does NYC have e-bike rebate incentives yet or nah
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uh, PSA???
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I absolutely fucking love my e-golf even though it only has 150 miles of range in the absolute best best best case scenario. It costs less than $5 to fully charge the battery from 0 and you can do it without ever having to deal with a gas station ever again.
I think you discount how little maintenance EVs require, tire rotations and cabin air filters are about it. Brakes last a very very long time because of regen. There is an order of magnitude fewer moving parts and the ones that are left have much lower tolerances and are subject to far less stress than engine and transmission components. Donât abuse the battery by DC fast charging all the time and anything newer than a first gen Leaf is going to last. Barring accidents I expect to keep this car for decades.
Also I think youâre trying to compare what cars cost now to what they cost when you were able to walk onto a lot and buy your hybrid with no fuss. There is of course an EV premium but youâre basically pre-buying most of your fuel cost.
And theyâre so much quieter and not smelly and they never have to warm up. The center of gravity is low, torque is instant and plentiful, actually driving one is really fun even with a very modest motor.
Are they perfect for everyone absolutely not but thereâs a lot to like about them and theyâre going to evolve pretty rapidly as the first wave of mass market ones start to hit
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these points are very good imo â part of my objection is just being very unimpressed with the current retail offerings, everything feels transitional and bad and cheap isnât cheap anymore
I like smell and noise though, and $5 to go 150 miles is only like, half the fuel costs of my car or motorbike, and relies on infrastructure that is way less widely distributed (especially if you havenât already incorporated it into your home)
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iâm not sure - i donât think so, unless the kind of gamified money-saving thing that Citibike does counts? as of right now, ebikes and motorized scooters are all kind of in a legal grey area and the cops just seize them when they feel like it
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thatâs a bummer, hope they improve that
ahh fuck someone finally did it
I am about to order a bunch of pedal mods from this random Italian mob lol
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The infrastructure is only going to get better, itâs noticeably improved year over year and if gas stations didnât have roughly 100 years of head start they wouldnât seem nearly as attractive. You already run power to buildings for other reasons, what if you didnât have to haul around and store and replenish a huge quantity of toxic, flammable liquid?
Two weeks ago we went to a remote cabin that was more than 50% charge away from home, when we got there we just plugged the car into a regular exterior outlet and had it fully charged again the next day. The nearest gas station was a good 20 minutes away.
Again Iâm not trying to say they are perfect or have no drawbacks but they have a lot of very attractive, practical advantages that also get extra benefits from rapid improvement in power generation and distribution (that people already want and will happen with or without EVs) while combustion engines are really running out of room to improve
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sure, I am not opposed to progress, I hope people get to enjoy the eventual progress, it sounds nice
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Just waiting for the day I can get one of those 500eâs for $1000 and preparing myself for a life of spot welding diy battery packs or whatever like some kind of turbo vape enthusiast
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still dream of getting a boring hybrid/PHEV and doing an THE iDOLM@STER paintjob to become the dork of the street, rocking it like these fine lads
which i solute for their grown up attitude to 21st century sensible motoring.
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Came across this today
Disappointed in you, capitalism
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Donât forget about the (real? fake?) statistic about brightly colored cars getting pulled over more often, I think this brainwashed Gen X into killing all the cars with good colors
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very seriously considering getting the Fanatec H-shifter as a âfinally got my bond backâ present for myself
there are a lot of interesting third party shifters out there, I always thought if I wanted one (which I donât at the moment) Iâd pick and mix
yeah I just have yet to find one with the versatility and apparent build quality of the Fanatec, and while I am unlikely to use it in sequential mode, it seems like the best bang for buck as far as H-patterns go, and mounting adaptability, without doing weird hacks to get it working
handbrake on the other hand is an area where I am tempted to cheap out (but I still want one)
If I were looking to spend a fair chunck of change on a new shifter I would be looking at the VNM. Although, I think at least part of the allure was the near $200 price point and it seems like theyâre more like $300 now from US retailers. Impressive seeming build.
looks alright but
thatâs a no sale folks
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Someone could write a great substack just bullshitting about The End of Green
It hasnât until it has though right? Ironically given their potential as Isfet said as âcity cars,â EVs are currently a nonstarter for anyone with street parking.
The great thing about EVs is that they benefit from infrastructure improvements at every level
Power generation in the US via solar is increasing very rapidly
PV panels are 1/5th the price they were 10 years ago and manufacturing is starting to move away from silicon-based ones which will make them even cheaper
More wind turbines go up every day, etc etc
On the distribution aide improvements to armored cable construction and the increased adoption of HVDC means that electrical transmission is getting cheaper to install, with more capacity, and greater efficiency and without giant, vulnerable pylons to boot.
Obviously Seattle is full of rich tech bros but I can tell you that, concretely, there are many more EVs chargers along interstates than there were last year, and that I can think of at least 5 grocery store parking lots around here that have added or are adding EV chargers just this summer.
Meanwhile none of these improvements help ICE cars at all. Oil refineries are getting shuttered and pipelines are being blocked. One of the fundamental differences between EVs and ICE is that EVs can take advantage of centralized energy efficiency improvements for free while combustion cars need to be replaced on an individual basis to see improvement. Iâd rather spend money paying taxes or whatever that improve my car along with everyone elseâs, (and their light rail, and busses, and homes and anything else that uses electricity) than spend that same money on maintaining and replacing a gas car.
Are there magical solutions to all problems with EVs such that they are the right choice for everyone tomorrow or even 10 years from now? Of course not. But EVs are only getting better and more compelling while gas and diesel are running into seemingly hard limits for efficiency and emissions control. I am very confident that EVs are ascendant and even if they donât take over everything the world is going to be a much better place with them, even if that world doesnât look like this one just with people swapping their cars 1:1 (in fact it would absolutely rule if it didnât)
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