I'm not sure about the "free" thing. Usually I can't afford if it is "free". There has to be some start up costs and other incidentals. It's like people who tell me about $0.60 biodiesel but don't consider the time and effort and storage, fuel tax, etc, etc. What the govt giveth, the govt taketh away at a later date plus interest

If the convenience is the same, sure. Unfortunately, today it isn't the same. It might be later on but not today. Take the gas vs diesel. When it is harder for me to get diesel than gas, well, it does count. Same with me having to work with dirty stinky pumps and the area around it. So if I am driving 200 miles a day, I have to put up with the diesel as I do when I want to tow 10000 pounds. For my other cars, now that I have a much shorter commute, I wouldn't touch diesel if I can get a diesel option for free instead of paying more for a diesel engine. My 99 E300 turbodiesel got 36 mpg before ULSD. 99 S320 LWB got about 25 and the 04 S500 gets about 20. With diesel, I have to treat it in winter, harder to start, fuel, etc, etc. Right now that is a car I use to take the dogs to the park. When it dies, I will only have the Ford Excursion which I cannot get rid of yet.

 

Depends on what you mean by survive. IF by survive you mean it sits in a heated garage and never driven, sure.

 

I mean that EV type technology isn't going to replace gasoline and diesel. You still have arctic environments and remote areas that aren't supported by the electric grid as much as big cities in the temperate climate zones. Big trucks aren't going to go all electric as well as for other industrial uses.
but.. the new Big Oil will be battery resource industries. People will pay for mobility, but who will that be? The whole system is going to change soon. Natural gas is so cheap and clean energy is also putting power into the grid that even nuclear power plants can't compete on cost- you might see a couple shut down because buying new fuel rods won't be worth it.

For now the government is subsidizing or even forcing the industries to switch away from coal and whatnot. I used to work in industry related to coal and made good money in that sector, but it is dead now. Not sure what will happen, but I can say that auto makers make engines and transmissions- they sub out the bodies and many electrical assemblies and just assemble cars around their powertrains. They won't give up on piston engines that easily. buying ev tech today is a crap shoot since it is changing so fast and it may be as obsolete as a 5 year old cell phone depending on how things change. I can tell you that the driving experience is superior for road legal speed and mon-fri type driving and I like it. Hard to say how it will all play out.

 

Depends on how you you leverage money. I spent like $11,000 on solar to get $3300 dollars back on taxes (30%) for the deduction allowed for that. I don't hardly buy gas, I don't have an electric bill, and the little bit that I couldn't pay off with the $3300 refund, I just paid a couple of hundred for a few months on a cc loan I used to finance part of it until I caught up. I could have paid the balance off with the tax refund, but I chose to buy more panels actually... but anyways...

So I invested $7700 to increase the value of my house to let's say $10-$15k increase in value. The Volt I bought came from the sale of my mustang so I'm not really including that. The Volt did come with $9000 in incentives from the state and feds...anyhow I had a tax problem and this is the way I chose to fix it. turns out I really like the electric stuff...i mean I work for a company that makes industrial electric drives and power conversion equipment- it is the same exact tech in the cars now- I'm not afraid of it.

It isn't free in the absolute sense...but it is definitely an investment and was better in the long run than buying really expensive cars.

 

The thing is, without gas (either we have moved on or gas no longer exists) and the march of time where that technology is so obsolete, the parts stream will end. So what will you drive? As you drive more, parts wear out. What will you replace them with?

OK. Fair enough. I don't do that sort of driving so hard to say.

 

It isn't free in any sense is my point. NILIF and only a fool believes that. All those rebates and credits came from somewhere. Where do you think that is? God didn't leave a suitcase of money for the state and federal govt. What I take in less here comes from an increase there. So it looks good on paper but that $5000 rebate comes from you in smaller bites so you don't notice you paid $10000 for once all is said and done. I always wish the govt would do me a favor by NOT doing me any more favors. I can't afford them.

 

^^^ This.

It's picking winners and losers, and it is perfectly predictable that the winners are the donors.

 

I know it is great in Miami.. But I wonder how effective it will be in winter, in Minnesota, at night?

There's only one way I know of to make an electric heater, you dump current through a resistive load and you burn it off.

I think EV tech may be very regional in nature. Same thing with the "self drive" technology that might work in California in the summer.. But maybe not so much in parts of the northeast?

 

NOooooo!!! Say it ain't so... Next you will tell me that Anna Nicole Smith married J. Howard Marshall out of love of money.

 

Ahhhh how humans are built. Lets do or buy the easiest, most practical thing. Im agreeing with you. I'd like to have paint that looks new ALL the time w/o the hard, time consuming paint correction. Sure I get some joy out of getting great results on my own but I'd rather spend the time driving the thing

In the future, you'll just enter where you want to go and hop into a "car" never having to look inside it, under it n sit or lay down anywhere yah want. Hope to still have my C4 by then

 

You could say the same thing about the home loan interest deduction is a gov't giveaway. Or maybe that the military-industrial complex is welfare for working people. Thanks for the rebate.

At least I'm reducing the demand for gasoline and electrical energy generation. In theory, that will lower the prices on the supply and demand end. In practice the taxes on the sale of said energy will go up because of less of it being sold. I will say that for now, sunlight is free and no reason not to use it.

