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Toyota is taking the Corolla electric

446 points · 838 comments · cisc

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paimapi · 1790211060 · focus · HN ↗
and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
(also kind of wild to me that an EV focused blog wouldn't mention this a single time since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there)
1. Apocryphon · 1790272068 · focus · HN ↗
  Don't they have existing EV models, though?
  1. loloquwowndueo · 1790272254 · focus · HN ↗
    Yep bz, chr, bz woodland and the upcoming highlander Bev, at least - but they’re late to the game for sure.
  2. rwmj · 1790272344 · focus · HN ↗
    They have large electric cars / SUVs, but not small EVs.
    NewJazz · 1790273959 · focus · HN ↗
    To be fair that's true of most manufacturers. Nobody wanted to go head to head with the Tesla M3, except Hyundai I guess but then they discontinued the Ioniq 6 IIRC.
    WorldMaker · 1790277100 · focus · HN ↗
    It's true in the US market. Europe and Asia are seeing a flood of smaller EV cars from Dacia, Renault, BYD, VW, Fiat and far more. The US is getting left behind.
    silon42 · 1790318281 · focus · HN ↗
    Tesla Model 3 is a huge car for Europe. I would never consider it due to that.
  3. paimapi · 1790273163 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/why-does-toyota-oppose-clean-air/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/why-does-toyota-oppose-c...
    it's sunk cost on their hydrogen cell R&D - they want there to still be room for that instead of going with electrification but they have to diversify their portfolio to keep up with markets
    > "Toyota in particular has been vocal that they are uninterested in making ZEVs available in California. [...] Toyota has invested in hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles [instead]."
2. radiator · 1790272297 · focus · HN ↗
  They were neither anti-EV in the past nor will they stop producing Internal Combustion Engine vehicles in the future
  1. paimapi · 1790272749 · focus · HN ↗
    based on what? there's so many sources noting their anti-EV lobbying
    <a href="https://chargedevs.com/newswire/toyota-actively-lobbies-against-support-for-evs/" rel="nofollow">https://chargedevs.com/newswire/toyota-actively-lobbies-agai...
    <a href="https://thedriven.io/2026/06/17/japan-car-giants-still-pushing-anti-ev-narrative-even-as-china-rivals-close-sales-gap/" rel="nofollow">https://thedriven.io/2026/06/17/japan-car-giants-still-pushi...
    <a href="https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/why-does-toyota-oppose-clean-air/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.ucs.org/dave-reichmuth/why-does-toyota-oppose-c...
    and here's their CEO going on a tirade about Japan's EV-adoption mandate: <a href="https://evannex.com/blogs/news/puzzled-by-toyota-ceo-s-anti-ev-diatribe-it-s-not-unusual" rel="nofollow">https://evannex.com/blogs/news/puzzled-by-toyota-ceo-s-anti-...
    RajuChacha108 · 1790273392 · focus · HN ↗
    People who have vested interest will make such accusations.
    I own EVs but I am opposed to "mandates", opposing coercion makes you anti coercion not the objective of coercion.
    paimapi · 1790273650 · focus · HN ↗
    you read the articles, correct? the ones where they are actively supporting climate-change denying, pro-January 6th Republicans who are actively working on repealing CAFE, emissions standards, and other climate protective standards?
    also the accusation of 'vested interest' is very funny to me as someone who is proverbially hiding all his liquidity under a mattress (ie bonds) until this AI bubble pops and whose sources are 1) a non-profit and 2) a Union of Concerned Scientists blog
    7734128 · 1790274130 · focus · HN ↗
    Anyone can write a blog and they can write anything they want there. There's no more value in those links than in a Reddit comment.
    steelframe · 1790276684 · focus · HN ↗
    Or even an HN comment, for that matter.
    paimapi · 1790277986 · focus · HN ↗
    so you'd treat an academic reference text on chemistry as just as prone to bias and as worthless as a reddit comment?
    if you have other sources that talk about how great Toyota is, that'd be wonderful
    someonebaggy · 1790276094 · focus · HN ↗
    When the government said everyone should wear masks were you the guy coughing on all the produce?
    CamperBob2 · 1790276156 · focus · HN ↗
    Toyota isn't so much pro-internal combustion as pro-hydrogen. They bet on the wrong horse -- a really stupid horse -- and it cost them heavily.
    cisc · 1790286528 · focus · HN ↗
    > They bet on the wrong horse -- a really stupid horse -- and it cost them heavily
    How? Toyota has been the best selling automaker for the last six years straight:
    <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-retains-top-auto-crown-2025-with-record-sales-2026-01-29/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
    In 2025 Toyota had record sales.
    paimapi · 1790288860 · focus · HN ↗
    their total ledger might be fine but it's not like their R&D just came free out of the good will of thousands of people
    alfg · 1790320555 · focus · HN ↗
    All marketing, my dude.
  2. NewJazz · 1790273818 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  3. nunez · 1790300477 · focus · HN ↗
    They were AMAZINGLY anti-EV a few years ago. They couldn't shut the heck up about hydrogen being endgame and even shipped a flagship car that used the technology to prove it. (It barely sold, you couldn't refuel it outside of the Bay Area and the entire program was eventually written off.)
3. rwmj · 1790272303 · focus · HN ↗
  I was going to say "about time", but actually about 3 years too late.
4. RajuChacha108 · 1790272766 · focus · HN ↗
  Toyota was broadly right in their approach to EVs. They were pioneers in hybrids. They had excellent hybrid cars like Prius that have been around forever. Their low end cars are extremely fuel efficient too that making them hybrid does not really offer marginal benefits.
  Now most companies have written off their crazy investments in EVs. Honda has discontinued Prologue and so on.
  1. paimapi · 1790273281 · focus · HN ↗
    at first, sure, but they've since donated large amounts of money to climate-change deniers who fight hard against electrification and emission standards
    <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-scrutinized-after-restarting-donations-to-sedition-caucus-212011771.html" rel="nofollow">https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-scrutinized-after-rest...
    I do feel like y'all need to read the news more instead of just going by brand rep
  2. cknoxrun · 1790297091 · focus · HN ↗
    They have also been slowly, but surely, moving all their vehicles to EVs (at least in Canada). For example, you can only buy a new Camry, Sienna or Rav-4 (most popular SUV in the world) in hybrid/PHEV form.
    foolfoolz · 1790298782 · focus · HN ↗
    PHEV are going away across the industry and solidifying into pure EV or classical hybrid. the market for those who will pay more for the PHEV prefers EV
    abraxas · 1790346447 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, that was the case for me. I resolved to get a PHEV "because road trips" and after test driving a bunch I went ahead and got a pure EV.
    dalyons · 1790355097 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah they were a bridging technology that no longer makes sense as EVs have improved
5. numlock86 · 1790272989 · focus · HN ↗
  > [...] since Toyota is (was?) arguably one of the staunchest and most stubborn anti-EV manufacturers out there
  Wait till you hear about German car manufacturers. It's not even that long ago that e.g. Mercedes said that their target audience doesn't want EVs and they will never (!) give in to that market. Now look at them. All of them.
  1. aeyes · 1790275339 · focus · HN ↗
    That could be caused by EU regulation because they have to meet fleet emission standards. Pretty much the only way to get there is to sell some EVs.
6. asdfginoi · 1790273349 · focus · HN ↗
  I am with Toyota on this one. They have done more to reduce carbon emissions than any other automaker. Hybrids, particularly plug-in hybrids, achieve most of the benefits of EVs without any of the tradeoffs, and they make far more efficient use of our limited supply of batteries.
  Public policy should not insist on one technology to the exclusion of viable alternatives.
  Fuel cells are stupid, though.
  1. paimapi · 1790273563 · focus · HN ↗
    please, I beg of you HNers, maybe read the news instead of just going by your brand sentiment
    <a href="https://www.citizen.org/article/driving-denial-how-toyotas-unholy-alliance-with-climate-deniers-threatens-climate-progress/" rel="nofollow">https://www.citizen.org/article/driving-denial-how-toyotas-u...
    > Over the last three electoral cycles, Toyota has become the top auto industry financier of climate deniers[4]. It has helped to finance campaigns of 207 climate-denying congressional candidates, more than twice as many as Ford and nearly 50% more than General Motors, the only other automakers with federal political action committees (PACs)
    > [Toyota] is bankrolling an army of climate denying lawmakers and lobbying aggressively against emissions and fuel economy standards
    asdfginoi · 1790280438 · focus · HN ↗
    From a few posts upstream:
    >and all it took was two decades and millions of spend in anti-EV lobbying before they finally gave in, huh
    EVs are a stupid idea and will remain so for the foreseeable future. If you want to complain about their funding of climate deniers, complain about that. But don't criticize them for their justified dismissal of the EV mania.
    I am disappointed Toyota is making EVs now. That doesn't mean I am a fan of the company; I don't even own a car.
    paimapi · 1790281011 · focus · HN ↗
    what's your objection to EVs? what are the alternatives?
    0x457 · 1790299629 · focus · HN ↗
    > what are the alternatives?
    HEV, PHEV, ICE. All are valid alternatives. Hydrogen cars are stupid though.
    erxam · 1790300844 · focus · HN ↗
    Gas is closing in on >6$/gal and my country produces no oil but a ton of electricity. How are any of those supposed to help?
    rootusrootus · 1790295269 · focus · HN ↗
    > EVs are a stupid idea
    I am so glad that there are manufacturers who disagree with you, because I would cry real tears if I were forced to go back to ICE.
  2. NewJazz · 1790273916 · focus · HN ↗
    We don't really have a limited supply of batteries. At least not so limited as to prevent every passenger vehicle having a large enough one.
    I mean for gosh sakes, they make semitrucks, boats, and planes with batteries. Huge grid storage systems as well.
  3. emtel · 1790342781 · focus · HN ↗
    There is no limited supply of batteries. Production is growing and prices are declining rapidly.
WokeUp420 · 1790227220 · focus · HN ↗
The hybrid already gets 55mpg and the batteries are dirt cheap.
1. crimsontech · 1790240910 · focus · HN ↗
  Its actually cheaper (for me in the UK) to run a corolla hybrid than an EV as I don't have the ability to charge at home.
  1. [deleted] · 1790271969 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  2. scottyah · 1790271972 · focus · HN ↗
    I really did think Toyota would have a nice market if they stuck to hybrids.
2. mcone · 1790272099 · focus · HN ↗
  Our 2026 hybrid gets 64mpg in Albuquerque. The last time I did the EROI calculation it beat everything by a long shot.
3. throwitaway222 · 1790272535 · focus · HN ↗
  Not sure how you got one that gets 55mpg, mine gets 44 (47 was on the sticker). But in CA this still beats 100% EV.
  1. klaff · 1790279340 · focus · HN ↗
    You really do have to do the math using your local costs. I'm in a place with slightly cheaper gas but much cheaper electricity than California. Combined with cheap night time electricity I'm paying under $0.03 per mile for a large EV. I would need 150 mpg vehicle (assuming $4.50 gas) to beat that. However I'm cheating a bit - I'm on a plan which raises my day time electric costs a small amount in exchange for half-price at night, so they're getting some of that back, and I should amortize charger and electrician work ($1600 for me).
  2. justin66 · 1790293259 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  3. 4lx87 · 1790358538 · focus · HN ↗
    What's the math on that? Average kWh in California is around 18 cents. Assuming 0.35 kWh per mile, that's 6.3 cents per mile. You'd need to get 100mpg+ to beat an EV. A brand new Corolla hybrid my family recently bought gets around 40-60 mpg driving around a small city.
    Then you can factor in reduced maintenance per mile as well.
4. RajuChacha108 · 1790273422 · focus · HN ↗
  Corolla is sort of highly underrated engineering marvel.
5. dyauspitr · 1790273934 · focus · HN ↗
  55mpg is nothing. I get 100+ mpg equivalent on my massive F-150 lightning and if you include cost in the comparison it’s probably a couple of multipliers more than that.
  1. NewJazz · 1790274077 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. rootusrootus · 1790297261 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
dzonga · 1790272066 · focus · HN ↗
why don't Japanese auto-makers embrace the super+ hybrid that was embraced by Chinese auto makers. having electric motors and a small engine to constantly charge / drive the motors.
Japanese auto makers are already good at hybrid power trains, small engines.
surely extended range vehicles - 1000km+/700mi+ shouldn't be limited to Chinese brands only.
1. Apocryphon · 1790272126 · focus · HN ↗
  Yeah, what happened after the Toyota Prius?
2. alphabeta3r56 · 1790272439 · focus · HN ↗
  They have. See toyota hyryder
3. gruez · 1790272930 · focus · HN ↗
  >why don't Japanese auto-makers embrace the super+ hybrid that was embraced by Chinese auto makers
  How is that different than plug-in hybrids that toyota already have?
  1. john01dav · 1790273440 · focus · HN ↗
    As far as I know, such plug-in hybrids directly drive the car forward via the internal combustion engine, which is more efficient than using a (possibly smaller and simpler) engine to charge a battery which then moves the car via electric motors, which is what I understand the person that you're replying to to be describing, though I am not familiar with the specific Chinese cars in question, since those are not options available to me due to living in the United States.
    Related, though not for plug-in hybrids: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI
  2. hamdingers · 1790274684 · focus · HN ↗
    In a pure series hybrid a gas engine acts a generator which charges a battery, which drives an electric motor, which provides power to the wheels. You might recognize this arrangement from diesel-electric locomotives.
    In parallel hybrids, both the gas motor and the electric motor provide traction, sometimes simultaneously.
    Parallel is more efficient if you're depending on gas often, as every conversion has losses. Toyota mostly sells hybrids you can't plug in, and the ones you can plug in are variants of the ones you can't, so they all share the same drivetrain.
4. matroxmemories · 1790273317 · focus · HN ↗
  Chevy had that with the Volt and while it has its fans, it wasn’t exactly a hit.
  1. hnav · 1790273659 · focus · HN ↗
    The volt was more like a Prius Plugin++. It still has a planetary gearset through which the engine would drive the wheels.
    matroxmemories · 1790597855 · focus · HN ↗
    The first gen volt basically never drove the wheels via the gas engine.
5. lambenttelos · 1790273697 · focus · HN ↗
  I think they have, though not as much as they should have.
  I have a Sienna minivan that is hybrid and gets 36 MPG which is at least 10MPG more than everyone else using a beefed up version of the drivetrain the Prius created. (I can go 550-600 miles on a tank)
  I also got RAV4 Prime which is a plugin electric that uses the same drivetrain tech and can go full electric, hybrid, or full power with both for over 300hp which is fun.
  They achieve the best efficiency by using an Atkinson cycle engine which is more efficient but less powerful on the Sienna and Prius. What has confused me more is that things like the Grand Highlander still have a traditional cycle engine in their hybrid setup so you don't get the maximum advantage.
6. mrweasel · 1790273697 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
  1. stetrain · 1790273936 · focus · HN ↗
    Hybrids make a lot of sense, they just have a lot of the same costs as building EVs and most buyers in the US weren't willing to pay an extra $5k to increase gas mileage by 15%.
    Toyota is currently seeing record sales of their hybrid models and has made multiple models hybrid-only as costs have fallen.
    Plug-in hybrids with larger battery packs are a harder market fit. They cost more because of the larger battery (often more than full EV equivalents) and are not saving you any extra money unless you can plug it in daily. If you have that extra money to spend and a place to plug an, an EV will probably work fine for you and save you more money over time.
    ramesh31 · 1790276238 · focus · HN ↗
    >They cost more because of the larger battery (often more than full EV equivalents) and are not saving you any extra money unless you can plug it in daily.
    No one's saving money unless you're driving 100k miles a year or something. New cars are a luxury good, plain and simple. Nothing from gas savings comes remotely close to buying a 10 year old ICE Civic that still gets 40mpg.
    stetrain · 1790276804 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a factor, but as you say many hybrids are actually very reliable and actually simply many parts of the drivetrain over a conventional ICE.
    Cost is a huge factor, and now that hybrids are a small cost increase, or even the default option on some models, sales have increased substantially. Basically half the cars that Toyota sells are hybrid or EV at this point.
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790290966 · focus · HN ↗
    > The first-gen Prius ...
    ...was also incredibly slow.
    A pitiful 70 horsepower motor assisted by a 44 horsepower motor that combined to an anemic 104 horsepower [0] on a car that weighed ~2,800 lbs.
    I had to borrow my in-laws' car once, which is a first gen Prius, and I found the extremely sluggish performance to be outright frustrating. I felt like I had to floor the accelerator to reach highway speeds in any reasonable amount of time.
    [0] Not a typo. The numbers don't add to 114 because they can't both deliver peak power at the same time.
  2. formerly_proven · 1790277503 · focus · HN ↗
    Most hybrids Toyota sells have a ~1 kWh battery which cannot be charged externally.
  3. enragedcacti · 1790279930 · focus · HN ↗
    "only to realise that no one really wants them" - 1 of every 6 new cars sold in the US are hybrids
    "You have to have a specific daily drive for them to make much sense" - You'd have to have an extremely specific commute for an ICE car to potentially beat a hybrid (flat highway driving with zero traffic). Even then it's doubtful as hybrid engines can be designed to optimize more for efficiency since the electric torque can augment to make performance acceptable. Try to find an ICE car that gets better EPA ratings than equivalent hybrids.
    "You're carrying two engines and to fuel/power sources, so mileage is terrible on gas and battery." - The corolla hybrid LE weighs 100lbs less than the ICE LE, in part because hybrid transmissions are quite simple in comparison to a manual/automatic required in an ICE car. In either case, hybrids have a huge advantage in the types of driving where weight matters (stop-and-go/hills) because they can reclaim that energy rather than losing it as heat.
    torton · 1790311853 · focus · HN ↗
    The current generation Prius gets 57 mpg. The most efficient non-hybrid one can buy today is in the mid-40s.
  4. electroweak · 1790567054 · focus · HN ↗
    The Toyota hybrid system is a marvel of simplicity and efficiency. A small Atkinson-cycle ICE run at optimal efficiency paired with two electric motors via a planetary gear set simpler than a manual transmission. It's far more reliable than traditional ICE/gearbox.
    Hybrid mileage is well known to be much better I fail to understand the origin of your comments.
7. stetrain · 1790273731 · focus · HN ↗
  Part of that is that we are reaching the point where a plug-in hybrid is actually more expensive to produce than an EV.
  Go to Toyota's website today and you'll see that a Rav4 Plug-in Hybrid is more expensive than the bZ which is the equivalent full EV.
