- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- arstechnica_index@ibbit.at
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- arstechnica_index@ibbit.at
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Today my work friend, who was totally against EV’s said he should have been bought EV, because gas prices are so high now.
Whomp whomp.
I’m thinking about upgrading my bicycle
The timing is unfortunate… I’d like to buy a used EV, and I’ve seen a few I like on carvana with very low miles for cheap… but I’ve been living in an apartment and would have no place to change it… Now I’m buying a house with (among many other things) a 240v outlet in the garage specifically for changing an EV… But it’s going to be a couple weeks, and those used EVs are dwindling…
You can get by on public fast chargers for the interim. 120V is also more viable than I expected. I was all ready to install a 240 line for a charger when we bought our EV but a year later we haven’t actually needed to yet. No long commute in our household, so 🤷♂️BTW we did exactly what you described: bought a very low-miles used Bolt on Carvana.
Take the plunge if you want to.
Had a Nissan Leaf few years. Never needed a 240v. On the standard 120v charger it gained about 5 miles every hour it was plugged in. Most every day it was in my driveway for 12+ hours so even when it was super close to dead, after dinner and sleeping it’d be up to 60ish miles of charge. My commute was 22 miles round trip, so it was almost always fully charged in the AM, and I was able (but it was a pita to run the cable) to charge it at my office on 120v as well in case it was ever a real problem.
You might just do it now. You can probably be ok for a few weeks.
new ones in the US are overpriced. its probably everything but TESLAS.
I remember the last time gas prices went through the roof.
I was riding my bike with my wife, going to the goshery store. A guy yelled out of his truck. I was like here we go…(im used to harassment on bikes). He said “Yeah! Stick it to em!”
We were just poor at the time, but it made our day haha.
goshery store
oh gee whiz golly, I sure do love biking over there to grab some essentials and gab with the group
This was my experience this morning. I ride a trike with a big fucking basket in back so i haul a lot of shit around town. It’s mostly pickup dudes who love my trike anyways i’ve discovered, but when i’m hauling shit (like 150 pounds of cat food) they really love it. I get “how much gas are you saving on that” “all of it, it gets me to the next town and back” a lot and it’s a real fun conversation.
Nice, those are the fun ones.
I wish people were kinder at times.
What piece of shit harassed you for riding a bike?
Edit: I am deeply saddened by the current state of things.One of my roommates in college had me drive him to buy a bike off of Craigslist so he could get around, he rode it home, and then never touched it again because he got a bunch of drive-by harassment/name-calling, it was really sad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-gooder_derogation
Some people are very fragile and have poor emotional regulation. When they see other people doing good, it makes them feel bad, so they lash out.
Environmentalism, biking, veganism, all commonly evoke this behavior.
In my local city, people die every year getting ran over on a bike. I knew a dr who didnt make it.
I got close-lined off my bike once around 2017. Its part of the gang initiation to send someone to the hospital. I have a dent in my nose because of it.
Its MUCH more dangerous in my area than most places though.
Maga land folks get very angry if you’re even driving a small car. Been screamed at and almost ran off the road just for existing in a small car. It offends their tiny pp. Or something.
They REALLY hate bikes. Maybe because while they drive their 8000 lb dually quad cab thats never touched dirt or towed once, and hauls 1 person 99% of the time, they get mad at how efficient you are.
And I have a truck too. For work. 8 ft box single cab manual with no radio or ac. Hauls construction material and tows trailers. A truck used for real work. Fuck bro trucks.
An old friend was once getting a ride to work in an escalade when a big ole lifted truck did some dick move, so she made a big truck small dick joke. It didn’t land well. When another friend dumped this man, we learned she called him turtle 🐢 due to how turtles can pull their head in.
Ahahaha
It has to have some truth to it.
Yup… drove a small car back from college and two truck bros decided it’d be fun to sandwich my car between them. One rode my rear bumper with high beams, the other slowed down and rode the middle line so I couldn’t pass. Then he’d start slamming his brakes.
I got furious reading that. I would’ve slammed the brakes and said goodbye to my car at that point. USA hits different man.
You’d have said goodbye to your head as well, because that lifted truck isn’t going into the rear of the small car… it’s going up and over.
