What will it take to make you seriously consider an EV?

I test drove for my BIL when that TLX when it came out and said NOPE. not with that transmission.
I want to say this was in 2015.

Acura/Lexus interiors are far better. When my BIL was shopping for a SUV, we went and saw Highlander, MDX, CX-9, XC90, Q7 (end up leasing this because of a really good deal).
Highlander was terrible. Just felt so cheap to me. CX-9 was far better and I really wouldnt mind driving a Mazda. Q7 of course felt premium.

At the end of the day, if you can feel a difference in the experience, go for it. it's your money!
but to get something to impress others...

lol @ paying 900 for a F150.

 

Yeah, the transmission in the 2015 TLX sucked when it first came out. It was ZF-sourced and used in Land Rovers, Chryslers, etc. I wanted to kill the thing after owning it for a few weeks. Actually, I thought it would end up killing me, first. They've made it a lot better through all kinds of TSB's, but I'll never forgive them for using that damn transmission. Unfortunately, after driving my previous Acura for 250,000 miles, I had to get a new car or fork over money for repairs on the old car, so I was left with the Caddy ATS, Infiniti Q50, and Acura TLX. The Infiniti release was a disaster with people holding steering wheels sideways to make the car go straight and infotainment systems shutting down randomly and you having to restart the car to fix it (lol). And the car I really loved, the ATS was a typical GM crapfest on initial release. In retrospect, I was screwed no matter what I picked. lol.

I'm starting to look at Genesis G70's or maybe GV70's, but don't think I trust Hyundai yet - we'll see. I'm not sure it matters since I doubt I'll be buying a car anytime soon. Which is probably good because I also have an itch to look at Panameras, but the practical side of me won't let me.

I'm still waiting for anything EV to make me turn my head and say I'm ready to make that jump, but for that to happen it's about the car and the charging network.

 

My sister has a 2015 Q50 and I hate driving it. The runflat tires are terrible. Feels like driving on I10 where it's groovy. Car feels like it's wobbly under me.

I looked at the Panameras this year and ended up buying a Cayman. While I trust porsche to defy physics, it's still a big and heavy car and I rarely transport 4 people.

I am not ready to BUY an EV. I will lease one. I just don't trust this technology to be worth anything in 8-10 years. What if I want to keep it and battery is 30K at 8 years..?

 

You knew what you wanted and got it. That’s perfectly fine.

I am talking about most of the folks that go into the Lexus showroom etc but would not even consider a Toyota.

Let me put it this way, if the badge didn’t matter to these folks, Toyota would have sold all their cars as Toyotas, with the upper end Lexus as just Toyotas with different model names and higher pricing.

But they don’t. And neither does Honda, Nissan, or Hyundai with regards to Acura, Infiniti, or Genesis. Because this country places a lot of emphasis on branding, marketing, and image.

I come across people that will not even consider Toyota or Honda. They won’t even look at the car lineup because it lacks prestige.

Recent example. Neighbour down the road was in the market and I told them if they can wait, they should strongly consider the Toyota RAV4 Prime. Would be around 50k or so.” But one of the best cars to be had right now especially for the gas mileage and 50 miles of charge.

She was not interested. Did not even consider it because she wanted a Lexus or Acura.

She ended up paying $50k or so for an Acura RDX. RDX! Ha! Enjoy the fun trips to gas stations every 3 days with her commute. Premium fuel as well lol

2 months in and she is already crying. But at least she has a nicely paded seat to cry on.

 

Stay away from any ICE made by Hyundai.

Most of their ICE cars have engines that can fail and do fail and need full engine replacements. Well within 30-40k miles.

Hyundai tried to avoid warranty claims saying they need full service records for car. They said engine failure could be because of lack of scheduled maintenance.

That was all fine and dandy until they got hit by massive lawsuits and had to replace a whole lot engines. Not to mention recalls after recalls of several models.

Turns out their manufacturing processes was leaving metal debris inside the engine which was leading to engine shutdown and failures.

Best warranty means nothing if they try their best to not even honor it.

A lot of dealers don’t even buy Hyundais because of their engine issues.

Hyundai have pretty bad resale values. With the engine fiasco, it got venue worse.

