Connectivity is great, until it isn’t:
Cheers,
Earl
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I have an acquaintance who just bought one. He’s a family law attorney. Business must be good.
He’s insufferable with bragging about it. I didn’t know you needed an app to get in the damn thing. I think I’ll stick to my 10 year old Beemer! One thing is for sure- we are no longer the A-holes of the highway. There’s a new boss in town.
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Oh yeah. Norway is absolutely saturated with the fucking things. They’re unquestionably nice cars and all… It’s hard to put my finger on it, but it’s between them being new rich, having no experience with big cars, exuding an air of moral superiority, hating cars in the first place, and being allowed in the bus lane, that raises my hackles. I did a stint in a tire shop between jobs a while back, and the way these people smell made me want to puke in the passenger seat when driving Teslas onto the lift.
If nothing else, the trend has blown new life in my teenage dream of shoehorning a Zvezda M503 into a truck frame. The balance must be restored.
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Someone put one in a drag racer!
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I’m a gas to electric convert.
A story to establish some cred; I have a need for speed and I don’t like to spend money. As a result one outcome was me riding an old but still fast KZ-900 while I was broke and studying for my thirds mate’s license. Cheap ride, but very fast. That thing would do 55 mph in first gear, you had to hang on at WOT. Another was when I moved back to Maine 20+ years ago I bought an older van for the move, one with a 454 Chrysler Hemi.
A couple of years ago I came across an article in Forbes that listed a Nissan Leaf as the car with the worse depreciation of any used car. I looked into it and ended up getting a five year old Leaf for my wife. (she commutes 4 miles round trip). A nice car that is dirt cheap to buy and operate.
But is is surprisingly quick, especially 0-30, which is about all I do nowadays.
My cousin owns a logging company, drives a big diesel pickup, with a diesel tank in the bed for fueling the equipment. He also owns an older Corvette.
The other day I gave him a ride. My cousin was so surprised when I floored it and it snapped ahead he said he wondered if the Leaf could beat his Corvette, but when I slowed down and turned back for home he started walking it back, saying no way.
Don’t fight it. Gas engines have shit torque at low rpms. I’d buy a Tesla if I wasn’t so cheap.
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The performance, especially when it comes to acceleration, of electric cars is incredible. . . It is just that they have limited duration for any lengthy trips, and I take many. I don’t fall for the “Zero Emissions” pitch, as they contribute, just not at the car itself. . . If all I drove was from the house to the office, I might consider one, but it isn’t worth it to me to purchase yet another vehicle, and one that has limited mileage. . .
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Yeah, the term “Zero Emissions” should have an asterisk after it to avoid the pedantic lecture you know is coming. It obviously refers to the point source, like will I die if I run it in a closed garage.
I see a new “Florida Man …” story in our future.
In terms of regulation and statutory compliance, it’s not pedantic. Whether the emissions are on highways in popukated areas or point sources in less populated area makes a difference. I’d ask my wifwe who did her PhD thesis on auto emissions in southern California, but my eyes would glaze over in about 15 seconds and all I would hear is “Blah, Blah, Ginger.”
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As in, it depreciates the most/quickest?
Yeah, partly because of an accounting thing, the prices are MSRP new and Blue Book used, so whatever tax incentives were in effect are not included in the new price.
Also a lot of Leafs are leased for two years. Between battery degradation over time and improvements in range in the newer models there is a good incentive for people leasing to just trade up to a new car when the lease runs out. So there is a always a flood of 2 year used cars but not much demand. So they are cheap.
Not everyone can use one of course but 95% of our trips are less than 20 miles round trip and it’s not our only car.
Yes, it depends on context. According to Wikipedia the term originated with the California state government, not as a marketing term.
I thought that a story with a KZ-900, a 454 Hemi, a logger, a diesel pickup truck and a Corvette would be a context that would make a discussion of the term less likely.
It’s about Our lady of blessed acceleration.
So is my dad, for all kinds of irrefutable reasons, and I still respect him. I do have a beef with electric cars in general, mostly that they are so unbearably rational, but my feelings about Tesla people go way beyond that. They are just so fucking SMUG, and it’s based on a such a bare faced lie that I can’t believe they or anyone else fall for it.
I’ve long had a sneaky suspicion that the Tesla Model S has to be kinda bad for the environment, given the power, mass and sheer production cost of the thing. About a year ago I finally found an LCA, and guess what? It’s absolutely terrible! Not only are the life cycle emissions bad, but the specific CO2 output is worse than a gas powered VW Passat unless you charge it off pretty much pure hydro.
When I confront hardcore environmentalists with this, they first say they didn’t know. Seriously, how does nobody know this?! Then they say that subsidizing Tesla ownership is still necessary to “make electric vehicles a viable alternative”. Given recent sales figures, I daresay we’re way past that point.
Of course I’ll fight it, or at least posture for a bit. This technological shift is heralding the obsolescence of the core group of my skill set. I may be a luddite posed to lose, but I won’t go down without mooning the oncoming freight train.
You know what has mind twisting low end torque? Gas turbines! They even smell great, can’t we go with those instead? Also, I don’t want to sound mean or anything, but for some reason I’d love to see your little Leaf get into a tug-of-war with Dragon Fire (the Zvezda powered puller pictured above).
Oh, you framed it just right, and pressed the right buttons, damn near all of them. Still, once the smugness of Tesla people lands on the table, someone is bound to mention how marketing of “the green lifestyle” smells suspiciously of poo.
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Gas turbines just don’t do it for me. Although I will say the two Pratt Whitney turbines in the CG Cutter I was on did put out an impressive wake when the “birds” were being used.
I haven’t’ been the same since I watched Miss Budweiser with a Rolls Royce Griffin V-12 set the course record on Lake Washington and then break it on the next lap.
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