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Cars are like horses: people will soon realise EVs are just better, claims VW boss
(www.autoexpress.co.uk)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Literally every single person that I talked to that seriously tried an EV (like, as a daily driver for some time, not just the rental you had for a day) said they were never going back to combustion engines.
I'm on holiday, renting a combustion, and hating every second of it.
I want an EV but the prices are brutal :(
Allow me to be the first.
I drive an EV now. It's super convenient not having to fuel up once a week. It's nice just charging at home overnight. Long distance trips are not so convenient, but doable. The money savings on gas is significant, but tire usage seems to be higher, and depreciation is higher than any vehicle I've owned. There's the looming thought of having to replace the battery someday.
More than anything, I'm tired of cars feeling like spaceships, and EVs are among the most space shippy.
My next car will likely be an efficient but fun four door ICE hatchback (think European sensibility) from six or seven years ago if I can find one with low miles.
No shade on those loving EVs, I think it's great that the majority of people are moving or would like to move away from ICE vehicles. But so long as they feel like spaceships to me and depreciate like room temperature milk, there's room in my garage for an efficient gasoline car.
You can add another one to the list then. I was forced to switch last year (regulation changes and end of lease on the ICE company car). I went from a BMW 3-series to a Polestar 2, and I was initially a bit reluctant and skeptical but quickly learned to love it.
I went basically like this:
Electric is just a superior drive train concept for daily driving. The instant torque, the smoothness of acceleration and lack of gear changes are so awesome, even passengers comment all the time about how nice it feels. And once you get used to the one-pedal drive, you don't want anything else. Just lift the gas pedal to stop, and step on it to go... couldn't be easier.
The only downside is that in terms of vehicle dynamics you do feel the added weight, you can't really hide 500 kg extra. So when changing direction it doesn't want to turn in as eagerly, and you feel a bit more roll and suspension travel in everything that it does, but the positives vastly outweigh this one negative.
I hope to never buy another. We have an ICE minivan as a second car and it compliments our compact EV well. But 10/10 I prefer driving and maintaining the EV. I always knew EVs were quick, but I didn’t expect how quiet they would be. I can actually hear my music.
Which compact EV do you have?
Yeah I will never go back.
I still have my ICE car for my kids, and have been tempted to upgrade them ….. but there’s no point spending money to replace a perfectly functional car only 9 years old, and most importantly just sits while they are away at school
Yeah, I drive an EV and will never go back to gas.
I mean maybe if I had a project car or something but even then my thoughts drift towards how I might swap an electric drivetrain…
I don’t have an EV, but I can imagine it would be nice to not have to go to the gas station once a week.
I charge mine 80% of the time off the solar panels on my roof here in Australia. Making your own fuel is quite the thing.
Another 10% is overnight on a cheap tariff
and the other 10% public charging on longer trips.
I've had an EV for a couple of years and had to rent a gas car on a trip recently. I was prepared for the expensive fuel, I wasn't prepared for how shit it was to drive.
See, an EV's electric motor and (usually) single reduction gear means you get basically the same acceleration between 5 km/h and 120 km/h. You can put your foot down slightly and forget you're accelerating because it feels just like sitting in a stationary car on a hill. How far you push the accelerator is how much acceleration you get. Unless you're getting wheel spin or you're at the car's power limit, that's all there is to it.
A gasser has an engine with different performance depending on RPM and a gearbox that provides different performance based on which gear it's in and changes according to it's own logic. You're just used to this when you drive one all the time, but for me it was awful the way I'd put my foot down and get nothing, then engine noise, then some power, then a lurch and more power and another lurch and less power. The accelerator pedal is a suggestion, mostly disconnected from what the car actually chooses to do.
Same torque, not same acceleration. Air and roll resistance have something to say too.
The car increases power as the vehicle's speed increases, so you really do get the same acceleration force. That's trivial to do when the drivetrain isn't wildly flailing around.
Yes! About a year ago we went up a very curvy hill with the kids that has, in the past, always made everyone feel queasy, even the driver to some extent. But this year, it didn’t at all. I think it was because we were driving an EV, and without all of the hurky-jerky of the nonexistent transmission, it was way smoother.