Yep. I think I mentioned it upthread but the salesman at the Hyundai dealership suggested we might find one to try, in Maryland. Now, we live in the Virginia side of the DC suburbs, so crossing the Potomac into MD isn’t that big a deal - but given that we didn’t love the configuration of the regular one we tried, we probably won’t bother. Hopefully the Kia dealer will have a Niro for us to look at.
I suspect that it’ll turn out that we do indeed wind up with the CRV hybrid, and if we ever need a second car for us to drive, we’ll go for an electric at that point. Right now, between the shutdown (zero commute for either of us), and the Metro nearby (where hopefully one of us can commute via transit), a second car is unnecessary.
I just looked at the loan rates for our two credit unions and was amused by their definitions of new, late-model used, used, and antique:
[quote] Used Vehicles: 2018 and older model years or any model year with over 30,000 miles. If the vehicle is 20 years or older based on the model year, the vehicle is considered classic or antique and subject to collateral loan rates. Late Model Used Vehicles: Year models 2019, 2020 and 2021 with 7,500-30,000 miles.[/quote]
In some states special license plates are available for antiques. The attraction for owners idea is the plates are cheaper since the cars aren’t on the road very much. They come with various vehicle age and vehicle usage restrictions as well.
The humor comes in that some of these plates say “horseless carriage” because that’s the sort of vehicles that were antiques when the enabling legislation & regulations first came in around WWII. I’ve seen “horseless carriage” plates on 1960s muscle cars. They’re quaint, but not quite that quaint.
I wonder if antique vehicles have lesser inspection requirements? The Civic’s inspection dies on 12/31 (had thought it was 11/30, hence our haste). If we could bypass that requirement, hmmmm…
Nah - it truly is a safety issue. I’ve had carbon monoxide poisoning (I think) and am not anxious to repeat that, not to mention I do actually care about the environment.
In many cases, yes, that’s exactly the point of the elder registration. It also provides the musclecar guys a convenient “get out of jail free card” for modifying the car so it wouldn’t pass the inspection regime in effect when it was new, much less the regime in effect today.
No reason to get any kind of electric vehicle right now so no need to make the call on whether they’re good enough at the moment. But eventually a new car will be needed, and if the costs of a hybrid can be justified then it will be desireable.
It has to be a hybrid that provides the following:
A. Driving with a heavy load, 4 adults and the trunk full of luggage.
2. For at least 300 miles without a recharge that would take longer than gassing up would.
iii. Climbing hills at full speed
Δ. Moderately rapid acceleration 0-60 in 10 seconds is okay
d. Able to maintain at least 70MPH into a headwind
VI. Running heat or AC along with all of the above,
So it may not be realistic yet.
Once we have a such a hybrid then an all battery second car would be fine. We’re Rhode Islanders, in state we consider 20 miles a very long distance, so an all battery car will be fine.
Out of state, Maine is just around the corner so we need more range for that. We usually head south instead of toward Canada, but we can go a lot further that way without carrying passports.
A Rav4 hybrid sounds very appealing, although I still have decent and larger SUV, but maybe we could use something like the Prime right now. Should have included room for 2 medium-large dogs also, but they’re usually in place of 2 passengers, needing more room but weighing no more than a pair of light tweens.
Of course I’d have to check out the details on these models, I’ve noticed a lot of hedging on some of the parameters. The technology is maturing rapidly though.
My wife had one for awhile (before switching to Tesla). It was a very nice car. It was a pleasure to drive, and had a luxury feel to it that wasn’t expected in a Prius. It had a plug in range of about 22 miles, and got 45 to 48 mpg after that.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Toyota in any way nor do I own Toyota stock,.
The limitation right now is that there aren’t enough batteries being manufactured to meet demand so companies are prioritizing how and where they’re using them. Right now, Europe has more stringent corporate emission requirements so lots of companies are allocating their hybrids and PHEVs to overseas first.
