One of the first challenges from the latest season of The Great British Bake Off was having these British amateur bakers make “American-style” cookies. Unexpectedly, it was a gastronomical disaster just this side of the Midland Counties Beer Poisoning of 1900, though with thankfully fewer fatalities. Many of the cookies were more like candy bars, or featured meringue toppings and sour fruit. It was very odd.
Even the phrasing of the challenge was bizarre, with a request to produce 30 American-style identical cookies with… decorations? The classic American cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle, peanut butter, etc) are not decorated. They’re sweet, sure, but not overwhelmingly or cloyingly so, and a bit of salt often provides a counter to the sugar.
What the bakers created, primarily, are more like something you’d get at a novelty cookie bakery. Think Crumbl or Insomnia Cookies. Not that they’re necessarily bad, if that’s what you want, but they aren’t really American-style, nor are they in any way sufficient when what you’re thinking of is a Tollhouse-style chocolate chip cookie.
This is how I feel about most electric cars, and why I think it’s so hard for fans of EVs and fans of traditional internal combustion cars to even speak the same language. A focus on pure statistics might make one assume that a cookie with more sugar is the better cookie if you like sweets, when, to me, a saltier cookie with less sugar is what I’m really craving.
An example.
In a long conversation about the future of the Volkswagen Group and combustion cars, someone on BlueSky said the following:
Who is still going to buy a Porsche ICE car, when a dual motor EV can eat any one of them for lunch easily at the hypothetical race off the stop light?
This poster is not wrong to say that if what you want in a performance car is to accelerate faster than anyone else, you ultimately are better off buying an electric car. In terms of performance-per-dollar, it’s nearly impossible to beat a Tesla Model 3 Performance, which costs under $60,000, can hit 60 mph in under 3 seconds, and produces over 500 horsepower. If you wanted the same level of objective, numerical performance from a gas-powered car you’re in the realm of, say, a Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC, which costs basically twice as much.
Porsche has found it so hard to find customers for performance EVs that it’s shifted its strategy back towards making more expensive 911s, which are inefficient and illogical cars. They’re also fun as hell. So is the Mustang. If a rational person would rather have a Model 3, I am definitely not a rational person.
High performance electric cars, going back to the culinary metaphor, sometimes feel to me more like that Gushers candy, which supposes that if you want something really sweet, there’s nothing better than a chewy bit of sugar confection that blasts a lukewarm splurt of corn syrup straight into your mouth while you eat it. It’s an appealing notion to children, maybe, but try arguing to an adult that a Gusher is better than, like, a Twix, or a Kit-Kat, or any other candy you can think of. [Ed note: I prefer Toffifay, which is “too good for kids.” – Pete]
This isn’t to say that it’s impossible. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N pulls it off by mimicking a gas-powered hot hatch, and the new i3 is apparently very good. A Porsche Taycan Turbo comes close, although it’s still not as fun as the basest base Cayman or Boxster.
All of this was on my mind when I decided to borrow a purple Rivian R2 Performance AWD.
An R2 Has The Performance, If Not The Feel
To clarify, this is not going to be a full review, because David did like 6,000+ words on the R2 after its launch this summer and I agree with his take. The R2 is an excellent electric SUV, and the fact that it looks very much like a smaller R1S isn’t a detriment to me, as I think the R1 is an extremely handsome design.
I own a Honda CR-V Hybrid that is just an car to me. I don’t really care that much about how it looks, I just like that it’s efficient, safe, and was affordable. If you were only thinking about a car as something that’s efficient, safe, and affordable (relative to an R1S, at least), then a Rivian R2 is a sensible choice.
Many people, I suspect, aren’t into the R2 because it makes rational sense. My friends who are interested in buying one look at it like something fun. And, in a way, it was. Driving the Rivian R2 for a week, I found it to be both sensible and even enjoyable.
