Agreed. I’m not the typical driver; Since Memorial Day, I’ve done all but two weekends of at least 300 miles & four weekends of at least 800 miles. The two 800-milers had significant portions in rural areas; didn’t even pass a gas station for about an hour of driving last week, that one was when I went thru the metropolis a one-light town.
Either your Subaru gets the world’s worst range, you won’t let it go below ½ a tank or your math is seriously off. You only get 150 miles to a fill up?
We can’t make it 350 miles without filling. We’d rather fill up before we hit the shit-show that is the I-5 corridor from Seattle to Bellingham so we fill up about halfway. Do you always drive as far as possible before filling up, location be damned? We’ve done this drive a gazillion times. I guarantee filling up in Ellensburg or Cle Elum, WA is far superior to getting off the freeway near Everett, WA.
I guess I should add, yes, we could get away with one less fill up then than the 5 I listed, but we also want to break about half way through which is Ellensburg or Cle Elum. For this trip, the EV is perfect. Only two stops required, and where we want them. As I said, for this particular trip the EV is superior.
I ran across this bit of news on the charging front. At some point in the future, the whole question of connector types and charging ports may be mooted.
From the article:
That zippy 270-kW flow is on par with some of the fastest public DC chargers around [snip]…According to ORNL, its wireless system could add a 50 percent gain in battery charge in about 10 minutes, appreciably faster than previous wireless systems.
Welp, I pulled the trigger and bought a Mach-E Premium.
Hopefully the Niro passes it’s inspection without them finding any issues with it. The only issues I’m concerned about are a scratch on the rear bumper and the “Refill Inverter Coolant” message on the dashboard. The scratch is only an inch or two long, well under their 4" threshold for charging me for it. The Refill Inverter Coolant message is a known issue (I think). The coolant is full and the message won’t show up if you close the driver’s door at the right time during the car’s startup sequence. But I’d assume that would be covered under the warranty anyway.
A friend just bought a Mach-E and I checked it out. I don’t think it’s the Premium but it’s a nice car; lots of cool features.
I’m thinking ahead to the future, and looking at an Ioniq 5 to replace my 2014 LEAF. The LEAF is doing just great - but the plan is to replace it with something with more range (currently at 84% battery, 130 km range)
10 year old car is holding up very well - I often point and laugh at those who tell me that my battery is now expired and useless.
I am very late to this game (living in a less developed country) - but a friend of mine bought a Tesla 3 (dual motor, top of the line model), and yday I was copilot for a bit …
wow, I mean it really is a very nice car, a far cry from those “cheaply-made/cheap interior” voices I read a lot. Extremely clean/clear interior (in white), reminds me a lot of scandinavian design, and from the outside it doesn’t look shabby, either … the fact that we don’t have a lot of those around, obv. helps in the looks department.
overall, color me impressed with the driving experience.
Just copying/pasting from my AWD EV thread:
Will report on how the 2024 Toyota RAV4 Prime PHEV works out for my wife now that it’s in our hands. For my wife, who is totally into low tech (her prior vehicle was a 2007 model with pretty much no integrated screens or tech) it’s going to be a big learning curve!
And of course, we’ll need a couple of months before the whole AWD for a Colorado Winter comes into focus. But, it’s a big step forward in both battery/charge at home as well as substantially more fuel economy in ICE mode for that matter.
I really like the idea of buying a Toyota RAV4 Prime but the idea of spending $50,000 scares me. Plus I really have no reason to replace my current car.
For the record, we traded in my ancient 2002 Subaru Outback Sport with 140k miles on it, which needed about 2k USD of repairs in the next year. We got a token $500 for it, but it would have cost that much to have it towed to a junkyard when it finally died.
Sadly, the only model in stock was the XSE “premium” model, so it was $53k ( 
) but with the Toyota EV lease incentive and Colorado state incentive, we got $12k in savings. And we’ll be paying it off early and keeping it, then (
) keeping it maintained and driving it until it’s equally as worn out as my poor Subie.
Sadly, we could have had a lot more affordable PHEV or BEV options if we didn’t have AWD as a personal requirement - Colorado Springs weather is pretty reasonable for our altitude ( ironic cheer for global warning with a massive degree of /s) but the steeeeeeep slopes on a lot of our major roads still means AWD is a must 10-12 days a year as a minimum.
ETA - technically there was another 2024 model in stock, with fewer features that my wife liked more, it was a turned in model with about 4k miles but… it was obviously formerly a smokers car, and despite a professional cleaning, it apparently still was very Very noticeable.
