Musk is, of course, the gift that keeps on giving. Today’s Twitter outage is a case study in why most tech companies don’t fire most of their engineers in one go.
But there was another story that caught my eye, as an illustration of how little Musk-ish MoTUs grasp normal human emotion–despite what I’m sure some in the Muskverse see as further evidence of his business genius.
That is: if you happen to want a Tesla Model S or X, you’re in luck: it’s a noticeably cheaper today than it was yesterday, and much less expensive than it was in at the turn of the year:
In 2022, a dual-motor all-wheel-drive Tesla Model S went for $104,990. In January, Tesla chopped about 10 percent off the price, dropping it to $94,990. Today, it’s another $5,000 cheaper at $89,990.
For those who want to go really fast, the Model S Plaid, which uses three motors for a sub-2-second 0–60 mph time and a 200 mph top speed, is now $109,990, $5,000 less than last week and $26,000 less than you’d have paid in 2022.
The Model X SUV sees even bigger discounts. After heavy price drops in January, Tesla has now cut an extra $10,000 from Model X prices. That means the all-wheel-drive dual-motor version now starts at $99,990, with the triple-motor Plaid Model X starting at $109,990.
All good, right? Unless you’re one of the (relatively few) poor suckers who took delivery in the last few weeks, not to say last year.
Which means, I guess, buy now. Or not. Or wait. Or not:
How long those prices will stay is anyone’s guess. Within less than a month of enacting its January price cuts, Tesla had already increased the prices of the Model Y crossover again.
Here’s the thing: I don’t know about you all–but I hate to feel dumb. I hate to feel like I made a bad deal. It’s one of the reason I (and everyone I know) hates car shopping, used, or new or whatever. It’s just so damn hard to know how badly I’m being schrod at any moment.
One of Tesla’s selling points is that you never had to wonder. It was direct to buyer, no dealer bullshit, fixed price–what you see is what you get. That may not have been the decisive advantage for the new car maker, but it helped.
Now–not so much.
Tesla does make cars lots of people want, and they’re not terrible. Hell, at current price-and-gov’t-incentives the Model 3 is actually kind of a bargain, almost an eveeryone’s electric vehicle. Tesla also has the production capacity to deliver them to many more people than any of the legacy or start up car makers that have entered the EV market. I’ve bashed Tesla (and Musk) a lot, and will do so some more, but despite what many on these comment threads have said, their cars are not all even mostly farce.
But, but, but….brands and brand reputations accumulate over years. They can crumble much more quickly. There’s nothing really special about Tesla offerings now. Rather, a growing number of choices are out there that do as well and often much better at meeting people’s transportation and coolness desires. Every miss matters–and if you think buying a Tesla will make you feel like you’ve been cheated a year or a month from now, that’s not good business.
Or so it seems to me. But what do I know?
I drive a 2o13 plugn-in Priuus, AKA the most boring car known to humankind.
Open this thread!
Image: Advertisement, 1908
Baud
Nothing all day and now a stomp.
craigie
I am in the market for an EV, and it won’t be a Tesla.
HinTN
@craigie: Volkswagen, if you’re comfortable with the availability of other-than-home charging and the wait for delivery.
I love my RAV4 Hybrid!
Another Scott
Yeah, moving prices up and down will piss people off. Though I wonder how many of the $100k versions they actually sell.
Meanwhile, … InsideEVs.com:
(Emphasis added.)
Seems bad.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
Im assuming the answer is FREEDOM, but I’ve always wondered about the wisdom of making cars that grossly exceed speed limits. Where can you drive 200 mph? Do you think you’d be good at driving that speed?
Baud
@Another Scott:
Probably driver error.
Another Scott
@craigie: I’m looking at the Kia Niro PHEV EX. I don’t think I’ll actually buy anything soon, and I wish it were smaller, but it seems like a decent compromise (price, mileage, carrying capacity, features) for now. Out the door prices are still crazy elevated, but seem to be coming down from the peak.
Happy hunting!
Cheers,
Scott.
craigie
@Another Scott:
@HinTN:
I have owned two Chevy Volts – fantastic cars – but now it’s time to kick the (gas) can completely. Right now the KONA Electric seems likely, partly because of dealer incentive pricing. But I am surveying the field again.
Freemark
If I thought the plug in RAV-4 would ever be available to buy at MSRP that’s what I would get. The approximately 40 mile range would fit my commute but would allow my few longer trips per month. I may opt for a used Volt even though I wanted AWD.
different-church-lady
Oh lovely! A car that used to be more than five times what I could afford is now only 4.5 times what I can afford!
