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Electric Vehicles: Why aren't they more popular?

Varun

Varun

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Over the weekend, I had a pleasure to rent and ride around a pure electric car around the city, and I loved it. The car was the Mahindra E20 (the successor to the Reva), and it gives a 100km ride at full charge.

Although it is rather on the smaller side (think of it as a slightly larger Tata Nano), it is perfect for a family of 2 or 3 and past the initial investment, there is almost nothing to pay for by way of fuel. Legroom is sufficient, it has reasonable bells and whistles (bluetooth, proximity sensors, electronic rear view mirrors, etc.). The 100km ceiling may be a downer for those who drive down the highway, but for an intra-city commute it's near perfect.

Why then are sales of these kinds of vehicles always anemic? More so in countries like India where fuel costs are relatively high? What can these manufacturers do to succeed in the long term?
 
I have been an investor in various Electric Vehicle and Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle related companies for years.

The number one problem is 'range anxiety'. If you are doing solely City/urban driving then electric vehicles can make a lot of sense but the vast majority of the driving public do occasional longer journeys and thus it's actually a huge issue to spend so much money on your main car. So at the moment it is left to people with more money than sense.

The other problem is that even the current stated figures for range and charging times are a lie/marketing bull. Most batteries in electric vehicles are lithium based i.e. the same stuff which goes in your laptop/mobile phone. Now i don't know about you buy my phone and computer had 'nameplate' capacity of supposed 12 hours and 6 hours when i bought them. Within a year or two the real capacity was probably down to 3 hours and 1 hour ! The battery is one of the most expensive elements in these Electric Vehicles so if they degrade to that extent the car becomes useless and the replacement cost is huge.

There needs to be massive improvements in battery chemistry / power / density / recharge etc times before Electric Vehicles become viable for the public and viable as mass production vehicles for the major car companies
 
They look girly. I like my gadgets and other stuff to be part of my personality, which is why I sport an iPhone 6, however its a different matter altogether that I currently own this, which is a shame.


View attachment 53360

But no, I'll never own an electric car. Hybrid perhaps.
 
s28 said:
The other problem is that even the current stated figures for range and charging times are a lie/marketing bull. Most batteries in electric vehicles are lithium based i.e. the same stuff which goes in your laptop/mobile phone. Now i don't know about you buy my phone and computer had 'nameplate' capacity of supposed 12 hours and 6 hours when i bought them. Within a year or two the real capacity was probably down to 3 hours and 1 hour ! The battery is one of the most expensive elements in these Electric Vehicles so if they degrade to that extent the car becomes useless and the replacement cost is huge.
Click to expand...

Cellphones are short-term purchases and technology keeps moving along so it's prudent to replace them every year and a half or so, but how expensive is it really to pick up a new phone battery? Not a lot.

Similarly, if these electric cars can be given a new lease of life a couple of years down the road with fresh juice while the chassis and everything else remains, life goes on no?
 
Varun said:
Cellphones are short-term purchases and technology keeps moving along so it's prudent to replace them every year and a half or so, but how expensive is it really to pick up a new phone battery? Not a lot.

Similarly, if these electric cars can be given a new lease of life a couple of years down the road with fresh juice while the chassis and everything else remains, life goes on no?
Click to expand...

and how far would your smartphone battery get you if it was powering an electric bike rather than just some text on a screen ?

A smartphone battery as a percentage of the cost of a phone or laptop is probably £5-10 out of a total cost of £100-200
An electric vehicle battery will usually cost £10-20k out of a total cost of £20-30k car
 
Mamoon said:
Don't have much info on cars, so far I'm yet to see a decent looking one.

But not a feasible option for Pakistan anyway.
Click to expand...

There is a solar boom going in Pakistan right now... Just industry and agriculture for now... Soon households.

People will have choice: buy expensive UPS or get electric car (two birds, one stone)...

Pakistan is full of electric cars in 5-10 years...

