New commuter car recs

[HuskerGarrett]

I just started looking. My wife started with Abbott and they give cars to employees. She got an explorer. A basic one but big enough for family road trips. Taking this opportunity to sell our two other cars and getting something nicer for my daily commute. And definitely leaning toward an EV. Never owned one before so curious what people have to say about them; mainly “I didn’t know expect ________”.

I’m looking at the Lucid Air. Kind of fell in love with it this weekend. Also tested the Volvo and VW. We’re a VW family so I could see us going with a scout for our next car but for this one it’ll probably be a lucid. 400 mile range. Luxury Sedan.

Also looking at a lease which I’ve never done before. They offer larger discounts on lease that makes it significantly cheaper. And if the car value decreases like the Tesla’s did then I’m not stuck with a clunker investment.

Anyway, curious what advice or lessons learned people have to with EVs and leasing.

I got out of my super high Raptor payment for an EV lease. I went with the Hyundai Ioniq 5. I like it so far, it has every possible feature, drives smooth, and is much faster than I expected.

 

[cwessel76]

I got out of my super high Raptor payment for an EV lease. I went with the Hyundai Ioniq 5. I like it so far, it has every possible feature, drives smooth, and is much faster than I expected.

I looked at the Kia equivalent but decided to go with the Telluride. Love that car so far too.

 

[BorWhiskey]

I got out of my super high Raptor payment for an EV lease. I went with the Hyundai Ioniq 5. I like it so far, it has every possible feature, drives smooth, and is much faster than I expected.

How’s the charge anxiety treating you? Run into any problems with that? Any maintenance thing surprise you?

 

[SoCal_Corn]

911 Turbo S

😎

I am currently on the hunt

So don't take mine, OP. 😉

Found one.



The White/Red one is mine, the Black/Black my neighbors

Not my Commuter car tho. 😉

 

[Irv]

We have an EV and I think the thing about them that people discount is that there is almost no maintenance. It’s basically just rotating the tires and checking the brakes.

If you install a home charger, you will probably never have to visit a public charger, except on a vacation.

There’s no doubt that it’s less convenient on a road trip, but it’s far more convenient the other 95% of the time.

I know a couple of people who got a Lexus EV and they will let you have a loaner from the dealer to take on a road trip if you don’t want to deal with charging.

 

[HuskerGarrett]

How’s the charge anxiety treating you? Run into any problems with that? Any maintenance thing surprise you?

Charging has been super easy, we had a level 2 charger installed in the garage so it's fully charged every morning (if I plug it in.)

We took it up to Breckenridge one weekend and I got slightly nervous because it used half of the battery to get up there. The 25 Ioniq 5 has the same charge type as a Tesla, so I found a Tesla supercharger up near Silverthorne just in case. It went from 50-80% in about 15 minutes and cost me $9. Come to find out I didn't even need to charge though, the battery actually went up a little as we went down the mountain from the regen braking.

I haven't had any maintenance issues or anything like that come up yet. A kid did rear end me about 3 weeks into ownership so it was in the body shop for a few weeks though.

 

[Irv]

Charging has been super easy, we had a level 2 charger installed in the garage so it's fully charged every morning (if I plug it in.)

We took it up to Breckenridge one weekend and I got slightly nervous because it used half of the battery to get up there. The 25 Ioniq 5 has the same charge type as a Tesla, so I found a Tesla supercharger up near Silverthorne just in case. It went from 50-80% in about 15 minutes and cost me $9. Come to find out I didn't even need to charge though, the battery actually went up a little as we went down the mountain from the regen braking.

I haven't had any maintenance issues or anything like that come up yet. A kid did rear end me about 3 weeks into ownership so it was in the body shop for a few weeks though.

We also had the battery increase thing happening as we came down a mountain.

The instrument panel was telling us we were getting -99.99 miles per kWh, like we were going back in time or some shit.

 

[HuskerGarrett]

We also had the battery increase thing happening as we came down a mountain.

The instrument panel was telling us we were getting -99.99 miles per kWh, like we were going back in time or some shit.

Yeah it ended up taking me 50% battery to get from Parker to Breckenridge and only about 15% to get back.

 

[HuskerGarrett]

We have an EV and I think the thing about them that people discount is that there is almost no maintenance. It’s basically just rotating the tires and checking the brakes.

If you install a home charger, you will probably never have to visit a public charger, except on a vacation.

There’s no doubt that it’s less convenient on a road trip, but it’s far more convenient the other 95% of the time.

I know a couple of people who got a Lexus EV and they will let you have a loaner from the dealer to take on a road trip if you don’t want to deal with charging.

Which EV do you have?

 

[Irv]

Which EV do you have?

We have a VW id4 and love it. Super smooth, like you said.

We also liked the Ioniq a lot, just got a better deal on the VW. I think the Ioniq might have better tech in it.

I have a prejudice against VWs and never would have bought one if I hadn’t driven it and seen how nice it is (this model, at least).

 

[HuskerGarrett]

We have a VW id4 and love it. Super smooth, like you said.

We also liked the Ioniq a lot, just got a better deal on the VW. I think the Ioniq might have better tech in it.

I have a prejudice against VWs and never would have bought one if I hadn’t driven it and seen how nice it is (this model, at least).

Nice, I like those as well. I only got the Ioniq because of a friend who's a sales manager at the dealership here. I actually went in to test drive a used BMW X5 and he convinced me to test drive the Ioniq after. It had more features, was faster, and the payment would be significantly cheaper too so it was a no brainer.

 

[vailhusker]

Just FYI the EV tax credit up to $7500 is scheduled to expire on 9/30/25.

 

[vailhusker]

I just started looking. My wife started with Abbott and they give cars to employees. She got an explorer. A basic one but big enough for family road trips. Taking this opportunity to sell our two other cars and getting something nicer for my daily commute. And definitely leaning toward an EV. Never owned one before so curious what people have to say about them; mainly “I didn’t know expect ________”.

I’m looking at the Lucid Air. Kind of fell in love with it this weekend. Also tested the Volvo and VW. We’re a VW family so I could see us going with a scout for our next car but for this one it’ll probably be a lucid. 400 mile range. Luxury Sedan.

Also looking at a lease which I’ve never done before. They offer larger discounts on lease that makes it significantly cheaper. And if the car value decreases like the Tesla’s did then I’m not stuck with a clunker investment.

Anyway, curious what advice or lessons learned people have to with EVs and leasing.

Since you are a VW family have you looked at the Audi e-tron suvs? I don't know much about them but when the wife was in Aspen her hotel had a deal with the Audi dealership to use them and we were able to drive them a few times. Really nice and one thing I liked about them is they didn't look much different from the gas powered ones at the time.

 

[BorWhiskey]

Since you are a VW family have you looked at the Audi e-tron suvs? I don't know much about them but when the wife was in Aspen her hotel had a deal with the Audi dealership to use them and we were able to drive them a few times. Really nice and one thing I liked about them is they didn't look much different from the gas powered ones at the time.

I haven’t but the videos I’ve watched of the lucid had a lot of comparisons to the Audi. And while overall it ended up favorable to lucid it was close. Maybe next weekend we’ll look at them before making a final decision.

Some basic things in looking at the data that I think are important and lean toward lucid are range and charging power. The lucid has a 900dc max charge. The Audis appear to be in the 200s. Which means they can’t take advantage of the 350 stations. And while the A6 etron is just under 400 mile range, it’s still lower. So, slower charge and less distance between charges.