why don’t you drive an EV?

thats how much the tesla 3 was supposed to be, actually costs like 50k lol

actual cybertrucks

https://www.just-auto.com/news/tevva-gets-ev-truck-type-approval-boost/

Renault, Geely and..... Aramco starting a new... *checks notes* combustion engine venture

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/renault-geely-look-bring-aramco-into-engine-venture-sources-2023-01-17/

One way to use those engines would be as a dedicated power generator to supply a charge to a hybrid car's battery system, rather than powering the vehicle directly when the battery charge was low, one of them said.

In that kind of arrangement, gasoline engines could be designed to operate in an "exceptionally efficient mode", one of the sources said.

lmao congrats you just invented the chevy volt!

I got a Tesla!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/cKpZ1LcgiV

— out of context caro yost (@carosnake) January 25, 2023

https://archive.ph/2023.01.30-052139/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-26/how-china-is-quietly-dominating-the-global-car-market

eh thats just manufacturing they need to step up and start exporting some real chinese cars cmon lets see some new cars bring em out

ultimately whats going to make this conversation moot is faster charging once its more like going to the gas station and less like stopping to read a book battery size wont matter, that and charging stations being as plentiful as gas stations

A study looked at driving habits of 333 people for a year: "More than a third of drivers were able to meet 100 percent of their needs with an EV with a relatively small battery, and didn’t need to make any additional trips for the sole purpose of charging" https://t.co/ZID6Lzwn5u

— Alissa Walker (@awalkerinLA) March 2, 2023

I know someone who drives an EV and she says she now regards the idea of gas stations as ludicrous and inconvenient. Every day she wakes up with a full charge that lasts for 200 miles

Imagine if you had to go to a special place to charge your phone

yeah for the most part an ev is way more convenient than a gas car because of that, tho i dont think range anxiety is as overblown as some might argue, and! batteries are way too big right now because charging in the wild sucks

but i do think itll all sort itself out just take a lil time

as a person with, um, some type a qualities, it's not fun seeing my little range bar go down all day if i'm on a longer trip! for sure a portion of it is me being anxious but the other portion is never wanting to deal with public charging until it gets way better.

We've been a two-car family for a little over a year now. We did seriously look at a couple of EVs, which were appealing, but one of the things we wanted out of a second car was a backup in case the older first car was in the shop or otherwise out of the picture. We needed the second car to be able to do the kinds of practical things in a pinch the first car did, mostly related to range. In the end we shopped strategically. The older car will eventually go to my older daughter when she's close to graduating from college, the newer car becomes the older car, and if we get a replacement second car after that it will likely be an EV, because three or four years down the line we figure things will have evolved.

But yeah, honestly, an EV would easily handle most of what we use the cars for, with modest charging needs. It's the exceptions that gave us pause, I guess.

sub-€25K VW EV coming in 2026, and apparently a separate one for less than €20K

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/volkswagen-id-2all-concept-previews-sub-£22k-electric-car-2026

(someone make me supply-chain czar so I can force the issue on govt/corp fleets switching over instead of $125K Moab Mother Ships)

Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup zaps pest control agency’s CO2 emissions by 78%

Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup zaps pest control agency’s CO2 emissions by 78%

(f'ed up the pull quote)

18% of all the power used by the vehicle came from its regenerative braking system.

regenerative braking is so cool, I learned abt it a few years ago. Alternator charging is totally the future.

“To get a car below €25,000 that has no compromises with safety and range is literally impossible at the moment,”

apparently by 2025-26 VW are going to do it by:

- simplifying production options
- scale, sharing about half the design with other cars built at the same plants
- using 200 mile-max lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries instead of pricier and higher-range nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC)

Rip bolt https://arstechnica.com/?p=1934137

seems bad, right? you don't want ev's to be a luxury-only category.

supposedly the equinox ev will come in around the same price point so i don't think chevy is abandoning this category completely

oh didn't know that

american car companies have almost totally abandoned cars its all crossovers suvs and trucks now, and the bolt is a car so

From what I understand, the Bolt's battery tech limited its max charging rate to 55 kW with no way around that. It's a tough sell when most EVs have triple that now.

