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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    2 months 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@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months 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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        2 months 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.

          • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            A quatrad of regular sources VS one Bostonglobe boi, who shall win?

            In all seriousness though, “less” fires does not equal “it is a myth”. Never was I saying it wasn’t less. Is the goal here to show risks that do exist or just to be better than the alternative vehicle type in the name of filthy politics like a fandom?

            Three things most such sources that advocate for electric cars will agree on though are the fires are more cause-based (hence what I was saying in the first place), harder to put out, and that the statistics are affected by stock and consumerbase.

    • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months 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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        2 months 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.