Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

stickguy

of course you can bring fuel to one. just needs a generator.

driver100

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

I saw one of these the other day and it took me a long time to find out what it was. I thought it looked really nice;


I did notice the name on the back was a Clarity. I have to look at more information but they were discontinued in 2021. I believe it runs mostly on electricity, so uses less gas than the hybrid Accord, but needs more charging. It's too bad they don't make all Accords look like this.
****It looks better in real life than in a picture.

If you think the Clarity is a handsome vehicle, I'm going to send the Edmunds police to both your Florida and Ontario houses and confiscate your Mercedes.

This is a PHEV, which gets you a limited amount of electric-only range, then a gas motor that allows you to continue driving for another 300+ miles. I rode with a friend of mine when he test drove one a few years ago. Pretty roomy inside, but very hard to look at.

Lots of PHEVs on the market now, almost all of which look better than this.

I think I like that it looks like an Accord, which is a nice looking car.....and that it looks like it has 1960 style fender skirts on it. Also, it isn't look like a bubble car or like a minimal Bolt or Volt or whatever that red car was. I have to say, the photos don't do it justice, standing next to it it looked like a Honda futuristic prototype. Is this any better?


. The plug-in-hybrid model offers up to 48 miles of electric-only driving, which should be enough to cover many buyers' daily commutes without dipping too far into the gasoline tank. The Clarity's onboard fuel cell holds enough hydrogen for up to 360 miles of driving.
Hydrogen?.....what's that all about?

driver100

On second thought, maybe the MB does look better.

driver100

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

And what about a friend who drives from Tampa to Toledo OH a few times a year.....1200 miles, and would have to make 5 stops each way....for at least 30 minutes each time once you find the charging station?

Good video of an EV road trip from Chicago to Orlando. Worth the watch.

I skimmed through, there is a lot of filler. I'd like to see the main parts. That trip was painful to watch. He spends a lot of time calculating how much power is left, how far they can get on each charge, where they can get a charge....how much power they were losing or gaining because of various factors. They even had to stay at a motel, charge the car for a half hour while they have breakfast. Sometimes when we make a trip like that we want to get up and start driving, and stop for breakfast in an hour or two. Sometimes chargers weren't working and they had to find another one. We used to drive 1500 miles from Toronto to Tampa......doing all that would be a giant pain.

While not perfect, the point I was trying to make was that long distance road trips can certainly be accomplished in a pure electric vehicle.

But, I get that EVs are not for everyone, currently.

people like to trot out the "but what about a 2,000 mile trip!" but I bet a pretty small percentage of people actually take a long drive like that each in a given year. And it is usually something that can be planned around. A lot of people have 2 cars, so could take the other one!

I did a quick trip today down to Jersey to see my father (belated Christmas visit thanks to Covid), and swung over to Ikea to pick up a new desk (for some reason there are none of those up this way). Probably more representative of a "big" drive for most people.

about 320 miles RT. Mostly highway with a little bit of local at the end (at the store then to his complex). so 160 miles then a stop. I guess the 320 is probably more than anything will do hammering along through the hills at 75, but 160 should be plenty doable for a modern "long range" EV. this was actually a perfect destination too, since in the Ikea parking garage there were EV chargers. In the section I parked in, when I was leaving, a Tesla was plugged in, and a VW ID.4 was backing in to another charger.

so, would have been pretty easy. charge at home, drive to Ikea, plug in when we arrived and by the time the wife was done looking at everything in the store, would probably be fully charged up and ready for the trip home. If the trip had been 320 miles straight to a different destination would likely have just planned on stopping for lunch around the time it needed juice and topping up during that stop.

driving 1,500 miles would have been a totally different situation, even if we were driving a gasser, with planning breaks, hotels, etc.

I know we’ve had a few instances where a customer will rent one, drive it until it’s almost out of juice and then call us asking what we will do for them now.

I wonder what they tell them? It has to be loaded and taken to a charging station. That will be costly and will take up a lot of time.

stickguy

tell them to go to a charge port and charge it. just like if it ran out of gas and they had to go to the gas station.

