We are all in on modern cars, with an RWD Model 3 Long Range and an AWD Model Y Long Range 7-seater in the family. They’re great cars but not perfect. The turning radius is too wide on both of them. That’s the beginning and end of my complaints. If they were more maneuverable they would be damn near perfect. It also feels good as an American to know that Tesla’s out there making American cars worth a damn, that people all over the world want. That was never the case previously in my lifetime.
The federal tax subsidy was long gone by the time we purchased the Model Y, and in fact regressive legislators decided to impose an annual registration penalty on modern cars in addition to removing prior state incentives before we bought the Model 3. (My opinion is all cars should be taxed on weight - moderns would pay more than equivalent legacies, but weight impacts wear and tear on infrastructure so that’s fair - and fuel taxes should be repurposed for climate change mitigation.)
In our use the electric drivetrain has zero drawbacks compared to legacy toxic algae corpse crematoria, and many advantages. The cars as a whole are just plain better vehicles than their competitors foreign and domestic. I’m glad there may be real competition emerging though: Kia, Hyundai, Polestar, Volvo, Ford, VW, Lucid, etc.
I’m ambivalent about EV subsidies. One one hand they’re clearly welfare for the upper middle classes, using money could perhaps be better deployed to improve the lives of the working poor or children, or used for foreign aid (which barely qualifies on a line item in current budgets, even before you separate the relabeled domestic corporate and agricultural welfare from actual aid). On the other hand the subsidies incentivize the transition to modern vehicles, and should lower prices due to economies of scale. I consider that a collective net positive.
However, we recently moved to a new city, and the requirement to find a home with a garage and ability to add a high-amp outlet for a car charger in a walkable city neighborhood was a constraint that kept us from examining several homes in target neighborhoods within our budget. But then again so did our maximum commute expectations, neighborhood walkability expectations, space/layout expectations, proximity to useful mass transit lines expectations, etc. It was just another checkbox, albeit a must-have rather than a maybe-we-can-make-do.
PS I don’t put PHEV in the same category as real EV. They’re fine transitional vehicles and a good choice for the range anxious, but annoying. PHEVs tend to hog public chargers, when they have other means of propulsion that pure modern cars don’t.
