[canadmos]

Electric Cars Are Outselling Manual Transmissions In America: Report

You read that right: in 2019's third quarter, electric vehicles outsold manual transmissions, Driving.ca reports, citing numbers compiled by J.D. Power research. I knew this day would come.

jalopnik.com

Thanks toshi

Long live el manuel

 

[canadmos]

Srsly - automatic transmissions have always given me the heeby jeebies when I've looked at images of them "exploded":

View attachment 138317

We assemble and manufacture parts for those clutch packs at work....lots of tomfoolery going on in there.


....but now complicate it even MOAR by replacing the torque converter with an electric motor. Boom.

 

[Toshi]

The question is how long can you keep up this lifestyle? And if you stop it, what will the rebound be?

So since Nov 1 or so I've been taking it easy on the fasting and diet restrictions, as in 14 hours fasted (7 PM finishing dinner, eating at 9 AM). Carb count has likely been 100-200 g/day, so not quite standard American diet (SAD for short) but not strict.

On this regimen I've been within 1 lb consistently over the period, flat line. Therefore we know now what I need to keep from rebounding... and it isn't that bad at all.

I'm going to continue this eating at 9 AM bit for a few more days to finish up my carb test experiment, but then will hit it hard. I'll start with an open ended extended fast and then switch to alternate day fasting, with a 6-8 hour eating window every other day. Then it'll be a sprint until Dec 18 judgment day, er, I mean lab test, DEXA, and RMR day.

 

[Toshi]

Cliffs Notes: I still haven't bought anything, but [home lipid testing] is looking pretty feasible, actually! $153 up front costs, and about $2.50/test for lipid panel + glucose.

I just did it. Used Alere Cholestech LDX unit, 20 glucose + lipid panel testing strips (which I should be able to use before their end of February 2020 expiration), and 50 capillary tubes and plungers should be en route soon.

With the higher blood requirement and bulkier unit I think this setup will stay at home. Perhaps I will log during-fast data from the night of Fri Nov 22 onward if all the moving pieces have arrived by then. I have the following week off (and will eat at Thanksgiving) so that’d actually work well for getting data up to 72 hours. Tuesday is a ski day as currently planned.



edit: plan from Nov 22 post dinner onwards, lipid tests at these hour points from finishing dinner:

- 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 24, 28, 36, 42, 48, 60, 66, 72, 100 if fasted through skiing, 108, 114, 120 if still at it

 

[Toshi]

On the range differences due to different wheel choices on the Model 3 Performance. (Quite a bit!)

 

[Toshi]

Electric cars are changing the cost of driving

The economics of driving seven Teslas for 2.5 million miles.

qz.com

Most interesting tidbit from this was one I’d read before (probably about this same fleet). Model X, 330,000 miles, 26% range loss (260 -> 200 miles reported).

That’s acceptable, IMO.

 

[Toshi]

I should get one of these just to see the look of disgust on Nick’s face.






(Actually, I won’t. That’s straight up hideous.)

 

[Toshi]

First family ski day booked. Tuesday, Nov 26.

Child care.

Two full day kids lessons.

 

[Toshi]

Just ordered an item off Amazon that shall be delivered to within my garage. This is via Amazon Key and MyQ integration. I think I get a $20 credit for trying this out.

 

[Toshi]

A few outlets covered that there’s going to be an electric Gelandewagen. So if Toyota doesn’t come through with a PHEV 300 series perhaps there still is hope for a green mainline marque square box vehicle, with headroom and unnecessary off-road chops alike. And a 2” hitch, of course.

Jalopnik made the good observation that the wheelbases of the G-Wagen and the EQC are very close, which may aid in packaging of the pack:

 

[Toshi]

The Rivian R1S might work for something practical and very zoom zooomy.

135 kWh variant, please. 3 seconds to 60, 1 m wading depth, and enough range to make a round trip to the ski mountains without recharging en route.

They have apparently bought the Mitsubishi plant in Normal, IL, and claim production of the SUV and truck starting in 2020. I predict $85k before credits for the 135 kWh version. We shall see if this comes to fruition.

Attn @rideit

Great video. I am more excited about them than before, the Amazon delivery truck collaboration means they have a steady assured revenue stream, and their in house development of almost everything drivetrain related is impressive.

@SkaredShtles will also be interested potentially by the bit from about 6:50 onwards. Not sure if I knew this or not, but they use four motors! Not hub motors but rather motors mounted inboard, each with its own single speed reduction gearbox and a long halfshaft (independently sprung corners, of course). As their Aussie (?) chief engineer notes this can yield many dividends for torque vectoring and traction control.

