What EV would you consider?

i'd take a bmw i4 just like this, they look nice and would be a decent daily too.

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

That's cool; amazing how quickly it accelerates off corners.

It's apparently got torque vectoring out the wazoo. The car icon in the upper right shows torque/regen on each wheel. There's a lot to analyze in this video. 

Keith Tanner said:

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

That's cool; amazing how quickly it accelerates off corners.

It's apparently got torque vectoring out the wazoo. The car icon in the upper right shows torque/regen on each wheel. There's a lot to analyze in this video. 

I saw that. Really cool! 

I am not very familiar with the characteristics of EV's so could someone tell me if the efficiency of EV's drops noticeably in cold weather such as what we have here in Northeast Ohio?

Mustang50 said:

I am not very familiar with the characteristics of EV's so could someone tell me if the efficiency of EV's drops noticeably in cold weather such as what we have here in Northeast Ohio?

Yes it does. Depending on the car and how you precondition it while plugged in, you could see a drop in range of up to half it's rated range in sub-zero temps. Most people I know in your area (or say in upper Michigan) tend to pre-heat the car while plugged in and then only use the seat and steering wheel heater while driving (it should take quite a while to lose the heat in the car that way) and gain much of that range back. I've only driven in temps down to 0 F, but even then I could retain almost 75% of the rated range by doing just that.

Interestingly, one of the countries with the greatest percentage of EV sales (it's almost 100%) is Norway. Not exactly a SoCal climate. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

That's because they can't use the cars anyway when they're snowed in half the year!

In seriousness. It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts on the issue.

Though the current hybrids are compelling, I'm more interested in an EV minivan. Not holding my breath though.

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

We do have a Swedish EV owner on the forum. The Electric Horse

possibly relevant, the Think City was produced by a Norwegian company and used a Molten Salt battery

In reply to nderwater :

VW may have a solution for you. 

8 pages so far, and not a single mention of the Toyota bZ4x. I drove one today and to my surprise and chagrin, didn't instantly hate it. It mostly just did dull car things like any other new appliance. My inner hydrocarbon-fueled cave-dwelling gearhead was protesting loudly, but I have to admit the potential practicality for a local-only commuter with a quoted 250 mile range. 

Backstory: SWMBO and I are in the market for a winter-rated commuter. It will be mostly hers, and it will be a simple tool. Her commute is about a hundred miles a day round-trip until sanity prevails and she finds something closer to home. We're in mountains in the Denver area off a county-maintained gravel road. It will snow here soon. We are looking for a crossover-size AWD with good MPG, not a truck/fullsize. On paper, the Bz4X seems like it fits the bill. It's not styled like some absurd rendering from the Jetsons with 37" tire-less wheels. The steering wheel and dash are a bit gamer-console, but what the hell else are you going to do without a tach, temp, and fuel gauges? 

I'm wondering if anyone else in the hive has one, has driven one, or knows things about them, good or bad. I'm apprehensive about the fact that they have only been on the market for a year and it's Toyota's first non-hybrid EV. The price is not great at 46k for the base model. AWD system and performance when you need it is a complete unknown. I will never internalize the correct capitalization of the model name. I understand the battery capacity issues in cold weather, and we would need to dig more on home charging requirements/costs.

On a related note, anyone have a Solterra?

We recently replaced my wife's Forester with a Bolt EUV and I'm really very happy with it. I had been curious about an i3 for myself but even when the Forester was hit and totaled an EV didn't immediately jump to mind. For what will essentially be $12k out of pocket after incentives, insurance payment for an 8-year-old Subaru, taxes, rego, etc it seems like a phenomenal upgrade. But I hated the Forester and I've never had a car with a warranty before so maybe my judgment is clouded. 

In any case, the Bolt has really sold me on EVs, enough so that there's a Tesla in the garage right now for an extended test drive. With incentives a base Tesla M3 is $6 to $8k more than a loaded Bolt EV (if I can find one). I'm not sure a Tesla is worth the price difference but I do wish a manufacturer would come along to offer some combination of the two. I'd certainly pay a premium for a slightly nicer-looking Bolt with seats that aren't totally devoid of bolstering. 
 

