EV Reviews Need An Overhaul. We're About To Do Exactly That

EVs are changing everything about this industry. Our reviews need to change, too.

EV Review Top

Mack Hogan

By: Mack Hogan

Mar 4, 2024 at 12:30pm ET

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The EV market is changing, and we have to change with it. You’ve likely noticed a slew of changes at InsideEVs over the past few months, with more exclusives, original reporting and deeper coverage on all of the issues the next generation of car shoppers cares about. Now, I’m here to bring that same attitude to how we do reviews. And we’ll be kicking off with a big one (wink, wink).

I cut my teeth in this industry as the founder of CNBC’s online car reviews section. Back then, as a college student, I was putting together pitch decks and strategy outlines to make our reviews accessible, authoritative, and engaging. In the years since, I’ve worked on a freelance basis for Jalopnik, Motor1, Autotrader, Kelly Blue Book, Autoweek, and plenty of others. I signed on with Road & Track after college, and by 2022 I was the magazine’s reviews editor, scheduling feature reviews and organizing comparison tests. I breathe this stuff.

But InsideEVs isn’t Road & Track, it isn’t Jalopnik, and it isn’t CNBC. I believe legacy automakers aren't capturing the EV sales as well as they could in part because they’re often still designing gas cars, with batteries and electric motors, rather than rethinking the concept altogether. Too many car reviews in our industry treat these things the same as gas-powered cars, and that's why they fall short of so much that buyers and owners care about.

I don’t want to make that same mistake here. That’s why we’re launching new review structures, not based on gas car formulas but built from the ground up to answer two fundamental questions: How good is this vehicle as a car, and how good is it as an EV?

2024 Tesla Model 3 (Highland) - LHD

If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you know why those are separate questions. A Tesla Model 3 from the early days was a great EV, but its poor initial quality control may have left doubts as to whether it was a great car. A Lexus RZ is a lovely car and a disappointing EV. It’s a core contrast that I want all of our reviews to address.

Plenty of car reviews evaluate new electric vehicles through the same lens as internal combustion cars, and therefore focus mainly on design choices, driving dynamics, and pricing. But then they skip over details like real-world energy consumption, fast-charging data, battery material information, one-pedal driving modes, route planning, and preconditioning. That’s not helpful if you’re trying to make the smartest choice in the EV era.

Yet a review that focuses only on those EV-specific factors without careful consideration of how the car rides, how it feels, and how its pricing compares to the field would be equally useless.

Fast Charging Adapter (NACS)_12

So we’ve designed our new format to include both aspects. You’ll never read a review here that skimps on charging data, or consumption figures, or dynamic impressions. We’ll be working hard to make a product fit for the smart, curious enthusiasts who read this site, while still trying to make these concepts accessible to the general public who are probably coming to EVs for the first time.

We’ll be working behind the scenes to push automakers to provide more data, drive opportunities with charging built-in, and better public-facing resources about best practices for battery degradation management, trip planning, and home charging.

None of that matters if you can’t trust us. That is why we want to lead the industry in terms of transparency and honesty. We disclose the conditions of our experience, so that you know when an automaker has flown us business class across the world to sample a car (or, more hilariously, to hear about their strategy to go carbon-neutral.) We work for you, not them. And unlike many in the so-called "EV space," we do not hold any stocks or financial positions in any company we cover.

We over-value sustainability, focusing not just on a car’s efficiency, but whether it is sensibly sized, sustainably built, and built to last. We are also honest about our limitations. When car companies give us a car on their terms, we won’t always be able to learn everything we want, but we won’t hide that. Trust requires honesty, even when it’s inconvenient. These principles are the bedrock of everything we do and underpin each of our four review times.

Kia EV9 First Drive 7

The first is The InsideEVs Review. This is our key offering, the one that should answer every question you or a shopper on Google might have about the car. That means a clear takeaway, sub-sections about Charging Experience; Range, Battery Size, & Observed Efficiency; Infotainment & UX; New Tech; Pricing & Trims; and more. These are straightforward, should-I-buy-this reviews targeted at people who are actively shopping or want the best understanding of how an entry fits into the field. You’ll see these for major updates, new models that matter, and segment leaders.

Before that, though, you’ll often see a shorter, less comprehensive First Drive. We typically get invited to a manufacturer-run drive event long before we have the opportunity to drive the cars for a week on our home turf.

They’re instructive about the driving experience, but typically too short and manicured to allow for real-world charging tests or details you pick up over a week with a vehicle. (They’re almost always in somewhere nice and warm, too, like Southern California or Portugal, and we know that isn’t what everyone will experience if they buy such a car.)

We’ll be honest about that, and we promise to prioritize full reviews on our own terms of the cars you care about most.

Lucid Air Review

For mid-cycle refreshes and shorter drives, we’ll also have a new format of quick reviews. We’re calling it Fast Charge. When a model with an existing review gets a light refresh, we’ll write a quick story evaluating what’s new, what matters, and whether the argument for or against the car has changed. If we’ve covered an existing car once before, we might have a writer take a new angle on it, focused purely on its utility as a road tripper, or a performance product. Or we might finally get a chance to range test a vehicle on our terms, something we’ve been doing for a long time. These will be more freeform, but still hit on the key questions: Why does this car matter as an EV, and why does it matter as a car?

Some cars deserve a bigger story. The game-changers, the new concepts, the boundary pushers. Those cars that matter in ways that are bigger than numbers. For those, we’re bringing feature reviews to the site. These are big-picture stories, where we evaluate not just what a car is but what it means. A Tesla Cybertruck isn’t just a mix of its range, price, and specs. It’s a new thesis for what a truck should be, one that deserves to be dissected. Sometimes that will come from interviews with experts, data points, and arguments. Sometimes it’ll come in the form of an adventure story, to see what’s really possible.

That’s my addiction, and one I hope to put to good use here. Adventures are not road trips. They’re battles, races, and stories. They are defined by nothing more than their stakes, the lingering question: Can they pull this off? We know we can take an EV across the country, we know we can take one farther than the average person knows. But the goal of an adventure is to do something that not even we know is possible.

Rivian R1T With Tailgate Pad And A Bike

Instead of seeing how far a Rivian can get down a manicured trail, it’s asking how far it can get in the Alaskan backcountry. It’s crossing not our country but another, navigating the complexity of EV route planning meshed with a language barrier, no experience, and a prayer. It’s showing you, and everyone else, just how far these machines can take us.

What do you think?

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That’s our whole goal here, and we’re lucky to have you along for the trip.

Email the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.