 

[CBJ]

At the moment the EQC would cost the same as my XC60 but don't think the company would let me change the lease unfortunately. I think it would suite Mercedes well to produce the G-wagon as electric plus I am sure most drives only use it for distances that the battery easily could cover plus its never the only car in the family I am sure at least not for people buying new

 

[CBJ]

Just watched the Rivian video such a cool truck and so many ways. Was missing the self driving info what turns out is level 3 they are aiming for:

Rivian News and Reviews | InsideEVs

Get the latest on new Rivian models including spy shots, first drives, in-depth reviews, concept car photos, new features and more.

insideevs.com

Only thing missing is what they are doing with mass production. I think the only time I have seen Elon humbled is by the task of mass producing cars at scale and at a quality level that meets the competition plus Rivian need to have enough capital to do it. Still crazy to see that it's again an outside of the industry company that manages to develop a much more interesting EV than the established manufactures who still only seem to just replace the drive train vs trying to take full advantage of what an full EV platform can do like Rivian. However working in a old manufacturing company I see the same going where they have an extremely hard time taking in new technology.

 

[Toshi]

I think it would suite Mercedes well to produce the G-wagon as electric plus I am sure most drives only use it for distances that the battery easily could cover plus its never the only car in the family I am sure at least not for people buying new

The cynical view would be that a substantial proportion of G-Wagens are used in LA and similar cities as props, to be seen as one pulls up to a nice restaurant. An EV one would nail that role.

Only thing missing is what they are doing with mass production. I think the only time I have seen Elon humbled is by the task of mass producing cars at scale and at a quality level that meets the competition plus Rivian need to have enough capital to do it.

Agreed. But as I wrote the Amazon contract will be very helpful for them. Plus they got a plant for pennies on the dollar:

Can Illinois out-innovate Elon Musk?

There's plenty of upside for the state if Rivian solves production problems flummoxing other industry pioneers.

www.chicagobusiness.com

On the outskirts of downstate Normal stands Illinois' best shot to latch onto the electrification trend that will, at some point, transform the auto industry.

Plymouth, Mich.-based Rivian acquired a 2.6 million-square-foot former Mitsubishi car factory for $16 million two years ago with plans to crank out electric-powered pickup trucks and SUVs for the luxury market by late 2020. Since then it's picked up an additional $1.55 billion in funding, Amazon has ordered 100,000 delivery trucks, and Normal city officials have rechristened a road previously named for the Japanese automaker as "Rivian Motorway."

 

[rideit]

Attn @rideit

Great video. I am more excited about them than before, the Amazon delivery truck collaboration means they have a steady assured revenue stream, and their in house development of almost everything drivetrain related is impressive.

@SkaredShtles will also be interested potentially by the bit from about 6:50 onwards. Not sure if I knew this or not, but they use four motors! Not hub motors but rather motors mounted inboard, each with its own single speed reduction gearbox and a long halfshaft (independently sprung corners, of course). As their Aussie (?) chief engineer notes this can yield many dividends for torque vectoring and traction control.

Interdasting.
Still a little too pricey for me right now (3 years?) though.

 

[Pesqueeb]

Electric Cars Are Outselling Manual Transmissions In America: Report

You read that right: in 2019's third quarter, electric vehicles outsold manual transmissions, Driving.ca reports, citing numbers compiled by J.D. Power research. I knew this day would come.

jalopnik.com

Thanks toshi

Long live el manuel

I traded a manual for an electric car.

 

[Toshi]

First instance of HW3 (the FSD chip) leading to new tangible features for Tesla owners:

Tesla update forks features for Model 3s built pre/post April 2019

Last week we reported that the latest over-the-air Tesla software update improves driving visualization to detect and render traffic cones. Then on Thursday we also shared a video of a Tesla navigating its way through traffic cones, courtesy of Tesla hacker @greentheonly. Now @greentheonly is...

electrek.co

On the other hand, this new feature is not super useful.

 

[Toshi]

Student loan refinance rates are currently low from a few vendors, at least for 5 year variable products!

(Car loan refinance rates are also down to 2.99% for up to 65 months at DCU. 0.25% lower yet if 35 MPG/MPGe or higher.)

The question of whether one should actually refinance hinges on:

1) Amortization schedule, namely one's current loan's remaining term, initial balance, and interest rate
2) Welcome bonuses (as via White Coat Investor's links)

For the wife + my loan balances and remaining terms going from 41 months left @ 3.25% fixed to 60 months @ 1.81% (albeit variable--ignoring that for now) + the $500 welcome bonus for each account when going through the WCI referral link linked above ==> $2,602.26 in favor of refinancing.

