Went on business travel to CA this month and decided to try driving a Tesla to see what it was like. Big mistake… coming home to my civic is painful. Coworkers told me a lot of my gripes like lack of buttons wear off after a month or so. I was already all in on electric for when my car eventually died but god, idk how long I will be able to stay ICE. Anyone else have similar experiences on test drives?
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Sorry it happened to you. I made the mistake of an overnight test drive back in 2017. Have 3 electric cars now and one diesel truck in the family.
I drove an ICE for many years, then moved to Denmark where I don’t own a car. I’ve been booking shared electric cars whenever I needed a car- Fiat 500e, BMW i3, Peugeot etc-208, nothing fancy. One time I needed a larger car and booked an ICE BMW 1, a supposedly fancy car but the lag between hitting the accelerator and the car actually responding felt intolerable!
By all accounts, reviews, etc. My wife’s car is well regarded by professional reviews and family and friends that also have the same vehicle.
But after driving an EV. Holy shit is it slow, rough and annoying to drive. Waiting for the transmission to coordinate a response to your pedal input and then give a best effort that is
Have a model 3 and a Nissan 4wd. Model 3 is the do everything car for both me and my wife. The 4wd is for towing and adventures. I drive it maybe once a week to clean the cobwebs out lol but we do about 10,000-15,000 in it over our 5weeks of PTO a year
I love ICE cars and being in Aus and doing 700-1000km in one day to travel the country on adventures, an EV won’t handle doing this whilst towing a 1500-2000kg camper and fully loaded 2200kg car.
I love my model 3 and we do regular 500-600km round trips in it to family out side of our city, but the long haul drives towing for adventures, they have a long way to go before I’ll forgo my diesel 4wd.
Ev makes total sense as a runaround and suitcase traveler for sub 400km one way trips. :-)
This happened to me. Went out to cali to visit family. My wife says hertz upgraded us for free and wanted to try a tesla.
I always knew one day i was going to get an ev just wasnt planning on it for awhile. Especially since i had just bought a brand new tacoma a year prior….
But after i drove it and came back home… i just couldnt get that feeling out of my head. It was like a virus…. Every time i got into my tacoma i just hated driving it… sold the tacoma 3 months later and bought a Y……. Lol……
that’s where my head is at now haha. not having 1 pedal driving and having to go to the gas station as someone who doesn’t drive more than 100 miles in a day I am really feeling like that will be me soon.
Same as you, Tesla model 3 test drive a few months back made me buy a rivian lol.
I have three electric and one ICE. No one wants to drive the ICE. It’s loud and not near as smooth. I never thought I’d notice so much but here we are.
I keep telling people that since I switch to Electric I feel less tired when driving long distances. I never noticed before how much engine noise was so oppressive on my energy levels.
Autopilot also helps with driving fatigue.
I got an inexpensive old Fiat 500e for my daughter to use and although it’s a really cute little short range EV, I really miss Autopilot when driving it.
The Autopilot is huge help. Even the latest Toyota Safety Sense is pretty darn good. I rented a 2021 Prius for a month and it was excellent on long boring stretches of highway. It was about 80% as good as my 2015 Model S with AP1.
It really is a game changer, much like standard active cruise control was when that became widely introduced. Remember the old days of having to adjust the speed with the button or turning it off every time you came up on another car?
Last long trip was 11 hours and I did it myself and got there with no fatigue. The other times in gas cars I would do 5-6 hours and have to swap with my wife because I was so tired. Even just the micro managing constantly of lane corrections really uses a lot of energy.
Yep I sure do remember those days. Don’t miss them at all!
Last winter I drove my Model S from Boston to Tampa. 90% of the drive was on Autopilot. I arrived in 2 days feeling refreshed. I stopped every 3 hours for 30-40 minutes for charge/rest too.
The current gen 500e has really good lane centering/adaptive cruise. In most highway driving situations it’s actually better than my Model Y. You don’t need to manually reactivate lane keep after lane changes in the Fiat.
Sadly not available in the USA yet.
Even without using AP?
I got rid of my truck for a M3 for this exact reason and driving has become… tolerable.
That is true, however not all ICE suffer from this. I’ve got a 2015 Model S and before that a 2006 Lexus LS430.
The Lexus powertrain was 2nd to none in the luxury car world. Dead silent and smooth as butter.
Most people who complain about engine noise seem to be coming from broken down old beaters or very cheap economy cars. I mean, even a Toyota Camry from a few years ago is pretty quiet (at least the V6). At highway speed, your engine has to be in pretty bad shape if you can hear it over the wind and road noise.
My co-worker explained how she had to drive her parents BMW SUV when they stayed over to babysit her daughters for the holiday break last year. The family’s Tesla was being used by the husband for a work trip but she figured that her parents BMW would do nicely (plus, it’s a BMW, so it must be fancy!.. Right?..)
Well long story short she told me that driving the car for less than a weekend more or less cemented her position on EVs for the rest of her life.
