Half price electric cars

[Tulex]

Yep. I'll believe that when I see it. Remember the California ZEV mandate?

I don't think it will happen either, but the point is that's the mindset. It was 10, but Maine pulled out after realizing it wouldn't work.

 

[wattmatters]

I do find it funny how we all (me too) will purchase something like an EV or a solar system so we can get that tax credit.

No tax credits here.

Home EV charging from solar over last 30 days (except for a bit of free energy from the power company last weekend):



Charge a little, often. All done automagically. We did have to cancel a long trip a few weeks back so no need for DC charging.

Sadly no more trips to the servo to be confronted with over priced soft drinks, chips and chocolates after filling up.

Yesterday I built a phone dashboard for the car:



Remotely turning on the aircon to pre-cool the cabin is nice when it's been out in the hot sun.

 

[millsan1]

Diesel pickup trucks were not really a thing in 1978.

Cool story bro

 

[Hedges]

Get a used one. And does a person need a v8 pickup just to get groceries? Many v8 vehicles are $80k + anyway.

Picked up a 99 Suburban for around $3k back when gas prices hit $4 a gallons few years back. Tremendous bang for buck.

Yup, years back I bought a PG&E K2500 8 cylinder turbo Diesel 6.5L with Allison for $3800. 1996, OBD-1 so no smog check, 120k miles, 12 years old.
At the time diesel cost less than regular, now more than premium.
Lots of bang for the buck.

I only drive it to the grocery store if another car in our fleet is down for repair.
("Fleet" spans many decades in years, and many zeros in price & market value.)

 

[SparkyJJO]

That was my original point to taxing the bad instead of credits for the good. Easier to balance the budget.

Problem is who gets to define bad.
Leave my gas car alone.
I love my battery powered weed eater and hedge trimmer. If the battery powered mower existed that I wanted when I needed a mower I would have that too.

What is it with a certain group of people wanting so bad to force their opinions on others? I say, want an EV? Go for it. Im not stopping you. Why do you have this bizarre desire to control what I buy? Seriously, knock it off.

If I could get a cheap EV for those simple short runs then sure I could see doing that. But DO NOT FORCE ME.

 

[ksmithaz1]

A car is worth nothing with no manufacturer. Ask Saab owners how their values held up. Hell my brother pre ordered a Ford Lightning it is the biggest POS on the planet and the Ford dealers won’t even take it on trade towards a diesel F series… It’s worthless…

Subject near and dear to my heart. My biggest issue is it seems everything is at the extremes, EV's are either the savior of humanity, or the sorriest trash ever to travel the roadways.

Electric is somewhat different... None the less it would be troublesome if some mechanical parts were not available if your company goes out of business. This is more troublesome on an ICE, as there are simply more components that are often specific to the manufacturer.

On the lightning front, they are going thru the engineering pains. All this stuff works flawlessly if you keep the vehicle in a garage and the weather is alway between 70-80 degrees, and you plug it in every night and, ... The problems start when the edges hit. The difference with an electric is those pains are often remedied without replacing major components. More often it's software issues, Tesla really struggled with this, other manufacturers have benefited from the physical engineering, you KNOW they tore down some Tesla's at their design centers. I have Hyundai/Kia EV's they've been pretty darn solid thus far, though they have been doing serious EV a bit longer than Ford. My real suprise is that Nissan didn't really jump in. They made a number of innovations. The Lightning is a very innovative vehicle, but like any first gen, first-year vehicle it's not gonna be that great until they figure out all the stuff they screwed up.

 

[SoggyShoes]

Which goes better, the MG or the Fiskars?

View attachment 205422

You do know that the car company Fisker is not related or spelled the same as Fiskars the tool company.

Fisker is a poorly managed automotive company started by Danish automotive designer Henrik Fiskerthat in Southern California and could very well spend almost as much time in the courts as it did making cars.

Fiskars is 375 year old company famous for their scissors, and now yard tools, that was founded in Fiskars Finland in 1649.

By the way I'll take the MG any day. Those are fun little cars!

 

[ksmithaz1]

Turbines only have one moving part and my guess is they are more efficient and that is why we see them also being used in power generation. I don't yet see the future of aviation being propelled by electricity but small drones seem to work for short distances.

(Aircraft) Turbines are EXTREMELY precise. Amazing but incredibly expensive, and use very esoteric materials. Early versions required teardowns/rebuilds/inspections frequently and constantly.

A friend was working on the "Million Dollar" jet, project back in the day, (Eclipse) that was going to use a cruise missile turbine engine. That didn't work out very well because a cruise missile uses a "disposable" turbine engine. It's engineered to make a single thousand mile journey. Oops.

Turbine engines have WAY more than one moving part. Thats like saying electric motors have one moving part... Sort of. Electric motors have fewer moving parts than a turbine engine.

 

[Doggydogworld]

My brother has an F150 hybrid. Best of both worlds. He can cruise around town on electric, then when it runs low or on long trips run on the ICE.