All I can say is fuck lobbying and fuck the god awful politicians allowing these small dick energy monstrosities to happen.
Time to carry a box of nails, or a paintball gun 😁
it’s all fun and games until they pull out the real gun.
I called the incident into the police station but it was before I had the dashcam so they just shrugged (and were probably blood related anyway).
I just saw a play that has a plot point about how someone gets robbed by some racist, well connected shits, and the police won’t do anything to help. The closest he gets to justice is vigilantism, where he hunts down and shoots 3 of his assailants dead. Only then does anyone start to listen to him, but when he agrees to talk peacefully they shoot him dead.
I’m not sure “the only way you’ll get justice is with your own bloody hands” was the author’s intent, but that seems to be the message.
Cops usually are the same ones driving BRo trucks, or its likely their kids like you said.
I do like the box of nails idea though. Keep a flimsy cardboard box of roofing nails in your door pocket for tail gating assholes :)
These are the people who don’t understand the meaning of Liberal as most lemmy commenters use it. It’s why it’s so dissonant.
Seriously? I get yelled at at least once every time I ride. People have thrown drinks at me, spit at me numerous times (though their aim is generally very poor)
I’ve even been run off the road a few times, intentionally (they admitted it after I caught up with them at the next light and confronted them)
what ? as a bike rider it happens to me quite often, the passenger hanging out the window yelling “get a car ya cheap cunt!” another time, fallen behind my gf for a bit, some dude hangs out the window and slaps her ass as they pass
Am Australian though.
Are you fucking kidding me? You’re describing apes
Humans are apes tho.
the passenger hanging out the window yelling “get a car ya cheap cunt!”
At least get a bike, ya cheap passenger cunt!
Where I live bikes have to block the traffic lane and you end up with a line of cars behind you a km long all going 15 in a 60 zone. Also cy lists get killed on these roads all the time so I see a bike less than once a year, but when I do, there are 100 cars behind them, or the bike is painted white in memorial to someone who died there.
Why do they have to block the lane? In some scenarios it is better to do this than not, but is your case a specific street or are all the streets that narrow?
In some states, cyclists legally get the entire lane. And when you’re going up to a low visibility intersection, you want to be in the middle of the road to maximize the angles that you’re visible
There is no shoulder on the roads or bike lanes, just two lane roads (one each direction) with high speed limits and heavy truck traffic and commuters. Often they’re going 80kmh around blind curves. There are essentially never bikes but when there are they either die or they create huge backups.
One time someone shouted at me from their truck that they didn’t like my shirt. It wasn’t a sports shirt and didn’t have any logos at all. I think it was just baggier than they liked.
Sometimes people just dont like things being different.
I wish riding a bike (even an e-bike) was even close to an option for me. It is not. I am stuck in the loop of needing a car, which keeps me needing a car indefinitely.
The high gas prices may have added fuel to the fire, but the best news here is that used EVs are growing in popularity. That is a consequence of us finding out batteries don’t degrade as fast as we first imagined, which makes used EVs a lot more interesting.
In the short term, that kills the market for new EVs, since used ones were so dirt cheap. In the long run, the resale value of new EVs will be much more stable, eliminating the last downside they had.
(Obviously, many car makers saw the short term pain and gave up on the entire market. That is of course because car maker CEOs are absolutely brilliant people with foresight and strategic thinking. Just kidding: they occupy the only category of jobs that should absolutely be replaced by AI.)
There really was a huge increase in the number of EV models available between model years 2018 and 2023.
So now, when you’re looking to buy a 3-year-old car, you have so many more EV options to choose from even compared to just 2 years ago.
You can choose different form factors (small cars, sedans, wagon/crossover/small SUVs, medium SUVs, literal pickup trucks), and basically any price tier from economy to ultra luxury high end.
Not every ecological niche was filled in the past 5 years, and some still need a bit more competition, but even with some pullback over the last year there are still plenty of new EVs hitting new categories (e.g., true three-row SUVs and minivans) that will feed into tomorrow’s used market.
