Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by 81MC

You have some weird takes, but this is has got to be number 1.

Seemed pretty on point. He only forgot the home box 6x9 speakers floating on the rear deck.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by driveway

The Elantra N will eat anything Mazda makes.

It's also arguably the ugliest car ever built.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Acey

It's also arguably the ugliest car ever built.

Hah! Not even close!

The Aztec, the Cube, the PT Cruiser...

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Locke

Hah! Not even close!

The Aztec, the Cube, the PT Cruiser...

The Rusty Musky

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by you&me

I had a friend that got a ticket (while in a parking lot, no less) for having a bike rack, sans bikes, that obscured her plate. IIRC, there's some leniency if you're hauling bikes, but not so much if not and the rack is obstructing the plate.

Years ago, some guy was in the paper complaining about getting ticketed for his bike rack being mounted on his car due to an 'obscured license plate'.

"Trevor Anderson manages a bike shop called Calgary Cycle Road. He says he was driving to West Bragg Creek last summer when he was ticketed. He was carrying his bike on his rack at the time.

But he fought it — and won — by bringing in a picture of a Calgary police van sporting a rack that covered its plate."

[speede5]

In Germany you have to have duplicate plate on anything mounted to the rear of the vehicle. Lots of people had racks with lights as well. They are sticklers over there and it made sense when you saw it.

[pylon]

Just a little state of the union on the car market for anyone that's been holding out on a car purchase.

Used car prices have all but corrected themselves outside of just a few high demand cars. Are they pre-pandemic? No. But that is more a product of inflation, not an inflated market. The typical new car has gone up in price 10-20% and used values kinda followed. But they are finally settling into a point where a used car is notably cheaper than a new one.

For example, 2 years ago, I was taking in a 2 year old Tiguan Highline on trade for 38-40k, Now I'm taking that same 2 year old vehicle on trade for 28-30k.

2 years ago I was buying a 3 year old F150 Lariat at the auction for 55-60. That same truck is 40-43k now.

The madness is over. Will the market continue to correct? Probably a bit more, but the bulk of the madness is over unless you looking for a Sienna Limited, a Cybertruck, a 911... etc. However the risk of being $20k in the ditch on a used car months after buying it, that's done. We're definitely seeing more people coming out of the woodwork now, as some of the trades people limped through the pandemic avoiding a the crazy market.... oof. Some of them are pretty horrific LOL.

Used car interest rates are floating around 7-9%, but don't let that stop you if you need financing. Once rates start to come down, as long as you request a loan through one of the big guys...RBC, Scotia, TD, CIBC.... if you have clean payment history, you can always request they rewrite the loan at a better rate down the road. But 2 points on the average car loan is 20-30 bucks a month, not hundreds like a mortgage. Manufacturer/captive financing is a different story and usually a hard no on a rewrite.

Unless you have a major boner for an EV, I wouldn't buy a used one right now. The bloom is off that rose, and the used market on them has absolutely collapsed. Used EV's are almost unsellable. I dabbled in a few, thought I stole these things at the auction, and priced them first the cheapest in the city, then the province, then... the country. No bites. At one point I had the cheapest E-tron in Canada by $10,000 and it didn't get a sniff until I discounted it another $10k. Used Teslas just rot away until you auction them to Eastern or BC dealers. The only EV I'd buy would be a new one, and only if I lived in a province that had a rebate to buy one. They depreciate like nothing I've ever seen.

As far as new cars go, there's no reason to pay over MSRP for most new cars either. Most manufacturers have rebates in place, promotional interest rates again, and dealers are willing to haggle. The only outlier in this seems to be Toyota. Some of the horror stories I'm hearing from customers from Toyota stores....yikes. I never thought I'd see Toyota dealers doing that kinda stuff, but if you want anything in their lineup that's remotely in demand, bend over.

All in all though, the party is over for dealers, and customers can buy with confidence again and not have to worry that you paid 20k more for your truck than your neighbour did because he had a 'buddy' at the dealership.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by speede5

In Germany you have to have duplicate plate on anything mounted to the rear of the vehicle. Lots of people had racks with lights as well. They are sticklers over there and it made sense when you saw it.

Germany, eh. I can think of a reasonable trade.

Province receives: Drivers will affix a second license plate to their bike rack if the main plate is obscured.
Drivers receive: Delimited speeds on Highways 1 and 2. (Like actually, not unofficially like now.)

[chedder]

If used ev's are cheap wouldn't this be a great time to buy one? Or are you saying they'll continue to depreciate too much? Are they cheap or just not selling?

[TorqueDog]

For typical ICE vehicles, knowing something depreciates like a brick dropped out of a 737 would motivate me to look at the used market for those more closely, not avoid it. Furthermore, for a specialty vehicle, you can identify where the depreciation curve flattens and values begin to rise again.

Then again, the big thing for EVs is battery degradation... depending on past owners' charging and discharging habits, it might very well be like buying used mobile phones. Some have really good battery health a few years on, some are at 75% of their original capacity. Replacing the battery on any EV is no small invoice. Apparently, you're looking at something like $22k USD on a Tesla Model S to replace the battery.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

For typical ICE vehicles, knowing something depreciates like a brick dropped out of a 737 would motivate me to look at the used market for those more closely, not avoid it. Furthermore, for a specialty vehicle, you can identify where the depreciation curve flattens and values begin to rise again.

