why don’t you drive an 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