why don’t you drive an EV?

After a great deal of sturm und drang (we hadn’t had a car for over a decade prior), my family leased a Bolt EV in late 2018. With the exception of having massive transmission / transaxle issues about a year in (all taken care of under warranty) it’s been great. Well, we also have to make sure to get the right street parking spot in order to charge it at home, but that’s only been a problem once.

Who else drives electric? If not, why not, or how soon do you anticipate you will be able to switch?

at the time of our last car purchase (v much due to situation out of my control) we couldn't afford an EV and there weren't chargers in my building. Now it's two years later, EVs are cheaper, and there are chargers, but I'm stuck w the car we got >:(

but I will switch at the first opportunity

Last summer I bought a RAV-4 hybrid. It’s the bees knees. I wanted an EV, but I’m a renter with a difficult landlord who wouldn’t let me consider plugging in. Still, I get ~40 mpg, which ain’t nothin.

“ass hat landlord” was not a rationale I had considered before.

The weirdest thing btw is the sloshing sound that the battery pack makes shortly after I plug it in. I assume it has something to do with the thermoregulation of the battery cells. Or perhaps the whole thing is like the mop in fantasia.

I don't own a car, but if I did, I would buy electric. The only thing that would make me think twice is remembering a friend's experience during the California wildfires last year. The Tesla was pretty much useless for getting them out of an evacuation zone due to power outages: they ended up leaving it behind. Vicious cycle, yeah.

i would like an EV or hybrid, but my main use for a car these days (besides a v short commute to work that can also be done by bike but not by public transportation) is stuff like camping/covering long distances in the fifth largest state in america aka not conducive to EV at least until there's a an e-truck with good mileage and ground clearance (aka the rivian, which i cannot afford)

ideally i'd take one of these fellas to work: https://www.urbanarrow.com/en/shorty

and have a not-often used truck for trips outta town

I've got a hybrid Fusion, supposedly gets 42 city/40 highway but the average MPG is more like 35, which is pathetic for a hybrid. though maybe the cold has something to do with that.

will probably be getting a full EV as my next car, whenever that happens

The NHTSA mandates that reversing an EV or hybrid produce a certain amount of noise at certain frequencies to alert pedestrians that there’s an otherwise silent car in motion. For this reason, whenever I back out of my parking spot, some MIDI noisemaker under my hood produces a shriek that sounds like an army of mosquitos.

Supposedly the best thing for EVs in really cold weather is to have them plugged in all the time.

I was stlil under the impression new non-luxury cars are like ~$15k. I am very wrong.

I don't drive an EV because I don't own a car and the car share doesn't do EVs yet. I'm busy building a charging network and trying to covert uber drivers to electric right now.

specific user such as imago

is ~40mpg considered.....good.... in the states

Miles are like twice as long as kilometers. Think of it that way.

here is a picture of the most popular car in america

https://i.imgur.com/vlOVuV7.png

^^ also twice as long as a kilometer.

Coming down a two-lane one-way the other day, one of those trucks tried to get past me, but had to slow down because a Hummer was parked in a space next to his lane. Good times.

da big boys

Gas drops below $1.50 and everyone gets frisky.

lotta litres in a gallon

ballpark 100 liters per

I’m still impressed that they doubled the number of doors on pickup trucks at some point and I barely noticed.

We got a Nissan Leaf last January and we’re very pleased with it. It was a scary step but there has been no downside so far. We still have a minivan for longer trips or hauling stuff.

You know who drives the Tesla on our block? The Pentecostals.

I know, right? Like you didn't think they could be even bigger assholes, but there you go.

our regular car lease is up in 2021 so starting to look around now

got my eye on this https://www.caranddriver.com/kia/soul-ev, successor to https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a26144426/2019-kia-niro-ev-driven/ from which i steal this:

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/niroev-sidebar-edit-1556807455.png?crop=0.757xw:0.714xh;0.136xw,0.133xh&resize=768:*

also this one i guess but i think we want to the cargo https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/05/another-competent-korean-car-the-kia-niro-ev-reviewed/

If the Kia EVs were available in the dc area we probably would’ve gotten one of those instead.

Meanwhile Ford has apparently been hard at work building an unlistenable banshee that only runs for 45 minutes on a single charge

https://jalopnik.com/my-brain-cant-process-the-noise-the-seven-motor-ford-mu-1844483324

Yay for crazy R&D though

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/07/kia-denies-report-that-the-soul-ev-is-cancelled-for-america/

we have to change cars next november (lease runs out). this was top of my list. looks like it's not going to be an option :(

was really hoping a 3 year lease was going to get us to a world where there were more options for family sized evs.

The good news is it’s not like you can go anywhere

I’ve been driving Hyundai ioniqs around recently. That’s a nice mid-size family car. Enough room in the rear seats and a good sized hatchback boot. Slightly lacklustre DC Fast charging performance is compensated for being a really efficient car. (More km/kWh)

Supposedly the best thing for EVs in really cold weather is to have them plugged in all the time.

(Roy Scheider voice) you're gonna need a longer extension cord

why don’t you drive an EV?

Because we have a rock-solid old Subaru that seems destined to make it to the age of 30, but if it dies eventually, I'm thinking we'll go EV.

BTW we recently learned that the Chevy Bolt is apparently designed such that the box for a 55” flatscreen TV fits PERFECTLY in the back with the seats folded down. Like somebody had to have made a CAD volume with just those measurements and made sure it would fit.

https://www.carboncounter.com/

i'm actually considering getting rid of my car, as i am fully remote now

at least the pandemic has brought on a few good things

loooool https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2021/03/29/vw-volkswagen-name-change-voltswagen-electric-cars-tesla-competiton/7048576002/

*looks at calendar* uh premature 4/1 still seems more likely.

haha apparenty nope

We know, 66 is an unusual age to change your name, but we’ve always been young at heart. Introducing Voltswagen. Similar to Volkswagen, but with a renewed focus on electric driving. Starting with our all-new, all-electric SUV the ID.4 - available today. #Voltswagen #ID4 pic.twitter.com/pKQKlZDCQ7

— Voltswagen (@VW) March 30, 2021

lot of americans taking the opportunity to get priggish about VW's history while the most prominent car company in the US *right now* is run by a space fascist eugenicist.

would definitely drive an EV voltswagen microbus while wearing my patagonia baggies, grateful dead shirt, and merrell hydro mocs, for peak west coast awfulness, but it will cost around my annual salary so unfortunately it will only be a terrible dream

well apparently it *was* an april fools joke but now everyone is talking about their involvement with the National Socialist German Workers' Party so good job i guess?

Is buying a new electric car every few years better for the environment than maintaining an old car? I may have a bias as my car was built in 1973.

making an EV is marginally worse for the environment than making a regular car and much worse than making no car.

https://tnmt.com/infographics/carbon-emissions-by-transport-type/

making and then driving an EV is probably better than a clunker after a few years, but it's going to depend on how much you drive, etc.

I’m not buying a non peer reviewed study with that disclaimer attached.

Try this one that uses the Argonne GREET lifecycle emissions model.

https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/the-climate-change-mitigation-potential-of-electric-vehicles-as-a-function-of-renewable-energy

No car is definitely better but if you have to use a car it’s considerable better to use an EV

the disclaimer is pretty clear that it's back of the envelope, and nothing more than back of the envelope can be said in response to a vague question about whether to replace an existing ICE car.

but fwiw the abstract of that paper says:

"The lifecycle EV carbon emissions for a vehicle powered by the 2016 US grid is 30.82 metric tons... An average internal combustion engine vehicle (25.4 miles per gallon) is responsible for 68.38 metric tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime"

which is almost exactly consistent with the back of the envelope calculation which says an ICE car produces about twice as much CO2 as an EV if you amortize manufacturing costs. and it's a whizzy infographic that doesn't cost $5 too.

Is buying a new electric car every few years better for the environment than maintaining an old car? I may have a bias as my car was built in 1973.

― Peter Greenaway's Fleetwood Mac (S-), Tuesday, March 30, 2021 8:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

old cars - basically anything pre-90s iirc - are significantly worse for the environment in terms of emissions than regular ICE cars

No doubt. I barely ever drive anyway so I guess it's a moot point.

Actually I'm not even sure why I felt the need to reply to this thread, but hey, ILX right?

otm

This is a statistic I’ve not seen before and I would guess most others have not either. https://t.co/pMwC01eQEl

— Norman Levine (@levinepmc) May 1, 2021

If the U.S. commercial aviation became completely carbon-free it would be equivalent, in terms of CO2 reduction, to reducing passenger vehicle emissions by about 11 percent. (Source: https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100ZK4P.pdf via Aaron Gordon’s newsletter)

Price point on the electric F-150 is damn impressive. If I was still commuting around LA, hauling computer/server gear, all that - I'd be on the preorder right now.

I want this minivan

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1132297_canoo-prices-its-evs-starting-at-34-750-for-lifestyle-vehicle-due-in-2022

Well, Electro Voice is a good mid-budget option for casual live venues. Perhaps for wedge monitors in a rehearsal space.

https://c1.zzounds.com/media/productmedia/fit,2018by3200/quality,85/sx100_1-dff3a90196b807449d3436d46c45d47e.jpg

But if I were looking for reference speakers in a professional studio, I might look more toward Genelec, or the new Neumanns.

no wheels on those speakers.

one of the appealing things about the F-150 (which I will not be getting, but i hope this shows up on other vehicles) is AC outlets. if every other car can charge a phone (or a fridge or an oxygen concentrator) then that's a big deal in a natural disaster.

real giggers put everything on a wagon afaict

Canoo's first model—a minivan now dubbed the "Lifestyle Vehicle"

this is deviant shit i can tell

they all look so much like "The Howard"

one of the appealing things about the F-150 (which I will not be getting, but i hope this shows up on other vehicles) is AC outlets. if every other car can charge a phone (or a fridge or an oxygen concentrator) then that's a big deal in a natural disaster.