I assume that is in all the paperwork they signed (gotta figure that renting an EV has some extra instructions, but that might be hoping for too much)

kyfdx

mjfloyd1 said:

But , like the sun, does nuclear fusion produce heat?

You can't use energy without producing heat. So, the more efficient you are creating energy, and the more efficient you are using that energy, results in producing less heat.

abacomike

@mjfloyd1 said:

xsaid:

@mjfloyd1 said:
Nuclear fusion perhaps?

Fusion or fission? I believe Nuclear fusion takes place in the sun. Nuclear fission is what happens in nuclear plants that produce electricity. Please correct me if I am mistaken. 🤪😜

But surely nuclear fusion is exothermic and will contribute to climate change

Fusion occurs at ultra-high temperatures (as in a star as hydrogen atoms fuse to create helium). Fission occurs at much lower temperatures in a nuclear reactor to create enough heat to raise water temperatures to steam to drive turbines and produce electricity.

Fusion produces tremendously high temperatures and would definitely affect the earth’s climate unless there something done to shield the heat from being released into the atmosphere.

kyfdx

Heat = energy

That's what the nuclear powerplant is for: To take that heat and convert it to electricity. Just like a solar panel.

mjfloyd1

And that’s how the fight started..

We aren’t taking about nuclear power plants. That’s fission.

Nuclear fusion will produce heat but we don’t know how much. But no CO2.

abacomike

@mjfloyd1 said:
And that’s how the fight started..

We aren’t taking about nuclear power plants. That’s fission.

Nuclear fusion will produce heat but we don’t know how much. But no CO2.

What fight?

mjfloyd1

I kid

28firefighter

Who’s on first?

mjfloyd1

28firefighter said:

Who’s on first?

Yes

What’s on second, I don’t know who is on third

oldfarmer50

mjfloyd1 said:

But , like the sun, does nuclear fusion produce heat?

I would imagine that most of the heat would go to produce steam to be converted to electricity just like in a fission plant. Minuscule compared to the heat produced by sunlight.

I’d be more concerned when the powers that be start looking at all that CO2 you are emitting when you exhale. The Supreme Court already determined that CO2 was a pollutant that could be regulated.

oldfarmer50

driver100 said:

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

And what about a friend who drives from Tampa to Toledo OH a few times a year.....1200 miles, and would have to make 5 stops each way....for at least 30 minutes each time once you find the charging station?

Good video of an EV road trip from Chicago to Orlando. Worth the watch.

I skimmed through, there is a lot of filler. I'd like to see the main parts. That trip was painful to watch. He spends a lot of time calculating how much power is left, how far they can get on each charge, where they can get a charge....how much power they were losing or gaining because of various factors. They even had to stay at a motel, charge the car for a half hour while they have breakfast. Sometimes when we make a trip like that we want to get up and start driving, and stop for breakfast in an hour or two. Sometimes chargers weren't working and they had to find another one. We used to drive 1500 miles from Toronto to Tampa......doing all that would be a giant pain.

While not perfect, the point I was trying to make was that long distance road trips can certainly be accomplished in a pure electric vehicle.

But, I get that EVs are not for everyone, currently.

people like to trot out the "but what about a 2,000 mile trip!" but I bet a pretty small percentage of people actually take a long drive like that each in a given year. And it is usually something that can be planned around. A lot of people have 2 cars, so could take the other one!

I did a quick trip today down to Jersey to see my father (belated Christmas visit thanks to Covid), and swung over to Ikea to pick up a new desk (for some reason there are none of those up this way). Probably more representative of a "big" drive for most people.

about 320 miles RT. Mostly highway with a little bit of local at the end (at the store then to his complex). so 160 miles then a stop. I guess the 320 is probably more than anything will do hammering along through the hills at 75, but 160 should be plenty doable for a modern "long range" EV. this was actually a perfect destination too, since in the Ikea parking garage there were EV chargers. In the section I parked in, when I was leaving, a Tesla was plugged in, and a VW ID.4 was backing in to another charger.

so, would have been pretty easy. charge at home, drive to Ikea, plug in when we arrived and by the time the wife was done looking at everything in the store, would probably be fully charged up and ready for the trip home. If the trip had been 320 miles straight to a different destination would likely have just planned on stopping for lunch around the time it needed juice and topping up during that stop.

driving 1,500 miles would have been a totally different situation, even if we were driving a gasser, with planning breaks, hotels, etc.

