Gas cars today like land lines of the 20th Century

| April 4, 2024

Pete Buttigieg rebuffed criticism against shifting to electric vehicles. He compared that criticism to people who, during the turn of the millennium, assumed that landlines had a secure future as the main phone communication. However, one key reality is missing from this assumption. Consumer demand took off for cell phones. Demand for electric vehicles has fallen short of government expectations.

From Fox News:

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rejected criticism of the Biden administration’s push for America to embrace a future where electric vehicles (EVs) overtake internal combustion engines, comparing the dynamic to that of landline phone loyalists at the dawn of the cellular age.

Buttigieg denied such a push is premature, despite critics pointing to the costs of some green vehicles and the lack of technological proliferation to a realistic extent at the moment.

When “America Reports” anchor Sandra Smith reported on cuts to the workforce at Ford’s F-150 Lightning assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan — where only one-third of workers will remain, beginning this week, according to the Detroit Free Press — Buttigieg said purchases of EVs continue to increase on an annual basis.

“Tesla is facing more competition as GM and Ford and Stellantis and other competitive players start to make sure they get a piece of the EV market. Let’s be clear that the automotive sector is moving toward EVs, and we can’t pretend otherwise,” he said in the wake of reported decreases in Tesla sales.

Fox News has additional information here.

Category: Get woke, Global Warming, Government Incompetence

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2banana

Consumer demand vs massive government subsidies/credits and force.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Without those tax credits nobody buys an EV as their primary driver…they buy it because it’s a fun toy for playing with as a secondary driver….and because they’re affluent enough to buy it and show it off….

SFC D

I’m seeing electric F-150’s showing up on Huachuca as government vehicles. It’s not a bad truck for what it gets used for on-post (short trips, no towing, light loads). Now, whether it’s doing any good for the environment compared to a gas truck is a separate argument. My guess is no. It’s probably produced more pollutants and done more environmental damage in it’s production than its gas counterpart, but it’s emission free in use and that’s all that matters.

HT3

No need for Coal/Natural Gas powered electric plants charging EV’s who’s raw materials require artesian miners working as practical slaves in 3rd world countries. I’ve researched EV’s online, and one “pro-EV” guy said it best: owning an EV is a lifestyle choice not a transportation choice.

SFC D

That may be the only honest EV owner in America.

Eggs

Yer supposed to focus on the end product, not all that nasty shit in-between !!

Charles

 Let’s be clear that the automotive sector is moving toward EVs, and we can’t pretend otherwise,” he said in the wake of reported decreases in Tesla sales.

And in other news, Pete Buttigieg affirmed that there were never American tanks in Bagdad, Joe Biden took the train across the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and there was no train explosion in Palestine, Ohio.

5JC

EV sales were up 51% in 2023. While that isn’t sustainable it is quite a lot.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

They are still less than 1% of the total vehicles registered in the US…and one suspects without tax incentives to buy one they’d be less than that in short order.

AW1Ed

Liars, damned liars and statisticians.

5JC

Not really. 80% of EVs sold in 2023 didn’t qualify for a tax rebate. The vehicle has to have an MSRP below $55k.

Practically all EVs sold in the US were passenger cars. There isn’t much market left in the US for passenger cars. 79% of the light vehicle market is trucks and SUVs. Still of the passenger car market EVs accounted for nearly half of the 2.5M sold. The US accounts for only 10% of the world market of EVs.

I just returned from visits in Paris, Rome and Lisbon. I’d say about half the Ubers I picked up were EVs, expect in Paris where it was 100%. About half the cars on the road in Paris were EVs, which makes sense as about half their sales were EV in the last two years.

Fuel is much more expensive in Europe so one would think they would be a better fit there but in truth European autos are so much more economical the difference is negligible.

David

from next to nothing all the way to half again of next to nothing. One year they sell three all year, the next 6 – “That’s a 100% increase in sales!”

5JC

1.2 million in sales units isn’t exactly nothing. The increase wasn’t 3, it was nearly 400,000 or about $25,000,000,000 in total sales. I’m not sure how you can legitimately try to minimize that number?

I don’t where you guys come up with these dumb ideas. This is another stay in your lane type things and focus on the things you are knowledgeable about. The more you post about things you don’t know about the less apparent credibility you have. But you do you.

