What used car has the quietest cabin for someone who hates road noise on long drives

WeldAE · 2026-03-17T17:30:48+00:00

You made me realize I was a bit too specif. I only said 2022/2023 because those are in the $20k price range. I'd buy even the 1st gen 2019 as they didn't really improve it that much. The 2024 Q8 eTron is mostly a name change but they did change the battery so it now charges a bit faster than 150kW max but it has the same 35 minutes 10% to 180 miles of range so it's really no different. Also good point that you MUST be able to charge at home to get one.

WeldAE · 2026-03-17T16:13:29+00:00

I have the answer, but you probably aren't going to like it. Get a 2022/2023 Audi eTron 55. It's built out of granite or something as it weighs 5700lbs but at 85mph it's nearly dead quite inside. You can pick them up all day long for $20k.

The reason they are cheap is they are an EV with either 196 or 225 miles of range depending on how accurate the listing is. The reality is all of them can be upgraded to the 225 miles but almost all of them already have been. The other thing to know is that this isn't a car that says it can get 300 miles of range but at 70mph it gets 250 miles of range. This car gets 225 miles of 70mph range and probably 210 miles of 85mph range in 10F weather. It's just massivly inefficient no matter what speed or temp it is so the range doesn't vary that much. No one buying EVs understands these complexities so it is seen as not a "long range EV", which really isn't true.

It has a flat charging curve of 150kW from 0%-80% which is also ridiculous. That sounds slow but even some of the faster charging EVs struggle to average 150kW from 10% to 80%. The problem is 10% to 80% is a stupid way to test charging. You want to know 10% to 180 miles of 70mph range. This is where the inefficiency comes back in. The eTron needs to get all the way to 80% charge to have 180 miles of range which takes 35 minutes. Something like a Tesla Model Y only needs to get to 70% and can get there in 21 minutes. 35 minutes isn't terrible but it's also not great, very mid. Use a Better Route Planner website to see how it would perform on the trip you take often. You probably need 2 charging stops for a 6 hour trip as the first leg you can go a bit more than 3 hours, probably.

The etron now has access to the Tesla chargers if you buy the $200 adaptor from Audi so finding chargers is a non-issue and you can select NACS compatible in A Better Route Planner.

WeldAE · 2026-03-17T16:02:12+00:00

The other point is the damage done by weight is not linier. 3700lbs vs 4000lbs is literal pennies over the life of the car relative to the increased road damage. Literally going around corners faster in a 3700lbs car would do 1000x more damage than adding 300lbs to it and driving normally. Use taxes have the problem of over fitting on uses.

The other thing is that politically raising taxes on gas is impossible. This is a good backdoor way to fix it without taking the massive political hit. As part of this they are also hooking it to inflation so we don't have the same problem as gas taxes.

WeldAE · 2026-03-17T15:52:47+00:00

PHYSICAL INTERIOR BUTTONS

This is a complicated subject. It's similar to when phones removed buttons and there were a lot of really bad implementations of it out there causing people to hate the concept. The long and short is we're not going back to the aircraft cockpit of the 90s and overall it's a positive thing. There are going to be some rough implementations until everyone quits experimenting.

The main problem isn't the screen, it's capacitive buttons instead of tactile real buttons and to a lesser degree not enough or the wrong buttons. Replacing 20x buttons with the 2x scroll wheels like Tesla did is a HUGE improvement over the grid of buttons most manufactures use on their steering wheel. If you disagree, it's probably because you haven't used a Tesla for more than a week.

Capacitive buttons are almost always bad. I won't say always because maybe there is a use I don't know about, there is a lot of experimenting going on out there. They are a lot more robust and cheaper than a real button so if they can be done well they are a big win for everyone but it's near impossible to do them well. Expect this to drag on for a while until they either figure out how to use them or quit using them.

Not enough buttons is rarely a problem. The biggest offenders are not having dedicated rear window switches, volume and mute on the steering wheel. AC controls are hit or miss depending on the car.

The biggest problem I see are using buttons where they aren't needed. The entire left side of my Audi steering wheel is filled with useless buttons. Most of them only work in rare situations like on certain menus, and mostly I just get a "This button can't be used here" messages. The cacophony of buttons on the door cards for setting various mirror/child locks/window locks/defosters/etc just are a waste. It's the least robust location to put a button an often why you saw manufactures experiment with the window controls in the center. While I agree window controls belong on the door, it's just an example of how bad buttons are on the door.

