Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV(rivian.com) |
Rivian R2: Electric Mid-Size SUV(rivian.com) |
Is this thing crossover sized like a Kia Soul or a Rav4? Or is it bigger?
The R1S is significantly larger at 200" x 82" x 77.3".
Have they learned nothing?
Data points:
- one Model X
- one R1s
- My neighbor: one Model X, one R1t
- My collegemate: one Model X
They will either learn or ... not, I guess. I know I am not the only one. Nobody in my family would buy anything techy without my advice (and a modern EV is basically an iPad on wheels, so it qualifies as techy), and I will never ever give "yes" to a car without CarPlay
I wish Rivian would stop trying to emulate Tesla on this front and add support for CarPlay. I don't want your UI.
I actually like the look of the Rivian and this is something I'm somewhat in the market for (or will be in the next few years) but I won't touch it without CarPlay.
Comparison image: https://www.reddit.com/r/RivianR2/comments/1inep90/r2_vs_4ru...
It's about a foot longer than my crossover, which is about the same size as a RAV4 or CR-V and there's no way I could call it tiny.
I miss the days when men looking to compensate would buy sports cars. It wasn't any less ridiculous, but at least they (edit: the cars) were better looking and more fun to drive.
So that would associate you with the (A man's manly-man maybe?) driver of that car.
But now race cars are not really much like a production road car. And those older men with money don't necessarily want to be like the ever younger drivers being employed to win races.
As you say, ridiculous, but at least the sports cars were cool.
I want to drive, not constantly connect/accept privacy etc. Especially if that is a $100k+ car.
When i get into the car, the last thing I'd like to know how my car is getting connected to my phone, if there are any issues, especially if that is not my car.
I love how my car knows that in the morning i go to work, and wednesday evening i go to yoga, and put GPS, with best traffic options. 0 touch, all super seamless. No phones involved.
If a PC was launched without Windows support, most people on HN might be able to live with it day-to-day, but it would still be a dealbreaker for the general population. Admittedly this isn't a fair comparison, but hopefully you understand my point.
https://evplay.io/shop/ev-play-for-rivian
(I can't vouch for it, just something I stumbled upon recently.)
The challenge for them is can they integrate a better in-car experience
I say this as someone who still loves having carplay on my other car, a subaru, because their software is atrocious.
i would say, give one a try you might change your mind.
It seems to me like fixing this is the appropriate path forward. There are things that the car OS is better at (like you mention), but no car OS is ever going to support the various media apps I have on my phone that are automatically supported by Android/Android Auto media controls, and bluetooth playback is an even worse experience than cludging together the car OS + android auto media in one UI.
They are. It’s also subscription based, however.
(For what it’s worth, my friends with Rivian are fine with its phone interface. As are most people who own Tesla’s fine without CarPlay.)
I understand it has become a standard but it's not a particularly good one, and adding it "just because it's a standard" would detract from the car experience in my opinion. It's a separate device, with a separate OS, kernel, apps etc where you can install almost anything, that's supposed to take over a piece of equipment that belongs with the car and controls all its functions. I'd really rather not have that.
If the infotainment is the basic "show 2D maps and a couple settings", then Android Auto/CarPlay can serve as a viable replacement for low-end cars. But when the car costs >30k and the screen is also the central command console, no thanks. I'd rather have proper OTA updates, give feedback, and see it evolve over time for the better.
I’ve had fancy brands like Zyliss and OXO. I’ve had cheap store brand models and cheaper Amazon MYSSNGVWL type stuff as well. Knowing they would probably break didn’t make it feel better when they eventually broke.
Anyway the new salad spinner is large, heavy, with a steel pin into a brass bushing, has a metal handle and nylon gears in a sealed gearbox with exposed stainless screws for servicing. I opened it up and greased it on first use, mostly just to pretend to be servicing it, just to see what that felt like. It felt good!
The best part is it came with a catalogue that had order codes for spare parts. They wanted to help you maintain it. It was built to last and the manufacturer was on your side.
https://www.dynamicmixers.com/en/our-products/salad-spinner/...
I’m starting to feel silly writing all this about a salad spinner, but where is my car version of this?
Old petrol Toyotas and Hondas met your criteria.
And the back catalogue of parts is huge and supported for a long time.
Modern cars aren't built as well.
Maybe the modern non-turbo petrol Mazdas are the best fallback.
Can you cite a source for this? There's no question that they're vastly more complex, but I would think that modern car manufacturing is far more exacting (and efficient) than in the past.
If you're saying that older cars are more repairable, I'm happy to agree with you, even without a source to back up that claim.
Ordering parts feels like less of the issue than the ability to fix and service it yourself.
Has tesla started supporting third party shops doing battery replacements for instance?
It's the status quo? Cars last longer than they ever have in history. In 2 decades average age of cars on the road increased from 9.5 to 14.5. They are a little more difficult to maintain for the home mechanic because they are packed with electronics, but what you want seems to exist perfectly. Many use timing chains instead of timing belts that last 20+ years. Radiators rarely crack whereas they used to all the time. Alternators last the life of the vehicle. Cars are often upgraded because the owner is bored or does not feel like paying for rust repair at the 15 year mark, more than unfixable problems.
or in some cases even upgrade to improve capabilities...
I did the gaggiauino mod to my gaggia classic and basically everything in there is just pipes and wires... the most complicated single part on the original is the vibratory pump. I'm pretty sure i could keep that same machine going indefinitely with access to parts.
