Exact same situation here. And we had to patch afterwards. For beer, my wife was like "uh, no". For a car we'll have to!
I totally see some solar, a power bank, etc. in my dreams. Maybe one day.
Poll: Do you have, or plan to get, an electric car?
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Exact same situation here. And we had to patch afterwards. For beer, my wife was like "uh, no". For a car we'll have to!
I totally see some solar, a power bank, etc. in my dreams. Maybe one day.
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Take a look at the power banks available from Eco Flow. There are quite a few package deals available as portable solutions anywhere from 2kW to 28kW with portable solar power charging in addition to fixed panels. My interest is in having portable battery power available in my RV in addition to an emergency home power backup. Right now I have 400W of fixed panel power charging 540 Ah on my RV which easily powers us for 24-36 hours after 10 hours of normal sun exposure, assuming no external electrical hookup or onboard generator usage, and no air conditioning. 6kW looks to be about my sweet spot for 1~2 days limited emergency home power (well pump, freezer, HVAC, no solar recharge) and 3~4 days dry camping capability in the RV, with air conditioning.
Eco Flow, Anker and Jackery all offer similar systems, comparably priced, but only Eco Flow is owned and built in the U.S. (with Chinese batteries and components, no doubt) where the others are not. Anker actually has better specs, but is totally a Mainland China export, and Jackery is a bit of a niche player that is popular in RV circles. Need to act quickly before trade tariffs kick in and 30% tax credits for green energy investments become a distant memory of what could have been.
This is interesting. We are considering putting solar panels on our house and have had a couple of zoom meetings with solar reps. I specifically asked one of the companies to include a power wall in the estimate. The consultant said she would recommend putting that money towards an ev and install a bidirectional charger instead. Essentially using the ev as a portable power bank. During an outage, the panels would directly charge the ev instead of the grid, and the the ev would power the house (a transfer switch would have to be wired into house). Obviously, some electrical work would have to be done to the house. IIRC, she said that a typical ev would hold about twice the juice (watts?) as a Tesla power wall. I think for us, the panels would come first and then we'd think about this other stuff since we currently do not have an ev. It's interesting to think about though. This was about two years ago and I thought the power walls were about $20k. I haven't priced them or their competitors since.
Where we live, we have about one or two outages per year, for no longer than a half day or so. For us, I'm not sure having batteries just sitting makes sense. My in laws live about an hour from us in a rural town and outages for them are a fairly regular thing.
I'm sorry, but those 2 eyes inside the car aren't covered by ice and snow like the ones outside the car are.
All self-driving video's i've seen are at worst with some snow going around, no permanent snow on the road at all.
once the markings aren't visible, the tesla is useless at self-driving.
Completely missed my point. Or maybe not. The human cerebral cortex is a truly stunning evolutionary achievement. But I guess some people just prefer to focus on the negative.
On an individual household level, a big battery would seem excessive if power is very reliable. At a utility level, a distributed bunch of batteries could spread load and handle peak loads, but that probably works better with giant batteries at substations.
I agree that, in your case, an EV that supports two-way flow could be the best solution - assuming it would work for your driving needs too.
There's some home electrical changes needed either way.
I suspect we all get that computers could reduce crashes. Also, that we're some distance from a time when it makes sense to make cars that can't be operated by a human. And, of course, that some of us don't want to give up driving, at least not 100%.
It's amazing what humans can do, including creating self-driving cars.
It seems the prices of the Silverado EV are coming down. Used they are going for somewhere around 60k, which is cheaper than a new gas powered Silverado. Problem is they are huge!!! A coworker has one and I took a look at it and damn they are a beast. Still dig my 2022 Colorado gas V6.
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Again you are working off old information, FSD uses all clues available to it to determine the road location. Painted markings, pavement edges, temporary cones, signs, reflectors, posts, other cars etc just like human drivers do. Except with IR and low light capability it can see much more then we can.
The three forward cameras are located inside the cabin behind the windshield and are heated to burn off condensation. Outside cameras are also heated and not subject to snow issues. The rear camera can and does get covered in road grime just like the rear of any car but cleaning it often in the sloppy months does the trick.
