I actually reserved the cybertruck. But the delay in production prompted me to look around last year and I started looking into the defender. Then when I saw the 90 I switched course and cancelled my cybertruck order and ordered a 90s.

OP, you stated "It's what's right for me, but not for everyone.". If that's the case, perhaps you might want to refrain from using word like "ethical" because it could come across as a judgement to those who don't opt for EV as "unethical".

 

I've went back and forth on this issue myself. In the end we ended up ordering a base model 110 and buying a base model 2021 all electric Mini Cooper S E. The Mini ends up being around $23k after the federal tax rebate. In some states, you can get that down to around $20k with rebates. I think this is the best of both worlds, we have a 110 for long trips and off-road and a EV for city driving.

The Mini only has 114 miles of EPA range, but that's been plenty for any daily car use we have. We actually bought it in ATL and drove it the almost 600 miles back home to STL in a day.

I've actually considered ordering a Rivian now and dumping the defender for the Rivian in the 2+ years it would probably take to actually get the vehicle.

My main issue with the Tesla model Y is it's really lacking in payload capacity vs an ICE suv. That and it's very limited off pavement capability.

 

Now that I'm working from home and driving less, we considered replacing our LR4 with an Audi e-tron. But I'm that person that would repeatedly forget to plug it in and have it run out of power, probably when my wife is driving it. Don't care about mpg anymore either. So we're probably going with an X5 M50i with a twin turbo V8. Covid showed us that life can be shorter than we expected and I'm not driving a boring transportation appliance.

 

Ummm, you might want to check your facts on that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikesco...h=4aa42f792320

 

Have you actually driven an EV? Even the most boring EVs can be way more fun than an ICE car to drive. The forgetting to plug in issue is really not a big deal at all, especially if you have an EV with a decent amount of range. Even if you forget to plug it in every other time, you'll find that because you charge at home the car rarely gets below half. It's like if you went to the gas station every other day, or even every 3 days.

 

I have...the EV linear acceleration is fun. But something about the V8 growl and rumbling exhaust sound just appeals to me more.

 

An EV would be a nice car if you & your family want to die in an electrical fire because you can’t unlock the doors once the battery starts burning.
There is almost 3 billion in recalls for EV in NA due to battery & operational issues. Any of those upstart companies like Rivian have one major recall & it’s bankruptcy for them.

 

What I wonder about the EV's is this:

Where do all those batteries end up?

With Afghanistan now going full Taliban, I would assume their abundant supply of lithium would be going up in price and availability?

I like the freedom of gasoline. Thats it.. I like the rumble too... something about EV's just never gained interest in me. Maybe its because I love sports cars with manual transmissions. Maybe its because I like classics and drive a vintage 911. Whatever it is, I am team ICE !

X-

 

Tesla claims it can recycle up to 92% of its batteries. They have already started to integrate old cell recycling within the new cell production facility.

“In the fourth quarter of 2020, Tesla successfully installed the first phase of our cell recycling facility at Gigafactory Nevada for in-house processing of both battery manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries. While Tesla has worked for years with third-party battery recyclers to ensure our batteries do not end up in a landfill, we understand the importance of also building recycling capacity in-house to supplement these relationships. Onsite recycling brings us one step closer to closing the loop on materials generation, allowing for raw material transfer straight to our nickel and cobalt suppliers. The facility unlocks the cycle of innovation for battery recycling at scale, allowing Tesla to rapidly improve current designs through operational learnings and to perform process testing of R&D products.”

source: https://electrek.co/2021/08/09/tesla...cling-process/

Big mining in Afghanistan is pretty much non existent. As far as I know, there is exactly zero lithium exported from Afghanistan. Yes, there is a vast amount of it in the country, but no mining operations exist to get it at the moment. China may change that, but if anything that would raise the supply of lithium and lower the cost in the world market.

I gotta ask, have you actually driven a performance EV? I love old ICE cars, but current ICE cars are overly complicated and will be eclipsed by EVs in the coming years. It's only a matter of when not if.

 

Ethics are subjective.