The good part about ones like the R1S and EX90 is that the frunks are huge and you can fit a lot of stuff up there to recover some of the space lost by having the 3rd row up. There's also space under the trunk floor for more stuff too. The Mercedes options don't have a frunk and neither does the VW. The Teslas and Kia/Hyundai ones have tiny frunks.

 

Cool, thanks for the list. Rivian and MB EQS are my favorite there, but I hate how MB doesn’t have a frunk. The Volvo reminds me a lot of the MachE, I didn’t think that was a joint development, was it?

Sam, you beat me to the lack of frunk, lol.

 

The Economist had a excellent series of articles on ICE part manufacturers which is in the tens of millions (IIRC) of workers globally.

 

The Volvo is nothing like the MachE in person, it's a lot bigger and, IMO, better looking haha.

The Rivian is about half the price of a EQS so keep that in mind too...though I'm a bit biased when it comes to that.

 

i test drove the Mach E and hated every thing about it. Went to Volvo hoping to see the bigger Volvo EV’s but they weren’t available yet and decided to just get the XC40 EV for a 3 year lease. So far so good, enjoying it very much!

 

MachE was good when it came out but not so much anymore. It needs an update for sure...and deletion of the Mustang part of the name.

 

This

 

Yeah I’ll never call it a mustang, I call it the MachE for that reason. Not sure what is wrong with it, decent range, reasonably fun to drive, frunk, good interior space, good price. I admit, the lower trims interior is pretty brutal, I would only go for GT trim.

Also, I probably missed one of your posts, but why the bias towards rivian? I saw several reviews say the R1S doesn’t ride as nice as the R1T, anybody here have personal experience with either?

Slight side note, I wish the Taycan was more panamera sized in the cabin.

 

He biased because he's an asshole he owns an R1T.

 

LOL!

oh that’s really awesome… PM time

 

It's just...cheap and uninspiring. There's nothing "WOW" about it when there is about most of its rivals. The MachE, at this point, is a mediocre "me too" EV designed to (and failing to) take market share from the Model Y. When you have other options out there like the Volvo EX40, Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, etc...there's no reason to go for a MachE.

And yeah, you could say I have a good bit (nearly 8k miles now!) of personal experience with the R1T and have spent some seat time in the R1S. They both ride fairly similarly IMO.

Also an asshole.

​​​​​​​Post pics and thoughts of it!

 

I still think the MachE is a nice looking EV from the outside, but I've never been in one.
For a 'cheaper' EV, I'd likely look at the Kia or Hyundai first, if I were in the market. The Rivian is out of my current budget for a realistic purchase.

 

right, what my cousin told me is that the GT interior is better than other trims. I only sat in his so I can’t compare.
also, with an f1 avatar like you have, the only sensible choice is the Rimac Nevera.

what are your thoughts on the upcoming ID Buzz? Any folks seen them in Europe? I’m worried it’ll be littered with cheap hard plastics on the inside.

 

Nah, for big $ I'd go Gemera, I've got 3 kids, so having a back seat would be helpful. Not an EV, but a hybrid
More realistically, a Taycan, but still way out of my budget.

 

Rivian will be launching the R2 line, which will be 40k-60k in 2025/26ish. It'll be smaller and less powerful but apparently still really nice for the price tag. They're going to announce it next year.

 

That sounds promising & a good move.
R2T & R2S?

A Ranger/Tacoma or Maverick sized EV truck would probably sell like hotcakes.

 

The SUV is a certainty, no clue about the truck. They will almost certainly launch with the SUV though.

 

Still a big NO for me.

 

ok.

 

I don't see myself in the EV market anytime soon, but won't write it off 100%

 

If Toyota gets back the tax credit in 2025 when it's new plant opens, I really want the NX plug-in.

 

Unfortunately the Hyundai/Kia's don't get the tax credits They are really nice (especially the EV9).

 

I like the EV6, except the rear.
The Ioniq5 looks good to me, as well.

 

It's gonna take a lot to get me to go electric

Where does the juice come from? Most electricity in the US is generated by carbon sources like natural gas, coal, oil
Where are the essential materials coming from to make the batteries - slave labor, land mining, sea bed mining?
When will the infrastructure to get the cars charged be adequate? Especially for people who live in multi family buildings like apartments, condos, townhouses and those who have to street park?
When will the electric grid be modernized to handle the additional load. and become more secure from attack?

Long way to go for me.

 

True, as of Feb 2023 fossil fuels account for 60.2% of the energy production in this country, but that continues to shrink as renewable sources continue to grow - renewables now make up 21.5% of the production. That's up from 12% a decade ago. And more importantly, coal usage is down from 37% to 19.5% in that period.

Also, the amount of energy required (and therefore emissions generated) to charge 1 EV is many times smaller than that of a gas power vehicle driven the same distance.




This is an issue that no one (aside from Musk and the mining companies) wants to ignore. However, when you look at the amount of materials required (I shared it on a previous page), the number is paltry in comparison to an ICE vehicle.

It's continually growing, and with more manufacturers jumping on the Tesla standard, that's opening up many more reliable chargers to other makes. I do agree that multifamily homes need to be addressed though.

1) Grid security has nothing to do with EVs, but a $250m grant is available to address this Source
2) Not every EV is charging 24x7x365, and just because it's plugged in, doesn't mean it's using energy.
3) The majority of the electrical consumption in this country occurs during 12pm and 6pm Source and the leading cause for that is manufacturing and air conditioning. Not EV charging.

Also, number 1 above is part of the Build a Better Grid initiative. You can see the items the DoE is investing in here, just search for "grid infrastructure".

