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Electric cars...

Would you buy an electric car?

  • No thank you

  • Sign me up!

  • If I must

  • I don't drive, thus I really don't care anyway

  • I am interested, but until there is more reliable technology for long highway trips


Results are only viewable after voting.
I like thinking what a futuristic version of the VW Super Beetle, the Toyota Hilux, Lada Niva, or the Citroen 2CV would look like. If there's ever such a thing as clean fuel (which I doubt, but I didn't think they would invent the smartphone either) it might be interesting.
I'm hoping to end up doing what I said a few pages ago & starting the build on my own electric car, because they don't make what I'm looking for yet.
It's really getting to where I own a car more as an appliance than anything else, and, like with a household appliance, I don't think I'd hesitate to scrap it if I could find a different, longer-lasting, more economical way to do the same job.
I've considered converting my car, right down to building the motor myself. It's not out of the question but I don't have faith I could get it balanced well enough.

The good thing about DIY is that you can retro fit whatever takes your fancy as far as propelling the vehicle goes.

I decided that right now it's not something I'm going to do as I'm not physically up to it or wealthy enough.

My car is pretty light, just a little over 750kg but getting power to weight ratio may be a little challenging when it comes to batteries.

But I think I'm going to wait it out as if I'm right, battery powered vehicles may not be the future and in that case a hydrogen fuel cell might be worth investigating.

But I honestly think ICE will have that last laugh.
 
Point taken,...but,...very, very, few people "beat the road" like this.
In Australia nearly all of us beat the road like this. To be born here and not experience some of the country is unAustralian. And don't think you're going to come across another small town every 50 miles or so, this is not the US or Europe.

If you're only sticking to the main highways there are fuel stops every 500 Km, that's as good as it gets. If you want to see anything worth looking at you need to carry extra fuel with you and you need to cart water, recommended 20 litres per person per day.

EVs are practical up and down the densely populated east coast, but there's nothing to see there except suburbs and cities.
 
In Australia nearly all of us beat the road like this. To be born here and not experience some of the country is unAustralian. And don't think you're going to come across another small town every 50 miles or so, this is not the US or Europe.

If you're only sticking to the main highways there are fuel stops every 500 Km, that's as good as it gets. If you want to see anything worth looking at you need to carry extra fuel with you and you need to cart water, recommended 20 litres per person per day.

EVs are practical up and down the densely populated east coast, but there's nothing to see there except suburbs and cities.
I believe I mentioned this not once, but a few times,..."use the correct tool for the job". I think this may have been missed in translation,...but at no point did I suggest that EVs are the correct tool for the job in all use cases.

Yes, my perspective is from the US,...where most cities are bumper-to-bumper going nowhere,...or 4-6 lanes of busy highway traffic,...city streets, stop-and-go, congested, millions of vehicles packed together. An EV is perfect in these situations where air pollution is a legitimate and real health risk,...and the total cost of transportation will significantly decrease. EVs simply are a less expensive option for most people,...despite the higher purchase cost. I've opened up $500/mo in my family budget. The CoVID lockdowns a few years ago,...people in cities had never seen stars in the skies until then.

Statistically, the vast majority of people in the US,...99% of the use case is short commute,...to and from the market, school, work, etc. This emphasizes this reality that MOST people in this context will never need a charging station,...I almost exclusively use a 12A charging cord,...the same amount of power as most household vacuum cleaners. These ideas of "strain on the grid" is highly inaccurate because these scenarios are based upon everyone using these high-powered charging stations on a daily basis,...and it's just not the case.

Another use case is a family having an EV as a "commuter car",...and another large ICE vehicle for cargo or those long road trips once-in-a-while. You don't need to drive a large heavy gas-guzzling vehicle for commuting.

I understand that change is a difficult thing for many people. I remember when Ford decided to change from pushrod 5.0L V8s to the modular 4.6L 3-4 valve V8's. For years, the Mustang performance community lost their minds,...because the first 5 years or so, the old pushrod V8s outperformed the new ones. Now,...you can put 2000+HP to those modular engines,...the old pushrod V8s would split the block at about 450-500HP. The point being,...when we speak of EVs, where they are now and compare,...we have to put this into perspective. In 5-15 years, the current lot of EVs will be quite antiquated on multiple metrics.

Australia, for cross-country transportation, may have more use for hydrogen power,...or some other tech,...or,...you may be using internal combustion engine technology for many years to come. As you point out,...you have a totally different use case.

My perspective and context,...having been there, done that,...my use case,...an EV is far and away the superior choice.
 
This is some of the EV type stuff I think is awesome--early technology reimagined, with modern propulsion, making some delightfully sketchy flying garbage. And yes, Mr. Sripol is still alive (he's making more craziness.) He's built a couple freelanced light planes, and one had a gasoline engine in "pusher" configuration. Others were electric.