  1. rootusrootus · 1790299247 · focus · HN ↗
    An EREV is basically the worst of almost all worlds. It's a BEV with a motor tacked on. It ends up with a battery not a lot smaller than a pure BEV, so no real reduction in the cost of an expensive component, plus an engine and generator along with associated maintenance headaches. Not to mention the almost certain loss of cargo capacity.
    I can't see myself ever wanting a Lightning EREV, for example, because of this exact issue. If I needed to tow, that would be the sole situation where it might hold enough of an advantage to matter. Aside from that, it will have (most likely) about 75% of the battery the BEV Lightning has, and it will lose the frunk, which is one of my favorite features. Plus, unlike my Lightning with it's 200K mile first required maintenance work, the EREV will probably have to be serviced every 10-20K miles. Ugh.
    torton · 1790311496 · focus · HN ↗
    The Chevrolet Volt is a representative EREV. Its battery is 1/3 the size of a Model 3's -- that's a lot smaller than a pure BEV. 50 mile electric range, 45 mpg on gas. These cars are now 10 years old (approaching 15 for the first generation), and out of the 3 known common issues for Gen 2 only one has anything to do with the gasoline engine.
    rootusrootus · 1790352186 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    torton · 1790379744 · focus · HN ↗
    The Volt Gen 1 used the engine primarily to run the generator, although the mechanical coupling ability existed in Gen 1 as well. Gen 2 optimized the system to couple the engine to the wheels whenever it is efficient to do so, when an engine mode is selected or the battery is run out.
    However, besides from the formal classification debates, I submit that the Volt meets the primary customer visible "EREV" behaviour: it drives like an electric car with the full available power (the engine never comes on) until the battery is depleted or a different drive mode is explicitly selected. All other PHEVs use the gas engine to assist when full power is called for by default, unless the "EV" mode is explicitly selected. The Volt, as far as I know, is the only EREV/PHEV that had that behaviour.
    The only other example of a series EREV I know of where the engine is small and fully decoupled from the mechanical drive train is the Mazda MX-30R, which never made it to the US and was discontinued in EU and Japan after a short two year lifespan.
    stetrain · 1790339375 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, towing is a big potential case for EREV. A 600 mile EV truck (300 when towing) would need a 250kWh+ battery pack.
    An EREV version could get by with 50-100kWh, which is also a lot less weight to carry. And would give plenty of power for driving EV-only for shorter trips when not towing.
    rootusrootus · 1790352099 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    stetrain · 1790372084 · focus · HN ↗
    Dropping 150kWh+ of battery weight needed to perform the job is not slightly smaller. The Silverado EV in max spec only gets 500 miles of range, 250 when towing, and the battery pack weighs more than a Honda Civic.
8. electroweak · 1790274051 · focus · HN ↗
  Range extender motors should have been easy to rent and much cheaper for long trips than a full car rental.
  It would be very interesting to me to have a small sedan BEV with a rear charging port and an optional flat trailer with a large battery and room for luggage/furniture. The battery would be plugged into that car while driving. I'd want the trailer rentable from the dealer for occasional long trips. BEVs seem to have powerful motors, there must be something else with the economics why this isn't a thing.
  1. bluGill · 1790293376 · focus · HN ↗
    Everyone wants to rent that trailer at the same time. That is Christmas break, spring break, and summer vacations. Most of yours is going to sit empty and so you're going to have to buy your own trailer if you want one not rented because they're just not the economics of it. You'll be paying for it either way because you're going to be the only user.
    RVs are where I would think this would make the most sense. People with a travel trailer already have a heavy trailer and they want a lot of battery to get it anyway. beef up the axle a little you can put a thousand pounds of battery on you get more range when you're towing and if there's any left over your RV can run on battery power. It's also very common for them to plug in once they get where they're going and so they can charge on 220 volt power that's already at the RV park and be charged and charge your car while you're at it overnight.
    electroweak · 1790567972 · focus · HN ↗
    U-Haul seems to do very well under the same conditions though. Since the charging port is standard maybe the trailer would be too and U-Haul would be in that business as well. You would just need the car to accept power while in motion and that sounds like a software issue. The high speed charging port could be on the trailer and pass power through to the car, though that would require people to reverse the trailer into the charge station a little tiring after a long drive.
    Perhaps it's the threat of theft of the expensive battery - though that should be solveable via tracking.
    I don't know.
  2. m463 · 1790294291 · focus · HN ↗
    I noticed that they are selling RV trailers that help haul themselves, and now electric trailers for semis.
    <a href="https://electrek.co/2026/03/26/lightship-electric-rv-trailer-has-room-for-activities-and-wont-drain-your-range/" rel="nofollow">https://electrek.co/2026/03/26/lightship-electric-rv-trailer...
    <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/06/30/pebble-begins-deliveries-electric-flow-travel-trailer-automated-auto-dump/" rel="nofollow">https://electrek.co/2025/06/30/pebble-begins-deliveries-elec...
    <a href="https://electrek.co/2026/05/08/really-quick-charge-with-range-energy-electric-trailer-at-act-expo-2026/" rel="nofollow">https://electrek.co/2026/05/08/really-quick-charge-with-rang...
__natty__ · 1790272410 · focus · HN ↗
> The Japanese automaker is planning a drastic overhaul, including a sleek new design, high-tech interior, and updated platform.
Oh please no! I loved the old boring interiors with analog components
ck2 · 1790272541 · focus · HN ↗
can we get a car that doesn't self-drive or phone-home?
just replace all the gas burning, oil dripping parts
electric cars also produce way less brake dust particulates, so it's a win all around
just stop trying to make a car a smartphone
1. mrweasel · 1790274009 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
2. reilly3000 · 1790274867 · focus · HN ↗
  At this point I’d pay a significant premium to the dealership and brand that will:
  - A. make me an accessor to any datasets (and derivative reports that include my data if you want an extra poisonous pill) that include my data as a full dump and access log of my records and ‘admin’ activities.
  - B. Tear out the telemetry hardware, or let me send it to my own endpoint. No satellite access needed. No thanks, driver cam. Who needs LoJack when we have Flock?
  - C. Sell a car that’s built to be owned and operated by a human, not an auto brand. If they want to subscribe to some sort of remote assistance subscription, that would be an aftermarket 3rd party device. Open software and hardware within safety protocols increase the value proposition significantly. I would think this is the lowest TCO option, with standard, locally milled parts.
  One can dream, right?
3. asdff · 1790275123 · focus · HN ↗
  >electric cars also produce way less brake dust particulates
  Depends. Compared to a competent driver in a manual transmission, I doubt it. Manual transmission cars can brake with the engine instead of brakes. You also may be on the order of 1-2000+lbs lighter.
  Then there's tire dust particulate considerations with the heavier EV with all that torque.
  1. Tistron · 1790287839 · focus · HN ↗
    From what I've read, EVs mostly break with the engine, and recover quite some of the energy that way. To the point that I've read warnings about the breaks rusting here in south Sweden, and that you need to do some aggressive breaking now and then to clean them out.
    reverius42 · 1790289378 · focus · HN ↗
    With my EV I rarely, rarely use the actual brakes. It's almost all engine braking (with power recovery) -- this is how 1-pedal driving generally works in an EV.
  2. Sohcahtoa82 · 1790291755 · focus · HN ↗
    You do know that regen braking is a thing, right? The friction brakes on an EV are basically never applied except in emergencies or at speeds under 10 mph.
    EVs end up with unique brake problems because they get used so little.
    > Then there's tire dust particulate considerations with the heavier EV with all that torque.
    This part is slightly true. EVs are heavier and will wear out tires faster, and if you actually use the extra torque, that'll contribute.
4. timw4mail · 1790276231 · focus · HN ↗
  Except for the tire and road wear. The extra weight isn't free.
5. someonebaggy · 1790276466 · focus · HN ↗
  I think that's what Edison Motors is doing but only for trucks? I don't know how they're getting on now. Maybe they already failed.
  You could be the first to make one. I've only heard of Edison because of their social media (so maybe a scam) - but they were showing off how they just bought a random truck and replaced the engine as a prototype
6. nunez · 1790300764 · focus · HN ↗
  i'm actually of the opposite camp...sort of.
  I want a dead simple car with the Waymo Driver installed and integrated.
  My current car is a 2026 Model Y, but between public transit and Waymo being available in my town, I hardly drive the thing. When I do drive it, however, I want it to drive itself, since I'm probably driving because I have no choice and would prefer to not do it. I'm going to drive it even less now that I'm getting a top-of-the-line Brompton electric folding bike that can handle most of the last mile that Waymo and public transit can't.
ramesh31 · 1790272661 · focus · HN ↗
Maybe, some day, many years into the future. /shrug.
zacharycohn · 1790272814 · focus · HN ↗
Ugh. I saw the headline and I was hoping it would be an entry-level, low cost, highly analogue, "looks just like a normal car but electric" car.
1. alphabeta3r56 · 1790272885 · focus · HN ↗
  Toyota does sell those. Just not in EU/NA. Toyota hyryder sells in India for 15k Euros.
  1. dpacmittal · 1790273143 · focus · HN ↗
    Hyryder is not an EV, it's hybrid
2. wakamoleguy · 1790273070 · focus · HN ↗
  Looks like most of the images are concepts. I wonder if the looks will change before launch? And they do say the cost is only a few k above the gas models. Something to wait and see, I guess.
  1. NewJazz · 1790273776 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. zymhan · 1790295371 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, concept cars are more about the stylistic "vibe" than actual design cues.
3. sgarrity · 1790273086 · focus · HN ↗
  Yes!
  The closest thing I could find to a "normal car but electric" was the Hyundai Kona EV (I know, it's more small-SUV than 'car). So, I bought one.
  It's good. There are physical controls for the temperature and volume, and the door handles aren't stupid.
  I walked away from a Ford Mach-E because I didn't want to have to explain how to open the doors to ever person I drove for the next five years.
  1. vladvasiliu · 1790273909 · focus · HN ↗
    But isn't that what the Corolla was?
    Note that this is a concept, I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
    My father has a hybrid model, 2023 MY I think. It has physical controls for the radio, for AC and related things, for the heated seats, for the various "driver assist" features (like auto high beams, a parking thing (no idea what that is), radar, lane assist). It has a touchscreen, but that only seems to handle the maps, fancy radio controls (think equalizer and such), and other "car settings", whatever those are. You can absolutely drive it without ever having to interact with the touchscreen while doing normal things. I hate touchscreen controls as much as the next HN poster, but I have strictly 0 beef with the Corolla on this front. Door handles and windows work exactly the same as on my 2005 "dumb" car. Hell, I think it even has a physical toggle for the "automatic night mode" on the rear-view mirror, while mine couldn't be "non automatic".
    To GP's point, I don't think it ever was an "entry level" car, just a "normal compact" car. I don't see why adding an electric drivetrain would have someone expect it would somehow become a basic, "entry-level" car.
    I don't say we don't need those, but the Corolla never seems to have targeted that market, at least here in Europe. There always were plenty similar-sized cheaper and more basic cars from domestic manufacturers. Is it different in the US?
    badc0ffee · 1790274662 · focus · HN ↗
    It's a compact sedan (or a compact hatchback, depending on the model) from Toyota, which in Canada at least, makes it an "entry-level" new car.
    buran77 · 1790277422 · focus · HN ↗
    > I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
    As an exception to this rule, the original Audi TT was surprisingly similar to the concept car and even the initial concept sketches. They had a crazy design idea and just went with it.
    addaon · 1790283071 · focus · HN ↗
    The Genesis GV90 is damn close as well.
    ac29 · 1790286503 · focus · HN ↗
    > Note that this is a concept, I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.
    Yeah the new Nissan Leaf looked horrible as a concept car, very "2003 idea of the future". The actual production version is just a boring SUV
    stasomatic · 1790346265 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't say we don't need those, but the Corolla never seems to have targeted that market, at least here in Europe. There always were plenty similar-sized cheaper and more basic cars from domestic manufacturers. Is it different in the US?
    It's a very basic car in the US in terms of its price bracket, not quality. There is just very few new cars under $30K in the States, the manufacturers are milking the SUV / truck market.
  2. kaladin-jasnah · 1790274407 · focus · HN ↗
    The new Chevy Bolt EV is also a "normal car but electric" to me. It's not a car, but it's not a huge SUV either. It has physical controls, you can disable the modem by pulling the OnStar fuse, and it has a decent range and decent fast charging.
    WorldMaker · 1790275959 · focus · HN ↗
    I wish they had a variant in a more normal sedan or hatchback than its "PT Cruiser thing", but it is still one of the closest in the US market to a normal car.
    It's too bad Europe and Asia get all of the nice EV sedans like Dacia Spring and BYD Dolphin. This article even says Toyota hasn't committed to this Corolla EV in the US market, which is shameful.
    sailfast · 1790286398 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    anamax · 1790296088 · focus · HN ↗
    2027 is the last year for the Chevy Bolt. It's been canceled again.
    kyleee · 1790299911 · focus · HN ↗
    Fucking cancel culture
    arijun · 1790336249 · focus · HN ↗
    I won’t buy Chevy since they removed CarPlay. I’m not paying $10/month for an ability my phone gives me for free (to say nothing of the other integrations CarPlay gives you).
    Elidrake24 · 1790348865 · focus · HN ↗
    Good news! <a href="https://www.theverge.com/transportation/994875/gm-chevy-gmc-truck-software-ui-carplay-android-auto" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/transportation/994875/gm-chevy-gmc-...
    drop_star · 1790349985 · focus · HN ↗
    I have a 2022 model. Its great. Feels like a normal car. And the early model BZ4X in that price range is not comparable. It has dated tech.
  3. kpil · 1790281142 · focus · HN ↗
    I think Volkswagen ID.4 is alright. It's perhaps a bit small. Also - I kind of like the ID.Buzz though not sure if it will sell.
    Not quite normal but not "future" - the Renault 5 E-tech electric is nice but I don't think it's available in the US.
    Brendinooo · 1790294535 · focus · HN ↗
    Was just looking at the Buzz today - unfortunately, seems like it's already dead (and there are some insane incentives out there to move what's left).
    It was too expensive!
    twoodfin · 1790301526 · focus · HN ↗
    VW is planning a slightly modified 2027 model after skipping 2026.
    My wife bought one of the first edition models. Other than the lousy range, it’s incredibly cool.
    Brendinooo · 1790332306 · focus · HN ↗
    I'd love for there to be a cool, affordable electric minivan! The minivan market in the US is...well, definitely not what it was when I was younger, let's put it that way. There are really only four options right now (Pacifica, Sienna, Odyssey, Carnival) and the MSRPs on them have skyrocketed in the past five years.
    twoodfin · 1790370116 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, they just pushed it back to 2028.
    Alive-in-2025 · 1790317559 · focus · HN ↗
    the buzz is a notoriously expensive car with low range. it's always been a weird and confusing vehicle form vw.
  4. dzhiurgis · 1790281551 · focus · HN ↗
    3 button presses just to start driving. I hated kona so bad. Annoying bing bongs, no app and of course we hit wheel of fortune issue.
    kazinator · 1790288718 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    dzhiurgis · 1790289821 · focus · HN ↗
    Buying anything other than Tesla is low IQ, but buying anything other than electric car is just crazy.
    Sure there are caveats to each of my statements (maybe you want luxury vehicle or maybe you actually do indeed tow a lot with your pickup truck). But for 95% of drives - Tesla's are vastly superior. Zeekr is getting there with their software tho, but without FSD every car is a joke.
    kazinator · 1790291024 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    dzhiurgis · 1790296556 · focus · HN ↗
    TBF if you driving with kids, you don't want an interesting ride. But my Tesla is pretty sporty tho, far more fun than Chinese electrics that have softened ride.
    kazinator · 1790299990 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    kccqzy · 1790303872 · focus · HN ↗
    At one point my car had a firmware update that made the Eco mode sluggish in acceleration. I thought it made perfect sense; being economical in battery use means limiting acceleration. It received so much backlash that the manufacturer had to issue a subsequent update to increase the acceleration cap.
    kazinator · 1790317613 · focus · HN ↗
    Why don't the idjits just offer two levels of "Eco"?
    Maybe people like the regular Eco mode for reasons other than economy; like they use it as a kind of one-pedal driving, since it offers regenerative braking when you back off the accelerator.
    There needs to be a mode for those drivers, and a mode for those who are serious about maximizing battery run times.
    gwd · 1790325311 · focus · HN ↗
    > Electrics are super dangerous; they accelerate like souped-up competitive track cars. They really need to tone that down: use much smaller motors with less torque, and hack the software to cap the acceleration.
    My ID.3 has three "performance modes": Eco, Comfort, and Sport. You only get the souped-up acceleration if you tell it to go into "Sport" mode.
    dzhiurgis · 1790326017 · focus · HN ↗
    After 2 years of Tesla ownership I got s3xy commander which hacks into CAN. It has kickdown feature where it goes from chill into standard mode if you bottom out accelerator. My Tesla isn't even that fast (technically slowest after semi) and I thought I'm good at controlling accelerator, but I've been using this kickdown mode for a while now instead...
    artisinal · 1790295671 · focus · HN ↗
    Funny, I will not buy a car that has an app.
    dzhiurgis · 1790302149 · focus · HN ↗
    To each their own, but hard to grasp why. It's one the most expensive assets you own. Why wouldn't you want to monitor it at least?
    Do you also not have house monitoring (you don't need to control every light switch (which can be useful to have lights on when you get back home), but things like temperature, humidity, power use, air quality, water use/leaks is far cheaper than 1 insurance claim).
    mook · 1790305737 · focus · HN ↗
    Different person, but I don't want a car that has an app precisely because it's so expensive. Cell phones her replaced way more often, and the people running the app stores are very aggressive about not supporting old apps. So within maybe half the life of the car, the app will no longer install.
    dzhiurgis · 1790314290 · focus · HN ↗
    You can run Tesla’s integration on anything. Mine runs on esp32 so it can control charging (soak up excess solar).
    mahboi · 1790326596 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah I hate apps. My phone barely goes out of date and can't install them. My wife's phone is too old to install any. Is it our fault for not buying new phones when we've taken good care of ours? Nah, the app can go die.
    wolvoleo · 1790323732 · focus · HN ↗
    I have those things in my house but it's all local using home assistant and no vendor can monitor it. I can access it remotely but only by vpn.
