@lumberjackslam I think it a silly name too, as silly as its builder's company name "Lucid", but no worse than many car names now, like "Ka" (Ford) and "Up!" (a VW??)..
Mine is a Renault "Kangoo"... a [i]what[/i]? No idea, it's not in the French [i]vocabulaire[/i], but not to be confused with either the real marsupials or Kanga in the two [i]Winnie The Pooh[/i] books!
At least those, and Lucid "Air", are a bit more imaginative than the bland "A4" that is all that Audi can manage!
(In the 19202-40s the London and North-Eastern Railway Company used the similar designations, A1 to A4, for locomotive design marques, but at least gave the individual engines, names!)
(I've never driven an electric car, so can't vouch for their efficiency however you measure that - miles per kW/hr I suppose - but a cloud is actually part of a very efficient natural system!)
@ArishMell No. I browsed some electric cars recently, but I had no reason to road test them. I'm not in the market for one. I am not thrilled with the technology.
@ArishMell If you are a car enthusiast, once you actually drive an EV you will fall in love. The instant power to the drive wheels is amazing. My Polestar has 2 electric engines directly driving each set of wheels. If you kick down on the accelerator, you can feel the real power. It isn't something needed too often, but, certainly makes entrance onto a highway less intimidating. The dashboard took exactly 20 mins to conform to my liking and I was used to it immediately.
The technology can be a bit overwhelming, i do feel still, as if I am driving a computer on wheels, but the conveniences afforded are wonderful. Even my wife loves getting into it and saying, okay Google take me to...., and the car then brings up the route.
I did have one catastrophic failure. One over the air update stalled in the process and the car had to be flat bedded to the dealer to reinstall the new software. Updates since have gone flawlessly. You get used to no key, my car has a fob, with alternate control by my cell phone. My wife's Audi Q5 also uses a fob, no key. That took some getting used to, as did no starter button to either turn the carbon or off. That still bugs me at times, i walk away and make sure the mirrors fold on to show the car is off and locked.
The greatest joy, driving past gas stations. The down side of that, i have to remember to clean my windshield if dead bugs.
@samueltyler2 To me, a car is a tool to move me and anything I wish or need to carry, from A to B!
I appreciate many motorists also see their cars as some sort of hobby, and I was very interested in custom building at one time although never had the money, means or skill to do any more than a few mods to a motorbike.
As you indicate though the more you build into a car the more there is to go wrong, and less likely it is anyone can repair it at the roadside. There must come a point where the manufacturers are not making the vehicles any better or more useful, just more complicated to impress buyers; and having to use a radio fob or a phone to open the doors does not necessarily make it any more secure. I would regard using a phone to do so, as frankly absurd.
The criminals already have the means to evade such precautions by emulating the fobs, although they do need eavesdrop to do that so it might not as serious a problem as sometimes thought.
My car uses a radio fob for the doors but no further, and on a key. so if the radio fails I can still use the car. I don't think it would unlock the tailgate though.
I know a couple who bought an electric car about four years ago. I'm sure the vehicles have improved since but they tell me they daren't use the heater in cold weather, while the journeys he sometimes needs make require an intermediate re-charge each way, where his previous, petrol car would take him their and half-way back on one tank-full.
Someone on another forum recounted how the electrically heated seats in his car, something costly like a BMW, had stopped working. The dealer advised him that it was because he now needed a "subscription" to use the feature! The writer's response to this blatant scam, was simple, point-blank refusal. After all, he did not [i]need[/i] heated seats; still less "need" pay an annual fee for what needs only an on/off switch.
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"Driving past gas stations" is all very well, but only if you don't need find a charger anywhere; with the risk of it being out of order or at least already occupied so lengthening your journey even more.
I'm not sure how you connect that with cleaning the windscreen though!
Now there's an odd point. For quite some while now people have pointed to the far fewer dead insects accumulating on car windscreens as a sign of seriously reduced insect populations. A friend suggested that is probably at least partly true but also this: cars now are so aerodynamic that the slipstream lifts the tiny animals clear before the car can hit them.
