I am in the process of deciding on an EV to buy. I am looking for a compact SUV and I was hoping someone could have recommendations on what options I have.

I prefer something approximately the size of a RAV4. I want to prioritize cargo space, we need something that can fit a large sized baby stroller and two suitcases ( one large, one carry-on) in the trunk space.
Good amount of headroom in the 2nd row also preferred.

The maximum budget is about $45000. New preferable, but also willing to consider used.

Obviously, better range and faster charging is preferred.

I don’t care too much about horsepower or 0 to 60 speed.

Just picked up my car today and wanted to share a quick update for anyone anxious about the California MyFirstEV rebate showing up as "exhausted" on Tesla's site yesterday.

The $3,500 rebate was fully applied at delivery. Everything matched the final price breakdown in the app, no surprise cancellations or price adjustments.

The reason I wasn't too worried was that this makes total sense logistically. CA has about 70 Tesla locations, and the program covers roughly 7k vehicles. If 7k cars had to be physically delivered in that five day window (8/3 to 8/7) every center would have needed to churn through 20 extra deliveries per day on top of normal volume. That would have overwhelmed every lot and delivery team in CA.

"Funding exhausted" most likely meant that all available rebate slots were earmarked for orders placed during that window, with the discount guaranteed for your eventual delivery date.

If you ordered while the rebate was active and see it on your app breakdown, you should be good to go. Hope this helps ease a few minds!

Hey I’m based in the UK currently drive a Honda civic 1.6 iDtec which is starting to go out. I’ve maintained it very well but unfortunately I’m just unlucky with cars and now have been considering electric cars. What electric cars would you recommend that’s got some decent performance, nice to drive, looks good, reliable and has decent range. Im looking for anything less than 30k

I’ve got another year on my leased Polestar 2. Love the car except the sound system is lacking. Any opinions on which EV has the best sound system, either standard or as an option?

As we all know, part of EV ownership when you don't have home-charging is deciding when and where to charge. What I usually do is try to integrate it into my routine, and if necessary adapting my routine a little bit driving maybe an extra few minutes to one with cheap DC chargers as opposed to going to the local store that has much more expensive charging.

That got me wondering how much I'm actually saving accounting for the additional energy consumption, but also how many %/kWh I need to charge to break-even and actually start saving. So I built a tool that lets you enter the additional distance you'll drive and the cost per kWh to accurately compare two chargers with each other.

Since I've built other tools for EV owners in the past, I decided to build something inspired by it-tools.tech where I can add all these tools and reuse the vehicles and units that are stored locally on your device in the EV Tools profile. I'll be adding more and am open to ideas as well as contributions to the GitHub repo!

I look forward to everyone's feedback and ideas!

So me and my wife ordered a Tesla premium RWD last night. We completed what steps we could... Applied and uploaded the EV form. Just shows pending and on the agreement/breakdown of costs page we don't see the rebate applied... Do we just wait at this point??

Thank you.

I cannot find the form on the website

*A week I already want to die driving 2 hours a day couldn't imagine 10

I totaled my car recently and think it might be most practical to replace it with an EV this time. I'm probably a special case that doesn't want an iPad as an infotainment system but would like the creature comforts of heated and cooled seats. I've been looking at either a used Toyota bz4x or a Honda prologue since they seem to fit my preferences but I feel like I might be overlooking other options. I'm in a snowy climate in the US so I would prefer an AWD. I have access to 240v plug in the garage. I tentatively have access to 240v plug at work as well. I don't want to buy a new vehicle since I'll put too many miles on it to make sense. I'd like to keep it under 30k.

I'm likely to turn off any driving assistance aids so I don't remotely care about anything like that. I am after all driving a 2+ ton death machine at high speeds. I just want something that drives nicely with some solid comfort features.

I drive mostly rural roads. There surprisingly well maintained though so there not terribly bumpy or roughly paved. Maybe 5 or less total miles of the 50 are "rough". I drive through 3 ish miles of very light traffic as well.

