don't be trying to change the subject!

Your smoke and mirrors won't work on me hippie!

 

Let me start by saying that I do believe that climate change is real, and human population and civilization is involved in amplifying the effect of natural cycles. And also that for this discussion, it doesn't mean jack. The market is going to render our cars obsolete, or at least inconvenient.

Take an objective look at the performance of electric cars as proof. The Tesla Model 3 destroyed the performance sedan segment, why, because it was new, sexy, innovative, and just plain goes like stink! From a consumer standpoint, people will drive an electric car if it performs as well as their ICE car without any issue, in fact they probably would prefer it because of the reduced maintenance.

An ICE contains thousands of parts, and if you include the supporting systems, the reduced complexity of manufacturing and the parts chains is enough of an incentive for manufacturers to switch to reduce costs. Have a look at the recent GM strike, those union workers are concerned about plants that build parts that will be extinct without ICE engines, further reducing the manufacturing costs.

Coal is dead, and it is starting to realize that. The market costs for renewable energy is now low enough that energy companies are closing coal plants and installing massive amounts of renewable energy capacity. If they could reduce their natural Gas dependency, it would be even more dead. Look no further than the Murray Energy bankruptcy for proof. Too bad that squirrel didn't reveal that when he told the founder to start the company (true story, look it up). This will continue to shift the environmental impact of the energy production needed to run the electric vehicle.

Add up all of the above, and you don't need to consider climate change, the market will dictate where we go from here. Let's all be real and adult about the situation. Thirty or forty years from now, we might be reduced to buying gasoline from Wal-Mart in gallon cans.

I have a C3 and a C4 and would like to pass them on to my kids, but I'm not sure if that's a blessing or curse when considering the future of the ICE. If the infrastructure does not exist or is greatly diminished and expensive, what's the benefit??

I'm really shocked to see the amount of discourse and childish behavior in this thread. Grow up folks. You are falling into stereotypes, and those of you who don't believe in climate change, and are complaining that the government should not be funding some of these initiatives should remember that when your beach condos and houses are now in the ocean and worthless, or your farm or business is destroyed by the third 'once in a 100 year flood' in the last five years. I'm sure this will be acknowledged as a consequence of just the natural cycles of the climate warming and cooling. No need for the government to help me rebuild. You're either an individualist, or you think the government should be involved in maintaining the social welfare of its citizens, flipping in and out when convenient makes you neither.

Argue all you want about climate change, doesn't mean a thing w/respect to our cars. The market has changed.

 

More smoke and mirrors!

 

I totally agree with Silver Shark. I can' t tell you how many times I wonder what the relevance is, of my 'Vette. At one point, it was a bad assed MF'er....now it would get obliterated in any race by a 4 door, electric sedan. I still like the thing, but I frequently find myself wondering, "What's the point?" Good perspective, two posts up.

 

So go find out how much tesla charges to replace the batteries and report back. And by your logic all the guys with 63 split windows, 67 big blocks, and/or 71 LS6's should sell...sell...sell.

 

I think you might be over reaching a bit. The Model 3 hasnt lit the market on fire at all. They're one trick ponies that do 0 to 60 and that's it. They're not sporty, they're modern equivalents of muscle cars. Theres nothing wrong with that either, as long as we accept them for what they are. They also are a tiny part of the market, their sales are roughly what BMW does for the 3/4 series alone. Not bad, but not great for something that had as much pent up zealot demand as it had.

I think a big reason renewable energy has come down so much is Chinese dumping. They're throwing massive money into being the only place to go for this stuff, selling it well under cost into the US (and others) to make us more reliant on them for energy. And reality is, the scale needed for renewable energy to be viable to support the US isnt ecologically reasonable, youd be covering MASSIVE areas of the planet to do this. I think most would agree it's better for the environment to burn a little coal vs raze an entire forest.

 

not impressed with the electric car, ok the appeal is look how fast they accelrtate. Outside that id take a cab if I couldnt have a gas guzzler

Its about choices or still having them. I could care less about green or any of that bs. If it was that important then a couple million people living in this state would be hunted down and put somewhere else.

Cant imagine the bore factor in owning, not being able to hearing another on your blind spot...road/tire noise? Its off the chart wiht most late models...even a 5 yr old truck we have has it .

