wile_e8

Any word on waterproofing or wireless charging? I have a 4a and have accepted that the lack of those things was the trade-off for a great price, but it would be nice if they’re included in future models. But I haven’t seen anything about either in the write-ups for the 6a.

We regularly stop at a gas station on the way home to get some drinks and snacks, so if we could stop for ~15 minutes to charge up enough to get home while visiting a store that would be fine. However, all I see on ChargeHub (which I only know about from the image in the article) is a few level 2 hubs only kind of out of the way, one or two of which might be a walkable distance from a place we could get snacks. I don’t know enough about electric cars right now to know how much charge could be added by a level 2 charger in ~15 minutes.

But yeah, that’s the other reason we might not get a Solterra – the amount of planning involved in a trip out of town right now seems like a giant pain. Maybe the attempts to improve the charging networks will fix that in a few years.

Actually, looking a little harder, there are a few level 3 chargers only slightly off of an alternate route if we can hold off on snacks and drinks until we’re half way home. But they would charge faster and one is right next to a grocery store. So it looks more doable, but still involves an annoying amount of planning for a trip we can do on half a tank of gas.

Yeah, we have a Subaru Ascent and an old sedan, and I was very interested in the Solterra when it was announced as a potential replacement for the sedan in a few years given how happy we are with the Ascent. One of the things we regularly do with the Ascent is take it on day ski trips, and I was hoping to be able to be able to do that in the Solterra to save gas. The first thing I did after reading the 228-mile range was check how far away our favorite ski mountain is – 100 miles. I’m not sure that’s enough range to be comfortable getting there and back without a charging stop. Not great.

We’re not going to be buying a new car for a few years either way, so maybe the range will increase on newer models. But this definitely lowers my excitement for the Solterra.