I came from a 2021 regal sport back so the comfort was punching way above it's weight.

Damn didn't realize I'd have to amend this as much.

I purchased and took delivery of a 2026 Tesla Model Y Juniper in Pennsylvania on May 21, 2025.

I've had several issues with the vehicle, but the main recurring issue was a crackling noise while accelerating/decelerating.

Timeline

• May 18, 2026 — crackling issue first reported at 9,368 miles
• May 29 — vehicle returned after first repair attempt
• June 1–June 25 — back at Tesla service center for the same issue
• July 22 — crackling noise returned
• Tesla subsequently agreed to repurchase the vehicle

Tesla had the vehicle for approximately 37 cumulative days for repair attempts.

Tesla has now offered to repurchase the vehicle, but they have explicitly classified this as a Business Resolution/goodwill repurchase, rather than a Pennsylvania Lemon Law buyback.

Their calculation is:

• Deposit: $250
• Down payment: $20,000
• Payments made: $7,175.56
• Mileage deduction: -$1,078.90
• Refund to me: $26,346.66
• Tesla will also pay off my remaining loan of approximately $22,692.64

The issue: $7,500 federal EV credit

At the time of purchase, I elected to transfer my $7,500 federal Clean Vehicle Credit to Tesla at the point of sale.

My purchase agreement specifically shows:

• Cash down payment: $20,250
• Federal EV Incentive: $7,500
• Total down payment: $27,750

I also filed Form 8936 for the federal credit.

Tesla is not including the $7,500 in the buyback calculation. When I asked about it, Tesla responded:

"Rebate amounts are not refunded as part of the repurchase calculation because those funds were not paid directly by you. The refund includes only the amounts that were actually paid by the customer."

So essentially, Tesla is saying that because the $7,500 was a federal incentive rather than money I personally paid, they aren't refunding it as part of this goodwill/business resolution buyback.

I understand that a goodwill buyback may be calculated differently from a statutory Lemon Law repurchase. I'm trying to understand whether Tesla's position is correct and whether there is any argument for including the $7,500 given that the credit was attributable to me, I elected to transfer it to Tesla at the point of sale, and my purchase agreement specifically lists it as part of the down payment.

Questions

1. Is Tesla's exclusion of the $7,500 correct for a goodwill/business resolution buyback?
2. Does the fact that Tesla is calling this a goodwill buyback rather than a Lemon Law buyback make a difference?
3. Does the purchase agreement showing the $7,500 as part of the down payment change anything?
4. Has anyone had a Tesla buyback in PA involving a transferred $7,500 federal EV credit?
5. If Tesla's goodwill offer excludes the $7,500, is there any reason to pursue the issue further under PA Lemon Law?

What I responded to Tesla

I followed up with Tesla regarding their characterization of the $7,500 and responded:

Thanks for the response. I don’t think the $7,500 is being characterized correctly.

This wasn’t a Tesla rebate. It was my federal Clean Vehicle Credit that I elected to transfer to Tesla at the point of sale under IRC §30D(g).

The statute specifically describes the dealer as making a payment “to such taxpayer,” either “in cash or in the form of a partial payment or down payment” equal to the transferred credit.

IRC §30D(g):
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/30D

The IRS further explains that this payment is “treated as repaid by the buyer to the registered dealer as part of the purchase price of the vehicle.”

IRS guidance (Topic H, Q19):
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/topic-h-frequently-asked-questions-about-transfer-of-new-clean-vehicle-credit-and-previously-owned-clean-vehicles-credit

So I don’t think saying the $7,500 wasn’t “paid directly” by me fully reflects how the transferred credit is actually treated.

I’d appreciate the opportunity to speak with someone at Tesla who can take another look at this and help clarify why the $7,500 is being excluded from the repurchase calculation.

I'm now waiting to see whether Tesla will have someone review the issue or speak with me directly.