Hack Stone

If a proud but humble woman owned business that sells software sold one copy of Y2K software in 2014, and sold three copies in 2015, that is a 300% increase in sales. While that isn’t sustainable it is quite a lot.

Forest Bondurant

Don’t forget he’s also the same DEI appointee (who has no supply chain or logistics management experience) and said there were no supply chain issues during the pandemic, despite cargo ships that remained offshore or languished at their moorings for days waiting to be offloaded – and took “paternity leave” while American families with infants did without diapers and baby formula for weeks on end.

FJB.

rgr769

It was more than just days. Some of those ships were anchored for weeks while waiting to offload. The problem was the lack of dock crews and trucks and drivers.

fm2176

Here’s my take on this: Americans (like many other Westerners, and people in general) like convenience. The land line seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere, which it wasn’t, albeit in a different context. Wireless technology gradually creeped up on American society, from the bulky car phones and early cell phones to the pager. Even the cordless phone could be seen as a sign of the future. Being tethered to a cord, even the ridiculous 50′ phone cords I had for a while in the ’90s, was inconvenient at best. As we grew accustomed to phones that could be carried and work almost anywhere, the land line’s days became numbered in many households. I’m a fan of The Rockford Files, and at the start of each episode a message would be played on that magical ’70s novelty, the answering machine. The cell phone incorporated that’s technology’s successor, voice mail, as well as caller ID into a device that has now largely replaced even laptops, calculators, and gaming systems.

Back to convenience. Battery-operated devices, like the aforementioned cell phone, power tools, and EVs can be extremely convenient. The latter, however, lose much of their convenience when considering many American’s lifestyles. Someone living in the suburbs of a major city might find their Tesla perfectly suited to their needs. They commute 10-20 miles each way, and the Wawa or Walmart half a mile up the road have charging stations so they can top off while picking up dinner. A lot of us, though, like the option of taking day trips, drive an hour-plus to work without passing a single EV charging station, or simply want to gas up and go another 400 miles rather than waiting for a rapid charge to 80% and another 150-200-mile range.

fm2176

This is on me, but my ICE v. EV argument was proven yesterday. I got home, fired up the gas-powered Bad Boy mower, and cut my acre, including even (most of) the backyard which I usually neglect. The little fenced-in area where the dogs roam is for some odd reason overgrown, and I need to use the EGO mower and string trimmer to finish the job, but I couldn’t locate a charger and only found two depleted batteries. So, the dog park is still overfertilized and overgrown, the ditch untrimmed, and there’s still a healthy amount of stuff to do, all of which necessitates my battery powered tools.

I love my EGO OPE, but by the time I found a charger, it was too late to finish the job. Sure, that Bad Boy requires preventive maintenance and gas, and I’ve got to lubricate or replace the choke cable, so I have to manually disengage that, but I jumped on, fired it up, and knocked out the job with little inconvenience. While I don’t miss pull-starting 2-stroke OPE, then finding out that last year’s fuel mixture isn’t ideal, at least I could have mixed some fresh fuel and maybe cleaned out the carburetor on a gas trimmer. Instead, my super handy EGO equipment sat useless waiting for a charge.

EVs are much the same. “I think I can squeeze out this last 10-mile stretch to the next charging station.” Until I can’t. It’s hard for Roadside Assistance to carry a spare EV battery, and impossible to carry a charge in a gas can.

jeff LPH 3 63-66

Get rid of all this electronic tech including all cell phones, facebook and all the other social mediums and these kids use and wouldn’t be commiting suicide and wondering if they are a boy or a girl. I grew up starting in the late 40’s through the 50’s and we didn’t have all this shit that we had nowadays, we drank out of garden hoses, played stickball, stoopball, punchball, chinese asses up box handball, hide and seek, ringalevio, simon says, red light green light 123 and a few other games all done outdoors and not sitting in the basement playing pc games.

Odie

How did some of us survive to adulthood while riding in cars with metal dashboards, or restraint systems that consisted of our parents or grandparents extending an arm to hold us hold us back as they stopped quickly.

We had a rule concerning phone use by the kids at meal time. NO!! All we asked for was 30 minutes or so from their 24 hour day. They grumbled of course but abided by the rule.

