SWMBO is ready for her EV. But which?

I daily a Bolt and would buy one again. I cross shopped a Leaf, Niro and Kona. I did not cross shop a Model 3 because A: They are far more expensive and B: Too many "whoops, did we screw that up?" stories to see. The one about accidently setting the ABS wrong on a Model 3 Edmunds bought for testing and reducing braking ability by 30 feet randomly got me really hard. It was fixed by OTA update. No recall, no formal notice, no telling how many cars may still be affected. That bothered me a lot.

They are all really great cars. All of them, even the 3. I know of zero people personally who have owned or dailied one and want to go back.

APEowner said:

It's true that Queer predates it's homosexual connotation but today that's it's most common one and when it's used as a synonym for strange

Queer isn't a synonym for strange.  It means strange in its original - and still live - definition.

yupididit said:

Brake_L8 (Forum Supporter) said:

1988RedT2 said:

That's a Bolt?  What happened to the Volt?  The Volt was a somewhat attractive car.  The Bolt is apparently a queer-looking little jelly bean.  No offense.

Hi, there was no need to insinuate that "queer" equates to strange or lesser. If you find the Bolt ugly, you can say so (the English language is vast) without bringing queer folks' basic standing in society into things.

There's certain words and symbols who most common/popular usage is filled with hate and hurt. The swastika is a great example. Go post that symbol around everywhere and see how it's taken vs it's original meaning. 

Plus, he says "no offense" after using the word queer to negatively describe something. Which proves that he already acknowledges the word can be offensive and hurtful.

Actually, I believe the "no offense" part had nothing at all to do with the potential offensiveness of using the word "queer".  It had to do with not insulting Bolt owners and people who like the looks of the Bolt.  From reading the context I don't believe the sexual preference connotation even entered the arena.

In reply to STM317 :

When I had my Model 3, it would beat Tesla's estimates whenever it was over 50 F out, and fall WAY short below that - down to under 150 miles highway range at -5 F on snow tires. Vredestein Quatrac 5 tires extended the range by 20 miles or so in the summer over the stock Michelins.

What was really nice was that range didn't drop with aggressive driving, only with cruising speed.  

chaparral said:

In reply to STM317 :

When I had my Model 3, it would beat Tesla's estimates whenever it was over 50 F out, and fall WAY short below that - down to under 150 miles highway range at -5 F on snow tires. Vredestein Quatrac 5 tires extended the range by 20 miles or so in the summer over the stock Michelins.

What was really nice was that range didn't drop with aggressive driving, only with cruising speed.  

I can see that. Individual cases really are hard to compare. Things like weather, topography, and driver behavior all come into play. I like the Edmonds chart because they at least drive their vehicles on the same loop and use consistent testing methods. There may be variables for weather and slight changes in driver behavior, but they're trying to get it as close as they realistically can in the real world.

It's interesting that aggressive driving had little affect on your range, while cruising did. It seems to me that cruising speed (like highway driving) is the one place where range is most important. If you set out on a road trip anticipating enough range to make it to a Supercharger, but simply driving at highway speeds results in less range than you thought it could get a bit hairy. I doubt there are common situations where the nearest charger happens to be close enough to the maximum range to really be an issue, but the idea of range really only mattering for long distance travel seems pretty logical to me. And that's the one case where overstating it would be the least acceptable.

Tuna 55  

I believe you fail to allow for the magic of computers. Tesla updates cars regularly without the need for "going to the dealer".  
     A recall wouldn't be needed  if a production mistake cause a 30' increase in stopping distance. Just send the update along the program the next connection and with WiFi  those are seamless. 
     Aside from that, with regenerative braking and single pedal driving  it's actually rare where the brake pedal is used.  
    My wife is a security it type person to a major bank and you can't believe the constant upgrades and changes required with computers. Most of which are automatic and invisible . 

frenchyd said:

Tuna 55  

I believe you fail to allow for the magic of computers. Tesla updates cars regularly without the need for "going to the dealer".  
     A recall wouldn't be needed  if a production mistake cause a 30' increase in stopping distance. Just send the update along the program the next connection and with WiFi  those are seamless. 
     Aside from that, with regenerative braking and single pedal driving  it's actually rare where the brake pedal is used.  
    My wife is a security it type person to a major bank and you can't believe the constant upgrades and changes required with computers. Most of which are automatic and invisible . 

