Best Features of (Other) EVs

I'll start us off.

VW e-Golf - coasts in D for maximum efficiency. Regen is available on the brake pedal (as it is on all EVs *except* Tesla!). A couple of other cars also do this: some/all of the Kia and Hyundai EVs, I believe.

Also on the e-Golf - adaptive creep; meaning no creep by default - but if you are in stop and go traffic, it gives you a bit of creep. Which then goes away, after you get the car up above ~20MPH. This is intuitive and almost invisible.

Chevy Bolt EV - the best and most informative, and clear display. It shows the median range, and the highest possible if you drive really efficiently, and low range if you do everything that consumes more energy, all at once. It shows you a "trend" of your energy usage, and whether it is improving over time, or you are using more than you had been; or holding it more or less steady. It shows the "instant" use level, or the peak power level you are generating - and the colors of this display change based on how you are doing. It has 20 bars on the battery gauge, so 5% increments.

And on the center screen, it can show the percentages of energy used to move the car, and to heat/cool the inside of the car, and to condition the battery, as well.

Another great feature on the Bolt EV Premier, is the "bird's eye" 360 degree camera view - live camera view of the ground around the car. This is *very* useful.

My spouse's *favorite* thing about our Bolt EV - is the entry and exit ease. The doors have no sills, so you can just slide your feet out and onto the ground. The seats are at a great height, too (though they are less than comfortable).

Back to the e-Golf (and hopefully on some ID.3 and ID.4 models?) - a direct heating windshield defroster. This is *much* lower energy consumption than the hot air variety that we have just accepted - because ICE vehicles have SO MUCH WASTE HEAT. Ford and others did this way back in the 1970's and 1980's - because it is also very *quick* to heat up the glass. The best way to do this apparently, is to put a *very* thin layer of silver inside the glass, and power it with a few hundred watts.

Because EVs are so efficient, and don't produce very much waste heat - they all need to have heated seats, and heated steering wheel, too. VW and BMW have the best heated seats, in my experience. If the vehicle has a back seat - then it should be heated, too! The Leaf has the best lit charging port, and shares the best charging status display while charging. You can see from a distance, about how far along the charging is. Oh, and the Leaf had the best charge port for charging during a snow storm - the cover was *over* the plug, and you could use a rag or plastic bag to stuff around it, to keep most of the snow (and ice!) out.

BMW i3 had the first - and best implementation of 1-pedal driving. The key thing is to make it easy and repeatable, to find the threshold between acceleration and regen - and be able to hold the pedal there, and actually coast. Personally, I think 1-pedal driving encourages accelerating until you stop - a bit too close to racing around, frankly. Regen is great for when you need to slow down/stop - but it should be possible to do a third thing, and that is *coast*. The i3 made it relatively easy to coast, and to modulate the regen, too.

If you must have optical side mirrors (and I hope that Aptera will have video side mirrors!) then they need to be heated. And VW had a neat feature that when you adjusted the driver's side mirror - it adjusted the passenger side one proportionally; and in the "opposite" direction. Very subtle touch - if you must have optical mirrors.

By the way, I made homebrew video side cameras for my last ICE car (a Scion xA) that I drove with for over 5 years. I had two 7.5" LCD screens side by side right in front of the steering wheel (the xA had the instrument cluster in the center of the dash) - so I just looked in ONE PLACE to see the entire sides of the car. The cameras were about 120 degrees, so I could almost always see a car right behind me in at least one or usually both screens. AND if the rear bumper of a car in the next lane was even with my shoulder - I could still see it in the screen!

Best points about video side mirrors:

No adjustments needed for different drivers.

Much smaller - or no blind spots.

Not blinded by headlights of cars behind you.

Reduced frontal area AND reduced coefficient of drag - total frontal area of side mirrors approaches a square foot on many cars. And air flow at the base of the 'A' pillar is already tricky, and sticking big paddles/sails out there really harms the drag coefficient.

Usability of video mirrors in the rain and fog, was the biggest surprise for me - since water and condensation can get on both the optical mirror itself, and on the side window, it is often really hard to see anything in an optical mirror, in these conditions. Video cameras tend to not show up the falling rain, as well.

This is already a long post but - Tesla has BY FAR the best charging system. Others have come close or matched Tesla for charging speeds, but no one has yet to come even close to what Tesla has built.

And Tesla has the best coefficient of drag - until the Aptera comes out, of course. This is a huge advantage - you get more range out of a given battery pack size. Oh, the Mercedes EQS will have a very low drag, too.