Rough week for our car just in time for its one big road trip of the year. My bike fell off the wall and put a nice big dent in the door, and the check engine light came on just as we started our outbound leg.

When it’s time for a replacement, we are the perfect candidates for an electric car. If we drive at all, it’s maybe two or three times a week, rarely more than 10 miles. Our only longish drive is less than 500 miles each way once a year along a well-electrified corridor.

All I really want is my exact car, but with batteries instead of a gas tank. It even exists, but the manufacturer just doesn’t feel like selling it in the US for some reason. Most of the comparable options are bizarro future concept cars with gamer LEDs everywhere. See also (listen also?), this discussion on a recent episode of ATP about the state of modern EVs, starting around 1h19m.

Given the entire industry’s planned hop to the Tesla/NACS connector in ~2025, I also don’t want buy the last car sold in the United States that needs a dongle forever.

Anyway, I guess this has been your episode of Car Talk for the week. Don’t drive like my brother…