Was the actual point-to-point of driving it fun? Not exactly. I appreciate that even the dual-motor performance version only trots to 60 mph in the mid-3-second range, because anything faster than that makes me feel like I want to barf, and barfing is not usually fun to me. Still, the novelty of an electric car accelerating at non-nauseating speeds doesn’t do much for me, and after a while the trick loses its appeal. I have more fun in my E39, which is slower, but makes a bunch of loud noises and allows me to shift. Maybe that’s juvenile, but it’s my truth.
I feel the same when I attempt to hustle it around a corner. Absolute credit to Rivian for taking something that’s roughly 5,000 pounds and overpowered and also making it easy to drive quickly. There’s a specific high-speed curve I use as a safe benchmark for measuring composure, which is the unheralded yet most important characteristic in a fast car. Most people think power is key, but power without grip is just wasted heat, and grip without a good sense of where it ends is just an invitation to make someone’s Cars & Coffee reel go viral.
Attempt to throw a Rivian R2 around a corner, and it’ll probably save you from embarrassing yourself using a “brake lock differential” to do what torque vectoring or a limited-slip differential might do in a different vehicle. Is that fun? Not really. Under pressure, the hefty SUV jolts and dives like a USC freshman tight end, but in this situation you’re not the tight end, you’re one of the hapless Ohio State defenders. There’s not a lot of feel there, because there’s not a lot of feel with most good electric cars, so you just hang on while the car straightens itself out.
So What Makes It Fun?
If the driving of the Rivian R2 is nice, though not particularly fun, then every other part of the experience will have to make up for it. Thankfully, for most Rivian owners and even grizzled autojournalists like me, the rest of the car more than delivers.
I had the R2 for Halloween, and got to use the Halloween Mode I wrote about last week. You can see video of it below, or by clicking here.
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I can’t film the different modes from outside the car, so I had my ultimate frisbee buddies sit in the car and hit the various buttons of Halloween Mode for me, and you’ll notice them dancing with joy. I was too busy trying to film without tripping that I hadn’t noticed their wild gesticulations, but that’s basically the feeling you get when you have a car that’ll turn itself into Ecto-1 (or Ecto-R2 in this case) just for funsies.
Even the main cluster makes the R2 look like a little ghost-fighting ambulance, which made me smile while driving it. It’s even better when parked, because you can put it in “Trick or Treat Mode” and have it tell you ghost stories, give you a Ghostbusters-themed soundboard, and will let you smush little Stay Puft Marshmallow guys on the big infotainment screen. My daughter happily proclaimed, “This is one of the best cars you’ve ever gotten” after playing with it for ten minutes.
While this may seem slight, and even childish, it’s not something most cars can really do! This is a silly yet powerful way to demonstrate that Rivian’s value proposition is, in large part, due to its completely integrated brain. In a normal car, everything is controlled by overtaxed ECUs attempting to make a bunch of different supplier-coded systems work together. Rivian wrote all the code, and it can therefore blink the lights like a ghost trap, play a siren, and turn the lights inside green (Tesla, too, has some similar abilities, and my friend played ghost noises from his Model Y to try and scare/amuse our kids during Halloween).
I love old Volvos. To me, old Volvos are fun. That’s difficult to explain to people sometimes, but there’s a joy in clever packaging and stout capability.
The frunk on the Rivian is wide enough, and deep enough, to toss in all my frisbee gear so that it’s not stinking up the rest of the SUV. IT also has a delightful opening action, and almost seems to be smiling at you when you do it.
Can a color be fun? This particular R2 has Borealis, which is a light-shifting color not that dissimilar from Ford’s Mystichrome, just without the green infill. It is a fantastic hue, and people went out of their way to turn their heads to look at it when I passed.
It’s also a neat trick that the rear glass can drop into the hatch, which allows the Rivian to be used as a portable sound system or, if hanging out after the game enjoying a beverage, a place to hang out.
