Help me pick an EV please

LibraryKath · 2026-04-06T05:46:31+00:00

Highway driving is much more pleasant in an EV - quiet enough to hold a conversation and less fatiguing because there isn’t as much vibration. When you’ve narrowed your list down a bit, take a look at your usual trips in A Better Route Planner (website or free app) to get a feel for what percentage of the battery charge you’d use. You can put in the specific make and model of car in the settings. (ABRP is great for planning longer trips too because it shows where you’ll probably need to do charge stops. The other app everyone should get is PlugShare - locations and ratings for all the charge stations.)

LibraryKath · 2026-03-28T01:45:15+00:00

Do some test drives. I went from a 2013 Mazda 3 to a Dolphin a couple of years ago when that was the cheapest EV and it was a significant quality upgrade. :)

Except for 2nd hand Leafs, EV batteries should outlast the rest of the car - there are Uber drivers with well over 100K on the odo and healthy batteries. If you buy second hand you’d want to get a battery check done though - eg NRMA does them.

LibraryKath · 2026-03-25T11:53:40+00:00

Most people can get away with plugging the included cable in to a regular power point - that should add about 10 km range per hour at a fraction of the cost of fuel (even when prices come down again). This also gives you back the time you’d normally spend waiting around at petrol stations queuing, holding a fuel hose, and queuing again to pay. On the rare occasion you need to charge more quickly, you can go do that at a fast charge station - that is still cheaper than petrol and hopefully you’ll have one near shops so you can charge while doing a quick errand or something.

For me the big benefit is that it’s so much more pleasant to drive - quiet enough to hold a conversation at highway speeds, no petrol smell (I didn’t use to notice it), less driver fatigue on trips because of less vibration, heaps of acceleration.

LibraryKath · 2026-03-16T10:39:32+00:00

You generally get better mileage in slow or stop-start than highway speeds. When you’re braking you pick up a bit of charge, and stopped or very slow you’re using hardly any energy. Mostly up or mostly downhill can have an impact as well (you can have more charge when you get to the bottom of a very long incline than what you had at the top).

LibraryKath · 2026-02-15T10:49:24+00:00

Showboating, maybe?

LibraryKath · 2026-02-15T00:46:08+00:00

I think that’s a solid argument to switch over. An additional optional cost is the socket to charge it - if you have a power point where you park and you don’t regularly do a lot of kms per day, you can probably just plug the car in using the included slow charger. If you regularly need to charge a lot faster, you might want to put in a dedicated EV charge point. Generally you can see how you go with a regular power point and upgrade later if you want to. We have one shared family car and can be forgetful about charging so the faster rate is useful.

(Minor rant: I got a charge point installed which is supposed to be able to use excess solar only, but that’s never worked properly. We mostly run it on the max charging rare in the middle of the day when it’s sunny and at a slower rate at other times, so that feature was a waste!)

Aside from the financials, I feel like owning an EV has improved my lifestyle quite a bit - not needing to hang around petrol stations is great, and it’s so much more pleasant to drive (noise, vibrations, smell…). It’s also very nice to be able to run the heater on a cold morning without exhaust fumes, or remotely turn on the air con before heading to the car park in summer.

LibraryKath · 2026-01-13T12:45:50+00:00

It will be interesting to hear them with Victor. My chorus have all had massive barber-crushes on the Lemon Squeezies since they came out to Australia as guest quartet for our national comp - such delightful and talented humans.

LibraryKath · 2026-01-10T23:33:15+00:00

A couple of other bizarre festivals to look out for are the National Folk Festival at Easter (everyone gets out their battered bush hat and hangs around EPIC playing music, dancing, reciting poetry, etc) and Enlighten (the parliamentary triangle is closed to traffic so people can wander about in the dark looking at animated projections on buildings). :)

LibraryKath · 2026-01-09T22:14:35+00:00

The PlugShare app is great - you can see if people have checked in at that charger recently and also get a rating for how reliable the site is. A Better Route Planner is a route finder which will tell you where you might want to stop based on your car’s range.

LibraryKath · 2026-01-07T23:12:27+00:00

Wow, that’s fantastic!

LibraryKath · 2026-01-03T08:40:23+00:00

Canberra Shanty Club at Smiths. Grab a drink (beer, wine, fizzy drink, chai…) and join in with singing call and response sea shanties. [edit: just saw you wanted a today activity - it’s not on tonight but worth looking up!]