The Model 3 only recently got single pedal driving. It did not have it then. The Bolt always has.

Your view isn't necessarily wrong otherwise, it's just charitable. I want a paper trail, a formal recall, VIN listings etc to disclose the issue and the fix, which cars have been fixed and which have not. I don't inherently trust the company to just fix it OTA without telling anyone.

Your trust of the recall process is very different than mine, because I've had to deal with FCA's process. Having a dealer lay their hands upon the vehicle is no guarantee of quality. I'll take a timely OTA fix applied to the entire fleet over a "don't worry, your steering will probably break at parking lot speeds and we hope to have new parts in a year just keep calling us and if we have parts in stock you'll get some" paper trailed, VIN listed, formal recall.

I'll bet Tesla has a record of every car that suffered that ABS miscalibration and how many have had the fix applied because it's all in the update records. You want a "paper" trail, it exists because that sort of thing is trivial to log. Heck, you can ask the car what the software version is instead of having to go to some master database somewhere else. If there was no formal recall, it's because the NHTSA decided one was not necessary. 

Mazda whoopsied their anti-collision software in such a way that affected cars would initiate panic braking on their own. It couldn't be fixed OTA, so the fix involves tracking down every car involved and getting them into a dealer so the dealer can plug in. I can't remember if there's an NHTSA recall for it or not but it's definitely a pain to figure out if an individual car has had it applied or not. And this happened a lot more recently than Edmund's problem and Mazda outsells Tesla (or did at the time at least) but I don't see it being brought up over and over.

OTA updates like this are going to become more common. A lot of people seem to be sketched out about the fact that cars can just fix themselves because traditionally fixing a car has been a very high effort process. Once we get past that mindset it's going to seem completely logical that an OTA fix applied to the entire fleet is much superior to having to rely on customers to inconvenience themselves to get the work done.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Just part of the New technology world.  It's hard for us old Luddites to adapt to. ( but I'm trying). 

As much as I dislike the opacity and controlling attitude of our Tesla overlords, I do understand some of their desire for secrecy. A friend of mine has worked with a couple of autonomous driving developers, and he said that the engineers tweaked the software practically every single day. Now imagine our usual alarmist media getting wind of Tesla doing a gazillion updates and the headline being "Tesla scrambles to fix flawed products". People fear what they do not understand. 

Keith Tanner said:

Your trust of the recall process is very different than mine, because I've had to deal with FCA's process. Having a dealer lay their hands upon the vehicle is no guarantee of quality. I'll take a timely OTA fix applied to the entire fleet over a "don't worry, your steering will probably break at parking lot speeds and we hope to have new parts in a year just keep calling us and if we have parts in stock you'll get some" paper trailed, VIN listed, formal recall.

I'll bet Tesla has a record of every car that suffered that ABS miscalibration and how many have had the fix applied because it's all in the update records. You want a "paper" trail, it exists because that sort of thing is trivial to log. Heck, you can ask the car what the software version is instead of having to go to some master database somewhere else. If there was no formal recall, it's because the NHTSA decided one was not necessary. 

Mazda whoopsied their anti-collision software. It couldn't be fixed OTA, so the fix involves tracking down every car involved and getting them into a dealer so the dealer can plug in. I can't remember if there's an NHTSA recall for it or not but it's definitely a pain to figure out if an individual car has had it applied or not. And this happened a lot more recently than Edmund's problem and Mazda outsells Tesla (or did at the time at least) but I don't see it being brought up over and over.