This isn’t the most traditional sort of fun, and it requires a change in perspective, which is why I think so many electric car fans are people who weren’t gearheads before this moment. I can totally accept that what I find exhilarating–controlled slides and barely controlled tire destruction–is unappealing to many people.
What you taste in your mind when you hear ‘American cookie’ may not be what I taste in my mind, and that’s fine. I don’t want to yuck your yum if you won’t yuck mine. What the R2 shows is that, if you’re willing to broaden your tastes a bit, you might find something worth a second bite.
Top photo: Author
Oh, and for me personally,
Fun gasoline cars, without exception, are gas guzlers.
And the world is in a state right now where cheap gasoline is only possible in state of war and or oppression.
This, for me, dampens the fun of driving old style fun cars.
I have a V12 Jaguar that struggles to achieve 12 MPG or more than about 200 miles on a tank. The latter of which is actually worse than my R2’s highway range, which is at least 220 miles at 75-80 MPH.
A V12 Jaquar does sound like a ‘nice’ car.
I have never driven one, but I could imagine a nice soundtrack, plenty of power and a plush ride.
However, a gargantuan lump of metal on the front axle is not a great starting point for making what I see as a ‘fun’ car.
And what would you loose if it were to be magically converted to EV? A 200 miles EV could be light and powerfull. So you only loose the soundtrack and some soul.
Agree to disagree.
Take the ultimate gasoline fun car: the MX5. Not high power, not high grip. Just a lot of control and involvement. And a , sort of eagerness to drive .
My Mini Cooper SE has just that last thing. It is not the fastest thing on the road, not even in cornering speed. But it feels eager.
If it was a dog, it would be a Jack Russell. Not frightening, but it makes up in enthousiasm.
Now I don’t say this is the last word on EV fun, but I could defenitely see an electric MX5 or GT86 taking this direction.
I agree. A heavy SUV might just not be the right place to go look for a fun EV. Just like you wouldn’t in ICE cars. Some might consider overpowered ICE SUVs “fun”, but that’s usually for the same reasons listed at the beginning of the article.
The fun part of EVs for me is the lack of un-fun byproducts that come with ICE.
Expensive Fuel, Oil Changes, Exhaust, more vibration, more noise, etc.
Though I like the instant acceleration, it being unaffected by altitude, I love one pedal driving, etc.
No, EVs will never stimulate that Mad Max part of your brain that loves propulsion via explosions, but EVs are the sober option, that are still a blast to drive.
it also helps that we’re getting close to living in an actual Mad Max world. At this point I really don’t like driving an ICE vehicle unless I absolutely have to.
I think for most people, especially those who just use cars for *shudder* basic transportation, an electric car is actually perfect. But if I could only have one car, it would have to be ICE. I don’t know if I could live with just an electric car. I could have one as a drive-to-work car, but I’d have to have at least one ICE in my fleet.
Also, if I could only have one car, I would probably be a LOT better off to be honest.
One other thing, it sickens me that I could get a Mustang GT, for instance, and pull the drivetrain, bore it, stroke it, cam it, blueprint it, supercharge it, remap the ECU, and replace the suspension and tires for more get-off-the-line traction, and have all my hard work blown into the ditch by some IT person driving their kids to soccer practice in an electric SUV.
To me it’s really simple, and summed up by something I have been saying here for years now. If you just want your organs re-arranged by g-forces, a season ticket to Six Flags is a hell of a lot cheaper, and safer for your body, license, and insurance costs than a stupidly fast car. If you want to have FUN behind a steering wheel, you want something that isn’t necessarily fast, but provides plenty of DRAMA at reasonable speeds. Something EVs emphatically lack.
I strongly suggest a 50+yo Triumph Spitfire. You will lose a drag race to a fit 3yo on a tricycle but you will be having so much fun you won’t care.
This is one of the reasons I like my now-old ’02 Mustang. She’s objectively slow compared to any contemporary version but she has a kind of visceral rawness that just can’t be matched. A term I’ve always liked for what you describe so well is “immediacy”, and for me at least, that’s what I want out of my cars.