SFC D

Dumbass doesn’t know anything about transportation OR communications. Just another “check the box” Biden appointee. There’s nobody in that administration, starting with Joe himself, that got their job through any kind of actual qualification. FJB.

Forest Bondurant

IIRC, Biden said he intended to surround himself with people who were smarter than him when he took office. Doesn’t sound too promising if you ask me.

That means to me that Biden is an absolute moron, short of being considered functionally retarded – considering everyone in his cabinet is in over their heads, possessing zero experience or knowledge to fill the positions they are in, claiming success when it’s been nothing but abysmal failure after another, and are absolute embarrassments to the country, and represent the weakest of the weak and most inept to the rest of the world.

SFC D

“Biden said he intended to surround himself with people who were smarter than him when he took office.”

That’s kinda the point of having cabinet secretaries, but holy shit, that’s really setting the bar low in this case. He also said “Hunter’s the smartest guy I know”. Again, not quite the flex he thinks it was.

Forest Bondurant

Point taken. I should have been more specific.

SFC D

Wasn’t meant as a personal jab, Forest. All is well.

Hack Stone

Mainstream Media taking quotes out of context. what Joe Biden said “Hunter’s the smartest guy I remember.”

Berliner

“Biden said he intended to surround himself with people who were smarter than him when he took office.”

Now that explains why he hired Karine Jean-Pierre as press secretary to explain/read from the prepared script everything to the masses versus someone like Commissar/Комиссар!

Odie

Or the guy who wore dresses and stole luggage? The assistant director(?) to nuclear waste? Did he mean smart for brains or dressing.

I guess if you have to check boxes, finding a guy who dressed like a woman checked the gay/transgender boxes, so that 2 less people they had to hire.

26Limabeans

“OR communications”

I need an analog land line with a “dial tone”.
Most of my comms equipment requires a “dial tone”
I’m talking (pun) modern equipment that was designed around
reliable voice systems that cannot be replicated via cell phone.

Disclaimer:
I have a cell phone for emergencies. Prepaid until I forget.
Never made a call on it since I bought it. No idea where it is.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Without government subsidies there is no market for EVs…they are a second car for the affluent who can afford an ICE as their go to and their EV is the toy car they bought to impress their friends…

I don’t know a single person out here in the wilds of Western Mass who owns an EV who doesn’t also own an ICE for those trips where the EV would need to be recharged along the way…

Furthermore the hypocrisy that EVs will free us from becoming involved in the politics of third world shitholes and the necessity of fossil fuels and resources isn’t born out by the evidence. For those who are just catching up the US military has been on at least 4 training missions to Mozambique to prop up their shitty military so it can protect an Australian company’s graphite mine in Mozambique…now why would the US do that for an Australian Company…maybe because that Australian company (Syrah Resources) produces that graphite for Tesla now….

I would also suggest to all the smug pricks who own an EV, and like to pretend they’re helping mother earth while looking down on the rest of us ICE heathens, that they do a little research on the strip mining techniques for lithium and how lithium gets extracted from the base materials…it’s quite enlightening for the uninitiated.

EVs may have a place in the market, but once their artificial props to generate sales are removed it remains to be seen how well they will continue to sell, if at all.

For the price difference between an EV without any government tax credits and the price of a comparably sized ICE vehicle you can buy an awful lot of fossil fuel, probably more than most folks would use over the life of the vehicle…

Last edited 6 months ago by Veritas Omnia Vincit
SFC D

Smug bastards are too narrow minded to realize that they’re only exchanging one form of pollution for another, far more damaging form. Green, my ass.

Anonymous

Yup.
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Prior Service

They misquoted him. He actually said “let’s pretend that the automotive sector is moving toward EVs.” Then he gave a broad wink and said “you can **quote me** on that.”

SFC D

He went to the Joe Isizu school of public speaking.

Odie

Or, worlds greatest liar.

SFC D

Nah, Bill Clinton still gets my vote on that. He could look you in the eye, tell you a boldfaced lie and you’d want to believe him.

Hate_me

I don’t see how anyone would want to do anything that suited Slick Willy unless you were an undersexed, overweight groupie.

Even though I enlisted during his reign, he always came off as skeevy.