>Heavy duty construction for an intensive daily use.
Wait is it fragile or is it heavy duty? I guess they used "product" instead of "produce".
Electronics and code ruined replaced pure mechanics. Components aren't physically maintainable or hot-swappable, because they aren't just physically connected.
Second is that maintenance is how dealerships make money, so there is a monetary incentive to make it seem esoteric.
For your purposes, the upcoming slate truck is closest analogue - https://www.slate.auto/en
So my question to you is: what the heck are you doing to your salad spinners?
But we have been misled so many times about EV prices prior to launch, I think it's important to wait until we see what it actually costs for different trim levels before making comparisons to the Model Y. That $45,000 price they are throwing around could very well be for a trim that isn't even available at launch.
And anyway if I were going to buy a new compact crossover today, I'd probably lean more toward the RAV4 PHEV. It's an EV most of the time, I can refill it up with gas during long trips, it's got tactile buttons, and it has carplay.
Rattles, a door mirror motor breaking, doors that wouldn't shut properly, door weather stripping that fell off, a door that just wouldn't open, panel alignment issues, some kind of screaching-to-a-halt-and-terrifying-my-family auto-brake that Rivian never figured out after reviewing log data.
Oh and did I mention the fans or heat pump that sound like a ROCKET LAUNCHING?! At a park one time someone asked me if something was wrong with the vehicle. Nope, that's just the terrible fans they chose!
Insult to injury: someone rear ended me. Insurance "covered" it, but the local collision center --- my only option within 6 hours --- charges a 2X rate for EVs that State Farm would not cover. So a $14,000 MINOR FENDER DENT turned into $7,000 out of pocket for me.
If you look at /r/rivian, it's a near constant stream of issues. While Rivian did expedite service center visits for critical issues, other times repairs were months out. And as the R2 scales, SC growth will probably trail for a while, and so I really fear for the experience early adopters are in for.
I am rooting for them but for me personally I would not consider another Rivian.
It looks good.
But $45k++ is just wild to me. It seems like the market is undervaluing used EV’s, so hopefully the depreciation curve will bring these down to $30k in a couple years for us old-school folks who prefer not to have a $1000/mo car loan.
Tip: do not get Rivian unless a service center is close.
Edit: look at this, scrolling an entire screen only to have a photo zoom by <1.25x: https://imgur.com/a/G2Hfe3Q
Also, the BYDs I’ve been in were chintzy garbage as far as fit and finish goes. Can’t speak to their reliability, or other aspects of them, though.
If we can have open standards to allow my car to interoperate with my home batteries (Franklin, Enphase, Tesla Powerwall or others), we'll all be better off.
What's the obvious "that could be less" in the system that wouldn't negatively impact efficiency?
It the motor is smaller, it pulls less current.
If it pull less current, you can use batteries which aren't specced for high amps.
If use use less amps, you can use thinner cabling and split the batteries up i various compartments. That means heat is more distributed. Less active cooling, if any, is needed, of both batteries and motors.
All of the above can translate to less weight, which mean better range.
Having a sharp knife is safer than a dull one.
Having a massive heavy steel box that weighs thousands of kilos that can accelerate that quick, that you can operate in public with little to no useful training is not safer. I'm sorry, no car outside of a race track needs to accelerate that quick. It's absurd.
The upcoming R3/R3x is likely to be a way more practical vehicle for most people, unless you have a large family to haul around. [0]
At some point I want a self-driving car, but I'm happy to let Waymo and Tesla users test those systems for another 10+ years before I personally start using them.
The only problem is that there aren’t also physical controls for media and climate, which there should be. But for everything else, the thumb wheels are going to be awesome.
This new R2 is a unibody- so more of a car, less so a truck
Selling well like all BYD models.
Cheaper models like the Atto are the equivalent of $20,000.
Over 16 million new cars were purchased in 2025 in the United States.
Meanwhile, there are about 242 million licensed drivers in that same country.
So that's than 7% of drivers buying a new car in a year's time.
But what is the point of your question, in response to a new car announcements? That new cars should not exist... ? You do realize how much harder that would eventually make it to buy a used one, right?
So yeah, sure. "People" would be well-advised to consider buying a 2-3 year old vehicle that has depreciated. Let someone else carry that depreciation cost. (But "someone" has to.)
(My used EV depreciated 57% before I bought it, 2 years old with 20,000 miles on it. It's a great way to go!)
Never buy a first year model and then keep an eye on owners forums before you buy.
Because most car reviewers' job is to explain new releases. Most issues arise after time, which reviewers generally don't get. MKBHD has gone into quality issues at times: see for example Cybertruck [1] and Fisker Ocean [2]. In their Q&A videos, the couple that does Motormouth [3] due mention reliability when asked for recommendations.
There are sources for reliability assessments, like J. D. Power and Consumer Reports.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0cs8aIXgkc&t=8m
Everyone commented on the battery life for my model 3 in winter (which is annoying but not a huge deal). The problems with the bushings, the easily cracked (2500$) roof glass, and the lack of spare parts (not as bad as Rivian) were drowned out.
Love the car, but wouldn't have bought it for the price I paid (used) if I had known.
The R2 looks great but like you said, never buy a first year model.
(Unless it is the Honda 0 Saloon)
He hasn't innovated or improved upon anything in years.
