My wife and I were early electric car buyers. Too early. Because we only kept the 2011 Nissan Leaf we bought for about eight months. Even though it just had a range of about 100 miles, there were other reasons why we sold it and bought a Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid.
Now I’m driving a gas-powered Subaru Crosstrek, while my wife has a Toyota RAV 4 plug-in hybrid. It has enough electric range that she has to worry about its gasoline going bad if the car hasn’t been driven out of town for a while.
For my next car, I’d like to either get a plug-in hybrid or an all-electric vehicle. Rumor has it that the 2027 Hyundai Tucson PHEV will have 62 miles of electric range, up from 33 miles in the current model. That would beat the RAV 4 PHEV. So I’m keeping my eyes open for news about the 2027 Tucson, which will feature a major redesign.
As long as I’m car window-shopping, the recently released (in Europe) BMW ix3 electric SUV tops my dream all-electric wish list. It looks like it will be highly competitive with a Tesla Model Y, given that the BWM has up to 400 miles of range, 463 hp, and as low as 21 minutes to charge from 10 to 80%. Plus, a 4.7 second 0-60 speed.
For an in depth look at the BMW ix3 50, the first model to be released, check out this video. I wanted one so bad after watching the video.
While the Tesla Model Y is a great electric SUV, several things stand in the way of me getting one.
One is that I don’t like having to control almost everything via a big touchscreen. Consumer Reports gives the Model Y high marks, while criticizing its poor driver interface. Another is that Elon Musk has announced that Tesla is moving away from making the Model 3, Model Y, and horrible Cybertruck (the Model S and X have been discontinued) in favor of making robots and fully self-driving cars, no person involved.
This should give anyone thinking of buying a Tesla pause. I certainly am not wild about buying an electric car from a company that says it is going out of the electric car business — or at least severely downplaying its electric car business.
True, Tesla is ahead in terms of driver assistance features, including its Self-Driving Supervised feature, which is way cool. However, it appears that the BMW ix3, having been designed as an electric car from the ground up, will share Tesla’s commitment to regular software updates to the car’s hardware. So while Tesla leads now in driver assistance features, likely BMW will be rapidly catching up.
Anyway, even though Donald Trump and his Republican cronies are doing their best to hurt the electric car and renewable energy industries, they’re still the wave of the future. The Iran war has made that even more clear. Today I saw that our neighborhood gas station is charging $5.05 a gallon for regular. Yikes!
Discover more from Hinessight
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.