Duane

If they turned off all the tax credits for the EV’s – how many would still be on the road? Plus, when all those rigs reach the lifespan of their batteries, what are they going to do with them? I’ve had cars last me over 200K miles (my brother has one with 450K on the clock and still starts and runs every time it’s needed) – can they say the same about any of the EV’s? I’m waiting for the rolling brown-outs in CA this year to see how many people get stranded because they can’t charge their cars up. I can fill a few gas cans and keep my ICE on the road during tough times!

Berliner

My 2006 Prius just went over 340k. Didn’t know about the Prius until I rented one the at the St Louis airport Enterprise rent-a-car when I flew in, after working the night shift at the USPS, to visit my folks at the Illinois Veterans Home. They told me to pick a car, I looked around their lot, and they had 3 new Toyota Prius’. They give me a quick overview of pushbutton starting and I was on the road.

When I got back to Washington state I did more research and bought mine through Costco and picked it up at a dealer 2 weeks later. The dealership finance guy was frustrated because they were not allowed sell me on any extras. He just said “have a good day… we’re done here”.

SFC D

I’m a big fan of hybrids. Pure EV’s, not so much.

Last edited 6 months ago by SFC D
Odie

My neighbor had a prius hybrid, and he loved it until electrical gremlins started showing up. His repair estimate was 7k on a car worth 4500 at most. He drives a Kia now, gas powered, and he loves it.

rgr769

I am amazed you got 340k miles without replacing the battery pack. A work colleague had one about the same vintage as yours. After he had driven it for about six or seven years, he had to replace the battery pack. It cost him about $7500.

Commissar

The Fox News anchor was asking a bad faith question using dishonest framing to serve their petroleum industry sponsors and stakeholders.

EV sales in 2023 were up 62% from 2022, and this quarter is gangbusters.

The reason Tesla has lagging sales is two fold…one, Tesla has had shit for innovation in the last five years. Their cars have shit driver assist tech and software and pretty poor manufacturing quality control as well.

The Cyber truck is a disaster of a death trap and a failure of an EV. A moronic design by a childish con artist that has always over promised and under delivered using a future tech investment Ponzi scheme that is running out of roadway.

Just the dumbass decision to use thick stainless steal panels so he could market it as “bulletproof” shows what a grift the truck was. Making an EV unnecessarily MUCH heavier reduced both range and performance just to serve a marketing gimmick shows Musk is more con than artist.

And the second reason Tesla has declining sales is because Musk has become a toxic figure and is closely associated with his brand. Liberals loved Teslas and they were the major drivers of Tesla sales. Especially in blue cities where there was virtue signal prestige in driving an EV.

Now anyone that drives a new Tesla looks like a Elon simping douche.

It was a bad faith question with bad faith framing.

EVs are the future, hybrids are the present. Regenerative breaking alone is a feature that needs to be in every new car made at some point soon, making all cars hybrid at minimum.

Fighting this is just giving the innovation and technology lead to competitors. Chinese electric cars are generally shitty and unsafe right now. We could dominate this market for some time if we moved forward with EV technologies

The fucking ridiculous nonsense being spouted by right wing media resisting this trend is already ceding the lead to Japan, Korea, and Germany…the last thing we want is to be losing to the Chinese on this.

SFC D

EV’s are not the future. You and your progressive cult view them as the be all, end all, one size fits all panacea for American transportation. I’ve got news for you snookums, it just ain’t so. Green energy is a lie. There is no such creature as non-polluting energy. EV’s are useful in some situations, but like any tool, it’s not universal. Anyone that tells you it is, is a liar, and anyone that believes it is a sucker. But, given your fraudulent nature, it’s not a shock that you stand up and bark out the party line. Please, go find a new shtick and take your show elsewhere. Have a nice day.

Forest Bondurant

Commissar: “Now anyone that drives a Tesla looks like a Elon simping douche.”

Response: “Now anyone that watches or listens to any left-wing media is a fucking moron who has no critical thinking skills, and avoids cold hard facts because of ‘feelings’.”

Commissar: “Regenerative breaking alone is a feature (not a bug) that needs to be in every new car made at some point, making all cars a hybrid at some point.”

Response: Using that logic, Pinto’s exploding was a feature, not a bug.

Commissar: “Fighting this is just giving the innovation and technology lead to competitors.”

Response: “But that’s okay as long as the ‘Big Guy’ gets 10 percent and legislators can continue their insider trading with those companies to make millions.”