Then again, the big thing for EVs is battery degradation... depending on past owners' charging and discharging habits, it might very well be like buying used mobile phones. Some have really good battery health a few years on, some are at 75% of their original capacity. Replacing the battery on any EV is no small invoice. Apparently, you're looking at something like $22k USD on a Tesla Model S to replace the battery.

And then you've got to bury the old one in your backyard, and they're really big and its a lot of digging and then if you live in Calgary you've got to wait for the ground to thaw or rent a backhoe...its just a whole long convoluted process.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by chedder

If used ev's are cheap wouldn't this be a great time to buy one? Or are you saying they'll continue to depreciate too much? Are they cheap or just not selling?

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.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Then again, the big thing for EVs is battery degradation... depending on past owners' charging and discharging habits, it might very well be like buying used mobile phones. Some have really good battery health a few years on, some are at 75% of their original capacity. Replacing the battery on any EV is no small invoice. Apparently, you're looking at something like $22k USD on a Tesla Model S to replace the battery.

It's the equivalent of your gas tank shrinking a few liters every year. As a gas car ages, the fuel economy actually tends to get a bit better after you buy it, and marginally might get worse as it ages. But it's likely 1 or 2%, nothing you'd notice.

Also, if your engine or transmission fails on your F150, or Corolla... whatever. You can always pay a mechanic to rebuild it for 3-5k on most cars, or even find a used one out of a salvage car for $1500. These options do not exist on EV's. 95% of the time, an EV involved in an accident requiring salvage, renders the battery questionable at best, a fire hazard at worst.

What's more environmentally friendly? Salvaging a used motor out of a Corolla and repurposing it, or installing a new lithium battery. I guarantee you the carbon footprint of that battery just made that EV way worse on every environmental metric than the Corolla will ever be.

[Table 5]

Are you telling me the push for EV's is not going to be the great environmental panacea after all? Well I never...

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by speede5

In Germany you have to have duplicate plate on anything mounted to the rear of the vehicle. Lots of people had racks with lights as well. They are sticklers over there and it made sense when you saw it.

And in Germany you can also easily buy a duplicate plate. Here the system fails because they give you #### for obscuring your plate and then do not provide the means to rectify it. It is more like FU, you can't have a bike rack.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Are you telling me the push for EV's is not going to be the great environmental panacea after all? Well I never...

I honestly believe it will be looked back upon as one of the biggest global scams in the history of mankind.

I am not a climate change denier. I simply do not believe the transition to EV's is the answer. Especially when 80% of the electricity produced for them globally is carbon based.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by pylon

It's the equivalent of your gas tank shrinking a few liters every year. As a gas car ages, the fuel economy actually tends to get a bit better after you buy it, and marginally might get worse as it ages. But it's likely 1 or 2%, nothing you'd notice.

Also, if your engine or transmission fails on your F150, or Corolla... whatever. You can always pay a mechanic to rebuild it for 3-5k on most cars, or even find a used one out of a salvage car for $1500. These options do not exist on EV's. 95% of the time, an EV involved in an accident requiring salvage, renders the battery questionable at best, a fire hazard at worst.

What's more environmentally friendly? Salvaging a used motor out of a Corolla and repurposing it, or installing a new lithium battery. I guarantee you the carbon footprint of that battery just made that EV way worse on every environmental metric than the Corolla will ever be.

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.

[pylon]

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.

I've taken a few 6-7 year old Teslas on trade and only 120 km in lost range is optimistically generous.

Maybe a 6 year old Tesla that lived its life in San Diego with an owner that followed every single charging protocol to a T. But Joe Blow driving the thing all winter in Calgary and topping it up to 100% every night? I'd bet that car lost 25-30%. A lot of people don't understand the chemistry of those batteries and why overcharging degrades them.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by pylon

...
Unless you have a major boner for an EV, I wouldn't buy a used one right now. The bloom is off that rose, and the used market on them has absolutely collapsed. Used EV's are almost unsellable. I dabbled in a few, thought I stole these things at the auction, and priced them first the cheapest in the city, then the province, then... the country. No bites. At one point I had the cheapest E-tron in Canada by $10,000 and it didn't get a sniff until I discounted it another $10k. Used Teslas just rot away until you auction them to Eastern or BC dealers. The only EV I'd buy would be a new one, and only if I lived in a province that had a rebate to buy one. They depreciate like nothing I've ever seen...

I think this will pose a real problem for increased EV adoption going forward.

I remember not that long ago where a Model S depreciated much more slowly than the quivalent German sedan, which in a way proved to be another sort of subsidy for early adopters - they get a rebate from the government, lower depreciation, lower running costs (vs paying for gas and normal service costs)... Low cost of ownership became the wholistic incentive.

But now, the TCO over even 12 months is so far out of whack, you could buy almost anything else and be ahead of an EV, which means only the die hards will still make that commitment.

I remember reading an article (or maybe it was a podcast) out of the US, where a major US wholesaler was still trying to wrap his head around what to even do with EVs. The example he used at the time was the then-new Mercedes EQS... These things were going for >$120k new and within 6 months and a few thousand miles, he was selling them in the $60s, 'cause that's all they'd bring.

No amount of fuel savings or "good feels" is going to make up for 50% depreciation in under a year. People will simply not do it... You can imagine how hard it was to feign enthusiasm when a friend dropped a kid off earlier this week in his new EQS... "Oh, yeah, nice... Glad you're liking it"

[DoubleF]

Saw a Jetta today on what must have been 20 inch wheels. Looked hilariously almost like an RC car. Awesome!