Yes, I understood that. A sensible decision.
Hey…what about Renault Zoe? And please don’t use the argument it’s a French car therefore must be awful; I’ve listened enough silliness against Italian cars (as if Italians can’t make good cars or other idiocy) and it’s just absurd. Please be to the point if you know something about it.
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Looks pretty good for an EV. I will never understand why the rims of EV always have to look so strange. At least the R5 here seems to have normal door handles and not the stupid pull-out ones that so many put on their EVs (while maintaining normal handles on the ICE models).
Generally speaking there is no such thing as a French, Italian, British or German built cars anymore. Most of the brands are owned by huge multinational conglomerates, assembled by robots in multiple European plants, and designed to be as reliable as any other mass produced appliance. The human factor has largely been removed.
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The great thing about the Zoe was that the battery was leased…if it went tits up, you could just send it back and get a new one. They ditched that because their residual values were too high. 
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I like the direction Nio are going in with battery swap stations. You have a fresh pack in <5 mins, battery degradation is no longer something you worry about and the base price of the car should be halved. Similar to the old Zoe scheme I guess but with extra bells and whistles.
But don’t you have to lease the battery then for a few hundred per month? And I read somewhere that their charging speed is shit - which is quite an issue for the foreseeable future until they have actually more than a handful of swapping stations.
I was thinking of Renault Zoe 50 but you’re right, they ditched it all together.
How about the new Renault 5 E-tech? That is a good question.
I am not set on Renault btw, it is more like exploring the market.
I appreciate that. To me, a car is a luxury - especially in Switzerland with it’s excellent public transport so if you are going to buy one, you may as well buy one you like which isn’t too ugly - hence the Renault 5 (if you didn’t want or need a giant car).
Some of the new EVs are really ugly: The MG4 for example or the new Russian one:
We have a car but we thought it was more of a necessity than a luxury (which it is too if you draw the line) but I want (need) to buy one that will be only mine so I thought that could be an EV as well (definitely not the most expensive ones)…given the trend. I agree some of them are really ugly but I suppose that is an issue we have to live with? I want a 4 seater EV though, I won’t be compromising on this requirement. Anyway…the jury is still out there. It is not an emergency so I will take my time.
That Russian one looks like someone in front of a firing squad.
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It is very ugly indeed (I don’t even have terms of comparison, it looks like a car designed by kids…not for kids lol). While many EVs are ugly indeed, I suppose this one is one of a kind…
Always liked the Ioniq 5, and with the raving reviews on the N version I’m really intrigued.
Rivian R3 also looks really interesting. I wish Rivian would expand to Europe like Lucid. Lucid makes great stuff but still a bit pricey, but an R1S looks like a great replacement for a Rangie and at decent prices in the US.
Me too, its a design classic that looks like a cross between a VW Golf MkI and Minecraft. The only real cons are the price (for a Hyundai) and the limited infotainment, looks very last decade.
That’s Switzerland superpower. Cars that somehow retail for 40k abroad are sold at 80k around here 
Take this Hyundai SUV, somehow it’s 67k CHF in Switzerland. Probably half the price in other countries around the world https://www.autoscout24.ch/de/d/hyundai-santa-fe-16-t-gdi-phev-vertex-10837386
You earlier wrote:
So why does the price of the Hyundai matter?
It obviously does due to re-sale value etc so basically you are saying that the human factor is still involved but is with customer prejudice against particular brands for no logic reason.
If a brand gets thought of in a particular way then it can be difficult to shake of that image to go upmarket. It’s normally done by creating a new brand - Luxus from Toyota and DS from Citroen, for example.
Skoda managed though.
I’m still impressed that Tesla managed to break into the mass car market so quickly with no previous brand recognition.
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Yes and no. You are right that in my mind Hyundal-Kia are lower priced analogues of Toyota. However thats no bad thing since Toyota is an incredible brand in terms of reliability, durability and simplicity and the Koreans still have some way to go. Although I would agree that they have already surpassed the likes of Nissan and Mazda.
I don’t want much in terms of infotainment. I don’t care about crazy config options, I set up a car once, and then as longs as Android Auto works, and there’s physical controls on climate and volume, I’m covered.
Extra awesome bonus time, if there is a heads up display and android auto navigation flows through to turn-by-turn on it, but that’s only on the most recent stuff, that do not interest me in the slightest on every other (much more significant) aspect.
There are a couple of thermals I’d like to keep for as long as possible, but at least when I see efforts like Rivian, Lucid, and now what Biermann has brought to the party with the N, at least I see slivers of interesting stuff that I could live with.