 

heat pumps...but sometimes Minnesota is too cold for that to work well.

 

Remember the VW beetle and other air cooled variants? Not the best car by a long shot, but dirt simple and everybody could fix them. Cars are very complex to the point of being disposable appliances because at some point they cost too much to fix.

Then there is GM cheapness combined with age...keeping the C4 tip-top certainly costs a lot more than a 90's truck. I used to be a mechanic and still do almost all of my own work. After awhile you see what cars take your time and money and sometimes the simple cars that don't break much start to appeal to you.

 

I can and do. As to the thanks, I am kinda confused. I was not originally from this country so you will have to forgive me for not knowing your local customs. I usually feel grateful for something you gave me that is in my favor. So if you gave me $1000, I would feel grateful. OTOH, if you gave me $1000 but I had to give you back $1500 to get the $1000, what would I feel?

Which, in your scenario comes to a zero sum gain AT BEST and probably, since nothing can be created, it will become a loss at the end of the day. Ask yourself a simple accounting question. What have you paid in taxes. All you know is the simple IRS and State Tax form. What about all the people along the chain who have been nickled and dimed and added it on? What is even more scary is the fact that our road tax, which I agree with in theory, has been used for non-road purposes to the tune of 40 to 60 percent depending on which report you read. Our past governor has shifted the road tax fund to balance the budget. Then there was the program that was started up to fund giving heat to those who cannot afford it by charging those who could making the utility company a defacto collection agent. It was used to fund the prosecutor's office. So what the govt giveth to you, which you profusely thank them for, the taketh away plus interest. Therefore, what thanks do I owe them?

 

I was thanking you for the tax credit, not the gov't lol. I agree that there is tremendous waste in spending, but all you can do is play the game to reduce your portion.

The other part of my conversation has to do with which type of car is easier and cheaper to run. Time will tell.

 

Problem is two fold. Many people want the creature comforts and lets not forget the EPA. It goes back to the principle of "Fast, Reliable and Cheap. Pick any two.". I don't want to sit on cold seats in the winter and hot seats in the summer. "Yes, we can". Oh, that adds extra material and technology which we have to account for on an EPA level. Just like the supposed story of the origin of the word "Sabotage" where the peasants threw shoes to screw up the machines that took away their jobs, the mechanics will probably adapt at the time the became disposable just like the TV repair man did.

Depends. Do you want the creature comforts? IF you do, that is the price you pay. My 99 E300 Turbodiesel with 480 on the clock will give you a solid 30 mpg cruising. The trade off is you have dirty oil to deal with, dirty pumps and their surrounding and being a 2nd class citizen at most pumps, fuel conditioners and heater in the winter. When I drove 200+ miles a day, it was acceptable. Today, I'd rather drive a higher power car like the 99 S320 or the 04 S500 which has gas but lower mpg. You have to give up something to get something. You gave up simplicity to get comfort. Some consider it a fair trade, others, not so.

 

Don't need to thank me. It is a wash since you are paying for my crap too. Waste in spending means we didn't get the value for our money. IOW, we paid more than we should have. That is why I only ask one favor of any govt. Don't do me any favors, PLEASE.

Not sure yet. I do suspect that it won't go away for a long time. When the price of oil goes up, perhaps Shale will rise up again. Probably we will be long dead and bodies decomposed before that day.

 

EV may be the future, but I live in the now. Coming from a 30 year old who used to work in a UL listed motor rewind shop... this EV talk is nonsense for a hot rodder. My best friend and I had this conversation ten years ago, and we decided that we were absolutely an oil generation, albeit possibly the last.

My vision for the C4 is a form of automotive recycling mixed with a healthy dose of hot rodding. I say, take the perfectly good rolling chassis and swap in a modern SBC and replace the body with a more modern design.

The greatest thing about hot rodding is that there are no rules or inhibiting laws about what you can do with your car. You're just personalizing it. I think the C4 will survive in some form or fashion, so long as hot rodding survives.

Here's my vision for the future of the C4, which will soon enough become reality:

 

Just recently spent a week again with a P85. I drive a couple of hundred miles a day usually, so it's not like I'm doing the usual 35 mile daily commute. My usual daily driver is a 13 second car with 400 lb/ft of torque. Going back to my car, what I missed, and still miss, is the torque of the Tesla. It's just a blast to drive, and the best point and shoot traffic car I've ever experienced. While I did miss the visceral thrill of a V8, if the future holds something like a Tesla for me, I wouldn't be heartbroken.

 

Not if you live in CA. For awhile diesel trucks were really the new hotrods in CA because there was no emissions testing on them, but they got on to that around 2006/2007 and took that fun away. Now it is EV's or cars 1975 and older. A C4 is a smog year so it has to be stock or almost stock or have a very expensive compliant engine swap (no headers).

You can get around smog by spending about $150k-$200k on a cabin in an unenhanced county and registering your cars there. The last option is just keep buying new cars and modding them because you don't have to have your first emissions check for 6 years. Then you give them away cheap out-of-state, or spend a bunch of time to put back to stock. I got tired of the long tube header swaps myself.