And not every model will survive. The future of all-electric full size pickups looks pretty grim. Some entire companies might not survive the EV transition (looking at you, Honda). But overall, the used market will fill out with what was hitting the new market 5-10 years ago, and we’ll start to see a lot of consumer preferences start showing what the future of cars will look like.
I hope more people try it because hot damn, I love having an EV. We got a gently used Bolt last year and it’s exceeded my expectations in every way. It’s quick and QUIET inside and so far we haven’t had the need to go beyond a regular old wall socket 120V charger (we mostly just drive in-town). But wow I love driving it and never stopping to gas it or even change the oil. It’s such a simple and satisfying experience.
I think there’s also a problem with the kinds of EVs everyone tried to sell.
Tesla has seen legitimate success in making EVs a desirable luxury item. The Prius became something of a fashion statement among kale chip eating Californians in the 2000s because of its alleged economy, but it was still an economy car. It wasn’t that nice or luxurious. Tesla made cars people wanted to drive and be seen driving, with an all-electric powertrain.
Pretty much everyone tried to copy that business model, making excessively fast luxury sport sedanover blobs with price tags that make car shoppers start muttering the word “depreciation.”
Meanwhile, EVs tend to be the breeding ground for shit features everybody hates, like touch screen HVAC controls. Nobody wants to make a normal car that happens to be electric, which is what a lot of the buying public wants, but can’t find.
Don’t forget the obsession with having any way to open a door except a boring normal way.
I’m really really hoping EVs get over the Tesla envy and just make sensible cars with EV drivetrains.
It’s probably a wildly unpopular idea, but I personally would love a Miata with an H shaped battery pack to let the passengers ride low in the car at the expense of some range, with the traditional driveshaft tunnel becoming battery.
But failing that, straightforward door opening, actual buttons and knobs for HVAC and volume, and a reasonable expectation of serviceable battery pack over time and I’m totally there for it.
That miata concept sounds fun. But would it be more fun than one that has revs and gears, even though it would be way faster?
Honestly the ideal in my case might be like 2500lbs and 300hp but only like 100 miles of range to keep the battery size down. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Another facet I hope the H shaped battery would mitigate is the weight. Might have to further wait for viable solid state batteries to match the ICE for cornering. Yes the reving and shifting fun is lost, unless you go like the Ioniq N and just give the driver the toys to feel like they have revving and shifting…
I too would probably be fine with 100 miles for a ‘fun’ car or even commuter car. Though that’s a luxury many households can not afford, a designated car for ‘road tripping’, so I’m not going to expect too much attention to this scenario…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changan_Lumin
It exists (50 hp though). I drove it yesterday
I think the missing part in that is the “Miata”-ness. A fun little car with a bit of oomph to it and being ok with short range for the sake of a more fun/light drive. That has the light and affordable down, but doesn’t really approach the ‘fun’ part of the miata appeal.
The closest to that I can think of is the Tesla Roadster. Which IIRC was basically an electric Lotus Elise, rather than a Mazda Miata. I wonder how popular electric Miatas would actually be, without a manual transmission.
The most “normal car that happens to be electric” I can think of is the Slate. With the exception of the powertrain and complete lack of a radio, the controls and mechanisms look like they’re from 20 years ago. The more I look at it though the more I think that car is DOA.
Very, very fair points. I wondered sometimes why no enterprising manufacturer simply took an existing ICE car and made an EV conversion kit. Like a conversion kit for a 2010 Honda Civic, take out the ICE engine etc. and replace it all with electric. That’s the car we want.
The thing is they do make the parts, but it’s a custom job and generally changing from a mass-manufactured EV to a hand-crafted car. The savings in reusing the reusable portions of the car are more than offset by the labor associated with putting them in. So it’s only really reserved for ‘classics’ with some iconic design, and even then the person risks enraging fans of the car who find it heretical to rip out their engines.
Trump may be the best thing to happen to energy since we discovered fusion.
unfortunately he’s decimating green energy in pretty much every other area. especially wind.
For everything the Trump administration has done to make solar and wind power less economically feasible, it turns out his war in Iran has done way more to make fossil fuel consumption less economically feasible as well.
Exactly!
In the US
FTFY. The long term outcome for this is that the world stops revolving around the US. For better or for worse
When batteries one day gets lighter in weight, we might see hybrid planes at scale. Or even full electric for smaller flights.
