The Car thread
- Thread starter 6thElement
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That actually looks better than the real car.
Has anyone come closer to figuring out the environmental impact and overall carbon footprint for the average electric vehicle over its lifetime? Owners are quite smug they're helping, but I am not convinced.
Lots of a vehicle's footprint is in the making, from mining and processing and forming raw materials to shipping it to its point of sale, no? Maintaining an older vehicle for significantly longer and simply not making a new one seems like a complementary solution to creating more efficient vehicles for the future. Especially when the long term environmental and even social costs of adequate batteries remain unknown...from production and the attendant need for some pretty nasty and problematic raw materials (so I have read, no expert on any of this) to their disposal.
I’ll dig out a reference later but yes, even if your EV electrons come from coal burning, from memory at average milages the EV is positive after ~7 years. With green electrons it comes down to two or three years. However this will change even better as green steel production ramps up. Batteries aren’t as bad as generally thought as most (~80%) car battery lithium comes from Australian mines where environmental impacts are limited.
There is certainly an argument for keeping old cars on the road vs. buying new ICE but scientifically the pressing issue for the environment is just to stop new CO2 getting into the atmosphere as fast as possible. Cars will, unfortunately, keep being produced, so absent real socially driven changes in economic direction (ha!) choosing a car that doesn’t add it’s own extra CO2 is the best thing an individual can do. Even better is to introduce new ones into the second hand market (buy a second or third EV!)
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I am always surprised by what the Rav4 can go through. Its not pretty. But I always make it home. I beat the piss out of this thing. 3 sheets of plywood on the roof. All the tools. 3 bags of cement and 2 of sand.
i forget what state it was i saw a rooftop tent deployed on the top of a toyota camry at a rest stop...
This. What's the environmental impact if electric vehicle owners treat them like an iPhone; disposable when the next model comes along?
I guess the used market will benefit from those, but consequences of a battery going bad post warranty is pretty high still.
I would argue this is actively good at the moment; as above, unless capitalism itself gets regulated at an currently inconceivable level, cars will continue to be produced, ICE or EV. Consumers signalling they want more new EVs and secondhand EVs entering the market is the best outcome we can hope for in this case.
The bad battery issue gets less and less all the time. It’s certainly already less of an issue than in 2015 already. Also I had understood that in the US there is a federally-mandated unconditional 100,000 mile / 7 year battery warranty since a little while? Some manufacturers (Hyundai) offer lifetime guarantees too.
Luckily for us all, Chinese EVs seem pretty good so far.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/opinion/electric-vehicle-climate-battery.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/opinion/electric-vehicle-climate-battery.html
How else do you think Matthew McConaughey gets to such remote destinations for filming?
Been following evs on the fully charged channel for the last while. Nice to see interesting specimens coming out of china and iterating quickly. I see them coming out ahead in the next 10+ years while we say goodbye (again) to some legacy brands.
I have been watching that show for a while too. Difficult not to get an EV if you watch it.
The Corvette forum did price watching with the C7, too. There will still b jackasses with more money than smarts that will pay whatever, but still.
GT3.R 
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Corvette Racing Going Global in 2022, Introduces C8 Z06 GT3.R for 2024 - Corvette: Sales, News & Lifestyle
Chevrolet and Corvette Racing are going global with the team split with the No.3 C8.R racing in IMSA and the No. 64 racing in the FIA WEC.
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VW powered GS built for Duke boy jumping. Awesome.
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1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Replica | F154 | Kissimmee 2022 | Mecum Auctions
1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Replica presented as Lot F154 at Kissimmee, FL
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I've been running into that wall a bit lately. My mom has sold her place in France, bought a place in rural Ontario, and will be moving back to Canada in about a months time. Now that we have turned our attention to getting her a car here, the topic of BEV vs ICE came up. It sucks that were are still at a place where the only (real) options are small subcompacts (Leaf, Bolt), ludicrously priced luxury vehicles, or vapourware (Kona EV, Kia Soul).
And as great as I think the Model 3 is, she needs a hatch back (she's coming with a whole frickin' menagerie of animals - 5 cats, 4 dogs, and 2 ponies). The hatchback is so the dogs can ride with her from time to time. Tesla really needs to get their act together to build their hatchback.
But I digress. I don't know what the biggest segment for automobile sales are (outside the F150), but I have to think compact family vehicles must be a significant portion of sales. I really with manufacturers would hurry up and start offering reasonably prices vehicles in that segment. I can't see myself getting anything with less space than my CX-5, but don't want to fork out $70,000 for a Model Y. I even think $50,000 for the ID4 is too much...
I'm completely with you. The pandemic isn't helping things, but I get the distinct impression that the established car companies really don't want to do this thing, so they'll toy around over there in the corner while their bread and butter remains unchanged. I can't think of anything that really fits the bill for your mom. Was in a similar boat in 2019. What we wanted didn't exist as an ev or hybrid... i.e. a smallish car, 4-wheel drive for winters. The prices they're asking on existing cars are pretty eye-watering and firmly in the luxury segment. I know most people don't think about the price of their vehicle, just what their monthly payment will be (which is a trap)... but holy hell, how much for a basic car?! 50k?! Yeah, this isn't the way forward.
Just looked up the crosstrek hybrid. $44k in quebec (with incentives applied). $44k!!!
Also, every time I think about cars, evs and the like, it's just f'ing depressing. The antidote has been taking every opportunity to walk or bike.
I keep thinking someone is going to eat Tesla's cake if they don't come in at a better price point. It's been years and it hasn't happened. They haven't needed to lower their price - in fact, they've raised it and have chosen to only build the higher priced trims in some instances. Maybe it will be the chinese that will force this. Saw my first BYD in town a couple weeks ago, as a taxi.
Yes, even the model Y is a large car - it can carry 7 people! But again, north americans love to buy massive vehicles.
I think medium and small would be a start... so far most EV options seem to be large and larger.
Speaking of the Model Y. I just priced one online. $74,990 (excluding tax), and estimated delivery. June 2022.
With tax, we're looking at roughly $87,000! But you know, $250 due now.
no midsize EVs and when an older MFG brings one to market, it's always priced to compete with tesla rather than undercut it. I think everybody is trying to cash in first before the volume comes and the bottom drops out. There's no way in hell a model 3 should cost $45k, but it does....and nobody is bringing a competitor to market that costs what it shuold.
How's it look IRL?
I honestly didn't take too much note of it at first as it just looked like a truck to me, more of a Honda Ridgeline than a proper 'Merican truck but still trucky. Wasn't until I saw the unusual headlights that I noticed it was a Rivian.
Haven't looked at them in quite a while to see if they've changed the drivetrain, but the original hybrid was a waste of space.
How can it carry 7 normal-sized persons?
This is why I wrote normal-sized, as in adults, not obese, not skinny.
But I agree, reasonable priced, workhorse-like cars are needed. I do not need all that fancy shit, give me something that drives reliably and can carry all my toys over a longer distance and I am in.
Photoshop.
On that note, I too went and had a look on their site, as I hadn't heard that they had made that configuration available in Canada yet.
Turns out it is, and they have a picture of it to prove it:
but my questions are:
- how to you get into those seats?
- where do ones legs go?