The industry to invest in.
 
New mahindra reva is not girlish but too japanish toy car looking

REVA-NXG.jpg
 
JoniInsafian said:
Tesla is the future of electric cars.... not indian saban danis....
Click to expand...

At those prices, Tesla would never be the future of electric cars. India needs to shore up its manufacturing exports, what better way than to invest in electric cars and green energy. India has the skillset to flourish in renewable energy.
 
s28 said:
and how far would your smartphone battery get you if it was powering an electric bike rather than just some text on a screen ?

A smartphone battery as a percentage of the cost of a phone or laptop is probably £5-10 out of a total cost of £100-200
An electric vehicle battery will usually cost £10-20k out of a total cost of £20-30k car
Click to expand...


Yes but electric vehicles have no parts... It's battery connected to tires with cooling system... That's all. No moving parts... No cylinder, no rotors, nothing... No cost for repair, just replace the batteries.

Batteries last at least 5 years... How much do you spend on a gas vehicle at the mechanic?

If you install plates at your house: You don't pay for gas anymore... Even without plates, electricity is cheaper than oil and more ecological (even if it's produced with oil because electric powerhouses are more efficient).

Electric cars are much cheaper overal... Only problem is range and charging time...
 
Laal said:
At those prices, Tesla would never be the future of electric cars. India needs to shore up its manufacturing exports, what better way than to invest in electric cars and green energy. India has the skillset to flourish in renewable energy.
Click to expand...

Tesla is introducing 30k$ car... In the 10 to 30k$ range, there are a lot of good european and japanese cars... Indian cars are for domestic market, they will never be successful abroad... Or just in Africa.
 
Mamoon said:
They look girly. I like my gadgets and other stuff to be part of my personality, which is why I sport an iPhone 6, however its a different matter altogether that I currently own this, which is a shame.


View attachment 53360


But no, I'll never own an electric car. Hybrid perhaps.
Click to expand...


I drive Tesla Model S P85 . Have you seen it ? Far from girly ....
 
Tesla is by far the best electric car but it's expensive. $60,000 is too much.

on a side now I love how they have stores in Malls where they show all the features and science behind the car.
 
JoniInsafian said:
Tesla is introducing 30k$ car... In the 10 to 30k$ range, there are a lot of good european and japanese cars... Indian cars are for domestic market, they will never be successful abroad... Or just in Africa.
Click to expand...

That's a very, very superficial way of looking at things. TATA's acquisition of Jaguar was not meant for the domestic consumption. It will take India some time to go through the learning curve and gain an advantage in car production. Also, Africa is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, with record levels of trade volumes and investment in recent years.
 
Also, a $30,000 car (PPP terms) is still out of reach for most developing country consumers.
 
Varun said:
Why then are sales of these kinds of vehicles always anemic? More so in countries like India where fuel costs are relatively high? What can these manufacturers do to succeed in the long term?
Click to expand...

Very low range. Lack of charging stations. Just impractical compared to internal combustion.
 
Laal said:
That's a very, very superficial way of looking at things. TATA's acquisition of Jaguar was not meant for the domestic consumption. It will take India some time to go through the learning curve and gain an advantage in car production. Also, Africa is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, with record levels of trade volumes and investment in recent years.
Click to expand...

The automotive industry is one of those sectors where I don't see the triad hegemony displaced anytime soon. We'll see.
 
Robert said:
Very low range. Lack of charging stations. Just impractical compared to internal combustion.
Click to expand...

People want to eat their cake and have it too. Electrics are very practical in Europe and Japan, the presence of a very developped train system and low cost airlines makes it almost useless to take your car far from home. It's just old generations inertia that has allowed dated technologies to survive.
 
JoniInsafian said:
The automotive industry is one of those sectors where I don't see the triad hegemony displaced anytime soon. We'll see.
Click to expand...

