Electric car buying guide, part 1

The first in what accidentally turned into a multi-part series answers the basic questions: why electric, carbon footprint, battery life, and what I'm driving these days!

So, I set out to write a pithy little EV buying guide based on frequently asked questions, and it turns out, I’m going to have to do several of these to tackle things like EVs to wait for, best overall, cheapest, biggest, and so forth. So welcome to part one of a to-be-determined number of posts on what to look for, what to ask, and what to buy if you’re thinking of switching to an EV. In this post, we’ll tackle common questions, and what I’m driving (that’s at the end, no spoilers).

First, if you’ve just stumbled across this post, some background. I’ve been testing, reviewing, analyzing, complaining about, dissecting the business of, and even trying to destroy tech products since 1999, starting at MacHome Journal, then CNET, then the New York Times, and then Marketplace on NPR. I’ve reviewed iPhones, Android phones, computers, apps, smart watches, gaming consoles, and yes, along the road, that has often included cars, ranging from the Ford F-150 (featuring horses!) to the Mini Cooper S to the Land Rover LR4 to rides in autonomous cars (barf, just about every time) to yes, the OG Tesla Model S.

I’ve also been looking at EVs for a while! I’m on my third (I’ll explain later) and I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on a few electric loaners, like the E-Tron Quattro and the Mustang Mach E (that video never made it to YouTube, but maybe I’ll put it together one of these days—I had a blast with that car). So, anyway, after 25 years of reviewing tech and cars, know that I’m casting a practiced and passionate eye over this vehicle category.

That said, the findings in this series are my opinion. I’m not affiliated with any outlet or outfit, no one is paying me, and no one should come and ask me if I’ve done hours or years of peer-reviewed testing of every car on these lists. Some recommendations will be compiled from research, reviews, and ratings on other sites combined with, well, vibes. So know that going in and don’t fanboy me—I’ve had enough of it over the years, and I know better than to engage.

So, with that said, let’s get to the Q&A:

Aren’t EVs super expensive and/or totally over now?

Rumors of the death of the EV market have been greatly exaggerated, but the good news about the temporarily slowing adoption rate is that EV prices are amazing, especially on used or slightly used cars. So, on the theory that you should buy low and sell high, now is a great time to buy an electric car. Even new EV prices are falling fast enough that they’re almost on par with gas car prices, and if you qualify for a rebate or subsidy, they can be cheaper!

Is it even that green to get an EV?

As always, the most environmentally friendly car you can own is the car you already have. Buying a brand-new hunk of steel and precious metals is not, on its own, an act of pure sustainability valor. 

However, if you’re in the market for a new car, an EV will unquestionably reduce your carbon footprint–and yes, that is even taking into account the production, shipping, and battery materials in the car. It’ll get you off fossil fuels, and if you have solar and a battery at your house, you can be charging on renewable energy, too. You’ll also be contributing to reducing one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases in the United States. 

“Electric vehicles are better for the environment. Full stop,” Austin Brown, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office, told us in a phone interview. “There are tons of complexity underneath that, but … in every metric that we use to measure environmental impact, that we know how to really quantify, electric vehicles are better for the environment now, and they will continue to improve.”

What about stick shifts and engine revving and cool car culture?

As I mentioned above, I am a car enthusiast. I love driving. I learned to drive on a stick shift and drove one for years. I took myself to racing school for my 40th birthday. I was a years-long subscriber to Car & Driver despite their stubborn refusal to ever one time acknowledge that girls exist. And I am telling you without hesitation that electric cars are better.

First, they are fast AF. The acceleration is thrilling. Even the lowest-powered EV still packs the equivalent of several hundred horsepower, available off the line and at any speed. I feel like a shark among minnows on the road, and I think it’s adorable when a souped-up Dodge Charger tries to beat me off the line to a merge these days (I’m not saying that happened the other day, I’m only saying he lost). You’re so cute with your little internal combustion torque, peanut.

This isn’t just about handing it to macho ICE drivers, either. To me, the always-on acceleration is an added safety benefit–if a bad situation is developing on the road, you can accelerate out of danger whether you’re at a standstill or already going 60 miles per hour. I use it often on the Max Max freeways around Oakland, trust me.

What else? They are quiet. You can hear the radio, you can have a nice conversation with your passengers, you can just enjoy a nice, peaceful cabin. There’s near-zero maintenance. They’re just a big battery on wheels, so for the most part, the only thing that’s going to go wrong is … well, maybe the wheels. No timing belt or oil change or radiator this or that or gaskets … bummer if you’re into wrenching in the garage (I see you, Car and Driver), but if you want a car that’s going to take you wherever you need to go and not even throw a light for like two years when the washer fluid runs out, an electric car is for you. 

And finally, I can’t stress what a game-changer it is to be able to “gas up” your car at your house. No scary late-night gas station stops, no stinky spills, no malfunctioning card readers, no waiting in line and being mad at the person who didn’t pull forward or came in the wrong way. You just go to bed, and when you wake up, your car is charged, just like your phone. 

