Electric vehicles catch-all thread

[GJM]

I think people are smarter than politicians/government thinks they are. Early adopters jumped on EV vehicles, but for primary vehicle use, 2023 was the year that idea smashed into a cliff as the reality of away from home charging became understood. Hertz learned that lesson the expensive way.

When you drive an EV, the performance is amazing. Our Lightning is faster than a Raptor, and is a perfect range and around town vehicle. Since we don't use it for longer trips, public charging is a non issue. As the public charging infrastructure improves, battery technology improves, and costs come down, EV's will become a better option for more people. That isn't happening in months, it will take years.

[4RNR]

Ya know, the more time this lib crap goes on the more I see there may be something to some conspiracy theories. If everyone has an EV. We sure can't drive as far and we need to be assured that if we try, we can find a charger. The things are crap in the winter so the northern 1/3 of the country is super limited for 4-5 months every year. They promise chargers everywhere but 2 weeks ago we found out that so far $7B (or near that) has been spent and 50 (or less) chargers have actually been installed. Put all these EVs onto the grid which we can't improve or make larger w/ RELIABLE generation and what happens? The brownouts we hear about in Cali are usually in the summer. The answer they say is charge overnight when Ac is used less. How about overnight in the winter when heat is used more? How about all winter long when we need power the most in storms and the windmills ice up and the solar cells get taken out by hail. Everyone will have a home charger? Great where will the power come from to run them? We got a new Sheets nearby recently. They have 8 Tesla chargers. That's fine when EVs are a small part of the population. What if they become 30%? It takes maybe 1.5 hours to fully charge an EV vs 10 minutes to fill a gas tank. So every 1.5 hrs we can fill up 8 EVs. They have way more than 8 gas pumps but let's just compare if they only had 8 pumps. That is 9 cars each 1.5 hrs per pump times 8 pumps = 72 gas cars filled up every 1.5 hours. Now what happens when, of those gas 72 cars, 24 of them become EVs? Control! I think you are onto something 4RNR.

This is a little OT but unfortunately today there's an agenda in everything. Its more than how far you can go. Your car new(er) is now a programable computer that takes updates over the air. It can just as easily be programed to allow charging X amount of times/distance per week or to only go so far. Dont believe me.....Hyundai just introduced Geo Tracking and Geo Fencing to their cars. It can now be limited to where and when it can be used. This is somewhere on page 30 or 40 of the user agreement on the infotainment. Hyundai says its so you can have better control of what your teenage kids do and that it wont be used without your consent.....EXCEPT when mandated by law!!! In other words, no consent needed. Funny thing to think of.....like who would have ever thought there would be a law to limit where and when you can drive? The fact that they write that says something. Ever heard of lockdowns or 15 minute cities?

Nissan has been saving EVERYTHING you say or text over their infotainment system for quite some time. At least several years. There is no option to cancel, opt out or delete.

GM got cought selling driving data to Insurance companies.

New law going into effect in 2025 (maybe 2026, i forget). ALL new cars must monitor and record your facial expressions, your voice, your actions. Anything you do or say inside your car is stored. On top of that it must monitor your driving, incase youre drunk. On top of that there was a remote off switch but that info suddenly disappeared. Of course, this has nothing to do with controlling your movement or anything minority report. Of course, its all to stop the drunks!!!

Tesla employees have watched their customers through the vehicle cameras and even said there is no expectation of privacy.

But hey, we know you wont complain because we'll give you a shiny new button to push!!

[Crusader]

Nobody said the green Jihad was gonna be easy.

[farscott]

My first question was, given the time of day, was she under the influence of alcohol?

Several recommendations are to remove your seatbelt first. In aircraft dunking training, that is a no, no, and you want to say strapped in until you are ready to egress. It seems like tempered glass is going to be easier to break, and that tempered glass is more common in rear side windows. Was there a technical reason she couldn't lower her windows or open her door as soon as the vehicle started going into the water?

A couple of reasons why the windows may not be lowered when the vehicle is partially flooded. Some designs, like my current 2017 Ford Taurus, have "wet doors". The vehicle design allows water into the doors when it is raining or the vehicle is being washed, and each door has drains to allow the water to exit the door and not enter the vehicle interior. Works okay when on land. I am in the habit of moving each door seal after a storm or washing to ensure any trapped water can exit the door. The left rear door loves to retain water if I do not do this.