JaneE
I won’t be in the market for a pure EV for a few years yet – too many miles between stops right now. Many businesses will give you the difference if they have a lower price within 30 days. If Tesla is going to play musical prices, maybe they should do the same.
Freemark
@Sure Lurkalot: It can drive itself at that speed for you instead. Perfectly safe!
moops
My car is worth $15,000 less now after I just drove it off the lot? Wah??? how the???
In other words, this happens to everyone who has ever bought a new car, always, no matter what car you buy over $50K.
We have had a recent bubble in used car values, but when we regress to the mean, it will be true again for everyone who ever buys a new car.
Musk is a doofus who has done dozens of stupid things just in the past year, but if you need to bag on him because he has recently enacted price discounts for perfectly understandable strategic reasons….maybe you need to take a step away and circle back to some of his other objectively stupid recent decisions.
sdhays
It’s crazy how the Prius, which was legitimately a revolutionary car, is considered “the most boring car known to humankind”.
I don’t know when I’ll be in the market for a car again, but at least Toyota seems to have fired the meth-addled dashboard designers who were running things 10 years ago when I was considering buying one. “Wait, wait – hear me out. We’ll include a shifter AND make the driver press a button to put the car in park, like NO OTHER CAR IN EXISTENCE! It will be EPIC!”
NobodySpecial
Cars that cost more than my house? Miss. Maybe if I’m lucky EV’s will be cheap enough to buy a couple of years before I’m too old to drive. I’m doubting it.
Carlo Graziani
No, that seems about right.
We do owe a debt of gratitude to Tesla, for standing up a new US car company (very hard) and creating a market with actual momentum for EVs (much harder), which none of the established automakers seemed interested in even attempting. The aesthetic isn’t for me, but that’s because that market was originally evoked from an iPhone-wielding SillyValley demographic.
Now that customers and charging infrastructure exist, though, it seems unlikely that Tesla will be the main beneficiary. With far less investment and risk, other automakers can enter the market and fill all the niches, including both Tesla’s and the ones that Tesla doesn’t have the capacity to reach. They can hire engineers who are every bit as good as Tesla’s—and in fact are probably seeing a surge of resumes from nervous Tesla employees right now.
It’s an old story: first to market doesn’t guarantee primacy, except perhaps in ecommerce, which the auto biz is not and never will be. Tesla is likely to see Ford et alia eat the lunch that they so painstakingly prepared for themselves.
Kent
I drive a 2015 Prius that I bought when I had a 23 mile 1-way commute when we first moved back to WA. It’s been a good car other than one quirk. I’ll give it to my daughter when she goes to college since she likes driving it and get a real EV then (fall of 2024).
Most likely one with an 800 volt battery system because I’m a science teacher and higher voltage means 2x faster charging and less need for heavy wires. The only 3 EVs that are 800 volt today are the Hyundai, Porsche, and Audi. But maybe by 2024 there will be more choices.
sdhays
@Kent: I still can’t quite comprehend how Toyota has gotten caught with its pants down over EV’s because…they were certain hydrogen fuel cells were going to be what everyone wanted. I mean, who knows, maybe that’s the future (I have my doubts) and I guess Japan’s government has subsidized investment there (although I wonder how much of that is due to Toyota’s lobbying), but you’d think a company the size – and general competence – of Toyota could have better prepared for demand for EV’s taking off.
Shantanu Saha
My family has still got my 2005 Prius and 2011 Highlander Hybrid, and other than some body damage on the Prius (fixed myself last year, so it doesn’t look so bad anymore) and wonky rear liftgate motor on the Highlander, I’m planning to run the Prius at least another two years to round it out to an even 20 before I even think about replacing it, unless it suffers catastrophic failures like the hybrid battery failing or getting into a crash where it gets totaled.
toine
Genesis – not an EV but what you see is what you get… Great customer service, great car. The EV market is still “wait 6 months” after a down payment or buy a Tesla… no on both counts. I’ll wait until the market has matured somewhat…
Splitting Image
@Carlo Graziani:
I would almost love to see Ford become the main beneficiary of Musk’s idiocy solely because the Ford company revolutionized the market for cars using the internal combustion engine, but quickly became second fiddle to General Motors. It would be fun to see that go full circle.