As a third option, the Fisker PEAR looks really neat but with all EV things that don't actually exist yet I'm not holding my breath for the proposed price point ($30k) or any legibility for tax credits. My current thought is to get in now to take advantage of tax incentives and hope the resale value remains high enough to trade up if something better comes along without taking a big or any hit. CO tax incentives are rather good. 

Chris_V said:

Mustang50 said:

I am not very familiar with the characteristics of EV's so could someone tell me if the efficiency of EV's drops noticeably in cold weather such as what we have here in Northeast Ohio?

Yes it does. Depending on the car and how you precondition it while plugged in, you could see a drop in range of up to half it's rated range in sub-zero temps. Most people I know in your area (or say in upper Michigan) tend to pre-heat the car while plugged in and then only use the seat and steering wheel heater while driving (it should take quite a while to lose the heat in the car that way) and gain much of that range back. I've only driven in temps down to 0 F, but even then I could retain almost 75% of the rated range by doing just that.

Preheating on shore power is one of the big draws to an EV or PHEV for me.  No waiting until I am almost at work for the cabin to have good heat.... driving with the windows down so breathing doesn't make the windshield fog over.

So I drank some Bolt kool-aid this week:

Obligatory first pic at gas station (I was actually there getting ethanol-free for the mower)
Details: 2020, 40k on the car, 10k on the battery replaced under recall.  Didnt burn the house down last night level 1 charging.  My wife has confiscated it for the day already, which was kind of the plan anyway. She goes yeeting all over with her mom all weekend, previously getting ~20mpg.

Not a perfect car, but it will be fine as a commuting appliance.

Speaking of range drop during cold conditions, I imagine that's due to the inefficiency of electric resistance heat. Tesla was talking about replacing them with heat pumps. Did that happen, and is there anyone else doing it?

Lots of manufacturers are using heat pumps now. That'll help range vs resistance heat but won't help the fact that cold batteries hold less charge.

The wheels on the Fisker PEAR are stupid and I love them dearly.

My mom considered briefly a bZ4X before getting her current Lexus, I really wish she had still driven one just so I could see it first hand.

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

All Teslas past 2020 have a heat pump, which correlates to a 20% increase in range in winter. During winter for my 2019 Model 3, I found that it's so heavily insulated from sound and noise that I was rarely needing to heat the interior more, even with a 20 minute commute. Even on BAD days I might preheat 30 minutes before leaving work. Resistance heaters are actually perfectly efficient, it's just that their purpose is to waste power lmao

Okay, thanks. On another note, I was pondering why I was  underwhelmed by the Bolt, and as I thought of that, a Honda Fit drove past, and it stuck me. The Fit was a car that could have been just an appliance, but instead had a reputation for being fun. The Bolt is a similar size, has more power and is less fun. It makes me think about what constitutes fun in a vehicle? How much of it has to do with the type of drivetrain? How much is handling characteristics? How much is little  things like instrumentation and interior layout? I remember that one reason that I always thought that I might like to have a Mini was it's cool gauge pod. Even my Element, which I mainly prized for its utility and packaging, also hadn't lost the soul of the Civic and become something cumbersome.  

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

Speaking of range drop during cold conditions, I imagine that's due to the inefficiency of electric resistance heat. Tesla was talking about replacing them with heat pumps. Did that happen, and is there anyone else doing it?

Model Ys have had heat pumps since the start, the Model 3 got them a couple of years ago. I don't know about X/S. I think the Bolt uses one but im not 100% about that. 
 

Edit: should have read all the responses first :)

While I don't think EV's actually solve anything the Fisker Alaska is something that might work for me when moving to a 1 vehicle (4 wheeled that is) household.

So I stumbled on this thread while searching around on the latest for Bolts. Bolts are great cars. For more details, read on. 

Background:
I'll preface this post by saying I am an experienced car/motorcycle road racer, and have raced NASA ST2/TT2 and instructed for years. I've raced at TWS (sniff), MSRH, MSRC, H2R, CoTA, NOLA, Barber, Hallet, and maybe one or two others I forgot. The only point here being I know what a really fast car pushed to the limit feels like and have a good basis for comparison. 