She had forgotten just how loud ICEs were (despite the BMW being considered quiet by normal ICE standards), and realized just how inefficient they were at driving. She missed regenerative braking, the instant torque, the smoothness of the driving, and the technology even basic EVs have over ICEs. While this BMW had decent software, it didn’t hold a candle compared to what she was now used to. Plus, she had forgotten just how expensive gas was, and ended up spending more money refueling for that week than months worth of charging. Even using a supercharger exclusively would’ve been far cheaper according to her.
She told me that she’ll never go back to an ICE.
three new vehicles and one old
Once you drive an EV it’s really difficult to go back to a regular car again.
My Pacifica (Plug in) Hybrid is the ultimate vehicle (for us). The 35 miles all electric cover our daily driving around of the kids, and when we go on a road trip it uses gas. We never have range anxiety.
We just traded in our Leaf for an older Model S. I don’t love the layout of the Tesla, but it is an absolute pleasure to drive. It’s so smooth and peaceful, until I hit the accelerator and it flies.
I can’t wait to own something that heats up the interior instantly and makes no engine noise.
Mmm I’m experiencing the opposite. Rented a C8 through Turo and I’m now spreadsheeting how much it’ll cost me over time to trade in my Model Y Performance.
Thats funny. Through a mistake with a leasing company I was given a new C7 for a week. I was so excited and thought it was winning the lottery. After three days and work trips, I parked it. It was depressing but its just not the kind of car you can travel in. The ride and the unpredictable grip made it very uncomfortable. Even the stereo and AC was not good.
Have you tried a model s plaid yet?
What’s a C8?
Corvette
I think it also depends what your other car is. Going from a model 3 to a Civic is a downgrade in most ways across the board
Have a LEAF and a Sienna… I hate driving the sienna, not just because it’s a minivan …
I’m probably unique. I drive a 4Runner and my wife has a Volvo EV. I enjoy the variety of driving them both, even though objectively the Volvo is better in most ways… faster, quieter, more efficient, etc….
I’m with you - I find ICE and EV both enjoyable in their own ways. My Leaf is relaxing and I love how quickly the cabin heats in the winter. My ICE sports cars are light and nimble on twisty roads, and I like the burble of the exhaust. Hell, even my Jimny was fun and charming in its own cheap & unrefined way.
Ha. My leaf has no cabin heat. And I still choose to bundle up and drive it :p
On an unrelated note, what kind of mileage can I expect from a leaf, especially during winter time? I’ve been looking at buying one to so I can keep my daily for doing truck stuff and road trips. Averaging 12-16 mpg is quite hard on the wallet too
We have quite mild winters where I live, it’s rare to go below 0C. With the heater blasting it will happily do 220 km around town, or 150 km at highway speeds. We definitely notice the range reduction in winter. In the warmer months it does 270 km around town, 200+ km on the highway.
So how long did it take for you to get over range anxiety? I mean realistically, my commute is about 25 miles, but I gotta factor in range for things like grocery store runs, degradation, etc. While I’m excited about the possibilities of the AZE0 Leaf battery tech going open source, I am concerned about the CHAdeMO port being phased out
We have the perfect use case for a Leaf: 90% of our driving is around town under 70 km/h (45 mph) , and we can easily charge overnight at home. So we never had much range anxiety to begin with. Every now and then we will purposefully take it on a longer trip just so we can learn how things like speed and temperature affect the range. But for our daily driving we don’t even think about range.
I think the best thing you could do for yourself if you’re considering a Leaf is test drive one. Take it on the highway for 15 minutes and get a feel for how quickly the range drops. Find a public charger and see how much range it adds in 5-10 minutes. The Leaf may be perfect for me, but I’m just a stranger on the internet who (probably) does very different types of driving to you.
You can get a bev and buttons! (and a cluster gauge and actual qc)
Toyota and BMW are fine examples. While some here love to hate Toyota because of a few vehicles being recalled in Texas, the bz4x has a ten year / one million km warranty in Europe. The battery is also serviceable. If the entire battery pack needs replacement on the warranty, the owner gets a completely new battery pack and not a reman.
Cars that can’t do anything without an iPad in the center is a fad that will die eventually, like the extremely low-profile tires everyone had in 2008.
like the extremely low-profile tires everyone had in 2008.
What do you mean had? They still do.
Not like in 2008. Even boring new cars like the Prius had tires that looked like gaffs tape wrapped around an alloy wheel back then.
Why get a blackberry when you can get an iPhone?
Tesla is the blackberry in this case. Go for BMW or Mercedes if you want the iPhone.
BMW and Mercedes have buttons too.
Hmm a new company that takes an existing technology, smart phones, and makes the first mass adopted commercially successful version, only to ultimately be crushed by an older large corporation.
The blackberry car may not be the one you are thinking of.
Sir, I’m talking about buttons.
Which are superior to touchscreens, obvs.
Love my egolf, wish they still made it! The analog dials are sweet
I totally agree…
Mercedes EV for me, though, but that’s rather irrelevant, EV’s are so much better.
I’ve gone through eight ICE cars over the years, and I’m now on my second EV. I won’t ever return to an ICE car…
I rented a Model 3 from Hertz (so literally some of the worst examples of those cars you can find) and within two years I had purchased a Model Y. That wasn’t for sure though, the Tesla part was in doubt until I test drove some competition. If the Mach-e had been as fun to drive as the Y I would have gotten it instead.