When the door is partially submerged, the "drain" in the door is just an ingress point for more water. Not lowering the window into that as the motor cannot displace the water with the torque it has. The other reason is a loss of battery power to the window motors due to the water or from a crash that resulted in the vehicle being in the water.

When there is more water outside than inside the vehicle, the water pressure differential holds the door closed. Not until the same depth of water on both sides of the door will the door be able to be opened.

As for the seat belts, no good answer here. I have seen seat belts that had to be cut after an incident and being unbelted during an event is a bad idea due to what you may contact. Seen more than a few offset frontal crashes and bumper overrides that resulted in the doors being impossible to open. I did enough crash testing on vehicles to see those failure modes. If I knew I was going to end up in the water, I would try to lower any window I could and stay belted until the kinetic portion was complete, knowing I have a knife to cut the belt if needed. No guarantee as I may be unconscious or unable to use the knife. You "pays your money and takes your chances."

[CraigS]

As far as I know none of our cars has a camera. But all have a microphone so we can talk to nav or on the phone. Hope we can find the camera id we get a car with one. It will get the same tape my laptop has.

[vcdgrips]

Drove a 2023 Sonata Blue Hybrid from KCMO to Jeff City and back this week for a down and back court hearing. 49.7 mpg in ECO mode combined mileage over 300 miles.

Plenty of power for passing/merging. Better than average sound system. Composed at 70 ish with light rain and a bit of cross wind on I-70.

If I was in the sub 35K sedan market, I would give it a look so long as insurance was roughly cost comparable to similar cars.

[camel]

Drove a 2023 Sonata Blue Hybrid from KCMO to Jeff City and back this week for a down and back court hearing. 49.7 mpg in ECO mode combined mileage over 300 miles.

Plenty of power for passing/merging. Better than average sound system. Composed at 70 ish with light rain and a bit of cross wind on I-70.

If I was in the sub 35K sedan market, I would give it a look so long as insurance was roughly cost comparable to similar cars.

They have a lot of warranty issues currently. From what I understand

[0ddl0t]

Hyundai & Kia have about average reliability (as measured during the warranty period), but they do tend to suffer higher than normal engine failure rates shortly after the warranty period. It isn't the cars are poorly engineered (on the contrary - they are among the most efficient on the planet), it is a large disconnect between the engineering recommendations for services and intervals vs the sales promises for service intervals. That and a normal amount of manufacturing issues that are exacerbated by extended service intervals (e.g. manufacturing burrs on rotating assembly parts)


Put simply, "normal driving conditions" really means "ideal driving conditions" - like a 300 mile highway trip on flat/rolling terrain in cool weather filling up with only top tier gasoline.

Pretty much everything else is "severe driving" requiring an oil change and every 3,750 miles, fuel injection treatment every 7,500 miles, belt every 30,000 miles, all engine/inverter/brake/transmission fluids every 60,000 miles, spark plugs every 100,000. Maintain it according to the severe schedule, and you should expect at least 250,000 miles from your drivetrain.

Go with 7,500 (or longer) oil change intervals, fill up at the cheapest no-name gas stations, and skip all other maintenance until things break and your engine may not make it to 150,000 and probably won't make it to 200,000. Carbon will have built up on your valves and will occasionally break off in chunks, scoring your cylinder walls and increasing oil consumption. Tiny oil passageways will constrict with varnish and sludge, further increasing oil consumption and engine wear. While you're not paying attention, your engine will go from consuming a quart of oil every 5,000 miles to a quart every 3,000 to a quart every 1,000. And since no one checks their oil levels anymore, you'll probably end up starving the rod bearings of oil and developing rod knock or seizing the engine.



Hyundai "Severe" conditions:

• driving below 10 miles
• driving uphill or downhill
• idling
• low speed driving
• high speed driving
• stop and go driving
• driving below freezing
• driving above 90F temperature
• driving on unpaved roads
• driving on salt-sprayed roads
• driving in poor air quality

[GJM]

The first oil change interval on our Sprinter van is 20,000 miles. Is that a bad idea?

[Eric_L]

The first oil change interval on our Sprinter van is 20,000 miles. Is that a bad idea?

Yes. Go with the severe duty schedule.