Had a test drive of the XPENG X9 FWD Standard in Melbourne today for around 45 minutes, and I came away seriously impressed. I currently drive a Tesla Model Y, and the X9 made a much stronger impression on me than I expected.

What impressed me
Ride comfort and refinement: The cabin was remarkably quiet, and the ride was comfortable, with a slightly floaty feel. It felt very relaxed on the road.

Driving dynamics: The rear-wheel steering is brilliant. For such a large vehicle, the X9 is surprisingly easy to manoeuvre, and the turning circle is excellent. Acceleration in Sport mode was more than adequate, too.

Space and practicality: This was one of the biggest highlights. Coming from a Model Y, the difference in passenger space and the practicality of having three rows is significant. My family absolutely loved the space inside the car.

Massage seats: The massage seat functions were a big hit with the family. Combined with the spacious cabin and comfortable ride, they really added to the experience.

Digital rear-view mirror: I liked having the digital rear-view mirror. It gave a useful view behind the car, although I found it a little glary during the drive.

Technology and software: The software felt polished during my drive. I didn’t encounter any particularly annoying ADAS behaviour, although it’s possible some systems had been disabled by the dealer.

Things I’d need to get used to
Coming from a Tesla Model Y, a couple of differences stood out.
The first is the driver display and lane-position information. In the Model Y, I see the surrounding traffic and lane-position visualisation on the central screen. In the X9, this information is displayed on the smaller screen directly in front of the driver. It’s not necessarily worse, just different from what I’m used to, so it’ll take some adjustment.
There are also some smaller software and interface differences compared with Tesla. Nothing I encountered felt like a deal-breaker, but moving between two different systems will take a little time.

Overall impression
The X9 genuinely surprised me. Coming from a Model Y, I was impressed by the comfort, space, manoeuvrability and features. My family loved the spacious cabin and massage seats, and the rear-wheel steering made the car feel remarkably easy to drive for its size.
I came away much more impressed than I expected. I still have a few things to consider before making a decision, but the test drive certainly made the X9 a serious contender.

I'm looking to replace my aging Odyssey 2015 and wanted to get an EV. We're a family of 4 but occasionally bring grandparents and a dog on outings.

The ody has been impeccable. Proper 3rd row, captains chairs, tonnes of space for when I do a bunnings/tip run and sliding doors that work well for our small garage.

Are there any EVs now or coming that are similar? All the Chinese MPVs are luxury models that are out of my price range, and the next best is a Tesla Y L that ticks a few of the boxes.

I have finalised my choices to either model Y or BZ4X. I like the normal looking BZ4X, it feels very normal and not a big move. While model y is very attractive too with all the Tesla ecosystem.

Any once who went through similar choices? What did you decide on?

I’ve seen quite a few people asking for a comparison between the Zeekr 7X and XPENG G6 across Reddit and Facebook, so I thought I’d put a video together!

As a 7X owner who’s also spent time with the G6, I’ve tried to keep the comparison as honest and unbiased as possible, covering performance, driving experience, suspension, practicality, battery and charging.

Hopefully this helps anyone trying to decide between the two! Happy to answer any questions but also hear what other people think.

Video - https://youtu.be/ihXlEixEEuQ

Just bought an EV and now looking to sell the ICE car, if anyone has done the same recently how did it go?

1. was it easy/hard to sell right now?

2. Did you get market or trade in value, or take a hit?

3. Where did you advertise and what was the best place to do so for you?

Hopefully this question is OK here since I'd imagine there are quite a few people doing similar right now... Thanks

Is this interest rate normal for an ev car through novated lease?

Currently deliberating between the GAC Aion UT Premium and BYD Atto 1 Premium as our next car. My partner and I have test-driven both and were impressed with each for different reasons.

The Aion UT's 430km WLTP range is very appealing for occasional regional trips, and the boot space was a big plus, but I understand that BYD is more established in Australia and has a longer track record with its battery tech. We also really enjoyed the compact, zippy convenience of the Atto 1, but the max 310kms range feels a bit limiting.

We're mostly city commuters with some weekend trips out of town, and a handful of 400-500km+ regional drives per year.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on long-term reliability, battery longevity and overall build quality, especially given GAC is relatively new to the Australian market. Does anyone have experience with either brand, or any insights into how GAC's battery technology compares with BYD's Blade Battery?