    I'd want the same for my car if I had one. No manufacturer remote access. Any 5G module in it I would remove. Unfortunately the EU mandates ecall now but I'd just put that back in for the yearly car test.
    dzhiurgis · 1790325855 · focus · HN ↗
    Same here with regards home assistant.
    And I agree some sort of open source solution would be nice for cars too. Especially with flood of Chinese EVs some sort of legal+technical framework is needed.
    Perhaps even government agency that handles that sort of thing for you.
    But until something truly secure and open source comes about - I'll trust Tesla instead.
    artisinal · 1790328612 · focus · HN ↗
    If you ever have a problem with your Chinese EV, just call the Ministry of State Security. I'm sure they can scan it for fault codes. They're probably already monitoring it.
    wolvoleo · 1790344300 · focus · HN ↗
    Haha... We used to have this joke in Holland. Our former secretary of justice made a dirty underhanded deal with a top criminal for more than a million and when it came to light he pretended to "have lost the receipt"
    The affair was not too long after the Snowden and Manning cablegate revelations so there were a lot of memes going around saying: "NSA helps minister retrieve lost receipt"
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Teeven" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Teeven
    artisinal · 1790326865 · focus · HN ↗
    All devices I own can be monitored, maintained and adjusted on the device itself. I prefer that over an app that will eventually not be supported on my phone anymore or one that moves to a subscription based service.
    No I don't have house monitoring. I have a metal key that I use to enter it. When I enter the home, there is a rectangular box that I press with my finger, and it turns on the light. The A/C (that also does heating) can be set to a certain temperature with a hardwired box on the wall.
    With a car, I prefer a car that I can monitor on the dashboard or center console itself. Fault codes can be read over OBD with standardized equipment. I have owned cars over 15 years old that could still tell me what was wrong without needing an app or subscription.
    dzhiurgis · 1790374506 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah that's insane reach. I haven't carried keys or wallet for years.
    IDK what apps do you even mean as the car can unlocked and controlled by simple public key exchange. Internet connectivity is optional.
    aacid · 1790334136 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, give me an app that communicated directly with the car without the need to through manufacturers cloud and I'll be fine with it.
    coldpie · 1790340587 · focus · HN ↗
    I work in software, so no, I don't have any of those things. I want everything to be as low-tech as possible, software can only make things worse.
    thesuitonym · 1790345957 · focus · HN ↗
    What an insane take. We've been able to monitor our vehicles almost as long as we've had vehicles. You know when you turn your car on and all those pretty lights come up? That's not just because it looks cool.
    mahboi · 1790326451 · focus · HN ↗
    My Honda has an app, luckily not needed cause I never used it.
  5. iamEAP · 1790282833 · focus · HN ↗
    Had found this in the 2nd generation Nissan Leaf. It would have been perfect but for the slow and non-standard charger.
    Looking forward to the Volkswagen ID Polo hitting the used market in a couple of years. Physical buttons, decent range and charge times, and it’s rated to pull reasonable loads.
    ak217 · 1790303651 · focus · HN ↗
    The 2nd gen Leaf (plus/extended range) is still a great car if you don't need it for road trips or continuous long driving. 200 mile range, built on a no-frills Nissan econobox platform, decent looks, very capable for its size. They are available dirt cheap these days, $10K for perfect condition ones. No fast charging, but you can get 10-90% in 5 hours of level 2 charging. It even has a heat pump heater, but no battery cooling or heating, so works best in mild climates.
    zorobo · 1790325297 · focus · HN ↗
    Chademo is a turn off though
  6. kazinator · 1790288316 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    swiftcoder · 1790324012 · focus · HN ↗
    The good news is this ought to change in upcoming models, because the EU safety rating now requires physical knobs for a bunch of those controls
  7. veunes · 1790320534 · focus · HN ↗
    A lot of EV design seems to assume every familiar control is a problem that needs to be reinvented
  8. theshrike79 · 1790328878 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
4. api · 1790274248 · focus · HN ↗
  Look into the Nissan Leaf, one of the early EV models. I don't know what the 2026 is like but my 2021 has 220-ish miles of range and is... an electric car.
  It's a car. That's electric.
  Physical buttons. Normal doors. Normal design. Normal handles. Normal controls. Drives great and accelerates better than an economy gas car.
  As a bonus, that means almost the entire car is standard. Other than the electric drive train, a regular mechanic can work on everything else: tires, wheels, brakes, suspension, etc.
  It's had basically zero problems.
  Only downside to the 2021 model was the CHaDemO (or however you caps it) plug, which is obsolescent. I think recent models have CCS. There is a converter dongle and if I fast charged often I'd pick one up. Apparently they work but they're a little pricey since unfortunately it's not just a simple plug converter. It's a different signaling and locking system, so it has to be a smart dongle.
  1. wlesieutre · 1790276224 · focus · HN ↗
    The 2026 Leaf made some big improvements. Liquid cooled battery, faster charging, longer range.
    It has the usual modern car cost cutting where steering wheel inputs are plastic panels with mysterious capacitive regions and no feedback so you can't feel if you've successfully pressed anything, whether you pressed the right thing, or if your fingertips are too dry and don't register. Most of the center console inputs are replaced with a screen with another row of cheap capacitive touch icons below it.
    Charging is behind the times again with an awkward 2-port arrangement, but it's different from the previous J1772 L1/L2 and CHAdeMO for L3 up to 50 kW. The CHAdeMO port is replaced with NACS, now a maximum of 150 kW L3 charging, but it still has the second J1772 port for L1/L2 unlike every other car where the NACS port does both.
    All things considered it's a solid entry level EV.
  2. numpad0 · 1790287980 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    bluGill · 1790291818 · focus · HN ↗
    The old release really deserved that campaign. It wasn't just FUD. Between the lack of a good battery management system, meaning the batteries were the ones that died relatively quickly; and the low range, which was maybe enough to get you to work in back for most people, but it didn't leave a lot of headroom for any other errand you might run. They were a not great car.
    Don't get me wrong, my brother has one and it is an okay car. It's just not great. There are a number of limitations which is why he gave it to my mom and drives a bolt. (the use value of a leaf is poor enough that it isn't worth trying to sell.)
    Any other electric car is suffering from the leaf's bad reputation, and yet they don't have the problems I named.
    api · 1790382948 · focus · HN ↗
    I looked into this before getting the 2021 model. Apparently it still didn't have liquid cooling but they'd updated the battery chemistry to be more robust. So far it still holds 100% its original charge after 30K miles.
    I live in Ohio though, so not somewhere super hot. I would have thought twice before buying that car in e.g. Phoenix.
5. asdff · 1790274521 · focus · HN ↗
  Highly analogue? We all want that but you have to realize we aren't ever getting that. The incentives aren't there.
  1. ericmay · 1790274845 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't mind analogue buttons or anything and I think screens can kind of suck especially with Android and auto manufacturer abandonware, but with the Tesla I now own I'm always wondering what people are using all these buttons for - thinking back to my previous Hondas. In the Tesla I've got climate control, heated seats, and music/navigation. Some of the other features like adjusting mirrors I can use the multi-purpose buttons for in the correct context. On any given drive I hop in, put my phone on the charger and don't use it, and then just drive.
    What am I missing? Or is it just that folks want buttons? Is it the design?
    asdff · 1790275548 · focus · HN ↗
    What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.
    But I'm talking beyond just the buttons. Pure analog. No telemetry. No cellular connection. Real rack and pinion again. Real gauges. No drive by wire wherever possible. Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor. Pure car. Dead simple systems. Easy access engine bays.
    It isn't happening again. These things are ipads on wheels that try and surveil you and come up with datapoints they can somehow make some money off of.
    ericmay · 1790276365 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not really concerned with hitting the button blind but I understand the desire to have no "tracking" or anything like that. Volume in the Tesla at least there is a button and you can configure some of those things with software. I know the heated seats and climate control are done via the iPad as you call it but I don't have to look at those. Once you hit it enough you just know where it is, or you can use voice control if you're not that comfortable. I can also text on my iPhone pretty well without looking at the keyboard.
    But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with all these gauges and stuff. I have 0 interest in trying to repair my car or understand how any of it works. I just want to get in, have it be super comfortable, everything works and it gets me from A to B pretty fast. The only gauge I care about is the speed at which the car is traveling. Well the battery too I guess but if I'm taking a trip where that's of concern the car handles the stops for me.
    I get that people do enjoy that stuff which is super cool - I'm not hating on it, but figured I'd just provide a different perspective maybe. For me the biggest concern is just this dog shit Android software and abandonware that all the manufacturers create (except Tesla funny enough - I'm not a shill or anything, Elon sucks and I'll never buy another one because of him) which I think is probably the biggest negative to the iPad-ification. Thankfully there's Android Auto and Apple Car Play but still the computers in the cars can be underpowered to use those.
    asdff · 1790276703 · focus · HN ↗
    That's all fine. Sounds like a digital car is more for you vs an analog drivers car. People have different preferences.
    creaturemachine · 1790277371 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    asdff · 1790278571 · focus · HN ↗
    My decades old tube amp has figured out how to modulate high wattage power
    creaturemachine · 1790286178 · focus · HN ↗
    So we've upgraded from the simple switch, that's good.
    Now I'm imagining drivers swapping tubes as they stop for a quick charge.
    atmavatar · 1790280232 · focus · HN ↗
    > What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.
    Not just that: my hands get dry enough sometimes that my phone's touch interface doesn't work reliably, in which case, I'd expect a touchscreen interface in a newer car would face similar problems. Physical buttons don't have that problem.
    toast0 · 1790287280 · focus · HN ↗
    > Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor.
    Your gas car in 2003 probably directly connects the accelerator pedal to the throttle ... but it also has an entire ecu with a whole bunch of stuff to figure out how much fuel to add given the throttle position / airflow and also almost certainly has the ecu controlling ignition too. Even my 1981 van has an ECU to sets fuel volume, although it doesn't have electronic ignition or water cooling.
    You can open the throttle all the way, and if the fuel volume doesn't change, you won't get much in the way of extra vrooming.
    That said, as simple as possible, but no simpler is a good goal.
    bluGill · 1790291536 · focus · HN ↗
    Throttle by wire was already a thing but 2003. My 1999 truck had it - diesel benefitted more from that so it came earlier than gas.
    toast0 · 1790316903 · focus · HN ↗
    Diesels often don't actually have a throttle like gas engines do. The accelerator pedal on a diesel is not connected to a throttle body regulating air intake... instead the air intake is classically wide open (but modern diesels do have airflow controls to adjust emissions profiles) and the accelerator position allows more or less fuel. If your ECU controls fuel delivery (as ECUs have been doing in gas cars since at least the 1970s) and the pedal's job is to ask for more or less fuel, it's going to be connected to the ECU... You can tug on a cable and turn that into an electrical signal at the ECU (or wherever) or you can turn it into an electrical signal at the pedal. Seems simpler to do it at the pedal.
    A gas car has the pedal setup to open the throttle valve and let in more air and then some additional system for more air is more fuel... an ECU in open loop measures the airflow and engine temperature and triggers the injectors for a certain amount, in closed loop it will read the o2 sensor and adjust fueling to get the right mix.
    If you move to drive by wire, now you have an electrical signal for the pedal, but you didn't necessarily simplify the system because you also have to add a way for the ecu to control the throttle valve or otherwise regulate intake airflow.
    thr0w__4w4y · 1790692177 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes exactly, "fuel follows air" (have worked on ECU firmware, and current ride is a 2003 with a wire between the pedal and throttle). As you said, a sensor (and computer) measures air -- volume, temperature, etc. -- estimates oxygen content, and (of course there are many other factors) then calculates how much fuel to squirt in.
    I used to race cars, and I still have the old 2003 5-speed turbo, but the idea of an electric car without all the hoses and fluids and spinning pieces is attractive.
    itsmek · 1790329690 · focus · HN ↗
    My 2000 Volvo (gas) had a fly by wire throttle. You'll have to go back to the 90s for a cable control.
    blt · 1790301364 · focus · HN ↗
    I agree. How do you feel about the Slate truck?
    Nit: electric power steering is still rack and pinion. The old system is hydraulic vs electric.
    OptionOfT · 1790301982 · focus · HN ↗
    Can't get lane assist with hydraulic. That's why. I miss the hydraulic steering from the E93 M3.
    ssl-3 · 1790348542 · focus · HN ↗
    Can.
    Googling for C-MDPS reveals some instructive diagrams, wherein: The motor that applies force to the steering system is mounted on the steering column shaft. It supplies steering input in a manner like one's hands do.
    (The rest of it can be hydraulic or electric or some combination of both.)
    someonebaggy · 1790275548 · focus · HN ↗
    Of course the buttons are for doing things. The things you listed are pretty much all the traditional buttons. I can remember as a kid paying attention to the center panel between the foot wells (in a Corolla!) - it was pretty much just heating/AC, radio, and a few miscellaneous things like hazard lights. It's no airplane cockpit or space shuttle.
    Also if you had electric door locks and windows (we didn't) the driver's door had 4 window levers and a child lock button while everyone else had their own window lever.
    AnnikaL · 1790277493 · focus · HN ↗
    I also drive a Hyundai Kona. Here are some things I use the physical buttons for that I wouldn't want to use a screen for:
    - turning the air conditioning up or down (or off) while I'm driving and feel too hot/cold
    - adjusting the volume of music or the radio while driving
    - turning on the radio
    - turning seat heaters on or off
    I don't want to fiddle with a touchscreen to do any of these things while the car is in motion.
    ericmay · 1790280442 · focus · HN ↗
    I hear ya. I can't speak to other cars but in my Tesla I never have to fiddle with any of that stuff. I just press the button on the screen for example to modulate the climate control even when the car is in motion - I don't need to look at all. There's no feedback (haptic feedback would be a nice improvement actually). In the rare instance that I need to do something "complicated" I'd just put the car into the Autosteer mode. But that's only something that would really be done on the highway in a safe manner. In my older cars I found using the buttons to switch between say albums or something that to not really be that much easier. Maybe slightly worse.
    On the other hand, boy when I get a rental car there are so many buttons to mess around with it's like going backwards in time (for me) in terms of ease of use. Even something like having to turn on/off the car itself is now a chore. Why do I need to even turn the car on? It should just always work. Obviously part of that is "it's a new car" but a lot of that stuff seems very needlessly complex. I'm not talking about turning the heat on or off even though a lot of those implementations seem way more complicated than they need be (engineers gonna engineer and over-complicate things unless someone stops them) but other random things.
    skydhash · 1790301003 · focus · HN ↗
    I have a Suzuki Grand Vitara 2010, and from left to right, the essentials buttons are:
    - Window controls and lock/unlock
    - Power mirrors adjustment (after someone else has driven the car)
    - Light (it has auto mode)
    - Steering wheel control for the head unit (vol +/-,...). It also has cruise but I don't use that
    - Wiper and washers
    - AC adjustment. It's a knob for temperature with 2 buttons inside (auto mode toggle and off)
    - Fresh/recycled air switch
    - AC/ventilation switch
    - Ventilation speed. It's also a knob with 2 buttons, but I only remember the mode one (to switch between front/front and feet/heater/...)
    - A defrost button
    - ESP (ABS) disable button
    - Window/door lock/ on the passenger door.
    There's nothing else. For any of those buttons I would hate to use a touch screen.
    ericmay · 1790305901 · focus · HN ↗
    The Tesla I have has a few buttons for those things. For the other items where buttons don’t exist I don’t really need to use vision. The digital button is just right there but I think haptic feedback would be an improvement too. I think people also underestimate how much they look even when using physical buttons. You can’t really help it. You’ll glance down as you adjust that knob from warm to cool, maybe you like it with 4 indicator lights instead of 5 so you’ll just take a peak there. Nobody has their eyes on the road 100% of the time.
    Some of the buttons you mentioned you have dedicated buttons for but at least for the Tesla some of those adjustments you do while parked and just swap the button mode. It allows for multi-use buttons which is pretty cool.
    I’m not arguing against buttons or something to be clear, just sharing my experience. It seems like some other cars have a lot of unnecessary ones.
    toast0 · 1790286533 · focus · HN ↗
    I absolutely need to be able to turn off the headlights when driving on a RORO ferry at night. Auto headlights are great, but for some reason they don't read the WSDOT sign that tells us to turn off our lights; not very smart really. Having a stalk or a knob for wipers is basic and easy; again auto wipers are pretty nice, but sometimes I want to force it because the auto system is being silly.
    I really like having dedicated buttons to disable driving assistance. It's handy when you're going through a drive through and you want to disable parking beeps that remind you not to run into the building. It's also handy if lane following gets annoying when road conditions demand ignoring the lane lines. I think NHTSA pushed to remove easy access to disable assistance though?
    I don't mind using a screen for things I don't need to do while in motion. Like if I want to set if the car should beep when I lock the doors, or how many times the blinker should blink if I tap it and didn't mean it but it wants to be helpful... screens are wonderful for that. But if I need to focus on a screen to do things while I'm driving, I've lost focus on the surroundings.
  2. devindotcom · 1790285770 · focus · HN ↗
    the slate truck is about as close as we'll get to that.
  3. ponector · 1790286540 · focus · HN ↗
    No one actually wants highly analog car. Also it's illegal to sell in most countries. Mandatory cameras, safety features, emergency assistance etc
    asdff · 1790309347 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm no one? Tons of people drive old analog cars by choice.
    ponector · 1790334296 · focus · HN ↗
    I bet if given a choice they would prefer to drive a new Lexus instead.
    LightBug1 · 1790328536 · focus · HN ↗
    Still rolling my 2005 Toyota and reckon I'll have it another 20 years, easy.
    Supremely reliable.
    Zero data capture / subscription nonsense
    No bullshit.
    You'll pry that thing from my cold dead hands before I jump on board the current crop of capable, but wack appliances.
    ponector · 1790334211 · focus · HN ↗
    I wouldn't say 2005 Toyota is an analog car. For sure it has a computer, some entertainment unit.
    Most of the people are upgrading such cars to get at least Bluetooth capabilities.
    LightBug1 · 1790339835 · focus · HN ↗
    True, but to all intents and purposes, it is.
    It definitely isn't dialing out to the internet or being collecting/tracking data and snitching on me if I breathe the wrong way!
6. lenerdenator · 1790275646 · focus · HN ↗
  If it makes you feel better, this is a concept. They probably won't produce the vehicle they showed, especially since customers are making it known that they want regular buttons/door handles/HVAC vents/etc.
  ... probably.
7. josefresco · 1790275810 · focus · HN ↗
  I'd expect it to look similar to the current Prius and not like these concepts.
