Drive The Future

I’m going to begin this post by talking briefly about yesterday’s breakfast with other Tesla Owners Club members. This was a first for me since joining the TOCPA and the experience was different than I expected. I thought our discussion would just be about our cars, the company, and maybe even about Elon. What I found was that these are regular people at different stages in life and careers, with varied interests and experiences. And our conversations were about life, and hobbies, and cars (not just EVs), potential club events, and a little bit about Tesla.

At this particular breakfast, a Model 3 (Highland) refresh car was made available to check out and drive if anyone wanted (no takers for a testdrive). Also available were club member cars of every model (S, 3, X and Y). This is where much of the attention went to talk about accessories, things stored in the frunk and trunk, wheels and winter tire choices, etc. All in all, I learned some things, had a great time, and feel this sort of activity is important for Tesla owners to maintain a connection with eachother. Tesla clubs provide an important function within the Tesla owner community, and these meet-ups build personal connections that are the foundation of these clubs.

OK, so what do all EV owners share in common:

1. A new driving experience (which is unique for each EV model – a 2023 Model 3 in my case)
2. A smile each time you pass a gas station and see that the price of gas has just increased
3. Range ‘anxiety’, or at least a constant awareness of available range and charging options
4. Torque (and no gears) – these cars are quick and power delivery is very smooth and quiet
5. An appreciation of an EV car’s simplicity (battery, electric motor, computer – that’s it)
6. And a need to constantly justify your decision to buy an EV with family and friends.

EVs are new and different, and people are curious why you would do such a crazy thing like give up your tried and true gas engine for a car that has all kinds of problems (like what do you do when your car runs out of charge, can you use it when it’s cold outside, why would you spend so much more for a car without an engine, aren’t you afraid it’s going to catch fire and burn your house down, etc.?). If you have been keeping up with the news, all these concerns keep coming up because it captures our attention and sells more ads than something like “EVs are great, buy one and see for yourself”.

How great, you might ask? Just really great! My 2023 Tesla Model 3 is simple, quiet, reliable, fun to drive, powerful (when needed), includes features that make me a safer driver and keep me safe, and it’s VERY efficient!

Let’s climb in and actually drive one. The first thing you’ll notice is it’s not exactly like the car you first learned to drive in. And in many EVs, the controls you need aren’t necessarily in the same place they were in your previous automobile. My car has stalks that do things like activate windshield wipers and turn signals, shift between park and drive, and control headlights. I like my stalks, but does Elon care? Apparently not! Because on the refreshed Model 3 now shipping, he got rid of them. These controls are now buttons on the steering wheel or on the touch screen. And even though stalks are so ’20th century’, I like them and it will take me a few moments of relearning to get used to the new, relocated controls. Effective use of important controls like windshield wipers, lights, shifting, and even temperature and audio controls must be intuitive and become muscle memory so they don’t distract or overly complicate things in emergency situations.

An interesting note, when I switch between my Tesla and Subaru, I still find myself activating the windshield wipers when I think I’m putting the Subaru into drive. This is a fairly harmless (albeit embarrassing) mistake, but it’s a good example of how we build muscle memory and do certain things without really thinking about them. And so long as this sort of mistake isn’t dangerous, I guess it’s not so bad. For years, automobiles in the US put controls in familiar places (mostly), but with EVs it seems like we’re starting over and everybody’s doing things slightly differently. It’s like when infotainment systems began showing up in cars. Everybody designed their systems differently, and in reality every infotainment system was overly complicated and frustrating for mere mortals to use. Which brings me to my next point…

When I bought my Model 3 last year, I thought the large touch screen would be distracting and complicated to use. It turns out, it is neither (though it took Tesla a while to get here). There have been many software and display refinements over the years with Tesla automobiles, and I can honestly say that once you have entered the settings that make the car operate like you want it to, the Telsa display is the most intuitive and non-distracting interface I have seen in any car. Agreed, there are a bunch of features you might want to play with when you’re not driving, but the non-distracted driving experience in a Tesla is exceptional. Let me explain…

1. Single pedal driving – for almost ALL your driving, you’ll never have to touch the brake pedal
2. Voice commands – just about everything you need to adjust while driving can be controlled with your voice
3. Situational awareness – the left side of display shows vehicles and other obstacles around you, and when turn signals are activated you have a blind spot camera (and warnings) to assist. There is also now a 360-degree view of your surroundings when backing or parking, which is very helpful and accurate.
4. Speed sign, stop sign, construction cone, and traffic light detection are there mostly for full self driving, though speed sign detection helps regulate TACC speeds when enabled
5. Lane keeping (using lane marking detection), assisted cruise control (TACC) and autosteer features improve driver safety when used properly
6. Maps and navigation aids – Tesla used Google maps which I think is the best navigation aid for cars. including real-time traffic monitoring and accurate supercharger routing.
7. Automatic headlights and windshield wipers, and more…