 

I disagree. Let's take a look at the sales figures for the BMW 3/4 series in the US as shown at (http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales...ries-4-series/).
2014 - 142K
2015 - 140K
2016 - 106K - Tesla announced and started taking orders for Model 3 here. Within a week 325K reservations are taken
2017 - 99K - Tesla deliveries start
2018 - 76K - Tesla production ramping up

Now let's look at the Model 3's delivery figures as shown at (http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales...tesla-model-3/)
2017 - 1.7K
2018 - 140K (Almost twice the size of 3/4 series deliveries)

Tesla's allure is eating up this market. Their problem is production, not demand.

If you think they are one-trick ponies, they are young, give them time. They are now lapping the Nurburgring to prove the point. (https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-...rsche-lap-time) A Model S with a new powertrain did it in 7'23''. That was 23 seconds faster than the Porsche Taycan electric. Neither are official times, and neither companies are releasing the specs of the vehicles, but if you compare the time to the 100 fastest laps of the ring, do you know where it would sit? It would tie for 22nd place, with a 2011 C6 Z06 as chance would have it. Would you consider the C6 Z06 a non sporty modern muscle car, or the Nurburgring a simple straight line drag race? (https://nurburgringlaptimes.com/lap-times-top-100/)

Again, I think you are ignoring the point. You are right about the Chinese dumping. They are trying to win market share in a market which they correctly perceive to be HUGE going forward, so they are playing the long game. This is similar to Japanese TV manufacturers doing the same thing to drive the American manufacturers out of the business in the 70s. End result is that they got the market, and we buy more TVs than ever. If domestic production of these products is not supported by the consumer by purchasing and installing, the same thing will happen. By the way, I fail to see how buying a Chinese solar panel makes us dependent on THEM for energy. The energy comes from the sun for 20 years after you make the one time purchase of the panel. I'm going to assume you are referring to solar panels in your example. There are many ways to get renewable energy, with the best not yet discovered. The most efficient solar panel is only about 23% efficient, which means they aren't very energy dense. New ways will be discovered to generate power in with a higher density, we just need to make sure that WE (America) are the one's doing the discovery.

People portraying everyone who believes in renewable energy as libtards or hippies just exacerbates the issue and causes us to fall further behind the rest of the world in this area.

 

Maybe they should. The reality is that we buy the cars we liked when we were young. The buyers for these cars will be dying off in the coming decades and prices will inevitably come down for all but the very few best of the best. And those don't get driven anyways so really, who cares about them.

 

Well you see, here is how the gov. works: "Let's get the gas guzzlers off the road and into electric. Maybe we can give them a few thousand and have them get into hybrid or electric. IN ORDER TO EXPEDITE THE IDEA let's tax them heavily when registering their older cars each year. Perhaps we should get a tax put on parts for repair on the older vehicles. Maybe we can also......dada dada dada....

This is how it works in the real world with our ever growing government and increasing regulations.

 

Please enlighten us with some examples of government regulations which were put in place without any company or individual doing something stupid, wrong, or causing some kind of issue. Yep, there are many regulations, but It's disingenuous to just bitch about 'government regulatory burden' when that is the only remedy. Companies are governed by laws and regulations. Without them, they are free to do whatever they want without penalty, and will frequently do so. No rule about dumping waste into the sewer, must be fine to do it. Lead bad for you, well there's no law against putting it into paint so that must be fine too.

We wouldn't need these regulations if people and corporations didn't do bad things.

 

its all a political hoax.


the left is desperate to get votes. So they create this ‘sky is falling’ ‘only i know how to fix it’, ‘vote for me or you will die’

basically scientists get paid to study a ‘problem’. If they come back and say ‘there is no problem’, then the govt cancels their funding bc there is no problem to study.

i base my conclusions on my observations.
i live in northeast ohio. I am not observing unusual weaher patterns. We still get cold and snow in the winter.

oh yeah, and dont forget the religious freaks jumping on the climate change bandwagon to fit their agenda. Saying stuff like ‘climate change will make the earth uninhabitable in 30 yrs’ . ‘Join my cult and i will save your soul from an eternity in he11’

the truth might be in the middle somewhere, but thats about as far as ill lean into it.

the problem i see is overpopulation. Too many people, even here in the USA (which is under populated as far as density goes compared to most other countries). No way do i want more people here

 

If gas prices and auto industry stopped receiving government subsidies, the market would equalize naturally in a decade or two.