Then oil is really about to get abundant in some parts of the world.
It’s already happening with cargo ships and trains. (Yes, I know they are much easier to transition to electric than planes)
No he isn’t. He is putting a few brakes on in places but there are too many ecconomic tail winds and so green energy is being added despite his efforts. There are only a few places his position even has power, most green energy is a state permit only.
Can we yet call the discovery of fusion a “thing that happened to energy?” ;D
It’s getting there, I suppose!
I meant fission, but crossing my fingers for fusion
Fossil Fuels, sure. Those are also a finite resource we cannot rely on forever.
In my view, I am hoping that gas gets so expensive that capitalism forces the shift into renewables
Rushed emergency responses create waste and bad execution.
Who are these people that just go out and buy a car because gas prices went up? Does going into debt and paying interest on a loan make sense just to save a few bucks on gas?
You have to imagine that there’s always someone who is right in the middle of the car purchasing process and perhaps on the fence about which way to go. A sudden change in circumstances can influence which way things fall. There may also be people who’ve been thinking about switching who suddenly feel convinced it’s the right choice and go take the plunge.
Basically people are out there primed to make a choice already and this just tips them one way.
Car are always being bought and sold. Some people jump from car to car every few years; I’ve known people who always lease precisely because they trade what they have every year or two for something new.
I’ve been an EV driver for the last few years; my brother called today to tell me he had just bought a used Bolt for his wife. As things happened one of his grown children had their car completely fail on them this week, and so he and his wife decided to buy themselves a new car so they could sell the old one for cheap to their child. With gas prices as they are they found a gently used Bolt EUV. They pick it up this weekend.
So in their case they didn’t go out and buy a car just because gas prices were up — but the decision between gas and EV was triggered by the price of gasoline.
They are probably people that were already looking or anbout to start looking for a new car and pivoted to EV based on current conditions.
Doesn’t take much research to conclude the used EV market values are driven by ignorance and are a bargain right now.
A 3 year old Ioniq5 is less than half the price of new, $28,000 go poof. Buying new EVs at >$50,000 makes no sense , but buying slightly used EVs at $12K-$24K makes total sense.
And even if the battery is degraded with maybe 5%, it’s still an amazing car.
Lets say you needed to replace the battery one day anyway. You’ll have saved on every other reparation, because EVs dont have moving parts that breaks all the time like in old cars.
Yeah, my personal experience and watching mechanics online… The turbo engine with a cvt is going to be as big a nightmare down the road as an EV battery. EV motors with a single gear is so much easier to make reliable except the trickiness of battery chemistry… AWD by having independent motors front and back…
EVs are full of pointless gadgets that break, and Tesla motors poop out.
just goes to show how people overreact to gas prices. they could have bought a <$25k used EV last year and saved $4k with the EV tax rebate. $4k is equivalent to $33/month over 10 years.
they could have bought a <$25k used EV last year and saved $4k with the EV tax rebate.
The people who were in the market for a car last year are by and large not the same people who are in the market today.
Plus let’s not forget, the actual EVs on the used market 12 months ago were different than today’s. Someone looking to buy a 3-year-old car today has to look for something originally sold in 2023, whereas 12 months ago they were looking at 2022 vehicles, with fewer models available and significantly fewer vehicles actually manufactured and sold.
I mean, they could just drive less or drive slower.
This is America, you might as well ask men to cut their balls off …
People whose car died at the worst time (because my personal situation) but also at the best time (because of the Iran war / oil situation). We really needed a new car fast and before our old car really broke down we were looking at either a hybrid or EV version of a certain car. The attack on Iran and its ripple effects simply tipped the balance towards the EV. I knew this bs wasn’t going to go away in a few days but we were fast enough to get one for the price it was before the war. I was already really looking forward to driving oil-free, so I think it’s been a good decision. No debt either.
Maybe. The average driver is spending just under $200 per month now on gas (14000 miles per year at 20mpg, gas $3/gallon - you can adjust numbers as you want, these are reasonable but some cars better fuel ecconomy) if you drive more than average it is possible to make payments on fuel savings in some cases.
or in my case the old car was going to be replaced anyway. Paymets were a given, so saving over $100 a month in fuel was a nice bonus. There are a lot of people who are buying something different anyway who care about their budget.