Already was a big deal in Texas back in February:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/some-texans-use-2021-ford-f-150-hybrids-to-power-homes-amid-winter-storm.html

Electro Voice a proud Minnesota company

xp oh nice. the new hyundai has ac outlets too https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/hyundai-reveals-us-specs-for-ioniq-5-electric-crossover/

xp i still have some old EV sentry monitors in storage. pretty good and cheap first set.

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-08-at-8.14.59-AM-1440x710.png

not an ev and not for me, but 40mpg and under $20k is a big deal

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/06/fords-new-maverick-is-a-cheap-and-cheerful-hybrid-pickup-truck/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k78zjz/is-it-good-for-the-environment-to-replace-my-used-car-with-an-electric-vehicle

By now, it is common knowledge electric vehicles (EVs) are better for the environment than gas cars, because they are more efficient and don't directly emit harmful gases that warm the planet. However, I am occasionally asked a slightly different question which is harder to answer. Say you have a perfectly good gas-powered car that may last several more years. Is it still environmentally friendly to replace it with an EV?

tldr yes

i would drive the electric f150.

i won't be able to afford to, but i would

not an ev and not for me, but 40mpg and under $20k is a big deal

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/06/fords-new-maverick-is-a-cheap-and-cheerful-hybrid-pickup-truck/

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, June 8, 2021 1:08 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

that is ridiculously cheap

We came really close to pulling the trigger on a Chevy Bolt, which is a great car, except for the fact that it's a slow charger, even at its fastest. So basically any longer trip we might take that took advantage of the good range for a cheaper EV (260+) would need an added couple of hours on each end to charge, which kind of sucks. Normal charge is like 4 miles an hour, level 2 more like 20. That was still too slow for us.

What makes a truck "cheerful," I wonder.

"cheap and cheerful" is a british phrase that i used for years before realizing everyone here thought i was talking about things being cheerful.

just happy to see pickup that's a reasonable size

https://i.imgur.com/OZR9fSv.jpg

Replace that video screen on the inside with this and I'll think about it.

"cheap and cheerful" is a british phrase that i used for years before realizing everyone here thought i was talking about things being cheerful.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, June 16, 2021 10:26 AM (five hours ago)

well what does it mean?

cheap but ok

rather than cheap and bad or cheap and of a very high quality

its similar to jacked and jaunty

basically "cheap and shitty" but, crucially, not so shitty that it doesn't work, so let's move on and never consider it again until it breaks, at which point we will gaffa tape it up and resume not thinking about it

if you only need to use it for a shorter period of time than "until it breaks," bonus

lol https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/08/gm-recalls-every-chevy-bolt-ever-made-blames-lg-for-faulty-batteries/

gonna need some major government intervention to get people to buy all these electric cars

The scale of battery production coming online in the next decade from auto firms is mind boggling pic.twitter.com/ZMTiiqyrCa

— hk (@hassankhan) September 8, 2021

do any of them have stick shifts and a cassette deck?

as someone who spent the last 19 years driving stick before getting a PHEV, i dont miss it. i thought i would but...nothing.

p sure the tape deck could be arranged.

the braking + downshifting ability is kinda key for me -- it's less an EV issue and more an automatic transmission issue

I didn't realize until recently that you can't coast in some of them.... taking your foot off the gas accelerator puts the brakes in motion.

taking your foot off the gas accelerator puts the brakes in motion.

wait what??? ... no, I mean, just no.

yeah thats the regenerative braking it converts forward momentum into power for the car, people like it because most of the time you can drive just using the "gas" pedal, you can turn it off in some cars that have it if you dont tho

almost no manuals left on the market ev or otherwise tho, rip

there are a lot of cars with a "manual mode" where you can control the shifting of the transmission without having a clutch pedal tho

I'll eventually get one and get used to it.

yeah thats the regenerative braking it converts forward momentum into power for the car...

― lag∞n, Saturday, October 2, 2021 2:16 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is one of my favorite things about EVs, its fun to steal energy back

do any of them have stick shifts

Most EVs don't even have transmissions, thanks to their high torque and full torque being available at 0 RPM instead of having to rev up the engine. The Porsche Taycan and iirc the Audi that's similar have a 2 speed automatic transmission.

almost no manuals left on the market ev or otherwise tho, rip

That's true in the US, somewhat less so in UK/Europe and elsewhere. Even Canada has a few stick-shift cars sold only with automatics in the States.

in the UK it's about 50/50 manual and automatic

but yes as Lee says, EVs don't have gears at all (apart from very specialized models) so a shifter wouldn't be very useful! i know how pleasurable it is to downshift etc but trust me, a nice EV feels even more responsive. you can just put the car wherever you want it. the auto braking thing can be turned off for the most part and doesn't kick in above 30 mph usually i think anyway but it's true that 'coasting' doesn't really happen. you don't have a whole transmission tumbling away that can just carry the momentum of the car. you have to keep your right foot at the right place to keep the car moving at the right speed. EVs actually get WORSE efficiency on the highway than they do in start stop traffic because every time you brake you put energy back into the battery.

i dont really understand the continued popularity of manuals in europe their fuel economy isnt even better anymore, they tend to be slightly cheaper i guess

I feel the same way about tipping in the US

have you tried pretending youre a mafia boss every time you leave a tip

"i'll make an offer ya cant refuse" *adds 20% to the bill so you can still have a place to live*

“you’re uh right, i can’t refuse that”

I think Americans drive automatics because because all the coins they have to keep in the center console of their cars make driving a stick “too jangly”.

one underrated advantage of driving stick is that you never have to worry about anyone borrowing your car

Every year or two I read about how some carjacking attempt was foiled when the would-be thief is foiled by an unexpected manual transmission he doesn't know how to drive.

In the U.S., manual transmissions are in just over 2% of new cars. The disparity with the rest of the world is in part because of how cars are sold here. Decades ago, American cars were sold with a la carte extra-cost options. You could order one to your liking with your choice of engine, transmission, body style, inside and outside colors, several upholstery choices, different audio systems, and different features of all sorts. 50+ option choices were commonplace. Nowadays, the manufacturers no longer allow more than a few packaged variations of a given car so there's not much point in ordering one. Instead the dealerships stock massive numbers of cars and you by one they have in stock off the lot. This means dealers don't want to stock anything they can't sell easily, and that means automatic transmissions for everybody. It's also the reason 76% of the cars sold last year were some shade of greyscale (white, grey, silver, charcoal, black) - these are least likely to offend anyone. My local BMW dealer doesn't stock *any* other colors on their mainstream cars.

Another reason for the downfall of stick shifts is the highly regulated certification process (for fuel economy and pollution) in the US where each drivetrain much be certified separately, which makes it expensive to offer more than one or two drivetrains on a given car. In the UK a mainstream car may be sold with four different engine sizes in gas/petrol and a few more in diesel, each with either manual or auto transmission. In the U.S. the same car would be sold with one engine (usually a big one) and an automatic.

Anyway, yeah, a shifter isn't missed in an EV. There's always loads of immediately-available torque, so if you want more power you just step on it and you'll get a satisfying shove in the back. No need to downshift first.

also people in america just like automatics better, like not that long ago there were more manuals available and they still werent selling, which makes sense to me automatics are just easier, europe is also trending towards automatics too just way later, maybe it just took automatics getting good on fuel efficiency to tip the scales there since gas is so much more expensive and a lot of cars sold there are the tiny ones thatre specifically all about being cheap to operate

i would like to say for the record manuals are cool and fun, under the right conditions, i still wouldnt buy one tho crawling through traffic shifting all around and what not, plus with a lot of the very helpful new tech adaptive cruise control and so forth is a non starter

my first car was a lil manual corolla, salute, that thing was even fun to shift around in on the right roads, try to keep the momentum rolling

i might buy a manual if it was a very sick car, but whatre the chances of that, pretty low, and tbh if i were buying a very sick car id prob go for a new one with all the tech

It should be noted that many recent cars with automatic transmissions can't really be downshifted either, as they too don't have any gears. Instead they use a continuously variable transmission (CVT), which can adjust anywhere from low to high rather than having six or so discreet gears to choose from. This allows them to be more fuel-efficient because the exact optimum engine speed can always be chosen. However cars with CVTs often feel weird to drive, answering with a drone when you need more power. For that reason, some are programmed to have fake "gears" so you can "downshift" and "upshift" when you want.

yeah my outback has a cvt... and paddle shifters lmao

dual clutch is the best very nice transmission

Lag©©n otm re the pleasures of manual clutch out on the road

I love driving manual (learned that way), but haven't in a while unless renting in a foreign land - most recently in Mexico. Took me a while to figure out the fiddly whatsit to get reverse (different makes/models have different "yes I really do mean to go backwards" signals; this one had a weirdly suggestive cuff on the shifter that one had to slide up and down), but overall it is one of those things you don't really forget.

I don't drive an EV but I do have a subpar hybrid Civic, probably on its last legs. Next time it needs a new battery I will likely decide it's not worth it. Not sure if I can afford to go full EV next time; we'll see what the options look like when we cross that bridge.

https://i.imgur.com/Tgmz76Q.png

feel like no one ever talks about this car possibly because it looks like a desktop computer accessory but there are lots of them out there that can be had for a reasonable price used

the batteries in those suck tho

maybe thats why

mmhmm

if i were buying a new EV, id look at the hyundai ioniq. before car prices got wacky, you could get one for under $20K once you factor in the $7500 tax credit. dont seem to have the problem of exploding batteries that bolts have, and have some form of active cooling system for said battery that the nissan leafs do not so you'll get longer life from it.

