why don’t you drive an EV?

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