I can't really figure out whether this is a game for me...
I can't handle horror...
That being said some of my all time favorite games had horror elements in them, games like Subnautica, Outer Wilds and Half-life 2.
So where on the horror scale does this rank? I heard there's a "safe" mode where the monsters won't hunt you, but does that actually reduce the horror? Or just cheapen the experience?
I know nothing about the tires on the Teslas or the non EV ford explorer, or even what tires are fitted in Norway. But the Hyundai Ioniq 5 I bought in Denmark last year came fitted with Michelin Primacy 4 tires, which are indeed EV tires.
Oh! You must be from the land of the free! I'm sorry...
Actually the flanges are only an additional safe guard. The train wheels are actually a bit cone shaped which makes then self-centering on their own, even without the flange: https://youtu.be/Nteyw40i9So
There is actually a lot of small details that make EV tires different than regular tires. Nothing that helps with particle emissions, though:
There is in fact such a thing as an "electric car tire".
Fundamentally you are correct that they are in essence just tires rated for the weight class, but there's more to it than just that.
Electric car tires are usually made with a stiffer rubber than comparable combustion cars, this is mostly to handle the additional weight, but they also stagger the tread pattern, and some have foam inside them, both to improve the noise and acoustics of them. Something that wasn't a problem when there were a noisy combustion engine running. But in an electric car you don't have the engine noise, and therefore hear a lot more of the wheel noise.
None of this help with the particle emissions, but there is in fact such a thing as an electric car tire.
Engineering Explained has a great video if you are curious: https://youtu.be/8pM9o2Ifcro
I have both bought and been given some of these "knockoff" sets, and while the resulting build. The resulting build is pretty, but fragile. The tolerances on the bricks are bad, to the point that some required a lot of force to join, and others are so loose that they can barely carry the weight of the bricks on top. I have also consistently found at least 1 brick that wasn't molded fully, and was therefore useless, with no spares. The colors are also usually quite uneven. The instructions are usually fairly easy to follow. But the build methods are bad. I often see bricks stacked directly on top of other bricks, with no interlocking, resulting in whole walls being able to easily fall over.
The knockoff are fine if you don't have the money to spend on Lego, but you really also get what you pay for.
Actually only 47.37%, 48.65%, or 49.325% depending on whether it's an American, European, or French roulette.
Battery degradation is certainly a very valid question to ask. This isn't leasing or renting, I got a loan at the bank, and purchased the car. So yeah, battery degradation is an issue, however to me battery degradation basically means that I would just have to charge more often.
All current figures I can find mention degradation between 0.5% and 3% per year. Taking the worst case of 3% and compounding it over 10 years, means my 77,4 kWh battery turns into a 57 kWh battery, that is a total of 73% of the original capacity, at 20 years this reduces to 54% of original capacity. At present I only use around 20-40% of my battery on an average day, which would mean that I would still be able to fulfill my daily driving needs. In the best case of 0.5% degradation, the total capacity would only have decreased to 73,6 kWh, 95% of the original capacity, or 90% after 20 years. The warranty on the battery ensures that the battery can't lose more than 30% of its original capacity in the first 10 years, so it seems reasonable to think that Hyundai isn't expecting the degradation to exceed 3%, and they likely have built in a good bit of margin into that warranty, as they obviously don't want you to replace your battery free of charge.
It's very important to understand what causes most of the battery degradation, though.
The main killer of batteries is heat. If the thermals of your battery isn't managed well by the car your battery will degrade much much faster. This is why laptops and cellphone batteries don't last very long. Most modern EVs has liquid cooling loops that keep the battery at the correct temperatures, both when driving and when charging. Many of the early EVs didn't have this, and suffered for it. So many of the statistics about battery degradation are from the earlier EVs which didn't manage temperatures well.
Charging to 100% wears the battery much more than charging to 80%, which in turn also wears more than charging to 70%. Depleting the battery and then charging to 80% again and again wears your battery more than staying between 40%-70%. Even better if you can keep your battery at a lower state of charge constantly, but that obviously means you have less range at your disposal. Charging faster also causes more wear. So with the right behaviour you can reduce your battery wear quite significantly. I have set my car up to only charge to 70% for normal days, and only increase the limit when I know I'm going on a long trip. I also almost exclusively charge at home, which means a nice and slow charge rate during the night when the outdoor temperatures are low. I only use more than 40% of the capacity between charges on very rare occasions.
My Ford Fiesta was 8 years when I sold it, and at 10 years it's timing belt should be changed. Something that would cost about 1/3 of the market value of the car... And if the belt decides to give up before then, then I would have been looking at rebuilding the whole engine, which could easily be as expensive as the whole market value of the car. Besides that, there's all the other bits in a combustion vehicle that needs maintenance, such as spark plugs, oil changes, transmissions, clutches, cylinder head gaskets, exhausts wearing trough. Even brake pads last longer as most of the braking is done by regenerative braking. EVs does however need the battery coolant changed, and does wear the tires quicker.
In the end battery degradation is a gamble that I have chosen to take. I personally think the benefits outweigh the risks, and even at 54% capacity after 20 years, the car would still be useful to me. I do however understand that this doesn't work for everyone, and many others won't be willing to take the same risk.
I wasn't aware that both the VW and Renault wasn't available in the US... That sucks. But yeah, the MSRP for EVs are generally quite a bit higher, but that goes for pretty much every size of car, but that is only a tiny bit of the whole picture. I also didn't know the price disparity was that big in the US for the Mazda and Volvo... But when you are looking at EVs you really need to look at the service and fuel/electricity costs too.
I live in Denmark, so obviously my experience will be very different. I recently switched from a Ford Fiesta 2016 (5-door hatchback, gasoline, medium-high trim) to a Hyundai Ioniq 5 (fully electric, crossover SUV, top trim), and I drive about 30,000 km per year (~ 18600 miles). And when you factor in the cost of the car loan, the service subscription, the insurance, and fuel costs, then the much larger, and much more luxurious Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes out to costing me about the same per month.
I did all the math before we bought the Ioniq 5, but unfortunately don't have all the numbers handy anymore. But the main factors are the MSRP cost and the fuel costs
Ford Fiesta 1.0 100 hp Titanium Fun (2016):
Hyundai Ioniq 5 Long Range Ultimate (2023):
So even though the cost was 2.5 times higher, it was about the same to own and drive. I have no idea how that math works out with gas and electricity prices in the US.
You do know that a Renault 5 can charge at a Tesla Supercharger, right?
So the charging infrastructure is exactly identical for teslas and all other EVs with a CCS Type 2 plug.