I made a switch from a gas car to an electric RWD vehicle. I’ve never driven an electric vehicle before and only been in one once. After a week of ownership I have a few thoughts.
I totally get it
It’s been great. It’s the fastest car I’ve ever driven as the torque is insane. The top speed is supposed to be 140MPH, but i’m not going anywhere near that. Merging onto highways and overtaking other cars when needed is a breeze. I was told I will miss the engine noise and vibrations from the lack of the engine but it hasn’t been the case for me. The road noise is comfortable and it’s quieter than the previous car. The vibrations from the engine was exactly what I never liked as it is (i’m pretty sensitive to anomalies in car sounds and it just added stress to my daily driving knowing that something might be wrong with the car ). Adding a level 2 charger at home also made a massive difference. It is extremely convenient and is about 1/3rd of the gas prices. The car also came with the Tesla Supercharger included. Even though my car is limited in speed of charging due to it’s age, knowing that I can charge for free on any road trip is great.
It’s basically a phone with wheels
Everything is an app or via a touch screen. This part is pretty annoying.
- Unlock doors without fob? touchscreen
- Unlock charging port? either app or touchscreen inside the car.
- Want to change windshield wipers? dig through the touchscreen menu to put them in “service mode”.
There are apps and games, and fart noises? And i’ve had to soft reset the car several times which is also unusual. But in general, there are too many examples to list of where standard features that traditional car manufacturers have via a button are buried in the software for no good reasons. With my car being 10 years old there are improvements that they have made on newer versions, however in some instances (AC vents) they took away the manual ability to change direction and hid them in software.
Verdict
Very happy. I got a deal from a friend and I am overall very happy with the decision. The break even point is over a year but this calculation does not consider the fun factor that I am having driving this car. Surprisingly, lack of transmission opens up the space a lot, allowing my dog to fit in better and join us on more trips. And with having a hatch AND a frunk, we can actually fit more into the vehicle than our SUV.