I miss my old manual, but when I bought the automatic in 2000, my first thought was "Finally, I can enjoy a cheeseburger on the road."

The front looks terrible but otherwise this looks like a lot of fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGqexebCcUo

Lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjViMJ3o1Y

The front looks terrible

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, October 3, 2021 12:35 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah companies need to make electric cars look space age is lame, tho i do salute them for going away from the current industry standard angry face front, if that truck just had round headlights instead of oval itd prob look cool and relatively normal

i watched most of the offroading video and my ruling is: that truck is extremely sick

i still wouldnt buy one tho crawling through traffic shifting all around and what not

see this is what I like about having a manual vs. an automatic (one of the things I like) -- the automatics are way too abrupt and more like start/stop as opposed to a consistent smooth crawl, though, when my old corrolla (1989, manual) was near the end of it's 25 year life, it didn't handle the traffic very well and an automatic would have been more pleasant, comparatively.

the pleasures of manual clutch out on the road

hell yes

feel like no one ever talks about this car possibly because it looks like a desktop computer accessory

it looks like the car equivalent of apple earpods

xp Ye Mad P -- I started a thread inspired by you in this thread:

Why don't you drive a Peavey?

I drove manual exclusively from age 17 to age 47 and living in the NYC metro era with all the stop and go traffic pretty much cured me of ever wanting another manual. When my car was totaled in 2019, the replacement wasn't even available in manual. It does have paddle shifters, which I have used maybe once or twice as a lark.

It used to be a manual was really helpful in the snow, but nowadays an automatic with modern traction control is far superior imo.

We also still have a 10 yo manual mini cooper that is fun to drive if we're somewhere where there aren't a billion cars.

the automatics are way too abrupt and more like start/stop as opposed to a consistent smooth crawl, though

― sarahell, Sunday, October 3, 2021 1:10 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

automatic with —manual mode— best of both worlds, pretty common these days, tho i think ive owned three cars with it and barely ever used it, pretty much only when i didnt want to be breaking all the way down a mountain

would also like to say the guy in the rivian video is extremely weird and unsettling

My car has manual mode where you shift using little steering wheel paddles. I find it very weird and confusing and don't really get why you'd use it.

that rivian looks cool. i agree that having the headlights round would be better, but i wonder if the oval shape serves a function. having that bar of light at the front would definitely help with visibility, i'd imagine

i do question how well electric trucks would do in rural america. things might be different in the states, where you get a lot of temperate-ish weather and lots of safe land mass, relatively speaking. but it seems like these trucks would be popular on a california highway more than anything

i think electric trucks are pretty useless in canada, where the weather outside the few major cities we have is constantly trying to kill us. i looked up the range in cold weather and there's no information on it. it would do well in spring and summer in bc, but vehicle cost and insurance being so ridiculously expensive in this province, it would probably be more of a luxury item for city people

a friend has an electric motorcycle and, a few years ago, he was running low on battery power but needed to get to work soon. since he's been riding it for a long time, he thought he could make it. well, the temperature dropped when he got on a bridge (windchill and rain) and the motorcycle died on him

they're cool, but batteries are extremely unreliable in anything but temperate weather. once that's improved, i think electric vehicles would do well outside cities

https://i.imgur.com/eKSOwsg.png
hey guys whats up

they're cool, but batteries are extremely unreliable in anything but temperate weather. once that's improved, i think electric vehicles would do well outside cities

― Punster McPunisher, Sunday, October 3, 2021 1:43 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

almost all new cars sold in norway are electric due to a government mandate they mustve figured something out or at least i hope so lol

those rivians are totally sick and maybe in a few iterations/price reductions i will get one as i am a sucker/mark and v much the target demo

will stick with my 94 2dr jeep xj w manual in the meantime B)

sick

i think it's "sich"?

electric cars, not trucks do well in norway. i imagine they already do well in a lot of cities, where power and range are not that important. electric car ownership is on the rise in my city, as well

im saying its cold there

would also like to say the guy in the rivian video is extremely weird and unsettling

range or more specifically difficultly of refueling is def a huge issue with evs tho, something like 20% of ev buyers go back to a combustion vehicle for the next purchase because of it

seems like the tech on range and recharging is getting better all the time tho

plugin hybrid would really be the sweet spot were it not for the complexity and cost of having a combustion engine and all the electric stuff

if i ever become a homeowner here in the SW i will get solar panels to charge my EV, seems like the obv move

If you drive less than like 5k a year and especially if you mainly have a car for road trips or big shopping no or whatever then a hybrid is absolutely the way to go, economically, practically and environmentally.

its inelegant tho

u r

rude

honestly should really just get an electric cargo bike

they're cool, but batteries are extremely unreliable in anything but temperate weather.

Ford's EV chief is interviewed in a recentish episode of the InsideEVs podcast and he talks about how the F-150 Lightning battery management system deals with cold weather.

electric bikes are tite, if we built out infrastructure and increased subsidies so many car miles could be replaced

honestly should really just get an electric cargo bike

the one i want (urban arrow shorty) isn't sold in the US anymore --- i was on the verge of buying one up in boulder like a year ago but they're $$$ and now they're gone :(

There were zero at my daycare pickup a year ago and now there are four. Suddenly everywhere.

my dad and all his friend have e bikes and they ride around together

Porsche’s electric Taycan outsells the 911 for the first time

i saw one of those a few weeks ago, i was just walking along and it pulled up in a line of traffic. long, low, sleek and white like a shark. extremely dangerous looking. what was wild is that it made a low rumble like a high performance sports car which is a think a fake noise generated purely for effect??

Porsche’s electric Taycan outsells the 911 for the first time🕸

Oups sorry : wrong touch

I don’t know cars at all but it does look like a shark

Porsche’s electric Taycan outsells the 911 for the first time

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, October 15, 2021 10:38 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

thats crazy! guess part of it may be that there arent many electric sports cars, and if your choice is between a tesla and a porche obvs the porche is going to be much better

doesnt seem like porsche fans would be would be going out of their way to get an ecar wonder who the buyers are

my realtor

electric porsche is the classic california realtor car

cayenne's ineligible for residential parking SF btw haha

Fun fact of the day: any car that can haul 6,000 pounds is ineligible for a residential parking permit in San Francisco.

This means most large vehicles can’t park for >2hrs in residential neighborhoods. Further proof F150s, Suburbans, and Cayennes don’t belong on city streets.

— Dan Federman (@TheFederman) November 15, 2021

https://diminishedvalueofgeorgia.com/6000-pound-vehicles/

the thing about the taycan is that it’s absurdly powerful. it goes 0-60 in 3 seconds. plus the novelty factor obv

i mean that’s a crazy time for something that heavy

Its a crazy time for anything tbh

the rivian does 0-60 in 3 seconds too

lol wow really? the truck?

i am extremely sketchy on the physics of all this, but afaict electric motors (which don't have gears?) can be tuned to have much higher acceleration than regular mechanical engines. you're basically limited only by structural safety of the chassis and road safety (and battery life).

and because of the current market targeted by EVs (i.e. rich middle aged men, except at the low price end) it makes commercial/marketing sense to tune your 0-60 to that sort of time.

I'm a middle aged man rich enough to buy an EV and I can't imagine giving a shit about how fast a car goes 0-60. Like literally when would I ever be going 0 to 60?

I guess one needs to accelerate rapidly on a highway on-ramp, but they're generally pretty long, and you don't start at 0, and I've driven a lot of shitty cars in my life and never felt they couldn't accelerate enough to manage the merge

Now 60-0, that's important in case there's a crash in front of you, but they never tell you how fast it can do that.

Due to inflation 420 has gone up by 69

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2021

the marketing is targeted at the 326K people who liked this tweet

I guess if you sell 326,000 cars you're doing OK

yeah caek i think we talk a little about the instant torque upthread, i just wanted to kinda counterpoint lag00n in that i don't think it's THAT weird that the taycan is selling so well - it's a beast, and it instantly stands out

if i ever bought a car again in my life - i probably won't - i would want an ioniq 5

ha yes if you gave me a taycan i would accept it

I love plugging in my car, but I hate putting the cable cover over the cord so passersby don’t sue my ass for tripping them up in front of my house.

I mean, I DON’T want people to trip at all; just that the cable cover is a pain in the ass

What are you car mavens' thoughts about the Subaru Solterra?

im interested!

that elon joke tweet reminded me that it is actually a buyer's market and it's probably worth it to hold off on buying any kind of car right now (new or used)

which sucks because i have been looking at cars randomly

not EV-related, but i've gone from not liking cars, to wanting an EV, to wanting a miata just for kicks

ugh, i meant seller's market, obviously

cars are fine as long as u dont drive them

im feeling v good about buying my car when i did (march) bc i got it like $8K under msrp and now theyre going like $2k above, crazy

i've heard that was around the last time cars were priced okay

to keep it on topic, there's rumours the miata may go electric, but in the meantime, here's an EV conversion video, which is really cool (average to below average, in terms of EV performance, though):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZws7kE3U5k

scored a test drive appt for a kia niro ev on saturday!

noice

ask them about how they recycle their batteries 💀

??

just turn to the salesperson really matter of fact and ask what metals they recover from the car’s black mass.

lol sorry i just saw a little mini-doc about EV battery recycling and it’s slightly scary. apologies for undercutting what will be a pretty fun day out!

hah ok i thought you were intimating that you knew something more sinister.

fwiw if you google kia battery recycling all the articles are about how they’re investing in a “recycling ecosystem” for ev batteries.

nothing is recyclable recycling is fake

there's a burgeoning second-life battery industry where you'll see them re-used in other ways, like to create solar panels

in fact, i think i read somewhere that a lot of car manufacturers think that's where a lot of the money will be

https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/06/giving-ev-batteries-a-second-life-for-sustainability-and-profit/

To name only a few such projects that have popped up in recent years, Nissan is using old batteries to power small robots; French carmaker Groupe Renault, with partners, is launching stationary energy storage systems made with old EV batteries; and Audi Environmental Foundation, the daughter organization of Audi AG, worked with Indian startup Nunam to build solar nanogrids out of used e-tron battery modules.