Everything about the car is designed to help you do what you do best, and that’s to ‘drive the car’. You’re in control and when you allow the car to help you do that job better, the Tesla can be a fairly safe place to be in this crazy, distracted world we drive in. Get to know your car early on, get your settings right (this might require the assistance of a grandchild just like when you bought your last smartphone or PC), and let your car help you. Know your controls, practice voice commands, know how the car is going to behave in certain situations (and how to override the car’s decision when necessary), and don’t be overwhelmed. Give it some time and you’ll see just how simple driving an EV (especially a Tesla) can be.

Scotty Kilmer has over 6 million subscribers and on February 2nd, 2024 he released this YouTube video: ‘Proof Electric Cars are a Scam and the Media is Lying to You‘. And before I say anything more, I like almost everything Scotty posts on YouTube. He really knows his stuff. BUT, in this case I think he’s echoing every click-bait headline about what’s wrong with EVs you can find on the web. In summary:

• “the United States energy department has been caught massively cheating to boost electric vehicle efficiency data and the corporate media is ignoring this” – and he uses absurdly high compliance values as an example – OK, I think he has a good point here, but that’s not going to stop me from buying an EV. Next
•  “if you’re like me you want to know what happened to those stranded motorists in Chicago why did all those Teslas get stuck frozen and they couldn’t charge them – and the Tesla Owners Club in suburban Chicago said they checked out 13 of these Tesla superchargers and three of them were completely out of order.”, Next
• “a lot of people use the Sentry Mode which is anti-theft thing so you can look at cameras you can be checked to see if anybody’s stealing a car and under Sentry Mode the car sap as much as 15% of your battery pack capacity in 24 hours so let’s say you park at an airport you got it there for a week or two you come back and your Tesla’s dead” – yup, that’s a thing, unfortunately. We talk about this in our Tesla new owners classes, so hopefully Tesla owners are informed and don’t use Sentry Mode in these situations. Next
• “this guy took a Tesla cyber truck on a cross country trip he went from Austin Texas to the Joshua Tree monument in California and back right he went 1340 miles and he had to stop 12 times to charge. That’s not very far range…” You can check out Dennis Wang’s (aka DennisCW) video here. Another good point, and I encourage you to watch Dennis’ video BEFORE you run out and buy a Cybertruck!” Next
• “people that don’t know anything about electric cars is they always give you some ridiculous charging time to charge them but that’s always from 20% to 80% so right there you’ve lost 40% range of the vehicle cuz you’re not going below 20% so that’s 20% you lost and you’re only charging it to 80% because past that it takes way too long to charge them so that’s another 20 so you’re only working with 60% to begin with… it would be like owning a gasoline car that had a 20 gallon tank but you could only use 12 gallons of the fuel and the was just sitting there unusable” Good point Scotty! And he goes on…

As usual Scotty makes some good points, and his comments are always well researched. However, this video was a bit click-baitish, and dug up a bunch of recent negative press which to many EV owners are more or less self-evident, but to prospective EV owners might give them second thoughts. That’s the real danger of this kind of media regurgitation. Nevertheless, Scotty provides a great service to the automotive community and I appreciate that! Thanks Scotty for all you do.

Hybrid vehicles ‘ARE SO 2023’. Yeah, EVs and PHEVs are all the rage for advertisers, but hybrids are what people are actually buying. CNBC reports (source):

“Sales of traditional hybrid electric vehicles, or HEVs, such as the Toyota Prius, are outpacing those of all-electric vehicles in 2023, according to Edmunds. HEVs accounted for 8.3% of U.S. car sales, about 1.2 million vehicles sold, through November of this year. That share is up 2.8 percentage points compared with total sales last year.

EVs made up 6.9% of sales heading into December, or roughly 976,560 units, up 1.7 percentage points compared with total sales last year. Sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, accounted for only 1% of U.S. sales through November.“

Hybrids, though a little pricier than their non-hybrid ICE counterparts, are all what people want these days. They’re brain dead simple to operate. The fueling infrastructer is built out and reliable. Hybrid batteries have become reliable and have long warranties. There’s little to worry about, think about, and you’ll get pretty good fuel economy to boot. This seems to be what the new car buying public wants – even if your new ‘hybrid’ car still only gets 20 mpg.

