I mean it’s the truth. There’s a reason even ATVs and lawn mowers come with fuel injection these days. It’s better. It’s more reliable. It’s easier to tune. You get more usable power. They start in the cold without having to use a choke to dump fuel. It’s way more fuel efficient.
EFI revolutionized gasoline engines. It made them better in every conceivable way.
Carburetors are neat in how they function. And they’re kind of fun to take apart. But for everyday use, give me electronic fuel injection any day of the week.
Yes, it’s the opposite. But many people that work do a lot of highway driving. At least where I live. To get anywhere you’re using one of about 6 major highways. Over 80% of the miles I drive are at highway speed. If you’re visiting someone or some place, the bulk of that drive will be at highways speeds.
I notice certain EVs have a range of just over 300. Which isn’t terrible. But at highways speeds it’s closer to 200. That’s terrible. My supervisor has a Tesla, I think a model 3. When it’s cold she says she loses 2 miles of range for every mile driving to work. Then you have all of these level 2 chargers out there. I can see that for a home charger, but on the road?
That is one of the major problems with EVs. It hurts hybrids as well. A Prius gets its best economy in city driving. On the open road it’s not any better than a Corolla.
But with a hybrid in highway driving at least the gas power train is operating efficiently. With an EV driving highway speeds is a huge downer on the economy of the power train.
With that said it really depends on the customer’s driving regime. For someone like me an EV, even with a highway range of just 200 miles, actually would work pretty good. Because I own my own property and can install a level 3 charging system. So even though my commute is all highway, the range wouldn’t really ever be a concern for me. But at the same time I also have to ask myself “why go that route when my Civic Si already does 42 mpg on the highway?” It’s the same reason I didn’t consider a Hybrid either. Technically my driving regime could support it but current four cylinder ICE compacts all get near or over 40 mpg with highway driving. Plus I wanted a manual come hell or high water. Can’t get a manual in any available hybrid and EVs don’t even have transmissions.
Frankly if we want to help save the planet, everyone should just drive small compact 4 cylinder cars. They take way less material to construct, their fuel economy is excellent, the emissions from a modern 4 cylinder are just a fraction of what they were even ten years ago.
Plus notice the kind of EVs that the companies are building. They are building primarily large SUVs. Which need more batteries to get decent range. Which means they use way more lithium and cobalt in their construction. EVs make so much more sense as small sedans, like my Civic. If we are solely talking about the climate impact.
Make no mistake, I am not against EVs, but it has to make sense. As a toy to go here and there in the city, great. But I don’t have that kind of money to buy a toy that expensive. You should also see where some of these charging stations are located. On the New Jersey Turnpike they are at rest areas. The rest area parking lot is enormous. The charging station is in a lot behind that. No one would hear your screams. When I worked road maintenance we would park there to sleep. Because no one could see us.
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Don’t worry, EVs will solve everything!
The Arctic air gripping much of the U.S. put Tesla drivers in Chicago into a pickle on Monday. Many of the cars sat in long lines at Supercharger stations, their owners saying the cold sapped the electric vehicles’ normal ability to charge — and keep a charge.
“I’ve been here for over five hours at this point and I still have not gotten to charge my car,” Tesla driver Brandon Welbourne told CBS News Chicago
But don’t worry, there won’t be alternatives by 2035.
This is a cool video on exactly this event.
The thought that EVs are going to take over by 2035 is absurd. Not going to happen.
What EV’s need is a technological leap like computers did with the chip. EVs right now are pre chip tech.
Smyrna
1798
Our government should not allow any products manufactured elsewhere in the world that were not done so meeting our pollution requirements for it being manufactured here.
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Our government will bend over backward to avoid any bad publicity with regard to EVs.
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RTchoke
1800
Customer demand is lessening.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/19/business/ford-trimming-ev-pickup-production/index.html
Ford will shut down one of two production shifts in April at the Dearborn, Michigan, factory that builds the F-150 Lightning electric pickup. The move is part of “matching F-150 Lightning production to customer demand,” the company said Friday.
General Motors recently made a similar announcement about its Chevrolet Silverado EV, announcing it would postpone adding production facilities for the truck, which went into production last spring for corporate customers.
This video cracked me up. It’s certainly not progress.
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Samm
1802
He should have thought of that before he bought the damned thing. 
And it can’t be that cold in the car (feet are freezing) … he’s not wearing a hat or gloves and you can’t see his breath.
All that doesn’t matter. I work in a toll booth and I can tell you from experience that your feet and hands will freeze without seeing your breath. I’ve lived it. So I wear boots in the cold winter. I work the midnight shift so I can close the door. I only get about 50-70 vehicles in an 8 hour shift. Down from 1500 before EZ-Pass. Most nights I work I make more money than I collect. But the roadway has to remain open. They make up for it on the two day shifts.
Samm
1804
Not freeze … get painfully cold.
You know where I live, don’t you?
Oh yeah, that’s right, Alaska?
Yes, painfully cold. I see it now. You were responding in the literal sense.
Unless you’re super environmentally conscious, and are willing to sacrifice your time and convenience by driving an EV, there is no reason to buy one. You’re not saving much money, if any, if you’re using the infrastructure to charge your car. You’re charging more often than filling up, and you’re waiting a lot longer.
If you don’t have phone service, can you charge your car? Why can’t you just swipe your credit card and charge up? Just like you do at the pump? Just like you do when you buy anything. This isn’t progress, this is devolving.
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Yeah, I’m sure no new ICE vehicles will be sold in 2035.
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Those are what people call EVangelists.
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Camp
1810
This is where they get the education.
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