Drive your car now, says Car and Driver

[Schwerin]

My guess is that in 40 years gasoline will be all but gone and our cars will be worth nothing but museum pieces....

full of Cobra R's that barely have over 200 miles on them and never got the joy of single track day.... I don't look at cars like that at car shows with amazement, I look at them with pity that they never got to do what they were built to do, and wonder why the pathetic rich guy that owns it never had the balls to drive it.

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[TonyNJ]

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/a39475857/ezra-dyer-column-drive-your-cars-now/

This was a good article. Quick easy read and to the point. I'm going for a ride.

 

[shogun32]

My plate hasn't come in yet, but I got an ironic 9MPG_EV plate since I needed to new plates anyway, pumped for that one.

I have a "Friend of Coal" plate. I think I'll label it "YRWLCM" or "EVPOWER"

Solar/Wind will NEVER be base-load. The one only operates 12hrs a day and the other can quit at any time. This means you have to continuously operate NatGas or other even if they aren't supplying the grid. Or you adopt a lifestyle of "well folks, our unsustainable wind/solar just took a crap so it'll be 3 hrs of blackout till we get ye' ol' natgas fired up. It's not like you need continuous power delivery for your factory, or that bloomin' Inter-tube thingy now is it..."

When did a first world country aspire to emulate the "virtuous lifestyle" of 3rd-world shitholes? Seems to me those 3rd world guys keep trying to get to first world status for some reason. They don't seem near as enamored with erratic power, long-duration blackouts, breathing 2-stroke haze, or washing in road-side sewers...

 

[JoeSpeed]

My guess is that in 40 years gasoline will be all but gone and our cars will be worth nothing but museum pieces....

we’ll be fine, though I do agree with drive your car everyday

Had my Bronco for 4 months and already at 7700 miles

 

[DB2]

Cars are meant to be driven..... If you want an investment, get a mutual fund.

Might I suggest an ETF instead avoiding most of the disadvantages of a mutual fund while providing all of the benefits.

 

[DB2]

It's like having a girlfriend and never doing her... you're just saving her for the next guy...
dumb. Dumb. DUMB.

How much did you get when you sold your last girlfriend?
LOL

 

[gjbroder]

Might I suggest an ETF instead avoiding most of the disadvantages of a mutual fund while providing all of the benefits.

Either way... My intention was to suggest financial assets as an investment, and not cars.

 

[brokenblinker]

Solar/Wind will NEVER be base-load. The one only operates 12hrs a day and the other can quit at any time. This means you have to continuously operate NatGas or other even if they aren't supplying the grid. Or you adopt a lifestyle of "well folks, our unsustainable wind/solar just took a crap so it'll be 3 hrs of blackout till we get ye' ol' natgas fired up. It's not like you need continuous power delivery for your factory, or that bloomin' Inter-tube thingy now is it..."

This is where we disagree I guess (which is fine). For sure we will always need other stuff in supplement (natural gas, etc.), but Solar/Wind/Nuclear (throwing nuclear in there) can be baseload in the near future (Europe's already done it in many places and has less favorable solar characteristics) if we follow the cheapest way to produce energy. Whether we are reluctant is another thing and it obviously won't happen overnight.

I guess I'm a walking dichotomy...Nissan Leaf for daily commuting, putting hundreds of pointless miles on my GT350 by weekend.

 

[Andy13186]

50k miles on my 2018 all for fun. No driving necessary for my job. 770 rwhp now too.

 

[shogun32]

How much did you get when you sold your last girlfriend?
LOL

50% more monthly income, significant savings on beer, esp wine, and diet pills, and no more calls to the plumber to unclog the drains. The price tag in "relief" and "aggravation" is yet to be determined but probably worth 3-5 years of lifespan.

 

[Mr. Maboomba]

we’ll be fine, though I do agree with drive your car everyday

Had my Bronco for 4 months and already at 7700 miles

Excellent. And then what do we do for the next 7 to 8 billion years until the sun explodes and incinerates all of humanity?

 

[Baugustine]

I'm interested to see where things go.

I work in robotics algorithms (and am adjacent but not directly involved in AI) and no one around me (actually in the trenches) thought we'd be at level 4/5 now. Maybe a few (loud) voices speaking above what the engineers actually think.