There is absolutely no way I would risk my money on a Hyundai or Genesis ICE car with that track history.

 

Also, I don’t understand people that cite potential battery replacement issues as a reason not to get EVs.

Batteries have 8 years and 100k mile warranty and even comes with minimum production guarantee after 8 years of use.

It’s not like the battery will just fall apart right at 8 years as soon as warranty expires lol.

By same token, maybe not buy ICE because it’s engine might die after 60k and would need out of pocket engine replacement??

BMW engines actually blow up and are incredibly expensive. But that doesn’t stop a lot of folks from buying them. This was actually the reason I chose 350z back when they first came out more than 2 decades ago. The other car I was considering was the E46 M3 but the engine stories scared me away. On the flip side you had the bullet proof tried and tested VQ35DE engine of the 350z.

There are always lemons with any technology and most of them are rare. Unless there actually are a number of documented issues, I am not going to rule something based on what potentially might happen 8 years down the road. Plenty of time to take correction action with a long warranty lol

There are plenty of Teslas with 100k+ miles on them with hardly much battery degradation.

The car will probably fall apart before the battery does.

On the flip side, Teslas hold their resale value very well. So if you were to sell and trade, you would be getting premium $$ over most cars.

The valid reasons to not get Teslas would be high entry price point, mediocre at best interior, non luxurious in the traditional sense of luxury car and lack of options in terms of repair and servicing.

The valid reasons to get Tesla would be performance, tech features and infotainment system, reliable charging network which pretty much eliminates range anxiety, long term savings with access to level 2 home charger and solar, safety.

The overall cost of ownership of a Tesla over a long period of time is actually lower than most cars despite their high entry price which includes the resale value. You pay once but hardly put any $$ in the car after that unless you run into bad luck. No oil changes… no scheduled maintenance. Heck, don’t even need to change brakes for a number of years since regen takes care of that.

PS. Musk is a moron. I can judge a merits and demerits of a car while ignoring the guy.

 

That's pretty much why I'm staying away. I've followed their forums since the early Genesis days, and meh. Realistically, if I buy something eventually, it'll be something like a Lexus or something for me, but I can't get over their designs. I love German designs, but don't like the idea of having to replace everything for twice the price at twice the frequency. LOL.

Battery failure after 100k miles is a huge thing for a lot of people. I think in a lot of EV cars, the warranty is something like 150k miles, tbh. In Rivians it's something 175k. For example, I wouldn't even think of getting rid of a car before 8-10 years of service and 150-200k or so miles, so if you're telling me there's a chance I may need to pay $15-$20k or whatever to replace that battery in an 8 year old car, I'd be pissed. The other thing I noticed about those warranties is that they will only replace the battery if your capacity ends up being less than 70% over that time. So if your car were getting 250 miles per charge new and you're still getting around 175 miles toward the end of the warranty, then ... tough. That's still about 70% of the "capacity". Nevermind you'll be charging more frequently.

 

Don’t you think you are going with the worst case scenario in mind? What are the odds that your battery needs replacement right after 8 years, one that has been running fine for all that time.

Also, that battery performance guarantee has lots of buffer. I believe the degradation is higher in the first few years and based on the numbers I am seeing with cars that already have 100k miles on then they have lost a mere 3-5% capacity?

Lastly, 8 years is a long time. Batteries could very well be cheaper and better if/when the time comes.

I sort of get your concern if you are absolute sure you want to keep the car for 10+ years but I think most people are going to get something else long before then.

My math and numbers told me to go ahead and get them especially with the level 2 charger and solar at home. The overall cost of ownership was very attractive. Even more so since I had price locked them in a year ago when they were $8-10k cheaper.

Having said that, hopefully I haven’t jinxed myself.

 

It's not really so much the worst-case scenario to me. It's just that you're telling me there's a chance for the thing to need replacement after that warranty, fine... it's like a transmission/powertrain warranty in an ICE vehicle. I get that, except if I need to replace the tranny in an ICE vehicle, it isn't going to cost anywhere near that much, so I don't find that risk quite as bad. When I need to do the timing belt/water pump replacement maybe $1000-$2000 or so. Again, bad, but I don't feel like I'm buying another car to fix my current car's issue. And engine failure in the cars I generally buy won't happen until well after 250k miles, probably, so I really don't worry about that. Then on top of that you're saying if there's a 70% reduction of the range while the battery is still within warranty, that's not covered, either? The warranty seems to be getting kind of goofier.

