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Comment by rapsey | Hacker News Reader

If you're buying an EV, it seems buying one from traditionally ICE manufacturers is a bad idea. With the exception of Hyundai. They all seem to be quite shit.

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I can't speak to the EV's coming from other ICE manufacturers but, my wife bought a Mach-E a couple of months ago it's an amazing vehicle. It's one of the smoothest rides of any car I've ever driven and doesn't blink on getting up steep hills. I drove a Prius once and I could swear I heard it breathing hard.

The self-driving works very well though in a purposely limited capacity.

After driving that car and researching the economics of owning an EV, I'm squarely convinced that I'll never buy another gas-powered car again.

BMW seems to be doing pretty well at everything but styling.

and pricing - wildly overpriced for what they are. and software in the console - which is also awful

The i4 doesn't seem exceptionally bad to me. Although they really need NACS in the US.

I don't know if "shit" or not, but I hadn't realized that many of the traditional ICE manufacturers are simply retrofitting ICE cars with EV parts. I test drove an audi q6 the other day and I was like "oh this feels and looks exactly like the ICE version". Turns out it doesn't even have a frunk. Why? because its the same exact model as the ICE, they just ripped out the ICE engine and put an EV one in. No wonder there expected range is awful...nothing about the car is engineered towards the advantages of using all electric (with the exception of no exhaust pipe).

300+ mile range seems pretty good. Most of my car use only ends up being maybe 10 miles a day, with only maybe once every three months going anywhere close to 300 miles. With three kids, I don't really want to travel longer than that.

Let's compare a Luxury SUV (Q8) vs Luxury Sedan (Tesla)

Range:

- Tesla Model S - 385mi (95 kWh battery) - 10hrs to fully charge

- Audi Q8 - 257mi (106kWh battery) - 11hrs to fully charge

Cargo volume:

- Q8 - 569 L

- Tesla Model S - 709 L

These ICE converted cars simply are not optimized for battery setups. How on earth does a luxury sedan have that much more space than an SUV and still performs better on battery efficiency? The Rivian R1S (built from the ground up), has an optional 140 kWh battery with 400mi range, and has 1,323 L cargo (or ~480 L with a 3rd row seat).

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x4Dyf_HkXDoXnuh6rJ5z...

As opposed to buying from a company which routinely delivers cars with shoddy quality such as misaligned panels and worst of all cracked frame?

Any data to back up your "routinely delivers" anecdote to try and slander Tesla?

All MachEs were just recalled for being unfit for use, even if some body panels were misaligned on Teslas (they aren't any different from every other brand, panels gaps issue is a myth), who in this story is delivering vehicles with worse quality?

The Mercedes EVs are beautiful and really do a good job of representing the brand.

What's so good about Hyundai?

I have noticed a terrible amount of "model churn". I was looking for a used EV and there's quite a few where the manufacturer only made that range for a couple of years and then stopped.

From what I've read, the Ioniq 5 is really good (and built from the ground up).

This seems like a massive generalization.

Companies like Nissan, GM, and BMW have very mature EV tech and EV experience.

I wouldn’t jump to generalizing. I’d rather stick with the tried and true “Ford makes shitty cars.”

Kia ain't doing so bad either.

Isn't Kia the same as Hyundai?

It's the same group, but they are separate companies. They do share a lot of parts and platforms, though. KIA EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are built on the same platform.

Hyundai Motor Company (the parent owner of Hyundai, Genesis) has a controlling stake in Kia, but my understanding is that they pretty much let the Kia designers do what they want.

I like my Chevy Bolt, personally. Which vehicles and what specifically about them is shit?

I've not heard anything bad about Polestar (Volvo).

My current opinion of automakers who are on the right track with their EVs:

BMW: No

BYD: No

Ford: No

GM: Yes

Honda: Maybe

Hyundai: Yes

Merc: Maybe

Rivian: Maybe

Tata: Maybe

Toyota: No

Tesla: Yes

VAG: Yes

Nissan didn't even make the cut.

I thought about leaving Japan totally off because they just can't seem to build a decent EV to save themselves; I made a mistake leaving Honda as a Maybe; they kind of threw in the towel today.

All the Chinese EV makers are mostly making e-waste at the moment: mad rush to the bottom. Can't wait to see the photos of the fields with tens of thousands of these junked cars in a couple of years--

Biggest complaints with the LEAF or ARIYA?

GM? They are building a bunch of tanks that get super poor eMPG and don't have CarPlay.

They uncancelled the Bolt and honestly they are bluffing with CarPlay as well; it will be back. They won't be able to sustain the blowback.

Their business strategy is braindead and they are going nowhere fast on their lame software: they seem to believe that the EV credit is money for them and not for their customers. They can build an ev <$30k but they only want to sell $45k EVs. I believe they will take a big hit over the next 2 years learning their lesson the hard way, but they still know how to build and integrate EVs with more economies of scale (more shared parts with economy ICE models, etc.) than their competitors.

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