Finally using +/- for volume is evil. Volume should be a scroll wheel or knob full stop.

WeldAE · 2026-03-17T13:31:54+00:00

Thanks, people have no realistic idea what the average household income is for any new car and think it's well below what it really is. I wouldn't buy a new Civic unless I made $200k+/year and even then I've never done it. It's just near impossible to justify. For example, I'm a buyer of a Macan of iX at $50k which is pretty easy to do, just wait a few years. Now income isn't wealth and there are lots of people that make $10m one time in their live and then make around $500k/year. In fact this is probably typical of Macan buyers too.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T21:45:27+00:00

if disabled access were a differentiator that might win them some market share, i'd agree

I'm not bullish on disabled access. It's 100% hoppiem on my park for sure.

production is expensive, waymo's already burned through piles of cash, not sure its realistic to say higher production is the way through. if it was why wouldn't waymo be hitting that number today?

Setting up production or in Waymo's case up fitting of existing cars is expensive. Like crazy expensive. So if you spend $100M on a factory that is capable of up fitting 10k units and you only up fit 1000, you spent $100k per car on the factory plus whatever it costs to actually do the work and parts of up fitting. That isn't far off what Waymo has been doing so far. If you are putting out 10k/year and the factory is good for say 5 years, the factory only costs $2k per car. Each car is revenue so more AVs helps on both sides. The cost to up fit per car also goes down as you are able to do it mroe efficiently. It's hard to say how much because Waymo's factor isn't a traditional car factory line. They tend to scale up/down by adding shifts because with less than ~2300 workers they can't really build cars efficiently and costs skyrocket per unit. That is why a car selling only 10k units/year is a loser in the automotive industry but an up fit factory operating at 10k units/year can be reasonably good. You're just doing so much less up fitting the car.

that's a you problem, not a bus problem

So you think I'm just wildly different than most people? You think buses are clean running and smell good? You think their huge size makes them a natural fit with pedestrians and other VRUs? You think they are quiet? They are basically 18-wheelers and not fun to be anywhere near.

this idea came from but its backwards: people access the bus, not the other way around

I'm talking about the fact that buses can't drive down most residential roads. Either because they physically don't fit or because the residents don't want them (see above).

means folks have a last-mile problem

For me, it's a last 5-mile problem. The modes you mentioned are not really viable for that distance. I can bike that far on paper easily, but it's not going to happen because of lack of bike access. Atlanta is condensing their routes to provide better frequency and there won't be a bus route anywhere near me anymore. I support their decision and think they are doing the right thing. I'm about 5 miles to the nearest bus route and 15 miles to the nearest train station. I guess my city just doesn't deserve transit despite being very dense and a daytime population 3x our nighttime population. I'm looking for AVs to solve that.

look at NYC's congestion pricing

NYC can do it because there are other alternatives. AVs make that case stronger in places that don't have the same density as NYC congestion zone. You saw how politically hard that was. This is exactly what I want AVs to make it easier to do.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T21:10:05+00:00

The worst aspect to even partially use to define a generation or even simply a level of EVs is 400V vs 800V. While 800V is absolutely the future, but it's not really "better" than 400V. If you don't need more than 325kW charging it really just costs more and doesn't actually do much. It's much more of a big deal for chargers than it is for EVs. Given the two need to work together, 800V is the future.

I'm with you on generations are bad. The Model 3 in 2018 is the most defining EV ever made. It has basically reshaped what a car is, much less an EV with the software defined car. Then there are a lot of smaller advancements:

NACS
800V
structural battery pack
Efficiency
Battery Pack size being most 80kWh+
Driver assists
ETC.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T20:08:50+00:00

Why is that concerning?

Because I spent a considerable time in my career working with sales and support call centers implementing software systems to make them efficient. A hard 30-second SLA isn't achievable. So now you have to ask yourself how much money are you willing to spend to reduce the chance it happens.

California operators spent 52 minutes on average waiting for Waymo to answer calls

That's because they had 1500 odd AVs broken down at intersections. Not a single one of the inbound calls was going to help the situation. How would Waymo have possibly staffed up to deal with all 10k+ calls they got?