Don't even get me started on his voice...
Marques has no problem calling out inferior products.
It’s a gas car, with greenwashing.
Mine gets a 40-45 mile all electric range. I drive 10-12k miles per year, and ignoring extended multi-day vacation road trips once every couple years, I fill up the tank 2-3 times per year.
And also, Doug feels a little out of touch to me these days. Less about "quirks and features" that appeal to me (although he still covers that), and more about "enthusiast cars" (like his million dollar Porsche and Lambo) that don't really interest me. Although to be fair MKBHD isn't much better in that regard.
Nowhere on the Toyota site did I see anything about range on battery only. Still, I wouldn't mind having one.
I settled for a refurbed Leaf and have only needed an ICE vehicle twice, because of cargo capacity, not range.
Looks like I was mistaken though and you can't actually buy the 2026 model yet (and the Toyota website still shows the older 2025 model). And as another commenter pointed out, it may not actually be possible to buy the older model either due to insufficient production.
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a69059379/2026-toyota-r...
He traded it in for a used 2023 Model Y. Does 9-hr road trips all the time. I don't think he's going back.
Rivians are wildly heavy and inefficient compared to the rest of the industry. The R1T weighs more than two of the heaviest version of the Ioniq 5, for example.
R1T owners seem to average about 2mi/kwhr, whereas the Ioniq 5 gets almost twice that...
Typically speaking you're going to spend $10,000 to $13,000 more then an equivalent gas car for a BEV vs a comparable gas car in Canada.
It’s just surprising to me that this is surprising to anyone in 2026. New cars are no longer $20-30k in the US and haven’t been since 2021. Average transaction price is now $50k+, so if companies like Rivian that skip the dealership model charge $45k, it really isn’t that expensive. The only new cars under $30k are sedans and hatchbacks. And most of them start at almost $27-30k for base price not including all the bs dealership fees.
there are plenty cars in this subrange, its just Americans prefer to spend more on extra features.
From the analysis I've seen with that drag coefficient, the 45k vehicle is going to have to have a range of 220 to 260 miles. Hardly something that will fly off the shelves.
We have one person saying "well in Californian wages..." and another saying essentially that 50K isn't a lot of money when the average SALARY is $66K/year.
Because EVs are exempt from CAFE standards, it does open up a niche at the very low end, and Slate and Telo are starting up production in that market, so one of their vehicles might appeal to you.
That said, china BEV's are 1/2 the cost even accounting for import costs to the USA lol so sort of points toward a issue with US companies at the moment
Designing a city that helps people make those journeys car free, makes it better for the 10% of journeys that do need to be made with a car.
As a Dutch person, surely you've seen that Amsterdam decided that the city's car problem in the 70s was unfixable and decided to switch to cycling. The building and delivery problem is real, but I don't think even a 10 euro/day charge for work vehicles would register given how expensive building work is already.
Land in cities is very expensive. Why should vehicles get to use more of it for free?
Because it's a nominal size more than a descriptive one. Midsize is the second biggest size with only "full size" stuff being bigger.
It made more sense 30-40yr ago when people who remembered when the domestic auto makers mostly only made a full-size, a midsize and a compact car were still alive and of prime car buying age.
[1] https://www.carmax.com/articles/suv-size-comparison-guide
it is terrifying
If you aren't buying at least the gigantic car, then you don't care about your kids safety and that's bad. How are you going to protect them from my gigantic SUV?
What? Walking?? No of course that's illegal! You want to navigate the street without a massive steel bubble? Are you nuts!
Why should they? We're already approaching geopolitical competition at this problem, given self-driving cars and self-driving self-propelled guns and the like are basically technological twins.
The winter tires that score great on day 1 but put a bit of wear on them and they turn to crap. The motherboard that scores the highest in the benchmarks at launch but later on burns your CPU, or gets a BIOS update that caps the performance, or gets no updates whatsoever. The car that shines at acceleration and feature list but breaks down often and is slow and expensive to fix.
Day 1 reviews certainly have some value but it’s higher for the reviewer than for the potential buyer. By the time the reviewer follows up after battle testing in time, if they even want to risk looking like they got it wrong the first time, the damage was done. And people aren’t that interested in reading about old stuff, those reviews don’t get the views.
*vw buzz fails the good test for no one pedal driving and the price for what you get is outta wack. though lots of the 1st gen ones are still sitting on car lots so maybe that could cross the exception barrier if they go for cheaper.
And the monthly subscription is for a software feature that does quite a bit more than lane keeping, in my experience of the trial they offered during December. I did multiple 45 min drives across town, on urban and traffic light streets without intervention, and many other drives where intervention was only required 1 or 2 times. I could see real utility in it for someone with slower reflexes or poorer eyesight, such as the elderly.
I haven't seen anyone offer that capability at anywhere near Model Y's price.
Rivian, by the way, is the lowest-ranked of 26 covered auto manufacturers in terms of predicted reliability, below Ram and Jeep. The top 3 are Toyota, Subaru, and Lexus.
53mi is weak sauce, but that sounds like the battery was near EOL. I charge mine at home which definitely keeps the wear and tear down.
I figure there's a lot more to break on the Prime too.
I have driven plenty of "slow" cars with less than 100 horsepower without issue. If you can't figure out how to merge that's a skill issue, another prime reason not to be giving people cars with former F1 car levels of acceleration. You don't need 0-60 in 3 seconds to fucking merge, get real!
