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MomJeans420 posted:I changed lanes approaching a light the other day to avoid a slow car and ended up being two cars back from a Smart car EV. As you'd expect, that was the worst possible choice of lanes to be in if you wanted to do at least the speed limit, but I'm not sure I've seen another Smart EV before? Maybe I just didn't notice them, but I certainly haven't heard anyone talk about them. They're still around and kicking. smart was wildly unpopular and really only sold cars in the US as part of Daimler's Car2Go urban carsharing program. Car2Go is dead now (in the US) so that killed their main market. A few years back they decided to pivot to EV only in the US, which wasn't a particular success, and now they're dead in the US. The smart ED had a 16.5 kwh battery and 20kw and could get about 80 miles of range because they are very slow and very small. more like a big enclosed golf cart than a real car. In Europe they're still being produced in successive generations but there was really no market for them in the US. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jul 14, 2020 |
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Jul 14, 2020 12:24
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McPhearson posted:When Smart first came to the US it was incredibly popular. People were putting deposits down a year before they came to market, and even then there was a 12-18 month wait to get one. Individual dealerships had their own reservation system as well; I know the Smart Center in Beverly Hills required a $2000 deposit just to be on the list of people called when a new one was available. Dealers were installing stuff like alarm systems on them in order to charge a $3k-$4k markup since they were supposed to be a "haggle-less" car, and even then they could barely keep them in stock. What really killed it was the 2008 recession that hit that same year they came out. Not a great year to launch a brand new, micro-car in the US. I don't think 2008 killed the smart car. It was a fashion accessory. They do well in Year 1. Beverly Hills is not a barometer for the overall car sales market. If it was the 2008 recession, how come sales didn't rebound with the broader car market?
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Jul 14, 2020 20:49
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Charles posted:Interestingly people were importing Smart cars before they were officially sold here. I even saw a Smart forFour on a California freeway once. I respected the hell out of a guy who grey marketed a Brabus roadster. The other thing is that the original smart that became the forTwo had a god awful semiautomatic transmission that broke all the time and was extremely unpleasant, so the ownership experience was not great. An EV smart makes sense as driving a smart a long distance sucks, but the US is just not a microcar market fundamentally.
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Jul 14, 2020 20:57
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i feel like that is the EV affluent Americans are clamoring for, but I guess it's not coming here due to a combination of Chinese production, cost, and probable low volumes destined to meet EU emissions/EV requirements?
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Jul 14, 2020 21:30
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InitialDave posted:Tbh I doubt the extra few hundred kg over an equivalent ICE car is of any great significance to road wear when there's full size trucks and big SUVs rolling around too. They aren't worse than any of the big vehicles but unfortunately I think in most cases they are replacing lighter vehicles. Road damage impacts are something like a four power function of GVWR, so there's definitely some effect.
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Jul 14, 2020 22:30
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AlexanderCA posted:That just mean freight trucks are 99% percent of wear whatever you do. No? Heavy trucks are the biggest driver of wear, yes, but increase in weights still matters.
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Jul 14, 2020 22:44
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Fair. Trucks do about 6% of total VMT.
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Jul 14, 2020 22:59
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AlexanderCA posted:Now electric semi trucks however. Shouldn't make a difference on an individual basis, vehicles are total weight limited to 80,000 lbs in the US. However, less weight for freight means more 80K trucks on the road.
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Jul 14, 2020 23:24
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big crush on Chad OMG posted:I wonder if Nissan will cascade the liquid cooled battery down to the Leaf, or simply replace the Leaf with a new model. Nothing terribly surprising about the Ariya, but they are way behind the competition now, which have all moved past the Leaf. Not selling this until late 2021 will mean it’s dropping into a more crowded market with brands that offer more cachet than Nissan. It will be interesting if they can make the jump from the current “we’ll finance just about anyone” model to their new vision of actually being profitable. I don't think 21 is actually going to be all that crowded. Late 21 means the following nominally planned launches for North America, which I've sorted (subjectively) by how likely I think they are to occur: Definitely: Mach E ID.4, and maybe some other VAG MEB stuff like Q4E, but it won't be that different so I'm lumping it all together. Polestar2 XC40 Recharge Probably: F-150E Hummer MB EQA Maybe: Cybertruk Rivian Truck BMW iNEXT MX-30 What else? I get maybe six approximate competitors (Mach E, ID.4, EQA, iNEXT, MX-30, XC40), with a couple more if you split out the MEB family. Mach E and Polestar2 are more expensive than Ariya's price point, the others are speculative, so I think the real competitors are probably ID.4, XC40, and EQA (if Daimler gets the EQA out in 2021). edit: I forgot a few things - XC40 Recharge, MX-30, Polestar2 KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Jul 15, 2020 |
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Jul 15, 2020 13:42
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The e-tron actually has a decent color palette for a modern car but of the 11 colors offered, seven are monochrome. 
