No shit, in my small town in Nebraska, there is a guy with one of those 4 wheel steer GM pickups. I don’t know him, but those trucks are easy to spot. It is pretty clean and I really want to know if the rear steer still works.
Electric Cars -- anyone own one?
- Thread starter muleman69
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If your use “fits” one, then they seem to be nice to own. My son owned a Toyota Prius hybrid. Him and his wife live about 25 miles from work. They can plug them in at their offices and have a second vehicle for driving distances. They had it for 5 or so years and never had a problem with it. Maybe they were in the group of “lucky ones”…….. I always said I’d never own one, but after seeing and ride in it for 5 years, I started thinking about getting one. My life style would fit one pretty well. Only concern that I had was what to do if the battery went bad and I had to replace it???
ronsatspokane
Gold $$ Contributor
This is the problem in a very well articulated nutshell. Ask people where the electricity comes from? How much is lost on the way to their house? What the carrying capacity of the grid is? Then ask them if they are willing to build more dams or nuclear plants to satisfy their need for electricity? Then ask them if those electric generation facilities can be built in their back yards.
hoz53
Gold $$ Contributor
they have the electric semi tractors for that.
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Got a new '22 Honda Accord hybrid. First auto transmission for me OR wife. We bought it as a car to visit Gkids. Our stick shifts get old,pretty fast in traffic when visiting them. And the Accord is way bigger than anything else in its class,which translates to hauling the kids.
We're in a mild climate area,extremes at both ends of the thermometer..... ain't real conducive to getting the most out of these cars. We like the low 60's highway mpg,and the big interior/trunk. And the styling is nice enough.....
We're in a mild climate area,extremes at both ends of the thermometer..... ain't real conducive to getting the most out of these cars. We like the low 60's highway mpg,and the big interior/trunk. And the styling is nice enough.....
Had a Prius Hybrid the first year they came out--some minor glitches initially but since I was driving 200+ miles/day commuting to and from work I took the chance on it. Had it for 10 years, put 285,000 miles on it before the battery went kaput (along with numerous other things) my trusted repair shop said they could put it back to running shape for 6k but the book value was less than $1000 -donated it to a charity for a piddling deduction on my taxes but all in all I was extremely happy for a COMMUTER car. Averaged 43mpg over its lifetime.
Would I go full electric-no way
Hybrid-absolutely
Too many issues regarding charging, range, and cold weather
If--If I lived in the city, drove 10 miles daily and was interested in virtue signaling -sure. I don't and what others think of me is irrelevant.
Just my experiences and thoughts.
Gary
I had a Ford CMax Hybrid for a couple yrs, good mpg, decent comfort, etc. A good car for a grocery getter, errands, etc. Wife liked it for about 3 months, then all of the gauges, and such got old, didn't "like" it anymore. LOL. Then it started going into a "deep sleep" mode if you didn't drive it every day or so. This deep sleep mode means NO lights come on when you open the doors to get in like most cars do. Only way to "wake" it up was to boost the gas engine, which was easy to do, BUT a PITA. The tow services that came used those small tablet sized battery packs to boost it, so I bought one to keep in the car for those "sleepy" times instead of waiting the hour or 2 for the tow service to come. Never got to use the battery pack as I also got tired of hearing the wife complain about the car, so I got rid of it. Still have the battery booster pack tho.
Well, I think I owned the volt for 2.5 years? And it was great. Since it has a backup gas motor it solves all of everyone’s range anxiety issues. My families teslas I talked about started with a 3 in 2019 and they now have another 3 and a y.
if you do long road trips in your car you obviously need to work around the supercharger system with a Tesla, or have something that’s dual fuel like the volt. I’m not sure about charging a non Tesla on a long road trip, don’t have experience there.
none of our cars has a single maintenance/reliability issue. None of their teslas have fit and finish problem, none had “new car” issues (warranty issues).
personally I’ve never ran out of gas in my life and I find it to be a pointless argument if you have any planning ability
a lot of it depends on how you would use your vehicle. If you commute on a stable and predictable trip that is short enough to be say <70% of total range I don’t think you’ll see an issue.
