Just wanted to say thank you and best wishes to all of you as delivery dates arrive.
We started this Journey in February with the idea of purchasing an average-spec car an attractive price, built by a solid duo of brands. 10 months later and we have had enough. No one thing did it at first, but the lack of tax credit, less than expected real-world range, slow DC charging and delivery being constantly pushed back (including again this week) all added up. We've kept our last several cars for over 10 years each, so the decision to settle on the Solterra was very stressful. The Honda Civic this is replacing is 11 years old with ~217k miles on it (bought new).
The final straw was two weeks ago when we were given an updated delivery date of 12/20. Things got real and among many other positive discussions, we talked about what some solo trips she did in the past few months would look like in the Solterra. Each in the 3-5 hours away range. My wife found what ABRP would suggest very stressful. Too many charge stops for too long. Taking 30-minute detours because of the charging network locations were not on the primary route. Trips to the mountains were a not even possible without extended level 2 charging (expecting this to improve). I knew instantly we were done with the Solterra. It was either a move to a Tesla Y, VW ID.4 or buy a used gas car for a few years (I will not do a hybrid or other popular EVs for irrelevant reasons).
So we decided to test drive the VW and Tesla. The Tesla was originally far too expensive compared to the Solterra, but with with Solterra losing the $7500 tax credit and the Tesla gaining it in 2023, that creates a $15k swing and worth a look. It was nice, but still overpriced ($10k over Solterra, $13k over ID.4) for what it is if you do not care about self driving and performance. Also looked at the VW ID.4 which is very comparable to the Solterra with more range and significantly better charging, but less ground clearance and dreadful haptic buttons. The problem was the wait was 10+ months and a non-starter given our Civic was dying.
Serendipity intervened and the local VW dealer had the exact spec ID.4 that we would have ordered in transit and unclaimed. Test drive went well and we put it a deposit on it. Four days later we have a new ID.4 @ MSRP (5.15% interest) sitting in our driveway. So we have an actual car and ended up saving $4k after tax credit compared to the Solterra. The VW is not a perfect car. Cold winter road trips (say less than 20*F) will probably still be done in our F150 due to loss of range and slow cold charging, plus lack of confidence in the charging networks. Hopefully the latter improves for all of us over the next several years.
I think in the end the lack of a larger battery pack was the core fatal flaw. The ID.4 has 77kWh usable vs 64kWh in the Solterra. That 20% more directly impacts both range and charging speed. Larger packs charge faster. If the Solterra had a larger battery option we would have ordered that on day zero and perhaps mitigated all of this.
I'll call the dealer Monday and cancel the Solterra reservation. Good luck to all of you still waiting. This forum was very helpful staying up to date on things and understanding the Solterra -- I feel I know very little about the ID.4 in comparison.
We started this Journey in February with the idea of purchasing an average-spec car an attractive price, built by a solid duo of brands. 10 months later and we have had enough. No one thing did it at first, but the lack of tax credit, less than expected real-world range, slow DC charging and delivery being constantly pushed back (including again this week) all added up. We've kept our last several cars for over 10 years each, so the decision to settle on the Solterra was very stressful. The Honda Civic this is replacing is 11 years old with ~217k miles on it (bought new).
The final straw was two weeks ago when we were given an updated delivery date of 12/20. Things got real and among many other positive discussions, we talked about what some solo trips she did in the past few months would look like in the Solterra. Each in the 3-5 hours away range. My wife found what ABRP would suggest very stressful. Too many charge stops for too long. Taking 30-minute detours because of the charging network locations were not on the primary route. Trips to the mountains were a not even possible without extended level 2 charging (expecting this to improve). I knew instantly we were done with the Solterra. It was either a move to a Tesla Y, VW ID.4 or buy a used gas car for a few years (I will not do a hybrid or other popular EVs for irrelevant reasons).
So we decided to test drive the VW and Tesla. The Tesla was originally far too expensive compared to the Solterra, but with with Solterra losing the $7500 tax credit and the Tesla gaining it in 2023, that creates a $15k swing and worth a look. It was nice, but still overpriced ($10k over Solterra, $13k over ID.4) for what it is if you do not care about self driving and performance. Also looked at the VW ID.4 which is very comparable to the Solterra with more range and significantly better charging, but less ground clearance and dreadful haptic buttons. The problem was the wait was 10+ months and a non-starter given our Civic was dying.
Serendipity intervened and the local VW dealer had the exact spec ID.4 that we would have ordered in transit and unclaimed. Test drive went well and we put it a deposit on it. Four days later we have a new ID.4 @ MSRP (5.15% interest) sitting in our driveway. So we have an actual car and ended up saving $4k after tax credit compared to the Solterra. The VW is not a perfect car. Cold winter road trips (say less than 20*F) will probably still be done in our F150 due to loss of range and slow cold charging, plus lack of confidence in the charging networks. Hopefully the latter improves for all of us over the next several years.
I think in the end the lack of a larger battery pack was the core fatal flaw. The ID.4 has 77kWh usable vs 64kWh in the Solterra. That 20% more directly impacts both range and charging speed. Larger packs charge faster. If the Solterra had a larger battery option we would have ordered that on day zero and perhaps mitigated all of this.
I'll call the dealer Monday and cancel the Solterra reservation. Good luck to all of you still waiting. This forum was very helpful staying up to date on things and understanding the Solterra -- I feel I know very little about the ID.4 in comparison.