Indeed. I'm reminded of Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction:

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
JoniInsafian said:
People want to eat their cake and have it too. Electrics are very practical in Europe and Japan, the presence of a very developped train system and low cost airlines makes it almost useless to take your car far from home. It's just old generations inertia that has allowed dated technologies to survive.
Click to expand...

Well, I live in Europe and can't think of a good reason to own one.

What happened to hydrogen cell cars? They make much more sense. Decent range, decent power, much lower carbon footprint than internal combustion.
 
Robert said:
Well, I live in Europe and can't think of a good reason to own one.

What happened to hydrogen cell cars? They make much more sense. Decent range, decent power, much lower carbon footprint than internal combustion.
Click to expand...

More dangerous and you have create new infrastructure... Toyota is banking on hydrogen though...

I don't believe in cars anyways... I have a license and have not driven one in 6 years... What we need is electric busses, better cycling infrastructure, increase train fret and decrease truck transport,...
 
The safety aspect of hydrogen cars is massively overplayed by the electric car industry with silly comparisons to Hindenberg airship tragedy etc. Toyota who have big investment in Electric, Hybrid and Hydrogen seem to be increasingly moving towards hydrogen.

However the hydrogen economy is beset by a perennial chicken and egg problem. Consumers will not buy hydrogen cars until there are hydrogen refueling stations everywhere and fuel companies/Governments don't want to build out hydrogen fueling infrastructure when there is no critical mass of consumers to use the facilities yet.

However hydrogen is produced, its widespread use will require large-scale
infrastructure to transport, distribute, store and dispense it as a fuel for vehicles or
for stationary uses. Because of its low volumetric energy density, hydrogen must be
compressed and stored as a gas in a pressurised container or chilled and stored in
a cryogenic liquid hydrogen tank for convenience. Both techniques have been
demonstrated and are in commercial use today, but they use significant amounts
of energy and the tanks are expensive to build and operate. The potential for
storing hydrogen safely and efficiently in a solid state is being investigated.

http://www.globalbioenergy.org/uploads/media/0601_UNEP_-_The_hydrogen_economy.pdf
 
A simple rule of thumb of technology investing is that if people are only talking about a technology it is probably still 10 years away from actual production/commercial viability.

I invested in my first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle company 16 years ago ! At that time they were talking about the mass market being '5-10 years away'... well that guess was wrong by at least 10 years
 
well because the only company doing it right is Tesla and there cars are expensive right now.
 
Both hydrogen fuel cell cars and electric cars will increase in adoption. Electric cars are a step ahead for now.

The coolness factor will resolve itself as the market segment increases. Tesla & Nissan Leaf have done really well recently. With Tesla Model 3 and the improved Volt, and BMW i3 electric cars are becoming cooler.

Honda/Toyota are making more investments in hydrogen. Good to see different models being tried out so the best one wins.
 
cricketInsight said:
Both hydrogen fuel cell cars and electric cars will increase in adoption. Electric cars are a step ahead for now.

The coolness factor will resolve itself as the market segment increases. Tesla & Nissan Leaf have done really well recently. With Tesla Model 3 and the improved Volt, and BMW i3 electric cars are becoming cooler.

Honda/Toyota are making more investments in hydrogen. Good to see different models being tried out so the best one wins.
Click to expand...


How can the best one win when oil receives massive subsidies and big oil companies keep lobbying to have their unfair edge?
 
In the UK oil is massively taxed and green electricity is massively subsidised and you can also get a free charging point installed (£2k) and up to £5k off the price of a new EV.

So even with the economics skewed in favour of EV's they are achieving little to no penetration
 
s28 said:
I have been an investor in various Electric Vehicle and Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle related companies for years.

The number one problem is 'range anxiety'. If you are doing solely City/urban driving then electric vehicles can make a lot of sense but the vast majority of the driving public do occasional longer journeys and thus it's actually a huge issue to spend so much money on your main car. So at the moment it is left to people with more money than sense.