I still think the change to EV is going to happen quickly over the next several years. Wind/Solar are now the cheapest forms of energy production (obviously still need a reliable surge capability) and we're probably only ~5 years away from EVs being cheaper (with no incentives, from an energy density perspective) for the manufacturers to build.

Almost everyone I know my age (33), both carpeople and non-carpeople are considering EVs when buying new commuting cars.

We need to make sure we are not confusing engineering teams projecting actual technology vs. CEOs and Marketing/Communication personnel selling transportation journalists on technology talking points. I did a presentation last year at an industry conference, specifically on EVs (how to repair them) and I found many, many articles, still online and not archived, on AV tech and when we would see it mainstream. All were wrong in their projections, and all completely misjudged the gap between levels 3 and 4 and how software is no where near ready for primetime in that chasm.

I own a 2018 Chevy Volt, love the car, but your age group does not represent the majority of new vehicle buyers for several key reasons. It is a great commuter vehicle (i bought it for my daughter who just graduated college) but not a primary ride when you have kids, home, boat and a dog.

A company like GM that decides they are going to chase a market right now that is still very much in its infancy runs a huge risk not only to its shareholders, but also equally as important employees and suppliers (of which there are tens of thousands). The highest profit margins are still in the light duty truck/SUV space and unless they build a Lighting-type 1/2 ton that is a runaway success, the balance sheet will bleed badly. The two-mode hybrid they built was an overpriced disaster.

Remove government-sponsored (read: taxpayer funded) rebates and the EV sector struggles. Eventually that will change, but 5 years is very optimistic.

 

[WildHorse]

How much did you get when you sold your last girlfriend?
LOL

Not much. Rode hard. Put away wet.

 

[brokenblinker]

We need to make sure we are not confusing engineering teams projecting actual technology vs. CEOs and Marketing/Communication personnel selling transportation journalists on technology talking points. I did a presentation last year at an industry conference, specifically on EVs (how to repair them) and I found many, many articles, still online and not archived, on AV tech and when we would see it mainstream. All were wrong in their projections, and all completely misjudged the gap between levels 3 and 4 and how software is no where near ready for primetime in that chasm.

I own a 2018 Chevy Volt, love the car, but your age group does not represent the majority of new vehicle buyers for several key reasons. It is a great commuter vehicle (i bought it for my daughter who just graduated college) but not a primary ride when you have kids, home, boat and a dog.

A company like GM that decides they are going to chase a market right now that is still very much in its infancy runs a huge risk not only to its shareholders, but also equally as important employees and suppliers (of which there are tens of thousands). The highest profit margins are still in the light duty truck/SUV space and unless they build a Lighting-type 1/2 ton that is a runaway success, the balance sheet will bleed badly. The two-mode hybrid they built was an overpriced disaster.

Remove government-sponsored (read: taxpayer funded) rebates and the EV sector struggles. Eventually that will change, but 5 years is very optimistic.

Oh yeah, sorry not saying the whole industry will upend in 5 years. Just saying that will be approximate energy density cost equivalency for manufacturing crossover. My goal of brevity probably made it come out wrong. Who's to say the customer even wants it, regardless of which is cheaper.

I still think its a long time before truck drivers in Utah are buying electric vehicles and you can take an EV roadtrip without sweating.

 

[Mr. Maboomba]

This is where we disagree I guess (which is fine). For sure we will always need other stuff in supplement (natural gas, etc.), but Solar/Wind/Nuclear (throwing nuclear in there) can be baseload in the near future (Europe's already done it in many places and has less favorable solar characteristics) if we follow the cheapest way to produce energy. Whether we are reluctant is another thing and it obviously won't happen overnight.

I guess I'm a walking dichotomy...Nissan Leaf for daily commuting, putting hundreds of pointless miles on my GT350 by weekend.

Nuclear is a good addition. It seems to me it has to be part of the equation. You could perhaps add hydroelectric and geothermal too.

There are ways to manage variable energy sources like solar and wind. Sure, lithium-ion batteries can be part of the equation. But you can also store energy by pumping water to a higher elevation and recapturing the potential energy through hydroelectric turbines, like PG&E does today with the Helms Pumped Storage Plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_Pumped_Storage_Plant). Or compressed-air energy storage, like they are considering in the future (https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hy...age-project-to-help-replace-californi/610546/).

It seems to lack imagination to say that the way things are is the only way they can be.

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