Shantanu Saha
@sdhays:
Perhaps Toyota execs figured they already had enough tech to get into Battery-Electrics if they needed to quickly (having mastered hybrids before everyone else, they just needed to take the ICE engine out and beef up the battery, and the plug-in versions were a step in that direction) and decided to steal a march on hydrogen, which would require solving a host of technological and logistical problems. In the meantime Tesla stole a march on BEVs.
cain
@craigie: I think the Hyundai and KIA have some really good winners. Of course, it seems that DeLorean is making their first car in 40 years and it is a full on electric!
cain
@sdhays: Wasn’t BMW making big investments with hydrogen cells?
I think the attraction is that you don’t need to wait to charge, you can just do a swap. But honestly, I still prefer electric since I can just charge overnight.
Hydrogen cells sounds like I would have to go to a dealer or something. I think at the time this was conceived – nobody was quite sure about how electric delivery was going to work. But Tesla actually solved that problem quite well.
cain
@Splitting Image: Also, they loved Nazis – so there is another poetic moment there.
JWR
Wait, I thought that was the Ford Taurus. ;) Not a bad car, actually. I drove one home from Santa Cruz to SoCal, but bo-ring! I still drive a 1995 Toyota Corolla, and I’ve had a few expensive but necessary repairs, but the odometer reads 109k, so I’m keeping it. Besides, I’m living on SS Disability Insurance, so no new anything for me!
NotMax
Short(ish) entertaining look at some powering concepts bandied about by Ford during the 50s, 60s and 70s.
trollhattan
Plowing through Bay Area Friday traffic last week we were taken by how much of said traffic comprised Teslas–3s mostly. They definitely outnumbered F150s, something I can’t claim locally. No wonder Musk wanted to ditch California, we like his dang cars too much.
Central Valley air will not attain EPA quality goals until the fleet is predominantly electric. Can’t happen fast enough.
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays: A plug-in one, no less.
I test-drove a bunch of hybrids when I bought mine, and one of my favorites was not the Prius, but the hybrid Corolla. It felt fun to drive, and was also the cheapest car I test-drove and one of the most efficient. I was shocked because I recall Corollas getting weird bad industrial design about 10 years ago and I hated them. But they’re good again. Unfortunately I didn’t buy it because somebody else snapped up the last model on the lot while I was dithering.
I got a hybrid Hyundai Sonata instead. Good car, and I’m sure my daughter is happy I got that one because it was the most comfortable car for passengers, especially in back, of any of the ones I test-drove. But it drives like the family cruiser it is, not quite as fun for the driver.
It will probably be the last gasoline-powered car we buy, though. I think my wife is thinking about taking the leap and replacing her Juke with an electric when the time comes.
NotMax
BTW, mastodon.social hit with a major DDOS attack. If you’re experiencing difficulties there, that is why.
Tom Levenson
@sdhays: You have to understand. I don’t have just any Prius. I have the 1st gen. plug-in, which is no more powerful than the standard hybrid, weighs more, and goes 0-60 in just under 13 seconds.
It’s perfectly adequate. It has enough oomph 40-60 to make merging on freeways ok; it’s just a touch more efficient than the hybrid-only examples, and it’s incredibly cheap to run and maintain.
But there is zero driving engagement or pleasure. It’s noisy as hell at highway speeds (sound deadening is a luxury when you’re trying to shave weight). It has an adequate ride—but it’s not gliding across broken pavement. Its seats don’t kill you on a three hour run, but they aren’t noticeably comfortable either. It’s got four wheels on the road; it gets us where we need to go; it sips gas; and it never ever breaks.
It’s a fantastic appliance. And a really, really dull car.
Gvg
My sister loved her Prius until the airbag didn’t go off in a major crash. It put her off the brand and sort of bugged me. No real explanation and they don’t have a history of it. She just got a lemon or bad luck. I do recall how excited she was to finally be able to afford the cool new car that was as green as they got back then. So now I am kind of wait and see…
I also can’t afford these kinds of cars. I hope they keep making reasonable priced old style cars while they work out how to actually make something electric that is affordable. Because I am telling you these prices make electric cars almost offensive to people with low wages who are struggling. They aren’t even aspirational. And the news of how much money Musk could spend on Twitter probably did not make a lot more potential customers for his cars IMO. Sometimes rich men should keep out of the limelight. Or pick a better look like endowing libraries and museums and scholarships.