Another upside to hybrid technology is that a hybrid battery requires a lot fewer battery cells than does a full electric car. For those concerned about the source of materials used to manufacture battery cells used in electric cars, this is important. From an article entitled ‘Battery Taxonomy: The Differences between Hybrid and EV Batteries‘, this chart gives some indication of the difference in cell count, energy capacity and density among select hybrid, PHEV and BEV models from Ford:

One final note about hybrid vehicles is that the notion of ‘range anxiety’ doesn’t exist. Fill your tank, drive until it gets to a quarter tank and fill. No worries about percent charge, where’s the next charging station, will the charger work when I get there, charging only to 80% to keep my battery happy, etc. What most people want is to not have to think about their car. Turn the key (or press the button) and go. I have never been one of those people. I used to listen to ever little sound and think about what might be causing it, and should I worry. Now that I own an EV, there is no sound. That takes some getting used to, but I completely trust my car, and that’s a good thing!

My wonderful, amazing 2017 Prius Prime Advanced was a PHEV, and perhaps the best PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) on the market at the time. As the acronym suggests, this car has a gasoline motor with a hybrid mode, as well as a battery that can propel the car some number of miles (32 miles for this generation car) without any engine assist at all. Most of the time, you’ll be using only the battery to get you around, then for longer trips, the gas motor will take you the extra distance. Sounds pretty ideal, like the best of both worlds. Or is it really the worst of both worlds? That is the question. and before reading any further, I suggest you sit back and view this video from our friends at Consumer Reports:

Plug-In Hybrids Are Not What You Think They Are | Talking Cars with Consumer Reports #429

To summarize, I pulled a quote from the video at 7:28-8:14. Here’s the transcript for this section:

“I think there are some interesting situations from a systems approach that come up when you’re thinking about this because if you are that person who’s commuting the 40 miles, and you’re pretty much always using the EV portion that you paid for, you’re effectively carrying around an ICE powertrain that doesn’t really get used. And vice versa. If you never charge it and you’re always running as a hybrid, you’re carrying around this giant battery that you never use. So there’s some negatives with that.

And just the complexity of having a gas powertrain on board that operates sometimes. So now, in the middle of winter, the engine fires up randomly. And it’s stone cold, but you need the extra power to accelerate. How do you handle that? And the gas tanks are pressurized because the fuel might sit in there for months. So there’s all these little things that go into making this work. And it gets complicated.“

To reiterate, it is complicated! Not only do you have ALL the complexity of an ICE/hybrid car AND a full electric car, but there’s a lot of hardware and software needed to make sure all the powertrains play nicely together (e.g. Hybrid Synergy Drive). Toyota was able to pull it off with the Prius and RAV4 PHEVs and have created exceptionally reliable and efficient automobiles, but other auto makers have more work to do. Referring back to the Consumer Report video (above) you’ll get a sense for who has gotten the formula right and who has not. Below is a list companies selling PHEVs in the US as of March 2023, and as mentioned when I was writing about EVs, do your homework if you’re considering a PHEV. All PHEVs are NOT created equal.

March 3, 2023 there are 33 plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) available in the US. Eight automakers offer two or more PHEVs (source):

• Volvo (5)
• BMW (4) — BMW (3), Mini (1)
• Toyota (3) — Toyota (2), Lexus (1)
• Stellantis (3) — Jeep (2), Chrysler (1)
• Ford (3) — Ford (2), Lincoln (1)
• Kia (3)
• Hyundai (2)
• Land Rover (2)
• Porsche (2) 

The Jeep Wrangler 4xe has been the number one-selling PHEV in America since Q2 2021.

In conclusion, those considering owning a PHEV will need to reconcile the pros and cons. Here are my thoughts:

PROS

• Efficient hybrid powertrain (not all PHEVs are efficient – do your research)
• EV mode is more cost effective than gas in most places (be sure to check EV range)

CONS

• Your PHEV will need access to power for charging
• PHEVs are complex and may require more interaction with settings to drive properly
• You now have to maintain your PHEV as you would any ICE car, AND properly maintain your battery as though it’s an EV
• Cost of repairs will be higher than ICE alone due to system complexity

Hopefully I haven’t scared you off from PHEV ownership. My Prius Prime (may she rest in peace) was one of the best, most efficient cars I have ever owned. And before purchasing the Tesla, I was seriously considering upgrading to the new Prius Prime which is an even more spectacular car. Truth be told, the Toyota Prius Prime or RAV4 Prime are the only PHEVs I would consider buying today. Many other PHEVs are good, but I have always trusted Toyota quality and tend to look there first when considering something as complex as a PHEV.

