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Comment by wldlyinaccurate | Hacker News Reader

Tesla fans will tell you otherwise, but pretty much all of the EVs from "traditional" automakers are more reliable than Tesla vehicles. Cheaper & easier to service too.

I've heard very good things about the Nissan LEAF, Hyundai Ioniq, Hyundai Kona, and Kia Niro. It might be a coincidence but all of these cars are packaged more like traditional cars, i.e. popping the hood allows you to access many of the components.

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More reliable? Didn’t leafs of the same time period of the Tesla models being discussed here have horrible battery degradation issues? Hyundai and Kia electrics are too new to the market to know if there will be serious issues

All those old Leafs with "horrible battery degradation" from the USA are now taxis here in Ukraine. A car model needs to be VERY reliable and maintainable to be popular as a taxi here, so it's a high praise for the Leaf. The batteries don't degrade straight to zero, they are still very usable. Battery degradation only helped to lower the price of an otherwise very nice car.

Early Leafs would apparently get their batteries cooked in Phoenix because no active cooling. We’ve got one of the first ones that rolled off the line, and eight years of Seattle weather has ours at ~12% degradation. We otherwise haven’t done shit to that car except drive it. So from my POV, I read the issues with Tesla’s and just shake my head.

Unfortunately if you're looking for a mid- to high-end EV that isn't an SUV or crossover, your choices are still pretty limited, for now. There's the Taycan now, but it's not really in the same price point as the Model S, let alone the Model 3. Maybe the Audi e-tron sedan when it comes out will be a bit more reasonable (relatively speaking).

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