Other OEMs, like Lucid Motors, BMW and Proterra, are incorporating reuse principles into their battery design. In fact, Lucid has built its batteries to work across its electric vehicle and energy storage products, including in second-life uses, Chief Engineer Eric Bach told TechCrunch. And BMW has used a “plug-and-play” concept with the batteries in its i3 model so that they can be easily removed and inserted into second-life applications, BMW spokesperson Weiland Bruch said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We believe that battery second-life will become its own self-standing business field,” he added.

update: they came in early. i am now a proud lessee of a kia niro ev

whoa nice

it gets very good reviews over here

i didn’t have a ton of time to dwell on it—they said they got 3 and that was probably it until february. but based on a quick spin around town i am going to be very happy.

what colour did you get it in?

it is “gravity blue,” very dark and could look like black if you were just glancing. looks quite nice in some light though.

Guayaquil (eephus!) at 8:16 16 Nov 21

What are you car mavens' thoughts about the Subaru Solterra?

it was created in partnership with Toyota so basically it's the same vehicle as the bz4x (catchy name) that Toyota is bringing out. I think Subaru made the drivetrain and Toyota the ev battery/engine.

Toyota can be AWD but is standard 2wd. Subaru like all of them is a standard 2 engine AWD, with high ground clearance and traction control.

looks really cool so far, but neither will offer super high range, the numbers aren't in officially but I'd guess 225ish, maybe a bit higher on the Toyota 2wd but not much more

Ive been looking jealously at EV6's but it will be a few years old before its anywhere near our trade-in bracket

the ev6 looks great....one of the big reasons i leased is that i'm hoping there are some really awesome options more widely available in a couple years

polestar is prob the sickest ev out thats not an insane sports car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3FLr4FkjA4

rivian is pretty sick too tho

i must have said this already but i’ve been in a polestar 2. it feels a little bit like getting in and out of a bathtub. acceleration is insane. you just…. put the car where you want it. even though the batteries make it incredibly heavy all the weight is very low. it’s a bit weird to pop the hood and instead of an engine you’re looking at a carpeted storage compartment.

hmm my mind's playing tricks on me. there's no storage space in the front, apart from a place to put your spare cables.

https://i.imgur.com/n0Ch9Ew.jpg

here's what it looks like when you open the the door to the "gas tank"

https://i.imgur.com/FDVaU01.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/FlmXGKL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/o4fVNXY.jpg

uh oh: the lovely Emma B has said she thinks we need a car

cad how are you liking the e-Niro?

we need:
- a car that can make the trip from London to Bordeaux
- storage space
- enough room for a family of 4 plus a dog
- ???
- profit

i'll tell you in a few days! signing the lease the evening before u.s. thanksgiving has slowed down the process so hopefully i'm picking up this afternoon.

london to bordeaux looks like it's about 650 miles which would be several stops based on the kia's advertised range.

driving into europe from the uk must kinda suck due to the steering wheel situation

i’ve read a few articles where people have made the trip from london to paris on a single charge but yeah to get to bordeaux would take another again

lagoon yeah maybe a little odd? people do it all the time though

it would def make me nervous

You get used to it pretty quickly ime

Anybody know anything about the Ford Mach-E?

surely you mean the... mustang mach-e, i mean of course you make your tesla rip off a mustang just stands to reason, iirc the reviews have been good

In europe its a maché

i'm kind of breaking it down like this

- sensible: MG 5 EV
- sweet spot: kia e-niro 2 (64kWh)
- dream car: ioniq 5 (sadly not quite cheap enough to qualify for the EV rebate)

the mach-e looks sweet, our friends upstairs neighbor has one so i've snooped around it a bit. more car than i need right now but they are cool.

feel like the transition away from ICEs is going to suddenly go very very fast (as fast as the supply chain allows) over the next year or two.

driving into europe from the uk must kinda suck due to the steering wheel situation

I mean, they switch the lanes for you so you wind up on the correct side. You don't just come barreling out into oncoming traffic.

I've pretty much zeroed in on the Mach-E and am probably going to put a deposit on one before the end of the year to get the EV credit.

feel like the transition away from ICEs is going to suddenly go very very fast (as fast as the supply chain allows) over the next year or two.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 29, 2021 1:14 PM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i dont think itll happen until the government makes it

which is not to say that evs wont sell better than they do now but they barely sell now

big impediments to adoption imo

cost
inconvenience of charging
bad usa culture*

*not sure if other countries have this

norway has mandated evs by 2025 which i dont think would fly here but theres lots of other stuff the government could do like bigger subsidies better emission standards etc but of course the thing they should do is... give everyone ebikes https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/opinion/free-ebikes-climate.html

which is not to say that evs wont sell better than they do now but they barely sell now

― lag∞n, Monday, November 29, 2021 1:58 PM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

friend you are forgetting a little place called the rest of the world

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/FT_21.05.21_ElectricVehicles_1.png

europe and china are going to be over 50% within a couple of years.

because the government is making them

sure

will be interesting to see what happens to countries whos governments dont make as big of an ev push as the industry starts to put more of their efforts towards evs, idk if it will matter that much theyre prob happy to just keep making and selling whatever cars, you can still get a brand new land cruiser 70 in australia which is a nearly 40 year old model, will prob make more of a difference at the top of the market if all of the r&d is going towards evs

but like in mexico or vietnam, countries that buy a lot of cars but arent great at infrastructure, could take a long time, also if the usa wont get with the program thats a problem

eh i think every market, once it reaches 10% passenger EV, is going to get from 10% to say 60-70% very quickly (literally in 2-3 years), subsidies or not. once you see mass market EVs you think buying an ICE would be crazy because it will have no resale value in 5 years. the slow bit (where subsidies and strategies like focussing on rich nerds are important) is getting to 10%. after that it's going to go faster than people expect.

my theory is the US is going to do the 10%-60% bit as fast as anywhere, but is going to get stuck at ~60% for longer than most markets because 20% of the country has mostly legit range anxiety, and 20% of the country has a kink about committing suicide to own the libs.

the subsidies are important because evs are really expensive

aside from mandating them the biggest thing the government could do for evs is prob to make the subsidies big enough that they cost the same as gas cars

in countries where gas is heavily taxed that already tilts the formula more towards evs, but not in the ol usa baby

not for long https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34992832/battery-price-drop-2023/ xxp

the most important EV in the U.S. will be the success or failure of the Ford F150 EV, because ultimately you're going to have to convince the "Suburban guys who drive giant pickups for literally no reason" demographic for EVs to be mainstream

battery prices dropping by 10x over a few years, and multiple auto makers getting into the family EV market at the same time ... the supply chain is the limit.

not for long https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34992832/battery-price-drop-2023/ xxp

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 29, 2021 2:37 PM (nineteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

thats like one year away and evs cost ~10k more than comparable gas car right now, seem ambitious

we'll see

over under on biden's "50% of new passenger vehicle sales being electric" target? he says 2030. that seems insanely pessimistic to me in 2021, in a way it didn't like 2 years ago. i'm saying 2026.

bidens target seems reasonable to me but also biden could make it happen faster if he wanted lol

i think there's nothing he could do to stop it

will be interesting if the auto industry starts lobbying the government to do more for evs then you have a face off between the traditional allies big car and big oil

wonder what the range number is that makes the charing problem go away seems like we must be approaching it

it's a strong function of charging infra, right? i don't actually own an EV so i don't really know how much that's improved over the past couple of years. i know there's a bunch of money for it in the infra bill in the US?

actually that's not true, i own a cargo e-bike with two child seats aka babe magnet.

wonder how much the temporary fact that a 3 year old used car is almost as expensive as a new car, and if you're going to buy new you may as well buy electric, has pushed up people's timetables. shame there weren't more normal people EVs available when covid started.

it's a strong function of charging infra, right? i don't actually own an EV so i don't really know how much that's improved over the past couple of years. i know there's a bunch of money for it in the infra bill in the US?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 29, 2021 2:53 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

im sure thats part of it but also just the distance your car can go on one full charge has got to be a big part of it too, like if you know you can do many days of usual driving and charge it at home when its convenient then for most people thats prob enough, and if theyre worried about long drives which are rare to non existent for the vast majority of people thats covered too, feel like you want to be able to charge where you park at night and also not have to track and worry about it too much

cause that stat where 20% of ev buyers were going back to gas cars for their next one is bad, you cant have the very motivated to buy electric people crapping out

but like in mexico or vietnam, countries that buy a lot of cars but arent great at infrastructure, could take a long time, also if the usa wont get with the program thats a problem

― lag∞n, Tuesday, 30 November 2021 6:27 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Vinfast will respectfully disagree with you. They are rapidly building the cars and infrastructure in Vietnam.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/19/vietnamese-carmaker-vinfast-plots-course-for-us-market-starting-with-two-electric-crossovers/

Tracer, on your picks

We don’t have the MG5 down here but we do have the MGZS and it’s a good car but let down by poor efficiency, it uses more electricity than it should and range suffers. YMMV as they say.

