Mama told me not to come.
She said, that ain’t the way to have fun.
Awesome.
My parents like their Speed Queen, so I’ll have to see if my wife would be cool with that. I like that there are very few electronics, just dials and buttons, so there’s a lot less to go wrong. I’ll have to see if there’s a decent commercial dealer in my area.
Yeah, and I think that’s totally fine, and if somehow someone’s likeness falls under copyright, it should fall under Fair Use imo.
The problem with replicas is passing something off as authentic that isn’t, and that’s what fraud protects against.
you could always park it outside
I’m not worried about theft at all. My neighborhood is really boring and my city has one of the lowest crime rates in the area, with most of the crime happening on the other side of the city. It could happen, but I doubt it.
The bigger reason for the garage is climate control. It gets pretty cold in the winter (5-15F is common), and the non-insulated garage generally keeps it above freezing. That should help with the battery, as well as avoids having to scrape the windshield.
they offer a rebate for EVs on top of the federal credit
Yeah, if we had that, I’d probably jump on it. But there’s a bigger chance that my vehicle registration tax will increase to offset the lack of gas tax than a rebate happening.
Another issue is that a lot of our energy comes from coal, so switching to an EV wouldn’t be a a dramatic as other areas in terms of carbon footprint. I’m considering getting solar (about a 10-year payback period if I DIY), but I’ll need to also replace the roof when I do, so I’m putting that off as well.
Anyway, I want an EV, but as you said, it probably doesn’t make sense for me. But I do like the idea of never having to refill my commuter, which I currently need to do almost every week.
I grew up with it. Almost every year we’d drive 800-900 miles to visit family, and almost always in one day. We’ve done it in two before, but honestly it’s more of a pain to get everything unloaded and get the kids to actually sleep in the hotel that we just drive all the way through. We arrive exhausted, but it’s one long day instead of two.
Doing my part. Not in Indonesia though.
Yeah, I have kids, and we can usually get about 300 miles before someone needs a bathroom break. So usually I refill gas (<5 min) while the kids go to the bathroom, and we usually pack enough food with us (sandwiches and whatnot) that we only need to go to a restaurant once on the trip.
An EV could work if fast chargers were as plentiful as gas stations, but in many of the areas we go (I live in Utah and travel to WA, MT, ID, and CA frequently), they’re pretty infrequent. So we’d need to plan stops based on charger availability, not on bladder size, which means an extra recharge or two for the trip. It’s getting better, but every time I look at maps, there are maybe one or two chargers in a 50 mile radius, so if it’s full or out of service, we’d be screwed.
Now, if gas stations started offering EV charging, I’d probably be looking at them today. Gas stations are perfect because they often have fast food, bathrooms, and snacks, all of which are essential for road trips.
As another anecdote, my coworker just bought a Model 3, and he frequently says he can’t reasonably visit places within our state because the charging network sucks. That’s a pretty serious concern for us, since we like camping, which means pretty remote trips.
And that’s fair. EVs aren’t all that complicated, so if China tries to abuse its position, it would be pretty easy to ramp up production, provided we can manufacture the batteries, or at least have multiple friendly alternatives that can manufacture the batteries (e.g. Japan and Korea). Battery production should be something western powers can do efficiently with automation, provided we have a good source for raw materials (and lithium mines are opening up around the world).
So I honestly don’t care too much if BYD corners the market, I only care if there’s no reasonable competition. Given that Korean, Japanese, European, and American car manufacturers are all still quite competitive with EVs, I don’t see many issues. You buy Korean, Japanese, etc if you want quality, you buy Chinese if you want cheap. Both will continue to exist because there will always be demand for luxury cars, which means access to batteries and whatnot will continue to exist.
My only concern is if China is being unfair in its competition. I can understand tariffs to counter artificially lower prices (e.g. through direct subsidies), but not to protect domestic production due to labor price differences. We can always export manufacturing to other countries if we’re worried about risk of centralizing all labor in one region, and we already do that with production facilities in Mexico, and there are plenty of other countries we could look at as well (India, SE Asia, S. America, etc).
A used Bolt is pretty darn cheap
Yeah, I’ve been looking at them, and it’s something like $13k, which is definitely in the reasonable range of prices, especially since I can probably get $5k for my current car.
However, I’m worried about battery issues. People claim it’s fixed, but I’ll be parking mine in my garage and there’s a lot of flammable stuff in there. So I’m a little hesitant. I don’t need to ever fast charge it since I only drive like 200 miles per week (and never more than 100 miles in a day, usually like 50), so trickle charging should be totally fine. If I can confirm that, I might just do the swap. Or maybe I’ll get a Leaf, which is in a similar price range used.
Our gas and electricity costs are pretty low ($3.50/gal and $0.12-0.13/kWh), so even at $13k, the Bolt would still need ~10 years to pay back for itself (and that’s not counting the opportunity cost of investing that money). I’m still tempted based purely on the convenience factor (never needing to go to a gas station again), but it’s not a slam dunk yet. If the car dies, I’ll certainly replace the commuter with an EV though, I would just rather avoid the hassle of listing and selling my current car.
From a purely climate perspective, it’s probably better for me to replace our family car. We get ~20mpg, and hybrids would get 30-40mpg, and a plug-in would get emissions-free for most of our around-town trips. That car is only used for very short trips (<20 miles) or long trips (>200 miles), with almost nothing in-between. But those cars are super expensive right now, so I’m watching the used market to see if I can score a deal.
Isn’t this already covered under our fraud laws? This law just seems to give more power to groups like the RIAA and other large media orgs.
If you can prove someone is committing fraud, you can already sue them. We should merely strengthen those laws, not create a “digital replication right” or whatever. Screw that, we should be limiting copyright, not extending it…
X does too. Seems like other social media should get on board.
