EV Update
Back in May I posted about how we'd learned to live with our broken Ford CMax Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). As it turned out the car had other ideas and decided to break in a surprising new way as we drove back from a farmer's market last weekend. My wife was driving and suddenly started laughing when the message
STOP SAFELY NOW
appeared on the dashboard along with a solid check engine light and the loss of all power. The radio worked but both electric and gas powered drive systems along with the power steering and brake servos stopped working. Fortunately we were a couple of blocks from home on empty roads and my wife coasted home. Bouncing to an emergency brake stop on our front lawn so as not to block in our other gas powered car.
A failure like that is too big a risk for family driving, especially with our young daughter in the back and many local journeys involving short runs on the interstate.
So we traded in the PHEV for a leased 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV as we agreed our family wanted to move away from oil burning and charge our car from our solar panels. Net metering should mean we can do this and a range of about 300 miles means we shouldn't need to use the gas powered car too often, although we are keeping it for now in case we need something traditional for hurricane evacuations.
The new car feels far more futuristic, and so far has exceeded our expectations. It definitely isn't user repairable which isn't great, but we'll see how it fairs and I'll report back here.