I know we’ve had a few instances where a customer will rent one, drive it until it’s almost out of juice and then call us asking what we will do for them now.

I wonder what they tell them? It has to be loaded and taken to a charging station. That will be costly and will take up a lot of time.

From what I understand they tell the customer the requirements and limitations before they rent them. Some people don’t understand or don’t care and expect special service when they get in trouble. Unfortunately, they are told that it’s the customer’s responsibility to get it charged at least enough to return it.

snakeweasel

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

And what about a friend who drives from Tampa to Toledo OH a few times a year.....1200 miles, and would have to make 5 stops each way....for at least 30 minutes each time once you find the charging station?

Good video of an EV road trip from Chicago to Orlando. Worth the watch.

I skimmed through, there is a lot of filler. I'd like to see the main parts. That trip was painful to watch. He spends a lot of time calculating how much power is left, how far they can get on each charge, where they can get a charge....how much power they were losing or gaining because of various factors. They even had to stay at a motel, charge the car for a half hour while they have breakfast. Sometimes when we make a trip like that we want to get up and start driving, and stop for breakfast in an hour or two. Sometimes chargers weren't working and they had to find another one. We used to drive 1500 miles from Toronto to Tampa......doing all that would be a giant pain.

While not perfect, the point I was trying to make was that long distance road trips can certainly be accomplished in a pure electric vehicle.

But, I get that EVs are not for everyone, currently.

They can also be done on foot. Point being is that while it can be done one way that one way may not be the most efficient way. I noticed that they spent 23 minutes to get 44% battery power and that would get them what? 125 Miles. Now from Chicago to Orlando is about 1200 miles. so going by 23 minutes for 125 miles recharging for that trip would be 4 hours. In my Sonata I would need to fill up twice to cover that distance taking 20 minutes total give or take.

Not only that but if I fill my tank halfway like that guy charged his batteries I wouldn't harm my gas tank. But recharging only halfway and discharging batteries does harm them.

stickguy

normally they would not only fill up that much though. a trip that long will likely have an overnight stay, so that is one full charge right there. Lunch break, another chance for a large charge.

but yes, it takes more coordination, and if your charge stop is just to "fuel up" you will spend longer than if you just swing into the gas station.

owners know all this before they buy though, and factor it into their decision to purchase an EV. Just part of the package, same as never having to pump gas into your car (and in cold weather, not a bad consolation prize!)

my assumption, most people who buy EVs don't plan on real long trips like that, and if they do need to take one, accept that they will have to plan better and it might take a little longer. And find it a good trade off for not using gas the other 51 weeks of the year.

henryn

stickguy said:

normally they would not only fill up that much though. a trip that long will likely have an overnight stay, so that is one full charge right there. Lunch break, another chance for a large charge.

but yes, it takes more coordination, and if your charge stop is just to "fuel up" you will spend longer than if you just swing into the gas station.

owners know all this before they buy though, and factor it into their decision to purchase an EV. Just part of the package, same as never having to pump gas into your car (and in cold weather, not a bad consolation prize!)

my assumption, most people who buy EVs don't plan on real long trips like that, and if they do need to take one, accept that they will have to plan better and it might take a little longer. And find it a good trade off for not using gas the other 51 weeks of the year.

I would agree with this. Most people who purchase an EV are aware of the tradeoffs, and have taken them into account before making the purchase. Certainly not all, there are always people who make impulse purchases without having thought through what it is they're getting into. But such have always existed, and there's nothing we can do about that. Just like those who rent an EV, run the battery down, and then call for help.

snakeweasel

kyfdx said:

mjfloyd1 said:

But , like the sun, does nuclear fusion produce heat?

You can't use energy without producing heat. So, the more efficient you are creating energy, and the more efficient you are using that energy, results in producing less heat.

There is something in theory, of which they are working on, called direct conversion which creates the electricity without using heat like current power plants do.

