It is extremely annoying that here I am nearly 8 years later, and the Model 3 is the still the only real choice if you want a compact sedan EV. I don't want to buy another one, but for the love of God, every other option sucks, is impossible to get, or costs $30k more than a Model 3

I leased an Ioniq 5 SEL for three years and loved it (other than it being an SUV).

When the lease ran out, I bought a used 2024 Ioniq 6 SE which has 360 mile range and almost every feature of the SEL. It was super cheap and it suits me even better than the Ioniq 5.

It's probably worth checking out if you like EVs.

One of the reasons I got my BYD was because of the clicky buttons. Yes, I have the big touchscreen, but all the car controls have a clicky button that I can feel and touch without looking at a screen. Hell, even for the things that don't have a clicky button (like A/C temperature) you only need to swipe up or down with three fingers on any part of the screen to adapt it so there is nothing you need to find in the screen to drive the car.

I’m honestly surprised anyone rents electrics. I love owning one, but recharging would be obnoxious when traveling to a new place and having to juggle half a dozen different charging apps and a charger probably requiring you to go to a Walmart and sit for half an hour.

I test drove the ioniq 5 when it came out and its problem, to me, wasn't even that it's a stupid tall hatchback (barely a crossover even). It's that the suspension setup makes it both uncomfortable AND unsporty. No idea if they changed it in later models, but they wouldn't have fundamentally changed the entire setup anyway, only fine-tuning.

When the test drive was over, I sat back into my W211 and that was much more comfortable. Way slower and sluggish, but it was smoother on rough roads, and yet I actually felt where the grip was when going into a corner fast. That car was manufactured in 2003, the Ioniq 5 was a 2020 or 2021 model.

I ended up getting a lightly used W205 C-Class instead, staying with diesel. It was half the price of a brand new Ioniq 5 (since those weren't available used)

But I'm not trying to tell you to buy an ICE vehicle like I did back then, I'm just saying that a lightly used executive car that still has warranty is going to be significantly nicer to drive than a brand new budget car. At the end of the day, you're looking at EVs, battery warranty is 8 years anyway. Get a 2-3 year old one, sell it when the warranty is starting to end (degradation isn't a real issue anymore, but sudden battery cell death can still be).

Hell, it's hard to find subcompacts here at all. I'm willing to abandon my U-turn machines for electric when my car dies, but I'd really rather not. Fuck I love having a miniscule turning radius

I have a 2019 Nissan Leaf and it was manufactured at the perfect in-between time of still having physical buttons, without the surveillance tech inside, while also having the 'basic' fancy features like Android Auto, backup cam, etc.

I think ideally, I would have liked an EV conversion kit for my 2006 Scion xB, but it wasn't in the cards at the time.

It does seem like the physical buttons are making a comeback.

Edited small typos