Definitely helps – but I don’t necessarily need “immediacy”. I find things like old Peugeots to be delightful too, and they are neither fast nor sharp. But sublime comfort combined with “just so” feel is a very nice thing indeed.
Too many modern cars just feel like video games to drive. Completely artificial. That’s a problem too.
To me, your Peugeot example still works – it’s just in that case, the immediacy takes the form of being a driver in a car that fits you just right in a definite car-centric way. Much contemporary stuff works to remove that sense of fit and automotive substance in favor of that video game + airline business class sensibility sadly.
You got that right! I have a Grand Highlander this week for my rental, and I am pretty sure I have driven video games that give more feedback than this lardass turd smoothie does. Absolutely dire.
Apparently, you haven’t read the news recently…
Well it’s still cheaper, so Six flags has that going for them.
Only if you don’t buy any food there
Hey, at least he didn’t suggest a ride in a Lear jet.
Meh, how many people die at Six Flags vs. on the drive TO or FROM Six Flags every year? Don’t forget, most of a busload died coming back from the place years ago in just one accident.
I held off on getting an EV for the longest time. I wanted something as fun to drive as my BRZ without costing that much more than my BRZ. All of the EVs around the same pricerange as my BRZ were boring appliances, all of the EVs with the slightest hint of being fun were $60K or more. Then the P2s started coming off-lease at slightly under $30K. My 7yo BRZ was still worth $20K+ so for a few grand I got a P2 Performance which met my criteria.
Is it a sportscar? No.
Is it fun to drive? Yes, it absolutely can be.
No, it’s not as tossable as my BRZ, it handles quite well in fact but you can absolutely feel its weight. It doesn’t feel like an old 70s land yacht, Polestar really dialed in the suspension, and its grip is legitimately confidence inspiring, but the BRZ would leave it behind on a tight course.
It’s one party trick that it does very well is acceleration. The Toyobaru twins will never be accused of being quick. They’re by no means slow, but drag racers they ain’t. The thing is, the whole time I was driving my BRZ at least once a month I would think how much I missed my WRX hatch. I loved the way the BRZ looked (especially in WRBlue) and it was a ton of fun to throw around on rainy days, but sometimes I missed the straight line performance that 300HP and AWD can deliver. I also really, really, really missed having a hatchback. Since buying the P2 I find that I no longer miss the WRX. This ticks all the boxes, rear hatch to support all my hobbies and AWD with way more than 300HP. I’ve had it for a year now and still grin like an idiot every time I slam the accelerator and it pushes me back in my seat.
took me a minute to realize P2 = Polestar 2
Yeah, it hasn’t been relevant for almost 30 years but everytime I read or even type P2 my first thought is Pentium II.
I really wanted to go and look at the Toyobaru twins before I got the ND RF (that was then traded for my current Polestar 2) but the fuel economy was so terrible for such a low horsepower 4banger sports car I could not see dailying it for my ~96mile commute. Once I test drove my PS2 fell in love with it and cannot see going back to ICE for a daily.
I got almost 30mpg in my BRZ and as slow as it is compared to modern cars it’s just as quick as my Conquest and I remember thinking that was fast as hell back in the 80s. The only problem is the BRZ didn’t make power until about 6KRPM.
Same tho, I bought the EV just to try it out but honestly don’t think I’d go back to ICE for my daily “sitting in traffic” commuter car. Never waiting for it to warm up, not worrying about letting it cool off, NEVER having to put up with another gas station… it’d have to be a pretty damn compelling ICE for me to switch my DD back to gas.
I always thought the entertainment modes in Teslas were childish gimmics, and really, they are. But I have to say, we went trick or treating in one of those neighborhoods where everyone tries to outdo everyone else’s decorations and the fact that there were Teslas parked all over the place playing creepy theremin music filled out the atmosphere nicely. It was fun!