8. vvillena · 1790276608 · focus · HN ↗
  The exterior design language is the same as their current newer models like the C-HR or even the GR GT. The interior is like any other concept car. I don't like it either, but it looks like a normal Toyota.
  1. i4Cgarry · 1790277488 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
9. AnnikaL · 1790277339 · focus · HN ↗
  The article does say that the electric Corolla is to be priced at $30k, about $3,000 more than the hybrid and $5,000 more than the gas-powered one. That may not be objectively 'low cost', but it's comparable in cost to the lowest-cost new EVs, and probably similar total cost of ownership to the hybrid/gas cars when considering cheaper fuelling.
  1. BobaFloutist · 1790280637 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not bad. Those are going to be some fantastic value used cars, eventually.
  2. kulahan · 1790286597 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe they could shave $3-5000 off the cost by not giving it a "high-tech interior", going completely against the design philosophy of the car in the first place.
    erxam · 1790299885 · focus · HN ↗
    They absolutely could not, the high-tech interior is cheaper. A screen is cheaper than ten million tiny little buttons.
    Incidentally, this is also partly why the interiors feel so egregious and cheap in the pieces of shit produced by Germans these days.
    kulahan · 1790320505 · focus · HN ↗
    So… it’s not really high-tech, it’s just a screen? I guess I need to see what the actual offering is.
    mort96 · 1790332135 · focus · HN ↗
    That's the entire modern, Tesla-inspired design ethos: remove all knobs, remove all buttons, remove all levers, remove the PRNDL, remove all the gauges, replace it all with controls on a big iPad in the center, and call the spartan interior "high-tech"
  3. drnick1 · 1790289697 · focus · HN ↗
    Omitting the cellular modem would be a nice way to save a few bucks, and would save me the effort of pulling the fuse or disassembling the dash in order to silence Internet traffic to and from the car. But how will Toyota sell my driving habits to car insurance companies then?
    tclancy · 1790300838 · focus · HN ↗
    - prototypical car buyer (based on HackerNews bellybutton studies 2026)
  4. torginus · 1790289881 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not in the US, but here in Europe Toyota's hold their value really well (too well I'd say). Is that reflected in the US financing rates, so you can get it for really low payments?
    OptionOfT · 1790301853 · focus · HN ↗
    Not at all. % on cars in the US is derived from your credit score. Low credit score? You pay, and you pay a LOT.
    Of course a dealership could offer low rates, but those are usually through the financing arm of the brand, not the dealership itself.
10. gwbas1c · 1790277399 · focus · HN ↗
  It is low cost! The Tesla Model 3 was twice the cost almost a decade ago.
  BTW: The price premium for electric is offset by the lower cost of electricity, and the fact that electricity's cost is much less volatile than gas.
  1. wahern · 1790279066 · focus · HN ↗
    Depends on where you live. In states like Connecticut, or certain areas of California (PG&E Bay Area customers), the ROI is very long or simply doesn't pencil out at all. I think for Connecticut, which has high electricity prices but low gas prices, it's just net negative. For me in SF, despite high gas prices the ROI is just too long (5-10 years?), and that's before factoring in the ~$5000+ required for updating my electrical box, which is a conservative estimate because now the city requires the meter to be outside the house, whereas it's currently in the garage.
    jen20 · 1790290591 · focus · HN ↗
    Connecticut has more expensive gas than either New York or New Jersey too!
    bluGill · 1790291383 · focus · HN ↗
    Until your current car dies, where as old or whatever happens, you decide you need a new one anyway. At that point the ROI is not the total cost of the car but the difference compared to your alternatives.
    wahern · 1790298306 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, the difference. I'm not comparing keeping an ICE to purchasing a new EV. The premium for EVs is $5-10k or more relative to ICE models, and the $5k is being charitable.
    ak6te · 1790299772 · focus · HN ↗
    This used to be true, but gas is $6.30/gallon in California now with no particular reason to think it is coming back down. I haven't actually re-done the numbers, but I have to imagine the ~40% increase in gas prices over the last year have significantly moved the needle in CA.
    fnordpiglet · 1790308625 · focus · HN ↗
    I drive an EV because in every dimension I care about it’s a superior vehicle. They drive better, sound better, and use a fundamental force rather than flintstone fire smoke stink. It’s time to move on from pouring distilled dinosaur juice into your explosion mobile and join the Maxwell equation crowd. The upgrade of your electric is a one time cost that will enable you to use an EV until you move, and improves your home value, so hard to count it into the cost of the car.
    Plus they last basically forever and require almost no maintenance. I like being able to never change oil, tune up, belts, whatever every few months. Every few years I get the cabin filter changed and that’s it. In 10 years the battery might be reduced by 20%, and I might replace the batteries around 15-20 years out, but I expect to literally drive it into the ground. (Mine is a Tesla with unlimited super charging for life, and I live next to a super charger)
    I have family overseas and will likely buy them one of these EV Camrys. If they’re good, I might get one for my daughter. At $30k it’s fairly affordable.
    wahern · 1790315211 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not anti EV. I would love to own an EV. I just can't justify the expense. In my case a big part of it is the cost of upgrading the electrical, otherwise I might be inclined to pay the premium.
    fnordpiglet · 1790344082 · focus · HN ↗
    However upgrading the electrical is a capital improvement process on your home isn’t it? That’s an investment that doesn’t deprecate like the car, no? It also increases the cost basis of the home which can have tax benefits in the long term.
    itsmek · 1790328731 · focus · HN ↗
    I'll point out one area that EVs are inferior in lifespan - calendar life of the battery. I use a bicycle for day to day and take the car only on road trips so I only end up driving about 5k mi/yr or so, maybe 10k if I roam far. At that pace the 2% capacity loss per calendar year (even higher in hot climates) will total any EV I buy long before an ICE vehicle has age issues. ICE vehicles without defects do not creep towards engine failure or transmission failure little by little like EVs do, or at least do so at a pace far slower than EVs, as long as they are driven at least once a month to prevent issues ICE vehicles can get in storage.
    Unfortunately EVs still have a ways to go to catch up to my use case of buying 10-15 yr old vehicles with 100k mi for $5k and taking them to remote trails where a 550mi range is useful for safety. Such vehicles can be screened for design defects and are therefore more reliable than new vehicles - see the Toyota V6 recall for an example that even a sterling reputation isn't as strong a guarantee as just waiting and seeing. Maybe the EV range will catch up in my life but I wouldn't expect the cost of those high range vehicles to catch up for a long time, and by the time an EV is well-used and in my price range it will no longer be a long range EV what with the capacity degradation. See how this use case perfectly hits all the negatives of EVs? It's not that uncommon a use case in North America among us dirtbag wilderness enthusiasts. I don't doubt EVs are strictly better for many people though and am very interested to see how their long term reliability and cost fares as they trickle into the 10+ yr used market I participate in.
    Btw my diy oil change takes 20 minutes and costs $20 all in and during that time I do an annual safety once-over which an EV would also require. So almost 0 net time involved and a negligible amount of money compared to things like tires which cost me 5x as much per year, a number that apparently is higher for EVs since they use tires more quickly afaik. Plus many EVs seem to be much harder (intentionally so as a business strategy it seems to me) to do DIY repairs on - wrenchers probably won't move over for a long time either.
    fnordpiglet · 1790345008 · focus · HN ↗
    Most modern EVs have superior battery management systems and batteries, and are generally limited in loss by discharge and recharge not specifically calendar time. They’re not alkaline batteries. The time degradation comes from use primarily . Solid state batteries hope to improve that as well. Batteries also are almost entirely recyclable because the degradation isn’t wear per se as much as chemical changes. As a machine they are absurdly simple - copper coils; magnets, and electrical potential - while ICE are insane Rube Goldberg machines. An EV can probably operate 100+ years with the same mechanicals and electrical, and a swap of batteries periodically, and the battery swap need not be expensive - in fact one mode for fast charging proposed has been racking new battery racks at the charging stations because for the provider the batteries are all the same and can be recycled as needed in bulk at low cost.
    Does that mean in 2026 that all ICE use cases are replaced? No, and with the aggressively anti science US administration it’s been set back by at least 8 years - the time it will take to rebuild momentum lost, research discarded, investment displaced. But there’s no reason beyond our lack of imagination to believe ICE will be on the road in 50 years in any use case.
    itsmek · 1790358668 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm trying to disentangle that EVs wear out from both usage as well as calendar time, you say it's usage "primarily" but you're assuming a certain use case there. With zero driving, top of the line battery management, and doing everything right it's something like 3% capacity loss per year in hot climates. My point is empirical - in a hot climate a light user will have to spend $10k to replace their battery in 15 years even if they rarely drive, while an ICE will not if the transmission and engine were designed well and maintained. Your point is theoretical and what use are theories that don't match observations? I don't dispute that EVs are simpler and more environmentally friendly but there are many cases (too hot climate, too cold climate, too little usage, need for range) where they are more expensive, more disposable and generally inferior.
    Saying ICE will be off the road in 50 years assumes technological advances that have not yet arrived despite massive research investment. What you say about easy recycling may be true but when it comes down to it we don't have cheap battery swaps yet despite many trying. Don't get me wrong I hope for all our sake that happens, I'm just objecting to your initial comment having the vibe that EVs are a panacea and that saving on oil changes is superior on net. There's a lot of nice ideas in this comment but it will take seeing for me to believe - a 10 year old car for $5k that isn't coming up on an expensive new battery that costs more than the car is worth.
    NoLinkToMe · 1790929552 · focus · HN ↗
    A regular household plug should be more than enough unless you want to use your home as a quick pit-stop between two long rides. (e.g. drive 150km from work to home, then drive 300km to your holiday home for the weekend an hour later).
    Typical EVs nowadays get about 6 km per kWh, the average driver in the US drives about 54 km. A US home typically has 15A plugs, or 20A in the kitchen/garage. That's 1.8 - 2.4 kW. Even at 80% safe continuous charge, you'll be averaging 1.5 kW at minimum. So that's just 6 hours of daily charging at minimum.
    If you have a garage and plug in when you get home, your car typically sits there from 8PM to 8AM for 12 hours. That's already double the time necessary to charge 100% of your driving at home, at the minimum charging speeds equivalent to a microwave or washing machine. And you'll typically have much more time with the car plugged in on weekends and home-work days.
    A 5k upgrade to the electrical box might be a good idea, but it's definitely not necessary for most normal EV users.
    As for ROI, a Corolla might get 20 km per liter, in Connecticut that's 6c per km. An EV even at the 29c per kWh is just 4.8c per km which is 20% cheaper. If you have some solar panels you can cut that figure by another 65%.
    Not to mention the lower maintenance costs for EVs and the rebates various local governments give.
  2. pampas · 1790300495 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not just that. EV charging and solar resources have improved while fossil fuels have become more expensive.
  3. JKCalhoun · 1790338471 · focus · HN ↗
    "BTW: The price premium for electric is offset by the lower cost of electricity…"
    How about depreciation though?
    My sense is that after so many years (5?, 8?) an EV is going to be desperate for a new battery. That's, what, $5K or more? It's like if an ICE car needed a new engine after 65K miles.
    I assume the resell value for an 8-year old electric needing a new battery is close to zilch.
11. lern_too_spel · 1790279728 · focus · HN ↗
  The gas version will look the same, so it matches your "looks just like a normal car but electric car" requirement.
12. andriy_koval · 1790286586 · focus · HN ↗
  > entry-level, low cost, highly analogue
  there is a chance that slapping one screen is now lower cost than few dozens mechanical knobs, connectors and sensors
  1. phreack · 1790291614 · focus · HN ↗
    There is also a chance I won't buy a car without knobs. Car software has been historically so bad. My latest doesn't have a volume knob so my front passengers can't turn the volume at all (the UX is sliding the screen from the side to get navigation bars to appear which contain a volume button that you have to drag laterally - no increase/decrease software buttons). Otherwise it's a great car and that is literally the one drawback.
    I must be the minority surely, but given the choice between knobs and screen, knobs are the deciding factor. Even if it's more expensive, it's UX that you use permanently while operating heavy machinery!
    wingworks · 1790292887 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, please have knobs. I don't mind a bit of screen, but all the frequent stuff I want in knobs.
    XorNot · 1790301335 · focus · HN ↗
    Eh...I honestly don't care anymore.
    Provided there's steering wheel and stalk controls, what do I really need to adjust on a center console while driving? I just want a big nav map or camera feed there.
    ceejayoz · 1790302883 · focus · HN ↗
    Temperature? Music? Defroster?
    XorNot · 1790307210 · focus · HN ↗
    My 2004 Prius had AC, radio and defogger controls on the steering wheel. I could control all of it without taking my hands off the wheel.
    The only notable thing I couldn't do was adjust the fan level if it was on automatic, but I could turn it off.
    IMO if you might need it while driving it should be on the wheel or the stalks. Center console? That's for my passenger to mess with only, or for when I'm stopped.
    mort96 · 1790332309 · focus · HN ↗
    I mean that's probably a perfectly nice solution too, it doesn't all have to be as physical controls on a center console. It just needs to be easily accessible physical controls which I can interact with through feel without taking my eyes off the road. As long as it's not on a touch screen and not those shitty haptic capacitive buttons I don't care whether it's on a steering wheel or on a center console
    thesuitonym · 1790346124 · focus · HN ↗
    This is the problem with the world these days. People just don't care about anything anymore.
  2. aforwardslash · 1790298391 · focus · HN ↗
    Id argue by an order of magnitude. Knobs require cables, connectors and assembly; they also require dedicated robots and/or a human to test them in the assembly line.
13. davnicwil · 1790290684 · focus · HN ↗
  To be honest in my opinion car design got so boring in general since about 20 years ago that it's nice to see it mixed up with these hyper futuristic concept designs.
  It makes the future feel fun, and feels like a return to adventurous aesthetics for the pure sake of it. At the very least, it's noticably different and interesting. I hope architecture follows suit.
  1. ceejayoz · 1790298662 · focus · HN ↗
    They've been making concept cars that entire 20 year period.
    They just get completely watered down for production. As will happen here. That's why they're concepts.
    davnicwil · 1790302210 · focus · HN ↗
    fair point. It seems to me like more of the ideas now make it through to production now though.
14. kazinator · 1790318362 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
15. veunes · 1790320332 · focus · HN ↗
  I think there's a surprisingly large market for an EV that's basically "a Corolla, but electric" rather than another attempt to make the interior look like a concept car from 2035
  1. mort96 · 1790331636 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not even "concept car from 2035", it's "concept car from 2015 trying to look like how a sci-fi car from 2035 might look"
    And I agree. People like normal cars, people like normal door handles, people like A/C and heater knobs, people like PRNDL levers. None of that has changed just because the drivetrain uses a different kind of engine. Why is it so hard to make that, but electric? Why does "electric motor" somehow mean "all controls must be on the iPad" in these companies' heads?
    I hope it's just a phase that's about to reverse. Maybe they felt the need to go all futuristic design to cash in on how electric drivetrains used to feel futuristic. Maybe, as electric drivetrains just become "normal, boring" technology, we get options with normal designs too.
16. ooterness · 1790339681 · focus · HN ↗
  Sorry, best anyone can do in 2026 is spyware on wheels.
17. thesuitonym · 1790346504 · focus · HN ↗
  Please. I am begging EV manufacturers to just make a normal car. The body looks fine but why does every EV have to have the absolute worst cabin ever designed?
18. milesskorpen · 1790378007 · focus · HN ↗
  It's a concept - little to no chance the production vehicle will look like this
apparent · 1790272986 · focus · HN ↗
I was surprised to read the headline because this is going in a different direction than most car companies. For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
Then I read the key quote and realized that Toyota isn't transforming the Corolla into an electric vehicle. They're simply going to offer an electric option. That's much less of an interesting headline, which explains why it wasn't chosen.
> “Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source―let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!” Toyota’s CEO said at the Japan Mobility Show.
1. john01dav · 1790273282 · focus · HN ↗
  > let’s make good-looking cars that everyone will want to drive!
  This is a very unfortunate goal for Toyota specifically to have. I am extremely loyal to driving late 90s/early 2000s toyotas (I have owned at various points a 1997 corolla, a 1999 camry, and a 2000 tundra, and my daily driver today is such a car as well), due to them being extremely cost effective and also extremely reliable. A well-maintained, or even moderately maintained, late 90s/early 2000s Toyota car is, in my experience, almost as reliable as a new car that costs 4x+ the price, and it has the benefit of much less DRM, spyware, and other software bullshit, as well as being much easier to repair. I am also unaware of any modern car that is remotely like this, as well as unaware of any electric car that is remotely like this, except maybe Slate (though this is not available yet, so I am withholding judgement until I can see 3rd party reviews and maybe try one).
  But, to summarize, I really like some of Toyota's old work for intensely practical reasons, and I think that this is a gap in the market of cars manufactured today (someone please tell me I am wrong by pointing to a good option on these criteria, preferably an EV!), and I couldn't give a rat's ass about the car being "good-looking", so it's unfortunate (though not surprising) that Toyota is deeming that their goal.
  1. jaggederest · 1790273917 · focus · HN ↗
    Toyota, like many companies that succeed based on merits beyond the aesthetic, secretly dreams of being an aesthetics-first company like, say, Porche or Ferrari, and always tries their hardest to reject reality so that they can do the sexy-but-awful thing instead of the amazing-but-ugly thing.
    You see this recently over the last couple years in tech where everyone is "an AI company" even when they make something totally unrelated - same impulse, different industry.
    octoberfranklin · 1790275380 · focus · HN ↗
    I've noticed this too.
    It is completely baffling.
    There must be something seriously wrong with our economy that companies operating like this don't go bankrupt and/or get driven out of business.
    someonebaggy · 1790275747 · focus · HN ↗
    The problem with our economy is basically wealth concentration, partly funded by central banks and partly by lack of billionaire taxation. In a traditional economy, money was meant to always flow circularly, throughout the whole economy. Rich people could exist, but they could only exist by commanding a large upward flow of money from poor/middle people, so they had to offer something really good in return. These days the money mostly circulates between different rich people with only some loss back down to the poorer classes, so to get money they have to impress other rich people instead of poorer people. Companies who go full AI don't attract customers (unless B2B), they attract investors because the investors have all the money and the customers don't.
    dansquizsoft · 1790296048 · focus · HN ↗
    > partly by lack of billionaire taxation
    How dare you say this? These billionaires all work extremely hard for their money!
    john01dav · 1790323966 · focus · HN ↗
    > partly funded by central banks
    What's the specific mechanism that you're referring to here?
    someonebaggy · 1790556208 · focus · HN ↗
    ZIRP
  2. apparent · 1790280691 · focus · HN ↗
    Yep, the only thing I love about newer cars are dynamic cruise/lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring, and memory seats. Cars from 20 years ago had better controls and were likely cheaper to repair in most cases.