Right but … what about charging?

Now. Yes. This assumes you have a place to charge–aka a driveway or a parking garage with charging infrastructure. Most people will want to install a faster charger, known as Level 2 charging, and that can involve an electrician and, in some cases, a panel upgrade, which can get expensive. I currently have the Grizzl-E charger, which happens to be the Wirecutter top pick, and I did not require a panel upgrade to install it. It’s an awesome thing to have at home, no question. However, I charged my EV for months with an extension cord and I know lots of people who do just fine with so-called “trickle charging” and top off with public chargers while they’re shopping or eating out or similar. It’s still cheaper than paying for gas. 

What about range? 

Is range an issue? For the vast majority of potential buyers, no. If you’re crisscrossing a rural state for work, an EV might not work for you. But most Americans drive about 185 miles per week (about 37 miles per day), and an electric car can more than serve those needs. And for many families, an EV is proving to be the perfect second car–the one you use for commuting to work to save on gas costs, or the one you use to drive around town, saving your big camping car for road trips or similar. There are lots of ways to make this work, and charging infrastructure is getting better all the time. Ford and Chevy cars can already take advantage of Tesla’s charging infrastructure and the list of automakers that are either building to the Tesla standard or starting to offer adapters is growing every day.

Buy or lease? 

Again, I want to issue the caveat that the longer you keep your car, the more you dilute the overall carbon footprint of its birth. That said, a lot of people are choosing to lease EVs, including me. The main reason is that new ones are coming out all the time, and some of these cars are from very new brands, like Lucid, Polestar, or Rivian, and not everyone wants to get in a long-term relationship with a car that might lose value quickly (like Tesla) or from a company that might go out of business (no shade on any of you three!). Also, for a while there, tax incentives were better if you leased, although that’s not as much the case these days (this is unfortunate, in my opinion, as I think incentives can be strong drivers of adoption, and adoption is what we need to transition off of fossil fuels, but that’s for another newsletter). 

Unless you’re like me and cars are your guilty pleasure and look you are trying to live as sustainably as possible in so many other ways but you just kind of can’t help it, you get a new car every three or four years, yes, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me … unless you’re like that, the argument for leasing versus buying an electric car is almost the same as with any other car. 

What about the battery, though? 

And then of course there’s the battery technology question. Leasing makes some sense if you assume battery technology is going to keep improving, meaning cars with more and more range over time, and if you’re worried that your battery is going to weaken over time the way your iPhone’s does. 

However, friends, I’m here to tell you: that’s not a thing. Electric car batteries are way bigger than laptop and phone batteries and they are designed not to degrade (unlike, um, electronics that want to be upgraded every couple of years because capitalism). Current estimates are that modern EV batteries should last 100,000 to 200,000 miles, or 15-20 years. That’s far longer than most people drive their cars (the average span is 12 years), first of all. 

Also, in that time, car batteries only degrade about 2.3%, according to one big study that compared the battery health of 6,300 fleet and consumer electric vehicles. Laptop and phone batteries degrade by more like 20% over their short lifespans. So if your car has 250 miles of range and you lose 2 percent of that range over a decade, say, it’s not a dealbreaker. 

Car manufacturers also offer long warranties on EV batteries–8 to 10 years in most cases, so if something goes badly wrong, you can get it replaced for free. For more reading, EV Box has compiled these and many other resources to make the very strong case that battery life isn’t a concern when it comes to buying a battery-electric vehicle and driving it for as long as you’d have driven your internal combustion engine car. 

A couple of other fun facts from that article: Nissan, which has now been selling the Leaf for over 12 years, and an executive says almost every battery they’ve ever made is still in a car. And as that 15 to 20-year horizon approaches, companies are realizing that older car batteries still make excellent grid storage, which is honestly … kind of genius. 

The T-shaped Elephant in the Room 

Ok, now a word on Tesla. For personal reasons, I won’t own one and I can’t recommend it. But those personal reasons do include personal experience. I leased a 2021 Model Y for about 6 months and I had nothing but problems with it. (I believe it’s in this episode of my podcast series How We Survive, you can hear the moment the AC started crapping out in the Southern California desert about a week after I’d bought it.) 

Twice, while using adaptive cruise control on the freeway, I experienced hard phantom braking incidents that, if someone had been behind me on I-5 going 75 miles an hour, could have been extremely damaging, if not fatal. The car constantly misread my surroundings and would try to stop or take over my steering. On top of that, it wasn’t a good car. I had to super-glue one outside part, the driver’s side visor ripped right out of the roof (it took two visits to get it fixed). And from a car snob’s perspective, it rode like a dune buggy, it felt cheap inside after almost a decade of driving BMWs, and for god’s sake, just give me CarPlay (or Android Auto). The Tesla maps are terrible compared to Google or Apple, even if they do route you to chargers. Overall, it was a bad car experience and, increasingly, a brand I didn’t want to be associated with, and both of those things were reason enough for me to return the lease after just half a year. 

