Hybrid/EV Buying Guide

Whether or not an EV is for you depends on your use—where you live and the distances and climate in which you drive, your willingness to plug in as frequently as necessary, and your ability to pay more for the car and reap the benefits in the long run. If you’re keeping a conventional vehicle in your household, the decision is easier.

For now, electric vehicles carry a price premium over comparable gasoline-powered vehicles. (That may change late in the decade.) However, EVs have dramatically lower running costs because they require less maintenance, and depending on where you live, electricity is likely to be cheaper than petroleum. And federal and local incentives can effectively reduce the purchase price.

The range of EV types has grown considerably since 2010, the year Nissan introduced the modest Leaf. Now consumers can choose futuristic-looking models like the Tesla Cybertruck, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6; SUVs such as the Chevrolet Blazer EV and Equinox EV; high-end cars and SUVs from Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Lexus, and Mercedes-Benz; and even pickup trucks like the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, Chevrolet Silverado EV, and Ram 1500 REV.

Before a large majority of EVs on the road became Teslas, Tesla was the new kid on the block. But now startups such as Afeela, Lucid, Rivian, and VinFast—along with resurrected brands Fisker and DeLorean—are also muscling in. Every major manufacturer is getting into the EV market.

EVs usually cost thousands more to buy than conventional cars, although much of that difference can be offset by federal and state subsidies, and lower maintenance and fueling costs. Pricing ranges from around $28,000 for the Nissan Leaf and can climb well past $150,000 for top-shelf luxury models.

Plus, lower carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution, and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, are icing on the cake. And a federal incentive of up to $7,500 for a pure EV—among other incentives—can increase the savings. 

Electric cars are very efficient compared with gas cars, and most new models can deliver from 225 to 300 miles of cruising range to satisfy the needs of many drivers without daily charging. But the relative efficiency and methods for achieving a long range varies among EVs. For example, the Tesla Model Y and Rivian R1T both offer over 300 miles of range, but the Tesla is much lighter and more efficient, and it uses a significantly smaller battery to do it (78 kilowatt-hours vs. 135 kWh). 

EVs are very clean to drive because they have no tailpipe emissions. They are also quiet and provide punchy acceleration. But charging them can take hours—depending on the charging source—and driving them for long distances requires extra planning regarding where and when you’ll charge, especially because most drivers won’t charge them to 100 percent at a public charger. The best EVs include route planning functionality within their navigation systems to help find chargers on long trips to unfamiliar locations.

It’s also well established that cold weather takes a toll on the range of electric vehicles. In our tests, we found that cold weather saps about 25 percent of range when cruising at 70 mph compared with the same conditions in mild weather. Unlike a gas car, where the heat is a byproduct of the running engine, an EV has to produce cabin heat and manage an optimal battery temperature with energy that comes from the battery, in turn reducing range. And shorter trips in the cold with frequent stops and reheating of the cabin can reduce the range by 50 percent. EV drivers can take advantage of “preconditioning,” which heats the cabin and battery before disconnecting from the charger; that saves battery power and range. 

Certain regions of the country are also better suited to using electric cars. Some have better public charging infrastructure, more favorable electric rates, and milder weather, which doesn’t tax the battery as much. And some areas have cleaner electric power generation than others.

If you live in a house, as opposed to an apartment building, it’s feasible to charge your EV at home. We recommend getting a home charger (known as electric vehicle supply equipment, or EVSE) that works on 240-volt (Level 2) charging installed inside or outside your garage. That way, you’ll be able to charge your EV overnight. The cost is typically $500 to $700 for a home charger. Parts and labor can add $1,200 to $2,000.

Gift Guide

Your Complete Guide to Spotify Wrapped, 2023

Spotify keeps receipts of what songs and artists you’ve listened to. And by year-end, the Swedish streaming giant packages your user data—be it your countless replays of Taylor Swift’s re-recorded 1989 album or BTS member Jungkook’s boppy solos—in what has since become one of its most successful and most shareable marketing ploys on social media: Spotify Wrapped.

