[Rap]

I can’t agree more with you. I have pulled out some old spikes and sharpened them. For better grip of course! Ooohhh I feel good.

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[ds968]

Funny, spikes are a good weapon for sure . if you repeatedly step on anyone's face you can make them look like Gen. Noriega .

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[ds968]

Read ( and listen - volume up on the video ) to this  ...

 

 https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/fu...n=15389023

 

 

This should be the engine of the future , not a pathetic  large battery !    :glare:  

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[Waylander]

Check out the new Porsche Taycan

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[MCL968]

Sounds like the neighbors gardeners are at it again with their bloody leaf blowers!

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[ds968]

That's a big YAWN for me, though I realize it's all about " to each his / her own " .

I will never , ever drive a fully electric car no matter how fast it may be . And a hybrid ONLY if it's the Porsche 918 Spyder, though the price point is a little out of my discretionary spending budget ..that's roughly what I may spend for a house.

But again, for me speed without the sound of a revving engine and a great exhaust note ( not a fabricated exhaust sound some electric cars are introducing now ) simply does not stir the soul enough to make driving even marginally enjoyable .

IMHO , this Taycan is also a bit on the f-ugly side, though that's subjective also.

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[az968]

. And a hybrid ONLY if it's the Porsche 918 Spyder, though the price point is a little out of my discretionary spending budget ..that's roughly what I may spend for a house.

 

Remember, Dan, you can sleep in a car but you can't drive a house.

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[ds968]

Remember, Dan, you can sleep in a car but you can't drive a house.

That would be wrong Bob, need I remind you how many drivable "houses" there are this country !? ;-) :-)

And would you have the heart to tell this fine couple their house is not mobile ?

   

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[Rap]

How long do you think it will be before ca. mandates ev to save all of us? Everyone knows ca. is going to save the world. Bless them!

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[ds968]

How long do you think it will be before ca. mandates ev to save all of us? Everyone knows ca. is going to save the world. Bless them!

Probably not long, but at the rate EV companies are discontinuing numerous models, abandoning concerpt and prototype cars, as well as constantly beijg the brink of bankruptcy , buyers tax credits and other incentives being eliminated early next year, insufficient demand to support the high costs of production, I'm not so confident about EVs viability in the future ; maybe hydrogen cars are the answer ? Or the biofuel / ethanol Brazil has been producing for over a decade now ?

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[ds968]

And then there's this car , for those " kids " who refuse to grow up ..but in a good way .



https://www.youtube.com/embed/-1w48qPF5hc


https://youtu.be/-1w48qPF5hc

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[flash]

evs are doing quite well here, and even better in mainland europe.  they have figured it out.  charging stations are popping up at an amazing rate.

 

ev racing is growing leaps and bounds too.

 

it won't be long before even the head in the sand americans figure out that they have to give up on fossil fuels.  the rest of the world won't let the US go on creating the lion's share of contribution to the climate change nightmare forever.

 

technology is advancing at an incredible rate too, making alternative designs even more logical, and easy to produce.  bmw has said that within the next few years, they will cease making fossil fuel only cars, and that every car they make will at least be a hybrid.  diesel is already set to cancel altogether.  

 

the mandate for older cars to be crushed after relatively short lifespans is spreading.  the increasing registration costs for older cars, and increasing inspection requirements, is making it unattractive to have one.  here in europe, they have already made it unattractive financially to have a car more than 5 years old, and very difficult to have one 10 years old.  it is ridiculously expensive to have one with a V8 at all.  it won't be long before the US government figures out that they can generate more revenue via higher taxes, which the auto industry will support, as it will be forcing the public to replace their cars more often.  capitalism at its finest.

 

it just isn't going to make fiscal sense to most people to have an older car, or one with a big guzzling engine.  the taxation on those irresponsible vehicle buyers, who insist on something they just don't need, and is at odds with the survivability of the planet, will chase away most of them. it's basic retail economics.  the days of high power petrol cars are coming to a close.  necessity and logic are coming into the equation now.  that thinking will spread, as the reality of cost comes into play.  

 

i love a fast petrol powered car as much as the next guy, but, like so many other things, their time has come and gone.  i will shed a tear when it happens, but to think otherwise is just to be in denial.  enjoy it while you can, because it won't be long now.  my guess is that i will see the last petrol powered car roll off the line well within my lifetime.

 

the good news is that your average electric car will beat almost any fossil fuel powered car to 40mph, and some to 60.  it won't be long before all of them outpace them to any speed.  range is increasing.  charging time is decreasing.  it is making more and more sense.  necessity is the mother of invention.

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[Cloud9...68]

I don't disagree.  Electric car ownership is getting to the point where it makes sense for more and more people, although the non-petrol share of the market in the US is still laughably small, and it will take serious incentives to get people to change.  Personally, I don't even own a car other than the 968, which is a track toy now anyway (I drive a vanpool to work), and will go kicking and screaming into the dealership if I'm ever forced to again.  If I do, it will be an electric car for sure, because my company provides charging stations at work, which would bring my fuel cost to zero.  Car ownership will probably continue to decline at an accelerating rate in favor of car sharing programs, anyway, as owning an expensive depreciating asset to be stuck inside in 24/7 gridlock traffic is a tragic waste of money.  But I do think petrol car ownership will continue for the foreseeable for hobbyists to play at the track, much like horse ownership today.  Owning a 650 hp beast to drive on the street is just nuts.

