2027 is the last year for the Chevy Bolt. It's been canceled again.

I wish they had a variant in a more normal sedan or hatchback than its "PT Cruiser thing", but it is still one of the closest in the US market to a normal car.

It's too bad Europe and Asia get all of the nice EV sedans like Dacia Spring and BYD Dolphin. This article even says Toyota hasn't committed to this Corolla EV in the US market, which is shameful.

Ooh didn’t know about the OnStar fuse - good tip!!

> Note that this is a concept, I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.

Yeah the new Nissan Leaf looked horrible as a concept car, very "2003 idea of the future". The actual production version is just a boring SUV

It's a compact sedan (or a compact hatchback, depending on the model) from Toyota, which in Canada at least, makes it an "entry-level" new car.

> I've never seen an actual production model look anything like the concept.

As an exception to this rule, the original Audi TT was surprisingly similar to the concept car and even the initial concept sketches. They had a crazy design idea and just went with it.

The 2nd gen Leaf (plus/extended range) is still a great car if you don't need it for road trips or continuous long driving. 200 mile range, built on a no-frills Nissan econobox platform, decent looks, very capable for its size. They are available dirt cheap these days, $10K for perfect condition ones. No fast charging, but you can get 10-90% in 5 hours of level 2 charging. It even has a heat pump heater, but no battery cooling or heating, so works best in mild climates.

Physical buttons. Carplay. 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and wide enough tires, so it can keep up.

Was just looking at the Buzz today - unfortunately, seems like it's already dead (and there are some insane incentives out there to move what's left).

It was too expensive!

I was without a car for half a year 2026-02 to 2026-08 and drove a number of electrics from the local car share (where I've had a membership since around 2011). Hyudai Kona, Kia Niro, Chevy Bolt, ...

I had a good camping experience with the Niro. Since Kia doesn't believe in spare tires being default, I was able to stuff sleeping bags, beds and a bunch of other stuff all underneath the hatchback floor, in all that secret space, leaving a ton of room above for everything else.

I like the acceleration and quiet/clean operation of electrics, but in the end I got a 6 speed manual.

Electrics are super dangerous; they accelerate like souped-up competitive track cars. They really need to tone that down: use much smaller motors with less torque, and hack the software to cap the acceleration.

I'm a much calmer driver in a manual. I'm driving for fuel economy, so I'm always in a gear where I have no power. (And in a 6 speed that has about the range of a 5 speed, there is always a good gear to be in at city speeds, where you are at between 1500-1800 RPM). So, I cannot just step on the accelerator on a whim because that will usually do nothing. There is an activation energy for speeding up, due to the chore of shifting down, which discourages doing it casually. In an electric it's like, oh, I suddenly see this opportunity, and blam: you're on the accelerator and the distance between here and there is erased faster than you can hit backspace.

Funny, I will not buy a car that has an app.

They absolutely could not, the high-tech interior is cheaper. A screen is cheaper than ten million tiny little buttons.

Incidentally, this is also partly why the interiors feel so egregious and cheap in the pieces of shit produced by Germans these days.

- prototypical car buyer (based on HackerNews bellybutton studies 2026)

Not at all. % on cars in the US is derived from your credit score. Low credit score? You pay, and you pay a LOT.

Of course a dealership could offer low rates, but those are usually through the financing arm of the brand, not the dealership itself.

I drive an EV because in every dimension I care about it’s a superior vehicle. They drive better, sound better, and use a fundamental force rather than flintstone fire smoke stink. It’s time to move on from pouring distilled dinosaur juice into your explosion mobile and join the Maxwell equation crowd. The upgrade of your electric is a one time cost that will enable you to use an EV until you move, and improves your home value, so hard to count it into the cost of the car.

Plus they last basically forever and require almost no maintenance. I like being able to never change oil, tune up, belts, whatever every few months. Every few years I get the cabin filter changed and that’s it. In 10 years the battery might be reduced by 20%, and I might replace the batteries around 15-20 years out, but I expect to literally drive it into the ground. (Mine is a Tesla with unlimited super charging for life, and I live next to a super charger)

I have family overseas and will likely buy them one of these EV Camrys. If they’re good, I might get one for my daughter. At $30k it’s fairly affordable.

This used to be true, but gas is $6.30/gallon in California now with no particular reason to think it is coming back down. I haven't actually re-done the numbers, but I have to imagine the ~40% increase in gas prices over the last year have significantly moved the needle in CA.

Until your current car dies, ges old or whatever happens, you decide you need a new one anyway. At that point the ROI is not the total cost of the car but the difference compared to your alternatives.

Connecticut has more expensive gas than either New York or New Jersey too!

fair point. It seems to me like more of the ideas now make it through to production though.

Yeah, please have knobs. I don't mind a bit of screen, but all the frequent stuff I want in knobs.

I absolutely need to be able to turn off the headlights when driving on a RORO ferry at night. Auto headlights are great, but for some reason they don't read the WSDOT sign that tells us to turn off our lights; not very smart really. Having a stalk or a knob for wipers is basic and easy; again auto wipers are pretty nice, but sometimes I want to force it because the auto system is being silly.

I really like having dedicated buttons to disable driving assistance. It's handy when you're going through a drive through and you want to disable parking beeps that remind you not to run into the building. It's also handy if lane following gets annoying when road conditions demand ignoring the lane lines. I think NHTSA pushed to remove easy access to disable assistance though?

I don't mind using a screen for things I don't need to do while in motion. Like if I want to set if the car should beep when I lock the doors, or how many times the blinker should blink if I tap it and didn't mean it but it wants to be helpful... screens are wonderful for that. But if I need to focus on a screen to do things while I'm driving, I've lost focus on the surroundings.

Of course the buttons are for doing things. The things you listed are pretty much all the traditional buttons. I can remember as a kid paying attention to the center panel between the foot wells (in a Corolla!) - it was pretty much just heating/AC, radio, and a few miscellaneous things like hazard lights. It's no airplane cockpit or space shuttle.

Also if you had electric door locks and windows (we didn't) the driver's door had 4 window levers and a child lock button while everyone else had their own window lever.

I also drive a Hyundai Kona. Here are some things I use the physical buttons for that I wouldn't want to use a screen for:

- turning the air conditioning up or down (or off) while I'm driving and feel too hot/cold

- adjusting the volume of music or the radio while driving

- turning on the radio

- turning seat heaters on or off

I don't want to fiddle with a touchscreen to do any of these things while the car is in motion.

What you are missing is you can press the button blind while you are looking at the road, the button merely closes a circuit and always works.

But I'm talking beyond just the buttons. Pure analog. No telemetry. No cellular connection. Real rack and pinion again. Real gauges. No drive by wire wherever possible. Maybe the actual ev motor output can be controlled with a simple switch in the circuit vs an entire ecu with throttle profiles and all the bullshit. Basically, your car in 2003, with the gas engine replaced with an electric motor. Pure car. Dead simple systems. Easy access engine bays.

It isn't happening again. These things are ipads on wheels that try and surveil you and come up with datapoints they can somehow make some money off of.

The old release really deserved that campaign. It wasn't just FUD. Between the lack of a good battery management system, meaning the batteries were the ones that died relatively quickly; and the low range, which was maybe enough to get you to work in back for most people, but it didn't leave a lot of headroom for any other errand you might run. They were a not great car.

Don't get me wrong, my brother has one and it is an okay car. It's just not great. There are a number of limitations which is why he gave it to my mom and drives a bolt. (the use value of a leaf is poor enough that it isn't worth trying to sell.)

Any other electric car is suffering from the leaf's bad reputation, and yet they don't have the problems I named.