[_yb2s]

They don’t seem to be a great EV maker anymore… they were definitely first to market with practical luxury EVs, but the old school car companies have caught up with better designed EVs and much higher build quality at the same price points. The high end German EVs from Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes are overall much better cars then a Model S in the same price range. Not just the general build quality, but the EV tech itself is generally more advanced than what Tesla is offering- faster charging, better battery cooling and charge management, better traction control, etc.

[metadat]

The range of the Porsches still sucks, go to any dealer and notice the beautiful and fancy Porsche Taycan EVs sitting around unclaimed with a sales guy eager to make a deal. The BMW's are also a blight upon the eye, it's laughable.

But you aren't wrong, Kia has nailed it where it matters.. their latest are extremely popular, there are tons in the Bay Area. Yuck, but it's true*. May be worth a shot if you're in the unfortunate position of needing new transportation.

https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev

* I have no vested interest in any car company, I drive very few miles per year and my cars are old AF. I have a lot of friends, though. Only want the best for you, Internet friend. Cheers.

P.s. Combustion Kia's suck ass, trash trying to move upmarket, lol. Hello humanity.

[_yb2s]

My daily driver is a 25 year old Porsche sports car and it has less fuel range than a new Taycan. Porsche has always sold track ready cars from the factory- with all of the compromises that entails. The Taycan is a much better designed and made car than a Model S. Porsche also is a company that doesn’t exaggerate their specs like Tesla does- a quick google search suggests the real world range of the Taycan is actually higher than the Model S despite a massive difference in the specs.

I’ve also heard Kias EVs are great cars.

[threeseed]

Porsche Macan has a range of 613 km (381 mi) better than a Performance Model 3.

And is overall better at charging (270kw max).

Also BMW has seen strong EV growth: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T044372...

[metadat]

SUVs and crossers are only Porsches in name/badge. If it isn't a sedan contraption it's really a VW. Good styling, but not true to the essence.

I am in admirer, but my entire collection of multiple automobiles is worth less than 25 grand. Yet they're actually pretty nice and cool, one is comfortable.

[_yb2s]

> not true to the essence

As a longtime Porsche fan that was exactly my first thought also when Porsche started making SUVs, but I couldn't have been more wrong. They're not just very much in the spirit of Porsches history- I find the SUVs to be more impressive and interesting than any of their sports cars.

The Porsche SUVs are really unique and impressive performance vehicles in their own right, each in different ways- especially the Cayenne. The Cayenne is indeed very similar to a VW Touareg, but the Touareg itself is nothing like other VWs and started out as a crazy expensive Piech era offroad supercar with V12 and V10 engines that is also the basis for the modern Bentley and Lamborghini SUV supercars. Look at YouTube videos you will see these same vehicles posting sports car worthy lap times on a track, as well as easily doing some of the most technical offroad trails. To me it's a mind blowing feat of engineering to make a single vehicle that can handle such opposed things, and do them both extremely well.

You can also find a lot of nice older Porsches for much less than 25 grand- 10 grand will get you a nearly perfect condition low mileage first gen Boxster or Cayenne these days.

[threeseed]

So I can buy a VW that is identical to a Porsche with the same handling, build quality, interior quality, performance, charging etc for a fraction of the price.

Please tell us which model it is as this could shake up the industry.

[_yb2s]

Touareg- which VW pulled from the US market because it also cost as much, or sometimes even more than the very similar Cayenne, and people wouldn't pay Porsche money for a VW badge. In 2004 you could buy a new VW twin turbo V10 Touareg for 60-70k, or about 100-120k adjusted for inflation. VW went through a weird time when ran by Ferdinand Piëch, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche who was involved with a lot of really high end and unusual performance cars that were cool but didn't really end up having a market.

The Macan does share a similar design to the Audi Q5, but is also heavily modified for performance over the Q5, and it isn't similar to any of VWs models. That also seems like hardly an insult as the Q5 is also a high end SUV with great performance and handling.

[threeseed]

We are talking about EVs.

[iknowstuff]

hard disagree. american and euro oems are far behind, making inefficient, expensive and unprofitable EVs with shitty ass software.

[_yb2s]

The software on the high end euro in particular is light years ahead- and I don't mean the touch screen UIs (which I personally think are dangerous and should be illegal as you have to take your eyes off the road to operate), but the actual software controlling the cars hardware, like the traction control and stability systems, which work much better on those cars, especially VW/Audi/Porsche.

On paper Tesla dominates in range and performance specs, but they seem to be lying, while the older brands are under-estimating, as real world range and track lap time specs don't reflect the supposed higher specs of Teslas cars. Tesla seems to be a fundamentally dishonest company, whose claimed technical advantages are all lies/hype.

For example, Mercedes advertises their EQS at 350 miles range, but car magazine tests have gotten 400-500 miles on them[1]. Tesla claims 405 miles range on the Model S long range, but car magazines only get ~320.

[1] https://www.autoguide.com/manufacturer/mercedes-benz/2022-me...

[iknowstuff]

the model 3 did 380mi. way over epa. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S6rgzGizgaQ

> actual software controlling the cars hardware, like the traction control and stability systems, which work much better on those cars, especially VW/Audi/Porsche

im gonna need a source on that lol how do you even quantify that