> The only new cars under $30k are sedans and hatchbacks. And most of them start at almost $27-30k for base price not including all the bs dealership fees.
Door handles are harder, what do you want to change? Inner or outer?
What's insane about the charging port?
> What's insane about the charging port?
Well it doesn't work with most charging stations. Maybe it's different in the US.
They made their own in the US, because the standard SAE J1772 combo port is an unweildy behemoth, then they released the patent into public domain, and the rest of the automotive industry adopted their port into the NACS port, which beats both IEC 62196 and SAE J1772 in available power, all in a much smaller and easier-to-use connector.
Here you go, add as many buttons, dials, knobs, and screens as you like for your Tesla...
Here he talks about towing, and he demonstrates loading the truck to max capacity makes nearly no difference: https://youtu.be/UmKf8smvGsA
He also covered an attempted Cannonball run where they stuffed two extra battery packs into a Rivian R1T: https://youtu.be/yfgkh4Fgw98
Real differences makers are smaller wheels and aerodynamics
Looks like rolling resistance decreases with diameter [1]. So, is it from the increased drag from higher stance? Would lowering the car the same work better?
[1] https://www.tirereview.com/science-behind-rolling-resistance...
> CLARIFICATION! Why do bigger wheels mean worse efficiency, when the overall tire diameter remains the same? This comes down to aerodynamics. A 20" wheel will cause more of a disruption in airflow than an 18" wheel. That's why Tesla (and others) uses aero covers on their wheels (Car & Driver testing showed it gives about a 3% efficiency bonus at speed). The smaller the wheel, the more of the side profile of the wheel & tire is perfectly flat (the tire is flat, the wheel open: more tire = more flat area, less open area). Ideally, you'd have just a plain, solid sheet for the wheel, but obviously that's not idea for brake cooling. Wheel covers are today's common compromise as they have some airflow, but minimal.
Nice result.
I meant for normal highway driving, not drag racing.
Optimal highway driving is still lowest resistance and losses. Cold weather driving is what mostly results in a battery capable of the high performance, from what I understand.
Is a "small" motors more efficient than a large one? I suspect no, with the assumption that everything is sized so the "drag race" operating range would be well into the peak, rather than sustained, operating range.
For me his value remains mainly that he’s tall which I am too, so when he’s in a car I can guess what it’ll be like for me.
I do like Tedward's videos, though. He seems a lot more honestly enthusiastic about it, and definitely has fun with the cars.
Interior wise, you can look at things like fabric durability-- lower deniers can be cheaper, but will wear sooner. Springs/foam in seats are another example, but this will vary across manufacturers, models and trims.
This isn't exclusive to financial engineering manufacturers like Stellantis or Nissan, either. Toyota has had issues with simple things like rust proofing (whether intentional or not) on 1st generation Tacomas leading to massive recalls and things like plastic timing guides prone to wearing out. Ford with the wet clutches having belts submersed in oil. German cars needing body off access for rear timing chain maintenance at 80k miles. Water cooled alternators (really, VW?). All types of "why?" if you follow cars once they are 3+ years old.
It seems like there are a lot of regressions that probably result from cost cutting, while others may exist to simply drive service revenue.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency assumes the typical car is driven 15,000 miles (24,000 km) per year. According to the New York Times, in the 1960s and 1970s, the typical car reached its end of life around 100,000 miles (160,000 km). Due in part to manufacturing improvements, such as tighter tolerances and better anti-corrosion coatings, in 2012 the typical car was estimated to last for 200,000 miles (320,000 km) with the average car in 2024 lasting 160,545 miles according to the website Junk Car Reaper.
That'll influence the average reliability minimally, unless you were unlucky enough to buy one of those models.
Personally, why I'd rather get something at 120k mileage w/ 250k+ max examples on the road by that calendar date. You'll know whether they designed a lemon.
Add: undersized Tacoma rear leaf springs, multiple manufacturers' head gaskets, a few early aluminum engines (? from memory)
Leaning on those prior mentioned product mixes, keep in mind that Japanese manufacturers weren't in the American market 60 years ago, so market mix would be wildly different. (Multiple 400k+ mi Toyotas in my family, along with 60 year old GMs, but with aftermarket or rebuilt engines.) The cost of vehicles (and repairs) relative to prevailing wages will impact the repair vs replace balance. Trade publications like Cox/NADA/Adesa/etc. are always cited by financial blogs when mentioning consumer spending/state of economy by average age of cars on the road. Why cars get junked or totaled has shifted drastically, too. Steel bumpers were easy to replace, modern bumper covers with styrofoam backing and aluminum crumple zones, not so much. Tolerances is a vague term in that veiled PR piece on that wiki article. Machining has improved. Tech like direct injection and improved lubrication (synthetics) have done much more in terms of efficiency and longevity. In a lot of cases, manufacturers try to get more and more horsepower from the same displacement by pushing tighter engine tolerances (crank/main bearings, pistons/rings, valvetrain) and things like higher compression ratios and revs, leading to more heat and earlier failure. So while you have better initial engineering, you are closer to the point of failure. For another example, interference engines will grenade themselves if you ignore timing belt maintenance, but in the meantime, you get more horsepower by getting more air into the cylinders.