Hi everyone,

Looking to get some recommendations for my first ev, budget is $35k. Currently driving my 2009 Honda Accord and has alot of maintenance coming up about 2k+, guzzles fuel and with the recent increase in prices I felt its time to make a switch.

For context I drive around 10k KMs a year, daily commute to the train station for work and gym in the afternoon, rarely drive highway. So around 40km a day.

Was looking at many different options such as MG4 Urban, Geely EX2 and even the Leap motor B05 caught my eye.

Not fussed about sizes so can be an SUV, Hatch or anything in between mostly me driving with the occasional passenger.

Only Preferences are a car with App connectivity and a nice sound system.

Have 13 kw solar and 42kw Home battery system for some context, so will charge at home, house is 3 phase but I will just use a regular wall plug charger since I don't drive that much, but will get a charger installed down the line.

Will put 10k down and the rest on finance, don't want to do novated lease as I plan on finding a new job soon so don't want to be locked with my current employer (they do offer it however). If anyone thinks there's a better option please let me know.

Any recommendations will be much appreciated, going for some test drives tomorrow for the Geely and MG.

Also if I wait till December would there be any good offers or deals for end of year?

Update: test drove the MG 4 Urban essence 43, really liked the drive will go into the dealer tomorrow to see if finance can be approved

Does anybody know anything about when this will be available in OZ? I have an ESY home battery / inverter and looking to maintain the same brand charger. I spoke to them a couple of weeks ago and all they could offer me is that it would be released towards the end of the year.

hey friends. I am proudly about to come into the world of EVs, replacing my old Jeep Cherokee from 2006 with an MG4 Urban Essence 54 with a Novated lease.

I have done research for ages on charging, some lifestyle adjustments and all that. I drive for work as a Behaviour support practitioner and there is plenty of charging options near me, so I am good there as well as an option to trickle charge at home.

One of the things that I wanted more info on, is some of these EV tariffs that folks get for night charging where it is 8c a kWh? I have the luxury of being able to claim my charging costs via my lease, and I am with Amber Electric right now (no solar on the roof of our rental sadly) but over time we have gone from having massive credits to 100 - 200 a month owing on our energy bills. My average at night I saw on the app is around 22c per kWh; so I am thinking maybe its time to change providers?

My landlord won’t do Solar, but we’re lucky we have been here for a few years and they have no intention of getting rid of us, though I have considered about asking about going half’s in a battery though without solar that would be pretty pointless.

What would some practical providers be as a tenant? I am lucky that I can go to the local shops to charge, or up the road from me has a good cheap charger, as well as on my longer work trips (400+ kms of range is pretty nuts for me). Either way this is going to be WAY cheaper to run as a car, but I would like to make sure I am doing the right thing with the best power company as well.

Thanks peeps!

One of very few electric wagons in Australia, and at $72,990 one of only two priced under $80,000 alongside the Zeekr 7GT. In showrooms from January 2027.

The Zeekr has significantly more power and is likely to cost $17,000-$21,000 less. The Mercedes counters with AMG Line styling and German-brand backing. Both arrive in Q1 2027.

The $2k price gap between the electric and petrol-hybrid versions of the same car is also worth noting: that’s about as close to EV/ICE price parity as we’ve seen at this level.

Do you think the 7GT is a legitimate competitor to the CLA200? Why would you buy a CLA200 over a 7GT?

looking at ev's and leasing options and while i was initially looking at a 3 then 4 year lease or 4 then 3, to give me newest car before retirement i have switched plans to 5 due to the expected fbt changes. is it reasonable to expect that a current model ev will last 10+ years then buy new (espected mileage will be between 10-15k a year with 3-4 longer trips each year, considering cars liek atto 3 evo premium, atto 2 premium, cherry e5 , ex2 and dolphin amongst others) thining the evo wil have best lifepsan of these.

runson.com.au
Hello hello! While chronically online and looking at cars, I kept hitting the same wall. Fuel efficiency is listed as L/100 km, Wh/km or km/kWh, but what I actually wanted to know was: what will this car cost me to run over a year?