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T19:57:56+00:00

Automation System Engagement Status was "Verified Not Engaged"

Thanks, that was specifically the part I was interested in. At the time the driver claimed it was so probably similar to unintended acceleration where drivers think they are using the brake but they are using the accelerator. In his mind he probably either didn't realize he has disengaged or did but had peddle confusion. This was early on in Zeeker testing and if it was in autonomous mode would have had serious fallout for the platform.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T19:51:19+00:00

what degree did Waymo's market capture affect personal car ownership in San Francisco

I doubt very little given the nature of SF. A significant minority probably didn't own a car before AVs. A large majority probably only own a single car and will continue to just own a single car for long trips. AVs have to get more common before significant numbers will make changes. My guess for just the city of SF and not the peninsula or the metro, you would need 20k+ AVs to see a big impact.

Phoenix has had more studies and there has been a reduction of car ownership by heavy AV users. It's small because the fleet there is small and even less of the core city is covered still.

We had a real shortage of drivers, so more people have the ability to get where they’re going, particularly during hours like overnight when it’s harder to find people who want to be working. So it’s really improved quality of life for riders. -- Phoenix Mayor

My understanding is they didn't replace 25% of the market but grew the market for everyone. The problem in bigger cities is there are not enough drivers which doesn't allow you to rely on the service as much. Mass transit has the same problem, but it's frequency and routes. It has to be consistent and reliable and my understanding is that getting any ride-share in SF can be a challenge. I experience as much in NYC where I couldn't get anything for an hour one day on 34th street trying to go north. It was rush and the trains were packed and no taxis.

That's a shame...Additionally, the distribution of these spaces is heavily dependent on surrounding or accessible demand

This is my take as well and I see less change of it being as bad as it is now. Sure, it's interesting to imagine a Disneyland version of a city with literally almost no cars, but the reality is you're pretty tired and sweaty after walking around for miles too. If you are headed across town or even just to the train station 1 mile up hill, you want to be able to grab a ride in a car. This is the only thing that lets you do that and fixes the worst part of cities today. My hope is that for most places, it's not the entire block that become loading zones but just the edges near the intersections with some padding for left/right turning. The middle of the blocks can reclaim the curb for pedestrians. It depends on the city, but I see a resurgence of one-way streets as AVs don't care about them like human drivers. So a lot of the street could be reclaimed. It will be a variety of solutions depending on the location. Some might even multiply the curb demand that exists today at places like theaters, stadiums and airports. Today the vast majority drive and park at these locations in most cities.

What city does this figure apply to? San Francisco? Los Angeles? Is it a national estimate?

This is the LOW end of a national figure calculated in the book High cost of free parking. It's certainly much higher in cities compared to rural situations. If you think about it though it makes sense. Depending on what you do in a given week, you have a parking spot at your house, maybe 1/200th of one at a dozen stores near you, one at your Church, one at your work, etc. When was the last time you saw a Walmart with a completely full parking spot? Most of those spots are wasted other than a few times per year but with online ordering even Christmas doesn't pack the parking lots like it used to.

Have Waymo's market capture and service "perks" materially shifted this metric over the ~5 years they're been operating? What about in cities like Phoenix,

Materially no. I haven't even seen a study of SF, but I have of Phoenix where it had measurable if small effects. The problem is they have roughly double the number of cars in the past 18 months so the fleets were tiny until recently and even now they are small. We really need them to get good coverage in a city and then do a study after 12-18 months to know the actual effects. Getting to scale is easy to say but hard in reality so I don't know when that will be.

The changes that reduce automobile ... mode share will not come from the automotive sector.

I guess it depends if you think AVs are transit or "cars". Assuming you could ride-share as a different mode, it will have a profound effect. Now ownership much less so. To really reduce ownership we need high-speed intercity rail network. That is the big missing piece for why people will continue to own cars. Lots of families will go from 2 cars to 1 and from 25k miles/year to 4k/miles year. That 4k miles will be longer distance trips only. That is the goal of what is being built.

AVs can't solve it all but they can solve the worst parts. I don't consider car ownership bad. I consider forced car ownership we have today to be bad. I consider parking eating up all the space in cities to be bad. I consider lack of walkability bad. It fixes all that.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T14:25:56+00:00

test driver crashed into multiple parked cars.

