The stuff like wipers doesn’t really seem like an EV issue to me. This sounds like “Tesla is going to do it Tesla’s way” kind of thing. Every car manufacturer–ICE or EV–could come up with their own unique way to turn on the wipers, lights, trunk, etc., but they generally don’t. I can see that the way you drive is different in terms of how you use the accelerator and brake pedals, but that doesn’t mean that things like the windshield wipers need to also be different.
How consistent is the user experience between different EV’s? Is it consistent between Tesla, Leaf, Rivian, etc.? Or does each kind of EV have it’s own way of doing everything?
The wiper button is on the left stalk which also does the turn signals. There’s a little diagram of water spritzing. It’s not that out of the realm of normal.
Our Cadillac EV is a mix of traditional buttons and stalks and screen controls. The Leaf is pretty traditional. Traditional car companies seem to be trying to create a relatively consistent feel across their line-up so far. Tech companies that make cars (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid) are much much more screen oriented, but each does their ecosystem uniquely.
I’d argue that they do come up with their own ways of doing it. Are lights and wipers on stalks or the dashboard, are those stalks on the left or right side, their own stalks or shared, are the dashboard controls buttons, dials, or something else? Lots of variations, but none of them are particularly difficult or wrong. I’m sure most people have had the experience of driving a rental and realizing they don’t know how to turn on the wipers.
To me, the biggest difference is that when most of the controls are in a screen, it can be impossible to know they even exist without some sort of icon or launcher.
Yes. My Dad’s new Lexus is the last of the old designs, and are there ever buttons. Rows of buttons in the center console, behind the steering wheel, on the dash, by your knee. All of them with cryptic littile logos that are fine once you learn what they mean, but until then are just a mystery.
There is a little “P” button by your left knee. What does that do? Putting the car in park doesn’t sound right, parking lights? Push it and nothing happens. It turns off the proximity sensors.
At least with a screen localization is easy. No need to use symbols to avoid printing different trim pieces for all of the different language markets the car is sold in.
I can find myself with that problem driving my wife’s or children’s cars. Every one of our cars has different light, wiper, emergency brake, and environmental controls. Half of them have fuel door releases inside. At last, they finally all have passenger side fuel doors.
There are a lot of EV/Tesla threads going on and I apologize for repeating myself. I was agnostic about EVs and Teslas two months ago. I had a vague idea that range anxiety would be a problem (it isn’t if you have home charging), that battery replacements were very expensive and common (true/false), that Musk was an asshole (very true) and that they would be a pain in the ass to drive (as false as possible). I was totally unaware of the self driving which I find to be a godsend while acknowledging that it’s not for everyone. I took a test drive and fell in love the with experience. Did a bunch of research and felt very comfortable with the purchase.
What I didn’t expect was the extreme antagonism against EVs and Teslas in general. And so much ignorance with so much confidence behind it. I get boycotting because of Elmo and that it doesn’t fit everyone’s use case but at least drive one before you hate on it so much. You may still hate it but at least there is a reason.
Every friend I have taken for a spin where it was their first time in a Tesla have been blown away.
My wife had a rental in the DC area and Hertz gave her a Tesla. I believe she was told it was that or nothing because Teslas were all they had in her rental category. She was not told this when renting.
She survived the trip but wasn’t enamored of the car. Her and her sister were driving to North Carolina and staying in an AirBnB and now she had to figure out trying to charge the car at the rental property. She also found it frustrating to find locations to charge during the trip to NC and was warned not to let it get below 20% or dire things would happen. Which, of course, happened because the remaining charge/range fluctuated and was hard to predict so they were panicking, trying to find a location.
I think the car itself was fine though not anything to gush about (I think she had some complaints about the interface) and, if you knew what was coming, maybe you could work around the charging thing but, in her experience, it added a whole layer of unwanted complexity that an ICE/Hybrid car wouldn’t have had.
The 20% thing is for long term battery health and fuck that in a rental. You can go to 1% and be fine as a user so long as you are at a charger at that point.
My very conservative parents and inlaws (Fox News on all the time in both houses) thought we were crazy getting one. Inlaws thought our 400 mile trip to see them would take a day and were shocked to hear we only had to charge once, for 20 minutes, to get there. Dad and FIL both drove the car and were surprised how easy it was. I doubt they would ever get one, but they don’t think they are this crazy concept any longer.
That and a buck will buy you a cup of coffee when the rental place shoves a weird car at you and you don’t know shit about it except “Don’t go under 20%”
I notice them all over the place, and I don’t own an EV. But I live in Northern California where they’re pretty much everywhere. I mostly notice them in grocery store parking lots and public parking garages. And there are a couple near my office.
But of course if I’m renting a car it’s because I’m traveling somewhere else, where chargers may not be as common as they are here. The last time I rented a car was when I attended my sister’s wedding in Cooperstown, NY. I needed to drive from the Albany airport to Cooperstown, then a few miles here and there between my hotel and various places, then back to the airport a few days later. I actually briefly considered renting an EV, but decided against because there was no charger at the hotel. It looks like there are a few public chargers around Cooperstown, and an Electrify America fast charger along the freeway about halfway between Albany and Cooperstown. Had I gotten an EV I probably could have made it work, but it would have been less convenient without the ability to charge at the hotel (Although I’m not sure how many of those chargers were there two years ago when I was there).
Of course some day when I buy an EV none of that will be an issue, since I’ll have the ability to charge at home and likely won’t need public chargers much if at all. But obviously the experience of renting one is quite different.
Which is weird because when I rented the Model 3, I don’t recall Hertz saying any such thing. And I certainly didn’t worry about what I ran our Model Y down to, because, you know, it was a lease.
I bought a new car in December and it still had USB-A ports. I expect cars to have them for at least another 5-10 years until USB-A cables are no longer available.
Are there highway signs indicating charging stations at the next exit? You can always tell which exits have gas stations. I’ve never noticed any such signs for EV charging, but then I haven’t really been looking.