Therefore over a period of a month I'll have refinanced the auto loans, the mortgage (closed 3 days ago), and the student loans alike. Refinance all the things!


Edit: applications done for me + wife. They need manual review, especially since one can't put in a co-signer up front for hers. You want to refinance what on $2,000/year income?!

Edit 2: Earnest doesn't allow for co-signers so she didn't qualify. But SoFi does. Rolling in her 2 loans (SoFi + MyGreatLakes) into 1 SoFi re-refi. Should end up right at 1.81% variable x 5 year term for both of us, me through Earnest, her through SoFi. Being SoFi lowers the ultimate benefit to $2,302.26 as the welcome bonus is lower.

 

[Toshi]

Today's data, day 6:

A few days catchup of data, now day 8:

There are at least two interesting things in this maze of colored lines, IMO:

1) Note that the adage that eating a carb with a fat at the same time slows the carb's absorption is seen to hold true, at least when comparing the green (white bread without butter) and dark blue (white bread with butter) lines.

2) Also note that the medium blue and brown lines are the same thing, repeated with an interval. The shape of each of these curves is pretty consistent but the numbers proper differ. Again recall that handheld glucometers strive for +/- 20% accuracy. That these were different times, the brown one after mountain biking while fasted, could also affect this. But at least the curve shape is similar.

Two more days left per my plan:

11/11: Lara bars
11/12: Hu crackers

Then onto an extended fast from Tuesday dinner through Friday dinner, after which I'll do alternate day fasting and try to stay fairly low carb in general.

 

[Toshi]

Freezing rain and thus an iced up car as I saw a movie. (I left the theater part way through it! Parasite was well executed but just wasn’t something I wanted to see—uncomfortable to see their web of lies built and easy enough to see how it fails in the end.)

316 Wh/mile energy use in this weather (part hot and part cold defroster on the whole time, plus heating the interior from 29 Freedoms ambient to 70), from my baseline of 262 Wh/mile.

 

[6thElement]

Here's your hybrid Model 3 replacement:

 

[Toshi]

Sensus, PHEV, lack of headroom, and pricey!

:nononocat.gif:

 

[6thElement]

Maybe you can find a cheap one out of state

 

[Toshi]

Two more days left per my plan:

11/11: Lara bars
11/12: Hu crackers

So ends my variant of Robb Wolf's 7 day carb test. (Yes, I planned another day but my schedule tomorrow doesn't really allow for it--interviewing a few people in the morning, so I ate the Hu crackers without testing. )

Recall that he only suggests testing at 120 minutes. Per the second FAQ video at the link he suggests "passing" is anything at 115 mg/dl or below. So I did fine with all but cheesecake.

Good job pancreas + insulin response!

Lipid testing gear won't be here for another week or so, then those experiments can commence.

 

[SkaredShtles]

 

[Toshi]

The comparison between the EU mix and the 100% hydro sides shows that about half the carbon cost of a high end BEV crossover is in its manufacturing.

For context, here’s the manufacturing only carbon cost of two representative gas vehicles:

17 tonnes CO2e: Ford Mondeo, medium spec

35 tonnes CO2e: Land Rover Discovery, top of the range

 

[Toshi]

My 3 got the latest software pushed to it tonight. Biggest change was an option to enable regen all the way down to 0 mph, at which point the discs engage and hold.

(Before it’d regen to 5 mph then tail off. One would complete the stop by braking manually.)

This is pretty close to true one pedal driving now. Low speed maneuvering is a bit awkward but I’ll get used to that.

 

[Toshi]

For @stoney (already relayed to @Pesqueeb ):

When you file your CO taxes at colorado.gov/revenueonline the instructions will be to upload the CO Dealer's Bill of Sale for a Motor Vehicle when claiming the Innovative Motor Vehicle Credit.

Upload this as they ask… but don't stop there. You'll also need to upload the invoice from the dealer. Upload this as well else you'll delay your return being accepted for ~8 weeks. I know this from experience.

The rationale for this is that the state wants to verify that the dealer didn't front you the credit, as they're allowed to do under the current iteration of the law. Recall that the prior wouldn't let this happen but also was $6k, not $5k, and allowed for used cars to be eligible if one could prove they were never registered in CO before. And then the really early one allowed for BEV motorcycles as well…

 

[CBJ]

Sensus, PHEV, lack of headroom, and pricey!

:nononocat.gif:

That is a good looking car though but for that amount of money there are better cars. You dislike the Sensus that much? or is more just that the Tesla is that much better. In daily use I have no complaints about the sensus but can easily see it lacking compared to Tesla.