A v6 Camry or Accord is going to be have more hp, be faster,more reliable at same age, be quieter and get 3x the mpg than nearly any muscle car of the past. Unfortunately it seems that many Americans prefer giant vehicles that place more emphasis on their size (and status) than materially important factors like reliability engineering or fuel economy.
Obviously these are ancedotal examples, they can be confirmed by wasting hours reading about cars and watching mechanic review videos from people who work on them daily (I am partial to the CarCareNut on YT).
There's a reason why roman architecture is still standing: it is massively overbuilt, the very opposite of efficient (they also used to make the architect stand under his own arches as they removed the temporary support, that could have contributed to the overbuilding).
Is it? Every city in Roman empire had temples and forum. Where are they still standing? Maybe half a dozen survived, like pantheon in Rome or temple in Nimes, but it's extremely rare. Maybe they weren't overbuilt at all?
https://web.archive.org/web/20150122235642/http://www.busine...
So, temperature driven radial louvers!? :D
https://www.self.inc/info/expensive-cars-to-run/
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/the-cos...
The Model 3 Highland is super fun to drive. Maybe other EVs have this too. It's a very different experience to a similarly priced ICE car, and worth factoring in to the value proposition.
I specify Highland because the previous version was rattly and noisy enough to seriously detract from the zippy driving experience. Highland is nice.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/upshot/ev-vs-gas-ca...
> For the Equinox EV, these changes would cut its seven-year savings over the gasoline Equinox from about $9,000 to under $200. The Model Y also showed savings compared to its gasoline comparison under that less favorable scenario for EVs.
That link also factors in fuel savings which depends on where you live. I'd personally never save on an EV if it costs more upfront.
* I wanted my most recent purchase to be a PHEV
* I want my next purchase in roughly 5 years to be an EV (hopefully solid state batteries are available by then)
* In about 10 years I am hoping that I can buy a car that can self-drive most of my trips door-to-door
One thing I'll add is that I live in an area that gets a ton of snow, and current ADAS features are basically worthless in snow. They all turn off once the sensors get covered in ice, or when lines in the road are no longer visible. So I expect that even in new cars 10 years from now, I'll still need to take the wheel to drive during winter. Basically the features are nice when they work, but I'm still going to want to car that is first and foremost designed to be driven by humans.
I live in Western Wyoming. While my Subaru won't drive itself in a blizzard, the radar is still useful.
My plan is to wait until I have something that can drive itself unsupervised in clear weather. Given that's Waymo today and maybe Tesla in ~5 years, I'm figuring something should be on the market that fits that bill within 10, which is how long I'll try to hold onto my gas-burnig Subaru.
And yes EVs depreciated worse than any other vehicle.
Most people in California don’t have PG&E. Most of the land area in the northern 2/3 of the State or so is covered by PG&E, but people and land area aren't the same thing. Southern California Edison alone serves almost as many people as PG&E, and other smaller utilities, including public utilities like LADWP, SMUD, Silicon Valley Power, etc., serve another big chunk of the population.
Also for depreciation:
2020 Mazda 3 - sold $18k at dealer, originally $28k, 64% retained
2022 Kia EV6 - bought $25k, originally $55k-$7.5k federal, 53% retained
https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/comments/1r19jxb/vivian_is_o...
Because insurance is fundamentally a "skim some" model.
They have a massive pool of money. Sure the pool is bleeding all the time because they're paying out, but it's also being replenished by premiums paid in. They invest this "constant" pool of money and the return on this covers overhead plus profit.
So when we're all getting screwed on our premiums because fenders cost tens of thousands and Karens file claims for parking scratches they're making more money, because the same ROI on a bigger pool of money is a bigger number.
There’s definitely more to that story.
When I visited London with my parents, we went by train. When I was in the cub scouts, one of my memories was a group trip by train. When I went to middle school (years 4-6), it was easy enough for me to walk alone at the end, though mum did go with me at the start; when I went to secondary school (7-11) there was a bus, though eventually I found I liked the (3 mile!) walk.
Today, I find that my local bus route within Berlin to a nearby mall takes me past 2 schools, and at certain times of day the bus will fill with kids and adult supervisors. Sometimes I see people taking Kinderwagen on the bus.
Depending on the destination of course, I often find having a car in a city like having an albatross around my neck. The benefits or features get outweighed by traffic and parking. I'll take good public transit and a set of headphones.
Your link isn't exactly a white paper, here's a Subaru link that mentions radar: https://www.subaru.com/vehicle-info/articles/what-is-adaptiv...
Unless you're going surfing, 3 kids and their sporting equipment fit in a small hatchback, with room to spare.
As a practical example, in the UK, on average a young g child lives 1.7miles away from their school.
That is an easily walkable distance for most children, yet lots of parents choose to drive it because they feel the streets aren’t safe to walk on in rush hour.
If by redesigning streets to make active travel more appealing, you could reduce the number of cars on the school run by 10%; it would improve the traffic situation for the ones who still need to drive. Win-win
I’m trying to shop around to replace my wife’s aging crossover and I really can’t find anything more attractive than a Prius or another Kia Soul. If we could get electric cars from the CN market it’d be a no-brainer!
I have no idea if Chinese EVs are consistently better, Volvo can be seen as one and I don’t think they excel at reliability lately.
P.S. Software issues are reliability issues. The software is a core part of the car and its value proposition, you can’t discount them as “just software issues, not reliability”.
iD4 feels like they took every lesson of predictable UX design and then intentionally reversed it to make the most frustrating UI possible.