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[flash]

as always happens, once the ramifications of the latest "tax cut / trickle down economics" failure becomes reality, taxes on gasoline and road use are likely to go up.  fuel costs will go up.  it happens every time.  this will spur on the motivation to buy more efficient cars, and alternative fuel cars.  it is ironic that those in power who cling to the old fossil fuel infrastructure, are ultimately the ones who inadvertently instigate advances in alternative fuels and efficiency improvements.  it happened after nixon, when we suddenly got a bunch of tiny 4 cylinder cars, after bush, when we suddenly got a bunch of hybrids, and now will happen after trump (assuming he doesn't plunge the nation into a full on depression, which is looking more and more likely, but that's another conversation entirely)

 

i am looking forward to seeing what the future will bring.  i am very ready to switch to full electric on all cars.  we have had 2, and loved them.  i just want a small 2 seater sporty version next.

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[Rap]

For those of us who live in rural areas I suspect ev vehicles won’t happen anytime soon. I don’t know anyone with one. The truck craze, another conversation, is still in full swing and going strong. This presents its own problems when the inevitable swing in fuel prices occurs. The crossovers are also huge. After going back to the local community college for automotive engineering courses I was reminded that a large portion of our population drive around in used late model cars because that’s all they can afford. Ev’s are out of reach for them despite large subsidies. Bus transportation can’t fill in the gaps for them if internal combustion engines are outlawed.

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[Waylander]

Strangely they have converted all our new expensive hybrid London buses to diesel as they kept breaking down all the time with battery pack failures


And they cost 3 times as much as a super efficient diesel bus

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[flash]

basic economics will tell you that cost is relative to volume.  it won't be long before costs go down.  they already are on their way down.  also, you have to factor in total costs, i.e. repairs and such.  evs don't have as many wear components, lowering the lifetime cost.

 

as for the rural issues, about 95% of the population of the US uses a car less than 30 miles per day.  the relatively low number of people who would truly have the rural issues of distance and isolation can be resolved by merely increasing range, and shortening charge times, which is already happening.  range is already up over 200 miles on quite a few evs.

 

as for the busses, from what i can read, it was a problem back in 2015.  it was an initial problem with 500 of the over 3000 of them, which was only about a third of the total number of busses in service.  far from "all".  but the batteries have been replaced and the busses are back up and running.  by the way, they also have 10 hydrogen busses.

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[ds968]

The published ranges of EVs is a complete joke ; go ahead and use that phenomenal off the line acceleration at its full potential more than once or twice a day , or try to drive the car on a longer distance while cruising at 75 or 80 mph along with some spirited acceleration while passing trucks uphill on your way to the mountains, and see what happens to the range, lmao . You'll be lucky to get 50 miles out of it, not 200 . But no doubt advancing technology will gradually change that for the better as well. I still would like to see biofuels , hydrogen cars , and similar alternatives to EVs ; the environmental damage caused by the manufacturing and disposal of those massive batteries is nothing to sneeze at, albeit of significantly lesser impact than petrol emissions. And I would not shed a single tear about the effect on OPEC countries if dependency on oil would plunge ;-) :-) . So there's at least one benefit, lol.

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[Cloud9...68]

As I said, I agree that electric cars make sense for a large percentage, probably a sizable majority, of car owners.  However, what this ignores is that ground transportation contributes a surprisingly small percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions - about 16%.  This isn't an insignificant number, of course, but it speaks to the heart of the problem, that there really isn't a "long pole in the tent."  The largest contributor is power generation, which has gotten cleaner in recent years because of the recent shift toward natrual gas, away from coal, thanks to the fracking boom, but while natural gas produces less CO2 per KW-hr than coal, it's still a carbon-based fuel.  So if we were to switch the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, and buses overnight to electric, it would have only a small impact on overall greenhouse gas emissions.  The only way to lower global CO2 emissions would be to very aggressively convert existing powerplants away from coal and natural gas to nuclear (while in parallel doing as much solar and wind as possible, which works great as long as the sun shines and the wind blows), but there isn't the political will to do that, and there are no other power generation technologies close enough to being ready in time to make a difference, especially if you take into account the impact on the power grid of all the electric vehicles coming online in the ideal scenario.  Personally, I think geoengineering is the only answer.

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[ds968]

This is sliding more and more into a environmental preservation thread than it is a HP related conversation , but yes, ground transportation emissions are a small percentage of the environmental damage caused by so many other problems. And good luck compelling other countries ( which make the US look like saints ) to clean up their act . When it comes to a combination of coal based production , dumping plastics into our oceans, and a myriad of other outrageous reckless pollution with complete impunity , we're not even in the top 20 nations.

And that's why my gas powered cars which I will be driving for as long as I live and which contribute less than 0.16 of one billionth of greenhouse gas effect will not cause me to lose any sleep ;-):-) .

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