Commissar: “We could dominate this market for some time if we moved forward with EV technologies.”

Response: “We could dominate the market in technology, except we can’t because academic skills such as reading, writing, arithmetic, critical thinking skills, and facts are all considered white racist constructs developed to disenfranchise minorities – so instead of teaching the value of real education and degrees that don’t involve subjects like Precambrian Lesbian Dance Theory and achieving success through hard work and merit, we’ve replaced them with DEI and CRT, lowered the standards below mediocrity, and the youth of tomorrow who would otherwise be able to dominate the market will be unable to because they’ll be uneducated morons, who have no concept of what technology is beyond their gaming console, cell phone and TikTok account, and will be confused about their gender.”

Commissar: “…the last thing we want is to be losing to the Chinese on this.”

Response: “But ‘we’ will, because the ‘Big Guy’ has sold the country out to the Chinese so he can get his 10 percent, and gutted this country’s ability to be energy dependent.”

I can break this down further if you want.

SFC D

Commissar: “Regenerative breaking alone is a feature (not a bug) that needs to be in every new car made at some point, making all cars a hybrid at some point.”

Regenerative braking does not make any car a hybrid. A hybrid would have a separate, fossil fueled power source. Regenerative braking merely provides with the batteries with DC current. Not enough for a recharge, but enough to extend the vehicles range. An EV with regenerative braking is not a hybrid, its an EV with hybrid braking. And you are truly the one provable constant in the universe. You are a fraud.

Hate_me

…and communism hasn’t worked because no one has yet implemented true communism.

Hack Stone

Not an engineer, nor does Hack portray one on the Internet. So maybe in his wisdom, Commissar would enlighten Hack. Let’s focus on the freight industry. California as well as the Biden-Harris Administration have a real hard on for banning diesel vehicles. So if the trucking industry is forced to ditch diesel for electric vehicles, how much would it cost to replace their fleet of vehicles. How much would it cost to install enough charging stations at the warehouse to charge those vehicles? Given that charging time for an EV passenger vehicle can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours, how long is needed to charge an EV tractor trailer. Is the company obligated to pay the drivers while they wait for the vehicle to be charged enough to reach their destinations? Given the restrictions on highways and bridges for weight and height, do the trucking companies now need to reroute their trucks to not overburden certain roads and bridges? The weight of the batteries to haul that load would probably prohibit traversing a majority of bridges. And is the American power grid capable of charging all of these EV trucks, personal vehicles, and what America needs for every day use? The answer is probably no. With all of this additional expense to meet Joe Biden’s “green mandates”, you can expect the cost of everything to go up dramatically. But at least we are saving the planet. //S//

Blaster

Don’t forget, no mean tweets! The most important factor for giving us the last 3.5 years!

Blaster

Funny how Musk was a hero of the Left, until he questioned their antics and showed some common sense. As a legal immigrant, he actually spent millions (billions?), to fight to ensure the right to free speech.

EV sales significantly declined in the latter half of 2023 for the first time in over a decade. (Source =The LA Times).

According to the bastion of right wing propaganda, The LA Times, your claim of up 62% is wrong. But, you didn’t cite to source, so,,, I guess we have to take your word for it!

The LA Times article also states that the California mandates and gas prices are the only reason for the EV sales to be rising, in California only. It also says that the citizens are very aggravated about the limited resources for charging.

I’m gonna call BS on both your claim of the rise in sales and that Musk is a grifter. He’s a very intelligent man. If I want to see grifters, I’ll look at the occupants of the White House, Sen, and HoRs. Both sides of the aisle.

SgtM

Well ole commisar has started his own ev company, bought a multi billion dollar company, built space ships that work, made a world wide satellite company (that I use) among other accomplishments. Oh wait that was someone else. Commisar still sits in filth and drug use outside of Berserkley, His claim to fame is being a failure. I may not be a super contributor to society but my two kids are an RN and a cardiographer helping people. I have never been a medic to antifa, his claim to fame.

Av8or33

I’m guessing that your broke unemployed ass can’t even afford a car let alone an EV. Must suck to comment on society but be unable to afford to participate, especially with your level of education and snobbery.

Bill R.

While I might be tempted to buy a hybrid, I will never buy an EV.

Hate_me

I might by an electric motorcycle (especially a dirt bike) or quad, someday, if they ever get rid of the noise requirement.