Is the expectation that EVs are to lead to endless acceleration, and we’re left here wondering why something shaped like an SUV remains un-sporty?
And related vehicles designed for efficiency, while getting free-acceleration from EV motors, are also un-sporty?
Shocked. Truly shocked that this SUV-shaped object isn’t as engaging as something designed, ground up, to be sporty and engaging.
The overwhelming majority of the EVs on the market are mediocre generic soccer mom transport, with the only notable thing about them over the 4 cylinder turbo midsized SUVs that they replaced that half of them have sub 5 second 0-60 times. In the US that’s got a bit of a twist because you also have a bunch of 600 hp electric pickup trucks.
For that reason, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they drive like shit no matter how fast they are, because “not driving like shit” wasn’t part of the design brief because their goal is to replace stuff that also drove like shit. We know it’s possible to have them be sporty (rather than just very fast) and fun to drive because the manufacturers who actually have bothered with it have done so, even if they’re not doing so with stuff that competes with Miatas or Elises.
I enjoy driving any car, and I feel like hybrid cars are the sweet spot of convenience and economy.
That said, I’ve test driven a bunch of turbo and hybrid cars (and an EV) this past few years, and I’m less enamored with that spike of torque and grabby brakes. For my next car purchase (soon), I expect to go for an analog V6 for smooth, predictable driving performance and consistent braking feel. It won’t be fastest, and not fuel efficient, but it will be comfortable and reliable and fun for me to drive.
Weight. Fun cars are lightweight and “tossable”. In the relentless pursuit of range, EV have heavy battery packs, which is the antithesis of fun. Lightweight EV come closest to fun, like the 500e and Spark.
It’s a sense of speed. Way back when I had an 85 MR2. 70 mph was flying. My dad had a 71 Caddy. The contrast in sense of speed between the flyweight Toyota and the heavyweight Caddy was jarring. 45 in the MR2 felt about 3 times faster as 90 in the Caddy. It was actually really hard to switch between them.
EVs are naturally heavy. So, even the legendary fast acceleration of an EV isn’t super impressive, because you don’t realize how fast it is going.
A century of track and road and drag racing where everyone involved seemed to be singularly obsessed with faster cars, better acceleration, better handling, and so on has run into a weird wall where it turns out that people didn’t actually want fast cars, it’s just that the fastest cars for a long time were the loud ones where you had to do your own shifting.
All of this pursuit of performance was wasted effort, and really what we needed was to just take the muffler off an ’82 Sentra with a manual transmission to give the people what they were really after: noise and shifting.
You’re not wrong. Otherwise Initial D wouldn’t exist. Granted, that was a Toyota… but you get the idea.
Similar to the folks who buy a basic import then spend way too much to make it not nearly as powerful as some other basic higher horsepowered car.
Well, we sort of already knew this, most of the little British sports cars that became popular right after the war weren’t any faster in a straight line than an ordinary family car with a flathead straight six, heck, many of them were slower, people just bought them because they were fun
Bingo! As I said above, my Spitfire, even with it’s hotted up motor, is slower than a fit 3yo on a tricycle. But it’s also about as much fun as you can have with clothes on, without breaking the speed limit. Fast cars are just f’ing boring when you can’t actually go fast. Hence why I loved my M235i in Germany, and tired of it quickly once it was in the States. Fast is pointless 99% of the time.
Oh, yeah. Chevy used to make air cleaners that the top could be installed upside-down. It got rid of the snorkel that sucked air from outside and opened up the entire air cleaner to the hot air around the engine. Every test I ever saw was that the upside down lid robbed a couple percentage from the engine’s power because of the hot air.
With that being said, I absolutely drove around with an upside-down air cleaner lid. Everyone I knew did. The loud intake, particularly when you could hear the secondaries kick in fooled you into thinking the car had a ton more power, regardless of what the test results said. Same goes for louder mufflers and cold air intakes. They add basically no power, but the “butt dyno” disagrees.
