[alilii]

I have a FWD Ariya reserved and since Nissan is telling us they will be delivered by 12/31, I thought it would be a good time to start test driving the competition. I have never driven any electric car (I was out of town during the Ariya ride and drive in my area). I don't have friends or family with an EV. In fact, the entirety of my experience with EVs has been riding in an Uber Tesla. Once.

So I scheduled a Tesla Model Y test drive online and reached out to my local dealers to try to schedule test drives for the Mach-E, ID.4, EV6, and Ioniq 5. Volkswagen told me there aren't any ID4 test drives; they're order only. Ford and Kia told me they don't have any cars. And Hyundai was expecting one car to come in today and suggested I get there in the next couple of days before someone buys it.

Wondering if this has been everyone else's experience, and how you're feeling about potentially buying a car you haven't driven and can't personally compare to the other cars in its class -- because you can't get your hands on those either.

 

[dhat22]

I've been able to test drive all of the cars you mentioned except the Mach E. Try checking the used car market in your area (Facebook marketplace and all). There aren't huge changes to driving dynamics from one model year to the next.

 

[voxel]

I’ve test driven an Ariya (2 trims), Ioniq 5 (3 trims), EV6 (2 trims), Mach-E (premium RWD ER), ID.4 (two 2021s, one 2022, and a 2023 yesterday), MINI electric, Bolt EUV, Niro EV, i4 M50, Polestar 2, Rivian R1T.

I never test drove a Tesla as they never called me back to schedule a date and yet I’ve owned 4 in the past 1.5 years now. I bought a BMW i4 not long after my test drive because that’s how much I liked the car and you’ve seen how many EVs I’ve driven lol.

There is always one dealer in a city with a demo EV. Often they are cars listed on Autotrader but not actually for sale.

The other option is to Turo an EV or go to Hertz to rent one.

 

[atreis]

Autotrader seems to work pretty well for finding them. Within 50 miles there are a handful of Bolts of various trims, several F-150 Lightnings, a few Mercedes (EQB and EQS), and one Kia EV6 in the area. Given that EVs haven't really caught on yet where I live, that's surprisingly good.

 

[dhat22]

There is always one dealer in a city with a demo EV.

Maybe if you live in an area that has a high EV adoption. I’m in an area with very low adoption rates, and it’s not that easy.

 

[voxel]

Maybe if you live in an area that has a high EV adoption. I’m in an area with very low adoption rates, and it’s not that easy.

That is the problem for sure. I do notice there are some auto shows and events are have a good number of EVs for test drives.

The Miami Auto Show had various indoor EV test drives and the Electrify Expo (Electrify Expo - tours CA/WA/NY/FL/TX) had many EVs available for test drives. Sometimes if you truly are interested you might want to take a trip to a larger metro with one of these events

 

[alilii]

Thanks for the Autotrader tip @voxel and @atreis! I was able to find an EV6 an also a Mach-E at (different) dealers 35-45 minutes away.