What are your electric vehicle plans?

In My Humble Opinion
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We live a bit out and it was a special trip to get to that dealership. We won’t pick up till Saturday.

We drove both the X and the Y. The X, the flagship of the “suv” style, was a bit much on the tech side. I think I would be OK with it, but my wife was a no-go. The Y, the budget line (think the 3 to the S in the sedan version) still has stalks for shifting and turn/wipers. Climate control is still in the display (much smaller display than the X).

And the acceleration on both is still crazy. My wife was not a fan and I didn’t even “floor” the accelerator. I’m excited to try it out when no one else is in the car.

BTW, speaking to the Tesla tech: We drove the X first and the sales rep, or whatever they are called, asked if they wanted us to ride with them. I said, nope. Tell me how to make it go and off we went. I wanted to see if I could figure this car out without someone sitting next to me and for the most part I did. I think they did a fairly good job on the UI. I didn’t try the full self-driving mode on my own. For the dumbed down Y, I asked them to come with us to answer our questions we accumulated during our first drive, and to also be there for full self-driving.

I’ve read about the one-pedal driving so was prepared for that, but it still takes some getting used to. Not getting used to is a self-driving car in a round-about. Not fantastic. We aren’t going with the self-driving add-ons, particularly now that they offer it as a monthly service. If we need it for a trip, we’ll add. We don’t commute to work, and our normal longer drives are in the boonies on two lane roads. I don’t need a car changing lanes for me when the additional lanes don’t exist.

Nice! I’m not a huge fan of the styling on the suv-like Teslas, but that has some actual styling. Of course, our main car for nearly 13 years has been a freaking Subaru Forester which would never, ever, ever win any styling competitions.

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That is a nice looking car.

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You might even call it a (gasp) station wagon (or saloon, or Avant, if you choose)…

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I assumed his prices were Canadian, which might bring it down a bit.

I’m not sure if all of those still apply.

Parts availability was fine 1.5 years ago when I needed a door replaced, and for a friend with an X who was getting repairs at the same time. This was at the Tesla collision center in Denver, but if they can get a door in less than a week, then any other shop should be able to.

Repairs on both vehicles seemed reasonable. I think around $3-5k on the X to replace the frunk hood, the bumper cover, repair the sonar, replace a rear fender, and the plastic trim around the wheel well. I posted the door cost up thread, so whatever I said before. $1200 maybe?

Much of the expense is because of the aluminum panels and glass in places other cars will have steal. Any other aluminum car will be similarly expensive to repair.

Show her “chill” mode.

I prefer my 3 to the X. The X is smoother riding, and is quieter, but I really want something a bit more sporty, and the 3 is close enough. The X is a fantastic minivan, though. Once you’ve loaded a toddler into a car seat with the falcon doors, you’ll never want to go back to sliding.

I like the 3 from some angles, but from others it looks like a catfish, and not in a good way. The Y looks like a puffy catfish.

It sounds like you got a great deal on the Y.

I’m convinced that a good 75% of the CUV/SUV takeover of the car industry is from people who want station wagons, as long as they aren’t called station wagons. No shade intended, I spent 17 years driving a “hatchback” which is just code for a two-door station wagon.

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I drive a four-door hatchback (it’s a Honda Fit). There are, or were, several four-door hatchbacks though they’re less popular in this country than elsewhere.

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The station wagon backlash vehicle was the minivan in the late 80’s and 90’s. Yuppie parents didn’t want to be caught dead driving the cars their parents drove them around in.

SUVs are popular in response to the anti-minivan backlash among Xers and early Millenials, who hate the minivans their parents drove them around in. (Well, that and the chicken tax, and CAFE regulations.)

Still wondering if late-Millenial & Zoomer parents will turn to station wagons to avoid the SUVs their parents drove them around in…

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Just looked this up and this will be perfect for her.

Puffy catfish is an apt description.

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Yep, the larger SUVs are all minivans, and the smaller SUVs/CUVs are station wagons. Sure, you can find some old giant station wagons, and some really small minivans, but that’s just because categories have fuzzy edges.

Almost all cars sold today are either minivans or station wagons.

To keep it on topic, the X really does look like a minivan, though. Definitely a luxury minivan with air ride, that can do 0-60 in 5 seconds, but still a minivan.

First car manufacturers will have to start building things that look like traditional station wagons again. Even such holdouts like the Subara Outback are getting taller. There are still minivans that aren’t trying to be SUVs, but I don’t follow vanlife TikTok to know if they are represented among the younger crowd.

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Thanks for reeling my hijack back in.

Also trying to resume the topic, the one regret I have about our minivan is that it’s not a PHEV. I’m not sure one was available anywhere on the market in 2016 when we bought it, but given how we’ve used our Odyssey - mostly for taking parents to various events or doctor visits, generally short distance runs - we’d have been thrilled with something that could do 40-50 miles on battery only. I’ve seen late-model hybrid Siennas, but I’m not sure they are plug-in.

I’m pretty emphatically Team Minivan, by the way - I couldn’t think of how tough it would be to get older adults - including one with a walker - into the higher cabin of an SUV, even one built on the same platform.

