I'm personally more of a fan of the look where an EV doesn't look too far out of the norm.
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Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?
- Thread starter PrivatePilot
- Start date
I dont want space ships but dont want boring mediocrity (or ricer) looks regardless of drivetrain.
The Honda Prologue styling (if you can call it that) is cut-and-paste from every other Honda SUV except maybe the outgoing smallest one (the one made from Jazz/Fit ... that I can't remember what it's called at the moment, is probably indicative of something). Outside of that one (and even that one doesn't diverge too much), they all look the same, and they have all looked the same for the last couple of generations.
Honda has this wierd thing going where their vehicles are either completely bland and indistinguishable (all of their SUVs), or wacky spaceship (Civic Type R).
I should add that they are not the only ones guilty of this. VW is another one. Nissan is another. Their SUVs all look the same.
I'd say Honda is gambling on an unproven drivetrain, but I like to think they saw *something* in the GM design that they could move forward with it with some confidence.
Time will tell as always, and the market will decide.
Nonetheless, its well known that this is simply a stop gap measure on Honda's part to enter the E vehicle market before their own E architecture is fully baked.
If nothing else, I am willing to bet GM will learn a lot from Honda on how to design cars for the better during this relationship.
P.S. I'm a fan of the clean and uncluttered styling, the rear with the revised Honda badge looks amazing. The styling of the Blazer is simply disastrous, goofy looking, and an update of the Pontiac Aztek. The blazer styling simply won't stand the test of time.
Couldn't find any, the Clarity owners bought them all up.
I guess some people in this thread didn't see the other one where I shared a lot of details of our Volt towing this summer.
Did probably 6000km of travel with this setup this summer. 95% on gas (hence why we bought the Gen2 volt specifically for these duties - electric when we can, gas when we need it) and it pulls like a freight train. Averages low to mid 12L/100km in most conditions as you see it.
Went up to Balsam Lake provincial park last weekend, between the full battery each way plus the engine once depleted we averaged 8.6L/100KM each way. I'm happy.
Anyhow, on teh topic of towing....lots of people using EV's to tow as well. The Bolt apparently tows like a freight train as well - lots of people pulling small campers with them, etc. Tons of Teslas towing as well.
When you back up really hard and fast like that, do you make that beeping noise?
AllistonGT
Well-known member
Agreed. I don't do black plastic fake vents all over my bumpers.
Question: do most EV's make a weird noise when backing up? Reason I ask is that I was at Skyline Park in Haliburton this week and a Tesla went to leave and as it's backing up it's making a rather loud noise as it does so. Could call it a weird whine sound is the best way to describe it. Then went away went it went forward again. It was loud/weird enough that two of us stopped our convo to look at it and say "that's weird".
Bit of a sidetrack but there are some features that will be common to all well-designed EVs that are different from the norm ... and the need for those also means that the well-designed EVs are generally going to be on dedicated EV-only platforms.
Batteries under the floor means they'll sit a little higher. The Bolt is very close in length and width to a VW Golf but it is higher. In this day and age where everyone appears to want CUVs/SUVs anyhow, this is not really going to bother too many people. GM is known to be working on an electric Corvette ... be interesting how they handle that one.
Batteries under the floor means the batteries have to fit between the front and rear suspension (and drivetrain) cradles. That pushes designs towards having a long wheelbase and short overhangs. Now, having a long wheelbase and short overhangs is also a recipe for better ride and handling. Notable example where this is highly visible are the Hyundai Ioniq 5 / Kia EV6 / Genesis GV60 platform-mates, which all have a really long (almost 3 metre) wheelbase. The Bolt EV (original design) has a short front overhang, with the hood and windshield coming close to forming a single line (aerodynamics). The EUV extends the nose in the interest of more mainstream styling (and it weighs more and the aero is not as good and the range is a smidge shorter because of it).
They all do it. It is a technical requirement in order to help pedestrians be aware of their presence. Electric vehicle warning sounds - Wikipedia
My buddy’s Model Y sounds like a jet engine spooling up. I dig it.
My parent's neighbour has one and it sounds like I imagine a ufo might sound.
The Gen1 Volt, and many other EV's of that era are completely silent in all directions.
As someone who owns one and has lots of first hand experience, I can say without any question that pedestrians simply don't hear you. I've creeped along in parking lots behind people walking square in the centre of the parking lot laneways (honestly, why do people do this, ugh..that's another story) and they're completely oblivious.
The Gen1 has a pedestrian horn on the that makes a polite chirping noise when a button on the end of the signal stalk is pressed (or the high beams activated at low speed on 2011's) in order to help with this issue. It solved the issue to some extent but needed to be activated manually, and some people still look at you with the "why are you honking at me" face, even though it's more of a chirp.
Now many EV's make a whooshing noise of some sort at low speeds, and many have low chimes or a louder noise when reversing.
All pedestrian safety and awareness related as brian mentioned.
Had another friend join the club a few days ago, bought a 2019 Ioniq. I was surprised to see how different it was from our 2017 we used to own - Hyundai really stepped up their EV game in only those 2 years - instead of feeling like a slighly modified and rebadged Elantra like the 2017, it actually seems much more it's own vehicle, especially when it comes to the dashboard and infotainment control stack - waaaaay more advanced and different than our 2017 was.
I'm new to vehicles with this many bells and whistles.
Earlier I mentioned that "auto" climate control was a power hog, I've been manually turning fan speed down shortly after starting to cut down the amount of air it has to heat up, but that's not ideal, either. Today I found the "Settings" menu, and discovered that it has a setting for how much air circulation you want in "auto" mode. Default was "med", I set it to "low".
It also automatically turns on heated seats and steering wheel after a cold start and turns them off after a while. You can turn that feature off if you want, but why would you?
Earlier I mentioned that "auto" climate control was a power hog, I've been manually turning fan speed down shortly after starting to cut down the amount of air it has to heat up, but that's not ideal, either. Today I found the "Settings" menu, and discovered that it has a setting for how much air circulation you want in "auto" mode. Default was "med", I set it to "low".
It also automatically turns on heated seats and steering wheel after a cold start and turns them off after a while. You can turn that feature off if you want, but why would you?
Chris-CJ
Well-known member
It is not about the cars as much it is about the batteries, so says this article.
www.technewsworld.com
The World Is Not Yet Ready for Electric Cars
Let's talk about what's really involved with switching to electric cars. Then we'll close with the product of the week, a laptop from Vaio that showcases just how much you can get for under $700 -- at least for now.
www.technewsworld.com
My Volt HVAC system is 100% Garbage. Doesn’t really fully blow hot or cold air properly, just fan, unless you hit a ‚MAX’ button.
It's kinda designed that way. Any other setting except "Max" is designed to be insanely power conservative, so it sacrifices vent temperatures.
You'll find that if you turn the fan power down to 50% or lower, you will get both cold and hot air out of the vents on the Eco setting, but fan speed is the critical thing - if you have it cranked wide open the amount of air flowing over the heat exchangers simply overwhelms the energy conservation setting.
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