The bolt was smaller than the Leaf, if that matters. When we were shopping for electric cars that was the big deciding factor for us. I don't think it was impossible to get a kid's car seat in the back seat, but it was really tight.

We're still very happy with the Leaf. Waiting for Toyota to find us a Sienna minivan, which are all hybrid now.

looking into it

Car dealers are superrich, one of the top 5 jobs in the .1 percent of American earners. They are militantly organized and extremely conservative, donating to GOP at a 6 to 1 clip with one of the fiercest lobbying shops on earth. So I went to their annual blowout party weekend…

— Alex Sammon (@alex_sammon) May 30, 2023

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html

mr bean… otm?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/03/electric-vehicles-early-adopter-petrol-car-ev-environment-rowan-atkinson

a lot of the lampposts around here have had charging sockets added to them, which is going to help (although I'm not convinced I've ever seen one in use)

i did have to walk on the road the other day because someone was charging his car from his house with a lead that was crossing the path about a ft off the floor

Thanks for that, TH. My dad is an early adopter and is constantly on at me to ditch my perfectly fine (and not used too much) petrol car for an EV. Imo the best thing you can do is stop buying cars all the time, which is what he does...

with all due respect 2 sr frijol, BEVs are still better from an emissions standpoint even after factoring in cradle-to-grave output after a few years of driving (depending on how many miles you drive ofc) bc of the amount of emissions that are offset in the driving phase of the car's lifecycle.

https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf

that said, ban cars (and ban the ICE ones first)

also this is a good video on all those points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM

that said, the path of american EVs to build bigger badder 'merica-mobiles with enormous batteries and all but abandoning small cars with more modest batteries is undoing some of advantages, and the inflation reduction act's revision of electric car subsidies have effectively wiped out most of the cost savings except for GM, ford, and tesla models

The EX30 Isn't Just Volvo's Cheapest EV — It's The Cheapest Volvo, Period

(looks to be legit great car - would totally consider this if i had to get something in the next year)

ooh that looks nice

no instrument panel no physical controls ipad only

yeah that's a bummer

Hey Google, turn up the air conditioning

“Turning up the volume”

I thought physical knobs were supposed to be far safer? I would really not choose a touchscreen if I had any choice. NB I am also fussy about the font on the dash displays so appreciate I might be a minority here.

knobs def safer carmakers want to shift to an all screen set up cause its easier/cheaper for them to just deal with one interface rather than having to design and manufacture various physical controls, not having an instrument panel above the steering wheel is even worse, obvs more cost cutting

theyve been trying to sell this stuff as new and futuristic technology but i dont feel like most people like it

GIVE ME KNOBS
AND A CD PLAYER PLS

which is not to say that theres no place for screen controls obvs theres only so much space for knobs and buttons so putting the lesser used stuff on screen makes sense, but at the least climate controls volume and so forth should be physical, think theres a tesla that doesnt even have a button on the glove compartment lol

can't tell if car makers genuinely believe that people want something more than a projector for their phone from the car's own entertainment system/UX, or if they're pushing this garbage because someone thinks it's long term subscription revenue.

i think its the business stuff mostly, but also there is a thing where they want electric cars to look futuristic, which hopefully will stop once they become more common

i'm not a tesla historian but i feel like tesla was the first mover here and passed off this cost cutting measure as in fact cutting edge clean sheet redesign futurism, and it's giving air cover for other companies to follow and say 'hey we're no worse than tesla deal with it'

iirc rivian does have some physical controls as a conscious rejection of the tesla philosophy, too bad they're always on the verge of bankruptcy i hope they make it!

i like those rivans but its gonna be tough for all these electric car companies once the big traditional makers start really pumping out the ecars

they're pushing this garbage because someone thinks it's long term subscription revenue

it’s this and they are going to ride it until they can’t no more

i'm not a tesla historian but i feel like tesla was the first mover here and passed off this cost cutting measure as in fact cutting edge clean sheet redesign futurism, and it's giving air cover for other companies to follow and say 'hey we're no worse than tesla deal with it'

Tesla (and Musk) specifically was calling this move "why would you want any of that when cars are going to be self-driving anyway?"