On the other hand I no longer have an eye for cars and am not sure if I have ever seen a Tesla but I have seen an amazing number of different kinds of personal transport devices in the last few years, electric “scooters” that are like skateboards with a steering stick, rentals and personal, then these ride on standing big wheels? And rental 1 person cars, variations on mopeds and other things seen once going by, maybe they will catch on. I guess it’s because of the big University town but this is all over not just campus. Oh, did I mention fold up bikes? Take the bus part way, then pull a bike out of your bag for the rest of the way. People are trying all kinds of combinations. It’s interesting.
Tom Levenson
@Gvg: I don’t know what counts as aspirational, but if/when you can find a Chevy Bolt or Bolt EUV at MSRP, the federal and, if you’re lucky, state incentives can make them pretty affordable (as in well below the median new car price).
I’m not sure what the current federal rule requires, but if you tick off all the boxes, it’s $7,500 as a tax credit. Here in the Hub of the Universe, Massachusetts adds another $2,500 in sweeteners. Which means that a net of $20,000 for a new Bolt is plausible.
That’s still a lot of money by any reckoning…but the median new car price in the US right now is almost $50,000 (unbelievable and unsustainable, IMHO), so, in relative terms, a bargain.
(Note: there’s a $4,000 federal credit for a used EV bought from a dealer at a price below $25,000. Not sure how many of those exist, but every little bit helps.)
different-church-lady
@Tom Levenson:
In a sane world that’s all we’d want.
You left out idiotic.
Jackie
I’m nursing my ‘06 Pontiac Vibe for as long as I can. I love it; great mileage and just over 100,000 miles. I’ll cry when I have to replace it. I hope when the time comes, I can get a gently used compact hybrid SUV that will give me as much pleasure as my Vibe does.
VOR
I have a 2013 Prius and I actually like the button to park feature. Imagine you waiting in line, such as picking up fast food. I simply hit a button and I’m in park, no need to move a shifter from D through N, through R, to P. And vice versa when I need to move again. Push button to park then move directly back to D when it is time to move again.
Yeah, driving a Prius does not stir your soul. It’s an appliance to get you from A to B.
Matt McIrvin
@VOR: On mine they entirely replaced the shift lever with pushbuttons, which makes slightly more sense. The software that’s actually in control is sophisticated enough to prevent bad things from happening.
Also the parking brake is electronic and it does things like automatically disengaging it when you go to D (and automatically engaging it when you park on a hill–personally I think it should just do it always, but that’s the logic). I now have to think to do these things manually when driving a different car.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Dave, this kind of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to… human error.
Glidwrith
@Shantanu Saha: Welp, our 2010 Prius did suffer the hybrid battery failure, but was still drivable and then Mr. Glidwrith DID total it. So, while he is thankfully unharmed, we are indeed purchasing another very boring car, because I want only two things: reliability and mileage.
Timill
@VOR: Either of you got the Prius V wagon? Some clown in a Tacoma wrote off my Fusion, and a 2013 Prius V wagon is a possible replacement – there’s a couple available locally
Also on the list: a 2014 Subaru Impreza wagon with the ultimate in anti-theft devices – it’s a stick…
CaseyL
I’ve never been a car nut, but have been deeply fond of most the cars I’ve owned. Never bought one new, that always seemed such a waste of money. And now every new car comes with bells and whistles I could not care less about. And they’re so damned huge, with hoods nearly taller than I am.
I do want my next car to be an EV, but that will (knock wood) be some years off still. I’d love an eWagon, if anyone ever makes one. I like station wagons a LOT. (My current car is not a wagon. Sigh.). There’s something very reassuring about having decent cargo space. (No, no SUVs. I don’t like them at all.)
Jeff
The big reason for Tesla before was as much their charger network as the car. They had a plan for deployment, spent their own money on it, and fix them promptly. Just plug in, and the car identifies itself, and charging happens.
it is the case that the charger network for SAE, is getting built. But unlike Tesla, the car vendors want other people to pay for its construction. They don’t always get the prime spots, it takes signing up with multiple providers, and they may not get maintained promptly. You have to juggle a bunch of phone apps, rfid tags, or hope the credit card reader is feeling like working.
