I need a new car, and I really want to go full electric. I’m wondering if anyone regrets buying one? What are the downsides?

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    Something I don’t see mentioned often… everyone I’ve met who doesn’t regret them for other reasons eventually runs into their first major issue when the first cold wave hits each year. You get two choices: put them in a garage where they’re a fire hazard (people vastly underestimate this issue) or leave them outside where the elements can be a hazard to them if you live somewhere with exceptional weather (water proof, cold proof, heat proof, and impact proof are not the same thing especially in certain severities, like would you drive down the road of bones in an electric vehicle?)

    Looking into it, they don’t/shouldn’t come off as technically bad, I’m in no way saying they’re inferior to gas vehicles, but they’re made with carefulness in mind, not conformability. Not that I consider this outstanding in a world where vehicles have always been made with different emphasis on different things. I myself use public transport, I live somewhere where the fears that are valid would be the strongest should I complete a driving exam.

    • baggachipz
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      5 hours ago

      Ah yes, the dangerous battery myth.

      Much safer to store a vehicle full of extremely flammable liquid with ten times the potential energy of a comparable lithium battery, right?

      • Aoife@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        38 minutes ago

        Okay but ice cars tend to catch fire while running or fueling. EV’s are the same, it’s just they tend to fuel at home and possibly inside of a flammable structure while completely unnattended. I don’t honestly know the actual fire risk of an EV and honestly I doubt there’s a lot of good data that can be found with the amount of time i’d be willing to invest, what with EV companies wanting to downplay and any and every oil-related industry wanting to exaggerate.

    • dream_weasel
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      5 hours ago

      Put them in your garage then understand that by and large they use lithium batteries and those hate water. Store your water and lithium separately.

      • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        They also hate being shorted out. There are whole car brands, both gas and electric, with a manufacturing error that rivals the hoverboard in spontaneous combustion, completely unprovoked. Sometimes the battery just says “I give up” without rhyme or reason. And an average car fire soars ten meters into the sky at its peak, it’s not something you could just “put out” if caught in time. If it’s in a driveway, you typically just end up with a crisp car, but in a garage, it’s like playing Russian roulette with your whole house. Would not recommend.

        • dream_weasel
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          2 hours ago

          Considering charging requirements and elements, I would still say buy full coverage insurance for your house and keep it in the garage. These things are not lighting up like matches.