A good option might be a second hand OG Ioniq or Kona. My Ioniqs are holding up really well after 80,000km. Battery performance is holding up really well and the ioniq will sit around 13kWh/100km all day every day. Ioniq fast charging performance could be better. If you can find one that has just had the recall, or is due for one then you might get a good deal and get a completely fresh battery into the bargain.

thats nice that theres an vietnamese company that gave a press release to tech crunch i guess

my theory is the US is going to do the 10%-60% bit as fast as anywhere, but is going to get stuck at ~60% for longer than most markets, because 20% of the country has mostly legit range anxiety, and 20% of the country has a kink about committing suicide to own the libs.

so the same trajectory as COVID vaccine, basically, and for roughly the same reasons

if range anxiety pushes people to buy used trad hybrids then i'm 100% fine with that because it's better for the environment and tbh what anyone who drives less than 5000m year should probably do.

when was this? may be due at least in part to the bit of the US population that owns an EV being pretty weird in a lot of ways (tendency to try new tech for the sake of it, high disposable income, etc.), and the median EV being worse in terms of range than they are now.

xp ha this did cross my mind!

imo the vast majority of people who don't do a daily commute should get a used battery hybrid as their next car. range anxiety goes away, better net for the environment than a new EV, etc.

i wonder how many of those 20% who want to go back to gas cars got a tesla with panels that don't line up and let the rain in. do they still make those or have they gotten better?

more car than i need right now but they are cool.

Do you just mean the Mach-E is expensive, or is there a specific sense that you'd be paying for "more car" stuff you don't need? I don't think of myself as somebody who needs a lot of car. But the Mach-E looks like a kind of sweet spot of "good range, well-built car, doesn't have the computer-glitchiness of a Tesla" for me -- I dunno maybe I should be looking harder at e-Niro

its a performance car

What does that mean, it drives fast? I thought the whole point was that it was called a Mustang but it was actually a family hatchback.

speed, handling, general appealing to car guy features, my impression is that its basically a tesla ripoff

yeah i would be paying for like acceleration and range that i don't need as a guy who mostly drives around town dropping my baby off places and buying groceries. honestly i would have just grabbed a bolt if there were any to grab.

forgot about this craziness where they only give you one key when you buy it because they think youre going to use your phone as a key but what happens when your phone runs out of battery?? this is insane to me, wonder if theyre still doing that the review is like a year old

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4n5iPqxpaw

honestly hate all this dumb innovation happening around evs like no door handle instead theres a button you press then theres a weird door handle to pull on, door handles work good thats why cars have them what does this stupid two step process have to do with the car being electric

no driver instrument panel in a tesla, a fucking square steering wheel, all of this shit sucks, also the need to make the car look electric who cares just make a nice car

What I want is safety, reliability, and "I don't have to think about this car very much" (e.g. I don't want huge hassles around charging, I don't want it to be a huge hassle to get it serviced, etc.)

the retractable door handle was an elon-aping-steve jobs fit of pique iirc xp

yeah i was just reading about a tesla app issue the other day where everyone was getting 500 errors and couldn't unlock their cars as a result. feel like i've also read a lot of ev reviews from car guys who ding models that don't feel futuristic enough or something which is what leads to all these dumb ideas. one nice thing about the niro was just about everything was recognizable and i had control sticks and physical climate buttons and stuff....like i don't want to have to *think* about how to turn up the heat in the car.

Okay I am just a hybrid-liking normie but really how often do you make your purchase decisions based on the edge case, as opposed to normal everyday usage?

Like, do you say "Normally I toast one or two slices of bread. Maybe four. But I need a toaster that can toast 12 slices at a time, because sometimes I have company"?

No. You do not.

Ditto towing capacity or hauling capacity. How often are you running to the grocery store for some milk vs., say, moving a couch? How often are you going to the post office vs., say, towing a boat?

Buy a vehicle for the stuff you do most often. Rent one for the longest trips you do, or heaviest loads you haul. Unless your life mainly consists of trips from e.g. Boulder to Birmingham or Glasgow to Zurich while towing your pet antelope.

people don't want to rent a car

yeah renting a car has a big cost of both time and money

Ok. Me, I lived happily for 10 years without owning a car, but I rented one when I wanted to get to mountains or oceans that I couldn't walk to or take public transportation to.

i think the advice (buy the car that works for you 360 days of the year, and rent when it doesn't, and you will save money and own a better car for you) is logically good advice, and i have given it myself. i have not followed it myself though.

1000+ mile trips are rare but multi hundred mile trips are common enough for a lot of people, like going from ny to vermont, that it makes sense to want a car that can do that easily, that you dont have to worry about planning out your charging scheme perfectly, although some people probably like that sort of thing

people in the US pretty much buy only on edge cases, which is why every car in the US is either a crossover or truck and why the sedan has disappeared. it's particularly insidious for truck buyers because it's well documented that truck owners pretty much almost never use their trucks to actually haul stuff, they buy them to get 'em lifted and to roll coal on EV owners.

Not to be a dick but heck, let's unpack this for a sec. I don't own a plane but sometimes I want to get to Europe. Do you know what I do? I buy a plane ticket.

I don't own a flat in London or condo in New York City, but I like to visit those places from time to time. Do you know what I do? I get a hotel room.

I don't have a beach house but sometimes I want to go to the beach. Again, what I do is... I rent space there.

yeah but those aren't consumer goods and have real unattainable cost associated with them.

youre looking at it from the pov of not owning a car, which is nice if you live in a place where that works, but if you were to need a car generally youd prob pick one that met all your car needs

By this logic everyone should own a moving truck because they will eventually want to move all their stuff to a new place and GAH

people in the US pretty much buy only on edge cases, which is why every car in the US is either a crossover or truck and why the sedan has disappeared. it's particularly insidious for truck buyers because it's well documented that truck owners pretty much almost never use their trucks to actually haul stuff, they buy them to get 'em lifted and to roll coal on EV owners.

― 龜, Monday, November 29, 2021 3:39 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

people just like the big boys the space sitting high and feeling safe is how i break it down, its all pretty stupid and has lead to the near death of the best car type, the famous station wagon

By this logic everyone should own a moving truck because they will eventually want to move all their stuff to a new place and GAH

― popcornoscenti (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, November 29, 2021 3:45 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean some people do do that ie get a pickup truck, but imo wanting a car that can drive far is not an unreasonable ask, and the good news is evs can pretty much drive far and that situation will continue to improve

winter tesla road trip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UskzfQJt2Bc

I don't own a plane but sometimes I want to get to Europe. Do you know what I do? I buy a plane ticket.

the people you're struggling to understand already own planes capable of flying to europe. they are reluctant to sell them and fly scheduled.

i mean i get your point: if you only fly to europe once a year, maybe owning a private jet isn't worth it. but i think your international travel metaphor is a good one because the only thing worse than a public airport is a busy car rental place in a lot of people's minds.

people just like the big boys the space sitting high and feeling safe is how i break it down, its all pretty stupid and has lead to the near death of the best car type, the famous station wagon

― lag∞n, Monday, November 29, 2021 3:47 PM (three minutes ago)

another factor is that the people who actually buy /new/ cars these days are usually boomers and maybe gen x'ers, who have aging hips and knees and don't like cars that require them to bend and tear their creaky cartilage to get in and out of, hence the death of station wagons and sedans and coupes

yeah true recall a friend of mine with bad knees talking about never getting in an out of a normal low car again

not just old people. a lot of people with kids under five switch to SUVs pretty quickly. loading a 3 year old from a 10" sidewalk to the rear passenger side of a civic is not fun.

hard to deny the big cars are better in a lot of ways

definitely bigger

and the quasi-edge case of like, needing to move a largeish piece of furniture is pretty valid.

Obviously this varies from city to city but I haven’t owned a car in 15 years. Carshare means whenever I want a car I can get one, maybe it’s on my street, maybe it’s on the next street. There’s 3 providers in my neighborhood (1 peer to peer) plus more in the wider city. Not many EVs yet but I’m working on that, and one of the new entrants is a peer to peer EV car share. For longer trips I have traditional car rental and they are all getting EVs.

I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but owning a rapidly depreciating lump of steel and have it clutter up the garage for less than 5% utilisation is pure insanity.

I get the car I need when I need it, and I get an extra room in the house to hang laundry, brew sake and put the bike trainer.

if you have two dogs you need somewhere for them to ride, i dont have any dogs but its good to know if i found some i could just throw them in the back of my near crossover station wagon

also a safety positive feedback loop arms race where in order to feel 'safe' on roads where 18-wheelers, hummers and f-350s driven by 16 year olds with permits regularly traverse at 80-90 miles per hour, people want cars that are equally as big and heavy... just a very american freudian death drive

I know this will fall on deaf ears but small crossover SUVs are great and extremely useful, like all the time not "edge cases" especially if you have kids. this idea that I find my very reasonable gas mileage Honda CR-V for "big boy" macho reasons is beyond ridiculous, no one thinks this or Rav 4s or whatever are imposing

they really just are the new station wagons except easier to load

this guy is the prototypical tesla s driver in my mind

https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2021/11/26/tampa-surgeon-in-tesla-struck-bicycling-banker-at-about-80-mph-records-say/

xp i have a forester and agree with you that they are easier to load, and if by "not imposing" you mean don't look like a suburban then sure, but they are absolutely more dangerous than a wagon for other road users.

i have an outback and i passed a bmw 3 series wagon a while ago and was like wow my car is so much bigger

on the other hand there are some compact suvs that are actually small, which ends up being a pretty hilarious shape for a car, like a perfect cube

crossovers like the cr-v are only considered 'small' in america, and imo have been increasing in size with each generation - my family has owned two foresters, a second gen and fourth gen, and the fourth gen is definitely just... bigger, bloatier, more like a land boat than the one we previously had