You're right, there's no guarantee those things will happen, but the possibility and the end result to my pocketbook if they do seem kind of crazy. If there's no risk of 30% degradation of the battery or if the battery replacement "only" cost around $2000, I wouldn't really worry as much. Nowadays, since I don't drive as much, the more important thing is getting 8-10 years of fairly trouble-free use. I used to put about 25-30k miles on my car per year in 3-hour-a-day stop-and-go traffic along with road trips. Nowadays I just tool around the city for the most part and may take a road trip every-so-often, so I'm more worried about getting the extended use of the vehicle. This is really the only reason I'd even entertain an EV right now.

But like I said, it all comes down to how you use your car, what you look for in it, and how long you plan to hang onto it. People that are buying a new car every 3-5 years probably won't care about half the stuff I do.

 

My friend has a RAV4. GREAT MILEAGE.
But you won't get me to buy that car. The car drives terrible IMO. Floaty. Unrefined. Infotainment is TERRIBLE. Even just how they integrated that into the center console area...

I am in the market for a midsize suv (no rush) and I looked at the RDX. I was watching the reviews and one of them said MPG is 22!. I am out.
I am not doing premium gas for 22mpg in 2022 for a 4 banger.

 

Is that combined or highway? is it the SH-AWD model? If it's combined, then who knows how he was driving. I would think the SH-AWD would also drop the mileage, but that would still suck. If it's highway mileage, that's .... messed up. I would rather check an Acura forum and see what people are actually getting instead of trusting one or two reviews. May want to check something like Acurazine's RDX forums.

 

My 2010 MDX was 16-20mpg rated. I got around 18 with sensible driving. But 16 if mostly city. I sold it.

forums confirm the not so great MPG.




https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-rdx-2019-454/2020-rdx-fuel-mileage-988905/

 

It's going to be a wild used car market in 10 years.

The difference in the used and new car market now where the new car market is all about technology and used car market is all about reliability, mpg etc.

When all this "8 inch Infotainment screen" looks antiquated, doesn't run relevant software, and probably just stops working what is the car worth then?

 

Ford again hikes the starting price of the F-150 Lightning pickup, now up 40% since launch
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/16/ford-f-150-lightning-electric-pickup-gets-another-price-hike.html

• Ford has once again increased the starting price of its electric F-150 Lightning, citing higher raw material costs for the pickup truck.
• The new $4,000 price increase means Ford has upped the entry-level pricing of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup by 40% since the vehicle’s launch.

 

Han would never..

 

Oddly/Ironically enough, I saw this on a forum the other day. I'm finding it tough to buy a new EV, and this dude goes and buys a 2013 Tesla with 60k+ on it and an extended warranty that ends right when the car battery dies. lol. I'm not buying an extended warranty that doesn't cover the battery on an EV. I still don't get why he didn't at least take them up on the offer to tow/diagnose the issue.

 

Insane, considering it was supposed to be the everyman truck, and as cheap (or cheaper!) An an entry level F150. On top of that, Ford was supposed to prevent price gauging, which they failed to do, and are essentially now taking part in (I get that that is debatable).

 

Yikes. Good on him for getting the first warranty but what a disaster.
The EV used car market is going to be a crap show.

 

https://www.tiktok.com/@domnatishow...8?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&refer=embed

https://www.tiktok.com/@domnatishow...6?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&refer=embed

 

It seems like his battery heating malfunctioned so the battery couldn't get up to a high enough temperature to charge. The concerning part to me is not that it wouldn't charge, things break and cars malfunction. What is concerning is that when the heater failed, the car didn't immediately throw up a warning. Checking the heating system should definitely be part of the car's regular self-check.

Charging in the cold is less efficient for an EV, but it shouldn't be a showstopper unless the car is malfunctioning. Out of Spec review did a test of charging a Model 3 Performance at a SuperCharger at -15°F from a cold start. It took the car 45 minutes of warming up the battery pack before it start charging. Then it took about 50minutes to go from 44% to 90%.