I have a 2023 Bolt and, because of the LG battery nonsense, before that I had a 2021 and also a 2017; they are all basically the same car.

Bolt vs Leaf:
Since the Leaf was mentioned, before the Bolts I had a 1st generation Leaf which is OK; the Bolt is much better in every way except price (on the used market). If you can afford the extra money, the Bolt is completely worth it vs the Leaf. If not, the Leaf is fine for basic short-range commuting albeit the battery degrades fast in the Leafs. 

Bolt Performance:
Is the Bolt as quick or fast or does it corner and stop like my track prepped LS swapped, 275 Hoosier A7, aeroed, 320 WHP Miata? Nope, not even close. Is the Bolt a good daily driver that's fun in traffic and the twisty roads? Yep, absolutely. It is straight up a fun hot hatch. In fact after a long history of daily driving, modding, and racing ICE cars and motorcycles, I am really surprised how much I like it. It's just a fun, easy car to live with. 

Bolt Mods for Performance:
Since it was mentioned... The stock Bolt tires are terrible for spirited driving because they are skinny, brick hard, high mileage, self sealing tires made for efficiency and comfort. As soon as possible I got rid of the stock tires and wheels, and replaced them with lighter wider wheels and much sticker UHP summer tires (Michelin Pilot S4). This makes a big difference for acceleration and handling. The next step is to get a set of coilovers which by all reports also makes a huge improvement. The centralized and very low battery pack also helps with handling even with the soft factory springs. I have noted the same thing with Teslas.

Bolt vs Tesla:
Speaking of Teslas, I have been shopping the used market for years for the S and the 3 model, and have never found one that was at a price point I was OK with. The Bolts on the other hand are CHEAP for a new car with the rebates. Also, compared to the BASE MODEL Tesla 3, the Bolt does not really give up much at all in terms of acceleration or range. The Bolt is gearing limited to 93 MPH (it gets there quickly)  so top speed wise the 3 is much faster. But how often do you really need to go faster than 93 MPH on public roads, an autocross course, or most small road courses? So the performance difference between the Bolt and the BASE MODEL 3 IMO does not justify the higher price for the 3, though there are other reasons to get a 3. If I did not care about cost for an EV, I would get a loaded AWD Tesla 3 or S. But then again if I did not care about cost I would get a Porsche Taycan or the like. 

Other stuff:
Someone else mentioned it but I won't even say how cheap I got the 2023 with the MSRP swap GM trade-in program and the rebates; it was like crazy no-brainer stupid cheap, way cheaper than a Tesla 3. I got very lucky with timing and a lot of research.  

Chevybolt.org has a subforum that talks about performance mods so go there for more detailed discussions. There are a few there that auto-x or road race their Bolts. For now, the only things available are stickier tires and aftermarket coilovers. There is not anything (yet) for increasing power level. Quaife does make a custom limited slip differential (gear type I think, like a Torsen) but it is $6K US dollars. I want one, but I won't be buying one. 

The Bolt is super cheap to operate if you L2 charge at home (I do like most). The maintenance is very minimal, like almost nothing compared to even a modern ICE car. I just get in the car and drive it, like a hooligan if I like, and plug it in every evening when I get home. It's ready to go again every morning, no drama. 

Has Frenchy popped up yet under a fake profile ? I keep seeing these EV threads and I wonder what corners he's hanging out on nowadays. 

Yeah those two or how ever many people that are yelling past each other with word walls, it's not really contributing to this thread IMO. Not at all. 

Deude_Mann said:

Someone else mentioned it but I won't even say how cheap I got the 2023 with the MSRP swap GM trade-in program and the rebates; it was like crazy no-brainer stupid cheap, way cheaper than a Tesla 3. I got very lucky with timing and a lot of research.  

Yeah that MSRP swap was a no-brainer. GM gave me $39,400 for my 2020, which was $4100 more than the MSRP on my '23 EUV Redline AND since it was a leased car, the buyout was only $21k (it only cost $25k in 2020 due to GM incentives at the time but I put $0 down on the lease). So basically I bought out the 2020 lease for $21k minus the $4100 they handed me, but ended up in the '23. So yeah, $17k or so for the '23 EUV Redline with every option but SuperCruise. Could not pass that up.