The window controls, touch buttons, screen, steering wheel controls, etc. They all seem designed to answer the question, "how could we make this unnecessarily difficult and distracting to use? How could we possibly cram in yet another State Machine for the user to keep (lose) track of?"
It also has the "try to kill the asthmatic by randomly switching off recirculate while driving through dense wood smoke" feature, naturally.
Considering how much money VW makes on EVs[0], I suppose I'm not surprised by this 'nudge' toward gas cars.
[0] https://www.motor1.com/news/758377/vw-making-less-money-sell...
I'm not in the market at the moment so don't know what the UK protectionism position is on Chinese EV's, but has been interesting to watch how quick it's happening.
I work in design and we're talking to two Chinese EV companies launching in the UK this year, so the wall can't be that high for them.
I've seen quite a few BYDs and MG4s, and there are Jaecoo and Leapmotor dealers near me. I've been told that some NHS boards were using MGs as "pool" cars, but the only example I can find a reference for is Shetland. https://www.nhsshetland.scot/news/article/43/nhs-shetland-ro...
I don't think I've ever seen a Rivian. The R2 is supposed to be coming to the UK in 2027.
That said, the UK's history of small auto manufacturers would make it potentially ideal for a few domestic producers to make little EVs, similar to the Caterham 7, or the Ariel Atom for the domestic market, but they will never be the mass produced Tesla or BYD competitor.
I think it's a combination of manufacturers wanting a higher profit, some adaptations & certification processes, dealer and service infrastructure necessary for selling in the West that just costs more.
I don't think Chinese manufacturers will be able to significantly undercut the competition while maintaining a desirable quality
I give the example I mentioned. People local to me swapping out their model 3's for BYD. Maybe they just got to their end of their lease cycle and wanted to try something different, but I cannot believe they would have willingly chosen a significantly lower quality car (knowing some of them). And I believe the cost difference is marginal but the overall package just a bit better.
And you know people, they'll swap out anything for just a marginal saving. Doesn't have to be significant unless there's some network effects. And there really isn't with cars.
Anyway, I'm just yapping, but think the used Tesla market is going to get even more swamped than it already is. Not a bad thing because previously people looking for low cost cars were buying diesels - so I'm hopeful that'll transition to low cost EV's now ... but the game is up for Tesla automotive, but we've known that for some time.
The only time the ICE turns on before my EV range is up is if I hit the windshield defrost button when it’s cold. That’s presumably to prioritize getting heat out through the vents quickly. I’ve never accelerated fast enough, nor gone fast enough to trigger the ICE engine taking over. It’s straight up an EV for my first ~40 miles every day.
PHEVs in the US are gimped by poor regulatory incentives - we should be forcing manufacturers to increase overall range + EV range. If this model were sold in the US by a US manufacturer, I bet the ranges would be halved (and still considered good/decent in comparison to existing alternatives).
That sounds like the real issue, vs. EVs. This sounds like you basically have to plug it in every time you park it. And there’s no way you could do any sort of (even small) road trip without using gas.
(For comparison, our EV6 has about 200-250 mile range, and we charge it about once a week or so, give or take, unless we take a road trip.)
Also, one of the main advantages with EVs is their insane low maintenance, but sounds like PHEVs still have to all the same maintenance issues of ICE vehicles.
Yep, so people (mostly) don’t , in aggregate:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...
I keep seeing this repeated, but I kept a detailed decade-plus spreadsheet of maintenace costs for my last ICE car, and ~2/3 of the costs were for components that are common to EVs.
When I take my EV in, it’s for one of two things: I need my tires rotated, or I need new tires. That’s it. There’s no “curtsy inspection” that comes back with literally 40 different things that I could have done to it.
2. Our household has four vehicles: one EV, three ICE vehicles. There’s no way the occasional new tires (rotations are free where we bought our tires) amount to 2/3 the cost of the maintenance needed on our ICE vehicles. It’s probably closer to 1/10.
I think you’re overestimating what all needs maintenance on an EV.
That being said, if you're in the market for a used EV right now, that depreciation actually works in your favor. I was looking at prices on used luxury EVs recently, and have to admit I was pretty tempted by some 2-3 year old cars selling at less than half MSRP.
But yes, there is engine oil to be replaced and whatnot.
And also, to your point, my experience with my PHEV is my short range driving is electric, but it turns out most of my miles is consumed by annual long range trips. If I commuted to work, things would tip more in favour of EV driving. All to say how much EV you get out of your PHEV will depend highly on the type of driving one does.
> (For comparison, our EV6 has about 200-250 mile range, and we charge it about once a week or so, give or take, unless we take a road trip.)
its gasoline car. You use 45miles for every day commute while charging overnight, and use gas for roadtrips: 500 miles range + 3 mins put gas into car
Anyway, the real world data from PHEV usage shows you are the outlier, most people don’t bother plugging them in regularly due to their limitations.
They're pretty lucky from what I hear! A friend of mine just sold his Model S because he'd been waiting over 7 months for the shop to source a replacement part. Apparently he'd even resorted to begging Musk to look into it over X because Tesla wont even give him an ETA.
