CEO of Tesla and acting President-elect Musk is going on a neo-Nazi binge endorsing far right candidates instead of properly running the companies he’s involved in such as Tesla.
In addition Tesla is considered one of the most unreliable car brands according to: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-placed-bottom-consumer-reports-reliability-rankings/
Moreover Tesla has the highest fatal accident rates of all car brands according to: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highest-fatal-accident-rate-of-all-auto-brands-study/
Also there are privacy implications with using a car that could in theory spy on you: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/massive-trove-of-tesla-files-contains-thousands-of-safety-complaints/
Now that more competent and establish brands are making EVs there’s no reason to buy a Tesla if you want an EV. I’m not here to recommend another brand, I’m just here to tell you that your next EV should be anything other than a Tesla.
I want some recommendations. Something with tactile controls and no subscriptions.
1998 Toyota Tercel.
I drive the EV equivalent of this, a 2016 Nissan leaf.
It only cost 6k, 4kish with tax rebates, but it has a max mileage of like 70 miles. Perfect for our needs as a commuter car within the city.
There is a touchscreen, but that’s just for audio since the gps and Pandora features stopped working after 3g cell service was phased out. There are tactile controls for audio as well.
Is that an EV?
No.
If you’re in the US, wait about a year and you’ll have a bunch of better options from the traditional automakers.
The thing that makes Tesla compelling to me is their charger network, and Ford, GM, etc are adopting the Tesla standard in upcoming models. I think Ford is doing the switch in 2025.
I’m a truck guy, and the F150 lightning looks way, way more compelling than the Cybertruck, because they’re making what I want. A truck that happens to be electric. Ford has been making F-series trucks for over 75 years and has made a pretty refined package in that time. They took that design, put in an electric motor and used the space savings for a frunk.
That’s what I want. The revolution should be in how it’s powered, not in how it operates.
The F150’s design is nothing what it used to be, and it’s a horrible car for road safety. But their branding is undoubtedly very successful, for the US-American market at least. And it’s not like the competition hasn’t been moving in the same direction.
The size isn’t a branding thing. It’s a US legal thing.
Since 2012, the CAFE (fuel economy) standards have been based on vehicle footprint, not classification. It’s why 2011 was the last year model of the S10, Dakota, and Ranger.
As the CAFE standards get stricter and stricter, the auto companies have to make cargo vehicle footprints larger and larger. It’s why when the Ranger was relaunched, it was bigger than the 2010 F150.
It’s also why the small cargo van class of vehicle stopped existing in the last few years. The Transit Connect, Ram ProMaster City, and Nissan NV200 were all just discontinued because they can’t make a cargo van with that footprint that meets the new CAFE regulations.
It’s also why the Maverick has the hard-to-buy hybrid listed as the “standard” model with the traditional engine as the “upgrade.”
Making the vehicles electric will allow them to start making them reasonably-sized again. Right now, the frame of the F150 is really large, and after the Mustang Mach E fiasco, Ford is scared to use a different chassis for the electric truck.
Give it a few generations, and it’ll be perfect. In the meantime, the Lightning is still way better than the Cybertruck at almost everything, better than the Rivian for hauling things, and way cheaper than both.
I like our Hyundai Kona a lot.
I loves ours too. But the Bluetooth function is totally crazy
Now this should not be able to happen but it will connect my phone to my daughter’s and play out of her phone
I’m about to go look at a used Kona tomorrow. So if you please, what is crazy about the bluetooth?
I think they said in this comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/14182814
How so?
For future I’m looking at Telo and Scout. Obviously can’t yet comment on reliability and privacy concerns but iirc both will have tactile feel.
Considering how badly VAG is doing on EV front I’d worry about the reliability and pricing on any Scout products. I hadn’t heard about Telo though, that looks incredibly interesting of course it’ll fly about as well as a station wagon here in the US but what’s basically an electric kei car is a wicked concept.
I agree about VAG group and Telo itself is startup in big (from investment POV) field. However I do want both of them to be successful enough to continue production (we will see though)
BMW i3. Been driving a 2017 one for a few months and am very happy. Winter hits like a brick, though.
I had an i3. The inverter went and BMW wanted 11k (around 75% of resale value) to fix. Even an independent garage couldn’t fix it because BMw need to code the replacement part.
I’ll never buy BMW again.
BMWs always stay near the top of the list of most expensive cars to maintain
I know but before you could bring older ones to independent garages. That’s been stopped due to “signing” of replacement parts
Do you mean the battery performs worse? My Leaf does that, I’d say 20% decrease in range on a charge. I think this is a characteristic of lithium batteries. Maybe it will go away if and when we get solid state or capacitor batteries.
Yeah, Hard to argue with physics :)