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.
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.
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
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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.