I’m not against them. I love the E bikes. It’s perfect for that. They don’t need a govt subsidy to sell. I’m against the govt pushing the cars. They are actually dangerous in cold weather.
Obviously, I already did…
Just like any other car.
My old Trans Am was great for putting a smile on your face on short Saturday drives. But it was absolutely useless for making long trips because it had no storage space and the ride could have been best described as “spine shattering.”
My old Town Car I had was amazing for long trips because she basically rode on clouds and you could fit ten bodies in the trunk. But she handled like an aircraft carrier and weighed about the same. So the drive itself was boring. Couldn’t really have fun in that car.
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OK. Maybe a little longer.
Starts with a v…
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Small dings happen worse on steel body panels. Plastic can deform and return to its original mold shape with light torque events. That’s why plastic bumpers are standard now. You can smack something at really low speeds and the bumper will either crack or it will go back to its original shape. Depends entirely on the force of the impact.
If you ding steel the only way to fix it is to either use a popper to pop it back in place for really small dents or you have to heat treat and beat the dent out of the panel. I had to do that my Frontier’s hood once. Took it off the truck, heated it up with a torch, and used a rubber body mallet to beat the dent out of the hood.
Plastic Bumpers is not all—and that is absurd-- The side panels all over the cars are plastic too. Almost replaced the 2017 chevy with a 2024 Trax Activ or Honda Accord all plastic.
The plastic is used to cover the unibody. That’s fine. Those panels don’t bear the load of the car and passengers.
The car’s safety is in its unibody construction. The shape and the material of that that unibody is what makes modern cars a thousand times safer in a wreck than cars from 50 years ago.
I have full confidence in my Civic Si in a wreck. Unless I get smacked by a vehicle way larger than me. In that case the material of the car doesn’t matter. It’s physics at that point. If a drunk ass hits me head on in an F-250 I’m not making it. Because he’s got 8000 pounds of material smashing me. Can’t overcome extreme physics.
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I don’t care about ease of repair. I don’t want cheesy plastic. I want real cars.
C1, C2, and C3 Corvettes were made from fiberglass. Were they not real cars? They sold very well. Didn’t seem to bother people back then.
Hell Morgan makes their body panels from wood. And people pay out the nose to own those cars.
Now that I think about it, wood is almost perfect from a material standpoint for car body panels. It’s light, it’s very strong, and it’s renewable.
Only problem with wood is that as Morgan has seen it’s impossible to really make it affordable. The issue is production. Wood shaping requires talent that current robots can’t even touch. All Morgan car bodies are hand made by craftsmen. It’s essentially a fine piece of homemade furniture going down the road.
Not to mention that they will miss out on a lot of business for their service department s.
The Corvettes were fiberglass in past days.
All the cars look the same. “Small SUVs” of all brands have the same shape, same plastic crap. They all look like they are made at the same fake car plants.
2024 Corvettes look pretty, but plastic $200,000 dollars No thanks.
Blame women for the compact crossover fad. That’s what the market demands because women hate sedans. And with women being the main new car buyers in the modern world that’s what sells in big numbers. The crossover SUV dominates because that is what sells.
And I agree they are all boring as sin. The only ones I like is the Rav 4 and the Subarus. Mainly because the Rav 4 Prime Hybrid can do FWD burnouts anytime you floor it and the Subarus actually have some off road stuff on them like diff lockers and disconnecting sway bars.
The dealers don’t even sound confrontational or up in arms, from the letter in the OP link
“Mr. President, it is time to tap the brakes on the unrealistic government electric vehicle mandate. Allow time for the battery technology to advance. Allow time to make BEVs more affordable. Allow time to develop domestic sources for the minerals to make batteries,” the letter stated.
“Allow time for the charging infrastructure to be built and prove reliable. And most of all, allow time for the American consumer to get comfortable with the technology and make the choice to buy an electric vehicle.”
Reasonable.
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Boring yes. Time for USA to start building real replica 60s, 70s supercars. Not all women like plastic eurotrash
Well not many people want those either.
What do they want then?
For most people a car is an appliance. They want three things primarily.
- Reliability
- Affordability
- Storage space
Basically the same requirements as a refrigerator.
While I would love to see someone come out with a retro rodded De Tamaso Pantera powered by a 500 horse 5.0L Coyote V8, no one would buy it. Because it would probably be unreliable, not affordable, and those cars didn’t even have glove boxes.
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I see cars as art not utilitarian commie crap.
Morgans have an ash frame, the rolling chassis is steel and the body panels are aluminum.
What? The EV fad is dying?
Now who could possibly have predicted that?
Hmmmm. EV fad dying at about the same time as the government subsidy.
Go figure.
Hey heres a thought. If the government has to subsidize something to get people to buy it then chances are people don’t want it.
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