Michaell

stickguy said:

normally they would not only fill up that much though. a trip that long will likely have an overnight stay, so that is one full charge right there. Lunch break, another chance for a large charge.

but yes, it takes more coordination, and if your charge stop is just to "fuel up" you will spend longer than if you just swing into the gas station.

owners know all this before they buy though, and factor it into their decision to purchase an EV. Just part of the package, same as never having to pump gas into your car (and in cold weather, not a bad consolation prize!)

my assumption, most people who buy EVs don't plan on real long trips like that, and if they do need to take one, accept that they will have to plan better and it might take a little longer. And find it a good trade off for not using gas the other 51 weeks of the year.

all good points.

In addition, many EVs allow for free 30 minute charges - the gentlemen who posted the ID.4 video recently bought a Polestar, and immediately took it on a 4000 mile road trip (Denver - San Diego - Louisville - Chicago). He spent a total of $9.67 on charging costs. Probably $1000-1500 for an ICE vehicle to travel the same distance.

stickguy

not just EVs. I might buy a 2 door Wrangler softtop to bop around country roads and go to the local beach. or a micro car for getting great mileage and parking in the city. Both vehicles that serve a specific need very well, but neither of which I would take on a 1,200 highway trip!

snakeweasel

stickguy said:

normally they would not only fill up that much though. a trip that long will likely have an overnight stay, so that is one full charge right there. Lunch break, another chance for a large charge.

but yes, it takes more coordination, and if your charge stop is just to "fuel up" you will spend longer than if you just swing into the gas station.

owners know all this before they buy though, and factor it into their decision to purchase an EV. Just part of the package, same as never having to pump gas into your car (and in cold weather, not a bad consolation prize!)

my assumption, most people who buy EVs don't plan on real long trips like that, and if they do need to take one, accept that they will have to plan better and it might take a little longer. And find it a good trade off for not using gas the other 51 weeks of the year.

You place a lot for faith in the average person than I do.

ab348

There is no “free” electric charging. Power generation utilities are not charities. Somebody is paying for that juice. It is either built into the price of the car itself or someone else is picking up the tab for you, which will be reflected in either taxes if a public body or in their prices if supplied by a business.

Sandman6472

Or in our case and like Stick, have one gasser at home for those times when a longer trip is involved. Now, if we go out nice, we usually take the wife's A3 as it's a nicer vehicle and not cluttered with stuff like mine usually is. For grocery shopping or just bopping around town, the Golf will do just fine. But if I did get the Bolt EV, that would take over the duties the Golf handles now. I know the other half wouldn't like it as it's a slightly different way to drive. But once one gets how to modulate the accelerator and deal with the momentary fear of using no pedals at all, it's actually fun to drive! Sure, that first time, I was super scared because no one told me what would happen. I picked up real quick as there was traffic coming at me & getting hit was not an option. Now if someone like me got it, there won't be any issue for other's I'd say. but it's up to the folks behind the counter to educate the renter on just what to expect & how to deal with it.
In time, I think most folks are going to like the EV vehicles and once the infrastructure catches up & there are more charging stations all over the place, things will be fine. Personally, I still might consider one next year if things go a certain way. It very well could happen if I dot all my "i's" and cross all my "t's" so to speak. I know the Bolt EV will fit on my side, hopefully the price will be right and also getting the faster charger installed at our house. "Never say never" is all I'm gonna say going forward.

snakeweasel

Michaell said:

stickguy said:

normally they would not only fill up that much though. a trip that long will likely have an overnight stay, so that is one full charge right there. Lunch break, another chance for a large charge.

but yes, it takes more coordination, and if your charge stop is just to "fuel up" you will spend longer than if you just swing into the gas station.

owners know all this before they buy though, and factor it into their decision to purchase an EV. Just part of the package, same as never having to pump gas into your car (and in cold weather, not a bad consolation prize!)

my assumption, most people who buy EVs don't plan on real long trips like that, and if they do need to take one, accept that they will have to plan better and it might take a little longer. And find it a good trade off for not using gas the other 51 weeks of the year.

all good points.