Since its inception in 2016, many have replicated Spotify Wrapped’s campaign of individualized, annual analysis of users’ behavior: not only streaming platforms like Apple Music, but also for a variety of other industries like the Washington Post, Duolingo, Reddit, and Nintendo. Wrapped presents that analysis in customizable, jazzy graphics primed for Instagram Stories, adding another layer of authenticity and character that makes it such a viral hit.

The popularity of Spotify Wrapped has ballooned over the years: in 2017, there 30 million Spotify users accessing it, and in 2021, there were more than 120 million. That year, nearly 60 million Spotify Wrapped stories and graphics were also shared across social media platforms. The year 2022 is no different, over 156 million users engaged with Wrapped, a spokesperson tells TIME. It’s become so popular that people—even U.S. senators and Australian federal police—have piggybacked on it, and made memes of the year-end phenomenon.

With the launch of 2023 Spotify Wrapped, here’s what you need to know.

To get the Spotify Wrapped experience, users must be subscribed to Spotify. Opening the latest version of the app is more than likely to lead users to Spotify Wrapped directly once it’s out.

But don’t fret if it doesn’t: Spotify users on desktop and on mobile can simply type in “Wrapped” in the search bar, or find Spotify’s Wrapped button in the home page. 

You can also click here.

Spotify Wrapped collects data all throughout the year. A Spotify spokesperson says data used for the 2023 Wrapped spans streamed content from January to an unspecified date “a few weeks prior to launch”—Nov. 29 for this year. “We aim to leave the cutoff date as late as possible to create a truly personalized experience,” the spokesperson tells TIME. The period puts songs and albums released earlier in the year to an advantage.

For a song or podcast to be considered streamed, a user must listen to it for 30 seconds or more. The three most awaited year-end statistics—top albums, top songs, and top artists—are all based on aggregated stream counts. The list of top podcasts is assessed differently, this time based on the number of unique listeners.

Private sessions—or Spotify’s “incognito mode”—don’t count toward any list but the data from them falls under the “total minutes listened,” according to Billboard.

Taylor Swift takes over Bad Bunny as the most-streamed artist on Spotify worldwide, with more than 26.1 global streams since January 1. Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny held the top spot for three years since 2020, but fell to second place in the global list, followed by The Weeknd, Drake, and Mexican singer Peso Pluma.

But Swift hasn’t been able to oust Bad Bunny’s 2022 album Un Verano Sin Ti as the most-streamed album of 2023, for the second consecutive time. Her album, Midnights, ranks second, followed by SZA’s SOS.

The most-streamed song of the year in the world is “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus, with more than 1.6 billion global streams. “Kill Bill” by SZA and “As It Was” by Harry Styles fall in second and third place respectively, with Jungkook’s “Seven (feat. Latto)”  and Ella Baila Sola” by Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado to round out the list. 

“The Joe Rogan Experience” remains the most consumed Spotify podcast for the fourth time running.

Back in 2013, Spotify launched its first year-end review, aptly named “Year in Review” after realizing it had a trove of streaming data at its disposal. The graphics were on brand but not as kitschy as they are today, yet they still piqued audience interest. 

By 2016, Spotify called the data stories Wrapped. Every iteration, Spotify Wrapped introduces quirky features also based on the data it's collected from users—ranging from detecting your supposed “audio auras” to being classified under 16 “listening personality types.” This year, Spotify Wrapped would have the features named “Me in 2033” which assigns a “listening character” that best describes your streaming habits, and “Sound Town” which matches users to a city based on their listening and shared artist affinity. It’s these creative data presentations that have been made shareable across social media platforms.

The fanfare is not just on the user side: creators are also active in promoting Spotify Wrapped. In 2022, artists recorded special messages for their listeners who placed them on the platform’s toplists. Celebrities like Dionne Warwick, John Mayer, and Lizzo have also jumped on the bandwagon of talking about the campaign.

In an interview with Variety in 2021, Spotify vice president and global executive creative director Alex Bodman said: “I’m sure we’d all love to sit down and say it was a marketing stroke of genius, but when it was first built it was a loyalty play. I don’t think we had any idea that people would want to share it so much.”

Correction, Dec. 6

The original version of this story misstated what Spotify counts as one stream. It is 30 seconds, not minutes.