OTA updates like this are going to become more common. A lot of people seem to be sketched out about the fact that cars can just fix themselves because traditionally fixing a car has been a very high effort process. Once we get past that mindset it's going to seem completely logical that an OTA fix applied to the entire fleet is much superior to having to rely on customers to inconvenience themselves to get the work done.

Yup. Badness lies on either side. You do you, I'll do me. No hard feelings. OP asked for opinions, so those are mine. I don't yet trust Tesla as much as I trust the established brands and federal agencies. That isn't to say there isn't novelty or merit on Teslas side.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

As much as I dislike the opacity and controlling attitude of our Tesla overlords, I do understand some of their desire for secrecy. A friend of mine has worked with a couple of autonomous driving developers, and he said that the engineers tweaked the software practically every single day. Now imagine our usual alarmist media getting wind of Tesla doing a gazillion updates and the headline being "Tesla scrambles to fix flawed products". People fear what they do not understand. 

I actually saw much the opposite. I am not going to dig it up again, but that braking issue I mentioned headlined like "Tesla reduces braking distance with Over the Air updates!"...

Media stinks.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

As an aside, there was a Bolt recall on batteries recently. The temporary fix was to reduce the range to 90% while they figured it out. They have now, and there is another recall for the permanent fix to the cells which are actually an issue.

I elected not to have them do the temporary recall. Had it been done via OTA I would not have that option.

I will elect to get the permanent fix recall soon.

In reply to tuna55 :

I might be completely wrong given the short time I spent with a Model Y, but the car will ask if you want the update. You need to OK it as it usually will render it unop. for a few minutes, so you can opt-out. 

Again, people with more knowledge can correct me here. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Your Tesla is still under warranty? 

Do you pay for the OTA updates if you buy one second hand or if your warranty expire? Is it like a service subscription similar to software?

Chris_V said:

 

Or that it costs $35k, when none of them are actually selling for anywhere NEAR that. Or this:

"The instrument cluster screams 90s neon green and blue, and it just feels cheap."

I have no green or blue in the interior in mine, other than the green of the battery range bar (and that follow distance bar changes color depending on what menu item you're looking at) and it feels no cheaper than the interior of the Model 3, really (and is probably built better, too. But they shouldn't be compared directly):

 

Your instrument cluster is literally neon green and blue Chris, I'm not sure what's factually incorrect about that. The center cluster has a similar aesthetic when it's turned on. The rest has a plastic white shiny textured finish. It looks cheap and dated to me. Aesthetics aren't a big deal to some, and of course what pleases the eye of some annoys the heck out of others. I just personally did not get along with the Bolt, and I didn't want to spend years driving something that I hated looking at. I ended up with the i3 instead, and I love the interior. 

If you like it, that's cool! Lots of people hate the way the i3 looks but whatever

In reply to tuna55 :

My wife's bank has records going back decades of every dime. Not in paper but records none the less. You haven't seen anything until the grandchildren find Grandpas old savings book. 
  I'm comforted in knowing a company I intend to buy something from isn't tied down to old ways of doing things. 

In reply to Slippery :

You can opt out of an OTA at a given time as well as schedule a time - say, "not now, do it at 3 am". The car is down for about a half hour, possibly longer on the X and S. I don't know how long you could put it off, especially on a critical safety update. It's probably fair to say that the vast majority of owners have them applied simply because they have all been beneficial. More features, more range, more powah. No updates have capped maximum battery capacity like the theoretical Bolt example. If there had been one like that, I suspect we would have more reports from people who are trying to prevent an update. I suppose I could always just turn off the wifi in the garage :)

In reply to yupididit :

That's a good question. I've seen nothing in any paperwork that says it's a service subscription and it's never been mentioned. I knew the "premium connectivity" (streaming music, satellite nav, real-time traffic, etc) was a subscription that was free for a year and that was clear at the time of purchase, just like the satellite radio in my truck. I'll take a look at the manual and see if it says anything about OTA updates being subscription based. I suspect not as there's no significant cost to Tesla to supply them and it's probably easier to support the cars if they're all on the same software. I also suspect that once the 3 sees a significant update or redesign that the pace of OTA updates will slow.