In addition, many EVs allow for free 30 minute charges - the gentlemen who posted the ID.4 video recently bought a Polestar, and immediately took it on a 4000 mile road trip (Denver - San Diego - Louisville - Chicago). He spent a total of $9.67 on charging costs. Probably $1000-1500 for an ICE vehicle to travel the same distance.

What do you drive? Currently by me PUG is around $4.25 gallon, at that rate you would have to get 17 MPG to spend $1,000 over 4K miles.

Seriously I drive a Sonata and for the price of a Polestar I can but another nicely outfitted Sonata and enough gas to drive it to the moon.

jmonroe1

@28firefighter said:
Who’s on first?

————————————————-
Just getting back in here…who won?

jmonroe

driver100

Michaell said:

stickguy said:

normally they would not only fill up that much though. a trip that long will likely have an overnight stay, so that is one full charge right there. Lunch break, another chance for a large charge.

but yes, it takes more coordination, and if your charge stop is just to "fuel up" you will spend longer than if you just swing into the gas station.

owners know all this before they buy though, and factor it into their decision to purchase an EV. Just part of the package, same as never having to pump gas into your car (and in cold weather, not a bad consolation prize!)

my assumption, most people who buy EVs don't plan on real long trips like that, and if they do need to take one, accept that they will have to plan better and it might take a little longer. And find it a good trade off for not using gas the other 51 weeks of the year.

all good points.

In addition, many EVs allow for free 30 minute charges - the gentlemen who posted the ID.4 video recently bought a Polestar, and immediately took it on a 4000 mile road trip (Denver - San Diego - Louisville - Chicago). He spent a total of $9.67 on charging costs. Probably $1000-1500 for an ICE vehicle to travel the same distance.

He left Denver and went west to San Diego and then went back east to Chicago? Did he have any idea of where he was going or how to get there?
He may have saved $1000 to $1500 in the cost of gas, but he must have spent way over 10 hours of his life recharging, and trying to match his eating and hotel times to match his recharging schedule. A trip like that would be a horror story in an EV. The calculations would make my head spin.

Having one gasser and one EV sounds good in theory, but once we had to go to a wedding that was 150 miles away, and my car got a flat tire the day before.
I couldn't use my E since it has RFT which have to be ordered, so we used Mrs D100s GLK, that could get us there and back without stopping for gas.
The EV may not have got us there on time, and somewhere we'd have to spend 30 minutes to an hour charging up once or twice.
MrsD100 sometimes thinks she wants an EV...........not my idea of having fun.

driver100

jmonroe1 said:

@28firefighter said:

Who’s on first?

————————————————-

Just getting back in here…who won?

jmonroe

Not you!

stickguy

Driver, you are really digging deep to make up bogus scenarios now! Quite clear you don't want an EV, so don't get one, and all's good.

the car does the calculations for you BTW. Plug in your destination and the navi takes care of routing options, where to stop, all that stuff.

EVs are certainly most effective as local use vehicles, which probably covers the vast majority of use for most people. Wife and I are probably great candidates now. we have 2 cars that I can barely keep exercised, and might go a month between times that I venture more than 30-40 miles from home, or put more than 100 miles on a car in a day. it would be easy to swap out the wife's CUV for an EV, and use that for local running around. probably only need to plug in once a week. Keep the truck for truck stuff, bad weather, and when we make a longer trip like annual shore vacation when I need to carry more stuff.

cdnpinhead

The EV car concept is good, but I want to hear more about the 'environmental impact" of the battery production and recycling (if there is such a thing).

The U.S. has lots of petroleum reserves, but no capability to make batteries from what's onshore. What am I missing?

Party on!

driver100

@stickguy
A fairly short article by a woman who wrote the book;
“I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.”
https://jalopnik.com/read-this-ev-road-trips-are-still-a-pain-in-the-[non-permissible content removed]-1849022583

kyfdx

cdnpinhead said:

The EV car concept is good, but I want to hear more about the 'environmental impact" of the battery production and recycling (if there is such a thing).

The U.S. has lots of petroleum reserves, but no capability to make batteries from what's onshore. What am I missing?

Party on!

Ford is spending $10B to build two battery factories in KY and Tenn. Honda is building a battery factory about 60 miles north of Cincinnati. Ground has been broken on the Ford plants, and Honda is supposed to start, later this year.