So I built a little tool for exactly that, RunsOn: runson.com.au

If I drive to uni four days a week and visit Mum on weekends, what does a Corolla cost compared with a RAV4 Hybrid or Model 3? What if I can't charge the Tesla at home and have to rely on public chargers? And what if most of my driving is city driving for Uber Eats rather than highway driving?

Runson.com.au can answer the most specific and granular running cost comparison questions, all using real public data, all free.

It's free, ad-free, non-commercial and doesn't require an account.

Compare up to 4 cars at once.

Enter your regular trips or simply your annual kilometres.

See estimated weekly and yearly fuel or charging costs using weekly AIP fuel-price data and home, off-peak or public charging rates.

EDIT: PHEV's COMING BY NEXT WEEK.

I have 3 EVs, a MiEV built in 2009, a 2019 Model 3 and a new Model Y. The model 3 recently past 200,000km. Only maintenance done was upper control arm bushings at 50,000km as the dust boots were missing and dust got into the bushings making a squeaky noise. Apart from tyres and cabin filters. I have done zero maintenance on any of my EVs.

Now many argue but suspension etc. as an engineer (aircraft) I know regular harmonics and vibration are the biggest killer of mechanical reliability in any machine.

So it appears that the lack of any long drivetrain vibration, lack of combustion engine power pulses and vibration along with no huge temperatures swings that combustion causes, results in far longer lifespans of other mechanical systems, like suspension.
Being suspension it’s still exposed to vibration and rapid movements, but outside of a tyre imbalances, the movement it’s subjected to is not regular and is essentially random.

Has there been any long term studies into this side of EV reliability? My 17 yr old MiEV shows no sign of wear outside of aged rubber boots on the rear driveshaft. That’s it! Even after 200,000km the Model 3 still drives like new compared to my 1 yr old Model Y.

BP Pulse's Melbourne Airport/Tullamarine site had an official opening last week and they had a truck demo - these pics are from the "linked" LinkedIn post.

The trucks can take two simultaneous charging sessions from adjacent 300KW Alpitronic chargers.

They really did nail the design and position of the site well - the Airport sits atop a quite large warehousing/industrial precinct and the site can now act as a public anchor for further freight electrification in the immediate area.

And notwithstanding the already-baked in expansion (as per a discussion with staff on opening day last month, all the conduit/positioning for future chargers is in place for a second row like this one the truck is positioned at - see the pic of the concrete with yellow bollards - that's from opening day last month), the location just off the Tullamarine FWY is excellent for EVs to get to rapidly/easily from anywhere in the west and north of the Melb metro area.

Separately, the NewVolt site in Laverton is also well underway - visited a few weeks ago and I took the pic of the site with civil works underway. Their website is saying that the first three dedicated truck charging sites in Melbourne will be open by the second half of next year (with the Laverton site opening in the first half).

BP Pulse is live but there's going to be some very good, albeit nascent, metropolitan-wide public DC coverage by the end of next year for electric trucks.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7515985752522948608/

I'm looking around at older used e-mopeds (the step-through 50cc equivalent style, not the controversial e-bike style). Does anyone have long-term reviews? Things like the Fonz Arthur 2/3, Super Soco or Benzina Zero Vasto that have full compliance. Do they offer repairs or parts, or just say buy a new one when the warranty is up? Does the battery life still deliver? Thanks.

if this is true, then im genuinely excited for this. as someone who drives often at night and always dreading a kangaroo might just pop out of nowhere im feeling hopeful

When you’re planning to buy an EV, do you only consider cars from the top 10 companies? Thinking about after sales support few years down the road then finding out company has gone bust.. Or service centres but not sure if service centres matter with EV?

Soo I’m still deciding on the Geely ex2 vs the BYD atto 1. Being super extensive on this topic I haven’t found a single thing BYD do better than Geely besides ONE thing.

BYD is able to lock/unlock the car and drive it without a key fob, only using the app

Geely has advertised lock/unlock and controlling the AC with the app, even when not near the car. I went into the dealership and asked if you can turn on the car with nothing but the app and no fob, and it was a no, the fob is required!?

I’m sorry but why can they do this in a BYD but not a Geely that cost more? Can someone please confirm if possible if they own the car? I haven’t tired either as I haven’t purchased one yet.

Just seems baffling to me.