintained well, can be expected to run for another 75k – 100K.

In contrast, a family friend has a 10 year old Nissan Leaf. It now has a fully charged range of 30 miles. And that’s if they don’t use the A/C. In our area replacing the battery is in the 4k - 5K range and doesn’t make sense. So basically it is a throw away car at 10 years.

The Highlanders sold at 16 years of age will continue to be useful. The EV at 10 years is basically scrap metal unless you just want a car to go to the grocery store and back which seems restrictive and wasteful. IMO it is more ‘green’ to keep a vehicle longer than it is to scrap it.

As for hybrids…it’s hard to justify the cost differential (in the case of Highlanders) between a simple ICE and a Hybrid.

As always YMMV

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1502

Do not judge all EVs by one manufacturer’s car. That’s a HUGE assumption and mistake you are making! Why would you even do that??

Nissan Leafs are well known for their battery degradation due to their dumb reliance on air cooling the battery. Tesla doesn’t do this nor does any other major manufacturer of EVs. Only Nissan has this faulty technology. Please do not judge all EVs by Nissan Leafs!!

Most manufacturers, including Tesla, have liquid cooled batteries. These have a much longer life.

I owned a Nissan Leaf in 2015 and while it was a great introduction to the world of EVs I would never buy another one.

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1503

Quite true and good point. I didn’t realize this was a Nissan Leaf specific issue.

And I have not researched the resale value nor expected remaining life expectancies of 16 year old used EV’s.

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1504

Yeah it is definitely a Nissan Leaf specific issue.

I drive a Chevy Bolt and it did have the battery recall (LG manufactured battery), but we saw almost no degradation in the battery before it was replaced at 80k miles. We definitely saw a lot of degradation on the Leaf in the two years we owned it. We now have a new battery in the Bolt and it’s got great range (like 250 miles depending on weather and driving technique).

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1505

How much was it to replace the battery? Was it under warranty?

Edit…NM I see it was a recall.

1506

So far, we love our Prius Prime. It’s a plug in hybrid and we plug it in every day and generally can do most of our regular errands with just the 30 or so mike electric charge that recharges in about 4 hours on normal household current.

When we need to go further, the ICE motor seamlessly kicks in. We don’t have that many charging stations so glad we have a hybrid so we don’t have range anxiety.

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1507

I’m on my second RAV4 hybrid. There was nothing wrong with the first one, I just didn’t want to ship it 5000 miles when I moved. I’ve owned them since the first year they were produced. I’ve loved both of them. I get about 47 mpg on my '21 model around town and 38-42 highway.

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1508

Yeah, completely free and now it’s like a brand new car. Basically like you got a whole new transmission and engine in a gas vehicle, so we didn’t mind the recall at all.

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1509

The original Leaf 24kWh and 30kWh batteries used a battery chemistry that is one of the worst for degradation, and did not use liquid cooling. Other EVs use battery chemistries that degrade much less and use liquid cooling. The result is that the original Leaf had by far the worst degradation of any recent EV, and should not be considered representative of EVs in this respect.

There is a company planning to offer aftermarket better batteries for the original Leaf: https://evsenhanced.com/aftermarket-battery/

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1510

Wow, that’s expensive electricity! Ours would be .16 per kwh under the regular plan. We do use time of day rates and charge at night when it’s .08 We get about 4 miles per kWh. Our Bolt replaces a 2013 Prius that was getting about 45 mpg. So we’d need 11 kWh to go as far as one gallon would have taken us. That .88. A lot less than the $4.30 per gallon gas is going for now here.