  3. anabis · 1790302976 · focus · HN ↗
    Main car of anime Initial-D is a Toyota. They revived it a while back. So they are doing that kind of aesthetic.
2. stetrain · 1790273350 · focus · HN ↗
  > For example, VW, Ford, GM, and others have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago. They discovered that most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them, and the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
  I don't think that's a fair assessment of the EV market, which continues to grow, albeit slowly, in the US and much faster elsewhere. At best it is constrained to the US car market where the government has been yanking incentives, tariffs, and emissions requirements back and forth recently, providing an unstable market for manufacturers to invest in.
  Some brands put together EV models that were inherently unprofitable, and hoped that incentives and scale would save them, mainly Ford. Ford is currently investing a lot into building their next-gen EV platforms which should be both more affordable and profitable. GM has not cancelled any EV models that I'm aware of, except the Bolt which is planned to be replaced by a new affordable EV model in a similar market slot.
  VW is introducing a lot of new EV models in Europe and other markets, but not so much in the US where policy has us a less favorable market for them.
  Toyota + Subaru have introduced multiple refreshed or brand new EV-only models over the last year including in the US.
  And of course China is going crazy for EVs with many competing domestic manufacturers, a full battery supply chain, and many affordable models to pick from.
  1. DennisP · 1790273916 · focus · HN ↗
    Meanwhile, batteries keep getting better and cheaper, in most places the charging networks are growing, and charging is getting faster.
    stetrain · 1790274014 · focus · HN ↗
    Yep, I find that a lot of EV-hesitants in the US have no idea how much the travel charging network has grown.
    <a href="https://dcfctracker.com/map" rel="nofollow">https://dcfctracker.com/map
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790289644 · focus · HN ↗
    A lot of them also just aren't even aware that DC Fast Charging is a thing and make comments about needing several hours to charge your car.
    anthomtb · 1790290288 · focus · HN ↗
    And the last criticism is particularly silly. Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do. Do cars spend most of their time parked in one place? You bet they do!
    apparent · 1790291687 · focus · HN ↗
    But some people here claim that you don't need a charger at home to have an electric vehicle. That's equally silly, but in the opposite direction. If you don't have a charger at home or work, your experience with an EV will generally be quite subpar.
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790291909 · focus · HN ↗
    > Do you need several hours to charge an electric car? Yes you do.
    No you don't. 20 minutes at a DCFC will get you to at least 80% for most EVs.
    You need several hours to charge it at home, but it's gonna be at home for several hours anyways. With an L2 charger, you can go from 0-100% overnight.
    apparent · 1790294998 · focus · HN ↗
    DCFC does not charge "most EV" to 80 in 20 mins. There are some new ones that can do 10-80 in that time, but if you're lower than 10, or if you don't have a better-than-average late-model EV, it's going to be longer than that.
    L2 charging usually happens overnight, but larger capacity batteries won't fill if you don't plug in early enough.
    rootusrootus · 1790295444 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    bluGill · 1790292123 · focus · HN ↗
    Like most people, my car is used for not just my regular trips around town, which I can certainly charge overnight no problem and be fine. My car is also used for the longer road trips.
    It is 300 miles to my mom's house. Some electric cars could just make that in perfect conditions but give me a headwind or a cold day both of which happen once in a while and I can't make 300 miles on a charge and I will have to stop in the middle. At that point a fast charge is required. It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way. That is a trip where, if you have to make it, there isn't a better option. Flying would be even longer than driving by the time I get to the airport and rent a car on the far end, not to mention a lot more expensive.
    At least in the U.S. it is very common for people to make a one or two thousand mile trip once a year for vacation. Particularly if you have a family, flying is not a reasonable cost and so you'll take those several days of driving to save money. Those road trips also let you stop someplace and see some weird small-town exhibit which is fun in its own way
    Rohansi · 1790295560 · focus · HN ↗
    > It is not acceptable to say I have to stop somewhere that I don't want to be for many hours to charge my car to get it the rest of the way.
    I think the issue you're stuck on is driving an EV like an ICEV. When you're low on gas you stop, fill up, and continue. It's slightly different with an EV because you shouldn't fill up all the way on a stop. That takes so much more time because the batteries charge slower as they fill up. So if you want to get somewhere quicker you should actually be charging less at stops and stopping more often. I don't know about other cars but Tesla has a good route planner built in that does this for you and preconditions the battery while you travel to a fast charger, which is also important to reduce charge times.
    bluGill · 1790296259 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I'm not stuck on that. A gas car refuels in five minutes max. Now certainly an EV from say 20 to 80% which is what most people talk about is done in 15 minutes in the best case but that's still three times longer and it's someplace I don't want to be. That's assuming that there is a fast urge during the location. There are a huge number of level 2 chargers scattered around the U.S. and level 3, although they're becoming more common, are somewhat rare.
    In that 300 mile trip, there is a gas station every 10 miles. There is a level 3 charger every 100 miles. Which is to say, I certainly can make the trip in my electric car, but I'm I have to make sure I stop where there's a charger because unlike a gas car I can't say the gauge is getting low. I'll stop at the next exit. I have to say the gauge is at half per charge - I better stop at the next charger because I don't know if I can make the one after that.
    rootusrootus · 1790297965 · focus · HN ↗
    > A gas car refuels in five minutes max
    Except most people stop for 15 minutes to refuel when they're on a road trip.
    apparent · 1790303983 · focus · HN ↗
    I have never spent this much time refueling my car. I don't think it's ever taken me more than 3 minutes to actually put gas in the tank. While it may be true that sometimes you have to wait 30-45 seconds for a pump, the wait times on chargers can be much longer because people spend 20 to 30 minutes at each charger.
    rootusrootus · 1790305838 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    apparent · 1790311332 · focus · HN ↗
    Have you ever spent 15 minutes at a gas pump? I can't imagine spending more than 4, and I have an SUV.
    stetrain · 1790339504 · focus · HN ↗
    The stat is obviously not time spent standing at the gas pump but includes things like going to the bathroom and getting snacks or drinks from the convenience store.
    The great thing with an EV is you don’t have to stay there while it charges.
    rootusrootus · 1790352876 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    bluGill · 1790338166 · focus · HN ↗
    15 minutes seems long. That implies a lot of people are doing something other than getting gas. I guess on a roadtrip I will sometimes eat in a gas station which takes longer - but I don't eat in my car - an unusual rule.
    Rohansi · 1790309589 · focus · HN ↗
    There will definitely be a lot of variance to it. Tank sizes. Pump speed. Some people exclusively fill up at Costco where lines at the pump can be longer. Some shop around a few stations to find a slightly better price. Some make a separate trip to a station at night because they lower prices a bit then.
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790353920 · focus · HN ↗
    > Some shop around a few stations to find a slightly better price.
    And those people are often bad at math or grossly undervalue their time.
    Some people drive 10 minutes out of their way (20 min round trip) to save 5 cents/gallon. Even if you have a 20 gallon tank, that's only saving $1.00. I wouldn't take 20 minutes out of my day just to save $1, even 15 years ago when I was living paycheck-to-paycheck on $10/hr.
    Rohansi · 1790299964 · focus · HN ↗
    I've done a 400 mile trip in a Model 3 Long Range and only needed three stops at L3 chargers. In winter, in Canada. With over eight hours of driving it's not unreasonable to stop for a few breaks, and you should be able to plan your breaks near chargers.
    zelos · 1790348530 · focus · HN ↗
    But you can't really compare a petrol car and an EV. Petrol cars are going away, that's not optional.
    An EV that takes an extra 10-15 minutes over 300 miles seems like a reasonable alternative: there may be others.
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790353603 · focus · HN ↗
    > Petrol cars are going away, that's not optional.
    They're definitely not. At least, certainly not any time within the next 10 years.
    Rohansi · 1790367776 · focus · HN ↗
    It's interesting to think about because we should start seeing a decline in gas stations as EV adoption picks up. We're definitely nowhere near that now though.
    ninalanyon · 1790354540 · focus · HN ↗
    My ancient 2015 Model S 70D would do that 300 mile journey with less than an hour of charging in the middle. A new car with much less time for charging.
    I've just done a thousand mile journey from UK to Norway in that car. It was not a big deal to charge on the way and would be less so in a newer car.
3. gonzalohm · 1790273377 · focus · HN ↗
  I think the problem is not that people don't want electric cars. The problem is that people don't have a place to plug the car at home.
  1. stetrain · 1790273489 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the US is still pretty far from saturating the potential market of garage-owning car buyers with EVs, but that is a major hurdle for people who rent or street park and might be interested in saving gas money.
    TedDoesntTalk · 1790274548 · focus · HN ↗
    My electric panel is full. If I want to add an EV charger to my garage, I first have to replace the electric panel with a larger one. That’s minimum $5000 before I even get to the EV charger.
    xur17 · 1790274921 · focus · HN ↗
    Depending on how much you drive per week, a 120V charger might be viable. My new house has the same problem (I'd have to upgrade the electric panel for my car due to its age), but I've been using the normal 120V charger to charge it, and haven't yet run into a case where I couldn't charge it enough.
    aeyes · 1790275178 · focus · HN ↗
    You don't need an EV charger. I charge my car from a normal wall socket over night, limited to 12A. That gives me 60 miles of range over night.
    someonebaggy · 1790275871 · focus · HN ↗
    Can't you charge it from a wall outlet but slower (tier 1 charging)? If you have a dryer in your garage you can get a charger that plugs into that, taking turns with your dryer.
    Technology Connections did a video essay on this and concluded that for most people, you get plenty of range for everyday use just by leaving it plugged into a normal socket overnight, and just occasionally using a supercharger when you're doing long trips. Of course if your commute is particularly long maybe this doesn't apply to you.
    Range anxiety is definitely a real concern about switching to EV but apparently most people don't find it that bad once they actually get one. Besides, there won't be any gas soon anyway.
    stetrain · 1790275938 · focus · HN ↗
    There are potentially options that could work for you, including:
    1) Just charge from an existing 120V outlet. If you average under 50 miles of driving per day this might work just fine.
    2) Reshuffle existing circuits to get even a 20A 240V circuit for charging. This provides more that double the charging you can get from a 15A 120V outlet and may be possible by combining some existing circuits with tandem breakers. A lot of electricians will just quote you on going straight to a 50A or 60A circuit, but most chargers are configurable to lower levels and it can save you a lot of money to stick to a smaller circuit.
    3) Share a circuit with a dryer using a device that automatically switches power off to the car while the dryer is running, there are a few brands of these.
    4) Get an EV charger that supports load management, using a current sensor on your main breaker. These can dynamically adjust how much current the car draws to avoid exceeding the max current of your panel.
    5) Electric meter socket adapter, these connect under your electric meter and provides an EV charging port that doesn't go through your household panel at all.
    rootusrootus · 1790296983 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    quickthrowman · 1790286972 · focus · HN ↗
    You don’t need to replace your panel. You can remove two single pole breakers or one two pole breaker, install a 100A two pole breaker, buy some 3/#1 SER cable (two hots and one neutral for 240/120V) and use it to feed a $125 100A load center without a main breaker.
    Refeed the two removed breakers out of the load center and add a 60A two pole breaker to feed the EV charger, if it’s a cord and plug charger that you plug into a NEMA 14-50R you’ll need a GFCI breaker, if it’s hardwired you don’t need a GFCI breaker.
    rootusrootus · 1790296898 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. klaff · 1790278520 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not sure why you got downvoted as I think you are mostly correct.
    We've had an EV for 1.5 years and love it. In fact any time I'm in a gas-powered car it feels downright primitive with all the noises and smells and sluggish performance. The range anxiety we experienced at first has completely given way to it being awesome that I never have to stop at gas stations and don't have to waste time/money on oil changes.
    But if we couldn't charge at home it would likely be more expensive to fuel than a gas car instead of being much cheaper (but this depends on your local electricity and gas prices).
    However, I do think there is still a big pool in the US who haven't even ridden in one to know what they are missing. Americans have never let poor gas mileage stop them from buying a car (or truck) that is bigger or faster or somehow "better" than the economical choice.
4. jsbisviewtiful · 1790273397 · focus · HN ↗
  > the rest of the market wasn't interested enough to pay the price premium.
  Would love a Toyota EV but usually for significantly less I can get a Toyota hybrid with more space. Both my partner's and my vehicles are Toyota hybrid crossovers but we looked for an EV first and realized we simply couldn't justify the extreme price difference for how little our cars are driven. Really hoping when our time for a new vehicle comes we can trade in both for one reasonably priced EV crossover - so hopefully the rest of the planet can continue pushing the EV market forward while the US lags way behind.
  1. apparent · 1790280405 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah Toyota's PHEVs are quite nice, but the price premium is too much. It basically makes no sense unless you can charge for free at work, and even then you'd have to drive 50,000 miles before it pays off. If you're like most of us and you pay for electricity at home, the inflection point is even further out. How many people even keep cars for that long anymore?
5. Dr4kn · 1790273447 · focus · HN ↗
  Today there isn't really a price premium for electric cars. With Gas prices being what they are the demand is naturally increasing.
  Even with normal Gas prices EVs are cheaper
  1. asdff · 1790274765 · focus · HN ↗
    You are forgetting the elephant in the room: the charger at home and all the implications that brings in between costs and actual possibility of installation at all.
    kgermino · 1790275648 · focus · HN ↗
    Ya that’s the big issues with EVs. It’s overblown in a lot of ways - it is, ultimately, just getting electricity where you park your car - but power at your overnight parking spot is a massive component of happy EV ownership and we’ve done almost nothing to help or even encourage that for apartment dwellers
    magicalhippo · 1790283198 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    WorldMaker · 1790276361 · focus · HN ↗
    You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV. Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?
    Not to mention how many people sleep on Level 1 and Level 2 charging, which are cheap or cheap as free in many homes. (Garages have had electric outlets for a long time. Some have had "dryer plugs" for nearly as long, due to power tools one might own.) Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.
    asdff · 1790276566 · focus · HN ↗
    >Do you know anyone who has ever had a "home gas pump"?'
    You know that's a bad faith argument. Facts are, EVs have friction and that holds back a lot of adoption, and pretending it isn't there isn't going to make it go away.
    WorldMaker · 1790277895 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not a bad faith argument, it is comparing like for like. (Saying that it isn't like for like seems to me to be the more bad faith argument in 2026.) If I have a gas car with 300 miles of range I go about 297 miles safely between fill ups. If I have an EV car with 300 miles of range I can go about 297 miles safely between charges. Those are the same characteristics.
    The part that isn't like for like sure is that there is an increased friction that even a "fast charger" can take a magnitude more time than a gas pump. But fast chargers are much safer and can be parallel tasked (running other errands while a charge happens) whereas gas is an explosive and requires diligent observation while refueling (despite how many people seem oblivious to all the warnings not to leave a refueling car unobserved and a long history of explosion statistics).
    In my experience, fast charging time and lack of home charging ability (and under-estimation of Level 1/2 charging utility) feel like red herrings rather than actual issues. These things get talked about a lot, but the real world experience of them isn't the friction people believe it is. The biggest issues seem to be far more sociopolitical than technical to me. People have invested too much of their identities in gas. Entire political parties seem devoted to propping up gas sales for as long as possible.
    asdff · 1790278475 · focus · HN ↗
    It is definitely a bad faith argument. That is no friction point really that anyone considers a friction point. The charger situation though is real friction. Take yourself out of your own shoes. I will give you anecdata. I have a friend who bought a tesla with no way to charge it in their apartment. It just seems like such a pain in the ass. So many times they are on like 18% charge and wondering if the car is going to actually make it home. Or they will be about to go somewhere and realize the car isn't going to be charged enough so they call an uber. It is unreliable transport without having a home charger. A new chore you have to remember to do. A bit more mental load making that extra calculation every time you want to leave. Having to actually consider where there might be chargers that you can use and if you'd be able to reach them on your present charge.
    WorldMaker · 1790279212 · focus · HN ↗
    Take all of that anecdata and replace a gas car and it is the exact same with the same mental load: I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.
    "It's an unreliable transport without having a gas pump at home." That just sounds silly. Funnily enough that was exactly one of the early complaints of gas cars when electric cars were preferred in the very early days of cars. It was a complaint when gas pumps were rare and hard to find, or didn't exist at all yet and you were pulling gas canisters from the back of a pharmacy.
    It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can charge at home. (I can't do that at all with gas.) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because in a pinch I can find an outlet on the outside of my hotel and trickle charge enough to get me to the next charger. (When was the last time a hotel had canisters of gas just in case?) It's a more reliable transport than a gas car because I can find RV plugs in national parks and state parks and campgrounds far away from chargers and gas stations. (You ever see what you might get charged for a tow from a remote national park, even if that tow is just dropping off a canister of gas?)
    The impression of the charger situation being more inconvenient than gas stations is already flipping and has room to flip a lot more, possibly surprisingly quickly, as gas prices rise and low margin gas pumps go out of business.
    apparent · 1790280217 · focus · HN ↗
    > I've been on 18% fuel tank and wondering if my car will actually make it home or stall out on the road. I've been about to go somewhere and realized my car isn't fueled and and called a taxi or a Lyft as faster than the detour to refuel my car.
    Ridiculous, since there are gas stations all over and you can get 50 miles of range in 30 seconds, or 350 miles of range in 120 seconds. Even the fastest EVs (which are expensive and therefore not likely purchases for people who are on the fence about EVs in general) do not even come close.
    The fastest are maybe 18 minutes from 10-80%, but most are 30-45 minutes (and that's only for 70% of the total range of the vehicle, whereas an ICE can be fully tanked up in 2 minutes.
    WorldMaker · 1790280723 · focus · HN ↗
    > since there are gas stations all over
    That's the assumption, though. There aren't. There is an illusion of it, sure. I gave that anecdata from personal experience. It isn't "ridiculous", it's called having lived (and learned to drive) in rural Ohio.
    asdff · 1790281387 · focus · HN ↗
    If the region is so remote that gas station access is really that poor, ev charger access is probably entirely nonexistent.