"small crossover SUVs" are small relative to bigger cars. but if they seem small to you in an absolute sense then that's living in the US.

haha xp

europe and asia have much more support for hatchbacks like the toyota yaris, for example, which have a similar form factor but are just... smaller

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7qnz3/us-automakers-phasing-out-affordable-subcompact-cars

its true that there are almost no cars here that are small like you see other places, the mitsubishi mirage, the cheapest car sold in usa, is prob the closest we get

yeah they are getting bigger, mine is 10 years old so not as much, I will never own a new car

a 10 year old CRV is 3" shorter than a new one. it's pretty big!

in cities you see a lot of smart cars and cars like the fiat abarth, scion iQ, cars that make a lot of sense if you live in a city but feel absolutely terrifying to take on the highway

fine it's huge! I'll light some candles in front of a picture of a sedan tonight

lol

there was a minor scandal in the UK last year when keir starmer hit a cyclist with his car and it turned out he drives a ("huge") rav4.

well, as a Forester driver your hands are clean

My very American father does fine with a Smart Car for most uses. Me, I have two children, 10 and 14 (with myriad activities and conflicting schedules). Plus I gig twice a week with a full drum kit, two or three guitars, and assorted accoutrements. What suits me okay right now is a 2010 Mazda 3 hatchback.

http://images.newcars.com/images/car-pictures/original/2010-Mazda-MAZDA3-Coupe-Hatchback-s-Sport-4dr-Hatchback-Exterior.png

Dunno what one calls it nowadays but I think of it as a small station wagon. I would love a plug-in equivalent but frankly can't afford it yet.

xp i modded my forester to roll clean coal

i live in a small city where it's easy to get around without a car, but you'd be surprised at the amount of (1) "big" cars; and (2) the amount of cars on the road in general

when i'm stateside, i definitely see larger vehicles and loads of trucks, which is weird to me. but mazdas are pretty much the bestsellers here and i think that's a decent-sized car, though i do consider them to be on the larger size. but hatchbacks are a thing, as well. pretty much any mid-sized vehicle that can carry snowboards, skis or tents. i assume nothing beats the convenience of having one at your disposal as opposed to renting, which is a big hassle

we have carshare here, as well. i used to use it a lot more, but again, nothing beats the convenience of having your own car, especially when going out on hikes or camping. also, people coming in from bedroom communities is a thing here, which adds to more cars on the road. they tend to have larger cars, as well

i love carshare for the convenience and it being environmentally friendly. they're good for short trips. and what Ye Mad Puffin and Ed say makes a lot of sense, it's just weird that a lot of people treat owning and renting vehicles in a pretty irrational way just out of pure convenience. i assume once you have kids, it's a hassle to drag the entire family out to the bus or train and with rentals, you're tied to car availability

it's like, the school calls and she's thrown up in the nurses office, you gotta go now. Midwestern cities aren't very friendly to mass transit, plus I visit my mom every week, she's in an outer suburb that would take probably 90 minutes by bus, just not practical. Minneapolis banned car share because of parking

the lovely Emma B and i have come back down to earth. neither of us have a daily commute that a car would help with. as Ed says, owning an expensive hunk of metal that's just going to sit there for a lot of the time is stupid. and there are more car share schemes in London than i'd realised.

the last piece of the puzzle is figuring out how to get 2 kids + dog from London to southwestern France. car hire websites are surprisingly terrible at this! where my disrupters at??

Do monthly car subscriptions exist in the UK? Might cover your trip and give you a preview of how much use you get out of owning.

Not ev but this is the active thread I guess

"The cowboy dream has created a booming market in prestige ruggedness.” @rachmonroe on the Texas vintage truck market https://t.co/WaqfEMmtWr

— Kyle Chayka (@chaykak) December 1, 2021

that article is bizarre. people have been buying and maintaining model-t fords and '56 chevy bel airs for decades, it's literally the same thing.

In Austin, as in the Bay Area, Nonnenberg told me, tech workers make up a large share of buyers. “People are spending a whole bunch of money to buy a 1964 Ford pickup truck, which is so rudimentary in its construction and design and capability,”

when you have never heard of the concept of antiques

the classic car market is going nuts right now, just like all collectables are since the pandemic, tho i think trucks are hot suvs particularly

new cars are so much better lol

some old cars do look very nice tbf

I thought that link was going to be about these kinda models:

https://i.imgur.com/RVGW0ew.png

i think the article is identifying a phenom - yes, car collectors have always existed but historically 80s cars didn't enjoy as much popularity as like 60s/70s muscle cars or w/e. that's definitely changed and i've seen some trendy, non-car people post recently about how all of a sudden they want a 1980s mazda b2000 truck for example.

yugo or gtfo

this is the relevant twitter feed, it’s been going for years. u+k

https://twitter.com/chodspot?s=21

weird 80/90s cars being in style pretty much just has to do with the fact that children of that era are of car collecting age now imho, and they are approaching it with a classic quirky gen x sensibility, that and the pandemic of course has made buying things more popular

i made a new ilcars thread mods (car modifications)

yeah that's def a huge part of it too xp

str8 fire beautiful retro hyundai EV concept cars

https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2021/11/Hyundai-Grandeur-concept-car-hero-852x479.jpg

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/15/22783810/hyundai-grandeur-heritge-concept-ev-80s

https://media.autoexpress.co.uk/image/private/s--bBYKrZVs--/f_auto,t_content-image-full-desktop@1/v1618587076/autoexpress/2021/04/Hyundai%20Pony-14.jpg

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/hyundai/354771/retro-tribute-original-hyundai-pony-hatchback-unveiled

silly exercise but one would be foolish to deny the execution

Twenty minutes into this Mach-E rental and I'm already 100% "shut up and take my money!" I feel like such a shill...

given the inventory around here at least, that's the only way you get a car these days

nice xp

New thread: I am at an EV charging station

re: pace of electrification, the entire Audi fleet will be EVs by 2025.

they lying

i’m pretty sure that’s public knowledge!

what that theyre liars

why people want to own a car that works 365 days a year, rather than rely on renting for unusual situations

I had a Very Bad experience with @Hertz over Thanksgiving.

This is what happened & the letter I wrote. We are totally fine, & our Thanksgiving ended up wonderful, but I suspect this is a fraudulent business practice, & I want to give it visibility for those who don't or can't. pic.twitter.com/cr9haMSeXd

— Kate Klonick (@Klonick) November 30, 2021

wow that looks egregious. in an efficient market, such companies would go bankrupt and exit the market - oh wait

i’m telling you, why haven’t these yoyos been disrupted out of existence

Car rental companies are fucking notorious for pulling this shit, especially in North America. They overbook shamelessly at busy periods. If I rent during the holidays, I will make multiple reservations with multiple companies because this will happen and no amount of consumer protection law seems to stop them doing this.

Sold: Vortec-Powered 1971 GMC K1500 4x4 for $66,555. https://t.co/f6jDjVOeQH pic.twitter.com/eS4j7TWCD8

— Bring a Trailer (@Bringatrailer) December 2, 2021

So in the end, I did shut up and give them my money - yesterday I put in my order and deposit for a Mach-E GT standard in dark matter grey. Build times are 24+ weeks out which will give me time to unload (*gulp*) sixteen cylinders of dinosaur power here at HQ.

sick, what cars are you selling

damn elvis wtg

good luck on selling your bugatti veyron

A 2013 Dodge Charger R/T. It's my daily driver even though I've been WFH for years and not daily driving at all. Eats luggage, stuff, road miles, and gasoline in roughly equal massive amounts (seriously, a bass head/cab, an AC30 amp, two guitars, pedals, us with all our crap and on the road for a week) Apart from the time last year when an animal got up into the engine bay and ate all the wiring it's been as reliable as a miner's donkey and has never, ever stranded me. Went on a totally awesome road trip out to Nebraska for the solar eclipse and back through Montana and full bore through Nevada like I was goddamn Kowalski and Challenger incarnate - only I was trying to get to that awesome gourmet gas station in Lee Vining before it closed (I made it). I love how it's an amalgamation of every car I've ever owned: various Detroit iron of the 70s, a pickup truck, several BMWs, a boring unstoppable Ford of the 2000s. I'm angry that it's associated with DodgeBros and the police because it's been really fun to drive and ability to carry a LOT of stuff has been a huge plus.

The last time I filled the tank it cost $82. If it was a van, it would have Frazetta art of dinosaurs gazing haplessly at the arriving meteor.

Car #2 is a 2009 Aston Martin V8 Vantage I inherited from my mom. (*insert requisite waaah, I inherited a supercar from my parents here*) Equal parts unpleasant, iconoclastic, and awesome. Sometimes it's fun to drive and every road is flat but most of the time around here in LA, the awful transmission is fighting you, some asshole in a Tesla or a Corvette wants to drag race, there's some nasty interior reflections from the light-colored interior that makes it hard to see. My mom believed that it was eventually going to be worth a lot of money someday but she would have been completely unprepared for a world where not just internal combustion, but driving itself would be obsolete.

A couple weeks ago I was up on Angeles Crest Highway to take pictures of the AM in prep for selling and met a guy who had a McLaren 570 who was also getting ready to sell it - he had a full crew with a drone pilot, separate camera truck. He was in line for an all-out Mach-E GT Performance and that he was done with gas. Worth noting that the camera crew was using an ID 4.

