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Comment by BobaFloutist | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's a coincidence that an enormous number of rideshare/delivery drivers drive priuses though. Reliable, not too expensive, low maintenance, and high mpg is kind of exactly what you'd expect them to look for.

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Not enough people know how cool the Prius hybrid system is. One would think having EV + gas would add complexity, but it actually allows them to delete a lot of parts. There is no clutch, no belts, no starter, there's practically nothing that can break. Not knowing how the regen affects braking I brought my Prius in for 80k service and asked for new brake pads and mechanic asked me why I want to replace them, they look good as new.

Only downside is the flimsy high efficiency tires, I've spent more money on tows and tires than I saved on gas.

Isn't there even less in a proper BEV? You lose the benefit of being able to pay the gas tax though.

You also lose the ability to pull over virtually anywhere and refill your tank in five minutes, as well as the maintenance benefits that come from a decades-old design versus whatever software horrors are lurking in your car.

To top that all off, in parts of CA electricity is now 50c/kWh, which makes it roughly equally expensive to charge an EV as it is to buy a tank of gas.

I love electric cars, but there is a gap between what they COULD be and what they are.

> To top that all off, in parts of CA electricity is now 50c/kWh

It's trending up to $0.90-1.00/kWh in places now.

The only reason to think an ICE vehicle doesn't have software horrors is if the vehicle in question is itself decades old. Practically every software horror of an EV is going to be found in modern ICE vehicles as well. In fact some of them have more horrors than some EVs. Subscription seat warmers anyone?

If you buy a BMW, maybe. I have a new Honda and it's perfectly fine.

The only slight pain in those priuses is removing the windshield wiper assembly to get to the spark plugs closest to the firewall. It's not like they didn't have enough room in the engine bay to the left to better engineer this. But it's something that you rarely have to do. Maybe 2-3 times for the life of the car if it reaches 300k+ miles.

Engineers hate mechanics. How can they feel your wrath unless you specifically design a giant “fuck you” into every vehicle shipped?

Being a total mechanics noob I watched a youtube video guide and did it myself to my Prius V in roughly 30 minutes. It is actually pretty easy to do. Just unscrew a couple of 10mm and 14mm bolts. I really like my prius V. it requires less maintenance that ICEs. And all the scheduled maintainance is pretty much DIY.

Also, I no longer consider any EU car brands at all. I think they wasted all their prior brand value and now buying them is simply not a smart decision.

Not to mention still roomy!

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