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My wife drove her Model X off the lot when we picked it up (we never even test drove one!). She parked the car and wanted to turn it off and lock it up. She couldn’t find an off button. It turns out there isn’t one. You just walk away with the key. Someone could have mentioned that.

Absolutely. We’ve put grandkids in several times now,

And yes, it really is much bigger than it looks driving down the road.

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I own a Pacifica Plugin Hybrid, and it will get you about 30 miles of EV only driving on a full charge. Their first model year is 2017, so maybe they were available at the end of 2016. Mine is 2018 and I regularly get 45+ mpg (much more when it is warmer) which is great for an ICE and exceptional for a mini-van. I bought it because I wanted a hybrid mini-van and at the time, it was the only one available in the US. There are now more choices, but I do not know that they are plug-in as well. During the pandemic when all the trips were short, it clocked in at 238 mpg. As of right now, as I believe I have mentioned, I do not have a good place to charge (I actually run an extension cord out to the car) so I am not looking for a full EV, thought that might change, if my driving patterns do.

//i\\

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When our child was small, a minivan was awesome. The sliding soor and high seats made it super easynto get the kid in and out of the child seat, and there was tons of room for moving around. But once the kid didn’t need a child seat anymore, the negatives of the minivan took over, and we got rid of it.

As for repairability, some cars are designed with easy repairability in mind, while some are designed for ease of manufacturing. BMW is notorious for the latter. Nothing like having to lift the engine to get at the rear plugs, or disassemble half the car to get at a minor issue.

And repair profiles can be different. Some cars are really expensive to fix after minor accidents, while others might not be bad that way, but are easily totalled because of difficult repairabilitg of certain items. My brother had a car with a one-piece wraparound tail light assembly that cost several thousand dollars to replace. So any minor rear end collison was at least a couple of thousand bucks in damage.

EVs have a huge battery that can span most of the vehicle. If that battery gets damaged in a crash, the vehicle may be a write-off unless it’s almost new. The question is, how many crashes would damage the battery and write off the vehicle as compared to an ICE car that might be repairable with the same damage?

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That is going to take some getting used to. I asked in both cars “I really just put it in Park and get out and walk away” and they said “yep”.

The Y is smaller than our Forester and the X is bigger. We just couldn’t justify the $30K premium.

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If it makes you feel any better, our Model X was significantly more than $30,000 above what you paid for your Model Y.

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Seems like you got one of the good ones. The Pacifica Hybrid is panned for repair problems and related delays for fixes on most car sites and forums. The regular Pacifica is better rated.

The Siennas are not plug-in. Same system as the Highlander hybrid.

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Wait until the first time you just put your Forrester in park, then get out and walk away.

I really like the phone-as-a-key system, and if you ever wonder if the car is locked, just look at your phone. Of course that brings up the question, does the lock icon (open or closed) show the current state of the car or the desired action to perform on the car?

An unlocked icon means the car is unlocked. Tap it to lock the car. And vice-versa. So Tesla shows the state? Nope. The windows down icon with the word “vent” means the windows are closed, tap to roll them down. The windows down icon with the word “close” means the windows are open, tap to close them.

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If you are looking at a hybrid, stay away from ‘mild’ hybrids. There aren’t as many around now, but when hybrids first showed up there were lots of them.

Mild hybrids cannot drive on electric alone, and they are basically a standard ICE car with a small electric motor and battery for occassional assist. Some of them barely beat their conventional ICE counterparts in mileage, at the expense of added complexity and driveability.

The big advantage of a full hybrid or plug-in hybrid comes when operating in battery only mode. PHEVs are great, and a great engineering solution to the problem of 80% of driving being close to home, but 20% long distance means you really need the range from time to time. So size the battery for the 80% case, and kick in a gas engine for the 20% case. Makes sense.

If you are not sure if the car you are looking at is a mild hybrid or not, just look for battery-only range. If it doesn’t have it, don’t buy it unless you are getting a great deal.

If we went to PHEVs for the mainstream and left EVs to the luxury car or second-city car folks, we wouldn’t have to worry nearly as much about battery shortages, we could make them cheaper for poorer folks, and we wouldn’t crater the massive supply chain that supports ICE cars.

And we’d get probably 80% of the CO2 reductions we’d get from EVs, and we wouldn’t have to wait for cities to upgrade their infrastructures, charger networks to be built out, etc. All of the roadblocks to mass adoption of pure EVs goes away if the mass market goes PHEV instead.

They even work in Canada. And level 1 chargers, which everyone can use without installation costs, are practical.

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An interesting Jason Torchinsky article on the Chinese EV market. Paying $3,200 for a car (including $2K shipping) is funny, even though it basically sounds like an enclosed golf cart.

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You can get these on AliBaba, I’m nearly positive one of the youtubers I follow (or at least run across) bought one of them.

Knock-off Land Rover? Mercedes?

Knock-off Mini?

Some sort of Subaru Baja/Toyota 4 Runner love child?

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This article may be of interest, hopefully this free link works this time.