The other problem is that even the current stated figures for range and charging times are a lie/marketing bull. Most batteries in electric vehicles are lithium based i.e. the same stuff which goes in your laptop/mobile phone. Now i don't know about you buy my phone and computer had 'nameplate' capacity of supposed 12 hours and 6 hours when i bought them. Within a year or two the real capacity was probably down to 3 hours and 1 hour ! The battery is one of the most expensive elements in these Electric Vehicles so if they degrade to that extent the car becomes useless and the replacement cost is huge.

There needs to be massive improvements in battery chemistry / power / density / recharge etc times before Electric Vehicles become viable for the public and viable as mass production vehicles for the major car companies
Click to expand...

I think Google bought the tech and got it patent what was explored by Eesha Khare.

Right now it only helps small devices get charged in a very short amount of time but do you think this tech may act as a catalyst to evolve the battery storage/stability into something that this more reliable?

Also, Is the same scenario with Solar panels? How come it's not moving forward in leaps and jumps?

Last year I was watching a documentary of a manufacturing company in California that is making commercial solar panels with some sort of new tech ... the astonishing part was,, their product has NOT hit the market yet, but it's sold out till 2021. So there is a wait for 7 odd years on backlog orders.

I will search the name of the company for you.
 
My tesla ... free charge at work and at lot of public parking , get around 285-320 miles per charge .... chick magnet ... drive is fun ... cost me 100k and I regret every day because of price tag :( .. next car will be BMW i8 and I will regret again I guess ... But where I live, you need to have these new gadgets to attract girls (you could say pathetic or whatever but I live in real world and I have no time to go meetups to meet girls) ....
 
mnoman15 said:
My tesla ... free charge at work and at lot of public parking , get around 285-320 miles per charge .... chick magnet ... drive is fun ... cost me 100k and I regret every day because of price tag :( .. next car will be BMW i8 and I will regret again I guess ... But where I live, you need to have these new gadgets to attract girls (you could say pathetic or whatever but I live in real world and I have no time to go meetups to meet girls) ....
Click to expand...

Electric cars are chick magnets?

Not sure if its the nerdiness that attracts them chicks or the pretentiousness. Not saying that about you but in general, if you have enough money to afford a $100,000 car and also want to be environmentally conscious, why not just buy a Prius and and give the rest of the money to one of those Go Green NGO's fighting the big oil companies. One Tesla or BMW i8 is not going to make much difference, right?

Disclaimer: I have a Prius. Not a chick magnet from anywhere :(
 
saadibaba said:
Electric cars are chick magnets?

Not sure if its the nerdiness that attracts them chicks or the pretentiousness. Not saying that about you but in general, if you have enough money to afford a $100,000 car and also want to be environmentally conscious, why not just buy a Prius and and give the rest of the money to one of those Go Green NGO's fighting the big oil companies. One Tesla or BMW i8 is not going to make much difference, right?

Disclaimer: I have a Prius. Not a chick magnet from anywhere :(
Click to expand...

Tesla was already popular in bay area when people outside didn't even know it existed. I still remember a day in 2010 when a plane with tesla execs crashed and whole city was out of power and we got an off day ..

Unless you live in bay area, you wont understand few things ... Its not about green or anything, its not even about money ... Its just Cali thing where people with windows laptop and android phones are disdained (Not kidding, one got to have mac to go starbucks otherwise you are continuously judged) ) ... By the way, did you know Half of the priuses sold in entire world are sold in California ?
 
mnoman15 said:
Tesla was already popular in bay area when people outside didn't even know it existed. I still remember a day in 2010 when a plane with tesla execs crashed and whole city was out of power and we got an off day ..

Unless you live in bay area, you wont understand few things ... Its not about green or anything, its not even about money ... Its just Cali thing where people with windows laptop and android phones are disdained (Not kidding, one got to have mac to go starbucks otherwise you are continuously judged) ) ... By the way, did you know Half of the priuses sold in entire world are sold in California ?
Click to expand...