If you just want a weirdly zippy totally practical commuter car then the Bolt EUV is a spectacular option. It doesn’t have “all the bells and whistles” but it’s cost competitive and really fun to drive.
I don’t mind the missing buttons, but that’s me.
I did keep my ICE though, because it’s still a great car (+fun to drive) and has a lot of specifically great use cases like leaving at the airport in my Oil Field part of the country, or picking up fast food that I don’t want to mess up the carpets on my new car just yet.
I would say Mini over Volt for zippy totally practical commuter car.
Can you still easily find the Bolt? I know GM said they’re bringing it back, but I don’t think they’re doing so at the same price point. So as of now, your only options are the few new ones still around (good luck getting them at MSRP) and used ones, which is definitely an option.
Depends where you are but a lot of them still have new inventory. Used ones are great deals right now though.
Can you still easily find the Bolt?
Nah they’re just about done… after failing to buy a new one this past summer I switched to Nissan and Ford. Lots of used ones in my area though including some low mileage ones, gotta watch the battery on those though, GM was in a rough spot with those 3 years ago
We rented a Volvo C40 from Hertz as a manager special and we fell in love with it. It was such a nice vehicle to drive. It turned out to be on manager special because they couldn’t rent it out … it seems nobody is interested in an EV because it’s a little different.
our ice car is ten times more comfortable than our ev
Ugh you shouldn’t be downvoted for an opinion. Especially about your own property.
a downvote is an opinion too
but this sub gets triggered when you say anything good about an ice car
our ice car is ten times more comfortable than our ev
Counterpoint: I replaced my ICE Mercury Milan (Ford Fusion rebadge) with a Nissan Ariya EV that is so much more comfortable, it should have been marketed as an Infiniti
eh that’s not a fair comparison because the milan was probably what, 15 years old?
This is how I felt when I test drove the MG ZS Ev and Tesla Model S in 2020. The latter became a shitty car that needed expensive repairs once the warranty expired, but it was fun, and the drivability and comfort was amazing. It had a little more wheel noise than a 5-series or A6, but I learned to live with that.
They say you don’t become a convert when you drive an electric car. You do so when you get back in your ICE vehicle.
We’ll see you soon bud. Just don’t got to teslas new or used inventory page. And close your ears when I tell you they just dropped prices by $3k. Oops.
See you on the other side
Most likely sooner rather than later. I would have most likely bought one this weekend if I wasn’t waiting on the 2024 tax incentives to drop (I don’t qualify for federal ones as of now :()
It’s funny, the faster my car can accelerate the less I find myself needing to use it.
I absolutely love being able to accelerate and decorate at nearly the same speed with just 1 pedal.
I don’t find the need to drive fast all the time, but for 5 seconds to avoid something is fun, part because I can end the fun in the same manner.
Anything wrong with the Tesla new or used inventory page?
Yes, it makes you want to buy : ) it’s where you see the latest deals.
(No, nothing wrong with it. )
They say you don’t become a convert when you drive an electric car. You do so when you get back in your ICE vehicle.
100% true and is the reason why after owning a tesla last year I lasted 3 weeks when I swapped it for an f-pace before I went back to electric again
Hey there! I just had a horrible experience with my beloved 6 y/o F-Pace S which I’ve recently had no choice but to sell it due to a massive overheat. I’m considering ordering an electric car next, either a Fisker Ocean Extreme or a Rivian R1S, dual motor. The Genesis GV80 coupe looks amazing, but won’t be available for another year. The thought of fewer parts in an electric car is very intriguing to me as less can go wrong ( I know, software issues in electric cars are always the potential issue when a problem does arise). Can I ask which electric you switched to after the FPace, and how you’re enjoying it?
My EV is in the garage atm (charger broke and waiting for the part from china), in the interim they’ve lent me a pertrol automatic. I was converted when I got my PHEV years ago but I’ve never been so much of a convert as now.
Yep. Test driving the Model 3 for me wasn’t what sold it. It was going back to my ICE and realizing how inefficient it was. It physically felt worse to drive.
Yea that sounds about right. I test drove a MY, got back into my 11 yr old CRV, and it felt not the same but also comfortable, and immediately drove to my sister’s to drive her 2022 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid (another contender). It just felt normal, no different than my CRV. Bought the Tesla.
I remember telling people that about HDTV.
We were early adopters and had a Superbowl party. Almost to a person the reaction was “this is it?” Cause in your minds eye TV was always that clear.
Then later the HDTV signal was having issues so it flipped to the SD signal and for a few seconds until we all adjusted it looked like someone recreating the sb in Techmo Bowl. The whole room went “woah!”.
Now to be completely fair HDTVs were worse at showing sd than a tube TV, but still. There are definitely things there you notice the downgrade after way more than the upgrade.
My wife’s crossover feels like driving a school bus towing an aircraft carrier. I used to think it was zippy for it’s size.
Another good example would be when video games went from 30 frames per second to 60. You try out something running at 60 and think “OK, but 30 is still fine”. Then you go back to 30 and it looks like you’re playing a slideshow.
The “Tesla grin” is real.