My state borders Canada and has a lot of mountains and I’ve been driving a Tesla equipped with the FSD/autopilot since 2018 and I can assure you these things you insist are problems simply are not.
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I might be changing my attitude on lighter utility trucks. Back when the light utility trucks were S10/Ranger/Dakota it seemed like they were just inefficient cars with a truck bed, and the half-ton trucks were good for getting work done, and it took a special purpose to go for a three-quarter or full-ton truck to make sense.
These days it looks like half-ton trucks are built to be overkill, and something like a Colorado might be enough to pull a hay wagon.
But I don't live in a farm anymore, and I don't think a truck makes much sense for me at the moment. My wife would really like a truck, though.
Got my Wrangler back to roadworthiness today. Hopefully this helps me stand strong for 2-3 more years until the Scout reservation comes in!
I had an issue with my Jeep starting in January when we had the bad cold snap. It's a little over two-thirds through the time I want it for. Replaced a relay and put in a new battery.
Hopefully there will be some good EV options available when we go trade, but right now I'm trying to not actively look for and narrow down what I'll go with next.
Hopefully there will be some good EV options available when we go trade, but right now I'm trying to not actively look for and narrow down what I'll go with next.
I tried to do the same thing man, but that damned Scout just screams at me every time I see it!
I just bought a used 2022 Colorado and I have to say I really like it. I can put 8 foot lumber in it, my golf clubs and a cooler of beer when needed. LOL. It is an full back seat and has some of the comfort options that I have grown to like. They are considered a "mid size" pickup and a bit bigger than the Ranger yet a lot smaller than the Silverado. I have not towed anything, but the towing rating shows to be about 7k pounds, which would give me plenty with a smaller trailer for my hope of retiring and traveling the states. Parking is very easy as it fits in most stalls without being huge. If they were to ever put out an EV Colorado, I might look into it. But for now, I am a gas vehicle guy. Wife is looking at a used Blazer and I might push her towards at least looking at the EV, but she is not a fan right now.
Oh the R2S looks nice. My wife is really interested in the Ramcharger. I'd rather have the REV Ram and not deal with a large battery and a huge gas tank.
For as much as I wanted just another 10mi of range from my PHEV Volt, it needed to burn up the gas in the tank a few times per year. The Ramcharger is supposed to have an EV range of 135mi on a full charge. It's supposed to go another 550 or so miles on a full petrol tank. That's likely going to be over a 10gallon tank on something with almost three times the EV range the Volt had. I would only use that petrol on road trips for 8 months of the year, and probably not much petrol for half of my road trips. I'd have to use premium gas every single fill-up to keep it from going bad, or tell my lovely bride not to put more than x-many gallons in at every fill up March-September.
Plus, both the R2S & Ramcharger are going to be easily the most expensive vehicles I'll give serious consideration to, aside from before I realized how expensive the Wagoneer would be (yikes!).
I think the Ramcharger was designed for someone else who travels more.
So for now I'm just going to try and enjoy the Bolt and see what vehicles make it to production, what they can do, and at what price they'll charge for them.
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Interesting study on vehicle longevity in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01698-1#Abs1
Tl;DR not really a shocker.
"When comparing petrol and diesel, our baseline estimates indicate that a petrol vehicle survives for 1.9 more years, but covers 44,000 miles less compared with a diesel vehicle. BEVs offer promising characteristics, with an average lifespan of 18.4 years, which approximates that of an average petrol vehicle. Importantly, BEVs surpass petrol cars in terms of lifetime mileage, covering 124,000 miles across their lifetime."
Also not surprising Tesla average beat the overall BEV average by quite a bit at 204,000 mi.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01698-1#Abs1
Tl;DR not really a shocker.
"When comparing petrol and diesel, our baseline estimates indicate that a petrol vehicle survives for 1.9 more years, but covers 44,000 miles less compared with a diesel vehicle. BEVs offer promising characteristics, with an average lifespan of 18.4 years, which approximates that of an average petrol vehicle. Importantly, BEVs surpass petrol cars in terms of lifetime mileage, covering 124,000 miles across their lifetime."
