Who knew pissing off leftist people by being a douchebag when your company sells electric vehicles that are typically championed by said leftists could hurt your sales? So mysterious.
Yep. I was unironically going to buy a Cybertruck… then Elon came out of the fascist closet while Tesla’s QC/CS problems escalated… now there is no way I will ever touch anything Tesla or related to Musk.
Waiting for Aptera now, but would also consider Rivian in a pinch.
I didn’t know at the time, years ago. I was just like “OMG Delorean truck!”
Bullet dodged.
I’ve seen a few Cybertrucks parked around the city now. They literally look like something either the fascist, militant law enforcement or the Uber-wealthy would drive around in, in a dystopian future.
Definitely designed to keep you safe from the violent peasant class, especially should you need to run over a few of them in the process.
For what it’s worth, I love my R1T. The build quality is miles ahead of the Teslas I’ve driven.
Hah! This is 100% me. I was so quick to reserve a Cybertruck that I accidentally had three reservations for a few days.
And I’ve been following Aptera since 2007. I really really hope they can pull it off this time.
How are a cybertruck and an aptera your two contenders? They’re complete opposites.
Fair question. The answer is timing.
I was a huge fan of Aptera the first time around, in the mid 2000s. I was crushed to see them fold simply because the government yanked funding for any vehicles that didn’t have 4 wheels (funding that Tesla did get, which is why they survived).
The Cybertruck was announced in 2019, while I heard about Aptera’s resurrection only in late 2021. Until recently, Aptera’s second attempt was looking really tenuous, too. The only just secured full funding to enter full scale production.
Basically, I like practicality. When it was announced, Cybertruck sounded like it would be very practical… rough, tough, indestructible, and electric. We know better now.
Aptera is a very different kind of practical, sure… but for a car I’d use for light commuting a couple times per week (in SoCal), there’s a chance I may never even need to plug it in. That beats out any and all other considerations, in my book.
I can’t afford an EV, but if I was in the market for one, my search would start with something like “anything but Tesla”.
Can’t imagine why they’re struggling, lol.
The Venn diagram of “people that like Elon musk and want to support him with their money” and “people that consider buying an electric car for environmental reasons” is having very little overlap in recent years
Used EV prices have come down quite a bit. There’s a solar EV startup called Aptera that’s making a super efficient EV that the base model will sell for around $26k before tax incentives, so a new one could theoretically, potentially be under $20k.
They seem to be getting close. I think they have all the funding they need now, they’re planning to start production around the end of the year. I think they’re starting to make their first production-intent parts and are validating performance, hopefully soon we’ll see some crash test results. My biggest concern at the moment is what happens when you hit a pothole at 70+ mph since the motors are in the wheels
There’s also Edison Motors that are taking preorders for Diesel/EV hybrids for pickup trucks. They’re pro Right to Repair and the hybrids will be Plugin type, so for short trips, should be pure EV. If you want a pure EV truck the whole way, you should be able to remove the engine and put more batteries in, but they want to have as few of options for the preorder to simplify things. Converting an old square body truck in way more useful and cheaper then buying a Cybertruck.
Edison Motors, while a great idea, is aimed at the heavy duty and off-road commercial space. Even they admit that their semi doesn’t really make sense for over the road trucks. There is little to no gain in it. Same with work pickups. But for some, think heavy duty off road repair vehicles, it can make sense.
I’m pulling for them though. I hope they make it big if for no other reason than to push the right to repair with common parts be the norm again.
I have no idea what your budget is, so don’t take this as me shoving this in your face.
A used Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt can be around 10k depending on which year you’re looking at. I have a Leaf and I love it.
For those of you coming in to say that ChadEMO sucks, it does. But Nissan recently publicly recognized the need for an adapter to CCS. So hopefully they start making those.
People are sick of Elmo. And Tesla’s designs are stale.
You made me look it up, the newest vehicle they offer is the Cybertruck, but that design was revealed in 2019, the same year that the previous newest model of SUV started shipping, the Model Y. Their entire line is almost 6 years old, that is ancient in fancy car design time. By now people no longer want EV cars that look like electric cars, they just want them to look like cars. Ever since BYD, Nissan, and the other manufacturers started to offer EVs that are indistinguishable from petrol cars—design wise—Teslas have definitely looked outdated. No wonder no one is interested in driving an Apple Magic mouse.
The 3 was refreshed earlier in the year and the Y has it’s refresh incoming. They also update the cars all the time just not always stylistically. There’s not an “all new for 20xx” launch or the like that you get from others. The X and S now compared to say the 2016 are markedly different.
Also Nissan had the leef about 10 years ago so they’re not a new entrant and only have currently two products and I wouldn’t say they’re indistinguishable. Also I wouldn’t say that about the Seal, it’s clearly an EV and BYD is unashamed about that.
The existing OEMs need to get their act together. If you thought Tesla was hurting them, wait until BYD, NIO and Geely turn up in numbers.