I have been driving for the past 7 years a short range (24 kWh) VW egolf. It replaced an original Prius. I also have a stinkpot microvan, (mazda5) from before the EV happened. It’s reserved for when I need to go past the 90 miles of my current battery, move something bulky or tow something. It sees about 3,000 miles a year, tops. (I actually have to keep a trickle charger on it during the winter months)
Since I no longer need two vehicles, I am hoping that VW USA will actually follow through with importing the id.buzz, their EV retake on the original microbus. If real, and has primary vehicle range (250 miles) I will happily trade in both for one.
of course the real and difficult problem to solve is overnight “at home” charging for all the urbanites that are dependent on on-street parking. The thing that makes EV work for the suburbs, is the presence of a driveway, with access to an outlet (for daily use a wall outlet is plenty) where you sleep. For most EV owners 90%+ of all charging happens at home, normally when you are asleep. You only need the high speed charger network when you are on the sort of trip that would have you buying gas twice in one day.
(the US has the highest annual mileage, almost 15K per year. 40 miles a day, or less than 8 hours with the wimpiest of wall outlet chargers)
Sister Golden Bear
@trollhattan:
Tesla 3s are the Corolla of Silicon Valley.
Ken
I forget to turn on manual headlights — and, judging by the number of cars I see driving without them, so do a lot of people.
different-church-lady
@Ken: Don’t… get me started… on… FUCKING HEADLIGHTS!!!! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, WHY THE FUCK HAVE HEADLIGHTS BECOME EVIL INCARNATE I FUCKING HATE EVERY GODDAMNED THING…
I… uh… where was I?
Last summer I had the misfortune to drive a rental vehicle. I spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to make the headlights go out, before I finally realized THERE WAS NO WAY TO MAKE THEM GO OUT UNTIL I OPENED THE DOOR TO LEAVE THE VEHICLE. FUCK YOU EVERY FUCKING COMPANY THAT MAKES ANY GODDAMNED THING ANYMORE!!!!
Carlo Graziani
@different-church-lady: Have you met the cars whose hatchback, with all your stuff in it won’t lock, no matter what you do, until you and the key move more than 50 feet away?
Yeah, I pictured some engineers in hell after that rental.
Carlo Graziani
@different-church-lady: The problem seems to be that “EVERY FUCKING COMPANY THAT MAKES ANY GODDAMNED THING ANYMORE” appears to wish that it were in the mobile phone/cloud/ecommerce business, instead of the business that they are actually in. The “thinking” appears to be that folks are more comfortable controlling their toasters from their phones, and watching porn on their Internet-connected refrigerator screens while they fill ice.
A good friend is in a marital situation that requires that the family car be a BMW or else. And, Oh My God. The goddamned thing is a mobile phone with some automotive features. It has the same utterly clueless approach to “safety” features that phone apps have to user autonomy—“no thanks, we know better!”. It will cheerfully “correct” your steering based on road lane markings, even if you are trying to avoid a pothole, or a dog. It will make quirky, irreproducible and unpredictable decisions concerning navigation, or media (his wife has taken to stashing a bluetooth speaker in the car so as to avoid using the media center). And there is an exit off Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive where it suddenly turns off all navigation and other phone-borne functionality, repeatably, for no discernible reason at all.
That is to say, this car has gone through the sort of Quality Assurance testing that one would ordinarily associate with a mobile phone app, rather than the QA traditionally applied in automotive engineering. The automotive engineers at BMW appear to have lost every argument that they had with software/mobile/cloud engineers. And if you know anything about the engineering reliability practices of the latter group, that should make you very afraid every time that you even see a BMW on the road.
I just hope this isn’t the future of all cars. Having them designed by software engineers would combine insult with injury.
RaflW
A few years ago, I might have been tempted by a Tesla. Now? No way. I just don’t think the build quality is there. If he keeps frittering away value at the bird app, which seems likely, how much is that going to suck from his car company? Plus, he’s just such a d-head.
We somewhat reluctantly just bought a new Subie Crosstrek to supplant a 2000 Corolla. Don’t get me wrong, we love the new ‘Roo! The reluctance was that what we wanted was a plug-in hybrid. The wait for a RAV4 with that propulsion was extreme. And when we test drove a conventional RAV4, it was really uninspiring. Yes the Crosstrek is a bit smaller, but man it is nimble and sooo comfy.
I still love my ’15 Outback. 31.5 lifetime mpg, which for its size is decent. (Onboard computer calculated. I’d frankly discount that about 1 mpg).
I think the play now is to wait 3 years for the ’15 (maybe?) to be ready to go to a good second home, and then get an all-electric Subie (which is sort of an all-electric Toyota, but so be it) if it shakes out well and supplies increase by then.