Not for any environmental or political concern, just for the quiet. This would change backcountry hunting – I can’t pack out an entire elk on my back.

KoB

If “land lines” are going away, why do the Telecom Construction Gangs spend days and days replacing all of the cables that hit the ground when the pole string was destroyed by the tornado. And why do we have redundant cables/circuits going into grubermint installations that were NOT allowed to go down/out of service? Can’t tap a drug dealers/perp’s phone line without a warrant, but if it is transmitted…well…you know. The cell network can be shut down by the grubermint at the snap of their fingers…so can an EV. You want secure comms? Get you a twisted pair, tied to an outside network interface box, feeding to a direct underground cable, going to a Central Office. Your inherwebz will work more better too. You want a secure vehicle? Get you a pre-70s something, do a frame off restoration (20-25K$), and drive it for the rest of your life. It’ll even crank when the EMPs nukes go BOOM!

I had a Green Vehicle once. Bridgette was a British Racing Green Ford Taurus Station Wagon, V-6 ICE with all the gadgets. Smooth as silk ride, cranked every time I turned the key, and got nearly 30 mpg. Shore do miss that ride.

SFC D

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but all those cell towers eventually feed a… wait for it…”land line”. Cell phones are no different than old-school radio-wire integration, just the latest iteration.

Get yourself an old car, no electronic ignition (adjusting breaker points is fun!), mechanical fuel pump, mechanical distributor. When the great kaboom comes, you’ll have wheels as long as you can steal gas.

Roh-Dog

An old school diesel might be better.
I’d bet you could get a pre-electric pumped Navistar to run on Lizzo oil for a month!

Man the long boats and let your harpoons fly true, boys!

26Limabeans

“land lines” carry much more than just voice.
DSL for one. Plenty of BW both above and below voice.
I suspose fiber could be called land line at some point.

SFC D

That’s a fact, beans. Copper and fiber still carry a huge load. All cable tv and internet, most voice traffic in my area comes via fiber from Tucson. Still some huge fookin copper runs out there. Physical connectivity is never going away.

KoB

Yep. Can’t tell you how many MILES of cable (copper and fiber) I placed that went to cell towers. The longest, single job, fiber placement was 297+K feet…all aerial, all cross country. We were some sho’ ’nuff Happy Hookers hanging that one. Some places even I couldn’t get that T-40 Bucket Truck to the pole line. Some folks would look at me as if I was crazy (and yes, I am crazy, just not stupid) when I’d tell them their “wireless phone” was only “wireless” from their hand to the tower. The best ones were the ones that wanted to know why we were replacing the drop going to the house after a storm damage. “We don’t have a land line phone, only the internet.” Good Times!

Still looking for a good used M151. Claw Daddy posted the FSN on ’em the other day. I’d make book that Claw Daddy has one, new in crate, stashed somewhere. You just know he had to do the Radar O’Reilly thing and shipped one back, piece by piece, from the Viet of the Nam. 😀

Forest Bondurant

There are a lot fuggin smart (and funny) people on this site, which is the extent of my social media activity that I participate on. The rest is garbage.

Thank you, Jon Lilyea!

(I think he’d be pleased and proud.)

SFC D

I’ve seen 151’s on eBay, but very spendy! Still a lot of older CJ3B’s, M38A1’s, and early CJ-5/6/7’s to be had.

My last platoon was some fiber runnin’ fools, I’m not sure how many miles we installed on COB Speicher in 2008. I did a very memorable run on Bagram AB in March 02. But that’s a story for another time.

Odie

A matchbook cover will adjust the points far enough apart to get you home too.

David

$25K for a frame-off? Dude, you don’t do many old cars, do you? For that you may get a mechanical restoration if the car isn’t bad and runs when it gets to the shop. Want a complete body-off, cleaned/blasted, nice rotisserie paint job? Add the same again. Some of the paints nowadays cost $1000…a gallon.
Now you have something that looks better than left the factory. If you have the skills to do a lot of the work yourself, better figure your labor at $.25/hour to get under that budget. Even fairly mechanical folks draw the line at rusty body/frame work, welding, upholstery, paint work (or don’t have the equipment/space/tools even if they do know how.
A common phrase at Pebble Beach used to be “the difference between a 99 point car and a 100 point car is about a million dollars” – 20 years ago.

