The Chevy Equinox EV Is A Far Better EV For Kids And Our Aging Population Than A Tesla Because It Is Inexpensive, Relatively Slow, But Has Great Brakes

Tesla has a reputation for being an unsafe car. This is due to several factors: the brand has electronic doors that can fail to operate after a crash, Tesla drivers often don’t learn about alternative ways to operate the doors, and the cars accelerate very quickly, but often their brakes aren’t up to the same level of performance that the car can put out.

Now, with experienced drivers, drivers who read the manual and who are mature enough to know not to use that massive performance advantage on city streets, the cars are fine;, in terms of crash protection, they are towards the top, rather than the bottom, of the list.

But these cars can be deadly for people with poor impulse control, who don’t read their manuals, and for people who buy off on the overhyped autopilot system installed in Teslas.

This typically means kids, particularly male children, are pushing boundaries, and older people who lack the needed reaction speeds and are used to far slower vehicles should likely stay away from this electric car class. It could kill them.

The Chevy Equinox

The Chevy Equinox is far slower than a Tesla Model 3, but it stops far better than that car, making it vastly safer for these two groups of buyers than a Tesla is today. It is also bigger than the Micro EVs like the Fiat 500e (which you can get for almost nothing in Colorado right now) making a safer car than those even more affordable micro-EVs. And the Equinox has recently been awarded “2024 Breakthrough EV of the Year” by Inside EVs, and it was one of 3 finalists for “Utility Vehicle of the Year”.

What is interesting is the gas-powered Equinox is not very impressive but given this uses the Blazer EVs drivetrain, the car drives far better. It's interesting that moving from gas to electricity made the car a far better automobile. One downside is that Chevy is moving away from Android Auto and Apple Car Play, but these services can distract the driver. For the groups I’m talking about, it is better to have fewer things to distract these drivers because the goal is to make the car safer, not more feature-rich. Check out this video review to see what makes this point and presents this car as a great value and unusually useful.

What I mean by advantageous is that it has a lot of storage space, 300 miles of range, and a price at base and with the tax credit for under $30K. That’s enormous value. Now, you can option this car up to a higher price, but I’d suggest that the real value here is to get the base model and keep it simple, particularly if you are buying the car for your kid; this would be the way I’d go and where most of the value is.

I once tried to buy a base Miata for my wife, but it didn’t go well, so I’d advise not doing this with your spouse.

Wrapping Up:

EVs can be very dangerous because they can perform like high-performance cars, and these cars' distractions are significant. Most high-end EVs and all Teslas are too risky for people with poor impulse control, poor reaction speeds, and who just won’t read manuals.

However, a car like the Chevy Equinox could be the perfect car with relatively, for an EV, low performance, excellent brakes, a very reasonable price, and 300 miles of range. This could be the perfect car for your kid or anyone who realizes they aren’t as quick as they once were.

The car isn’t bad-looking either.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.