I can’t count on my fingers the number of automobile manufacturers that have sprung out of thin air in the last few years offering some variation of EV. Two of those you mentioned I had an easier time finding information about their stock than I did finding a picture of their car on the road. Not a good sign for a company that purportedly sells cars. It’s a great sign for a company that just sells stock though.
EV sale are slumping more because of cost to buy than anything else. The great unwashed masses, like you and me, simply can’t afford to make the purchase. Even used EVs are more expensive a use ICE vehicle.
GM had it right with the Bolt. An EV with good range, 260 miles or so, and a far more affordable entry price for us commoners to swallow. It just died because the battery manufacturer screwed it up. But there is hope the Bolt comes back with GMs new Ultium battery that is supposed to be cheaper and better. They know it can be done and they can do it. And BYD could sell a lot of EVs in the same price range as a base level Bolt very easily.
I’m sure Musk knows Tesla’s days are numbered. The large manufacturers are now in the process of pivoting and they will eat Tesla alive. This is why he’s trying to get that big payout from the Tesla Board of Directors and has now also been caught in alleged insider trading. He’s going to suck all the cash out of Tesla he can before running clear of the collapse.
It just died because the battery manufacturer screwed it up
That’s debatable. They are bringing it back, and it will have the newer Ultium battery, but whether the battery recall is what did it is hard to say. They did run another model year after that happened, though I would’ve expected a little more after the refresh from the 2022MY.
On the other hand, the Bolt platform was released in 2016. A lot has changed since then, particularly with charging. 55kW is laughable compared to pretty much everything else on the market these days, and they may need to go back to the drawing board to update it.
Outsourced parts are almost always the fault of the supplier - and I have experience with being a tier 2 or 3 supplier.
I sure there will be a design refresh before the Bolt comes back. Yeah, 55kw charging is not all that fast anymore. But to keep costs down to entry level affordability, like less than $35,000US, corners will need to be cut and cheap tailing edge tech will probably need to be used. Otherwise, all you’ve done is price the largest body of buyers, (lower middle class these days), right out of the market again.
And the EV market needs those low priced cars to achieve common market penetration. If they don’t design and build to that affordability price points, then EVs will simply remain toys for the wealthy.
The point about price sums it up perfectly. I have a german car from 2009, it’s really solid, fun to drive, technologically exactly where I want it to be and - perhaps most importantly of all - it does not fucking spy on me.
You can get the spy part with any newer vehicle. My 2015 Jeep Patriot and Dodge Ram pickup can both be hacked to the point of the driver no longer having control of the vehicle. It’s been proven and actually done. Maybe your German car is old enough, maybe it isn’t. But the spying is everywhere now.
It’s not so much hackers I’m afraid of, but rather the invasive spying done by modern cars. Mine is old enough to not have any of that, but new enough to have all the things I do want to have.
I’m definitely interested in the Equinox and Bolt. I do wish GM didn’t lock people into their shitty infotainment platform though. I also wish they had a NACS charger instead.
I would never consider a Tesla.
I’d be more apt to look into term if Hyundai/Kia didn’t have several child labor violations.
It’s so hard to buy anything now-a-days without being tied to some kind of labor violation.
I got a 2023 Bolt earlier this year. I just connect my phone wirelessly for maps and music and don’t touch most other things on the screen. I LOVE the heated steering wheel for winter and cooling seats for summer. That particular package is well worth getting.
Definitely DO NOT give OnStar your credit card info though. The dealership will sit you in the car and initiate the OnStar call before you know what’s happening. Just refuse to give credit card info, the extended trial whatever isn’t worth the hassle of OnStar charging you when they said they wouldn’t. I ended up having to do a chargeback because OnStar straight up lied to me about when charges would occur.
Take a look at the Ford Mustang Mach-e too. Despite the Mustang name, it’s closer to a wagon or small SUV. I just got one and love it so far.
Always confused me that the execs thought slapping the Mustang name on an EV wagon was a good choice. More proof that Ford is run by dipshits. While it looks good, the range and charging speed are not that great and it is quite a bit more expensive than the Equinox.
Glad you are happy with it though.
The bolts look good. That’s what I’ll replace my truck with when the time comes. I don’t mind replacing the head unit because I used to do it in every vehicle I had until the latest one. I just have to see how it’s tied together and hope they didn’t do something stupid like tying it to a critical system.
The 2023 Bolt has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Once they switch over to the Optium platform (next year I think), they will be using the Optium infotainment system. That has had some notable issues like rebooting in the middle of driving to apply an update which means you don’t get to see things like how fast you are going for a minute or two. They had to recall the Blazer EV because failed updates caused the car to become a brick. Like the car became inoperable. That really makes me wonder if they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for software developers since version rollback is pretty fucking standard for most software these days.
You do get 8 years free of their infotainment package. Not sure what all that includes though nor how much the subscription is after the 8 years is up.
