Buying a New Car - it's electric!

Kane has been researching electric vehicles for a very long time now. As a result, I have become quite familiar with various video bloggers (and their cats, - Hi Jensen!) who have been building their own EVs or testing out ones already coming to market.

I was very interested when Kane told me about the Hyundai Kona with its impressive 400km+ range. I got to test drive one at an EV expo and I was sold. At the weekend we went to visit the show room and we put in our order. I couldn't be more excited!

In some countries, like Norway, the waiting list is 2 years!  I was assured it wouldn't be that long, but it could be anywhere between 6 weeks and 6 months.  The dealer gave us a loan of the car overnight, so between 4.30pm on Saturday and 10am on Sunday we got feel like EV owners and get a taste for what's to come.

We headed for the motorway to test out just what this thing can do.  I put some pressure on the pedal and was immediately pressed back into my seat as it took off. Holy cow it's powerful! 

I tested the 3 different drive modes - drive, sport and eco.  Drive was just the normal mode. Eco makes the car feel heavier, changes the dash display to give more stats on how much energy you are saving and maximizes the regenerative braking.  I think that I will use this for city and suburban driving.  Sport mode made the car feel much lighter and reponsive, the slightest touch and the car was ready to go, turn or whatever was asked of it and I was a bit scared of it's power.  I can't imagine ever really needing to use this mode as the normal drive mode was is responsive enough for me.  Jetting away from the traffic lights was plenty fast in normal drive mode!

I also tested out the 3 levels of regenerative braking and using the stearing wheel paddles to increase the regenerative braking to bring the car to a stop.  I try to be a safe and economical driver when slowing down in traffic or coming to a stop and using the paddles fit with my way of driving and I can put energy back into the battery braking in this way.

There were heaps of other modern features that my 8 year old car doesn't have so I'm excited to have Apple Car Play and automatic lights and rain sensing windscreen wipers!

The only downside is that I have to wait but I'm super hopeful that I'll have it before my sister and her husband comes to visit so that there will be enough space to pick them AND their luggage up from the airport!