this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Give me a small 4dr sedan with crank windows, manual mirrors, pleather seats, tape player, shitty heat/ac, room for just 4 ppl (barely) and electric for $12-15k. They will fly off the shelves.
Instead let's build 7 passenger SUVs with a massive ass IPad, that drives itself into other cars, and fetch key fobs.
That's due to battery prices. You can't pay $25,000 for a battery, put it in a shitbox and sell it for $30,000 because nobody's going to buy a $30,000 car with the features and quality of a $5,000 car. Batteries can only be maybe a third of the cost of a car, so everyone's been targeting the top of the market with expensive EVs.
The good news is, battery prices are continuing to plummet each year. When you have $2,000 batteries, $12,000 cars are doable.
Bullshit. You can easily get a battery for less than $25,000. The Tesla model 3 is a 50KWh pack and is $14000 to replace and likely costs way less to make.
If you were really skilled you could buy 50KWh worth of cells for less than $10000.
The reason the batteries are more is because you have SUVs and Trucks that need twice the amount of cells for about the same range because they're not aerodynamic
The math still stands even with those numbers
I don't think they will though. At least in the US. I currently drive the gas version of this vehicle, a 5 speed Ford Fiesta, and the majority of other drivers on the road seem offended that I'm there with them. I set my cruise control ~7mph over the speed limit everywhere I go (almost all highway driving) and I'll have people speed up when I switch lanes to go around them because they had been driving slower than me for miles previously. I'm used to seeing nothing but bro-dozer oversized grills out of my rear hatch window. Police could just use me as a mobile speed trap for all the people who feel the need to zoom around me despite always going just below the 'probably won't get pulled over' speed. When I'm turning left at a light and I need to end up in the right-most lane I have to switch quickly to keep the person behind me from flooring it and trying to go around me in the slow lane.
Meanwhile I have low cost to replace tires, low insurance rates and get 40mpg regardless of how or where I drive it.
I definitely understand. In North Carolina we have Carolina lifted trucks. It's were the back of the truck is lower than the front. Illegal? Yes. Enforced? No. A real child plowing machine (never thought I would have to write that statement before).
There is a sect of the population that needs to grow the fuck up and stop worrying about their dick size or how tall they are. We need to have a more realistic view when buying things. Do I need a $100k truck with mud tires and a 12" lift just to pick up the kids from daycare and get groceries? No
It's amazing how much a difference there was in road manners when I was driving a mustang vs. a rav4. It was quite literally stress free, suddenly there were no jackasses on the road.
Try driving an old crown Vic police cruiser. The last one was made in 2011 and were never ever used in my area. I still get people getting over and slowing down when they were going to pass me.
Oh, same. We have multiple vehicles and I only experience this when driving the Fiesta. It's almost like people are mad that you have chosen a vehicle based on logic and reasoning over id.
Also, in my town at least, this phenomenon seems to have gotten perceptibly worse over the past 6-8 years. People are just angrier all the time in general I think.
I am the guy that passed you doing 75 on our beltway that's 55 (singing I just can't drive... 55!) 😉
I mentioned this because lately, I've almost been mowed over a few times, and I usually drive right, until I can't. I don't change lanes rapidly or in multiples, no texting, but I've been passed by people changing multiple lanes and shoulders, always on phones, etc.
Dude, I don't disagree. Maybe they feel too busy, hate RTO, don't know.
It's very aggressive lately.
I compare my daily commute to the chariot races in Ben Hur. It absolutely wasn't this way pre COVID.
I dunno, I feel like it's mostly just people being people. We have a truck and a sporty little hatchback and people are just as apt to drive like assholes around both cars, despite my husband and I both also being the "drive just enough above the speed limit that we probably won't get a ticket" drivers, and otherwise adhering almost exactly to road laws the way only mildly obsessive neurodivergents can. I think people either just don't know road laws or don't care about them and get pissed when other people do and "impede" their oh-so-important trip.
Depends. Quick scan puts it at about $AU20 grand just for electrification, which is already a good ways towards the cost of a new one.
With that kind of money, you could reasonably buy a secondhand EV, like a Leaf ($AU16 grand), and swap out the battery on top ($AU10 grand), and come out around the same kind of price. Might even come out on top, just by virtue of the EV having systems and gauges that were designed around it being an EV that could be reused.
Yes, but then it wouldn't be an electric Karmann Ghia, which is the prettiest thing on the planet.
Holy shit, you're right.
Thanks for that name drop, I now a have my dream car.
At 26 grand, you're approaching the 38 grand that a Dolphin costs. And that'll get you a brand new vehicle, bigger battery, CCS2 and a manufacturer's warranty.
I had the idea to start a company offering conversations for more common commercial vehicles. It's just not feasible to make a drop in kit for any and every vehicle as that would require a lot of fabrication and effort to make it reliable and safe.
How are the gauges, abs, traction control, power steering , heat and a/c 12v system etc going to work? Weight distribution is going to be all messed up too unless you can put part of the battery under the hood. That could be dangerous in a crash too. You'll also need a cooling system for the battery and motors. The whole idea is a can of worms if you don't want a hack job.
Dacia Spring
Sign me up for that. As long as it passes US safety standards, then I want on.
I understand all those requirements except the tape player. I don't why anyone would need that? In fact they'd probably just add additional cost as I imagine getting brand new tape decks would be hard to source now.
1: Dont get between a man and his mix tapes.
2: Analog tech like that was modular, upgradeable and repairable. It also implies a sense of ownership of the vehicle, instead of the system we have now where people have less control over the things they purchase.
Im very much in this same mindset. Will happily drive my car into the ground over the next decade or so and only then start looking. Hopefully there is an electric or hybrid that meets what I would consider low standards, minimal internal displays, an outdated media console and none of that smart-device shit. And before the "you will own nothing and be happy" crowd chimes in, there are some of us who like to own our tools, and thats what a car is, a tool.
I recently paid about $40k for a small trunk. I would've paid more for an electric small truck but none exists.
I have a chest of drawers that I'd like to sell you.
And I have an armoire
The bolt can be found for 10-14k used easily