Oil change/Oil filter, Spark plugs, Alternator belt, Aircon belt, Brake pads, Brake fluid, Wiper blades, Wiper fluid, 12V battery, Tyres, an accessory fuse, a jammed seatbelt buckle. Two of the power locks are a bit sticky and probably need a touch-up of oil.
The first 4 are ICE-only, and brake pads are worn less if you mostly use regen. The rest are the same on EVs.
I welcome competition, as it benefits everyone, even people who don't want to buy Chinese. It will also encourge building factories for EV components in Europe, which mean other suppliers might benefit from lower prices, and some of the savings will end up at the customer.
As for why your coworkers decided to go for non-Tesla EVs, you have to ask them, and ask them again a few years from now if it was worth it. In their defense, Tesla makes a very particular kind of car (in 2 slight variations), which many people might want to move away from.
Maybe they want a petrol range extender, maybe they want a more traditional SUV, or something smaller/bigger than Tesla.
If the roads in cities are wide enough in cities for literal trucks, then they're wide enough for your car. Widening roads and making cars bigger makes pretty much everyone less safe.
Don't get me wrong, you're free to live in the boonies and drive 400km to your sports club, but don't call me narrow minded because I can load up 5 people in my VW passat and drive 500km for a 10 day vacation, or because I prefer not to get bulldozed by a car with a higher hood than me while walking to my local sports club.
I don't believe your last statement because you've been wrong about everything else, and it doesn't make sense. Plugging it in is exactly as easy as literally any electric car, and it simply doesn't have the limitations you claim it does.
I don't know what you've been reading, but you should evaluate the veracity of it as a source and talk to actual owners. I know several others who have one and we're all quite happy with them and don't get gas often
“ The researchers attributed most of the gap to overestimates of the “utility factor” – the ratio of miles travelled in electric mode to the total miles travelled – finding that 27% of driving was done in electric mode even though official estimates assumed 84%. ”
Perhaps the rav4 prime @ 41ml max ev range is a better system than all the other low range PHEVs like it, and has better real world usage data than them. I doubt it though, but I don’t have the data on just the rav.
And who cares if this guy is the outlier? You're going to bash on the car because people are dumb and don't know how to operate their cars?
What I do care about, and why I care that he’s an outlier, is that low range PHEVs mainly exist to get emissions credits for manufacturers so that they can sell more gas cars, and those emission savings aren’t real [1]. You could say everyone’s dumb for using them this way, but clearly the ergonomics of the electrical capabilities in this category are lacking in important ways.
And I can’t prove it but I bet the manufacturers have known this for a long time. But adding a plug to a hybrid with a tiny battery was an awfully cheap way to get your existing car counted as “green” for credits, so too tempting.
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...
To what degree is this caused by car prices versus Americans' compulsion to keep buying new cars? Anecdotally, the folks I know struggling with car payments are almost exclusively in the latter bucket. But I'm open to having my mind changed with data.
I’m all for maintaining vehicles and keeping them on the road, but I don’t think you’re in a place to criticize your friends with $1K car payments after putting almost 2 years worth of those payments into a car that’s over a decade old.
Plus paying for the car itself
You can’t estimate your future repair bills to be $0
I get it that you like the car, but there are some major mental gymnastics happening with your math
to simplify the math:
1. I spent total $90k
2. to have a car from 2014 through 2035-ish
for a $1k/month that would be $252k for my friends :)
I'm not doing any estimating, I kept a detailed spreadsheet of every dollar I put into the car, and am familiar with which items are common to an EV.
This is the overestimating I was referring to. I think you’re either mistaken in what items are common to EV, or you’re overestimating the cost of those items.
There is only one thing that needs maintenance on an EV: tires.
Unless you’re saying that tires amount to 2/3 of an ICE vehicles maintenance. In which case you may want to shop around for more reasonably priced tires.
Nice Michelins for my ICE have been something resembling 1/3 of service costs. Not 2/3 but not negligible either.
Most Americans don’t keep a car long enough to even pay it off - they’re in an endless loop of trade-ins, meaning that most non-accident damage is covered by warranty.
I’ve had my current ICE car for just over 5 years now and finally paid my first out of pocket repair cost: $40 for a new washable air filter. Other than that, my expenditures have been tires and a couple hundred bucks in oil changes that I didn’t want to do myself.
> Most Americans don’t keep a car long enough to even pay it off - they’re in an endless loop of trade-ins, meaning that most non-accident damage is covered by warranty.
No, I think you may be underestimating. According to this article [1] at least, it’s close to 13 years. That’s well into large/costly maintenance items.
Maybe on HN, people don’t keep their cars long enough to need new brakes or transmission flush, but that’s not typical.
[1] https://www.spglobal.com/automotive-insights/en/blogs/2025/0...
> I’ve had my current ICE car for just over 5 years now and finally paid my first out of pocket repair cost: $40 for a new washable air filter.
Repairs are only a subset of maintenance. Maintenance includes oil changes, brakes, transmission flushes, etc.
All of this is part of the maintenance that ICE vehicles need that EVs don’t.
I also clearly mentioned maintenance in my post - you chose to quote the sentence before it, leaving it out and then respond as if I hadn’t.
Please don’t engage me with this kind of dishonest conversation. It’s a waste of both our time.
I agree with the premise. The "utility factor" used to estimate fuel efficiency for PHEVs does not line up with real-world data, which effectively creates a loophole to avoid emissions regulations and keep selling gas guzzlers. This is a problem, and should be fixed.