    WorldMaker · 1790281914 · focus · HN ↗
    But electricity is not nonexistent. It's easier to run an EV in rural Ohio than a gas car because you can install a real nice charger in that huge garage you have or outside your big barn next to your gravel lot, whatever, you've got space and a grid connection. That's not currently the average mentality, but that returns us to the sociopolitics of rural Ohio and EV adoption in the US in general more than any of the technicalities.
    asdff · 1790299879 · focus · HN ↗
    So just to be clear, we've moved to goalposts from acknowledging there is friction for a lot of people's EV situation to imagining some rural ohioan with a big garage installing their own level 2 charger and using that as justification to gaslight my own garage-less living experiences as a nonexistent friction point towards EV ownership.
    WorldMaker · 1790353138 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I've been pretty consistent that I don't agree there's as much friction as people think there is, that in our society right now are a bunch of sociopolitical issues driving people away from doing the real research or actually trying to live with an EV. If goalposts seem to be moving it may be because you can't firm up your point on what "friction" even means to you.
    apparent · 1790292265 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, I've lived for several decades in several different states/regions, and in my experience, gas stations are all over. They even have signs on the highway when there's no gas for x miles ahead.
    While there may be electricity everywhere, there certainly are not high-speed chargers in places where gas is even close to scarce.
    Can you install it in your garage? Sure, if you've got the panel for it. But that's beside the point when we're talking about refueling on trips. That is, and will be for the foreseeable future, faster in an ICE. That's why we have PHEVs. Maintenance may be higher than an EV, but they're much better on road trips.
    Gibbon1 · 1790280696 · focus · HN ↗
    I found some data from an auto insurance association.
    In US urban areas the average car is only driven 6000 miles a year. That's 115 miles a week. Someone in an urban city would only need to charge every two weeks. Friend has a Chevy Bolt in SF he parks on the street. He says it's not a problem.
    I also repeat myself but I've measured how long it take to gas up a car on road trips. It's usually around 10-15 minutes. Oh sure actually filling the car is quick. But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.
    asdff · 1790281486 · focus · HN ↗
    >But you have to drive to the gas station, fill the car, drive away from the gas station.
    Costs you also pay driving to the EV charging station. 10-15 mins really? Maybe if you are taking a poop or buying a sandwich. Usually on road trips gas stations are immediately off the freeway or at major crossroads of state or county roads. You aren't really detouring to get to them.
    Brendinooo · 1790294628 · focus · HN ↗
    >it is comparing like for like.
    Is it? Can I get an electric car recharged at a gas station in the same time it takes me to fill up a gas tank?
    rootusrootus · 1790294776 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    Brendinooo · 1790294898 · focus · HN ↗
    15 minutes?!?
    I'd be surprised if I even hit five minutes
    apparent · 1790304140 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm certain I've never spent 5 minutes putting gas into any vehicle I've ever owned. The AAA reference may be how long it takes from exiting the freeway to re-entering the freeway for a gas fill-up, because sometimes it takes a little while to get to the station you want and complete the whole transaction.
    It could also be from old data from back in the day when you had to go in and pay with cash or credit at the register. Now that most places have credit card terminals or Apple Pay at the pump, it takes about 45 seconds from when I pull up to when I'm putting gas in my vehicle.
    asdff · 1790300017 · focus · HN ↗
    So are you going to trust dubious pop statistics data from a nonscientific agency and let that gaslight you into imagining you take on average 15 minutes at the pump? Have you ever pumped gas before?
    Brendinooo · 1790687093 · focus · HN ↗
    Just timed myself starting from where I turned off the road into the gas station: at ~3m 20s I was pulling over to get air in my tires with a full tank of gas. If I drove back to the road it would have landed right around four minutes. 13.7 gallons went in.
    You never did cite btw, I see a [0] but no link. 15m might make sense in a context of a bathroom or snack break, or paying cash, or going out of your way, or filling a pickup truck. But filling up with gas is obviously way faster than recharging a battery.
    rootusrootus · 1790294726 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    apparent · 1790279899 · focus · HN ↗
    > You don't need a home charger to enjoy driving an EV. A home charger is a bonus to driving an EV.
    I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
    > Trickle charging doesn't get you to 100% overnight, but no one drives on a 100% full gas tank every morning either.
    Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery. We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120. Despite living in a city with many Teslas, and having an expensive home, apparently it would have cost too much for them to upgrade their panel to be able to charge faster. They are retired so can make do (and they have other cars that use gas).
    WorldMaker · 1790280517 · focus · HN ↗
    > The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
    Which is exactly the point and why it is a bonus. You can't do that with a gas car effectively or cheaply. You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment with the express reason for fueling your car. That you can with an EV and would get a game changing efficiency and cost reduction is an incredible bonus.
    > Sure, but a full gas tank gets you further than a full battery.
    That seems to be less of a factor today. Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.
    Some EV models already have ~600 mile range which is double their gas counterparts.
    > We have friends with a long range Tesla that takes them days to charge on 120.
    Sure, but that's to 100%. You can drive a car with less than 100% battery. A 120v charge can add as much as 40-60 miles range overnight. That's an average person's regular commute. The car might "never" be at 100% if the 120v charge is all it ever gets, but for some people they might never need a fast charge in an average week or even month.
    apparent · 1790291923 · focus · HN ↗
    > Most batteries have hit the same or more range as comparable gas vehicles.
    Really? Which ones? I'm not aware of any vehicles where the ICE version has less range than the EV version.
    And in general, people who are on the fence about an EV in the first place are not going to be buying the extra-expensive long-range models.
    asdff · 1790300165 · focus · HN ↗
    We are trusting range figures now?
    WorldMaker · 1790353581 · focus · HN ↗
    EV batteries are reliable. "Range Degradation" is mostly a disproven myth. [0] Range figures vary with driving style, but that's the exact same issue with gas range, gas cars just had very bad/loose/nonexistent feedback on driving style inefficiency.
    [0] Outside of the non-temperature controlled batteries of "classic" Nissan Leaf models and early Tesla models, but even then "range degradation" is largely overstated and statistically very few batteries were ever replaced in the lifetime of those cars.
    nottorp · 1790321392 · focus · HN ↗
    > You won't pay someone to come and install a gas service in your home or apartment
    Apartment? So I can pay someone to come and install a fast EV charger in my apartment on the 6th floor?
    WorldMaker · 1790355382 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't know how hard it is to imagine the easily elided phrase "garage or parking lot or street parking or whatever parking situation" after apartment, but unless you also park in your apartment on the 6th floor it seems silly to ask this question to me.
    addaon · 1790283364 · focus · HN ↗
    > I know precisely zero people who have EVs and do not charge them at home. The cost differential is enormous and completely changes the economics of cost per mile.
    I know multiple people who have EVs and don't have a home charger, so do 90%+ of their charging at work. You're there 8+ hours a day anyway, and many workplaces provide free charging, so it ends up even cheaper than charging at home.
    apparent · 1790291852 · focus · HN ↗
    If you have a free work charger, that's almost as good as having charging at home. Most people do not have this, and even if you do then you would be SOL if you switch jobs.
    0x457 · 1790299955 · focus · HN ↗
    My 35 floors building has exactly 2 chargers. Both are FIFO, max 5 hours or you start parking and both are slow af and pay for charge. Charging M3 on one of those is probably a whole day activity and would cost you probably more than if you get a diesel generator running to power charger.
    So I might not know those people, but know of at least 10 teslas that aren't charging at home every day, because usually those spots are taken by polestars.
    Rebelgecko · 1790291098 · focus · HN ↗
    I have an EV and can't charge at home (condo where cost to add a charger would be obscene). In 3 years there's been maybe 5 times where it's been a mild inconvenience. Which isn't nothing but a few hours of hassle is a pretty good price to pay for the thousands of dollars I've saved on fuel.
    lern_too_spel · 1790279969 · focus · HN ↗
    You just plug it into the wall like a computer. I don't know why you think you need to install anything.
    Sohcahtoa82 · 1790289891 · focus · HN ↗
    If you only need level 1 charging, or you already have a 240v outlet in your garage, sure.
    Otherwise, you're gonna need an electrician to put a 240v outlet or dedicated EV charger.
    rootusrootus · 1790296105 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    apparent · 1790291973 · focus · HN ↗
    Some people have to park on the street and therefore do not have anywhere to plug in anything. Also, some people park in apartment buildings where there are no outlets near many of the spots.
    rootusrootus · 1790295896 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    apparent · 1790304201 · focus · HN ↗
    It might cost $300 to $600 to put in a charger at home if all of the wiring is ready to go. That's small compared to the cost of buying a new car, but it's certainly not nothing compared to a few months of gas.
6. dyauspitr · 1790273726 · focus · HN ↗
  I don’t know about the others but Ford isn’t axing it’s EVs, it’s reworking them to make them cheaper.
  1. apparent · 1790280484 · focus · HN ↗
    It axed the F150 Lightning. They might have later announced that they're going to bring it back as an EREV (pretty much PHEV), but that seemed like a separate decision. If it were the same decision, they would have announced it at the time of the cancellation announcement, to make it seem more like a pivot.
    dyauspitr · 1790289774 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s actually old news they just announced the Ford Fathom, which is all electric and supposedly significantly cheaper than even the base model lightning.
    apparent · 1790292061 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, when they announced the Ford 150 Lightning, it was supposedly going to be quite inexpensive as well. Of course, by the time it actually came out, it was 2x or 3x the price that they had originally announced.
    rootusrootus · 1790296760 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    apparent · 1790304970 · focus · HN ↗
    I wasn't referring to the price hikes on the base model, which increased the price by 50%, to $60k. I was referring to the fact that, at first, they were fulfilling the high-end trims, which were even much more expensive than that. I know some people get a good deal on it, but it was pretty illusory to say they were going to sell for under $40k.
    rjsw · 1790291895 · focus · HN ↗
    The rest of the world doesn't drive F-series trucks.
    I'm thinking of getting a Ford EV as my next car, prefer the features and looks to the equivalent Stellantis models.
    bluGill · 1790292916 · focus · HN ↗
    The US does though. The f series is a very practical vehicle for a lot of people since it can do so much. It is a compromise but the negatives are not that great.
    apparent · 1790295109 · focus · HN ↗
    IIRC the F-150 is the most popular vehicle by sales in the US.
    rootusrootus · 1790296437 · focus · HN ↗
    That is true, but only because Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra are counted separately despite being badge engineered twins.
    rjsw · 1790347334 · focus · HN ↗
    Ford is still making and selling EVs elsewhere.
    rootusrootus · 1790296334 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    0x457 · 1790300193 · focus · HN ↗
    EREV vs PHEV, in the US, is separated by "do you get more range on battery or gas". That's why US version of i3 got electornically limited gas tank to qualify to be called EREV.
    apparent · 1790304802 · focus · HN ↗
    IMO, EREVs and PHEVs are actually quite similar. My understanding is that the gasoline engine in an EREV never drives the wheels, whereas in a PHEV, it can sometimes drive the wheels, even when the battery has power. In my PHEV, this only happens at highway speeds and only if I've hit the throttle hard. Otherwise, the vehicle is basically an EREV. Other PHEVs are touchy with the throttle or maximum speed on electric and so end up kicking on the gas engine to drive the wheels much more often.
    I actually have a different expectation regarding the popularity of EREVs. I think that for a certain segment, they'll be quite popular because they give the best of both worlds if the maintenance doesn't end up being too much more. They can end up being preferable for people who want to take long road trips without having to worry about charging.
7. ManuelKiessling · 1790274428 · focus · HN ↗
  > For example, VW, … have been axing electric vehicles that they started selling a few years ago
  > most people who wanted EVs had already purchased them
  You should really reconsider where you get your information from.
  “Volkswagen reported more than 70,000 orders for its new Electric Urban Car Family within just a few weeks, while European BEV orders increased by more than 50% in Q2.”
  <a href="https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/half-yearly-financial-report-and-results-2026-20506" rel="nofollow">https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/half-yearly-financial-re...
  1. formerly_proven · 1790276017 · focus · HN ↗
    Various OEMs have sort of soft-exited the US EV market, but that doesn't mean they're not offering the cars or stop development of them in other markets.
    It just means the US market is too unattractive and low-volume for EVs that aren't a Tesla.
  2. apparent · 1790279723 · focus · HN ↗
    America, where they are pulling models. I have PHEVs and enjoy them, but I am aware that many people are not going to buy EVs with their current specs. Either they live somewhere cold, where range will fluctuate and not be sufficient at times of the year, or they live somewhere that has power outages frequently enough (or at times of emergency) that they do not consider pure EVs. This is especially true for people with only one car. Families that have multiple cars are obviously more open to having one car that's an EV.
    stetrain · 1790281609 · focus · HN ↗
    EVs are actually great during power outages. Many have power outlets so you can run your fridge, charge devices, etc. while the power is out. Any gas station without its own backup generator will be unable to pump gas during an outage.
    If you have home charging, it's more likely that you'll have a mostly full battery than that the power outage will occur when you have a mostly full tank of gas.
    It's a bit more work and expense but some EVs can even act as automatic or manual whole-home power backups.
    Unless you live somewhere that regularly loses power for a week+, an EV might actually be a net benefit.
    puszczyk · 1790286747 · focus · HN ↗
    Norway proves that cold is not a problem—it’s a matter of incentives
    bluGill · 1790292448 · focus · HN ↗
    Norway is a small country and most people are not making long distance trips there. Despite being far and far north, they're also close to water and so large parts of the country have a much milder climate than you would expect for their latitude.
    Don't get me wrong. The electric cars work just fine in cold weather. As long as your trip isn't too long. I however discovered the hard way last winter about a week after I got my electric car that when the weather is below zero Fahrenheit it gets about half the expected range and I had a trip that was just a little bit over half the expected range - I'm lucky there was a slow charger along that trip, there were no fast chargers anywhere along the route. (An hour charge over lunch got me the 10 extra miles I needed to get home - I didn't eat at my first choice but it worked)
    syncsynchalt · 1790287572 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't understand the argument, wouldn't you _want_ an EV if you have frequent power outages?
    You could run your house for weeks off a 100kWh traction battery with V2G.
    apparent · 1790291795 · focus · HN ↗
    I looked into this and discovered that most EVs don't support it, and the ones that do require even more electrical retrofitting to make it possible.
    The people I know who are afraid of outages/EV usage are ones in CA, where an earthquake could knock out power, and they'd need to go a very long distance to get somewhere safe/stable.
    stetrain · 1790293847 · focus · HN ↗
    If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles then you're fine. That's a pretty big radius.
    If power is out in that large of a radius you would also likely have trouble getting gas.
    And you don't need the expensive equipment to just run an extension cord from the EV to power critical appliances.
    apparent · 1790294887 · focus · HN ↗
    If there's a charging station with power within 200 miles it will be overloaded by everyone freeing. There are way more gas stations than charging stations, and they only take a few mins per person, so they would not be nearly as overloaded. Also, there would not be a "run on the bank" mentality since everyone knows gas is pretty available, even in emergencies.
    As for powering critical appliances, I'd need a super long heavy duty extension cord to power my fridge, and I don't even know if my vehicle is capable. I'd also have to have my garage door open while it's plugged in, which is not ideal to say the least.
    syncsynchalt · 1790295591 · focus · HN ↗
    Have you never been in a natural disaster? Gas stations stop pumping fuel when they lose power, until they can scrounge up a generator. Then they pump until they're dry and don't get a steady fuel supply for a week.
    You're saying there's no "run on the bank" but they're usually the third thing to run out during a bad hurricane, after milk and bread.
    rootusrootus · 1790295766 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    apparent · 1790304049 · focus · HN ↗
    I would need a heavy-duty extension cord because I would have to run it 60 feet from my garage all the way into my kitchen. I also have no idea how I would actually plug the fridge in because the power cord is hidden way in the back.
    That it would be more convenient in the long run if I could backfeed to my panel, but almost no EVs in the U.S. are actually capable of this. The F-150 Lightning that you have is quite unique in this regard.
    stetrain · 1790297826 · focus · HN ↗
    I have absolutely experienced the “run on the bank” effect on gas in areas under hurricane warning, as well as weeks afterwards.
    mook · 1790307180 · focus · HN ↗
    FWIW, it always requires retrofitting because otherwise you'll kill the guy trying to get your power back. That, or power your whole block…
    syncsynchalt · 1790366572 · focus · HN ↗
    There's a knife switch on my A/C grid connection, can't I just flip that?
    someonebaggy · 1790695234 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a myth, it's more likely you'll just overload your generator or inverter by trying to power the whole neighborhood. And if it does work, the person who is fixing the power knows to check that it's not live, and ground (short-circuit) it before touching it. If it's live when he gets there, he'll have to track down why and that will make it take longer to get the power on, and the power company may fine you, but not for attempted murder. Anyway it's not going to be productive to try to power the neighborhood.
8. formerly_proven · 1790276081 · focus · HN ↗
  Historically most of these "Whether it’s a battery EV, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, or internal combustion engine vehicle―whatever the power source" platforms have been utter ICE-first EV-distant-fourth-priority shit shows. Most of the exceptions are rather expensive.
  1. BuffaloEric33 · 1790278667 · focus · HN ↗
    In general, they've been pretty uninspired. That said, the Hyundai Kona/Kia Niro cousins were pretty much just "replace the engine with a motor and bolt the battery to the bottom" and those were perfectly reasonable cars for the vast majority of actual needs.
  2. apparent · 1790280584 · focus · HN ↗
    True, and it's especially interesting since Toyota I think offers some vehicles only as hybrids/PHEVs. For example, the Camry and RAV4 fall into this category, I think. It's deceptive because it makes it look like the RAV4 PHEV isn't that much more than the base model. But since the base model is already more expensive than an ICE would have been because it's a hybrid, this isn't the true differential between ICE and PHEV.
9. ak217 · 1790305787 · focus · HN ↗
  The US big 3 and VW canceled several EV product lines because the government policy flipped from subsidizing them to subsidizing ICE production. With the Iran war, the economics has shifted again and some of the products they canceled could have been made profitable, but it's too late for most of them now. This actually creates an opening for Rivian's downmarket R2 line expansion.
  Meanwhile the Chinese companies are disrupting the overseas market for all of them (which is why Toyota is fretting). Many don't realize the disruptive potential of China's battery, EV, and solar panel supply chain combined with the oil shock - many subtropical countries are on the verge of flipping their economies to be linked to China's because of this. The long term consequences for American and European manufacturing supply chains will be major - not just in terms of present but future orders, since many of those countries are continuing to grow their consumer base faster than US/EU.