as far as economics, you can loook up calculators that use your average mileage and your electricity costs to tell you how much you will be paying. Do your due diligence and make sure it’s worth it in the long run for you. My work offers free charging so it’s a simply calculation for me… 0$ is less than current gas prices, or past, or future lol.
for performance, some are nothing special especially normal cars converted to being plug ins like fusions, Prius, etc. but the ones designed to be ev are usually really fun and quick at low mph from the heaps of torque. The upper model teslas are flat out fun. My BIL has a top model 3 and it will pin you in the seat and hold you there like my 500hp trans am would, and requires *zero* personal ability to make it hook. Being awd and the advanced traction control it just goes. I watched a gutted model S performance when a bracket at street car takeover years ago and it’s repeatability was truly incredible. Total cheat code, every hit was exactly the same time
I have a 4wd dual motor cybertruck on preorder, when Elon gets around to building it one day.
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My Son and a buddy were hiking up in the Catskills on the "other side" of a big ski resort mountain. Guy in a Tesla Model S approaches them and asks where is a charging station and where is the resort. He's just about empty. It's all woods and an hour drive around to the civilized side. Later they were celebrating a nice day in a bar over on the ski side of the mountain and that Model S goes by - on a flatbed!
CharlieNC
Gold $$ Contributor
The heavy metals required to manufacture these batteries are quite nasty, and require tons of ore. Much comes from third world countries, essentially using slave labor. Tremendous energy needed to refine, water pollution, green house gas, etc. don't make this the green utopia like AOC is pushing.
Yes, most Evs use regenerative braking to recharge.
Energy loss is unavoidable, you will never be able totally recharge something without an input of energy somewhere, and solar is not at the ability to recharge enough to create the loop from merely a roof sized panel.
but yes, they do recharge from braking, even inexpensive ones do, I could go down a mountain in the volt and watch my electric range increase from the regen braking
Energy loss is unavoidable, you will never be able totally recharge something without an input of energy somewhere, and solar is not at the ability to recharge enough to create the loop from merely a roof sized panel.
but yes, they do recharge from braking, even inexpensive ones do, I could go down a mountain in the volt and watch my electric range increase from the regen braking
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I don't know if you remember the car hauling freighter that caught fire and burned in the Atlantic Ocean. It eventually sunk and the cause of the fire battery failure from the electric cars. So now there are thousands of cars and a ship polluting the ocean with all the oil and fuel leaking from them into the water. The ship had hundreds of thousand of gallons of fuel onboard. The danger from a battery fire aside, how can they be so green if they are so dangerous, there are only 2 recycle facilities in the USA to recycle the batteries according to CNN. I think that a tesla pulling my 18 foot trailer with the 2910 ford tractor and bush hog onboard is not going to go very long between charges.
It's a new version of NIMBY. We're OK with it if someone else does the dirty work, out of my sight. Same as oil drilling. We're find buying it from countries that do it in a much less environmentally friendly way.
moondog
Gold $$ Contributor
If manufacturers would get their collective heads out of their ass and "standardize"
battery dimensions and contacts. A simple replacement pack, charged up would be swapped out on road trips. In a drive in mobile station or station. Never get out of your car, 10 minute swap, pro rate battery life. It's done in Asia, Ain't that hard. But this is Merica.
battery dimensions and contacts. A simple replacement pack, charged up would be swapped out on road trips. In a drive in mobile station or station. Never get out of your car, 10 minute swap, pro rate battery life. It's done in Asia, Ain't that hard. But this is Merica.
old_heli_logger
Gold $$ Contributor
The only way electric cars will ever work is to standardize the size and shape of the battery pack and make it hot-swappable...just like your cordless drill.
Oops, moondog beat me to it...
Oops, moondog beat me to it...
muleman69
USMC -1st marine Div. RVN
How about a back up battery like a reserve on a gas rig? Say 30 miles worth?
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