We had been waiting for a while just because there was no reason to replace our car-payment-free household with a car payment before one of the vehicles crapped out…
…But to be honest we’d wanted an EV for almost a decade at this point.
I test drove my first EV back in maybe 2015… but couldn’t justify the price tag at the time to buy a new one, so we went with a cheap used car with high MPG and relatively low mileage overall.
It’s just now that for the first time, it makes sense - not just from a “gas is expensive” standpoint, but from a “this might be cheaper than maintaining an older car (100k+ miles, 15+ years old)…” and also a “gas might not just be expensive but unavailable at some point given the supply shock currently wreaking havoc in other places besides the US” standpoint…
We like to plan for contingencies whenever it makes sense to do so.
We just bought our first ever EV - a used 2021 model with <50k miles for less than half the price of a brand new model… and it’s amazing.
Already calculated that just in the few times we’ve charged it since buying - with gas being almost $4/gal… we have spent <$5 in electricity with just a little 120v (thanks @jjj4211) wall adapter (level 1) at only 70% efficiency to add roughly 250 miles of range.
That equates to roughly $40 in gas… even with the high-MPG car.
On top of that, being able to start it in a parking lot or even an indoor garage to cool it down in the summer or warm it in the winter before having to get in or worry about filling an enclosed space with carbon monoxide, a quieter drive, and just more modern conveniences and safety features thanks to it just being a decade newer than our last vehicle made it seem like a somewhat sensible purchase for us, if not perhaps a little “overly pro-active.”
Just a small correction, 120v.
But charging at home is a game changer compared to gas, cost and convenience both. If you can’t charge at home though, it’s rough as the commercial charging stations are pretty pricey, before Iran or was generally more expensive to fast charge than gas per mile. Home charging for me is like getting 1.25 a gallon gas. Except without the oil changes, the belts…
My best friend is running around in a 2004 Chevy gas guzzler because its what hes got. Hes been thinking about getting a hybrid or electric. Now that gas is $5 a gallon and his work commute is 30 minutes both ways hes getting pushed to change vehicles. He doesnt even like his SUV
The EV demand changes reflect the population that is currently looking for a new car (have the money and are willing to buy) and people were previously “on the margin”, those who weren’t looking to buy a car immediately (more like sometime in the next 6-18 months), but due to fuel price changes they have now moved into the first group.
I just got a used ev. I needed something else because my car was having issues that would be expensive to fix, and wanted an ev anyway, so the decision wasn’t at all motivated by gas prices, even though the timing was. I didn’t want to wait and have used car prices skyrocket to the point i couldn’t afford one.
laughs in bicycle
God how I miss living in an urban area. Until two years ago, I’d bike with my kids to their school every day. Where we are now, it’s 10 miles of deathtrap pavement away. ☹️ I wouldn’t feel comfortable riding most of it on my own, let alone with my kids.
Fuck cars. Quality of life is so much higher when you don’t have to depend on them.
That’s rough. My place isn’t super bikable but it’s good enough and I made getting a place and a job close together a priority because I didn’t want to spend huge chunks of my life trapped in traffic.
I wish work was close enough for this
E-bikes can really make long distances doable without having to take a shower by the time you get there, but not every place has infrastructure that will support that commute in a survivable way.
If you can pull off living close to work, that’s huge too, but it’s not always an option unfortunately.
Guy randomly stopped me to ask me how I like my Model 3 when I was getting out of it in a parking lot last week. First time that’s happened in like 6 years.
Did nazi that coming?
Bought it in 2018. Tried to convince him to buy a Kia.
Musk was still a Nazi in 2018.
TBF Musk was more rich douchebag CEO tech bro in 2018, as far as he was perceived. The mask didn’t fully come off until he buddied up with Trump/MAGA.
Many people found it easier to hold their nose to buy a car from the tech bro. Now that he’s come out as full Nazi, not so much.
It wasn’t common knowledge back then
Some people really dont care about putting money into facist companies, huh.
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Lololoololololololol!!!
