Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[bossy22]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Apparently, as the vehicle (Model S) reaches 100,000 miles (160,000 KM), the difference is about -75 miles of range from new.

If my vehicle lost 120 KM of range per full tank, I would notice it big-time.

Our Model S is 8 years old, 180000kms. the first 7 years we lost about 7% range. This past year it's almost doubled, so we are now at 13% lost. We've never had any real expenses with the vehicle other than winter tires. Compare that to what I've spent in service on my ICE vehicles over the past 8 years, we are sitting pretty good. I started with a F150 that had the turbos go at 120000kms. Then a Tacoma that was a service hog. Now I'm on my Volvo, which is actually been the cheapest of the three believe it or not...but it only has 100000kms on it.

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by bossy22

Now I'm on my Volvo, which is actually been the cheapest of the three believe it or not...but it only has 100000kms on it.

Prepare for that to change the day your warranty is up.

[Slava]

Thoughts on PHEVs? I’m debating whether that’s a worthwhile move here from the ICE at this point. For all the drawbacks, everyone I know with an EV raves about it. I’m certainly more interested today than I was a year ago.

[photon]

Was looking at the Kia Niro PHEV for my wife, with the government grant the price seems decent and it does seem like a pretty good compromise from committing to a full EV. The range on that is enough she could probably commute every day without the engine at all.

Except it's only FWD.

Just worry about reliability.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by photon

Was looking at the Kia Niro PHEV for my wife, with the government grant the price seems decent and it does seem like a pretty good compromise from committing to a full EV. The range on that is enough she could probably commute every day without the engine at all.

Except it's only FWD.

Just worry about reliability.

I’ve seen some of these or EVs that are RWD and I don’t know if that would make sense here. I guess the battery sits back further and maybe it’s fine? I really don’t know…but it seemed weird after FWD being standard for so long.

[photon]

I think I remember reading in this thread about CR finding PHEVs much lower reliability wise:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars...s-a7824554938/

But it did say there are some PHEVs that are predicted to be more reliable.

"Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are more of a mixed bag. As a category, they have 146 percent more problems than ICE vehicles. Several PHEVs are even less reliable than their conventional counterparts, such as the below-average Audi Q5 and Chrysler Pacifica. The latter has the lowest score in our survey, at 14.

Still, there are PHEVs that buck that trend, including standouts such as the Toyota RAV4 Prime and Kia Sportage, which score well above average. The BMW X5, Hyundai Tucson, and Ford Escape PHEVs earn average reliability scores."

[photon]

Originally Posted by Slava

I’ve seen some of these or EVs that are RWD and I don’t know if that would make sense here. I guess the battery sits back further and maybe it’s fine? I really don’t know…but it seemed weird after FWD being standard for so long.

Yeah the lower end EVs in many models are RWD which does seem weird.

If I'm buying RWD I'm buying a Mustang

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by pylon

Man this is a loaded question, and obviously I have to be somewhat careful how I answer as I work for a brand with a pretty big EV push right now. When I get some time though I will fully address it.

I will say this though. We are trading a current environmental problem, for what I believe is going to be an absolute environmental catastrophe like we've never seen. I do not believe they are the answer, and there are many people quietly saying the same thing in the automotive world.

But they are saying it quietly as long term, EV's represent enormous profits as long term the production costs are going to be half of what gas cars are, and will represent huge margins. And all these governments around the world have basically created a new market where customers will have no choice but to re-enter the car market.

I think long term, the EV market will be more like the cell phone market where every 3-4 years, these things will be abandoned and tossed in landfills, especially with China taking a massive position in the EV market. It's already happening there. They have fields full of unused EV's just rotting away.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2...-checkout=true

Cheap disposable junk being treated like cheap disposable junk.... this is where we are headed.

Plus right now we're still in the early stages of electric vehicles, where almost every new car that comes out has better range and better features than the last one, essentially making older models obsolete far faster than ICE vehicles further making them disposable. We saw the same thing with phones in the 2010's, with each new model so much more powerful than the last that it drove millions to upgrade every year and create a ####load of e-waste. We're finally at the end of that in the phone world as each new model is only an incremental upgrade, so it's much easier to hang on to a phone for many years, but in the EV world it'll probably take decades to reach that point

[timun]

Pour one out for one of the GOATs...

Spoiler!

Marcello Gandini died yesterday.

If you don't know who Gandini was, he was the man who designed the bodies of almost every Lamborghini from the late 1960s to late 1980s, beginning with the Miura and ending with the prototype for the Diablo (which ultimately didn't see production, but was reworked into the crazy 16-cylinder Cizeta V16T). He also did the Ferrari 308 GT4, as far as I know the only Ferrari not designed by Pininfarina until they brought styling in-house about 10-15 years ago. The Alfa Romeo Montreal, Maserati Khamsin, Lancia Stratos and Fiat X1/9 are among the other famous sports car designs he did. He wasn't just a sports car designer though; he also did the original VW Polo (and its Audi 50 twin), the Autobianchi A112, the Citroen BX and the second-generation Renault 5 (the "Supercinq").

[you&me]

Also worth noting that Marcello Gandini was only 27 when he penned the Miura for Bertone... It is still widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cars ever.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by bossy22

Our Model S is 8 years old, 180000kms. the first 7 years we lost about 7% range. This past year it's almost doubled, so we are now at 13% lost. We've never had any real expenses with the vehicle other than winter tires. Compare that to what I've spent in service on my ICE vehicles over the past 8 years, we are sitting pretty good. I started with a F150 that had the turbos go at 120000kms. Then a Tacoma that was a service hog. Now I'm on my Volvo, which is actually been the cheapest of the three believe it or not...but it only has 100000kms on it.