I know, I read an article in NYT about a famous cafe in San Fran which is always crowded with people working on laptops and where a person with a non Apple computer becomes an instant outsider. Still, its pretentiousness. Call it a Cali thing or whatever, its cultural snobbery. Not that I haven't been guilty of it myself but at least its good to admit to it.
 
saadibaba said:
I know, I read an article in NYT about a famous cafe in San Fran which is always crowded with people working on laptops and where a person with a non Apple computer becomes an instant outsider. Still, its pretentiousness. Call it a Cali thing or whatever, its cultural snobbery. Not that I haven't been guilty of it myself but at least its good to admit to it.
Click to expand...

I would not pay for mac/iphone but fortunately my company always picks up tab for laptops/phone .. My crazy new mac which i just got and use just for browsing cost 2700$ plus tax ..
 
mnoman15 said:
I would not pay for mac/iphone but fortunately my company always picks up tab for laptops/phone .. My crazy new mac which i just got and use just for browsing cost 2700$ plus tax ..
Click to expand...

The 17" Macbook Pro?
 
mnoman15 said:
... By the way, did you know Half of the priuses sold in entire world are sold in California ?
Click to expand...

Folks tell me people buy Prius or hybrid in Cali not because they want to save on gas or become environment friendly, they Prius just because wanna get into the HOV lane to avoid traffic and reach work at time.
 
FreeBird said:
Folks tell me people buy Prius or hybrid in Cali not because they want to save on gas or become environment friendly, they Prius just because wanna get into the HOV lane to avoid traffic and reach work at time.
Click to expand...

Also isn't there some sort of tax benefit for a hybrid? Is that for federal or does it only apply to CA state taxes?
 
mnoman15 said:
I would not pay for mac/iphone but fortunately my company always picks up tab for laptops/phone .. My crazy new mac which i just got and use just for browsing cost 2700$ plus tax ..
Click to expand...

Good to know that you are not being a conformist by your own choice but the company you are working for wants you to be one. BTW, I got an iPhone from my company as well which I didn't cry or moan about. I just made sure they are buying the most expensive phone out there for me. Now I can pretend to be cool as well.
 
FreeBird said:
Folks tell me people buy Prius or hybrid in Cali not because they want to save on gas or become environment friendly, they Prius just because wanna get into the HOV lane to avoid traffic and reach work at time.
Click to expand...

I honestly dont think thats the reason, most are just liberals and greenies here .. I go Berkeley campus and I see lot of priuses ..
 
Nostalgic said:
Also isn't there some sort of tax benefit for a hybrid? Is that for federal or does it only apply to CA state taxes?
Click to expand...

Used to be early on. When I bought mine that was at least 7 years back, the tax benefit was long over. Not sure about Cali. I think there might be still some kind of tax benefit on electric cars.
 
saadibaba said:
Good to know that you are not being a conformist by your own choice but the company you are working for wants you to be one. BTW, I got an iPhone from my company as well which I didn't cry or moan about. I just made sure they are buying the most expensive phone out there for me. Now I can pretend to be cool as well.
Click to expand...

I was using windows till last month, they give us choice here and I decided to pick up mac so I could be more familiarized with it and see what is all that fuzz ... For phone, they have very few phones approved so Iphone was easy choice.
 
Nostalgic said:
Also isn't there some sort of tax benefit for a hybrid? Is that for federal or does it only apply to CA state taxes?
Click to expand...

Got 7K tax credit on my tesla , for first 200k electric cars in cali, you get tax credit of 7k regardless of cost of car ... i think we must be around 120K ...
 
mnoman15 said:
I honestly dont think thats the reason, most are just liberals and greenies here .. I go Berkeley campus and I see lot of priuses ..
Click to expand...

