Yes. I agree. But I’m not paying 1000 dollars up front for an EV. If I buy one, it’s to save money, not spend more.
EVs have eclipsed hybrids as the leading cause of smug pollution.
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And frankly the PHEV technology was really the route we should have focused on.
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Out of curiosity, how is the structural/mechanical/electrical reliability of the Volt?
No way would i pay 40000 to 80000 for basically a commuter car.
Not even 15000 for that matter.
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Who wants to pay 40-80K? I was considering a used Bolt for around 15k or less. But when I do the math as to how long it would take to recoup the money, it doesn’t make sense.
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It was the one example I can think of where the technology was totally unique and yet had literally no problems in design.
That’s good to hear. Without having ever seen a Volt firsthand, for some reason it always screamed cheap to me.
It’s like driving a video game. As soon as you take your foot off of the throttle, it immediately starts recharging the battery. That friction required to do so is one source of your braking. It has two modes, the second recharging faster while stopping the car faster. It’s called regenerative braking and I’d never experienced this prior to the Volt in 2010.
I saw a Tesla Cybertruck for the first time the other day. Odd looking vehicle. I don’t think I like their steer by wire feature. I think that’s what it’s called.
Charging over night in hotel is great until someone beats you to charger and goes to bed. Having to drive around to search for one is inconvenient, some would say you are stealing because it is for the guests at that hotel not for everyone doing the highway.
In Ohio, Ca, Az… every charge stop was above half full. But once we got to the Midwest… Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee Kentucky… every stop was empty. Even the hotel chargers… empty. Not a lot of EV drivers, which makes sense.
I never charged overnight at a hotel I didn’t stay at. However I did charge twice at a hotel that I did not stay at for about 3 hours each time. Both advertised as publicly available Tesla chargers.
Link to hotels advertising their chargers was for all general public not just people at establishment.
Any public charger that shows up in the Tesla app is for public use. I thought you owned a Tesla? You didn’t know this?
The would be a part of the Tesla destination charging program.
I mean like any GM commuter car of its era it was built on a budget. It ain’t no Lexus.
But its fine for what it designed to do.
I’m actually a fan of drive by wire and steer by wire. Mainly because I don’t like hydraulics and the problems that come with hydraulics. I’m a firm believer in electrical systems. There’s less to go wrong so it should be more reliable.
Basically I’m in the Kurt Tank school of how things should be engineered. He was famed German aircraft designer of World War II and his designs eschewed hydraulics where possible to make them more durable against gun fire. His FW 190 was a work of pure art and I would argue in terms of pure design it was the best plane of the entire war. The only issue it really had was that most versions were powered by the BMW 801 engine, which had a bad supercharger design. So it didn’t like high altitude well. But it excelled at low altitude combat and they later built variants with Junkers Jumo 210 engines that could fight P-51s equally at high altitude.
Ok, but if anything disrupts that steer by wire you’re screwed. The wire itself. The motors at the wheels. Just more to go wrong.
I did own one and know that is true technically. The app shows were they are. But they expect people to have some integrity and not use ones that are meant for guests of the establishments.
That’s why you use duplex or quadraplex systems. It’s a double or quadruple redundancy system. If one system fails you have a back up. It’s a gradual loss in performance. Whereas with hydraulics if you lose pressure it’s a complete and total loss. And a pinhole in the pressure hose is enough to cause that loss.
We are only ok with hydraulics because that’s the way we’ve done it for fifty years now. In reality it’s not any safer. It’s less safe than electric.