Take it to the people who have learned how to live thread ;)

sick, i saw the eclipse in wyoming, it was incredible

there was 360 degree dusk all the animals went silent and a guy nearby yelled holy shit

you should sell the aston martin on bringatrailer

you should sell it on [gesticulating wildly] doug demuros auction website for cool cars from the modern era

This might not make sense, but do they sell analog EVs? Cars with actual needles on the speedometers?

I saw one model where you could cycle through half a dozen dashboard backgrounds each time you got into the the car and I was all NO NO NO NO. It's bad enough when they do this at Dairy Queen.

I saw the eclipse in Missouri. Whole day felt like a night scene from a cowboy movie.

https://i.imgur.com/VSf7mcx.jpg

can barely find a gas car with analog dials these days (not actually true but kind of true)

one of my cars has a voltmeter its cool

tell us about your cars

jay leno ovah heah

its a 1989 black toyota mr2 that used to be owned by a lady who worked for the department of defense, and had a garfield sticker in the back window according to the flipper i bought it from (unfortunately he removed it)

nice, i think you should get another garfield sticker for it

yeah it's still got the paw prints... i might

the most important EV in the U.S. will be the success or failure of the Ford F150 EV, because ultimately you're going to have to convince the "Suburban guys who drive giant pickups for literally no reason" demographic for EVs to be mainstream

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, November 29, 2021 2:38 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

early days but looks like a hit

Reservations for the F-150 Lightning are now closed. Order banks open next month. https://t.co/AR0cIdFOcW

— Michael Martinez (@MikeMartinez_AN) December 8, 2021

although not clear they've won the "Suburban guys who drive giant pickups for literally no reason" demo yet: "Farley says 70 percent of Lightning reservation holders are new to Ford and to pickups."

thats wild who are these people that suddenly want a full size pickup now that its electric

the mach-e is also appealing to a non-mustang crowd - EVs are expanding the traditional customer base for a lot of models

a mustang is not whole a category of vehicle, nor is the mach-e really a mustang tbh

it’s literally called the mustang mach-e

oh in that case

and no that’s true mustangs are not a “category” they’re an old-school ford muscle car brand that suddenly has a lot of new fans

brand

ok well first i said it was a car model and you didn’t like that, what should we call it

“mustang is a feeling”

basically thats what ford is saying now, i mean the mustang was always a ford model, which was a muscle car, although tbf it was a lil more brandy than most models it has its own logo etc, and now its also a fast crossover, and probably other things too in the future if the mach-e does well, ford does appear to be shifting mustang from a model to a brand, but i mean is the thing weve called mustang for the last ~70 years really expanding its traditional customer base or has ford just changed the definition of mustang, and is that comparable to people who have never owned a full sized pickup, a very distinct type of vehicle with very loyal owners, wanting one now that its electric, and even more importantly who are these weirdos and whats going through their weird heads

btw was talking to a friend of mine who is a carpenter and ford truck owner the other day and he was stoked on the fact that you can run tools off the lightnings battery and thinks he will prob get one in a couple years if they turn out to be good

fwiw i think people probably saw all the positive media the lightning was getting and just wanted it, not sure if thats more or less weird than some other as yet undiscovered thought process, i personally would be thinking about the rivian even tho it has weird headlights, getting a mid sized pickup is normal

rivian is not mid sized what is wrong with this country

is this for hauling around your massive clothes dryers?

I've also heard that being able to plug tools and TVs and whatever into the pick-up truck's power outlets is a big attraction.

And when folks see that they can fill the space under the hood with ice.... and tailgate facing forward.... that's the shutupandtakemymoney point.

is this for hauling around your massive clothes dryers?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, December 9, 2021 7:22 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

And when folks see that they can fill the space under the hood with ice.... and tailgate facing forward.... that's the shutupandtakemymoney point.

― pplains, Thursday, December 9, 2021 7:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

have you seen this with the rivian where it has this storage compartment that you can sit on the door

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qc64gMpReOU/maxresdefault.jpg

also you can get a stove that lives in there and slides out

https://i.imgur.com/LhJkrBh.png

does it not have seats on the inside?

we dont need that anymore

All this time we've been stupidly cooking with things that aren't also trucks

I want a small truck but haven't bought one because of the gas/emissions. Will likely get a smaller electric truck when they are proven to be good. I will use it to haul recycling to the dumpster at the office because these truck nuts ship in very large boxes.

sufjan until then u may be interested in the ford maverick when it comes out, its a hybrid truck that gets ~37mpg if i recall and the starting price is p affordable for a new truck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocHFC03Wmbw

when the electric tacoma comes out that will be the true "truck for liberals"

"keep honking, im reloading (my npr podcast, the app is messing up)"

lmao

new ev dropped

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRUvz1QPueA

crazy how many ev startups there are out there now, putting out wacky new cars, pretty cool

i would never buy any of them, but i respect the fact that they exist

I've also heard that being able to plug tools and TVs and whatever into the pick-up truck's power outlets is a big attraction.

I think for some folks that were affected by widespread freeze/power infrastructure collapse earlier this year, being able to power your house from your truck was a big deal.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/39319/ford-f-150-hybrid-owners-in-texas-are-using-trucks-to-power-their-homes

ford does appear to be shifting mustang from a model to a brand, but i mean is the thing weve called mustang for the last ~70 years really expanding its traditional customer base or has ford just changed the definition of mustang

"Mustang as a brand" already happened - it's the only car Ford makes now, all the others are trucks and SUV/crossovers. BTW, the first Mustang came out in 1964 - 57 years ago.

ok lol

Mustang's not been a thing in the UK afaik, until the mach-e.

(although i do have an American garage by me that has a couple of imports on the forecourt)

mustang is in the usa one of the absolute automative icons so to speak

can certainly see why ford would want to leverage the famous cool name and logo

might be neat if they make performance vehicles of all types fast mustang electric truck why not, sick ass horse logo on the face

(i may be wrong, I'm seeing GT and mach-1 as well, which i guess is the petrol equiv of the -e, from 2017 or so. but historically it's not a thing here (although obv known from films etc))

the only wild horses were have are Shetland ponies...

they r nice island horses

might be neat if they make performance vehicles of all types fast mustang electric truck why not, sick ass horse logo on the face

the new bronco is so sick

woop

Toyota Tacoma-like truck, sports car, fleet of future EVs revealed: https://t.co/5DHrYAoCHS pic.twitter.com/28ucuBRx33

— Autoblog (@therealautoblog) December 14, 2021

look at this lil guy its like a compact (fj) cruiser

https://i.imgur.com/nPNeK7I.png

looks like it could be an actual small truck, wld be cool

damn, went from dragging their feet to a full-on ev pivot

yeah prob werent really dragging their feet, just a different release strategy

well, dragging their feet insofar as they were actively shitting on EVs in their ads in europe and lobbying against phasing out ICEs

thats just business

i'd drive this

https://i.imgur.com/K9Mcuhx.jpg

were gonna spend the next few years hooting and hollering over that thing then theyll only release it in japan

maybe some day someone will make one that has all analog dashboard, door mechanics, etc. when that day comes, i won't be able to buy it, but it will be nice to think about.

dont think were going back to physical dials and gauges, but i see no reason to not have normal door handles

will be interesting to see what we need to make this ev look futuristic shit shakes out in the end

butlerian jihad now xp

i think we might! tesla are all in on digital stuff and triangular wheels and mirrors that can only reflect gamma rays, but honestly thing some of the adult manufacturers might think better of it in a few years, especially at the high end, and as EVs stop being marketed to gadget enthusiasts and start being a car guy thing/mass market.

idk i think theyll keep the screens they are really better in a lot of ways

one cool thing about the ev wave is it seems like we might be getting past the super agro angry eyes aesthetic, tho if that just results in the under designed no taste minimalism of tesla well i dont like that either, things like the polestar and that mini fj crusier give me hope that the next thing will combine the detailed rigor of current the era with a more neutral boxy look

new bronco which people are absolutely wild for also fits

human eye headlights are among the worst things that have ever happened

love to be tailgated by the mad car

Anyone seen a rivian in the wild yet?

fixed it

fixed it pic.twitter.com/BgoNs0sosb

— br◎seph (@on3ness) December 14, 2021

dont think were going back to physical dials and gauges, but i see no reason to not have normal door handles

Oh but won't someone please think of the dystopian science fiction filmmakers?

Because surely there will be a scene where someone desperately needs to enter and start their car, but their fingertips have been sliced off, so they can't get in using fingerprint recognition, so they're like helplessly stuck outside their perfectly functional car

real live version standing in rainy parking lot charging your dead phone on the outlet in the bumper of your car so you can get into your car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJxFAoiWSY

Micro Box reminds me of the Johnny Cab.

fixed it

Oh, you'd have to be a Daddy Warbucks to afford that thing!

Toyota grimly joins the subscription service crowd. Credit card declined for your car key sub? No car for you

https://www.engadget.com/toyota-key-fob-remote-start-function-requires-subscription-111606852.html

keys didn't need to be reinvented

that shit is so foul

Everyone is doing it too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/business/stellantis-auto-software.html
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a37419225/on-demand-options-automakers/
https://www.wired.com/story/subscriptions-automakers-mimic-netflix/

General Motors told investors this month that subscription services could bring in an additional $20 billion to $25 billion annually by 2030. The company says 4.2 million customers already pay for its OnStar security services, which include an app that costs $15 a month. Electric vehicle startup Rivian said in recent financial filings that it could bring in an additional $15,500 over the life of each car with software-enabled services, including an autonomous driving feature and subscriptions for infotainment, internet connectivity, and diagnostics. BMW last summer created buzz—and consternation—with plans to charge, through subscription fees, for features like heated seats. In the US, the automaker offers subscriptions for an onboard dash cam and a remote car starter.