Are they? Or is it protectionism?
I’d like to see some actual numbers here, because 100% tariffs seems to be more than just the subsidies, but also includes labor cost disparity.
Well, the good news is, nobody is making an actual solid state battery car, so if they don’t deliver, I’m not out anything. The current set of EVs aren’t good enough to replace our family car (we like road trips, and even 300 miles range is too little), so I’m waiting regardless. I’ll be looking for announcements in the next year or two.
Both of our cars are Toyotas though, because they make really good cars. We have a Sienna for our family car and a Prius for my commuter, and I’m probably going to replace that Prius with an EV if I can find a good deal on something with 150 miles range. The Sienna is getting old (nearly 200k miles), but it’s reliable, so I’m holding off until I can either get a good deal on a hybrid/ICE, or reasonable EVs are released. If that’s Toyota, great, but I’m not buying the first gen of anything regardless.
Idk, this was after they were banned by the FAA, so I don’t think it was a “PR hit to attempt to maintain quality,” I think it was to stem the damage. The Note 7 was already in the news by that point, and 3 major airlines had already started telling passengers to turn off their Note 7s specifically. The second set of devices failed even when powered off.
Here’s Time’s timeline of events if you want to revisit it. I can understand the first not being caught, but Samsung should have been extra wary of the replacement devices. But no, they only stopped after even more bad news came out.
If Samsung really cared about maintaining quality, they would’ve taken more than a month to test and ship fixed devices. They should’ve done a total recall and relaunch a few months later, once they have thoroughly tested their products.
And thanks for the warning about Samsung washers. I have an LG now, and this is the second time the logic board has had an issue in the 10-ish years I’ve had it (this time it’s a sticking relay), and I’m debating repairing vs replacing it. The part is something like $100, but I’m thinking there’s a chance something else could die given its age. Then again, $100 is totally reasonable if it lasts another 5 years. If you have any recommendations for brands, I’m all ears.
The first was a design issue, the second was a manufacturing issue. Both should have been caught by Samsung’s QA.
I don’t think that’s true. There are other mechanisms besides tariffs and direct regulations that can help regulate markets, depending on what you’re looking for. For example:
I’m not saying we should flip the switch overnight to free trade, I’m saying we should be moving that direction. The only case I can see for tariffs is to reverse government subsidies. If we can prove China subsidizes EVs by X%, I’m fine with a matching tariff to level the playing field. However, if they’re merely able to produce them cheaper because labor there is cheaper, a tariff is merely protectionism and therefore illegitimate, and we should instead compete with automation or quality.
It’s not a lie, they screwed up twice. I don’t care if it was another manufacturer that screwed up, at the end of the day, Samsung is responsible for QA on anything they sell.
That said, they were very transparent (hence why I linked it). However, I still don’t trust Samsung for other reasons:
They do make some high quality stuff, but I generally avoid them because I don’t trust them (I do have a Samsung “dumb” TV, and I may get a Samsung washing machine). I don’t think their batteries will explode again, but they’ll probably do something like make it difficult for independent repair of their batteries. They’re actually better than most in their phones, but that’s a pretty low-value repair vs for cars.
It really shouldn’t be though. I believe in free trade, and tariffs ain’t it.
TBF, it fits your username.
Exactly. I have a lot of space in my garage, not as much in my car.
The second.
And half the population isn’t “voting for climate genocide,” in fact, a large chunk of them probably don’t agree with their party about climate change policy. Voting choices are a complex beast, and it’s unfair to assume every voter is okay with every policy the people they voted for support. Everyone will have a different set of issues they care most about, and it’s probably not going to be climate policy for most.
The actual number of “climate change deniers” is quite low, and it’s mostly rhetoric used by politicians to justify their actual policies, which is essentially, “doing something is worse for the economy.”
Again, I don’t think that’s actually true. That’s what they say to rile up their base for the elections (the whole “anti-woke” nonsense), but that’s not what they prioritize when they get in office, and a lot of voters see through/ignore that nonsense. It’s the same idea as with people on the left talking up LGBT rights and fixing healthcare, but when they actually get in office, they don’t really do anything about it.
Your average voter isn’t following the “project 2025” nonsense or even the party platform, they’re largely just voting for their party because that’s what they’ve always done. Or maybe they think that this time their party will do that one thing they keep supporting them for (for the GOP, this would be balance the budget and shrink the government in ways they want). That never actually happens for much the same reason that the Democratic Party doesn’t actually do what a lot of supporters want them to do (universal healthcare, tax the rich, etc).
So your average voter either votes for their party regardless (something like 30% on each side) or they vote based on what direction they think the country should go in (more left or more right), they rarely support the platform as a whole, and IMO they rarely actually care who the candidate is, unless they’re extremely far off from the typical candidate. However, arguments like the one you used earlier assume that supporting a party means support for all of that party’s policies, and that’s just unfair and inaccurate.
The issue is that we have an overwhelming amount of representation from a handful of demographics, politics being one of them, and whenever you have a majority, minorities get the shaft. And that’s what I’m frustrated about. I want a platform with open, civil discourse that attracts a diverse set of people, and so far I haven’t found a platform that provides that. I want lemmy/the fediverse to be that, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. It’s less bad in some ways to most of the alternatives, which is why I’m here, but it still falls quite a bit short, especially on the political side of things. I don’t know how to solve this problem, so my knee-jerk reaction is to try to provide high quality opposition to when I see evidence of group think.
Anyway, thanks for tolerating my TED talk. I despise the GOP as it is today, but that doesn’t mean I think calling them Nazis is appropriate or even desirable. I think good ideas can come from all ends of the political spectrum.