 

[Toshi]

That is a good looking car though but for that amount of money there are better cars. You dislike the Sensus that much? or is more just that the Tesla is that much better. In daily use I have no complaints about the sensus but can easily see it lacking compared to Tesla.

Yes, I really disliked Sensus. The number of taps to change the temperature, or to turn on the steering wheel or seat heat... ridiculous.

 

[Toshi]

https://twitter.com/polizeiberlin/status/1193158620873138176

Before:

After:

 

[CBJ]

Yes, I really disliked Sensus. The number of taps to change the temperature, or to turn on the steering wheel or seat heat... ridiculous.

Your's sound different than mine then. Temperature and seat heat is always accessible at the bottom of the screen. Seat heat is just tap and it's on and temperature is tap and then slide or tap plus or minus. Don't have wheel heat.

 

[Toshi]

With the wheel heat everything added one more tap and then a tap on the submenu, not at the bottom any more. Required more time in general and more eyes off screen time to aim. Having the landmark of the bottom of the screen is key.

 

[CBJ]

With the wheel heat everything added one more tap and then a tap on the submenu, not at the bottom any more. Required more time in general and more eyes off screen time to aim. Having the landmark of the bottom of the screen is key.

The price for being a fancy boy with heated steering wheel

 

[Toshi]

New Rivian video. Most of this doesn’t look CGI to me, tank turns possibly excepted.

Two screenshots from it of note:

Note the two front facing Lidar…

A look at the underside.

I don’t see a steering mechanism so this is presumably the rear. CNCed control arms show that they’re still a ways from production-intent, but those control arms look nice and beefy with good droop travel. Air bags at all four corners.

And note the one motor per wheel layout: the way I parse this image, the motors are oriented with their output shafts near the midline, the power flow going through the gear reduction and flipping 180 degrees to those half shafts then headed out to the hubs.

 

[Toshi]

So the Rivian R1S really does look great from a technological standpoint. I even like how it looks. And I am the target buyer 100%... but I don't see myself pulling that particular trigger, because math.

The R1S will start at $72,500 + destination + TTL, for the 105 kWh version. For my skiing uses I'd definitely want the 130 kWh version, but could pass on the 180 kWh monster. Let's call the 130 kWh version $85,000 + the above fees. The CO and Fed tax credits in 2020 or more likely 2021 would probably cover sales/use tax, so let's work with an even $85k here.

How much your $100K car will depreciate over time gives some decent blanket rule figures on depreciation: 25% in first year, 9% in second, 7.9% in third, 8% in fourth. I don't know why it jumped in this year--I didn't come up with this. Let's assume that I'll keep it for four years, to be generous to me.

Anyway, back to the numbers: at the end of 4 years projected residual for a generic gas powered $100k vehicle would be 49.9%, and I have no reason to believe that EVs will depreciate at a lesser rate. So $85,000 * 50.1% / 48 months == $887/mo in depreciation. (At 36 months it'd be $994/mo, $1,211/mo at 24 months.)

That's actually a bit less at 48 months than I'd guessed as a gut reaction from the first two years. The point still stands that that's a fair chunk of change for something capable, quick, and electrified as opposed to the capable, not quick, dino juice powered default option.

But what about gas/energy costs? Let's say I drove 10,000 miles per year in the 15 MPG Land Cruiser at $2.75/gallon, ignoring maintenance and oil changes. That'd be $1,833 in gasoline. Rivian is claiming 310 miles of range for their 130 kWh variant, and that works out to be 436 Wh/mile. At 12.5 cents/kWh as a year round average and 90% charger efficiency on the car that's $606 paid to my electricity utility, so over the course of a year I'd save $102.25 per month. (Then again the expensive new car would likely be close to that much more per month to insure...)

Cliffs Notes: Expensive vehicles are expensive due to their depreciation. The marginal savings in running such an electric beast do not offset this.

 

[CBJ]

You want it and you should buy it.

 

[Toshi]

You want it and you should buy it.

That may win out ultimately, too. How about this?

I test drive one. I do a 3.0 second 0-60 pull. I play around with tank steer (it can do that because again one motor per wheel! how cool is that?).

Then I decide.

 

[CBJ]

lol the force is strong is this one.

 

[Toshi]

Whoa. Maybe I will be able to retire some day! From the wife just now

I was thinking.... I will keep Christmas small. What if we tell the girls Hawaii is their Christmas present? They will be excited. There’s basically nothing they need. I’ve got a matching outfit for the three and then maybe we pick one thing off their wishlist from us and a couple books, plus something from Santa of course.

Of course, implicit in this is that "Hawaii" is the 5 of us (+ potentially MIL and other family yet) in Maui for a week in March, ostensibly as I attend a work related conference.