why don’t you drive an EV?

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?