 

I will also add that a fossil fuel power plant is considerably more efficient at converting fuel to energy than your normal gas engine found in a car/truck. A modern coal plant is ~45% and a modern natural gas plant is ~60% while a normal IC engine is ~20%-30%. An electric motor is 85%+ efficient at taking the incoming electrons and turning them into motion. So even if you are exclusively burning dino juice to make power, you're still coming out considerably ahead especially when you consider the scale of the numbers of cars on the road.

 

I also just want a single charging plug standard for passenger EV's, what happened prior with standardized plugs was a complicated mess. SAE look bad in all of this quite frankly, like as bad as when they tried to force US automakers to adopt their J1850 bus standard instead of CAN bus.

 

I know this came up before but a great watch for what happens to old batteries:

 

 

The main issues they're experiencing are the same issues individual owners have seen, specifically Tesla owners (price cuts, thanks Elon). The only difference is they bought 50k of them. As the video summarizes at the end, sometimes being ahead of the curve costs money, but they're still better positioned than Enterprise or Avis.

I have a trip coming up and I rented through Hertz, chosing the "EV Manager Special", which is likely a Polestar 2 or Model 3. This option, for a 5 day trip, was cheaper than renting a Mazda 3 or similar. I'm actually hoping it's a Polestar - I'd like to try it out.

The few people I know that have rented an EV all say the same thing - Hertz employees aren't knowledgeable on them and don't take the time to tell people how to use the cars. So if you're not familiar with them (especially the Teslas since they like to reinvent everything), there's a learning curve, and...well...Americans don't like to learn

 

Last Fall I had a trip out to the University of Kansas for a guest speaking visit. I flew into KC and had reserved a car through Hertz. By the time I got there, all they had left for me was a Polestar 2. It was...okay. The insta-torque was kind of fun. The interior was bland. It took a little doing to figure out how to navigate the menus and find the features I was looking for, but once I did it was fine. The driving experience was quiet and it was nice not to have to fill it up with gas before I returned it. Of course, no one at Hertz could tell me whether I was supposed to charge it up some before I returned it. I drove it from KC to Lawrence, KS and back again and still had about a 1/3 charge left; that was good because I didn't see a single place in Lawrence to plug the thing in. Overall, it was fine for the trip I was taking, but it would have been pretty inconvenient to get it charged if I had a longer stay or was doing more driving.

 

I had a Hertz rental in Philadelphia. It was a Polestar 2. The car was solid, and having been a long time Volvo owner, most things were very recognizable and easy to do. The thing that didn't work well was the infotainment system. It got hung up on Android Auto and the Google maps did not work, put us 50 miles away from where we actually were. It took a car restart to clear it up.

So Hertz in Philly told me, "don't worry about recharging, just come back with at least 10% on the car." So that's what I did. But I think over a 5 day period you'll need to charge at least once or twice.

 

Yeah the hotel we're staying at says they have four non-Tesla chargers, so we'll see how that goes

 

Saw a EV thread so I thought I would share my opinion. I went from a 2023 X5M Comp to a R1S Rivian. Rivian might be one of the best cars I have owned. (Had multiple TLs and MDXs to AMG 63s). My X5M was my 3rd BMW, It spent more time in the shop than my driveway over my 1 year of ownership. BMW eventually took the X5M back and we got my wife a 2024 X7 (amazing machine!!!). Last year I also sold my Merc C63s coupe and consolidated back into two cars in the garage.

Rivian was delivered in August and 3k miles so far. Ev charging infrastructure sucks, we tried EV go and Electrify America stations and most are broken. If this was are only car no way will it work. Why it works for us, we don't even have a level two charger at home. My wife and I both have chargers at work. My wife has level 2 charging for free for employees and I have level 1 at the office. For me I get enough juice to cover my trip back and forth while I am at the office. We only use the R1S around town, we live in Tampa and everything is spread apart so we do have significant savings in gas. We use the X7 on all longer trips.

Fit and finess of the Rivian is on par with most German cars. Mine didn't have panel gap or paint issues. The few issues I had I used mobile tech and they came to the house and took care of it.

 

Sweet! Welcome (though it has been a while haha) to Rivian life, I'm now not the only one here! My R1T was delivered NYE of 2022 and I've been absolutely loving it ever since. The build and material quality are leagues better than Tesla, really something worthy of the price tag.

Definitely get L2 charging at your house though, it's a game changer in making life easier. We also use the EV for almost everything around town and use the gas car for longer trips. I am jelly of the X7 though, was trying to get my wife to get one of those a few years ago but we had (well still have) a baby and didn't want her to be crushing Cheerios into the seats/carpet of an expensive SUV...so we got a Subaru.

 

I've been letting my fiance drive my 3 for the last week or so and now she wants an EV to replace her CR-V

She doesn't want a Tesla (she doesn't like the way they look - don't blame her). I've floated the idea of the EV9 or maybe the ZDX, but that's nearing Rivian pricing, which is too rich for our blood

 

Give it a couple years and get one of the R2 models.

 

That is another thought and likely what we'll do. She doesn't need to replace the CRV right now. It is showing it's age though, which is kind of upsetting since it's only 6 years old, but it's likely the last Honda product we buy.

I kinda wish the Fisker was better. They have some decent features, the pricing is right, and they offer pretty much everything she would need.

 

If she doesn't need the size, the new EX30 looks like it'll be a hit.

 

What's the CR-V showing in age? Our 2018 with 45k miles is still doing great. Luckily it should keep the wife happy for several more years because I'm the next one in line for a new car.