Meanwhile, as this guy is out there doing a Gen Z impersonation of "The Great Waldo Pepper," I think it's a bit of a hint to us--if he's doing this sort of stunt with toy airplane motors, battery banks he's stuck together with parts ordered off the Internet, and foamboard, I think we can expect to see fascinating things with electric locomotion in the future.

Yes, he crashed one of them--little bit of a hard landing & broke one strut of the landing-gear, but that's fine. A good landing is one you walk away from; a great landing is when you can use the airplane again.
 
Oh, and another example--
If young Mr. Singh ever puts these kits into production I'm getting one for the old Raleigh. I do hope he makes them available in the United States; this would replace the car for about 85% of my actual traveling, and maybe more if I play my cards right.
I wonder if I can run that torque through the 3spd transaxle and have a manual transmission option...

 
Speaking of electric aircraft, have you seen the electric vertical take off and landing aircraft? Imagine your typical hobbyist drone, now, a lot larger, with 1-6 passengers, flying from rooftop to rooftop. An inner city air taxi service.


 
I still never got a single thank you for any subsidy I contributed to.
 
I still never got a single thank you for any subsidy I contributed to.
Did you buy gasoline, diesel, or natural gas lately? That industry is far and away more subsidized and has been for decades. Fossil Fuel Subsidies $6 trillion globally in 2022, and it's going up from there. In the US, it is about $20 billion last year. If you think your monthly budget for fuel and heating are high now, imagine what it would be without the subsidies.

EDIT: COP26: How much is spent supporting fossil fuels and green energy?

 
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Did you buy gasoline, diesel, or natural gas lately? That industry is far and away more subsidized and has been for decades. Fossil Fuel Subsidies $6 trillion in the US alone in 2022,...and it's going up from there. If you think your monthly budget for fuel and heating are high now,...imagine what it would be without the subsidies.

You could pay down the debt pretty quickly if the US no longer "propped up" the fossil fuel companies. We could spend $6 Trillion on a lot of other things.

Either way,...we all pay,...one way or another. Now, the other option,...remove ALL the subsidies for everything,...no favorites in the market,...and watch everything collapse. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

That's surprising, there are no subsidies for gasoline, diesel or gas here. It's just for electric cars.
 

Awesome. The world tends to follow the Scandinavian countries on a lot of policy. The problem here is that very, very few laws have an "expiration" date on them and to try to change a law is next to impossible. Perhaps the US needs to investigate how Norway was able to negotiate and navigate all of this.

I am not convinced that the auto companies need those subsidies here in the US.

EDIT: Looks as if 2023 is going to be the year in the US where we divest. The President recently signed a bill.
 
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Let's start with the IMF.
Na, I want no parts of that.
I'm not real fond of working just to hand it over to others

The first part that blew it for me was the banner about climate change at the top of the page.

To me, that is selling bad science in order for further an agenda.
I will not enter into a debate about something I have been researching for decades, so please leave it at that.

I wish you the best of luck with your electrics.
 
Let's start with the IMF.
Na, I want no parts of that.
I'm not real fond of working just to hand it over to others

The first part that blew it for me was the banner about climate change at the top of the page.

To me, that is selling bad science in order for further an agenda.
I will not enter into a debate about something I have been researching for decades, so please leave it at that.

I wish you the best of luck with your electrics.
;) Forget about the climate change "agenda" or electric vehicle perspective, the point being, there's a lot of money being spent to prop up the fossil fuel industry.
 
Perhaps the US needs to investigate how Norway was able to negotiate and navigate all of this.

I don't know, Norway is so tiny and the US is so big. I'm pretty sure you guys shouldn't look at what we are doing. :) We're just rummaging around in a small potato field next to the North Pole and the US is our big brother and protector. Has been since the 1940s. You guys are able to handle it without us I think.
 
I don't know, Norway is so tiny and the US is so big. I'm pretty sure you guys shouldn't look at what we are doing. :) We're just rummaging around in a small potato field next to the North Pole and the US is our big brother and protector. Has been since the 1940s. You guys are able to handle it without us I think.
Actually, we kind of do in many ways, especially in the medical field. Many of the Scandinavian countries do some top notch record keeping, the data bases are full of information that can be used for retrospective studies, genealogy, etc. and your neonatal medicine is probably some of the best in the world. Your hospitals are doing things we won't see or talk about for another decade.

The US has fallen behind many countries in the world, on a long list of metrics. I love my country, but there's a lot to be desired and can be improved upon. Part of the reason why I am open to a lot of new ideas---there's often a better way, and if Norway has some good ideas to take inspiration from, so be it.
 
There's a new problem with these electric cars. We have many ferries here, some places can only be reached by using a ferry. And now all ferries have banned electric cars. You're not allowed to drive an electric car onto a ferry. Because a fire in an electric car on a ferry is a huge problem and very dangerous. One more thing that makes it difficult to use electric cars.
 