I had a Chevy with a 327, and loved the sound with the air intake flipped over.
I sort of realised that, by their nature, EVs can’t really be fun-to-drive while we were EV shopping earlier this year. I was looking at a BYD Seal Performance and that 3.8s 0-100 time was really tempting me. But after driving the regular model I realised this is still a heavy car that handles as such. So I decided I may as well go for something (much) cheaper for our first EV and use the AU$25k saved to buy on old, actually fun, car to scratch that itch.
Now we have a Jaecoo J5 and it’s actually a pleasant thing to scoot around the suburbs in, smooth and quiet. And it’s got a big boot to carry all our baby stuff. I still haven’t bought the “fun” car yet, I’m currently still trying to sell our old car (a very thirsty Toyota Crown which is not a great car to be trying to offload in this climate). But I’m having fun looking at my options!
“Fun” is such a subjective concept. What’s fun for one person isn’t necessarily going to be fun for someone else. I, for myself, think that the Fiat 500e is a ton of fun to chuck around It’s zippy, easy to fling around, and it looks cheerful. I also think that my BMW i4 is fun. It’s got a great ride, plenty of punch, and drives like a RWD BMW, but what’s really fun is that I don’t have to worry about rod bearings or oil leaks. I actually find it more fun to drive than my Panamera, because I’m always a little worried about mechanical mishaps with it. The Panamera might be a little sharper and have a little better seats and stereo, but it feels more fragile, and I’m always more worried about driving it.
Long story short, part of MY personal calculus for “fun” is that I can drive it and not worry. Also, I like being comfortable, and I, again personally, find EVs more comfortable to drive.
This is definitely one of those “your mileage my vary” topics. I also really don’t enjoy EVs pretending to be combustion-engined. I just don’t like it, and I think it’s annoying.
It’s like putt-putt. The fun courses are fun because of the charm that is intrinsic to the course; whether they’re the simple ones or ones with crazy obstacles. They can be rundown or nicely kept and they’re still fun
Meanwhile, the newer trend of indoor “we can charge $15 per themed cocktail,” places are just joyless cash grabs built for the ‘gram stuffed with tchotchkes.
That’s an amazing analogy. You’re spot on.
EVs/hybrids can bring their own kind of fun. When driving my wife’s new Carnival Hybrid, I enjoy chasing the best possible fuel mileage I can muster. That said, doing so is like playing a video game in a way, constantly trying to get it into EV mode and not burn that precious gas.
Of course, this is countered by the fact that I just bought an Elantra N. It is not an EV. And it is a freaking hoot.
One of the “fun” games I’d enjoy driving stick shifts is trying to minimize using the brake pedal. With an EV with regen, that game is greatly enhanced, to the point that it is normal to drive over any mountain pass in CO without touching the brake pedal in normal conditions. Even in the snow, I can play the game, with the added challenge of not skidding the front tires under regen.
Even after almost 9 years and over 100k miles, I’m still not very familiar with how the brake pedal in the bolt feels since I use it so rarely.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY
Glad to be here. Where are the snacks?
Recently read that salt is added to many sweet, baked goodies because it enhances the sweetness in the mouth. It does this by diminishing or blocking the bitter receptors on the tongue. Whatever it does, kosher salt sprinkled on a warm chocolate chip, browned butter & coffee cookie is exceptional.
Just let me be bitter.
I think the ridiculous acceleration of evs, will one day bring back fun to drive cars.
Hear me out, 1.9 sec 0-60 isn’t going to be a benchmark for ice cars, mid 4 sec 0-60 is just your average ev. Once people stop chasing specs, and just accept it’ll never be as quick as an ev, fun cars can focus on being fun. Not worried that it has to chase a certain metric.
I’m of the school you drive whatever is fun to you. Or buy a few different things and get the best of all of them. ha
I’m in the latter. I have 6 cars, each with a different purpose.