And a parting quote: “Owning a PHEV is like owning an EV with training wheels.” I made that up, but I believe it’s true. I don’t think I would have had the courage to go full EV with the Tesla if I hadn’t owned a PHEV first. It gave me the confidence that I could live with EV range, plus EV care and feeding. In reality, getting rid of the ICE part of a PHEV removed a huge burden. No gas, no maintenance, and a whole lot less complexity. That’s what EV ownership is about – ‘less is more‘ (thank you Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or was it Peter Behrens that said it first?)…

OK, so I’m sold on Tesla, the car and the company, not so much the man (Elon, not Nikola). That said, there are other fish in the sea to consider. Here’s a shortlist:

• Rivian – R1T truck and R1S SUV
• Volkswagen – ID.4
• Kia – EV6 and Niro
• Hyundai – Kona and Ioniq 5 and 6
• Tesla – Models S, 3, X, Y, and Cybertruck
• Chevrolet – Bolt EV
• Ford – Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning truck
• Volvo – EX90, EX30, XC40 Recharge, and C40 Recharge
• Porsche – Taycan

and many others: Lucid Air, Fisker Ocean, Mecedes-Benz EQS and EQB, GMC Hummer EV, BMW iX, i4 and i7, Cadillac Lyriq, Nissan Ariya and Leaf, Genesis G80 and GV60, Polestar 2, Audi Q4 E-Tron, Toyota BZ4X, Jaguar iPace, Subaru Solterra, Vinfast VF 8, Lordstown Endurance, Mini Cooper SE, Mazda MX-30, etc.

But if you’re considering buying an EV and want to know which models are selling well, Electrek is a good place to start. Based on 2023 sales, I would start at the top of the list and work my way down:

A word of caution for prospective EV owners, do your research. Making a decision solely based on a Super Bowl ad is not wise. Talking to other EV owners and doing some good old fashioned internet research is necessary. For example:

• Chevy Bolt – ‘Chevrolet Recalls Over 50,000 Vehicles Due to Fire Risk‘
• Ford Mach-E – ‘Some Ford Mustang Mach-Es Are Bricking Despite Full Charge‘
• Hyundai Ioniq 5 – ‘Yikes! The $60,000 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Battery Replacement Saga Continues‘
• Volkswagon ID.4 – ‘Volkswagen has given a name to its pain, and it is ‘software’
• Vinfast VF 8m – ‘Critics Agree: The VinFast VF8 Is Very, Very Bad‘
• Toyota BZ4X – ‘Toyota finally found a way to keep wheels from falling off its electric SUV‘
• GMC Hummer EV – GMC Hummer EV Battery Teardown Proves Our Fears
• Fisker Ocean – This is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed, by Auto Focus
• Tesla – ‘Tesla recalls nearly all vehicles sold in US to fix system that monitors drivers using Autopilot‘

Etc. etc. The bottom line is ‘be informed’! Every EV manufacturer takes a different approach when designing their vehicles. Understanding this, and the potential issues this creates is important. Also, as EV technology evolves, so will safety, reliability, and sustainability. As an early adopter, high purchase prices, low resale value, and some level of inconvenience is to be expected. This is what you’re signing up for. I, for one, think it’s worth it and encourage EV ownership when and where it makes sense.

** update **

If you watch/listen to Ryan Shaw, which I recommend, you’ll learn that every auto manufacturer is climbing on the EV train and will be delivering cars worth your consideration (assuming you’re in the market for an EV) in the next year or so. Here Ryan’s latest YouTube video on the subject, which covers the bases really well:

Tesla’s 2024 Competition Is HERE | Best NEW EVs For 2024 (and beyond)

I’m in the process of creating presentations for Tesla owners and for those interested in EV technology in general. Both are works in progress, however, below are links to several presentations I created recently which might be of interest:

• Tesla mobile apps
• Tesla accessories
• What’s in your frunk and trunk?
• How to charge your Tesla’s LFP battery – best practices
• Tesla influencers
• Lightshow – how to summary from teslalightshows.store
• Holiday update 2023.44.30+
• Tesla car wash advice
• Caring for your Tesla in the winter – best practices
• Software Update 2024.2.6 overview (source)
• EVs – Part 2 – a presentation developed for the Del Val’s CLR program
• Update 2024.3.6 (required for the FSD Version 12.3.1 One-Month Trial)

And if you’re a Tesla owner and haven’t yet joined your local Tesla Owners’ Club (in my area, TOCPA or DVTOC), consider doing so. As a member, you’ll have access to many useful resources, as well as a connection to other Tesla owners in your area. This is especially important for new Tesla owners since there’s much to learn about your car, and about operating an EV within a transportation system designed primarily for ICE vehicles.

It might already be apparent that I’m a fan of Tesla automobiles. And my wife has started to catch on that this (EVs in general and Tesla specifically) is becoming more like an obsession, so she got this for me for Christmas:

Available here: Tesla – Things I Do in My Spare Time – Light Coffee Mug

Yup, she nailed it! And if you feel the same way, consider joining our Tesla Owners Club. We can obsess about Teslas (and EVs) together. Hope to see you around…