I am probably going to trade in my car for an EV this year. I have been following the technology for a while but I really do no not like all the touchscreen nonsense.
Do you like your EV? What is it? What are the pros and cons of your experience?
The Ford MachE and the Subaru Solterra are at the top of my list but I like the KIA too.
We have a Hyundai Ioniq 6, about 18 months now. It has a touchscreen like all EVs (I know, there’s a truck) but it still has a lot of physical buttons, unlike a Tesla which has gone way too far with the screen. We tried the Mustang and liked it, but liked this better, plus my wife wanted a sedan.
Biggest pro is it’s not a Tesla. Also, I get home, plug it in, and go inside. Takes five seconds, and five more to unplug it. Plus, it’s not a Tesla. Way less time than it takes at the gas station to fill my truck. It’s also fast, a lot of fun to drive, and finally, it’s not a Tesla.
Con would be road-tripping. If I was doing a ton of that, I’d be perhaps looking for an EREV of some sort, although 20-80% in 20 min isn’t exactly horrible. Charger is CCS, but sometime this month Hyundai is sending me an NACS adapter, so no more issues there - we did have one time where we had to wait for CCS when a NACS was open, but not exactly a massive issue. The new models are NACS.
Forgot to mention, in US, range about 300 miles or so, and there was a sensor issue that ended up with a harness replacement that didn’t cost me anything under warranty, but had an estimate of $8500.
We also have an I6, and generally really like it. With how fast it charges at L3 chargers, road trips so far haven’t been much different for us other than where we stop, but we would have taken a 15-20 minute break anyways. We got our last month, so no free NACS adapter for us, but we got a quality one from Canada for about $100. Lastly, don’t discount the V2L features. We used it in a recent 4+ day power outage to keep our chest freezer going overnights and saved likely $1000 in food from going bad. Sure we waited a couple hours to recharge it at one of the only working fast chargers, but we had no power anyways so sitting and waiting in the car or at home made no real difference.
In terms of driving, the I6 drives well. Like all EVs it has instant torque, which I described to my dad as like being in 1st but all the way to 60 with no need to shift. It handles well and is comfortable.
My biggest complaints are the it’s a bit short inside (but I think that of most cars, so maybe it’s me), and the parking sensors are stupid annoying most of the time (way too sensitive, and I can’t find a way to leave them on while turning the audible alerts off but leaving the normal driving alerts on). It really thinks our normal 1-car garage door opening is too tight.
I drive an Ioniq 6 as well and really like it. I got it as a one year old car with the big battery and highest interior line for 37k €. I like the user interface, it is one of the most efficient cars (I drive it at ~13.5 kWh/100km), can tow trailers, charges really fast, has a good overall range, supports Android Auto and Apple Carplay etc.
Downsides: It has an issue with an internal part called ICCU that breaks quite often (in forums people often experienced a failure after ~30000 km). Same issue with Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. It’s covered by the warranty of course but still can be annoying.
The keyless system is apparantly not really secure and can be hacked easier than in other cars. Where I live (Germany) at least, this doesn’t lead to higher theft cases compared to other brands, so for me that’s not too bad.
PS: I do not charge at hone but exclusively at public stations. Charging at home for sure makes it cheaper and more convenient but still I wouldn’t want want to go back to ICE.
The theft protection issue is not something to worry about in Europe. The European cars got an upgraded system due to regulations.