Over the past few years, automotive companies have laid out plans to transform from “being an industry that sells products to an industry that sells services and products,” says Brian Irwin, who heads the automotive and mobility practice at the consultancy Accenture. Today’s vehicles come with multiple computer chips, cameras, and sensors—and thus, the tantalizing opportunity to use detailed data to both create and sell new products.

hate it!

OnStar? Don't need it.
Autonomous driving feature? Cruise control's about all I'd need.
Infotainment? Internet? I've got this phone here that I already pay a monthly fee for.

Heated seats? DON'T THEY FUCKING DARE.

Seriously. I bought a 25-year-old car a couple of years ago with heated seats. They're about the only thing that works on that car. And had they somehow been for subscribers only back in 1995, I'm sure they would've been bricked by now.

im gonna start charging the car companies a subscription to me paying their asses

a guy from stellantis was saying the other day that amazon “started as an online bookstore” and that’s how they see themselves, at the first step of a journey that will take them from mere car makers to global colossuses of “mobility services” that follow you wherever you are. i just don’t see it. they can’t even make software for their own cars that people want to use.

pplains, thought you were dissing heated seats for a second and was going to throw down.

from mere car makers to global colossuses of “mobility services” that follow you wherever you are.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, December 15, 2021 4:25 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this is how people justify teslas stock price too + theyre going to dominate the new reality of putting a battery in everything

whats funny is tesla hasnt besides bailing out musks shitty solar company shown any indication towards moving beyond personal cars, most companies seriously working on level 5 self driving are looking at a robo taxi model because the technology is too expensive for a personal vehicle, but tesla just used a cheaper approach that does not work because theyre committed to personal vehicles

and then they still charge you $10k for it lol, good work if you can get it

Would never diss heated seats.

When I say they're about the only things that work in the car, I'm also including the heating system, so yeah, they do come in handy.

Would never diss heated seats.

When I say they're about the only things that work in the car, I'm also including the heating system, so yeah, they do come in handy.

That IS the heating system buddy

You're more right than you might think. My vents are blocked, but the defroster kinda still works.

wonder if people will start hacking their way around those subscription services, theyre already in the computers tuning engines and whatnot

jailbreaking your own car. cool future.

farmers do exactly that with their tractors https://www.vice.com/en/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware

I’ve been saying for a while now that I fully expect a future with region locked vehicles. I didn’t think of the subscription models tho, jeez.

prayers have been answered

https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/nissan-uk-celebrates-35-years-with-electric-bluebird-restomod

https://i.imgur.com/hHGU0M8.jpg

chill out concept

https://i.imgur.com/nwuBbAu.png

I want to be a forward-looking denizen of the present but that article made me realize how deep in my bones I want an electric restomod of the ‘87 Camry I had in high school

it had rubber bumpers!

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/12/heres-how-much-hyundais-cool-new-ioniq-5-ev-will-cost/

oof. guess i'm getting a hybrid f150 then

one interesting thing in that toyota electric lineup reveal was they said that lexus will be all electric in usa by 2030 but did not say the same for toyota which leads me to believe that they think electric cars will be expensive for a while, tho obvs there are other concerns like access to charging

you should sell the aston martin on bringatrailer

I was already making plans to list it on BAT, but once I realized just how much bureaucracy and weird buyer/seller culture I'd be stepping into I decided to work with an agent. He's a top 5 BAT seller and has all the crew and resources to market the shit out of it to anyone that's cash rich and has a 007 complex. He takes a fee of course, but I'm confidently betting that will be balanced by whatever value an agent can extract from it.

More importantly, working with an agent leapfrogs me over the two-month glut of cars that are on BAT right now. Too many people are unloading vintage/collectable cars right now, so BAT is scheduling things out as best they can because sellers were complaining that too much competition was eating away at value. Compounding that, at least six to seven large auto collections are hitting the market over the next six months because (paraphrasing) "the old man died of covid and the kids don't want his cars" but big-time car collectors and the cartel that surround them are all attuned to this and attempting to collectively deal with the flood. idgaf, I don't want to be the one waiting on other Vantages to pass through BAT, I wanna make someone else wait before the whole internal combustion economy crashes down.

In good news, I have a build date on my MM-E GT! Feb 7, 2022

what a world

that's awesome man hope you sell it for a good price... post it here when it goes up haha

I think EV cars are the trend of the present and the future. I'm driving a Ram 1500 for work. I will buy an EV in about 2 to 3 years. But I still wonder, can EVs be used to tow?

yes

There's a few demo videos out there of F-150 Lightnings and Rivians towing things. Undoubtedly, we'll see a lot more of them as they get out there.

that's awesome man hope you sell it for a good price... post it here when it goes up haha

Buy my car

Drool. That blue on tan interior is really sharp.

hell yeah! glws

I love the blue, but the tan dashboard casts a nasty reflection on the inside of the windshield. Lots of glare if you're coming down Angeles Crest Highway in the late afternoon.

O how I wouldn't be able to stand the California sun casting its brilliance across the dashboard of my Aston Martin as I cruised down Angeles Crest Highway in the late afternoon. The very thought sickens me!

How do you only do 1k miles a year, mind blown

It sat in a garage undriven for over five years because my mom was too ill to drive.

my car has that many miles but way more cheerios

(It is a sweet car, E.T.)

extremely sick ride et

this guy says you've timed it perfectly too fwiw

You heard it here first:

Demand at used car auctions has started slowing down.

This will be in the news in 30-60 days.

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) January 12, 2022

*Hot take!

I attended the largest used car auction in the world today:

Manheim Pennsylvania.

Here’s what’s happening on the ground floor:

(1/5)

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) January 15, 2022

Manheim may be the largest wholesale auction (cars largely taken from dealership trade-ins) in quantity, but by dollar value, Bring A Trailer is utterly crushing all the other auctions including Pebble Beach, Amelia Island, Scottsdale, & Mecum.

I wonder how much Turo has been eating into the rental market since covid turned it all into a clusterfuck?

feel like only a matter of time before BaT changes to a percentage of the purchase price business model vs. what they currently have, which i believe is a flat rate?

wouldn't call this concerning (it should be possible to by a pre-9/11 camry) but looks like the used car boom is wrapping up

This is concerning:

Multiple sources are telling me that Carvana is severely slashing their instant trade-in offers.

One person I spoke with was offered $7,000 less for his trade-in than he was earlier this month.

AFAIK, this is unprecedented.

(1/n)

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) January 25, 2022

This guy's got a lot of unprecedented hot takes.

Carvana is hardly a reliable indicator for used car prices. Carvana was founded by an ex-con pal of Charles Keating who dumped $3 billion of stock a couple months ago just before $CVNA itself lost 50% of its value since.

(correction on above, Ernest Garcia III who started Carvana and Ernest Garcia II who was the ex-con)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2017/12/18/how-an-ex-con-became-a-billionaire-from-used-cars/?sh=6776892d6d3f

I mean it’s not even carvana, it’s an anecdote about carvana but the anecdotes there and Carmax at the low end are that we’ve peaked

would be good, considering people need cars

Today was my first time experiencing the frozen door handle of doom. @elonmusk can we add an option to open the door from the app? pic.twitter.com/t8eBWnWFZD

— Matt Smith (@MatchasmMatt) February 5, 2022

ebikes overtook evs in 2020.

The U.S. is climbing toward 1 million in annual e-bike sales https://t.co/EdNkwIpG8t

— Bloomberg CityLab (@CityLab) February 8, 2022

nice

imagine what could happen with bigger subsidies and better infrastructure, maybe this will create a constituency for those things who knows

i've mentioned this but we've gone from 1-2 parents biking to daycare (i.e. true car replacement) to maybe 8 (out of 40) during the pandemic. all the new bikers are cargo ebikes. those in particular seem to be everywhere all of a sudden.

good stuff

the downside of course with a cargo ebike is all the top tier babes who try to pick me up.

Solterra reservations went live today

slaps seat of cargo ebike: this bad boy can fit so many babes in it

i saw jamelle bouie on twitter advocating for cargo ebikes a year or two ago on twitter, guess he's an influencer

stephen dorff advocated smoking e-cigs on a regular bike while wearing cargo pants in 2018

My chart of the day:
*Auto sales peaked in 2017
*Electric vehicle sales keep increasing
*EVs are, therefore 100%+ of sector growth, and have been for years pic.twitter.com/fWPvj8Ylg7

— Nat Bullard (@NatBullard) February 9, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/pedestrian-deaths-pandemic.html

cars are getting bigger and therefore more deadly!

and EV cars are way heavier - the f-150 lightning is 35% heavier than the ICE one, i think

Yah, the F-150 Lightning is 6500lbs unloaded. Fingers crossed that something comes out of that battery recycling partnership with Redwood Materials.

With all the fracas about Ford shutting down plants because of chips being held up by border convoy protests, I checked with my dealer and prepared for a six-month delay. Nope, eight weeks out - which is a couple weeks earlier than the initial estimate. I received my VIN number last week and through Ford's tracker site I can watch individual submodules arrive.

Would love to see the 6000lb limit enforced in the ev era

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/08/california-s-secret-suv-ban.html

The front end of the new GMC Yukon. For reference, I'm 6'1". The top of the hood is nearly up to my shoulders. pic.twitter.com/Ls7HVzif9N

— AJ LaTrace (@ajlatrace) February 19, 2022

ban cars, but if we cant get that, ban tall cars (or just put a $4000 tax on a car for every inch they go over x inches) idk but this is stupid and this is texas everywhere, just a bunch of punisher skull blue lives flag coal rollers terrorizing everyone bc they dont know how to dance/cant talk good/have an indistinct jawline/whatever other tangle of nagging insecurities leads someone to buy a truck like this