But to pylon's point, the moment you need to replace the battery *and someone will need to eventually*, it is easily the most expensive vehicle on your list for maintenance and repairs, and the battery replacement is worth more than the vehicle itself. You're more likely to take it to scrap than fix it. An old ass Civic, there are breakers that have usable engines and transmissions sitting around for less than the price of a Peloton bike.

[D as in David]

Do sodium-ion batteries offer any hope for this depressing discussion around EV's?

[Bill Bumface]

EVs depreciate like crazy ... so only buy new ones?

That seems completely backwards. A used EV sounds like a steal for someone willing to keep a car long term and depreciate it into the ground anyway.

Battery replacement timelines seem longer than most cars stay on the road anyway.

[Sylvanfan]

My vehicles are 22 and 18 years old. I'll hold out another 10 years with these if I can. After hearing Ray Kurzweil talk about exponential growth on Joe Rogan the other day, I expect the 5 year old EV I can buy in 10 years will be dirt cheap and far superior to what I can get today

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

That seems completely backwards. A used EV sounds like a steal for someone willing to keep a car long term and depreciate it into the ground anyway.

If I'm understanding this correctly - because of insurance this is not an option.

Bent battery casing / shield = risk of fire = no coverage = writeoff.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

If I'm understanding this correctly - because of insurance this is not an option.

Bent battery casing / shield = risk of fire = no coverage = writeoff.

It's not just insurance. Tesla will ban salvaged vehicles from superchargers.

I'd assume the other issue is sometimes you just can't tell before driving awhile after the incident. So say an insurance company spends $10k fixing collision damage, then they only find out a month after the battery is trashed too. Would have been better to write off the car.

This can happen because battery controllers can't see every cell, they see banks of cells as one. Say 2 cells now have intermittent connections from the force of a collision. It may appear fine because the voltage looks good on average. But if those cells go into a disconnected state that bank of cells is now drawing more power from fewer cells, so they get worked harder and will fail. Just one way this can go wrong. Another is that a vehicle often sits for weeks or months after a collision, causing the battery to enter a deeply discharged state, which it may not recover from at all, or may be reduced.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Slava

Thoughts on PHEVs? I’m debating whether that’s a worthwhile move here from the ICE at this point. For all the drawbacks, everyone I know with an EV raves about it. I’m certainly more interested today than I was a year ago.

Originally Posted by photon

Was looking at the Kia Niro PHEV for my wife, with the government grant the price seems decent and it does seem like a pretty good compromise from committing to a full EV. The range on that is enough she could probably commute every day without the engine at all.

Except it's only FWD.

Just worry about reliability.

Originally Posted by photon

I think I remember reading in this thread about CR finding PHEVs much lower reliability wise:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars...s-a7824554938/

But it did say there are some PHEVs that are predicted to be more reliable.

"Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are more of a mixed bag. As a category, they have 146 percent more problems than ICE vehicles. Several PHEVs are even less reliable than their conventional counterparts, such as the below-average Audi Q5 and Chrysler Pacifica. The latter has the lowest score in our survey, at 14.

Still, there are PHEVs that buck that trend, including standouts such as the Toyota RAV4 Prime and Kia Sportage, which score well above average. The BMW X5, Hyundai Tucson, and Ford Escape PHEVs earn average reliability scores."

I've been musing about a PHEV as well, and I've seen this "PHEVs have 146% more problems than ICE vehicles" stat before, but I'd like to see the actual breakdown. It sounds like there are a select few PHEVs that are dragging the overall average of PHEVs down, rather than all of them being inherently worse. It makes little sense that a PHEV would be considerably worse than a conventional hybrid: generally the only difference is a bigger battery, slightly different programming that favours more use of the electric motor, and a charging receptacle with an access door.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

If I'm understanding this correctly - because of insurance this is not an option.

Bent battery casing / shield = risk of fire = no coverage = writeoff.

Why isn't that an option? I've owned lots of cars for a very long time without crashing them.

Write-offs are nuts for everything now. Audi charges $6k for a headlight, and a few thousand for the sensors in that area, so any fender bender is now a write-off.

At least people in Eastern Europe buy those cars up like crazy and fix them and get them back on the road.

[timun]

Ha, anyone else remember this test the IIHS conducted in 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20081120.../pr030107.html ?

Front and rear full-on crashes into a barrier at 6 mph (~10 km/h) and crashes into the front and rear corners of the cars at 3 mph (~5 km/h).

The cumulative damage was tallied over the four tests, and of the 17 then-new cars they tested the one that sustained the least was a Mitsubishi Galant, with $4,277 worth. The worst were the VW Jetta and Nissan Maxima, which had over $9,000 of damage.

For funsies, and to illustrate that car bumpers used to be able to withstand 'bumps' a lot better, they did the same tests on a 1981 Ford Escort. It sustained a cumulative $469. $383 was damage to the bumper and trunk in the rear test, and $86 was damage to the front bumper in the front test; it sustained literally no damage whatsoever in the front and rear corner tests.

[Fuzz]

I was following a Chrysler Pacifica, and noticed the rear "bumper" is also the rear bodywork. Any little bump or scrape and that's a huge piece to replace, and corner damage is pretty common. All to avoid a body line, and they managed to still make it look bland and bad.

Spoiler!

Make Bumpers a thing Again. That's my MBA.