On the other hand, there was so much unexpected demand for the RAV4 prime that everyone is trying to rush out a mid size PHEV to get a piece of the action. In the next year, the U.S. should be getting
Hyundai Santa Fe PHEV (larger than the RAV4, more luxurious, AWD)
Kia Sorento PHEV (larger than the RAV4, great value with lots of tech)
Ford Escape PHEV
Lincoln Aviator PHEV (big, short battery range)
A boatload of luxury SUVs from LandRover, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes.
Of course, the smartest choice by far is the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV but, you know, minivan.
A hybrid by definition has a gasoline engine. Charging time is not relevant to long trips. Refill the tank and go.
Asking for a purely battery-electric vehicle to have 300 miles range and a charging time from near-empty to near-full of 3-5 minutes is simply not going to happen in our lifetimes and may be physically impossible regardless of tech.
Maybe a hydrogen fuel cell or something like that which isn’t an ICE. But not a purely battery-powered electric vehicle.
I mainly meant that as a battery only requirement, then sort of wanted to include optional plug in recharge for a hybrid, but it came out wrong. Obviously the point of the hybrid is you don’t need to charge, although I’d like one with a plug in option.
We actually came across one online review (CR, perhaps) that discussed the passenger seating issue on the RAV-4. It’s actually rather stunningly bad configuration, in that my husband ( who is 5’6") found it a bit uncomfortable to get into, and I (5’11") really had to bend my head. And even then the headroom was poor due to the moon roof.
I’ll likely go test drive the CRV this afternoon.
I’m getting a bit of pushback from household members strongly urging that we wait until the week between Christmas and New Year to make a purchase, as the inspection on the Civic is valid until then. I’ve flatly refused that because:
It means that until then, we only have one safe vehicle to drive - and that’s 150 miles away right now with my son.
If something else goes wrong with the Civic, we don’t even have an UNSAFE vehicle to share
It means we cannot plan on going anywhere between Xmas and NY (not that we’re planning anything at the moment, but if we do decide to do something…)
We will then have a car to dispose of that cannot be driven legally to wherever we send it. If we donate it to the school district, there wouldn’t even be anyone to take ownership of it.
The 2021s are actually not even available (for CRV anyway) so we’d be looking at a 2020.
Your complaints about having trouble getting in the cars reminded me of my recent car search. I’m tall, and ended up scraping my head on the door frame of the RAV4, as well as the Camry and Avalon sedans. I ended up buying a minivan instead, and what a difference. So roomy, so easy to get in and out of. Toyota completely redesigned their Sienna minivan for 2021, and it’s ONLY available as a hybrid, and gets 36 mpg both city and highway. The base model is nicely equipped, and starts around $35K. They should just be arriving at dealers now, if you’re interested.
I’m truly flabbergasted at the issues we had with the Toyotas.
We liked the Ford Escape but their on-again, off-again history concerns me, plus CR gave them a lower rating.
We actually didn’t get around to test-driving anything this weekend but hopefully this week. The dealerships have a terrific assortment of paint colors in stock, as long as you want your choices to be gray, gray, or (if you’re feeling adventurous) gray, which is frustrating - the only CRVs you ever see are gray or white and dadgummit I do not want another white or gray car.
Though if I can knock them down enough on price on the Touring model, I’ll take gray. I’d been looking at the features on the Touring and most of them are not things I care much about (I can live without hands-free liftgate, heated steering wheel wireless phone charging, or a fancier sound system) but the parking assist would be useful - every time I parallel park I bemoan the fact that I can’t see where the front of the car is. I could get that as an addon to the lower trim line - for 1500 bucks. Probably better to go for the higher trim level at that point.
That reminds me, I wonder if gas stations/convenience stores might move to a hybrid (heh) model where some of the “pumps” will be electric only and some will be electric and gas, so you can plug in your Prime, and then fill it with gas, and then leave whenever you want, having added several miles to your range with the electricity in the meantime. The issue I can foresee with that though is that it would exacerbate the problem of people just leaving their cars at the pump while they go in to the bathroom and/or buy stuff. It might be less of a hassle to ask Prime users to move their car to a charging station before going inside.