F-150 PowerBoost Hybrid has a tiny battery that could drive it a few miles, slowly, if you accelerate very gently. But there's no way to plug it in, so it never really "runs on electricity". It keeps the battery near 50% SOC and uses it to help with acceleration and to sit at stop lights and crawl around parking lots without the gas engine idling wastefully. The battery recharges via regenerative braking and, if necessary, running the gas engine a bit harder than needed to generate some surplus electricity. F-150 Hybrid 2WD V6 is rated at 25 mpg vs. 21-22 for the non-hybrid 2WD V6 versions. The Hybrid's V6 is tuned for efficiency more than power, but V6 + e-motor together deliver a bit more total power than the equivalent non-hybrid V6.

 

[ksmithaz1]

As of yet, EV's just don't save their owners money except in a handful of short-trip only scenarios where you can always charge from home.

This will always be the case.

Something told to me by a teacher about using the words "always" and "never" comes to mind.

Solar just doesn't save you any money exept in a handful . . .

I think EV's are the future, but would agree wholeheartedly that we are not there yet. IMNSHO the aluminum ion battery will be the game changer, might be something else. If they can double the current range and maintain the price points you will start to see a shift. If I can go 500 miles it becomes irrelevant.

 

[ksmithaz1]

buy brand new car
drive it a few days and drive to your buddy's house
go to charge it on your drive back home
get someones 20 year old battery
don't make it home and get stranded in the middle of aussie desert
kangaroo comes and beats you up

not to mention the maintenance nightmare of the machines lifting those batteries constantly

I don't understand line 4.

 

[clayswen]

I think EV's are the future, but would agree wholeheartedly that we are not there yet. IMNSHO the aluminum ion battery will be the game changer, might be something else. If they can double the current range and maintain the price points you will start to see a shift. If I can go 500 miles it becomes irrelevant.

Yep if an EV can achieve 300-500 miles in all conditions (like North Texas where it is 1000 degrees or negative 10) then sign me up.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Personally I don't want to be riding my butt on a few hundred pounds of grump NMC.

 

[ksmithaz1]

You are saying I can do that? Count me as surprised.

There is some loss but I'd hazard a guess, if I had a full charge on my EV and left it for a year, it would still have 90%. I'm not sure how much extreme cold would affect it, assuming you were not driving it, probably not too much with near zero load. I charged my car to 100% and left it for over three weeks once, I hopped in it was showing 99%. Keeping in mind the car is constantly "on" in a standby mode, and will charge the 12v battery from time to time from the traction batteries if it gets low. YMMV.

 

[OffGridForGood]

The first gen F150-Lightning to me, is not an EV - it is a conversion. They needed to get to market fast, and they did that by starting with the base F150 ICE and changed what they needed to get a working conversion to market ahead of GM.
This would buy them a few years to work on an actual ground up EV version that we will see as the F150 Lightning Gen 2 - I suspect it will not take too long for this to come to market. The Gen 2 will be far better design and will allow a few more years to work on battery selection. For Ford, I am sure they will keep the basic battery case design and installation similar to the first gen, but will go to the battery companies looking for something better. I was excited to see the first F150 Lightnings, but not enthusiastic about those pouch cells. The ICE version has a long history of development and improvements, the EV versions have only just begun, and have a long ways to go to get my money. But I am a patient personallity, I can wait.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Turbines only have one moving part and my guess is they are more efficient and that is why we see them also being used in power generation.

Jet turbines are not very efficient. Aircraft use them because of high power/weight ratios and because they work at higher airspeed than propellers.

Gas turbine power plants are ~35% efficient vs. >50% for large piston generators. "Microturbines" which could almost kinda fit in a car are even worse, around 25% vs. 40%+ for diesels (e.g. VW TDI) or Atkinson cycle gasoline engines (e.g. Toyota Prius).

Gas turbine exhaust is very hot -- lots of wasted energy. Combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) powerplants use this exhaust heat to make steam, which drives a secondary steam turbine. That can push efficiency up toward 60%, but adds a lot more moving parts, complexity and expense. It's way too bulky and exotic for a car. There are some attempts in the lab to use a small secondary steam cycle on diesel semi truck engines to boost efficiency toward 55%. Don't hold your breath on that, though.

 

[ksmithaz1]

And, solar is apples and oranges. Far as I know, people are opting for solar as a choice. Those that see the benefit go for it, others have no interest. No mandates to turn off my grid by 2030 and have solar only.

Unless you want to build a new house in California.

 

[ksmithaz1]

So why aren't more people buying EV's if they are cheaper overall?

There are an awful lot of Tesla's on the road here. In general, at the present time, an EV does not make sense unless you can charge it at home.

 

[ksmithaz1]

Are you sure about that?
I am hearing some Gossip from my old friends in engineering that Musk is having a lot of financial issues.
It would not be surprising considering EV sales have dropped and Starlink/SpaceX is losing money on every Falcon 9 launch with Starlink Satellites.
He is most certainly in the heavy spending phase when it comes to Starlink and he has burned a lot of cash on that Stupid X platform.

Musk is having financial pain, Tesla is generally fine, though it's profit margins must obviously fall with the prices.

 

[ksmithaz1]

BYD sells their cheapest car (Seagull)in China for $9700. And they make a profit on that.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/22/byd-seagull-ev-puts-global-auto-execs-politicians-on-edge.html

Seems to have a 30 or 38kWh LFP battery using their blade design

BYD Seagull - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Um, Yee -- ess -- ish. Not gonna be able to sell that here or in Europe. Once you get all the safety items in play, ... 30KWH is ~120 miles. So you have a circa 2010 Nissan Leaf for $25K