Agreed. I also own a 2021 Prius Prime Limited. Super nice car. Comfortable and handles surprisingly well. Certainly no issues with body panel or paint. Lots of tech for the money too in the top level trim (Limited). I really like the BSM indicators in the side view mirrors and the HUD for speed and Nav. I plan to buy a MY soon, and I know I will miss these two basic features that the humble Prime gets so right. But after just 22 miles, the prime runs out of battery and the ICE fires up and I am always disappointed. Although it continues to get 50 MPG in hybrid mode, EV driving is just so much nicer.
I can’t remember which one of you it was, you or @Uncle Paul but I remember the claims of “never needing to visit service” made by one of you was proven false by someone who dug up posts of either yours or his talking about various service center visits to fix stuff.
I know I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again just to counter the few and we know who users who keep pushing the idea their cars never required service beyond consumables. Which is extremely hard to believe because the early model S’s had issues with drive units. All 3 of mine needed a new drive unit, a 13/14/15 all required a new drive unit. The first one I bought was around 13-14 a 2013 model that needed a new drive unit at 18k miles. The service at that time was amazing! And I mean amazing! I called my local service and spoke to a tech who ordered a new DU and I dropped the car off next day and a loaner was waiting. And like you I experienced fantastic service up until the model 3 hit the streets. After that it became more difficult to get an appointment time in a timely manner, and loaners we’re becoming scarce but they were able to get me an ice enterprise rental. Fast forward a year or two and even that was no longer an option, now it’s uber or kick rocks.Wait until your MCU doesn't startup every few times you get into the car, where you have to sit there for 10 minutes or more to reset it. During those 10 minutes you wonder if this is the day when it just won't come back - hopefully you're not in a rush to go anywhere. Then a door might spontaneously open on you while driving here or there. Then you take it in for service for the door opening and they say they cannot reproduce it and charge you $200 for diagnostics without a repro (even if under warranty), even though you managed to catch it on a cell phone video which you showed to service. Then you realize that your range has been cut with an over-the-air update, and your coolant pumps are now running 24/7 if you charge above 70%. When the main screen on a less than a year old car starts yellowing, you take it to service and they tell you that is your fault for exposing the car to oxygen and sunlight. Then the door handle comes out permanently, with the light always ON like a beacon in a parking lot, it stops working completely (have to open the door from the inside) but the door stops opening spontaneously on its own, so you consider the dead door handle as a good thing. Perhaps then you start thinking "I've had other brands of cars before for much longer that this Tesla and they never had these kinds of issues, even even in a Porsche door handle is cheaper to fix (were it to break) than a Tesla, while you get another Porsche to drive, rather than Uber credits which will not even take you home from the service center and back. And this is when your "aha!" moment comes, "Teslas are a dream to drive, but a pain in the ass to own". I bought 4 Model S's since 2013, I knew at first I was getting an early adopter product but service was stellar and I was willing to put up with it. I was somewhat surprised in 2017 that Tesla hasn't matured when I bought my wife a Model S and it required 4 service visits over the next 4 months to fix an issue found during delivery. But again, that was January 2017, service was still awesome (no Model 3/Y flood yet, always got a loaner, they bent over backwards to fix problems), though my wife did give me grief over a brand new, $100K car, with a frequent need for service.
I still got 2 Tesla cars. Cannot bring myself to buy another one (the latest S refresh helped with the yoke and the car guessing which way to go instead or Drive/Reverse/Neutral/Park stalk), but cannot find a substituteIt's looking like Audi eTron GT or Taycan Cross Turismo might be the solution. More expensive to get similar performance (not the Plaid+, but I'm fine with 3s 0-60), but none of the Tesla headaches.
The problem with hybrids is that many purchase them for the tax benefits but then just use them as a gas car which negates the pollution benefits of them.
I can only speak for the Prius as that is the only PHEV I've owned, but it is impossible to use it as a gas car. After the EV mode charge is used up it reverts to hybrid mode where it still relies on the battery which is charged during deceleration events such as braking and excess speed down hills.
Yes, but in that case it runs as a traditional hybrid (battery used to store/recover excess kinetic energy during braking and costing). There is no option to run it as a purely gasoline vehicle.
Right. But my point is that running it this way, still pollutes quite a bit more than plugging it in. Essentially it is still running on 100% gas since it is using gas to charge the battery. Yes, you save some pollution from regen braking.
I had a 2017 650ix which was probably the highest quality BMW interior but was not without faults. The last was a 2018 X5 PHEV (which is what sold me on the full electric experience) and had Sensatec interior (on a $67k vehicle) which I don't think compared well with my Tesla MYP. I would say it was possibly a bit more aesthetically pleasing, but the overall plastics, squeaks and creaks I think put it on par or possibly slightly worse than the Tesla.
I think it's a binary choice. If you're OK driving around spewing poisons and toxins into the atmosphere then the EV considerations are null, you should buy the best overall experience that fits your needs. Spewing 'less' poison isn't a good argument, and these smaller engines that work much harder IRL are much worse than their paper specifications.