  1. apparent · 1790311264 · focus · HN ↗
    How are they subsidizing ICE production over EVs? Or is it just that the subsidies are easier to get if you don't need to include rare earth elements, which EVs require, in your inventory?
    ninalanyon · 1790354692 · focus · HN ↗
    Oil production is subsidised.
    ak217 · 1790370200 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, the subsidies for ICE production are indirect:
    - repealing CAFE standards penalties (freeing manufacturers to externalize the costs of their pollution) - a more restrictive financing environment (no government guaranteed loans) for EV supply chain development, combined with
    - consumer subsidies for domestically produced vehicles - but the domestic supply chain is not ready to support EVs without further investment
    To their credit, they at least didn't yank all of the domestic battery manufacturing credits - though not for a lack of trying.
doublepg23 · 1790273569 · focus · HN ↗
I picked up a '25 Subaru Solterra (rebadged Toyota bz4X) for a decent lease deal and while I'm surprised how little I think about the EV parts the "car parts" are dreadful.
I really need to do a write-up on the dichotomy of EV things being good (charger works, no real battery QC issues, it's a RAV4-but-EV) while all of the shared ICE parts (anything in the software stack) are riddled with bugs or head-scratching defaults.
Overall, a fine car for me, but (as much as I do not like El*n) Telsa is so significantly beyond their offerings it's hard to overstate.
EDIT:
I forgot to add but I think the cost savings for EVs can be a wash, make sure you check the following:
1.) can't charge at home / live in an apartment.
1a.) If you do install a L2 charger at home, you will significantly reduce your cost savings.
2.) you rely on fast-chargers in any significant capacity.
3.) Double check the math on any lease, loan, etc. on new EVs vs. a beater gas car. Especially if you pay an EV tax in your state or country. (Post-COVID the $2K beater car seems to have gone extinct here...)
1. jjtheblunt · 1790274049 · focus · HN ↗
  in contrast, i bought a 2026 Subaru Uncharted, which is a clean sheet EV design, collaboration on powertrain components between Subaru and Toyota, and it's awesome. My BMW i4 xdrive 40 handled worse, had software bugs, cost about 50% more, and had a cheaper interior with truly stupid engineering choices, but you could choose from more colors. I had a clean sheet ev design i3 for about 8 years before that and it was cool.
  I wonder, from your comments, and my cars, if the trick is ev-only designs, as the Solterra has various altered versions, as did the i4, whereas my i3 and Uncharted were designed only to be EVs.
  edit: charging L2 at home is great, to your point.
  1. doublepg23 · 1790274361 · focus · HN ↗
    It's weird to me because they apparently have the same issues across their gas cars that sell enormously well.
    My friend with a '25 taco has issues with remote start, fob range and infotainment stability.
    My friend with a '24 corolla has the same issues on his car.
    jjtheblunt · 1790274645 · focus · HN ↗
    maybe it's how recently the platform was designed, but who knows?!
  2. devindotcom · 1790286501 · focus · HN ↗
    I hadn't heard of the uncharted, sounds like it's closer to a C-HR electric than anything else? not that there's anything wrong with that. I love subes and drive an old one but they have a certain vibe that I wonder if the Toyota collab takes away.
    all kind of academic since I'm planning on getting a slate but it's nice to know Subaru is bouncing back from that Solterra disaster.
2. jaggederest · 1790274095 · focus · HN ↗
  We looked at the Solterra in 2025 and it was genuinely awful, I can't believe anyone who works at a car company looked at it and thought "this is substantially better and will sell more than the Pontiac Aztek despite aesthetically and practically being worse in many regards". The interior center console feels like a prank, almost.
3. delecti · 1790274222 · focus · HN ↗
  I never will (also because of Elon), but this comment makes me curious to experience a Tesla. Are they really so much better? I've heard endless bad things about their build quality.
  After returning a '25 Mercedes EQB (employee lease), I bought a used '23 Solterra, and it seems like a better than linear downgrade (that is, the overall experience is a bit worse, but the price is lower by more than how much worse it is). The software and interface are all completely fine, and stay out of the way of driving and Android Auto. And I'm rather glad for the lack of some of the bells and whistles, because the dashboard screen on the MB had too much going on.
  1. doublepg23 · 1790274652 · focus · HN ↗
    I've been in my friends Model 3 many times and it's full of "oh why didn't anyone think of this before" and EV-centric choices. There's stupid stuff too (no turning stalks or shifter) but even ignoring the software choices it's really that much better of a car.
    > The software and interface are all completely fine
    Perhaps whatever platform mine, my friends corolla and friends taco are on is just busted but I wish it had even 70% reliability of just working when I'm using anything software related.
    rootusrootus · 1790298107 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. lnsru · 1790275829 · focus · HN ↗
    I own very first model Y, but wouldn’t buy the facelift. Changing gears swiping touchscreen is too much despite many real improvements. Build quality is definitely not premium, but it was single electrical vehicle I was able to afford and use as a substitute for petrol car. Many others at the time were good only as 2nd or 3rd car in the household.
    BuffaloEric33 · 1790279395 · focus · HN ↗
    I had a 21 Y, and now a 26. If you actually buckle your seat belt and turn on the feature, the car will auto select the correct gear without needing to do....anything. After a short while you get used to it on the rare occasions you do need to swipe the screen to change gear. Another thing I didn't notice during test drives, is that it does actually have permanent gear shifting controls - they're just by the hazard light (not a great place to use them often, but still there).
    At least for me, the 26 is so much better built and fixed the insane body roll the 21 had that I'm quite happy with it.
    My wife has also been full-EV for 5 years, first with a Kia Niro EV and now with a Hyundai Ioniq 9. Those are pretty good as "real car" EVs as well, though not without their own quirks (and, unfortunately, the Ioniq 9 recently had to have the ICCU replaced, as Hyundai still seemingly hasn't figured that problem out over the years).
    delecti · 1790281670 · focus · HN ↗
    EVs only really have forward and reverse, so I assume that's the automatic switching it does. Why in the world would you want a car to automatically switch between them? Even if that worked perfectly that doesn't sound all that helpful, and anything less than absolutely perfect sounds at best really annoying, and at worst dangerous.
    Not to say that the Solterra's is ideal either. It's an awkward dial shifter below the HVAC controls, but at least it's a physical interface.
    Rohansi · 1790288232 · focus · HN ↗
    > Even if that worked perfectly that doesn't sound all that helpful, and anything less than absolutely perfect sounds at best really annoying, and at worst dangerous.
    It works but it's a lot slower than just using the stalk or even the on screen shifter. But that's probably because I got used to not needing to come to a stop before switching gears.
    ninalanyon · 1790353985 · focus · HN ↗
    How does it know whether you want to go forwards or backwards?
    Rohansi · 1790367414 · focus · HN ↗
    It's based on your surroundings and probably the car's recent movements. To get it to switch you have to do a series of actions which should pretty much confirm that it's what you want to do. For example, if you're backing out of a parking space it'll only trigger a switch to drive if you come to a stop and then turn the wheel some amount to switch to drive. It tells you what to do on screen if you want to trigger it and don't know how.
  3. nobleach · 1790276449 · focus · HN ↗
    I've had not a single "quality issue" with my Model 3 other than the cabin air filter. The car interior stinks worse than any other car I've owned, if it isn't replaced on time! I too have heard a ton of bad things on Reddit. Then I went on the subreddits where people actually owned them. Those folks really seemed to like their cars. I can't say I LOVE the car... removing turn signals, wiper controls and ability to physically shift into reverse seem like brain-dead moves. Otherwise though? It's a lovely care to drive.
    rootusrootus · 1790298791 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    nobleach · 1790367335 · focus · HN ↗
    The launch is exactly what convinced me to get one. My brother-in-law had a Model S that he took me on a ride in. From a dead stop, he floored it and I was sold. The Model 3 has a pretty decent ride too (the Highland refresh).
    arcticfox · 1790357570 · focus · HN ↗
    Lol the cabin air filter issue is legit but you just need to learn how to change it and it'd an easy fix.
    It is funny how bad it gets when it starts stinking though, I was scared of changing it so I tried to ride it out for awhile and it was not a good idea
    nobleach · 1790367231 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, I'm actually pretty mechanically inclined but for some reason, I just don't want to bring any tools near this thing.... it feels like an appliance!
  4. ggreer · 1790297938 · focus · HN ↗
    I got a Model 3 in 2020 and I still don't see anything competitive from other manufacturers. There are so many little things that it does right. You pair your phone with the car, so when you walk up to it and pull on the door handle, it opens. If you're not next to the car and someone else tries to open the door, it's locked. Each driver has their own profile which saves things like UI preferences, acceleration settings, seat position, side mirror angles, climate control, etc. So if my wife was the last person to drive the car and I open the driver's side door, the seat moves to my position. The mirrors adjust to my settings, and so on.
    Even though my car has the older hardware, the self-driving is far beyond anything else I've used. It makes road trips far less tiring. I basically sit in the driver's seat while it drives from charging station to charging station. I've gone hundreds of miles without touching the steering wheel. Usually I intervene because I want to park in a specific spot, as the car tends to choose spots that are less convenient. Also it likes to park in my neighbor's driveway instead of mine. (The driveways are about 5 feet apart.)
    The phone app lets you control all kinds of stuff remotely. I like to turn on the climate control before going to the car, that way my kid's car seat won't be uncomfortably warm on a sunny day. You can view the cameras from your phone, lock/unlock the car, open/close the windows, and open the trunk & frunk. And it works anywhere there's cell network connectivity, not just within direct radio range of the car.
    I'd love it if more cars had these sorts of features, but I don't see it happening any time soon. Tesla seems to be a software company that happens to make cars, while everyone else is a car company that happens to make some software.
  5. rootusrootus · 1790298609 · focus · HN ↗
    > Are they really so much better?
    They have ups and downs.
    The build quality has improved significantly, though I would not put them on the level of a Toyota or anything. Maybe Ford.
    The software is mostly quite a lot better, the quality of the infotainment exceeds almost anything else you can buy. The remote control ability is also exceptional. But they have glaring omissions like a refusal to support CarPlay. Or a persistent need to prove that vision can replace a bog standard IR rain sensor (it still cannot).
    They do get some things right that for whatever reason seem difficult to get from other makers (like a simple climate hold when you park, or dog mode). And love it or hate it, FSD is light years ahead of anything else you can buy as a consumer. I won't pay for it, because I like to drive, but it now exceeds any expectation I ever had for it. I would wager that if I put grandma's house in the nav system and told the car to drive all the way there (about 175 miles distant), it would most probably take me all the way from my garage to grandma's driveway (and park) without me doing anything other than putting it in drive and hitting start.
    I loathe Elon and this was a pretty big consideration, but I do not make purchases based on single factors, and overall the value proposition was impossible to ignore. Partly this is because there is basically zero competition for an M3P.
    ninalanyon · 1790354139 · focus · HN ↗
    > persistent need to prove that vision can replace a bog standard IR rain sensor (it still cannot).
    I have 2015 Model S 70D and rain sensing seems fine to me, is it worse on later models?
4. wkjagt · 1790329667 · focus · HN ↗
  I got a used EV about 3 years ago and I don't think I saved money. The car lost 10,000 CAD in value. I have to pay the dealer for repairs and maintenance, which is really expensive. I only drive about 15,000 km per year, so even though I mainly charge at home, I don't think the money saved on gas is more than the money lost in other ways. I'm actually in the process of changing to a 2010 Toyota Yaris. Cheap DIY maintenance, good fuel economy, cheap insurance, super reliable etc etc. And I like the idea of having actual buttons and no screens, a manual shifter, and even a car that goes vroom.
5. idontwantthis · 1790360987 · focus · HN ↗
  Does Eyesight beep at you frequently? My 2020 Outback beeps every time it can't see the lanes, which is about once a mile where I live. I'll probably never by another Subaru because of that issue alone.
runeks · 1790273720 · focus · HN ↗
> With over 57 million sold worldwide since it went on sale in 1966, the Toyota Corolla is widely considered the best-selling vehicle to date.
Is it or is it not the best-selling vehicle to date? Should be pretty simple to determine.
1. jefftk · 1790274486 · focus · HN ↗
  The main question is whether to count the Corolla at all, given that it's changed so much over the years. The original VW Beetle at ~21M and minimally changed from 1938 to 2003 has a strong claim.
2. hoherd · 1790275345 · focus · HN ↗
  It's not. The Honda Super Cub is the top selling motor vehicle in the world, with 60 million produced in 2008 alone. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Super_Cub" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Super_Cub
  1. Geee · 1790280080 · focus · HN ↗
    You're wrong. The best-selling vehicle is the Flying Pigeon bicycle, the standard bicycle from Mao-era China with more than 500 million produced since 1950.
    umeshunni · 1790286498 · focus · HN ↗
    motor vehicle
    Geee · 1790300539 · focus · HN ↗
    Read the original question again.
3. artisinal · 1790296525 · focus · HN ↗
  Depends on what counts in that 57 million. Just the base Corolla, or also the Corolla Verso that was actually based on the Avensis platform? What about the Toyota Auris? Toyota Conquest? Holden Nova? Geo Prizm?
  I wonder if you combine the numbers of the VW Golf, Rabbit, Bora, Jetta, Corrado and Scirocco if it beats that 57 million.
manyatoms · 1790274334 · focus · HN ↗
Why couldn't it just look like a Corolla
octoberfranklin · 1790274987 · focus · HN ↗
I want an electric Supra.
Nobody's making good lightweight superfast electric sportscars except for Kia (EV6 GT, 600hp). That car is amazing but the interior is super-cheap and Kia failed to "do the Acura thing" that made the NSX respectable (it isn't a "Honda NSX").
The Porsche Taycan is an absolute boat, an old man's car, the thing weighs a ton. Handling is terrible. BMW electrics are the same. The German car companies are really just "mailing it in" when it comes to electic sportscars; they refuse to actually try to build one.
Tesla Model S isn't much better and is discontinued.
Other than the $250k+ upcoming roadster and the $60k EV6 GT (cheap cloth seats, no leather option, Kia badge) there's really nothing out there that handles well. Pretty huge gap in the market there.
1. formerly_proven · 1790277847 · focus · HN ↗
  The EV6 GT is a 1550mm tall crossover SUV-coupe weighing almost 4900 lbs with 577 hp, but is more of a young man's sports car than a 1380mm tall sedan weighing 100 lbs more but approaching twice the power? Seems sensible.
  1. octoberfranklin · 1790278747 · focus · HN ↗
    You clearly haven't driven both.
    Who cares if the roof is higher off the ground?
    The EV6's center of mass is much lower than the Porsche's.
    BuffaloEric33 · 1790279847 · focus · HN ↗
    "But it still has the Kia badge. And the cheap interior. It's a shame; they could've used this car to launch an "Acura"-like brand with the EV6 GT as their NSX."
    Isn't that kinda what the Genesis GV60 is supposed to be? Granted it doesn't have the same HP as the EV6 GT, AFAIK....
    octoberfranklin · 1790358435 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe. The interior is probably nicer, but that's an SUV not a sportscar.
    Genesis/Hyundai owns 33% of Kia. The GV60 Magma is basically the same powertrain as the EV6 GT but doesn't have the other cool features (electronic suspension, electronic rear differential). And it's an SUV.
    Maybe we'll see a Genesis sportscar at some point. That would be cool.
2. CamperBob2 · 1790287589 · focus · HN ↗
  If you can live with two seats, Porsche seems to have finally greenlighted production of the electric Boxster/Cayman. I believe that platform will be shared with Audi to make a lower-cost offering available.
  1. octoberfranklin · 1790358612 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah I've heard, but this is like the fourth or fifth "greenlight rumor". There were several "electric 911" rumors that fell flat.
    I would prefer a two-door two-seater.
    If they actually build the damn thing I will certainly try it and probably buy one. But I'm not getting my hopes up.
3. teamonkey · 1790289099 · focus · HN ↗
  Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 is a sister to the EV6 with a better interior and a little more of a Supra vibe
4. Sohcahtoa82 · 1790291293 · focus · HN ↗
  I want an electric convertible Corvette C8.
  Sadly, I might have to settle for the Porsche 718. Polestar 6 got me excited, but that project is basically dead, especially with Polestar being effectively banned starting with model year 2027. If the US government got its head out of its ass regarding Chinese cars, I'd REALLY like a BYD Denza Z Spider.
  The sad thing is, the Venn Diagram of EV enthusiasts and sports car enthusiasts is almost two separate circles.
  1. bluGill · 1790293690 · focus · HN ↗
    That Venn diagram will collapse to the same thing very quickly once someone actually brings out a good electric sports car. Electric has significant advantages in acceleration. As soon as you can use an electric car on a race track, people will discover they're blowing away their competition. On the track we are talking about the difference between your losses during shifts and the full torque right off the line, which is maybe only a second per lap, but a second would be shatteringly huge in a race.
    Of course a lot of race rules are very strict and an electric car wouldn't qualify and also most electric cars don't have enough power to show this off but the potential is right there.
5. ggreer · 1790298517 · focus · HN ↗
  What about the Model 3 Performance? It accelerates faster than the EV6 GT, has more range, and is several hundred pounds lighter. Cornering ability seems to be similar, as both get 0.92g in skid pad tests.
  1. octoberfranklin · 1790358695 · focus · HN ↗
    Tesla suspension.
    Hard pass.
    ggreer · 1790371188 · focus · HN ↗
    The Model 3's suspension was revised a couple years ago, and enthusiasts seem to have stopped complaining. Both cars are within a few seconds on the Nürburgring (7:42-7:44ish), and the Model 3 Performance is faster on Laguna Seca. Both cars need better brakes if you're going to flog them around a track for long periods of time, but that's a pretty common issue with performance versions of sedan/SUV EVs.
6. sho · 1790320996 · focus · HN ↗
  I think the batteries just aren't there yet. You need light for a sports car and current gen battery tech (~0.3KW/Kg vs 10+ for petrol) just suck in this use case (and I say that as, generally, an EV supporter). It'll improve but it'll take a while.
genxy · 1790275932 · focus · HN ↗
If they would bring a barebones electric station wagon to the US that would be heavenly.
1. bluGill · 1790293496 · focus · HN ↗
  I wish anyone would. Sadly it seems you me and one other person I know are the sole market for station wagons in the modern world and so no one will.
pornel · 1790275936 · focus · HN ↗
Toyota wants to show nobody wants EVs by making EVs nobody wants.