I tell people have a few cars. They look at you like you’re a rich dude. Then I list off the crap I own why I have them. Old Jeep, beater pickup with an 8′ bed, old Lexus with 300k miles, an Model 3, a newer F150, etc.
2 of my 6 are evs, I’d never go back to ice for daily. Ice vs ev, each are great for their intended purpose.
Love that purple. That alone makes it more fun than 95% of cars on the road.
There are many kinds of fun. An ICE car is fun in its way. A potato-launcher is also fun, but in a different way. An EV could also be fun, but it may not be the same kind of fun. I feel like if EV makers want their cars to be fun, they’re ultimately going to have to find a different way than just mimicking an ICE.
Call me an old man if you want (I’m 33, I don’t think that’s old anyway) but I just can’t see myself enjoying a software defined vehicle. I sit in front of two computer monitors all damn day for work. The last thing I want is to get in my car only to see and interact with…more screens. My car is my escape from that. The small screen in my car runs AA and the only thing I use it for is nav and the backup camera. That’s all I need.
It’s like vinyl records. Streaming music couldn’t be easier, and I imagine most of us do so. But owning a physical record has appeal, even though it’s objectively worse: there can be static, they’re easily damaged, they take up space, record players occasionally need adjustment and new needles, etc. And yet vinyl sales are up, and they’ve been outselling CDs for a while now. I’ve been collecting records since I was 13. I like the physical, manual process of playing records, and the way they sound. Just like I prefer a car with physical, tactile controls, that is engaging to drive. Even if it’s “worse” than a software defined EV.
Give me an EV that’s not a bunch of gimmicky screens and features, and we can talk.
This is exactly where I’m at (38). I’m currently in front of two gigantic monitors. I have been since 6am. I will be till 5pm. Getting into a vehicle that’s chock full of screens is sort of a nightmare for me. I’ve always kept a turntable and records (granted that was a habit from before the vinyl resurgence as my dad managed record stores in the 80s and is a big music nerd) as there’s a real value in actual, tangible things that bring senses to life that digital copies just don’t do for me.
This is also why I read real, tangible books goddamnit. Lol.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m amazed that people still love dicking around on their touchscreens as much as they apparently do. Any vehicle that revolves around them and software in general is a hard no for me.
I’ll put in another vote for avoiding software and screens outside of work. I do like my bolt ev I’ve had for almost a decade, but the things I don’t like the most about it are using the touchscreen and even slow responding buttons that remind me that I’m interacting with software. It isn’t as engaging as a manual transmission, but grabbing a shift lever to change regen between D and L, and the regen paddle on the steering wheel adds more interaction than basically any automatic transmission ICE car. It certainly seems possible to have an EV that hides the necessary software, and has a more analog feel.
I am an old man (60) and have a Chevrolet Bolt as my only car for 7+ years. It is a blast to drive every day.
slate.auto
Fun fact. Slate trucks and Teslas have the same number of screens.
Yeah, but the screen in the slate controls……nothing. It’s not even a touch screen, just a display. Whereas Teslas come with massive slabs that require you to stare at them to open the glovebox.
Honestly, Vinyl is not worse than streaming. I have a fairly high-end system that can do both. Streaming is convenient access to nearly every song ever, vinyl is deliberate listening.
Similar to reading about something on the internet VS reading an actual book. My moderately priced turntable setup can give lossless streaming a run for its money on audio quality.
That’s fair. None of my stuff is new, I’ve got a MCS brand turntable from the 80s hooked up to a six channel surround sound system. Older speakers but re-coned, and it sounds pretty good.
I use a 1974 RCA portable phonograph in my office (with new speakers). It sounds, uh, fine. I’ve also got a Sears stereo console that is just begging for a set of new speakers to sound its best. The stereo console is great because the whole record drop mechanism actually works well.
When I started buying records, I had a good sit and think about what kind of experience I wanted. Was I looking to learn turntable repair as a new hobby, or did I want to listen to music?