Also not surprising Tesla average beat the overall BEV average by quite a bit at 204,000 mi.
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When I read the article, particularly wrt lifetime assessments, I find it is layered with speculation and the authors admit they are still working on methodology. that 124000 figure is not yet supported by real world data...
Cheers!
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Just a matter of time until the nutcases start filling these fully autonomous robots with explosives and then start sending them on chaos missions. One at a time or all at once to everywhere? Mabe a massive increase in fatalities in no time and then what? A nice tradeoff for sure.
Certainly anyone smart enough to program a car to drive itself would have the brains to know you need to teach it not to be a terrorist, right?
full self-driving and automatic taxi's would be cool once they get good enough, though fatalities in the USA are mostly caused by the abominal standards for licensing and vehicle maintenance.
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This is easy to look up and it’s as you would expect. Most fatalities are caused by human error and stupidity.
Any support for this unexpected claim, @Kharnynb? I have the impression that intoxication, distraction, poor driving (e.g., too fast, insufficient following distance, running red lights), and bad weather are major causes. Quick web "research" does not confirm licensing or vehicle maintenance standards.
I thought that falling asleep at the wheel was way up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
compare deaths per 100 000 in countries with very strict driving license and car maintenance rules like germany, france, netherlands or the nordics with the USA, which is more on par with russia and other former soviet states...
I learned this statistic when discussing the murder rate once, since a lot of americans are always saying "cars kill more people than guns", and actually found out the US murder rate is higher than the vehicular death rate in these countries..
compare deaths per 100 000 in countries with very strict driving license and car maintenance rules like germany, france, netherlands or the nordics with the USA, which is more on par with russia and other former soviet states...
I learned this statistic when discussing the murder rate once, since a lot of americans are always saying "cars kill more people than guns", and actually found out the US murder rate is higher than the vehicular death rate in these countries..
Correlation is not causation.
That said, the way some people drive warrants revoking their licenses. Maybe stricter licensing requirements would help. Also, being raised right, and decent driver education.
Still, conventional wisdom (which could be wrong) does not match the licensing/maintenance narrative.
That said, the way some people drive warrants revoking their licenses. Maybe stricter licensing requirements would help. Also, being raised right, and decent driver education.
Still, conventional wisdom (which could be wrong) does not match the licensing/maintenance narrative.
Not disagreeing that stricter licensing restrictions wouldn't have an effect. But per capita is a silly way to compare. Some cultures are much more car-dominated than others. The US is absolutely one of upper ones. It's also a very big country, with a lot of rural and suburban areas, where public transit is not as developed due to low population density compared to Europe. The only way to compare is deaths per miles traveled.
Googling gave me this from statista:
NZ, Belgium, Japan, France, and Israel could be well ahead of the Nordics, but it's not like the US is massively horrible on the metric of per miles traveled compared to some of these Euro / ME / Asian countries.
wouldn't it be harder to hit other cars if your density is lower? 
wouldn't it be harder to hit other cars if your density is lower?
Yes, but more of those collisions would likely be at higher speeds on those rural roads, so more probability to end with a fatality.
Also in the US, apparently google's AI says 53% of all vehicular accidents are single-vehicle accidents. That could include things like hitting wildlife. A buddy in CO has a chilling dashcam video of hitting an elk on the freeway, and he and the fellow occupants would likely be dead if it wasn't a glancing blow where they only hit the back half of the elk. It could also include things like going off the road and hitting a tree/etc.
But the point was that fatalities per 100,000 population is a poor metric compared to fatalities per X miles driven. Because if you look at the # of vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants by country you get this:
- #10: United States, 850 per 1,000
- #14: Iceland, 779 per, with population ~393K
- #18: Finland, 752 per, population ~5.6M
- #27: Norway, 629 per, population ~5.5M
- #44: Denmark, 542 per, population ~5.9M
- #47: Sweden, 542 per, population ~10.5M
And this is found on Reddit--note that it's kilometers:
That suggests that Finland/Sweden/Denmark are <10,000 km (6213 mi), or already less than half of the vehicle miles traveled compared to Americans, and Norway even lower at <7,500 km (4660 mi), or roughly 1/3 of the vehicle miles traveled per capita compared to Americans.
