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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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).
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.
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.
> 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.
>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).
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).
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.
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.
3.5kW might be enough but you conclusion that 1kW is enough is absurd.
12kWh is 36 miles, closer to 25 in cold climate.
This is absolutely not a range that the average person would be happy with. And no, this isn't range anxiety or bad faith, it's literally less than the average daily commute (30 miles round trip).
I drive a PHEV with about 22kWh of usable battery and 80km EV only range. I typically do 50-70km a day and a 3.5kW charger covers most days handily. The stock ~1.4kW charger absolutely did not. I can always burn a little petrol if needed, though.
Faster charging gives you more options. 1kW might be fine on the average day for a small, efficient EV but it’d occasionally be limiting.
Typical ivory tower armchair central planner type nonsense. You can't sell a car for "average". If people are gonna take on a $30k+ purchase it needs to also handle some fraction of use cases above and beyond the "average" and handle them without many/any shenanigans.
This is why the F150 is so popular despite the amount of shaming and screeching from blathering idiots about how "you could haul that on the roof of a wagon" and "rent a truck when you need it". This is why the vast majority of EV sales have been dedicated commuter cars or sales to people who's reasonable high end use case is still comfortably within the bounds of what they can do easily. Yes you can road trip an EV (or more realistically, do a 50mi commuting day with no charging at work and then hop in and drive 100+mi somewhere on a Friday night) same as you can haul plywood on a station wagon but it takes a level of care and planning that people don't want to put in.
People.
Want.
Easy.
As the tech gets incrementally better we're seeing incremental increases in adoption, but "oh EVs are good enough now and they would be bought more than they are if people weren't stupid and/or did the math and/or were honest about what their needs are" is not a great take.
But full-sized trucks like the F150 are some of the most amazingly inconvenient vehicles on the road currently? You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
Somehow, it doesn't add up to me that people would prefer to face daily inconveniences for the sake of the one or two times a year it's useful rather than have a convenient time most of the time and have to come up with something occasionally.
With no contrast that's a little disingenuous. <a href="https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-full-year-europe-top-10-best-selling-car-models/" rel="nofollow">https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2025-full-year-euro...
>But full-sized trucks like the F150 are some of the most amazingly inconvenient vehicles on the road currently?
It's not 1983, modern trucks are some of the most amazingly convenient vehicles on the road currently.
>You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
They fit almost anywhere, can park them almost anywhere, have superior ride quality... high fuel costs and consumables are the cons.
I have used exclusively a 120V charger for the past ~3 years of EV ownership. It takes a while, but we aren't using the car when we're asleep anyway.
At least you have a charger option. The non-rich of us who rent appartments have none. The four chargers in my biulding would cost more per-mile than buying gas... if they were working. They are currently down for some random reason (new cell provider, no connectivity in our carpark.)
If you can plug your car into a standard 120v 15a outlet that will give you about 35-45 miles of range overnight. Unless you have a really long commute, that's probably enough on average, and if you have a week where you're driving more you can supplement your charging by going by a public fast-charger. 240v 15a gives you twice as much charging and probably doesn't require very expensive electrical upgrades, just finding a circuit you can dedicate to the car and swapping the breaker+outlet.
We had PHEVs that could do this <checks notes> ten years ago. All whilst looking like and driving like normal cars and not iPads on wheels.
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
You can drive hundreds of miles, but you'd only be able to charge 40-50. If your typical daily use is within that, you can go further at the weekend, or make an unexpected trip, and catch up over a few days (or at a fast charger)
Can confirm as this is what I do with my PHEV, has about 50km battery range (13kWh) but advertised range of about 900km overall.
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.
Just a heads up, you don't need an electric panel upgrade anymore for charging. There are UL-certified systems that monitor the power use for the whole panel and load shed the EV charger if needed.
plus there devices where you can even share a dryer outlet dynamically (turns car charger off when dryer is running) - if your dryer outlet is near at garage.
I own an EV while living in an apartment building with only an outside parking spot and with no EV charger at my spot, and it’s so fine. Granted I only do 1000km per month on average, but still - every other week I just leave my car parked overnight at an AC charger near my apartment complex and I’m covered, while the cost of ownership is much lower than a typical ICE car
Had to chuckle at this when outside the US the problem with EVs is that there are so many options people find it tough to choose.
