The funnest car I ever drove was the original Tesla Roadster.
This was in 2011, back when Elon Musk’s EV company was courting press instead of denigrating us, and they offered me a test drive. I took the car up I-280 — a beautiful, mostly deserted highway with perfectly banked curves that seemed designed for Silicon Valley types to test out their speedmobiles — and was blown away by its responsive acceleration and the ease with which it handled at 120 miles per hour. (Er, did I say 120? I meant 70. Yeah.)
I’ve gone fast in a few other sports cars — an ’80s-era Nissan Z and Fiat Spider, and a ’90s-era Porsche 911 — but the Roadster’s essential electric-ness (no gears!) made for a unique driving experience, like an exceptionally overpowered and aerodynamic golf cart. I didn’t care much about the iPad-like controller on the dash or the door handles or any of the other bells and whistles. I just loved the way it drove.
I’m not an auto reporter like Kirsten, so my chances to drive new cars are few and far between. Since that Roadster experience, I’ve only briefly driven a couple other Teslas owned by friends and have never tried another EV. My own cars have been strictly gas burners.
So I was over-the-moon excited when GM offered me a chance to live with an EV, the new Chevy Equinox, for a full week ahead of my onstage interview with CEO Mary Barra at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 29.
They dropped it at my house in San Francisco on Monday. It’s quite beautiful, as you can see in the photo above.
The first thing I wondered: How will I plug it in? This has been one of the biggest mental barriers that’s stopped me from going electric, and I’m still not sure what the answer is. I gather you need some kind of home adapter, and then you ideally need to upgrade the voltage to 220V so it can charge more overnight. To me, that sounds like an expensive call to an electrician.
Since I was driving the Equinox for only a week, I figured I could get enough charge at one of the Shell charging stations outside the mall where I hit the gym every morning.
It had about 300 miles of range when it was delivered, so there was no need to worry about that right away.
My son was off school on Monday so I took him down the block for a burrito. Like most modern cars, the Equinox unlocks automatically when you approach it with the key. Unlike most other cars I’ve driven, though, it actually starts without your having to press any buttons or do anything — you just sit in the seat and it’s on.
GM has really embraced the “computer on wheels” aspect of modern vehicles, putting nearly every relevant control into a wide touchscreen mounted on the dash.
Connecting my phone to Bluetooth was a little puzzling, until I noticed the “on” button on the upper edge of the touch screen — the screen lit up for some basic controls, but to get full functionality, you have to touch the button. (The car turns on automatically when you sit down but the touchscreen doesn’t? Odd design choice.)
By and large, the control system was easy and fun to use. I loved the built-in Google Maps, which is way more useful and intuitive than the mapping system built into my Toyota. But I could not connect Apple’s CarPlay system wirelessly, to use, say, Apple Maps. That’s apparently by design. It’s Google or the highway, friends.
Other quirks: If there’s a physical headlight button, I couldn’t find it, which meant I had to use the screen to turn the headlights off when I parked the car. (The default headlight setting is “auto,” so they would’ve flipped off eventually, but I’m old-school and have been mentally trained to turn the lights off so I don’t run the battery down.) Also, when you turn the car off, you have to manually touch another control on the screen. It’s easy enough to get used to — but if you accidentally tap the brake with your foot as you get out of the car, it turns back on and you have to manually shut it down from the screen again.
On the plus side, there’s this exceptionally cool anti-crash system that vibrates the driver’s seat on the side that corresponds with where nearby objects are. The vibrations grow stronger as you get closer. It might sound annoying, but I found it intuitive and natural, almost like it taps into the same part of the human brain that helps you avoid people when walking down a city street. It was less irritating than the triple-beeps my Toyota sounds every time I’m about to hit something.
As far as the driving goes, it’s got great power. I was able to quickly climb a very steep hill by my house that normally requires a gas car’s “Sport” mode to burn up. The freeway acceleration was instant and reminded me again of that Tesla — there’s just something about the way a (good) EV revs up without changing gears that feels responsive and smooth. The suspension was a bit tighter than I like, the steering a bit looser, but that’s just a personal preference. (And no, I did not drive this car anywhere close to 120 mph, but it felt like I could’ve!)
Then came Tuesday morning. Charging time.
It wasn’t as simple as I’d hoped. First, I had to find the port, which is on the upper side of the front left fender above the wheel. Then I had to scan a QR code, download the Shell app, connect it to my Apple Pay account, plug it in, and wait for confirmation. It made a sweet little beep when it was charging, and a blue light on the dash turned green.
Nowhere near the ease of a gas station where you just show up, pump, and pay. The price was a lot better, though — it cost $0, all week. I figure if those rates held, I’d save about $1,500 on gas per year. (We don’t drive much, living in a compact city with mostly decent public transit.)
My charging routine worked well until Friday morning. All the charging stations near the gym were occupied, so I drove farther down the mall parking lot, pulled up to an empty one, scanned the QR code, and … nothing. The Shell app couldn’t find the charger and instead kept directing me back to the other stations, which it listed as “unoccupied” even though the stalls were full.
I got on a call with support — at 5:30 in the morning, in a mall parking lot, which nobody wants to do — and they couldn’t figure it out either. But I was told if I created an account, they might be able to charge it for me remotely. (No thanks. I needed to get to the gym and get my day started.) I finally found a charging station about a 7-minute walk from the gym entrance that was both unoccupied and properly listed in the app.
This isn’t a knock against GM. But relying on partners for such a critical function — especially for novice EV users nervous about charging, as I was — is a risky strategy and reinforces how Tesla’s decision to build its own Supercharger network was an expensive but necessary investment. Perhaps it’s good that the Equinox has an adapter that lets you use Tesla’s network.
Tesla’s core business has always been EVs, and it never had a fallback strategy. It had to make the EV experience better than any gas car in order to survive. GM is embracing the future with EVs, and self-driving systems, and groundbreaking software. But it still builds millions of gas cars each year and has to play all sides of the market.
One final side note, which will sound weird to auto enthusiasts or people who review cars for a living but which I think may be more typical of the average car buyer’s experience: I don’t really want to spend much time learning how to use a car.
The point of a car is to get where you need to go quickly and efficiently, preferably with some fun on the way. As the industry has aggressively embraced the “computer on wheels” concept pioneered by Tesla, I’d argue that they’ve made cars a little too complicated. Do we really need new ways to shift from park to drive? Do we really need to learn a new control scheme for every brand of car we drive? I may be exhibiting some “old man yells at cloud” mentality, but sometimes I just want to drive down the coast and feel the freedom of the road.
The Equinox showed me GM is a credible player in the market, and worth considering when I’m ready to take the plunge. But it also convinced me I’m still not ready for an EV.