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Jul 15, 2020 14:32
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Jimong5 posted:GM has a Bolt refresh and the Bolt crossover scheduled for 2021. There's also the Cadillac Lyriq as a maybe. That Bolt refresh is very mild and will not suddenly make that car popular, and I'm not sold on the EUV - it is a taller slightly longer Bolt, same architecture. I don't think that's what's preventing the Bolt from selling. They both will exist in 2021 though, for sure.
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Jul 15, 2020 15:15
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if you are only doing 500km rarely, you can buy a much less expensive EV and rent a car for your long journeys, assuming they are planned.
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Jul 15, 2020 22:09
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Ola posted:If you can charge fully at the other end and it takes 45 minutes of charging each way, you'll spend less time on charging than picking up and delivering back the rental, plus the money. you got some slow rear end rental places, and if you're willing to accept less range the Wonderful Wide World of Used Nissan Leafs opens up to you at an incredibly low price point
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Jul 15, 2020 22:54
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Ola posted:You have to go there, maybe wait in line, sign the complicated forms, meander around the car park trying to find it by pressing the fob, etc... I go there, get in a car on the lot, show my license to a guy at exit, and then I'm done. When I return, I leave the car in the parking lot with the attendant who emails me a receipt and I leave. This is the standard process. Nostalgic Cashew posted:This is a good post. So the Rivian isn't for sure this year? For as much as I've seen them testing I would have thought it was closer. Note that I forgot the Bolt and Big Bolt, so those are in the mix. Big Bolt might fit your needs, it's a van like creature without sliders. Vizzion and Buzz are still in very nebulous states to the public at least. VW has to nail ID.3 for Europe and ID.4 globally. If those vehicles are successful and MEB works and is reliable enough, then they can iterate on it. Even if they make production, I doubt In theory the Rivian truck is in production in late 2020. I'll assume the design is frozen, but if it isn't, that needs to happen first. If it's not, you're a long way from production. Then you have to break the design in to manufacturing steps and develop a pre-series production line. The pre-series production line isn't even set up and going through testing yet; it wasn't complete before COVID-19 slowed everything down and it won't be complete . Then they have to go through a series of preproduction vehicles to at least slightly optimize or make the line workable and define the series production line. (it's possible to not do this or to do it inadequately [hello Tesla] but since Rivian is mostly run by Serious Car People they'll do things pretty by the book). Make any changes to line, production, etc, then start producing series vehicles. In parallel, stand up the workforce - they're good here because Normal was the Mitsubishi plant and all those people are sitting around with gently caress all job prospects, so the workforce is used to building cars. I think they're optimistically 6 months away from series vehicles coming off the line, but that's a guess, and if you put a gun to my head I would tell you that the first units will not be in customer's hands until 12 months from now. Building cars is loving hard. At least with the major automakers there's some institutional knowledge, and even then they gently caress it up. edit: saw some rumormill stuff that internal schedules are series production in June 2021 soo yeah KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jul 16, 2020 |
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Jul 15, 2020 23:36
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some_admin posted:I think we may be considering a Volvo T8 V60. The reviews are modeling but we need a wagon, want an EV/hybrid and this is pretty close. Anyone driven one? By the time you pay that much money you are awfully close to an e-tron
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Jul 16, 2020 02:49
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Ola posted:If we're measuring fossil vs EV safety on brake performance in various edge cases, let's include overheating brakes from long downhills vs regen. And the various hill hold, creep modes etc which in EVs can be dependent on software checking for open doors and fastened safety belts, vs an idling fossil autobox which can be put in drive by a toddler or a dog. Why do you think ICE vehicles can't have the same checks?