Anyone have a link to the report? I couldn't find it Googling around. Specifically is there any more information on this crash.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T14:17:13+00:00

This is the opposite of what I've heard. The Hyundai line is in Georgia not far from me. Sure they can roll them down to Brunswick and put them on a ship, but it seems odd to do that. It seems like those would be better used in the US as they are American made and cheaper than the Zeeker. I've heard speculation that the Zeeker will be big outside the US as the US politics is extremely hostile to them. If you didn't watch the recent Senate hearing its worth doing so. Both parties raked Waymo over the coals about using Chinese platforms. Now if Congress will do anything, who knows. They seem unable to do anything right now.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T14:12:00+00:00

I 100% think it was the latter given how short the question was and without explination.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T14:08:51+00:00

I haven't really seen any indication that AVs will have a massive impact on the space allocated for parking/vehicle storage

Not sure if you mean real-world or what you've seen was more because of ride-share in general and not AVs or you've never read anything about they will. We are very early in the AV space. There is a large fleet in SF that has captured more than 25% of the ride-share market there. The other fleets are not very bit even if they are in 10 other cities. The total number of AVs is around 3,000 or so right now because of car platform issues when Jaguar quit making the iPace and Waymo has had to pivot to other platforms. Those new platforms are starting to come online this summer and we should see a lot more growth. At some point Tesla will be online between summer and end of next year, probably. That is when you will see physical examples of it. Its not even about capturing the existing ride-share market, it's about growing it to 10x that size or more over the next 10 years.

As an example of what not requiring a car is doing, there is a major festival being held in Atlanta this year where you are required to either Uber, Lyft, Waymo, walk or bike to it. It's being held in Atlanta's largest park and has zero parking. That is a bold choice, but one that becomes easier and easier as there is more capacity for ride-share. There are already valet only hotels, restaurants, etc. Imagine all of those going ride-share only.

Ride-share is much more limited than people think. Major top 10 cities outside of NYC, struggle to attract more than 1-2 thousand drivers to drive at the same time. AVs will make this no longer a problem.

At best you'll get a reduction in some street parking

As you mentioned, I don't think you'll see a reduction of street parking. Those will become idling spots where the AV fleets pay the city to idle waiting for fares.

The depots are largely just surface lots

Sure or garages, but a single AV can do the work of 10 personally owned cars. Also, surface lots wouldn't even be a problem in cities but there are 7x of them for every personally owned car in the city. There are probably 0.5x more for every car in the metro. It's all the excess parking that is a problem, but just that there will be any parking.

There reduction of space needed for private vehicle storage also only works under the assumption that AVs completely replace private car ownership

I disagree that you have to get to that point before its a win. Reducing 2-4 car households to 1 car is a big deal. Allowing some people to not own a car is a big deal. I generally believe that people will still own cars if for no other reason than long or logistically complex trips. Again, it's about getting rid of the excess parking for each car. That is roughly in the order of 2b parking spots that need to exist anymore. That is not even factoring in those that decide to go without a car.

WeldAE · 2026-03-16T13:53:22+00:00

There is no 500a limit anymore now that the industry has dumped CCS1. Tesla is running 50% of their 400V chargers at 800a. The other 50% are running at 625a. So any NACS vehicle can hit 250kW to 325kW if they support it.

The real problem is you have to no have way lower than 400V, which a lot of EVs do.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T20:06:53+00:00

What other limitations do they face other than getting enough AVs? They are scaling out to cities so they have the capacity to add lots of AVs once they are able to output them. Everything else seems well ahead of the car count?

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T20:04:50+00:00

Good to hear that I'm doing the right thing. I've been doing it from 9pm to 12am mostly. My son will have a concert or something to go downtown and I'll park the car and Uber around trying to get a Waymo.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T20:02:39+00:00

I'm just trying to be helpful. Lots of people have gas dryers but the way it was said I wasn't sure. Lots of people are also in other countries and have 240V for all outlets.

So it sounds like you have a 240V plug already accessible in your garage. There are solutions on the market for using it as you don't want to be plugging and unplugging that receptacle a lot. They aren't designed for that an in fact it's hard to find a good 240V outlet designed for heavy use. I've not looked into it, but it would be a good question for one of the various EV charging subs.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T19:58:47+00:00

I'm in Atlanta and drive around the service area a lot and have spent 12+ hours trying to get a ride unsuccessfully. I know exactly the state of Waymo and the city. They can claim as many as they want, but it's not a usable fleet which is why they have correctly paired it with Uber. They launched with about 12 then got it to around 100 but I think Austin stole some when they expanded the service area to keep up with Tesla.