Now, that's how Tesla is doing it. There's no reason why another automaker couldn't treat it differently. BMW, for example, has shown that they'd be quite willing to make the customer pay subscription fees.

Erich said:

 

Your instrument cluster is literally neon green and blue Chris, I'm not sure what's factually incorrect about that. The center cluster has a similar aesthetic when it's turned on. The rest has a plastic white shiny textured finish. It looks cheap and dated to me. Aesthetics aren't a big deal to some, and of course what pleases the eye of some annoys the heck out of others. I just personally did not get along with the Bolt, and I didn't want to spend years driving something that I hated looking at. I ended up with the i3 instead, and I love the interior. 

If you like it, that's cool! Lots of people hate the way the i3 looks but whatever

One band of green indicating battery level does not an interior make. And that green is typical of the battery level and charge level indicators of pretty much every EV I've ever been in. Often times a green leaf pattern to show how "green" the car is acting att any given time. Again, it's not the teal and blue of a '80s or 90s car, which is what's factually incorrect. It's a lame insult that shows you really aren't paying attention.

The white is not shiny plastic. The piano black is, which is found in a lot of upscale cars. The white is a matte finish with the 3D pattern in it. And it looks futuristic. You know of any cheap interiors that use that? Where do you find it looks "cheap?" Because hard plastics are all over in supposedly not-cheap cars these days. BTW, if you didn't get the wood trim dash of the i3 then it has as much or more hard plastics in it. And the cloth of the seats is almost identical to the cloth of the Bolt. I've spent a lot of time in the 13 and the added cost didn't justify the tiny range. Cool carbon fiber chassis, though.

Oh, wait cheap hard white plastics (with neon green battery and regen indication and a lot of blue) in a $50k car...

In reply to Chris_V :

Look man, if you like the Bolt that's fantastic. I'm not trying to dump on it, just giving my own opinion and why I gave it a pass, and I apologize if that opinion felt like an attack on you or your car - it sincerely was not meant that way.

edit: reading back I can see how some of my comments could be hurtful and again, I apologize. The Bolt is cool. The model 3 is cool. The Mach E is cool. The i3 is cool.

The Mitsubishi i-MiEV is not cool but if ya like it that's cool too. 

Erich said:

In reply to Chris_V :

Look man, if you like the Bolt that's fantastic. I'm not trying to dump on it, just giving my own opinion and why I gave it a pass, and I apologize if that opinion felt like an attack on you or your car - it sincerely was not meant that way.

Stones and glass houses, man. Saying you passed on "cheap plastics" while choosing "cheap plastics" seems disingenuous.

In reply to Chris_V :

I was pretty deliberate in finding an i3 with the Giga interior, which I think has a nice mid-century vibe with its wood, leather, and wool. 

Sooo...

GRMers are passionate. This is not a surprise.

Our resident Tesla owner loves his Tesla.

Our resident Bolt owners love their Bolts.

Our resident Leaf owner loved his Leaf.

Apparently buy what you like. It will be great! EVs are really wonderful.

One thing I've noticed is that used EV prices have really bumped up over the last few months. I was shopping for the i3 a few months ago and all of a sudden the prices are $3k+ more than what I paid. I looked and it seems to hold true across the used market. 

Used EVs used to be depreciation machines except for Tesla. Is that changing, or is it just reflective of the wider used market pricing?

Im not an i3 fan at all but I really like that interior

Erich said:

 

Used EVs used to be depreciation machines except for Tesla. Is that changing, or is it just reflective of the wider used market pricing?

 

 

Well the 1st generation Leafs have such poor range coupled with rapidly degrading batteries that it's no surprise that they're the Yugos of the EV world. If cars like the Bolt can be reliable they should hold their value well. But let's be honest, Tesla has a brand cachet up there with Porsche and Lexus. Whereas a Bolt is still a Chevy.