In regards to which cars are most to blame:
> Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW account for the lion’s share of fines avoided over the past three years, together responsible for 89% of the total.
This is a recent trend where luxury carmakers are using PHEVs to circumvent emissions regulations. The latest BMW M5 [2], for example, is a PHEV with a monster 4.4L V8 engine. Car enthusiasts actually hate it compared to the old model because the hybrid system increased the weight by 1000 lbs. But making it a PHEV is probably the only way that BMW is still able to sell a V8. It seems kind of stupid all around.
The RAV4 PHEV is also a big, heavy (4,500 lb) car with a large (by European standards) 2.5L engine. But I would hesitate to lump it in with luxury cars from BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, etc. I would also hesitate to apply findings from a European study to the US market, where large gasoline cars are currently very popular (not that every discussion needs to be about the US - but the RAV4 is the best selling car in the US so it's important to that market). Not saying you're wrong about RAV4 PHEV emissions relative to the gasoline RAV4, just that the study you linked doesn't really support making any specific claims about that model. The report only mentions Toyota once, where it is lumped into an "others" category on a chart along with Ford, Hyundai, JLR, Kia, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Suzuki.
[1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smoke-screen-t...
One of my neighbours has one but nowhere to plug it in. I have no idea why they bought it.
This wouldn't stop me from buying one.
Basically you can get EV quality-of-life features on a gasoline-powered vehicle.
I probably wouldn't recommend a PHEV to someone who doesn't have a place to plug it in every day. But there are reasons to buy a PHEV beyond just fuel efficiency.
Other than washer fluid, wiper blades, and the occasional headlight bulb, many of these I’ve never had to replace on any of my vehicles (ICE or EV), and the few that I’ve had to replace was maybe once on one car.
I feel like you’re an unlucky sample of 1.
Most of my ICE vehicles needed none of these, and only things related to ICE vehicles (oil/fluid changes, brake pads/rotors oil leaks, transmissions, alternators, belts).
Maybe a bit, but overall my numbers line up with what most sources give for average TCO maintenance numbers. But really, the car was just getting old - having a couple random things to fix per year on a 10+ year-old car isn't unusual. (And my ICE component maintenance was quite low, so you could say I was lucky there, rather than unlucky.)
I think it's your maintenance numbers that are way off, "zero maintenance other than tires" doesn't line up with what any reputable source gives for TCO maintenance costs for EVs or non-ICE components.
e.g.
Consumer Reports says EVs have 40% of the maintenance costs: https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2023...
US government says fleet EVs have 60% of the maintenance costs: https://www.motortrend.com/news/government-ev-ice-maintenanc...
AAA puts EV maintenance at something like 80% of ICE maintenance: https://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-You...
University of Michigan study puts EV maintenance costs at 50% of ICE vehicles: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13463
However! It somewhat undermines my argument about the rav4, as it seems Toyotas are indeed the most charged / highest UF phevs.
Still drastically overestimated, just the least bad.
1 https://electrek.co/2026/02/19/biggest-study-yet-shows-plug-...
Maybe at 1/10 the schedule of ICE vehicles, at least for me. I use regenerative braking almost exclusively (probably 95+% of the time).
> coolant
Yes, I did forget about that one. But frequency is about 50% less often than ICE vehicles. Maybe once every 5-10 years.
> washer fluid, cabin air filter, wiper blades
Agreed on these as well, but I bucketed these in the trivial category, totaling less than a tank of gas once every 6-12 months, and all DIY things that you don’t need to take to a service center for.
At the end of the day, I only care about things I need to take it to the shop for. Which means I only need to take it in for a no-questions-asked tire rotation 1-2 times a year, and new tires every 4-5 years. Everything else I can easily do at home.
> diff oil, gearbox oil
These are the same thing, but you’re correct. But it’s infrequent (maybe once or twice over the life, and around $150.
> Did you know EV motors can also require oil changes
Ummm… what? Now you lost me. What EVs need oil?
In practice, my brakes always corrode from road salt and fuel-efficient driving habits and need replacing long before I actually wear them down, so regen brakes are largely irrelevant to brake life.
> Which means I only need to take it in for a no-questions-asked tire rotation 1-2 times a year, and new tires every 4-5 years. Everything else I can easily do at home.
So that sounds... basically the same as my ICE. Two shop visits per year for tire changes, one oil change per year at the same time as one of the tire changes.
Re: brakes, where I live, I don’t think salt will play much a factor, and not sure what you mean by “fuel efficient driving” wearing your brakes, but I’m using regenerative braking 95+% of the time.
Please enjoy an excellent podcast I quite like: https://youtu.be/YvE164Ubgss?t=900 (wait for 15:45)
Again, probably only relevant for extremely long term ownership, but someone will need to own and maintain all the high mileage decade-old EVs a decade from now.
Of all those things you listed, they took a total of 3 garage visits (that weren't already scheduled for tire changes) over 14 years. Not what I'd call "many".
> Re: brakes, where I live, I don’t think salt will play much a factor, and not sure what you mean by “fuel efficient driving” wearing your brakes, but I’m using regenerative braking 95+% of the time.
I mean that if you drive in a fuel efficient way - i.e. by not constantly accelerating/braking unnecessarily, your brake life will be much extended. My current car has regen brakes, and I expect the brakes will require replacing just as often as they did on my old ICE car, due to corrosion.