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Jul 21, 2020 16:36
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Ola posted:If they're mechanically shifted they can't. But electronically shifted can, but on the other hand an EV can have any degree of regen including not at all if set up so. Are you time traveling from the 1980s? because all ICE automatic transmissions are electronically shifted. The little lever or buttons is a decoration and user interface, not a direct control interface.
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Jul 21, 2020 19:06
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I mean if you are trying to compare safety features and capabilities on a for-sale-in-2020 EV, don't you have to compare to cars available for sale today? The 4L60E had a manually actuated parking pawl, but that was about the last that I could find. I don't think the 6L80 does. I certainly don't think EV's are less safe in really any inherent way, I just get kind of annoyed when people make poo poo up about ways in which they are more safe. I will admit my "did you time travel from 1980" was a bit hyperbolic.
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Jul 21, 2020 22:13
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MomJeans420 posted:My bet is long term they shut down Fremont and move all production to Texas Possible. Also possible is that they're dangling out the Texas thing to get those sweet, sweet incentives (Western NY says hey) and more importantly to get the Texas laws repealed or at least gain exemptions, with no actual intent of pouring concrete or building a single vehicle.
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Jul 23, 2020 18:17
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ID.3 is never coming to the US. I will toxx that.
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Jul 23, 2020 18:41
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EV buyers and Q8 buyers are not the same.Nfcknblvbl posted:Tesla has too much of a stronghold on EVs in NA right now. Jaguar's and Audi's weak EV sales likely put VW off from initially selling in NA until demand gets better. I'm banking on GM making non-Tesla EVs cool here. has nothin to do with Tesla and a lot more to do with the US market being not good for hatchbacks. VW has an EV that ought to sell well in NA. Why bring the thing that won't sell first?
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Jul 23, 2020 19:29
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Nfcknblvbl posted:The Bolt's a hatchback, and it's selling well enough that GM's updating it. you cannot seriously believe that in Q2 it was outsold by such luminaries as: Chrysler 300 Mitsubishi Outlander Acura ILX Volkswagen Beetle (!) Chevrolet Spark Mercedes A Class Dodge Journey
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Jul 23, 2020 20:51
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audi priced the e-tron as an Audi, but electric! while somehow ignoring that people weren't cross-shopping e-tron against like X5s and poo poo
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Jul 23, 2020 20:51
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We all know GM product planners are loving Steve Jobs reincarnated, so there's no way they could be doing something dumb. I think keeping the Bolt is a stupid decision, but it probably boils down to this: 1) The update is basically cosmetic and tech only. It will probably increase sales because refreshes increase sales and are relatively inexpensive to execute. 2) They need to retool the line for Bolt EUV anyway, so they might as well update the base Bolt with stuff that will go in the EUV. 3) It would look really bad for GM's push towards electrification if they killed their one honest-to-God on sale EV model right now. The main reason is the last reason. The Bolt is a dismal failure and GM knows it. In GM tradition, they've pushed out a bad product that the market doesn't want, dicked around on changes that would help it be viable (how did they gently caress up the seats so bad??), and then finally executed some of those changes. Now we are rapidly approaching the final stage of GM product planning, which is kill off the product right when it gets good. edit: forgot one! selling Bolts means that GM has to buy fewer offsets.
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Jul 23, 2020 21:07
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People who like them really like them, that's great! There are also roughly 40,000 of those people in the US, which is why VW is not bringing the ID.3. The Bolt sales volumes are the kind of thing that you take to the Head of Product when you're planning a new launch, and then he laughs at you for like five minutes and then fires you. The smart thing to do with the Bolt is to slap a Chevy Equinox shell over it (GM is vaguely approaching this with the EUV but is loving it up as usual), which is what VW has with ID.4.
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Jul 23, 2020 21:21
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how are Ford dealers supposed to be selling a car that doesn't exist yet? The RAV4' is supply constrained and very expensive for not a whole lot of additional value over the regular Hybrid.