1. Brendinooo · 1790294821 · focus · HN ↗
  I'd take a hard look at an electric Corolla if it's not much more expensive than the gas version
  1. rootusrootus · 1790297163 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
2. tclancy · 1790301045 · focus · HN ↗
  Am I the only one who thinks those look damned cool? If they provided some kind of stupid engine option to definitively hoon the thing, I’d be all over it.
  1. tclancy · 1790301116 · focus · HN ↗
    To be clear, exterior design only. The interior looks stupid. The seats look deadly to me at 50 with back problems.
    coldpie · 1790341339 · focus · HN ↗
    It's a concept car. Concept cars are always full of wacky nonsense no one wants. The production model will just be a regular car.
    tclancy · 1790434219 · focus · HN ↗
    So you say but I’m still waiting for that Pontiac beach car with two hand vacs built in.
alexandermorgan · 1790275984 · focus · HN ↗
Judging from the prototype Toyota is clearly not serious about actually producing this ev version.
1. Naru41 · 1790297297 · focus · HN ↗
  That's right. Nobody wants EVs, and even if there is a niche demand, Chinese companies are dumping them at a national level. (look at the Europe plight)
  They'll pretend to sell EVs to keep their options open, but they won't actually sell any.
  1. rootusrootus · 1790298887 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. yatopifo · 1790455171 · focus · HN ↗
    This is likely to sell well in Canada if they manufacture outside of the US.
small_model · 1790276130 · focus · HN ↗
Any design of a future car with manual controls is already obsolete or admitting they have no autonomy stack.
pryelluw · 1790276818 · focus · HN ↗
Been waiting for this and a plug-in hybrid Corolla with at least 50 mile electric range. Would be a game changer.
hn_submit · 1790277050 · focus · HN ↗
> Whether or not Toyota will bring the Corolla EV to the US is still up in the air.
What dumb question. Of course Toyota is going to sell the Corolla in the U.S. They make cars they sell worldwide otherwise it couldn't be done profitably. And they can because unlike Chinese ones there are no restrictions on importing Japanese cars to the U.S.
gwbas1c · 1790277556 · focus · HN ↗
The car is too low to the ground.
One of the things that really frustrated me about my Tesla Model 3 was how low it was. I would "look up" at Ford Fusions and other sedans on the road.
In contrast, my Model Y isn't an SUV. It's the height (and ground clearance) of what we used to call sedans, and really feels like a sedan instead of an SUV.
1. rootusrootus · 1790297652 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
bigmadshoe · 1790277983 · focus · HN ↗
Why does every car manufacturer peddle these overly complex designs with massive displays, a futuristic aesthetic, etc?
People drive Corollas because they're cheap and reliable. Give me that with an electric motor.
1. z0mghii · 1790278512 · focus · HN ↗
  That's what the market expects from an EV
  1. dingaling · 1790279422 · focus · HN ↗
    This is what the market is being told to expect from an EV.
    The Dacia Spring is what the market actually seems to want:
    <a href="https://www.dacia.co.uk/hybrid-and-electric-range/spring-city-car.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.dacia.co.uk/hybrid-and-electric-range/spring-cit...
    It's a car, not an Autobot.
    teamonkey · 1790290374 · focus · HN ↗
    The entry level model doesn’t even have an infotainment panel, it has a shelf you can place your phone on and use an app if you wish.
    sl-1 · 1790315897 · focus · HN ↗
    Sounds like optimal solution to me.
    jamescontrol · 1790318823 · focus · HN ↗
    That sounds exactly like how an entry model should be?
    teamonkey · 1790335818 · focus · HN ↗
    Most cars have at least a radio
    InsideOutSanta · 1790327779 · focus · HN ↗
    Perfect.
    MisterMunchkin · 1790321293 · focus · HN ↗
    Lmao if that were true, everyone would be buying them. We aren’t, because they suck. It’s a decent car if you just need something cheap, but cheap doesn’t mean good. A raspberry pi isn’t better than a M5 just because it’s cheap.
    bittercynic · 1790356654 · focus · HN ↗
    It depends on what you're doing. If a raspberry pi meets the needs of your project, I'd say it /is/ better because it's cheaper.
  2. throwaway27448 · 1790280361 · focus · HN ↗
    How do you know if there isn't a sensible car to compare it with? Nobody wants something that looks like a tesla
  3. BeetleB · 1790288967 · focus · HN ↗
    I drive an EV. It sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Worst driving experience of all cars I've owned. The lack of buttons and crappy HVAC controls are things I notice daily.
    Outside of Tesla owners, I don't know a single EV owner who praises these elements. The EV market does not want this.
    0x457 · 1790300354 · focus · HN ↗
    I think its a tesla issue, not EV issue.
    ninalanyon · 1790354233 · focus · HN ↗
    Which one?
  4. bigmadshoe · 1790289133 · focus · HN ↗
    It isn't what I want and it seems many people on- and off-line agree with me.
  5. jerlam · 1790289978 · focus · HN ↗
    Toyota's EVs share most of the same components as their non-EVs, like door handles and screens. They have become the fourth best selling EVs behind the Teslas and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 in recent months.
  6. xbmcuser · 1790319588 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, a lot of people on Hacker News are asking for a bare-bones EV, but that market isn't big enough for US or Western carmakers to justify building one. Still, I'd bet that over the next few years, as batteries keep getting cheaper, we'll see plenty of these bare-bones cars in Africa and Asia. They're already building electric tuk-tuks, and as solar power electrifies more of the world, we'll get bare-bones EVs.
    Thrymr · 1790358258 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe not for western carmakers, but if BYD was allowed to sell a $20-25k EV in the US, it would sell like crazy (and not just to the HN crowd).
2. Mashimo · 1790329894 · focus · HN ↗
  ID Polo? Simple, Cheap and has tons of buttons.
3. jiaosdjf · 1790340848 · focus · HN ↗
  Looking at my Nissan Leaf it is entirely possible to build a reliable car with real buttons and knobs everywhere, and thats the problem for the industry. The used market is flooded with perfectly good Leafs, dirt cheap, the lowest yearly maintenance vehicle on CarEdge.
  Even ICE cars have gotten a little too good over the last couple of decades, I see plenty of early 2000s models driving around today looking perfectly fine.
  How are these corporations supposed to maximise profit if they keep churning out perfectly sensible vehicles?
  1. gorfian_robot · 1790350694 · focus · HN ↗
    the leaf is the cheap shitbox this country needs!
Molitor5901 · 1790279400 · focus · HN ↗
I'm holding on to my gas vehicle as long as I can because I really don't like the hybrid sad spaceship noise. I guess I could get it and disable the speaker but then that might void the warranty. The mechanic I go to tells me I can absolutely disable it and they will do it for me but they caution that it will void a warranty. I will continue to drive my old car until it falls apart.
1. rootusrootus · 1790297385 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
2. ck2 · 1790345539 · focus · HN ↗
  when you injure or kill someone disabled who didn't hear your car and the investigators find that you disabled the sound, you will do time, it's literally a law
  tire noise at slow speed is not enough
  but some cars do seem to have a good noise and some a bad noise
hackerbeat · 1790281397 · focus · HN ↗
Just another ugly car. These days they all look like angry vacuum cleaners.
woggy · 1790286604 · focus · HN ↗
Is it that hard? Take a normal car, take engine out, put electric motor in. Don't fuck around with the inside.
1. Rohansi · 1790286900 · focus · HN ↗
  Based on pretty much every electric car out there, yes. They have to change everything.
  1. woggy · 1790295286 · focus · HN ↗
    They can keep the buttons and the normal interiors instead of making them look like something out of Star Trek.
2. sl-1 · 1790341862 · focus · HN ↗
  Engine is not the problem, but the battery and volume + weight it brings. Easily +200-400 kg to the weight of the car.
greenowl · 1790289728 · focus · HN ↗
No thanks, Toyota. We'll keep running our 20 year old Corolla (9th generation - if you know, you know)
egl2020 · 1790290080 · focus · HN ↗
The lesson I take away from Tesla is going for the extremum: if you're going to be BEV, don't compromise. Toyota is ignoring that with a "platform that supports all powertrains, including pure electric".
1. andriy_koval · 1790291058 · focus · HN ↗
  Tesla doesnt have offering in 30k market, which is likely different story, design and component sharing is important to cut cost. Also, Teslas are premium segment, thus can afford to go extreme.
  1. renjimen · 1790291253 · focus · HN ↗
    You can buy the Model 3 for $37k, which is not far off $30k, and definitely not in the premium segment.
    NewJazz · 1790293502 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    andriy_koval · 1790296721 · focus · HN ↗
    I think that non-premium 37k model is available for few months only? I can argue that its subproduct of premium segment infra/design.
hacker_88 · 1790290227 · focus · HN ↗
5 minutes charging? No Solid State? No Swapping? No Hydrogen? No
Doa ? Yes
freetime2 · 1790290800 · focus · HN ↗
Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better than trying to shoehorn an EV into an ICE design.
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ97R1nhq4M" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ97R1nhq4M
1. hn_submit · 1790291644 · focus · HN ↗
  I agree that it's much better to design an EV to be an EV from the ground up. The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids. And developing two completely different platforms is too expensive even for a higly profitable company like Toyota.
  1. RussianCow · 1790292283 · focus · HN ↗
    Seems like a chicken-and-egg problem. Part of the reason consumers don't want EVs is because there are limited options that are any good.
    Brendinooo · 1790294480 · focus · HN ↗
    For me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
    NegativeLatency · 1790294987 · focus · HN ↗
    You might not need a L2 charger at home depending on driving habits?
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0
    russelg · 1790295006 · focus · HN ↗
    Trickle charging overnight on standard AC is more than enough for a standard commuter, of course YMMV ;)
    taneq · 1790297005 · focus · HN ↗
    Depends whether they have access to 230V power. I’d want at least a 3.5kW charger, charging at half that would be miserable.
    ashdksnndck · 1790297931 · focus · HN ↗
    Why do you care how long home charging takes? It’s not like you have to hang out in or around your car while it’s charging, the way you do when filling it at a gas station. As long as your car charges enough overnight to make up for your average daily usage, you’ll be good.
    nomel · 1790299018 · focus · HN ↗
    I drive home from work in my car, and sometimes want to then immediately drive away from home.
    nomel · 1790299288 · focus · HN ↗
    Do you charge at home?
    I do. I would never go with level 1 charging. How terribly slow level 1 charging is, is exactly why I put the money into getting level 2 chagrinning up. It's why most people do.
    nomel · 1790299482 · focus · HN ↗
    I had level 1, but it was just ridiculously slow. Still charging on a Tuesday, from going low the weekend before, was stupid, and made me unable to go some places. If you go above your average, it super sucks.
    maxdo · 1790299691 · focus · HN ↗
    i do charge at home, i have 50 Amps , fairly average around my area. I do charge at supercharges once every 3 months. I do travel ~20k miles a year. I never limit myself on when to go just because of charging.
    IrishTechie · 1790307115 · focus · HN ↗
    In Ireland there are electricity tariffs with an extremely cheap window of 2-4 hours at night, that’s one of the main reasons people want faster charging here anyway.
    fragmede · 1790307462 · focus · HN ↗
    You're assuming a perfectly spherical driver who responsibly comes home after work every day at 6 pm and never forgets to plug in the charger, and leaves every morning at 7am, with a fixed 30 mile commute, and never has any deviation from that plan. In that case, L1 trickle charging overnight is totally viable. For people with more varied personal lives such that they come home late, forget or are too tired to plug in the charger, leave early to take a friend to the airport, or come home, change clothes/take a shower and then go back out for a couple of hours to see friends, the car doesn't charge sufficiently before next day's trip. This is easily solved by installing an L2/L3 charger at home, but those aren't free so want to be factored into the TCO calculation. Pretending otherwise is ignoring the reality of how real people live.
    DiogenesKynikos · 1790308346 · focus · HN ↗
    All you have to do is to plug in at work or home once every few days. Even at <5kW, you can easily make up for a few days of commuting in a few hours.
    Even the cheapest cars have ranges of around 400 km. That's several days of commuting. You can forget to charge for three days and you'll still be fine.
    ashdksnndck · 1790314697 · focus · HN ↗
    You don’t need to get to 100% every night if your vehicle has hundreds of miles of range. If you’re charging 40 miles overnight and using 20 miles on average, and your vehicle has 250 miles of range, that gives you massive margin to do stuff that consumes lots of additional miles on random days. In the rare edge case that you actually use up your entire range, you can then go to an L3 charging station and top off quickly.
    Obviously, if you’re the kind of person who often drives 100+ miles day after day, then L1 charging isn’t going to meet your needs. Those people should budget for an L2 charger at home. Otherwise, upgrading your home charger is a fun optimization for nerds, but not a prerequisite to own an electric car.
    fennecbutt · 1790299175 · focus · HN ↗
    3.5kw*12=42kwh. That's like half the capacity of a fairly decent range EV.
    How many people are really driving 240~ miles per day? Practically nobody...that's like 3.5 hours at motorway speeds.
    Inb4 the typical response of "every American commutes 99999 miles per day!!!"
    Charging at 1kw at home would be perfectly fine for average use cases.
    remusrm · 1790301867 · focus · HN ↗
    you do not consider most commutes in US cities are around 45 min plus and 30-45 miles one way. Also stop and go traffic drains the batter faster
    taneq · 1790317548 · focus · HN ↗
    It actually doesn’t (at least for me) due to regen braking and reduced drag. I use about 10-15% less juice on a 28km trip in heavy traffic than at a steady 105km/h.
    PetitPrince · 1790317978 · focus · HN ↗
    "Stop and go drains the battery faster": my understanding is that it's not the case. You recover a good chunk of the energy with regen braking, and EV motor are more efficient at low speed (hyper miling drivers are driving slow).
    ted_dunning · 1790319394 · focus · HN ↗
    The average one way commute distance in the US is only 14.4 miles and the median is around 9 [1]. The one way average commute time is about 27 minutes.
    As such, I don't think that "most" commutes in US cities are 30+ miles and 45 minutes or more.
    [1] <a href="https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distance-by-state" rel="nofollow">https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/average-commute-distanc... Data sourced from US census data.
    BobbyTables2 · 1790302367 · focus · HN ↗
    Seems like it could get annoying if one wants a full charge but has to plan up to 4 days in advance, compared to a 10 minute gas station run.
    motionlessveloc · 1790305634 · focus · HN ↗
    What do you need to "plan"? Plug it in when you get home, and it'll be charged by the morning.
    Spooky23 · 1790307059 · focus · HN ↗
    It really doesn’t. Public chargers can take care of the oddball issues.
    Once you have one of these things, the problems that sound insurmountable turn out to be not much.
    atonse · 1790307492 · focus · HN ↗
    It sounds like you might not own an EV.
    The #1 thing (in my opinion) that makes a difference in how easy it is to own an EV is whether you have a driveway or predictable parking spot overnight. Then you just stop thinking about this sort of stuff, ever.
    In fact, since I got an EV (I have a two-car garage), I have forgotten to even check my gas car's fuel levels and have driven it near empty a handful of times, I simply forget to even check.
    And as others have said, unless you're driving 250mi a day, a regular commute, you can recharge your car on a wall outlet. It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
    anon7725 · 1790318051 · focus · HN ↗
    > It does about 12 miles of range per hour, you can easily get about 100 miles of range every night.
    I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption. A standard household outlet can do up to 3.5kw on 230v whereas in North America a standard outlet is 15A at 120v which only gives you a max of 1.8kw (realistically more like 1.6kw). To get increased power you need a 240v circuit which is typically only for selected appliances like dryers, induction cooktops, heat pumps, etc.
    cucumber3732842 · 1790332140 · focus · HN ↗
    >I wonder if the residential 230v standard in many parts of the world contributes to EV adoption.
    The veracity to which the government enforces rules that make work for variorus electrical professionals and manufactures has a lot more to do with it IMO.
    In some places an EV charger install is a "here's the best we could do, you might trip the main breaker if you fast charge while running the stove and water heater and dryer all at once"
    In some places it's permits and panel upgrades, and, "have to bring X up to code while we're at it, that'll be <1/3 cost of car>", and, and, and, (to the cheers of the same demographics who complain adoption is to slow no less).
    DiogenesKynikos · 1790308201 · focus · HN ↗
    That's when you drive to the nearest fast-charging station, where you can charge from nearly empty to full in <10 minutes.
    microtonal · 1790314555 · focus · HN ↗
    We have had an EV for two years and it’s not a problem at all. We don’t even have a charger at home (apartment complex).
    A lot of parking spots have chargers. So we only charge it when e.g. bringing our daughter to sports or when my wife is at her choir. That way the car practically always has enough juice.
    When traveling, we’ve found that we are generally more efficient. We stop every three hours anyway to get a drink or eat something and hook it up to a fast charger. Since we would have these breaks with an ICE vehicle as well, we skip the separate stop for refueling.
    It’s funny, the first time we made a long trip with our EV we tried to plan where to charge, etc. Now we just go without thinking about it, because there are always some fast charging options when you need it (though e.g. NL is much better than DE).
    eldaisfish · 1790349620 · focus · HN ↗
    this is not a problem for you, given where you are, and your lifestyle.
    Those are absolutely massive caveats.
    Where i am in Canada, relying on public charging is just not practical.
    yatopifo · 1790352936 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m a fresh EV convert, and this used to be my worry. In practice, it’s not an issue for me even though i can add close to 1000 km to my odometer on a single weekend. I typically keep my battery above 40%, and when i have a road trip planned, i start charging overnight a couple of days in advance to get to 80% or above from my 120V outlet. Let’s say i forgot to charge in advance… i simply drive to the nearest fast charger and top it up to however much i need. For context, i live in a very cold climate, and the charging infrastructure here is pretty sparse. So, basically, it’s close to the worst case scenario, and yet i’m fine. Where i could see a problem though is if i had to make my long weekend road trips in the winter. But i never had to even when i had a gas car, so it’s not really a problem. But as they say, YMMV.
    fennecbutt · 1790388858 · focus · HN ↗
    15-20 minute charging station run*
    Depending on charger power. The new Renault 5 comes in at 52kwh, 100kw charging, that's just over half an hour for a true zero to hero charge, unrealistic because they pretty much never run to 0.
    And many support 150kw and over now. Some hyundais and others do 350!
    So still, a nonissue. If someone pointed out that you can transport extra fuel in a jerry can then that's valid. If you're crossing Nairobi desert or something.

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