It's a cultural thing. They think that by driving Priuses, they are making the world a better place and playing the part of socially responsible citizens of the world. Just like with the Macs and iPhones. I guess the working conditions in the Apple factories in China or how Apple and Google parks cash in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes, is not really something keeping them up at night.
 
Nostalgic said:
Sweet. I made the step down from a 15" Macbook Pro to a 13" Macbook Air last year. For everyday use, the latter is just perfect.

Of course if my employer was picking up the tab...
Click to expand...

my first job was in coloardo and i had 512 mb ram for my dev machine and they wont approve me for other 512 mb .. and here my dev machines have 128 gb ram and cost around 12-15k and I have 2 of them lol ...
 
mnoman15 said:
my first job was in coloardo and i had 512 mb ram for my dev machine and they wont approve me for other 512 mb .. and here my dev machines have 128 gb ram and cost around 12-15k and I have 2 of them lol ...
Click to expand...

Hmm. For work I get to commit all my jobs to a Load Server Farm. It doesn't really matter what the laptop/desktop specs are in that case.
 
Nostalgic said:
Hmm. For work I get to commit all my jobs to a Load Server Farm. It doesn't really matter what the laptop/desktop specs are in that case.
Click to expand...

where do you build your code ? in cloud ? virtual machines running on servers?
 
mnoman15 said:
where do you build your code ? in cloud ? virtual machines running on servers?
Click to expand...

Yeah, the applications are all installed on a remote server. We get to run them by logging in to the server using a client. The jobs are all committed to queues depending on priorities.
 
saadibaba said:
Used to be early on. When I bought mine that was at least 7 years back, the tax benefit was long over. Not sure about Cali. I think there might be still some kind of tax benefit on electric cars.
Click to expand...

mnoman15 said:
Got 7K tax credit on my tesla , for first 200k electric cars in cali, you get tax credit of 7k regardless of cost of car ... i think we must be around 120K ...
Click to expand...

I see. I'm waiting until I get to move out of Siberia-on-the-Mississippi before I sell my V6 sedan and buy a Prius where ever I get to move to.

Do you think getting leather seats in your Prius sort of kills the whole eco-friendly vibe? Some poor cow would need to be slaughtered for it.
 
Nevermind, the Prius only comes with faux leather. I guess in a way its the best of both worlds.
 
When I look at Lamborghinis, Porsche, Ferraris and Rolls Royce...

I immediately become detached to electric cars....
 
s28 said:
and how far would your smartphone battery get you if it was powering an electric bike rather than just some text on a screen ?

A smartphone battery as a percentage of the cost of a phone or laptop is probably £5-10 out of a total cost of £100-200
An electric vehicle battery will usually cost £10-20k out of a total cost of £20-30k car
Click to expand...

Just roughly running the numbers, would you still say that a fresh battery bought two years after purchase of the vehicle is a cheaper deal than buying a petrol/diesel car and filling up gas in the tank every fortnight for those two years?
 
Nostalgic said:
I see. I'm waiting until I get to move out of Siberia-on-the-Mississippi before I sell my V6 sedan and buy a Prius where ever I get to move to.

Do you think getting leather seats in your Prius sort of kills the whole eco-friendly vibe? Some poor cow would need to be slaughtered for it.
Click to expand...

Nostalgic said:
Nevermind, the Prius only comes with faux leather. I guess in a way its the best of both worlds.
Click to expand...

I don't have leather seats in my Prius. You are right, it just kills the whole environmental vibe, even if it's faux leather.

I have to say thought that it's the best car I've ever driven. Mine has over 100,000 miles on it and I plan to drive it another 100,000 miles at least. Just got the electric battery replaced for the first time which I've been dreading would cost a fortune and thankfully it was just a couple of hundred dollars. It's not for people who want to count the seconds it takes to go from zero to sixty miles, but its nimble, got a good grip on the road, parking is easy cause it's small and it's actually quite roomy inside. Gas is cheap nowadays so I feel the price of Prius might go down. I might replace mine with a newer version if I get a sweet deal but I've developed genuine fondness for this car. My reliable, economical trusted old companion. I highly recommend it especially if you drive a lot.
 