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
You're right, I should have said "in the US". But it is the second biggest car market in the world, so it's not like we're irrelevant in the discussion.
freetime2 · · focus · HN ↗
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
hn_submit · · focus · HN ↗
RussianCow · · focus · HN ↗
Brendinooo · · focus · HN ↗
NegativeLatency · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0
russelg · · focus · HN ↗
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
ashdksnndck · · focus · HN ↗
nomel · · focus · HN ↗
nomel · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
maxdo · · focus · HN ↗
IrishTechie · · focus · HN ↗
fragmede · · focus · HN ↗
DiogenesKynikos · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
PetitPrince · · focus · HN ↗
ted_dunning · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
motionlessveloc · · focus · HN ↗
Spooky23 · · focus · HN ↗
Once you have one of these things, the problems that sound insurmountable turn out to be not much.
atonse · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
microtonal · · focus · HN ↗
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 · · focus · HN ↗
Those are absolutely massive caveats.
Where i am in Canada, relying on public charging is just not practical.
yatopifo · · focus · HN ↗
fennecbutt · · focus · HN ↗
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.
gertop · · focus · HN ↗
12kWh is 36 miles, closer to 25 in cold climate.
This is absolutely not a range that the average person would be happy with. And no, this isn't range anxiety or bad faith, it's literally less than the average daily commute (30 miles round trip).
taneq · · focus · HN ↗
Faster charging gives you more options. 1kW might be fine on the average day for a small, efficient EV but it’d occasionally be limiting.
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
This is why the F150 is so popular despite the amount of shaming and screeching from blathering idiots about how "you could haul that on the roof of a wagon" and "rent a truck when you need it". This is why the vast majority of EV sales have been dedicated commuter cars or sales to people who's reasonable high end use case is still comfortably within the bounds of what they can do easily. Yes you can road trip an EV (or more realistically, do a 50mi commuting day with no charging at work and then hop in and drive 100+mi somewhere on a Friday night) same as you can haul plywood on a station wagon but it takes a level of care and planning that people don't want to put in.
People.
Want.
Easy.
As the tech gets incrementally better we're seeing incremental increases in adoption, but "oh EVs are good enough now and they would be bought more than they are if people weren't stupid and/or did the math and/or were honest about what their needs are" is not a great take.
erxam · · focus · HN ↗
Somehow, it doesn't add up to me that people would prefer to face daily inconveniences for the sake of the one or two times a year it's useful rather than have a convenient time most of the time and have to come up with something occasionally.
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
Isn't Stellantis selling Ram 1500s at a pretty good clip in Europe no less.
fennecbutt · · focus · HN ↗
throwawayfifo · · focus · HN ↗
It's not 1983, modern trucks are some of the most amazingly convenient vehicles on the road currently.
>You can't fit them anywhere, can't park anywhere, the ride quality is dogshit without a huge load in the back or off-road, fuel costs are bankruptcy-inducing, they go through consumables like crazy and so on.
They fit almost anywhere, can park them almost anywhere, have superior ride quality... high fuel costs and consumables are the cons.
delecti · · focus · HN ↗
sandworm101 · · focus · HN ↗
gavinsyancey · · focus · HN ↗
sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
If all you need (and all you're capable of charging) is 35mi of range, buying an EV is incredibly stupid, and you are continually placing yourself at risk of running out of battery. If the threat of an unscheduled errand would leave you stranded, you bought the wrong car.
EVs are impractical unless all (frequently unsaid) prerequisites are met.
speedstyle · · focus · HN ↗
jonathanlydall · · focus · HN ↗
AC charger is plenty good enough and charges at about 2kW.
Last filled up my tank on July 11, since then have done about 3000km and, checking the car app now, the tank is 87% full.
Not everyone has the same typical daily commute distance, but I chose our PHEV based on ours, BYD has PHEVs with more battery and of course full EVs.
Amount of battery capacity significantly affects cost so for us the ~USD 35K for a SUV made sense. We also got it just after the Iran war started figuring it made even more sense in terms of reducing petrol costs.
cyberax · · focus · HN ↗
I installed one from Emporia, for about $500.
Alive-in-2025 · · focus · HN ↗
qwertyhjkl · · focus · HN ↗
nrabulinski · · focus · HN ↗
bashtoni · · focus · HN ↗
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
BOOSTERHIDROGEN · · focus · HN ↗
RussianCow · · focus · HN ↗