Michaell

driver100 said:

@stickguy
A fairly short article by a woman who wrote the book;
“I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.”
https://jalopnik.com/read-this-ev-road-trips-are-still-a-pain-in-the-[non-permissible content removed]-1849022583

that's one data point - search YouTube and you can find dozens of videos advocating just the opposite.

I agree with @stickguy - you don't like EVs, don't buy one.

100 years ago, cars were these newfangled contraptions that were only available to the wealthy. It wasn't until Henry Ford was able to drive the price down so that most people could afford a car, that they became popular.

I suspect we will need a similar breakthrough with EVs so they gain acceptance by a majority of the population.

cdnpinhead

kyfdx said:

Ford is spending $10B to build two battery factories in KY and Tenn. Honda is building a battery factory about 60 miles north of Cincinnati. Ground has been broken on the Ford plants, and Honda is supposed to start, later this year.

And where are the raw materials coming from?

kyfdx

cdnpinhead said:

kyfdx said:

Ford is spending $10B to build two battery factories in KY and Tenn. Honda is building a battery factory about 60 miles north of Cincinnati. Ground has been broken on the Ford plants, and Honda is supposed to start, later this year.

And where are the raw materials coming from?

Stay right there, while I google that for you…. 🙄

driver100

I'm just presenting the counterpoint. I'm not saying not to buy one...buy an EV if it suits your purposes. But, it may not be right for some people and people should weigh both sides of the story to see if it is right for them. Besides, I am an old style dinosaur, slow to change. I still like to read a real book, not an E-reader.

On a slightly different topic. One guy I know of has a Tesla and loves his Tesla....and bought a ton of stock because he believes in the product so much. I don't think he'll be talking about it very much these days.

driver100

kyfdx said:

cdnpinhead said:

kyfdx said:

Ford is spending $10B to build two battery factories in KY and Tenn. Honda is building a battery factory about 60 miles north of Cincinnati. Ground has been broken on the Ford plants, and Honda is supposed to start, later this year.

And where are the raw materials coming from?

Stay right there, while I google that for you…. 🙄

Inquisitive minds want to know..... Also, where will the old batteries be disassembled. I hear it costs a lot to separate all of the rare minerals etc.

snakeweasel

Sandman6472 said:

Or in our case and like Stick, have one gasser at home for those times when a longer trip is involved. Now, if we go out nice, we usually take the wife's A3 as it's a nicer vehicle and not cluttered with stuff like mine usually is. For grocery shopping or just bopping around town, the Golf will do just fine. But if I did get the Bolt EV, that would take over the duties the Golf handles now. I know the other half wouldn't like it as it's a slightly different way to drive. But once one gets how to modulate the accelerator and deal with the momentary fear of using no pedals at all, it's actually fun to drive! Sure, that first time, I was super scared because no one told me what would happen. I picked up real quick as there was traffic coming at me & getting hit was not an option. Now if someone like me got it, there won't be any issue for other's I'd say. but it's up to the folks behind the counter to educate the renter on just what to expect & how to deal with it.
In time, I think most folks are going to like the EV vehicles and once the infrastructure catches up & there are more charging stations all over the place, things will be fine. Personally, I still might consider one next year if things go a certain way. It very well could happen if I dot all my "i's" and cross all my "t's" so to speak. I know the Bolt EV will fit on my side, hopefully the price will be right and also getting the faster charger installed at our house. "Never say never" is all I'm gonna say going forward.

I see it that even if the infrastructure does catch up a lot of people are not going to accept EV's until battery technology improves significantly. Once we have batteries that don't degrade faster if you don't follow a strict recharge regiment and the batteries can be charged even faster without harm being done to the battery, longer battery life that will last 200K or more miles and cars that can do 400 miles on a charge realistically we will be there and have acceptance. But right now I don't see that happening soon.

oldfarmer50

cdnpinhead said:

kyfdx said:

Ford is spending $10B to build two battery factories in KY and Tenn. Honda is building a battery factory about 60 miles north of Cincinnati. Ground has been broken on the Ford plants, and Honda is supposed to start, later this year.

