The Dark Knight did not Rise (we got a new car)

Our Sonata died unexpectedly last week, but thankfully on our street. On the bright side, at least it happened on our street and I could’ve walked home – not that that stopped Haleigh from coming to pick me up after the tow truck hauled it off to the repair shop.

After nearly a week of “wait and see,” we were informed that the car needed a new engine. We must have some sort of good luck gremlin hanging around, because the next words out of the service rep’s mouth were that it was under warranty and 100% covered, so would be no cost to us apart from a few weeks without a car. Given that I primarily work from home, that wasn’t such a big deal, but we had been talking about getting an SUV to help embrace our PNW lifestyle. Now as as good a time as any to pull that trigger.

We landed on the Hyundai Tucson Plug-in Hybrid. I was in what could have been a really gnarly 5-car pile-up in 2015 in my first Hyundai (a gray 2014 Sonata). The frame was bent, airbags deployed, and the car was totalled, but… I walked away. Since then, I’ve had big brand loyalty for Hyundai.

The plug-in aspects of this Hybrid are probably going to push us towards seeing if we can upgrade our electrical panel to a type 2 charger. When we drove it off the lot, the battery was fully depleted and it takes roughly 24 hours to go from 0-100% (which obviously the first weekend of owning a new car, was not going to happen). I’ve driven it for some minor errands and to/from dinner with Haleigh last night and am currently experiencing all those “new EV driver” things, primarily how quiet it is. Like when it tells you it’s on and ready to drive and you’re sitting in the driver’s seat like “oh bull ****ing ****,” but sure enough you can reverse out of your garage. We absolutely love it so far, but the one weird/questionable thing Hyundai did was make the backup beep sound about twice as loud as it needs to be. From what I’ve read, this is because they only put 1 speaker in the front vs 1 each at front and back, and there’s a federal law requiring EVs to have a backup sound so people don’t get merc’d in a parking lot. Not the end of the world, just means if we’re planning on leaving early/late and don’t want to alarm the neighborhood, we just need to back in so we can pull straight out.

We’re still waiting on the crossbars to come in, but next purchase is a kayak rack. Send recos!