When Phil and Dave pulled up to their first autocross event in an electric car they built themselves, people laughed. The Apex Cricket, a tube-frame open-wheel EV built on a Nissan Leaf drivetrain and C5 Corvette suspension, looked like something between a go-kart and a race car. It weighed 1,700 pounds. It was street legal. And once it launched off the line, nobody was laughing anymore.

I caught up with the father-son team behind the Cricket at a Northern California autocross event to talk through the build, the engineering decisions, and what it actually feels like to drive something this unconventional on both a race course and a public road.

The team talks lightheartedly about the surreal sensation of racing an electric truck: no noise, no vibration—just tires singing and motors whining. But the quiet cockpit demands sharp focus: race days are long and grueling. When you talk to the racers though, only their enthusiasm comes through.

The Chevy Bolt is one of the top choices if you are looking for an electric car with over 200 miles of range for less than 40k. Indeed I can’t really think of any other options that fit those criteria other than the Bolt or a Nissan Leaf. So I took the opportunity to rent one of the Hertz Bolts for 3 days.

The Tesla Model Y and Model 3 are built on the same platform and have a ton in common, but I want to focus on the 5 top differences between the Model Y vs Model 3 that stuck out to me most after renting and driving a Model Y through New England.

A quick trick to keep your cell phone charging in a Tesla if you walk away.

What do EV owners do while waiting to charge?