And where are the raw materials coming from?

Not from Nevada. Seems “activists” don’t want the world’s biggest Lithium mine to be built there.

snakeweasel

kyfdx said:

cdnpinhead said:

The EV car concept is good, but I want to hear more about the 'environmental impact" of the battery production and recycling (if there is such a thing).

The U.S. has lots of petroleum reserves, but no capability to make batteries from what's onshore. What am I missing?

Party on!

Ford is spending $10B to build two battery factories in KY and Tenn. Honda is building a battery factory about 60 miles north of Cincinnati. Ground has been broken on the Ford plants, and Honda is supposed to start, later this year.

But they still will have to import some of the raw materials.

snakeweasel

Michaell said:

driver100 said:

@stickguy
A fairly short article by a woman who wrote the book;
“I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.”
https://jalopnik.com/read-this-ev-road-trips-are-still-a-pain-in-the-[non-permissible content removed]-1849022583

that's one data point - search YouTube and you can find dozens of videos advocating just the opposite.

I agree with @stickguy - you don't like EVs, don't buy one.

100 years ago, cars were these newfangled contraptions that were only available to the wealthy. It wasn't until Henry Ford was able to drive the price down so that most people could afford a car, that they became popular.

I suspect we will need a similar breakthrough with EVs so they gain acceptance by a majority of the population.

If I am not mistaken it was 90 years ago when Ford dropped the price of the Model T making it accessible to the general public. At that time it would be a price of just under $16k in todays money (down from about $25K). So if a Tesla Model S drops to $16K then yes it would be a major breakthrough or a major drop in quality.

snakeweasel

Well we went out for dinner last night to the Texas Road House, mainly because we had a gift card for it. Well looked up the local location via Google Maps and headed out there. On the way there I saw my second Rivian in the wild (could have been the one I saw a few weeks ago) but I did get in front of it and seeing it in my rearview mirror I felt like I was being followed by a glow in the dark barbell.



Anyway we got to the restaurant and the parking lot was empty and the place was dark. Turns out they moved about 3/4ths of a mile away 10 months ago and Google still hasn't updated their system to this change. So we went there and the parking lot was the opposite of the old place. Anyway the steak wasn't bad, not saying that it was great just not bad, and the bake potato was just a tad under done. The saving grace was actually the fact that they had a Bock beer on the menu and actually had it in stock.

Well it was interesting but I'll stay with getting my own steaks from the butcher and making them myself.

mjfloyd1

@snakeweasel said:
Well we went out for dinner last night to the Texas Road House, mainly because we had a gift card for it. Well looked up the local location via Google Maps and headed out there. On the way there I saw my second Rivian in the wild (could have been the one I saw a few weeks ago) but I did get in front of it and seeing it in my rearview mirror I felt like I was being followed by a glow in the dark barbell.

Anyway we got to the restaurant and the parking lot was empty and the place was dark. Turns out they moved about 3/4ths of a mile away 10 months ago and Google still hasn't updated their system to this change. So we went there and the parking lot was the opposite of the old place. Anyway the steak wasn't bad, not saying that it was great just not bad, and the bake potato was just a tad under done. The saving grace was actually the fact that they had a Bock beer on the menu and actually had it in stock.

Well it was interesting but I'll stay with getting my own steaks from the butcher and making them myself.

Shockingly, Sam’s club has prime grade beef.

stickguy

Aldis also sells a quite good steak.

snakeweasel

There is a butcher shop near me thst is owned by a farm that raises and butchers their own beef, hogs and chickens. No hormones or preservatives. some very good meat there.

snakeweasel

Happy birthday to the King.

stickguy

I knew he was still alive!

mjfloyd1

He’s walking in Memphis with Marc Cohn

cdnpinhead

kyfdx said:

Stay right there, while I google that for you

I guess my point is that producing and disposing of the massive number of batteries that our (or at least my) betters are insisting is "the future" creates significant issues, one of which is that, unlike petoleum and (gasp) coal, much of the stuff is imported.

driver100

Musk is making those rockets these days.
Load the old batteries into rockets and send them to Mars.
You have to think outside the box.