I will, in the interest of fairness, say that I recently rented a Tesla Model 3 while I was in LA for a day or two, and it was pretty fun to drive (although it still has jumpy eyeballs, in terms of thinking nearby cars are dangerous or trying to steer me back into lanes that aren’t there, and that was just in one 24-hour span of driving it). The Tesla charging infrastructure is unquestionably a huge benefit, I won’t sugarcoat that. And of course, there’s an absolute fire sale on those cars right now, so I don’t (entirely) blame you for looking. The one nice thing I can say is that it really, really, really made me laugh to turn the horn into a fart sound. I mean, that was hilarious. 

Ok, so for part 1, since I’m on personal experience here, I’ll end on this note: 

What am I driving? 

Hello, friend.

Surprise! Regular listeners will have heard me mention that I have a Polestar, and it’s true, I did have one, but I just moved on to the BMW i4. Yes, this is related to leasing. I got a Polestar on a two-year lease because, as I mentioned above, I did have some small questions about the brand viability and the EV market was changing fast and I didn’t want to commit. 

However, this section will serve as two recommendations in one, because before I get to the BMW, let me say that I loved the Polestar. It’s a fabulous car. There’s a reason it’s become such a design-community darling. The interior combines Volvo’s super upscale touches, like its cool square shift knob and pleasingly fat, luxurious steering wheel with modern Scandinavian design language–super sleek bamboo, subtle interior lighting, luxuriously comfortable seats, and an aggressive, boxy rear end.

The model I had came with bright yellow brake calipers and seat belts as an homage to the Swedish flag, because Polestar used to be a Swedish racing brand before Volvo’s parent company bought it. Plus, it’s AWD and a hatchback, so even though it’s sedan-size, it’s super capable for a little Tahoe jaunt (it has a ski passthrough to the back seats, of course) or a trip to Costco, and it’s not as low to the ground as true sedans. 

I also liked, and I’ll get into this more in part 2, the fact that the Polestar was designed to be an electric vehicle. It’s Tesla-like in that it doesn’t have an ignition button, there are few manual controls (although it does have crucial physical buttons like defrost, volume, and hazards), and there’s a nice big fun screen in the middle that offers all kinds of entertainment and navigation and such. And it didn’t insist on proprietary software: it has Google Assistant built-in, so you could “hey Google, open Spotify” or “hey Google, navigate to the Oakland airport” with a button on the steering wheel. And after a few months of having it, they enabled Apple CarPlay via a software upgrade, so hallelujah for that, too. 

The only real downside for me was that it’s small on the inside, and it started to feel cramped with a bigger and bigger teenager and his huge backpack, and on family road trips. And since I leased the car at sky-high EV prices, the buyout price was also high. I considered just leasing another one at a lower price but then something else happened.  

I drove the BMW. 

I wrote in 2002 about how BMW has been a laggard in the EV space, and this has been a problem for me because, as I mentioned, I’ve been driving BMWs since about 2006. But I’d finally been hearing good things about the i4, which is the sedan-ish model–I say “ish” because, like the Polestar, it’s also a hatchback. It’s more like a 4-series Gran Coupe than a 3-series sedan that easily fits my son’s folding bike in the hatch.

So, I saw that they had good lease deals on the i4, and I went and drove it, and reader. I nearly wept. I’ve had (this is embarrassing): three X3s, a very short-lived X1 (I hated it almost as much as the Model Y), and a stunning 328i with a six-speed manual and the M package with race car body molding and every imaginable feature that I was so loath to part with I sold it to my oldest friend so it would stay in the “family.” 

It is in that context that I say the electric i4 is the best car I’ve ever driven. I will confess that I like the Polestar 2 body style better, but most of my friends disagree, and I don’t care because every time I drive the i4, from the absurd acceleration (accompanied by acceleration sounds designed by legendary composer Hans Zimmer that I thought I’d hate but which are utterly thrilling) to the comfy seats to the crazy good Harman Kardon stereo system … and here’s a little buyer’s tip for you: I got a newly retired loaner, so it had 7,000 miles already and was priced like a used car at $47,000, and they let me lease it. So the overall cost is almost identical to the buyout price on the two-year-old Polestar and I’m saving several hundred dollars a month.

BMW is back in the game, babies. In fact, the New York Times published this a few days after I brought the i4 home, so I feel pretty validated.

So, do I recommend it? Heck yes. Is it the only car to consider? Heck no. In the next installment, I’ll answer a few more know-before-you-buy questions, give some overall recommendations, and we’ll dig deeper into subgenres like SUVs, longest range, cheapest, and whatever you ask! Email in@everybodyinthepool.com with questions and recommendations and more to come!