In California, Car Buyers Are Choosing Electricity Over Gasoline in Record Numbers::undefined
Are there any good dumb EVs? No internet features, no tracking, just an electric car I can get in and drive?
I constantly see features built in to the car but artificially locked behind a paywalls, like heated seats or even speed, software that tracks you or staff able to watch you through cameras.
I just want a car.
(Plenty of modern ICE are the same, I dislike them too)
I have a Hyundai Kona Electric 2022 and it is a perfectly dumb electric car
+1 on the Kona Electric.
I have the MY2023 and it works perfectly as a dumb car but there are some creature comforts hidden behind a subscription. The BlueLink App which is around $7/month allows you to remotely see and control things from your phone such as:
- Locking/unlocking the car from your phone no matter the distance
- Getting notifications if you forgot to lock your car
- Remote start the climate control
- Diagnostics with codes so you don’t need an OBDII reader
Again, it’s a perfectly good dumb EV without those but they are trying the subscription model for luxury features. Hyundai, at least, gave me a 3 year free trail.
In Australia BlueLink is not even an option so it is perfectly dumb and great
The Bolt didn’t have any of that stuff. It was a pretty simple car, in a good way.
The Kia Niro is pretty close, although if you’re really serious about making it dumb you’ll need to pull the cellular modem. It doesn’t depend on any internet services, but it does connect to the internet to get nearby charger data.
It’s really great to watch this transition in real time. Even if this is just a small part of reducing overall carbon emissions, it’s important that this happens in the passenger vehicle space.
It makes me wonder how many of these consumers have been sold on the idea of electric vehicles for many years. And now, since the products exist, we get to see them act on their preference.
It’s also up to $15k in tax credits and lower prices from Tesla, makes a huge difference when they’re affordable.
I hope I’ve bought my last gasoline car.