Dr_Bassim said:
When I look at Lamborghinis, Porsche, Ferraris and Rolls Royce...

I immediately become detached to electric cars....
Click to expand...

BMW is going electric and so will Rolls Royce... They are ditching the ICE for electrical motors linked with batteries and oil generators... Initial models out next year, full switch by 2020.
 
FreeBird said:
Folks tell me people buy Prius or hybrid in Cali not because they want to save on gas or become environment friendly, they Prius just because wanna get into the HOV lane to avoid traffic and reach work at time.
Click to expand...

Get a small-engined diesel and it will return better MPG than a Prius anyway.
 
Robert said:
Get a small-engined diesel and it will return better MPG than a Prius anyway.
Click to expand...

I've got a big engined diesel, but with the new technology these days you can get tremendous MPG compared to previously, nearly double what was possible 10 years ago.
 
Dr_Bassim said:
When I look at Lamborghinis, Porsche, Ferraris and Rolls Royce...

I immediately become detached to electric cars....
Click to expand...





Still detached? this is more power than anyone needs and yet in the future electric cars will continue to improve.
 
saadibaba said:
I don't have leather seats in my Prius. You are right, it just kills the whole environmental vibe, even if it's faux leather.

I have to say thought that it's the best car I've ever driven. Mine has over 100,000 miles on it and I plan to drive it another 100,000 miles at least. Just got the electric battery replaced for the first time which I've been dreading would cost a fortune and thankfully it was just a couple of hundred dollars. It's not for people who want to count the seconds it takes to go from zero to sixty miles, but its nimble, got a good grip on the road, parking is easy cause it's small and it's actually quite roomy inside. Gas is cheap nowadays so I feel the price of Prius might go down. I might replace mine with a newer version if I get a sweet deal but I've developed genuine fondness for this car. My reliable, economical trusted old companion. I highly recommend it especially if you drive a lot.
Click to expand...

I have its bigger brother....camry hybrid. I like the added power that comes with the hybrid drivetrain, but I had to change my driving habits to make best use of the hybrid benefits. Unfortunately the cold here in Canada really takes a beating on hybrids, and mpgs suffer. At what speed does your ICE come on? For me its 40mph ,60km/h.
 
jaguar will bring out an electric car in a few years.. lucky to be working on it :D...
I expect other sportscar makers are also venturing into electric segment to compete with Tesla.
Next deccade should be decade of electric cars
 
saadibaba said:
I don't have leather seats in my Prius. You are right, it just kills the whole environmental vibe, even if it's faux leather.

I have to say thought that it's the best car I've ever driven. Mine has over 100,000 miles on it and I plan to drive it another 100,000 miles at least. Just got the electric battery replaced for the first time which I've been dreading would cost a fortune and thankfully it was just a couple of hundred dollars. It's not for people who want to count the seconds it takes to go from zero to sixty miles, but its nimble, got a good grip on the road, parking is easy cause it's small and it's actually quite roomy inside. Gas is cheap nowadays so I feel the price of Prius might go down. I might replace mine with a newer version if I get a sweet deal but I've developed genuine fondness for this car. My reliable, economical trusted old companion. I highly recommend it especially if you drive a lot.
Click to expand...

I might actually go for the faux leather. I'm used to heated leather seats in the winter. I use the remote starter to get it nice and warm before I get in. Over here its a bit of a necessity. In the summer, the sun heats the leather to an uncomfortable temperature that is oddly pleasing to sit on. Almost like being in a sauna.
 
I will start driving an Electric car when they start being reliable, have great pickup, dont end up costing me tons of money and stop looking gay.

Except trains, i love electric trains.
 
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