 

Battery replacement is about $5-7K according to this article based on information from Tesla (https://interestingengineering.com/t...ound-5000-7000)

But that cost is not the whole story and it should be compared against a lifetime of ICE maintenance. We on this forum tend to minimize these costs since we do the work ourselves, but if you had to pay people to do it for you, this cost is actually cheaper than the other maintenance added up. Just a few examples:

C6 Z06 LS7 Valve fix - Consensus is between $2500 and $3000 (https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-fix-cost.html)
L98 Head Gasket replacement - $2100 for this forum member (https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-1990-l98.html)
Honda Odyssey Timing Belt - This guy quotes $1160 from his dealer. (https://www.odyclub.com/threads/timi...u-guys.245834/)

I have friends that have to use car dealerships and mechanics for car work, and they regularly walk out with four figure bills.

Don't forget all of the fluids that don't exist in an electric car that don't need periodic changing.

It's all about the Total Cost of Ownership....

 

However $50.00 dollar to death is a lot easier to deal with than $5-7K. It won't be the new car owners that get hit with that. The ones that can afford to buy a Tesla, can afford to trade them in often, then they get passed down. It is the next (or next) tier of owners who can less afford that in one chunk that really get hurt, just like it is now.

There is a reason why there are so many (considerably) low mileage cars on the used market (doesn't matter what make or model). Multitudes are traded in shortly before or after that warranty runs out.

There are other parts on a Tesla (or other EV) that will be subject to wear and tear, besides the battery.

My youngest had a hybrid. I pushed on her to get it paid down enough to get rid of it. I found her a nice car and that timebomb is gone. She had to drive 70 miles south of San Antonio to the dealership I found it for her at (her dad is good at finding things on the internet). Now it will be some other unfortunate sole's problem. I didn't like doing that, but she is on her own 1200 miles from us.

 

I guess the point is, the C4 is fun to drive, maybe more fun than the EV...its not just about acceleration numbers, its also about the driving experience. You know, the sound of the engine, the mechanical feedback and vibration of the car, banging through the gears etc... For me a quite, sedan with that you just press on the gas and drive around is about as fun as driving an I phone... very utilitarian but fun... not so much. Sure you can take off quickly (a few times until you deplete the charge) but that is only a small part of the sports car experience, for me.

I should also add, for me and I think a lot of 'car guys' working on your car an modifying it is a BIG part of what makes the hobby fun. Not sure if you can 'hot rod' and EV but I imagine it would involve mainly wiring or computer programing, Not my idea of fun on my spare time. I'd much rather wrench on a SBC or LS, working on mechanical systems and building them are fun to me. wiring and computer programing... not so much.

 

One observation I've made is for whatever reason, it seems the global warming issue and extreme socialism/ marxism seem to have become intertwined. It seems any time people and government propose solutions they always seem to involve bigger government, more taxes, less individual choice. For me this really hurts the credibility of those who claim to be concerned about climate change, because i'm not sure if that is what they are really concerned about or if its all just a veiled attempt to force radical socialism on others...

If someone wants to talk about climate science without the socialist agenda I'm happy to talk about the issue and possible solutions, but ad in all the proposed socialist solutions, militant climate strikes etc.. and I have not interest in talking about it or solutions because it seems disingenuious.

 

Maybe this was this was asked/stated above, didnt read all the posts. But, if you are going to pretend to know that you need to change the state of the environment, and think you can, should you not also need to know what the goal state should be? In other words, what is the 'right' temperature? Until you can tell me where it needs to end up, I dont want to hear about all your plans to tax me to change it.

 

That goal has been well established, and the requirements to meet the goal are also established.

DMITTZ; the C4 is fun to drive. I agree. That's partly why I still have mine.

 

Are those goals established? I havent seen a single plan that would reverse global warming. All the plans laid out are to slow the acceleration of co2 output.