why don’t you drive an EV?

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

unclear imo i reckon theyre counting scooters and idk ski lifts

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-03/hertz-htz-selling-electric-cars-ends-its-failed-tesla-bet
https://archive.ph/uyTuG

In the field, everything started looking different from what was on the spreadsheets. Unlike EV owners comfortable with the idea of charging a car battery at home and on the road, business travelers and vacationers suffered from range anxiety and didn’t want the hassle or worry of having to find a charger in the wild. Rudy Gardner, who as president of Teamsters Local 922 represents Hertz workers at Washington, DC’s Dulles and Reagan National airports, says travelers after a long flight would arrive at those Hertz locations to find that Teslas were the only vehicles available. “People didn’t want to charge them,” he says. “At the end of the night that’s all we had left, so they’d go to Avis.”

Lack of demand was such a problem that Scherr started a program where Hertz agreed to share certain data on EV rentals with cities such as Atlanta, Denver and New York so they’d install more charging stations. Other deals gave customers who rented Teslas for three days an extra day free or offered free charging to anyone who returned an EV with at least a 30% full battery. The company even made symbolic efforts, like donating an EV to a New York technical school for mechanics to learn how to repair it. None of it made a difference.

There were other charging issues, too. While the company had installed its own charging network as part of the electrification push that started in 2021, some older airports, such as New Jersey’s Newark, don’t get enough power from the electricity grid or lack the infrastructure to support the number of so-called Superchargers that Hertz needed to get EVs back on the road in a half-hour or less. Once a Tesla was returned to those locations, Hertz employees often had to drive them for miles to find a Supercharger, which added yet more expense.

Early in 2023, another warning light flashed. Delays due to repair were increasing across Hertz’s entire fleet, and collision costs were jumping, too, but initially neither Scherr nor anyone else could explain why. It wasn’t for at least another quarter that his team broke down the aggregate data and showed the board that the culprit in both cases were Teslas. With electric motors and drivetrains, Teslas were indeed cheaper to maintain than a traditional car, as Wagner and O’Hara predicted in their financial models. The problem was how often they crashed. Newbie Tesla drivers who weren’t used to the car’s instantaneous acceleration and immediate braking were running into obstacles or getting rear-ended, sometimes even before they left the rental lot. Hertz’s Teslas got into accidents four times more often than the company’s other vehicles. Unlike major automakers, Tesla doesn’t have an extensive network of franchised dealers to help with service and repair, leaving owners subject to the company’s availability and schedule. Some of Hertz’s Teslas were idled for extended periods as a result. “They couldn’t get parts, even simple things like an outside mirror,” says Alex Rojas, the business agent representing Hertz workers for Teamsters Local 222 in Salt Lake City. “They just sat there for weeks not getting rented and not making money.”
When Hertz was able to get its Teslas fixed, the costs were exorbitant compared with those of repairing other makes. A radar assembly for the Autopilot driver-assist system can cost $1,500 to replace and as much as $3,000 to calibrate. Many Teslas had to be junked altogether, because a crash could result in a permanent misalignment of the body panels or because the risk of battery damage made them uninsurable. That, combined with the higher rate of accidents than on Hertz’s other vehicles, led to a spike in repair bills. In 2023, Hertz reported the cost of operating its vehicles was $5.5 billion, up 13% from the previous year and 39% from 2021, partly because of collision and damage.

Interesting, thanks. A guy from a car rental place in the UK told me they only rented out Teslas to people who'd driven them before... this was a couple of years ago.

wondering now what exactly happens to "junked" Teslas, do they just go straight in a landfill or is there any kind of recycling/reclamation?

saved in a warehouse to be ferried to mars for the colonists to drive

The problem was how often they crashed. Newbie Tesla drivers who weren’t used to the car’s instantaneous acceleration and immediate braking were running into obstacles or getting rear-ended,

ridiculous that a car run on software hasnt isnt tuned to not do this stuff, you could have a performance drive mode if you want it to be like that but normally its just not desirable behavior

wondering now what exactly happens to "junked" Teslas, do they just go straight in a landfill or is there any kind of recycling/reclamation?

― I painted my teeth (sleeve), Thursday, April 4, 2024 8:51 AM (thirteen minutes ago)

https://www.wired.com/story/why-teslas-totaled-in-the-us-are-mysteriously-reincarnated-in-ukraine/

ty!

kid in the neighborhood has a tesla and let me drive it once, there is a 'dummy' mode that limits the accel xp

just seems insane that hertz went all-in on EVs without doing some sort of pilot program first

the dummy mode should be the standard mode tho is the thing

we are tesla showroom dummies

It seems insane that *EVs* went all in on EVs without a stable and widely available charging infrastructure. At least in the US.