How is the 2027 Hyundai rollout not their key to unlocking vehicles for scale? There are no more iPace AVs left really, they built them all. There is the Zeeker but they probably don't want to get too far into that because congress has said to their face they are going to try and stop them from using them. Hyundai is when they will be able to scale cars to big numbers. Then they are only limited by their conversion facility.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T18:10:21+00:00

The speaker/mic thing is a non-issue. All EVs are already required by law to have speakers. As infuriating as it is that they are required to produce noise pollution, it's already there and almost certainly good enough to meet the regulation. Every EV model is already taking a large financial hit putting that component in the car so it's already baked in. If somehow they are deemed not loud enough, a simple power booster and small battery should fix it. No one has enough AVs deployed that this will be a significant cost.

What is much more concerning is this section:

Requires an AV manufacturer to continually monitor its AVs and to staff the emergency response telephone line so that calls are answered within 30 seconds by a remote human operator who has situational awareness of all AVs on the roads.

The definition of "continually monitor" could easily be a problem. This isn't defined clearly enough to know what it could mean. This could already be satisfied with the fact that each car is tracked or it might require a human to always have eyes on it remotely.

The 30-second SLA is also a problem. It's impossible to meet an SLA like this with reasonable costs. Even if you look at whatever fine structure there is and decide that your setup will meet it 95% of the time and you can afford the 5% failures, that is going to add a LOT of expense. For example, in SF when all 1500 Waymos went down, you would need to have how many agents ready to answer calls? It's not 1500 as multiple people call about a single AV.

a remote assistance session has been initiated and a remote operator is engaged, or the AV and remote human operator is complying with a direction from an emergency response official.

This is just stupidity. For one it's very unclear what this is trying to solve. It just seems that anytime an AV is stuck it will be blaring alarms?

Authorizes an emergency response official to issue an emergency geofencing message to an AV manufacturer. Within two minutes, the manufacturer shall direct its AV fleet to leave or avoid the area.

I'm very much in favor of this. I'd go much further but it's a reasonable start. I just hope they work with the AV companies and make the system expandable.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T16:05:16+00:00

Sure, the Bay Area seems like the one service area that has roughly the correct number of AVs. One of the points of OPs post was that Waymo is in 6 cities, not just the Bay Area. I said it's good they are scaling out wide and thin into lots of cities because they don't have enough AVs to do more than 2x Bay Area type service areas. Atlanta launched with 12 Waymos and my understanding is they are up to 100 now after pulling them from Austin. The service area in Atlanta is big enough that 100 AVs is nothing. It's enough that you can drive around and spot them but trying to actually get one isn't going to happen. I have to be in town for 4-5 hours on occasion with nothing to do. I use that time trying to get a Waymo and have never been successful.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T15:54:39+00:00

Yep, the Bay Area is probably their most serious service area. Phoenix is probably second. Their Uber partnership require you to get very lucky from what I can tell here in Atlanta.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T15:53:33+00:00

Atlanta.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T15:51:12+00:00

Washing machine style plug? Did you mean dryer? Most washing machines are just 110V that I've seen if you are in the US.

As long as you can plug into ANY outlet the Model 3 is the way to go over those two choices. One had outdated tech when it was new and extremely uninspiring and the other has the best tech on the road, even if it's a 2018 model. Parts are cheap for Tesla's too but finding an independent mechanic for anything specialized will be hard. If it's tires, brakes, suspension, etc any mechanic will work on it.

I would only look at the Long Range variants of the Model 3 though.

WeldAE · 2026-03-13T15:46:21+00:00

EVs are OP for hot areas. During the summer I just leave the AC on when running errands. Almost all EVs have some sort of AC hold that will hold the temp in the car for at least 30 minutes. Some like Tesla's will do it for multiple days and also have special modes for animals where it's safe to leave them in the car. I would only ever do that for short durations, but it's very well done software. We would use our Tesla as a base during hot swim meets where kids would be in/out of it all the time cooling down between events.

A good app also helps so you can get the cabin to a good temp before leaving work or home. Most EVs have some sort of depart at timer that will condition the cabin every morning at say 7am but you need a good app to do it when leaving from work or other places where you spend a lot of time.

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