So like I said, I do believe that more strict training and licensing would make a difference. We have very different car cultures between these nations, with the US being a very permissive culture, and the Nordics the opposite.
But using vehicle fatality rates per 100,000 population is a terrible and useless statistic. The more relevant statistic is fatality rates per number of vehicle miles traveled.
And the actual statistic is (or would be) the number of traffic fatalities, enumerated by cause (see below).
Of course, it's hard to draw lines of connection between licensing requirements and a particular fatal crash: even the most carefully vetted driver will not be at their best when drunk, sleepy, distracted. And an untrained, unlicensed driver will likely go through life without getting in a fatal crash.
Sometimes, one can connect poor vehicle maintenance (brakes!) with a crash. But perfect cars crash too, and it seems likely that most under-maintained vehicles fail in non-fatal ways. Back now from mere thoughts to statistical data.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
According to the NHTSA, in 2022, 13,524 U.S. car crash deaths were deemed alcohol-related. That year, 12,151 deaths involved speeding. 3,308 from distracted driving. There could be some overlap there. Only 693 from sleepiness btw. (Euro-note: the ETSC estimates that 25% of traffic deaths in Norway are caused by drunk drivers.) These are not comprehensive statistics, but they illustrate that thinking about stuff isn't often as valuable as gathering data. OK, back to licensing and maintenance.
U.S. car culture includes the notion that driving is freedom, and that freedom is the most basic right. So we don't make it hard to get or keep a license. And our governments don't do much to ensure cars stay well-maintained. There are some emissions tests in my state. And I had to get my car inspected when I moved to Maryland. Raising these bars would no doubt prevent some deaths.
During the pandemic, my dad (born in 1929) renewed his driver's license by mail. To his great amusement, he had to promise, on penalty of perjury, that he could see well enough to drive. They renewed his license until age 101! Happily, my sister persuaded him to give up his car before anything bad happened.
Given the mayhem on U.S. roads, self-driving (electric) cars should make things better in the U.S. I suspect that's also true in places with better control over who drives and what they drive.
Of course, it's hard to draw lines of connection between licensing requirements and a particular fatal crash: even the most carefully vetted driver will not be at their best when drunk, sleepy, distracted. And an untrained, unlicensed driver will likely go through life without getting in a fatal crash.
Sometimes, one can connect poor vehicle maintenance (brakes!) with a crash. But perfect cars crash too, and it seems likely that most under-maintained vehicles fail in non-fatal ways. Back now from mere thoughts to statistical data.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
According to the NHTSA, in 2022, 13,524 U.S. car crash deaths were deemed alcohol-related. That year, 12,151 deaths involved speeding. 3,308 from distracted driving. There could be some overlap there. Only 693 from sleepiness btw. (Euro-note: the ETSC estimates that 25% of traffic deaths in Norway are caused by drunk drivers.) These are not comprehensive statistics, but they illustrate that thinking about stuff isn't often as valuable as gathering data. OK, back to licensing and maintenance.
U.S. car culture includes the notion that driving is freedom, and that freedom is the most basic right. So we don't make it hard to get or keep a license. And our governments don't do much to ensure cars stay well-maintained. There are some emissions tests in my state. And I had to get my car inspected when I moved to Maryland. Raising these bars would no doubt prevent some deaths.
During the pandemic, my dad (born in 1929) renewed his driver's license by mail. To his great amusement, he had to promise, on penalty of perjury, that he could see well enough to drive. They renewed his license until age 101! Happily, my sister persuaded him to give up his car before anything bad happened.
Given the mayhem on U.S. roads, self-driving (electric) cars should make things better in the U.S. I suspect that's also true in places with better control over who drives and what they drive.
Yeah, and I'm not actually all that interested in discussing the relative costs and benefits of the different national systems. That's something that we can handle in the Debate Forum...
I'm just saying that if someone is lobbing hand grenades across the pond, at least use RELEVANT statistics when you're aiming!
I'm just saying that if someone is lobbing hand grenades across the pond, at least use RELEVANT statistics when you're aiming!
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