One huge facet of the headline: while the landline was the mainstay, we were developing the wireless infrastructure, fiber-opticking the countryside, putting up cell towers, developing affordable cell phones, making the infrastructure work. What the govenment is mandating now would be like telling everyone in 1985 “okay, we will tear out all the landlines and mandate wireless phones by 1989.”

KoB

Oh yeah, one can get rather spendy on re-builds, specially if one is looking for show cars. Been involved in a number of restos, from just making it mechanically sound to showroom quality. Swap meets, trades, and scounging while doing the work yourself can keep the price way down. I ain’t talking taking something to Count’s in Vegas. I’m talking “Rat Rod”/Gray Man look.

Odie

Looking for a new project myself. I wouldn’t mind a 3rd gen fbody as they’re still affordable, and doing an ls swap. An ls9 would be nice since all ls’s are the same physical size, but then you get to the price. I’ve lowered my expectations to a 383 stroker and 6 speed manual.

And no, I’m not talking Counts in Vegas or Chip Foose quality, but a driver that doesn’t look like a refugee from the junkyard, and won’t embarras anybody to be seen riding in it.

jem3

The old girl cost me in the neighborhood of $12,000 to do a 20ft restoration. But I had a Million dollars of fun and frustration doing it.

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KoB

Beautiful example of what can done…”on the cheap”.

Odie

Have you heard of this place? Found it while searching for parts for a 31 roadster pick up I found, but haven’t heard back from seller.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://seattle-speed-shop.com/&ved=2ahUKEwjT56yh87KFAxXKrokEHUcuBbgQFnoECAEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw17VH-MuODIgOalpyeOnweipp

Roh-Dog

Not:

  • paying the premium on a vehicle that chews through tires and can’t be maintained by mere mortals
  • financing a golf cart that won’t come close to breakeven on the cost/value/price proposition
  • installing the infrastructure for one
  • plugging or unplugging one in the rain

Being a guy who generally doesn’t like to be on fire, or trapped in a vehicle that is on fire, I won’t be operating one.

Also, fuck the insurance on them. Bodyshop up the way has a lot full of Teslas (and other ‘battery cars’). These rich morons love driving them into shit and I ain’t subsidizing silverspoon assholes any more than I do already.

Of course the cuttlefish had to come here and defend the state’s right to disappropriate transportation from poor folk, no-base-principles-having pile of shit.

EABOD, L@rz.

87306347-792008624
KoB

And here we are…

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BlueCord Dad

He’s a maroon…

Sapper3307

Land lines still work, THX MaBell.

Old tanker

Tesla is facing competition. Except that ford and gm have shut down their EV production because they are not being bought by the public. Reality is a foreign concept to this administration.

5JC
5JC

If by Ford doing the same you mean “transitioning to all EVs by 2035” you are right on.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2024/04/04/ford-updates-timing-for-next-gen-evs–readies-manufacturing-plan.html

SFC D
5JC

Not the rest, the same exact story.

SFC D

Interesting. The story does not match the Reuters headline. Mea Culpa.

Marine0331

The wife and I bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee this past summer from the same trusted dealer that we bought the previous two vehicles. While making our final decision, we looked at a hybrid model, but the manager of the maintenance Dept who we know well, saw us out there looking and told us to stay away from them. At the risk of losing sales, he explained that many of the electric and hybrids come back in with a myriad of maintenance and repair issues, and they are super costly. Just food for thought.

Hack Stone

Son, we live in a world that has Woke Liberals , and those Woke Liberals have to be chauffeured by non-binary gender fluid beings with electric vehicles. Who’s gonna do it? You? I have a greater self entitlement than you could possibly fathom. I weep for undocumented Latinx and curse the white male patriarchy . You don’t have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that American economy’s death, while tragic, probably lined Nancy Pelosi’s wallet. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, *saves lives*., except for fetuses. They don’t count. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want those African kids in the cobalt mines. You need those African kids in those cobalt mines. We use words like green energy, sustainment, zero carbon footprint. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending the corrupt . You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a cisgender white male who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very oppression that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “thank you” and hosted a family of undocumented immigrants into your home, otherwise , I suggest you pick up a shovel and start digging. Either way, I don’t give a *damn* what you think you are entitled to!