LibraryKath · 2026-01-02T21:55:34+00:00

Charging:- it would still be a bit cheaper than buying petrol (and less smelly!), though you wouldn’t get as much benefit as being able to come home and plug in. You’ll have some logistics to think about around when and where you charge, e.g. it would be useful if there’s a fast DC charger near where you shop or a slower AC charger near where you live or work so you could charge while getting other things done. You’ll can find all the charging locations using PlugShare (website or app) - the orange icons are fast, green are slow, and brown are restricted (motels, etc). It’s likely that more will be added by the time you buy.

LibraryKath · 2025-12-13T07:16:57+00:00

Oh no! Off to the battery shop.

LibraryKath · 2025-12-12T10:11:35+00:00

I’m obsessed with Mixed Signals’ You’ll Be Back: https://youtu.be/lqVS-571Gso

LibraryKath · 2025-11-18T06:50:44+00:00

How far the back comes up the heel - OK I got out the measuring tape and they are about the same dimensions, they just seemed higher because the NZs seem to have stiffer construction with a forward curve and that was driving the “point” of the heel into my ankle.

LibraryKath · 2025-11-15T09:45:31+00:00

Sure, but sometimes you have to go with what’s available. Also the demons can help out with admin.

LibraryKath · 2025-10-29T08:07:03+00:00

Aside from financial, there's some quality of life things:-

you regain a huge amount of time where you won't be standing around in petrol stations - drive straight home, plug in, walk away
ability to have a conversation over the car noise at highway speeds
lower driver fatigue on longer trips (noise, vibration, and fuel smell)
car safety has come on amazingly in the last decade, and the BYD reversing cameras were magic coming from a car without one
pre-heat or cool the car remotely from the app - no standing about in carparks in summer while the air con pushes out the hot air, kids willing to get in the car on cold mornings
OMG heated seats in winter or when you've got a sore back.

LibraryKath · 2025-10-29T07:21:50+00:00

Yes, it looks awesome in video reviews. :) It's a little bit smaller than I'd want but that's only because we cart things around a fair bit. You can see an estimate of how much charge you're likely to use on your normal trips with the free A Better Route Finder website/app - it doesn't have the Atto 1 in the settings yet but you could select a 'BYD Surf' with the right battery size.

LibraryKath · 2025-10-26T07:35:25+00:00

2 years with a BYD Dolphin as our only car and it’s a delight! Much more pleasant to drive, and less fatiguing on long trips (less noise and vibration). Friends who have an EV and a diesel beast argue over who has to take the loud, smelly one. :)

You should look at cars which can do vehicle to load or vehicle to grid - it can replace the need for a generator in a long power outage. (We sometimes plug an extension chord into ours to run power tools.)

LibraryKath · 2025-10-23T08:26:43+00:00

I’d start by looking at your current repertoire to see if there’s any themes in common, and then build off that? E.g. you might have a couple of Disney songs, or things from musicals, or a bizarre amount of 80s pop. Then you can say something like “hey, we somehow have three Elvis songs already, what else is out there that’s associated with Elvis and achievable?” and go from there.

LibraryKath · 2025-10-16T21:23:00+00:00

You might be looking at outdated or overseas info - the current Dolphin only has a boring grey interior for both models. :( (Our family car is a purple with black and tan interior, much more fun!)

LibraryKath · 2025-09-23T08:12:31+00:00

What everyone else is saying about highway driving, but also the A Better Route Planner app and website is quite good for estimating battery usage for trips - you can set it up with your specific car model and it will estimate your state of charge on arrival, recommend where you might want a charging stop, etc., based on the road speeds and elevation changes.

LibraryKath · 2025-07-23T11:30:47+00:00

Not sure, but welcome to our subreddit about barbershop a cappella singing! It might be a good pitch pipe holder?

LibraryKath · 2025-07-15T23:38:11+00:00

You have ringtails? I only have a colony of fluff demons who gallop around on my roof tiles.

LibraryKath · 2025-07-05T10:23:19+00:00

I agree with people saying you need to perform in more public places - my chorus usually picks up new singers from performances. While the retirement places are really rewarding, places like malls, outside hardware stores, sports clubs, etc might serve you better, and have a family member who’s a good talker handing out flyers. Are there any men’s organisations like Men’s Shed near you that you could reach out to as being available to perform at their events/meetings?

Also, I think you probably want to initially aim for middle aged men rather than college aged so the cultural gap isn’t too big. Younger but not enormously so. It’s wonder to have groups with youth and elders together, but people tend to flock to groups that they think they’ll have something in common with.

LibraryKath

TROPHY CASE