I chose the latter, so I bought new gear, and no real regrets. I do have a vintage system for my bedroom, all mid-70s gear’ and the turntable was great until I tried to fix it up a bit, so it looks like I made the right choice.
Yeah, I’ve honestly been lucky with my old stuff. The RCA portable has been in near-continuous use by various family members, and now me, since it was new. It just keeps on working. It’s damn near a family heirloom at this point. The stereo console has been surprisingly maintenance free too.
Don’t blame you for buying new gear though. Working on old electronics isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do, my gear was mostly all free and I have been lucky that it all keeps on truckin’.
With all due respect, an EV is pretty basic in drive system vs an engine driven car. Every kid’s toy car is an EV for a reason. Power+motor=go. Funny too – the EVs with a single screen have the same number of screens as your car with a backup camera.
It’s not the powertrain I have an issue with, really. My daily is a 2014 Sportwagen TDI, the engine is controlled by a computer as are all the major systems. The difference is in how I interact with the car itself. If everything is on a screen, then I interact with a screen. As I said, I look at and work on screens all day. I don’t want to do that in my car. I like being able to do things like adjust my vents, seat heaters, climate control, etc. without having to even glance away from the road.
What I’m getting at is that EVs don’t HAVE to be a screen-dominated experience. There’s nothing inherent to EVs that require it, but they are often the worst offenders. I have nothing against EVs and would like to own one someday, I’m just hoping that there’s a pull back from the screen-and-nothing-else attitude that companies like Rivian and Tesla have.
I like the 30 Rock ref. Well done.
+1
Here comes the funcooker!
Murderer
It has a ham button.
This is firmly at the top of my shopping list next go-around…but the fact that it’s within spitting distance of an Ioniq 5 N or GV60 *Dr. Evil voice* Magma means the unconventional fun bits are going to have to outweigh the very conventional ones that those vehicles offer.
They got soooo close to being the ultimate daily for me (and so many others), but there are a couple of big misses IMO:
1) Lack of Carplay/Android Auto. Yes, Tesla/Rivian fans will lash back at that one, but I have grown accustomed to Carplay/AA. To get the most of the Rivian infotainment, they require a subscription. I do not like subscriptions.
2) No sunroof cover. This is a baffling miss. On David’s initial test drive, they were cooking inside the car when it was in the 80’s. Rivian’s test track is near me in sunny Surprise, AZ, where summer heat can be over 110F. How did the test engineers not die? I am sure that the aftermarket will solve this (much like for Teslas), but it’s annoying.
3) The dang automated door handles. Yes, there is an aerodynamic advantage to these, but they are annoying long-term.
All complaints aside, props to Rivian for making an affordable(adjacent) car that has a sense of humor, has good range, some basic softroading capability, and tons of room/storage. It’s just about the perfect car for most.
The door handles are annoying in the short term too, my buddy’s R2 has already had to go back to the dealer because the door handles stopped working after a few weeks. After he got it back, the dealer said to be sure to not close the doors using the handles. Why do they even put on door handles if you can’t use them for 50% of the duty of door handles?
Do you use the handle to close the door on a store after you enter?
I do.
On the outside?
Both Sides Now.
Ok, I understand being frustrated with something new that doesn’t hold up, but I am confused by this situation.
Is your buddy pushing the car close by the handle, instead of anywhere else on the large flat, none articulating parts of the door? I don’t know that I’ve ever pushed on a door handle to close a car door. Usually either just above it, or on the window frame (if it’s framed).
No, he said he has never closed it by the handle. It was likely a case of the service guy trying to shift blame onto him for the handles failing.
When I was picking up the spare key for my i4, I looked at an iX3 they had on the lot, and the automated doorhandles, no sunshade, and reduced physical controls really seemed like a step back in function from my i4. The instrument panel right at the bottom of the windshield was nice, though. I liked that. I don’t think that an i3 or iX3 is going to be the eventual replacement for my i4, though.