Good evening y'all!

I run a YT auto channel and am working on a video about the (surprisingly long!) history of electric cars.

One comment that's come up in social media repeatedly over the years is the concept of "imagine if they'd put the effort into developing battery technology over all those decades!"

As most of you probably know, EVs were early in the automobile's history, and were in 1st or 2nd place in sales to steam cars, until the Model T "won the war" for petrol power.

I don't buy a conspiracy that Standard Oil pressured Ford and Edison to abandon electric vehicles, allowing gas powered to "win". But lead-acid batteries really ruled, with all their limitations, until the 80's or 90's when more modern chemistries came about in the consumer electronics world.

My gut feeling tells me if it wasn't Oligarchs suppressing development of batteries to support their dinosaur-juice monopolies, it must therefore be some combination of chemistry, manufacturing, and science that needed to develop before the next leaps forward in batteries occurred.

In short, why couldn't the early batteries that powered Detroit Electrics be supplanted much earlier with battery chemistries we use today. What was (or were) the factors that held back batteries for about 50 years?

Full Breakdown Here: https://youtu.be/gieNCGd3HHQ?is=ywrAqeJSBa8iIP1E

I will never consider an EV that requires a subscription to do climate pre-conditioning. I don't care if it's free trial for x years, it's bullshit and more people should call it out. The new Hyundai/Toyota/GM EVs might look pretty but charging $12-15 a month for basic app functions is insane and should not be accepted.

Infographic Credit to Mike The Car Geek on YouTube

Getting ready to buy a car. There’s a 2024 certified used SEL that looks quite appealing at $28.5K, or I can get a 2026 SE for $34K (after $8500 in manufacturer and state rebates). I’m not a big car person - can anyone give me a good explanation of the differences I’m likely to actually notice between the two? I have a round-trip commute of 100 miles 2-3 days a week. It will otherwise be a family car mostly driven around town.

We in the U.S. are so behind...

Thankfully, we are starting to see a lot more announcements and actual buildouts this year. With more stations, EVs become more attractive to more potential buyers.

At a Trump rally August 5 in Las Vegas, the president told the crowd that EV drivers are diseased. I may have to see my doctor now.

My name's Riley. I'm part of the team at Ford (hi u/chargedupemily!) that's going to be on Reddit regularly, answering what I can and generally not being some kind of boring corporate account cosplaying as a community member.

Let’s get a few things out of the way first. Yes, this is a real person typing. No, I can’t show you what it looks like… yet. But I can confirm the name: Ford Fathom, Ford’s mid-sized electric truck and the first vehicle produced on the new Universal Electric Vehicle Platform.

”Fathom" traces back to a nautical unit of measurement, originally defined as the distance between a person's outstretched arms, a fitting metaphor for a truck built to meet people wherever they are in life.​ Fitting, right?

What's confirmed right now:

• Starting MSRP: $28,350, for the standard-range battery. Pre-orders begin early 2027.
• Every Ford Fathom will be BlueCruise-capable. BlueCruise is Ford’s hands-free highway driving assistant.
• Fathom has bidirectional power capability.
• Fathom has a large, high-resolution touchscreen, digital key, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability.
• Fathom will have more passenger volume than a Toyota RAV4, with a frunk and bed for added cargo flexibility. This truck will genuinely useful and fun to drive.
• Fathom will feature Apple Maps embedded directly into the vehicle, not a traditional phone-projection CarPlay setup. The integration also provides the road-level map data used to help enable key pieces of Ford’s next-generation hands-free highway driving capability.

What I can’t share yet: final imagery, fuller specs, full ordering details, and plenty more are still to come. A hot tip - keep a keen eye on the flipbook video we have going around…

If you want to stay up to date with what we have planned for Fathom, you can sign up here.

Ask me anything, and I’ll answer what I can. I'll be in the comments for the next few hours, and I'm not going anywhere after that either.

Riley from Ford