631–640 of 650 posts
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Total off topic, as comments on older posts are off. As per your comment from 19 days ago [0], is it possible for you to write down something about your air quality sensors project? That would be awesome. (0) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26690347
Sure! Let me clean up the code a bit and write a quick post about it, should be able to get it done this weekend.
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The difference is, even the poorer countries in Europe have a better bus and train system than the majority of America. Now, granted, America is much larger so I hate these comparisons. Many European countries are the size of an American state, but compare any US state and the bus and train system will almost certainly pale in comparison. I'm all for a fuel tax, but I'm also a huge proponent for a decent alternative…
Not hard to add a good bus system, buy 1000 electric buses from China, done.
Heck, in Chicago there was a big stink when the city started putting in “foreign made” decorative street lights and bus stops a few years back when there were locally-manufactured alternatives.
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How many of these places drive 2021 model cars right now?
Probably none, and most of them can't even afford a used car with AWD. Every time I hear about Americans buying offroad cars as a status symbol I think of people in Cameroon getting stuck in the muddiest dirt roads on the planet with their Golf 3.
Our last big snow storm of the season required me to pick up my in-laws and take them to the doctor. Their BMW 5-whatever sedan couldn’t even make it out of their parking garage.
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I give SUV drivers a bit of merit. Many (most?) come with a third row or at least the option for one so they are the most practical way to carry around up to 8 people at once safely.
Minivans are the most practical for this purpose. The third row seat in most suvs are for children at best.
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VW is pretty far behind Tesla in battery technology.[0] Still, this seems like a good car for a large number of drivers. The VW charging network is building out rapidly (I've noticed that VW's chargers are largely in the same locations as Tesla's superchargers. Wonder why?) The Tesla Model Y Long Range is rated at 326 miles and in my experience that's accurate and completely practical. As to your criterion of "500ish…
It is extremely common to fill up any ICE and get nearly 500 miles. It's almost like they sized the tanks to that standard.
I'm kicking around the idea of an electric car, but the ranges of these things just utterly disappoint me. With some companies offering, or planning to offer 500ish mile ranges, it would feel immediately outdated to me to throw 40k on something with a ~200 mile range. Is battery tech that different between companies, is it cost prohibitive?
I'll take a range of 80 miles. Enough for a couple round-trips to work with some reserve capacity. I'd pay $20k for a tiny car that provides me with that and I'd keep my gas vehicle for road trips. In order to replace my gas vehicle, I'm going to need 500 miles. That's enough to cover my trip to see family along with a little overhead to handle degredation over time and running the AC in summer. I don't mind stopping…
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New prices are quite prohibitive but the state of things actually isn't the worst for used EVs if you can stomach low range. My family does a two-car approach: 1. Hybrid SUV for actually getting places and moving things 2. ~$4k a used 2013 Smart car. ~45 mile range is good enough for short commute, grocery runs, etc. Charge at home or at work (we have the uncommon situation of no charging at home since we live in a c…
$4k for a 2013 smart? You got some amazing deal, they usually sell for twice that amount. Hard to find any decent one for less than $7-8k
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Why such concern about people owning things that they may not truly need? I'd say it is a bit of a slippery slope. Many things are not truly needed.
A slippery slope to what? Cutting down on pointless consumption and needless environmental damage?
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I'm always so amused when I see people complaining about certain cars being too expensive. The cheapest Tesla Model 3 costs 160k SGD here, which is about 120k USD. And it gets more expensive from there. Not to mention the fact that your COE expires after 10 years after which you have to pay another 50k to be allowed to drive it for another 10 years.
Ok? I'm saying the VW is too expensive for what it is, in the market it competes in, in the US and I believe in Europe as well. If you show me how the VW is a great bargain in your country vs the Tesla, that's an interesting argument. Complaining that cars are cheap in countries other than your own doesn't really relate to the VW's relative place in the market.
My thinking behind the post was to suggest that the "it's expensive" argument doesn't really matter, since all cars are so cheap in the US.
This is of course not a great line of reasoning, since people look at the cost of a car in relative terms. I should have thought it through before posting.
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You missed the key point of swapping batteries. You don't own the battery nor did you pay ($16K) for the battery. So there is no "original battery". I assume that in ten years we will have "standard units of power" - the equivalent of a large "D" cell battery.
That is an option I kind of outlined as leasing/subscribing to the battery back are the easiest mechanisms to do this. If the car owner only charged via swapping you could do a system where the cost of the pack was part of the electricity cost (eg: like a propane/co2 tank swap). The downside to this specific one is that you would have to either prevent charging or charge a fee if they did not swap in a specific time…