RaflW
@Ken: Oh, the number of people driving around at night with only their Daytime Running Lights (and thus, very poor forward visibility and NO rear or side marker lights on) just drives me BONKERS.
I was very sympathetic to a fellow Outback driver a while back. We were in a lengthy traffic jam on I-70 at night. She was madly blinking her lights at the totally oblivious person in front of her who had only the dim DRLS on, with a totally dark ass-end of their car.
It seems like one of the things that has totally gone away since I was young: If you saw someone flashing their lights at you, you either a) checked your light switch or b) looked quickly for a speed trap. Now days flashing one’s lights never seems to elicit a headlights check.
Betsy
@Timill: I have a Prius v 2015. The v is supposed to stand for versatility (really). It’s slightly louder on a noisy road than I’d like. Other than that I’m quite happy with it.
It’s nice to have the space. (I mean, nothing like my beloved 1999 Plymouth Grand Voyager, but … )
You can camp in it! I’ve never tried but there are videos.
Splitting Image
@Carlo Graziani:
Ages ago, when the world was young and Dilbert was funny, there was one cartoon where the engineer group finished a project and had a meeting with the marketing division before the product went on sale. The first thing the marketing guy said was: “We feel our customers want hardware, not software.”
In the real world, the marketing divisions have gone the other way. Every hardware manufacturer has decided its customers want software instead.
Marc
The Buzz is supposed to make it here as a ’24 model. VW in their wisdom, however, has decided US customers will not be offered the current 5 seat version, only a lengthened 7 seat version which is 5 more seats than I typically need these days.
different-church-lady
@Splitting Image:
I don’t think it has a single fuckin’ thing to do with what the customers want anymore. It’s entirely about what the marketing team wants to put on the glossy and what the boffins think is clever.
different-church-lady
@Carlo Graziani:
It is not the future of all cars.
It is the future of EVERY GODDAMNED THING IN THE WORLD, BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS.
Ramalama
@JWR: 410k miles on my 1996 Corolla until I needed new brakes and..I decided I needed awd for driving through snowstorms. I miss the reliability of my Toyota, hate the Subaru dealer in my town, but boy commuting from Boston to Montreal was an absolute joy once I got a gas guzzling turbo legacy. What a fun ride. What a fckin pain in the wallet.
lowtechcyclist
@Tom Levenson:
I sure hope that’s unsustainable. I bought my Honda Civic brand new in 2016 for almost exactly $20,000.
And to think that my wife and I bought our first house in 1994 for $68,250.
But car prices really aren’t going to be a big deal in our lives. The sudden end of commuting to work has effectively added years to the lives of both of our vehicles. We may only be in the market to buy a new car once more in our lives, which is a weird notion to wrap my head around.
Steve in the ATL
@different-church-lady: it’s been SO helpful having an internet-connected refrigerator. Don’t know how I ever lived with a fridge that wasn’t.
/sarcasm
cmorenc
@HinTN:
Same here – 42mpg, both city and road. Comfortable, everything works. Only minor nick is that Toyota tends to nanny you to death by default. *ding* *ding* ahem, yes I know, the driver’s side door is open – cause I’m stopped, the car is off, and I’m getting out, don’t need to be notified the darn door is open. But that said, I would gladly buy a Toyota Rav-4 again, but probably have to wait 300k+ for the thing to wear out. Hybrid car battery life in Toyotas (or Fords, which is based on Toyota technology) is turning out to be far longer than initially predicted – my previous hybrid, a Ford Escape hybrid, went 275k and the wear-out factor wasn’t the battery!
Paul in KY
@toine: I have a Genesis 3.8 from 2016. Very nice car.
Paul in KY
@Gvg: That electric wheel thing costs $4,000.
Death Panel Truck
My wife wants to trade in her 2010 Outback for a new Nissan (can’t remember the model name at the moment). I told her we should wait a few years and see how much better an electric car will be by then. We have solar panels, so we could charge the car at home for virtually nothing.
I do want an EV, but I’m sure I’ll never find one as fun to drive as our old 1962 Buick Electra 225. That sucker floated on air.
wenchacha
@Tom Levenson: Is that fed credit on <$25k EVs retroactive at all? My son is happy with his used Leaf. Bonus, he can charge it for free at work. His wife drives an old Scion Xb; perfect for hauling all her artwork.
When we visit them in Mountain View, CA, we see all the nice cars. My husband marvels at the fancy ones. It’s crazy to see so many expensive cars parked on the street!