I suspect that the dealers are only ordering the premium model or that’s all that Toyota is producing, just because the Prime model is hot and people are willing to overpay for it.
I saw a RAV4 Prime top level trim advertised for $90,000 during the late car-buying unpleasantness. California. I pity the fool…
Checking the Toyota website, the RAV4 Prime is available in two trim levels, SE and XSE, with starting MSRP of $43,690 and $47,560.
Six months in on our Hyundai Ionic 5 lease. Going great. A number of road trips (400+ miles). East coast with Electrify America free charging (in the lease) is easy. I/we do 2-1/2 to 3 hours (150 to 200 miles) at a time. Charge while eating/restroom/catching up on the news. Takes about 18-20 minutes - the 350kw chargers typically hit about 220 kw/hr in the 20% to 80% state of charge. The 150kw chargers usually overachieve (170 to 180 kw/hr) so finish about the same time. Did some level 2 (slower 220v AC charging) to check out the other networks. Done some slow 120v charging at the kid’s houses. Fine for overnight.
We will go the lease route (or buy a substantially depreciated used one) when we go back to Hawaii on a more permanent basis when this lease is up. Short distances, we have had a solar roof for 10 years there already. With the rapid change in capability, I’m favoring the lease route again, but…
I’m heading cross-country on a road trip, and I’m considering renting a hybrid or BEV car.
(My 2000 Honda Insight bit the dust, so I’d be driving a car that gets less than half that gas mileage.)
The major rental companies don’t have any hybrids/electrics in our small-ish town, but there are a handful of people who list their cars on Turo… kind of an Air B&B for cars.
There’s a Tesla near me, and a Bolt, and some Priuses (Priii?). Since half the expense of the rental is buying gas, any electrification would make a big difference (over the cool convertibles and sporty Italian cars on Turo, that’d burn a good bit of gas).
I’m pitching this to my wife as an opportunity to see if we could ditch our ICE car, and visit relatives with an electric car (there are a couple of spots on my trip where the scenic route I want to take would be dependent on a small town with a single charger… if that’s not working, then I rush back to the expressway)!
I’d absolutely advise a “traditional” hybrid or PHEV with equivalent features (regenerative braking, etc) for a long trip where you aren’t certain of charging availability.
That’s one of the things that pinged me when we finally did the upgrade, that even without home charging, the gas milage improvement between the 2007 model my wife was driving and the new model is between 40-80% better (huge range because we don’t have real life numbers yet, just the claimed and car magazine MPG estimates for milage) - but even that is going to be a huge improvement for her quite long commute. Yes, we’d have gotten a huge milage out of pretty much any new equivalent sized modern vehicle (the current ICE only Rav4 would be a 40% reported improvement alone) so any newish vehicle, that isn’t the size of a bus is probably going to help, and a hybrid is likely to do more for you.
And one week followup on the new Rav4 Prime in our house. 5 days of commuting for the wife (28 miles round trip) plus 2 days where we took it out in the evening (to the movies and to the local grocery store, about 4 miles round trip just in different directions).
Result? 100% electrical miles, with about 50% charge remaining at the end of the day, fully recharging in 6-7 hours overnight on level 1.
Granted, that’s with moderate weather, so no heating, minimal A/C, and no cold-weather induced drain, but that is very happy making.
YMMV (Literally!)
I’m impressed that she can go 28 miles/day and not need the ICE. My wife had a Prius PHEV but its smaller battery only allowed about 12 miles before the engine would take over.
You have an excellent combination of EV commuting with ICE capabilities for rural trips.
I’ve had a Tesla Model 3 Long Range for 3 years now. It’s been fine, but I’ve wanted a more performance-oriented car. There was a Performance model, but I didn’t feel it offered enough over the LR to justify the extra $8000.
For 2024, that has changed. The new Performance model has several improvements that are right in line with what I wanted, so I bought one.
The pluses:
Stiffer suspension, with adjustable dampening
Sportier front seats with more aggressive side bolsters
Better brakes
New battery, capable of faster discharge
More powerful rear motor, giving a combined 610* horsepower
The minuses:
Elon.
They’ve replaced the stalks at the steering wheel with buttons. This is just dumb.
Overall I’m very happy with the car. It cost me a lot of $ but compares favorably with its AMG/M2/M3 competitors.
*It’s rated at 510 hp, but I don’t see where Tesla got that number. The acceleration indicates 610-630 hp.