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I don't deny the FUD with all of this, but as with much of it, it is misrepresentative, highly inaccurate, ignorance informing the ignorant, and often the narrative is being fueled by the corporations that have the most to loose as a result of diminished market share. It happens with all new disruptive technologies. We can make quite a list over the years. All I have to say about it is to give it some time. The first few generations or computers and cell phones are nothing compared to today's versions. Time for innovation and competition is needed. Every manufacture has engineers that look at the competition and then say to themselves, "Here, hold my beer." and then comes up with something better.

Like I've said repeatedly, "Use the correct tool for the job." Battery-electric might not be the proper energy source for all vehicles. I don't think that is of any argument, even from manufacturers of EVs. That said, I've been living this life since 2018, and I would never consider going back to an ICE vehicle. Every time I go on vacation and rent a car, I am reminded how antiquated they are, transmissions, exhaust, noise, vibrations, squeaks and rattles, slow computer systems with crappy software, the lack of torque, etc. It doesn't matter how new or luxurious the vehicle, it pales in comparison to what we drive and we always complain. They are a step back in time on a long list of metrics, in MY use case, a daily driver in the midwest of the US. If you have no sense of reference to what I am speaking of, I can understand your cognitive biases.
 
I don't deny the FUD with all of this, but as with much of it, it is misrepresentative, highly inaccurate, ignorance informing the ignorant, and often the narrative is being fueled by the corporations that have the most to loose as a result of diminished market share. It happens with all new disruptive technologies. We can make quite a list over the years. All I have to say about it is to give it some time. The first few generations or computers and cell phones are nothing compared to today's versions. Time for innovation and competition is needed. Every manufacture has engineers that look at the competition and then say to themselves, "Here, hold my beer." and then comes up with something better.

Like I've said repeatedly, "Use the correct tool for the job." Battery-electric might not be the proper energy source for all vehicles. I don't think that is of any argument, even from manufacturers of EVs. That said, I've been living this life since 2018, and I would never consider going back to an ICE vehicle. Every time I go on vacation and rent a car, I am reminded how antiquated they are, transmissions, exhaust, noise, vibrations, squeaks and rattles, slow computer systems with crappy software, the lack of torque, etc. It doesn't matter how new or luxurious the vehicle, it pales in comparison to what we drive and we always complain. They are a step back in time on a long list of metrics, in MY use case, a daily driver in the midwest of the US. If you have no sense of reference to what I am speaking of, I can understand your cognitive biases.

Is it expensive to repair your car? A friend of mine damaged his and it cost around $8 000 to repair it. :fearscream: There was some damage on the underside of it, it could only be repaired by authorized mechanics and it was incredibly expensive. I have driven a few electric cars and so far it hasn't been exciting.
 
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Is it expensive to repair your car? A friend of mine damaged his and it cost around $8 000 to repair it. :fearscream: There was some damage on the underside of it, it could only be repaired by authorized mechanics and it was incredibly expensive. I have driven a few electric cars and so far it hasn't been exciting.
I got rearended in my 2018 Toyota Tacoma. A little crumple in the bumper and bed. Totally drivable. Over $12,000.

My wife got rearended in her 2020 Tesla Model Y, the whole bumper, tailgate, and rear frame. Less than $6000.

So, as far as repair costs, all I can say is that it just depends upon the type of damage.

There are several Tesla repair qualified body shops in our area, and of course, there are several service centers, plus mobile service vans. Plus, they rarely need any service as compared to other vehicles. I can't speak to other auto makers.

Then there is this: Tesla Is US Brand with Lowest Maintenance Cost for its Cars with 10 years of Use, Model S Is #1
 
I got rearended in my 2018 Toyota Tacoma. A little crumple in the bumper and bed. Totally drivable. Over $12,000.

My wife got rearended in her 2020 Tesla Model Y, the whole bumper, tailgate, and rear frame. Less than $6000.

So, as far as repair costs, all I can say is that it just depends upon the type of damage.

Then there is this: Tesla Is US Brand with Lowest Maintenance Cost for its Cars with 10 years of Use, Model S Is #1

One big difference here at least is that I can fix a Toyota Tacoma myself in my garage, But a Tesla has to be taken to a dealer or specialist garage and the prices to get them fixed is through the roof. The parts are very expensive here.
 
One big difference here at least is that I can fix a Toyota Tacoma myself in my garage, But a Tesla has to be taken to a dealer or specialist garage and the prices to get them fixed is through the roof. The parts are very expensive here.
I beg to differ. The 2 examples I gave, you would never have been able to fix in your garage. But you are correct that as a "backyard" mechanic I could do quite a bit of my own maintenance and repairs of my other vehicles, and often did, and saved myself a ton of money. Been there, done that. The electrics, I am not sure that it necessarily costs more than any other vehicle to repair, overall. They are different, that's for sure. However, statistically speaking, you are far less likely to need ANY repair or maintenance with an EV, that is, according to the US national data.
 

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