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Jul 24, 2020 18:54
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gwrtheyrn posted:The joke is that it's the rav4 and mach-e getting a special price of 15k over msrp not that they're offering deals for other things normal poo poo with new constrained cars edit: i'm not saying that's GOOD mind you but right now fuckin Kia Tellurides are getting marked up by dealers so this is by no means a new and exciting EV specific phenomenon, it's just everyday Dealers Are poo poo. There's a bunch of Dealers Don't Want To Sell EVs stuff, but your example isn't that. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jul 24, 2020 |
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Jul 24, 2020 20:14
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priznat posted:Marking up tellurides while giving 0% 84 month deals on stinger GTs smdh shockingly things that people want to buy command a higher price
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Jul 24, 2020 22:20
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My assessment is that Tesla's third party agreements were very much more important than their own capacity building.
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Jul 24, 2020 22:25
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RIP rearward visibility. It looks like a notable improvement on everything that people don't like about the current regular Bolt.
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Jul 25, 2020 19:17
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Bum the Sad posted:Don't tell me how to use my car. gently caress off
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Jul 25, 2020 23:37
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:Do not post yourself doing something stupid. Refrain from the gently caress offs too please, just hit the report buttons. my bad
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Jul 26, 2020 01:37
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dialhforhero posted:I think I found that charging costs are more expensive still than gas prices when comparing tank charge vs. gas and distance traveled. True? I think you've messed up your math, probably. Or you live somewhere with incredibly inexpensive diesel and expensive electricity.
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Jul 26, 2020 14:38
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Itzena posted:Yeah, it was a gimmick - they just crowbarred an EV drivetrain into a normal Golf and shoved it out the door as a "Look! We're doing EVs too!" token gesture. It's not a car that can replace a ICE car, but as a commuter car they're fine.
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Jul 27, 2020 13:38
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I wouldn't be too awfully concerned about the eGolf since VW is pushing dealers hard to get tooled up for EV. Even if a dealer says they won't touch EV now, they pretty much have to by mid year next year.
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Jul 27, 2020 18:25
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comedy fiat 500e option since they cost approximately four dollars
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Jul 27, 2020 18:34
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I dunno what it's like in other markets but Audi can't sell e-trons to save their life in the US despite selling a bajillion QXs. I do think that at least for high end EV a dedicated brand makes sense (Polestar) or at least a kind of sub brand (ID). ANd if you had to pick something out of the JLR stable, it should have been Land Rover. I guess for LR it ran in to branding issues because it's not off road capable or whatever, despite the fact that a bunch of LR product is not off road capable anyway.
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Jul 28, 2020 12:27
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Elviscat posted:There's no reason you couldn't make an EV as off-road capable as an evoque or whatever though. There's no technical reason you can't but I don't think the market is big enough to make sense for a volume street legal OEM and the charging infrastructure situation is very much worse. Jimong5 posted:I would think that in the US market at least its incredibly difficult to sell a vehicle that is $70,000+ even after incentives. Some states can tick that down a bit but some other states charge extra for EVs. The Q5 is affordable to a lot more people that the e-tron ever will be. It also seems iffy to me to pay a $20,000+ premium over a Q5/7 for an EV drivetrain that is going to be outclassed in a year or two by the meb platform, not to mention what other manufacturers are going to be putting out over that same time frame. The Q4 is looking like it might at least be more competitive with the Q5 on price. I agree with you. Holy poo poo though that ID3 cost like 50 k euro! what!
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Jul 28, 2020 17:56
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Edward IV posted:Me too. Those videos definitely sold me on the Polestar but the price and the fact that the NJ rebate ($25 per mile range with a max of $5000) cuts out above $55,000 took it out of the running. Not great, but you can't really blame it on Geely. They had a bunch of aging product and redesigned everything at once, like in car systems, electronics, powertrains, platforms, etc. That never goes well for a small company. It was the same Swedes doing the work as before.
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Jul 28, 2020 23:20
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mobby_6kl posted:That's the first time I'm even hearing that they're bringing the Mach-E to the Europe. The Mustang brand just isn't much of a thing outside of car nerds so I'm wondering what their angle's going to be. Well probably "electric CUV buy buy buy!" and dump all of them in Norway. When Ford brought the Mustang to Europe a few years back it sold much better than expected even at an absurd price.
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Jul 30, 2020 00:02
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