Hacker News Reader

Comment by root_axis | Hacker News Reader

It still absolutely rocks if acceleration speed is your most important metric (which I personally find quite compelling), but in pretty much every other aspect they're janky cars compared to similar vehicles in the same price range and even some cheaper ones. Very fun to drive though.

View on HN

THIS. "Extremely powerful & fast, fun to drive, and the company making 'em is run by an alpha macho guy who also builds space rockets"...yeah, that has huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males - who would not want to be seen in a Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, etc.

Sounds more like cargo-culting boys rather than adult males... I've personally know noone who decides car buys based on this, and this counts also 2 tesla owners. Car sale tax discounts, free charging, plenty of charging spots were the actual reasons for those 2 (myself I am still happily on petrol for next decade at least, thank you)

So, what other car (that I can buy now) gives me the same range?

Tesla Model 3 - 374 miles

BMW i4 - 365 miles

Ford Mustang Mach-E - 379 miles

BMW iX - 380 miles

Mercedes EQE - 384 miles

That's interesting. I don't own a car and I'm not looking for one, but I still had the impression Tesla was leading on range. However, they're beaten at both price levels, potentially with a significant price discount.

  Mercedes EQS 450+,   640km, €106,307
  Tesla Model S Plaid, 540km, €140,995
  Mercedes EQE 350+,   525km, € 79,850
  Tesla Model 3 LR DM, 485km, € 60,995 
  BMW i4 eDrive40,     470km, € 60,630
  VW ID.3 Pro S 5Seats 450km, € 43,720

https://ev-database.org/#sort:path~type~order=.erange_real~n...

There's a third issue besides price and range in the EV market right now. Wait time. e.g. that VW ID.3 has a wait time of over a year for delivery. That crosses it off my shopping list, unfortunately.

In Europe where I live - VW, BMW and Mercedes do not have a reliable system of recharging for longer trips. Why they are not working to create that is beyond me.

You don't seem to be across what's happening in Europe. All of the companies you mentioned are invested in Ionity which provides 350 kW chargers at over 400 locations:

https://ionity.eu/en/ionity/who-we-are

Europe has standardized on CCS Type 2 Combo for charging. Any CCS EV can charge on any CCS charging network. Teslas can charge on Ionity, BMWs can charge on Tesla chargers, charging networks like FastNed, BP, GridServe, EnBW, Circle K and friends can charge all brands, etc.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TVohXHjLro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yra3AsicSRY

Ionity is owned exactly by those actors, and seems pretty developed (and developing) to me https://ionity.eu/en/network/network-status

Ironically, the US has a head start on a nationwide EV charging network specifically because VW was a bad faith actor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrify_America#History

VW only did this because they were forced to. It's no mystery why traditional ICE manufacturers would be dragging their feet to modernize.

It is still not that great in the USA. In the Pacific Northwest, if I want to goto Spokane, I have to hope the the Electrify America charging stations in Ellensburg aren't down again. One point of failure doesn't make me feel very comfortable, especially since EA is so flaky (if Tesla opens up there supercharger network, I'll be the first to buy an adapter).

If I want to go down to John Day national monument in eastern Oregon, things are even worse. Things will get better (oh, and we want to do a trip to Anchorage someday...).

First impression: those ranges are well within manufacturing tolerances / testing quirks / etc. of each other.

Apologies in advance because I don't know much about cars, but how can there be a 100km difference just from testing quirks?

(My reply was to cjrp's comment - where the largest difference was only 19 miles.)

The i4 is overrated there. I think the 70mph test was only ~240 miles. The 3 LR does ~300 on the same test. The 3 also wins on charge speeds.

The Mach-E and ix are both a little better than they look though. The ix actually does amazingly well on range tests.

Real world range tests for highway driving:

https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

That is one of the best tests out there, IMO. I do wish they'd add their charge curve details to it somehow. Something like the estimated time to completely a 600 mile trip would be an interesting detail, as range isn't the only thing that matters.

marketing claims or real mileage? because european manufacturers making up numbers is a thing as proven in court.

Aren't all EV ranges measured based on the latest EU measurement standard? Which means cars are incredibly prepped for those tests, but the results are not made up and they are more or less comparable between models and brands.

make sure to researched tested vs claimed range, Teslas have good range but fall short from claimed range by large %, there are cars that end up having the same or better range like the Taycan even though the claimed range from Porsche is less! do your own research, correlation is not your coin, etc

Yes, its complicated. Most people are more concerned with highway miles in the real world, but the big number that gets printed is combined milage.

A Mercedes EQS has more range than even the best Tesla S Dual Motor. A Lucid Air too.

> huge emotional appeal to a large number of well-to-do males

and yet I know more female Tesla owners than male

I can't agree with that. They are certainly not janky compared to the Leaf or Bolt and up until fairly recently the 3 was price competitive with the Bolt.

Beyond that, comparisons get more complicated, but there are still perks to the 3/Y. For example, the Ioniq 5 and EV6 charge faster but have less real world range at highway speeds. In practice, this negates most of their charging advantage.

If you want the best EV sedan for road tripping in the US right now, there is nothing lower price and also better than the 3 LR.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com