Random Thoughts Thread

[dwightlooi]

1 hour ago, David said:

Seems Toyota spending Billions on Hydrogen R&D and focusing on Hybrids is now catching up to them as they have now pleaded to the current administration in DC that pushing a pure EV plan for the country will hurt not help people.

Three things...

(1) Hydrogen as a fuel is RETARDED. Hydrogen is not an energy source -- you cannot mine it or grow it. You have to make it from electricity or through cracking hydrocarbons -- the latter being the dominant means of making industrial hydrogen today because it is much cheaper and more energy efficient than electrolysis. Hydrogen is at best an energy storage medium and it sucks at that -- it is either the lowest density gas in the universe or the coldest liquid in the universe. If what you want is to burn it, you should burn something else that is easier and less bulky to carry. If what you want is electricity through a fuel cell, just use batteries and spare yourself the hyper insulated tanks, 6000 psi bomb canisters and/or the bulky PEM fuel cell stack altogether.

(2) Hybrids never made economic sense and with electrics of adequate range on the market they won't draw the Green Dollars from Global Warming Coolaid drinkers -- not anymore. From day one through present day, the extra cost of a Hybrid drive train will NEVER pay itself back through fuel savings over the life of the vehicle or the battery system or both. It takes an average of 13.5 years to recoup the marginal cost of a Prius drivetrain over that of a Corolla (@ $4/gallon which is more than most Americans currently pay). This is beyond the ownership period of 95% of Prius buyers and beyond the expected longevity of the NiCAD battery.

(3) There is nothing wrong with developing or selling Electric Vehicles. We can all appreciate the NVH refinement of a vibration free propulsion system regardless of whether we believe the Climate Change rubbish. However, Toyota is right. Artificially accelerating Electric Vehicles or trying to move to an all electric fleet when consumers are not demanding, or ready for, it will indeed hurt consumers. If and when Electric vehicles become cheap enough and practical enough, people will naturally buy them. Trying to force it on the People when it is not will absolutely hurt consumers the same way forcing Plasma TVs on everyone when they were $20,000 and lasts 4 years before becoming half as bright will hurt consumers. The same can be said of lofty CAFE standards forcing very expensive and often unreliable implements to save a tiny bit of extra gas when the consumer has other priorities and/or preferences. ......(removed).....

Edited March 18, 2021 by Drew Dowdell
Removed overly political comments.

[ykX]

57 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

Hybrids never made economic sense and with electrics of adequate range on the market they won't draw the Green Dollars

 

58 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

Prius drivetrain over that of a Corolla

I don't think your comparison is relevant.  You said Hybrids vs EV and than you compared Corolla to Prius.

Here is another comparison:

Base Ford Mach E - 230mi range, 255hp, RWD $44k

Toyota RAV4 Prime - 42mi EV range, almost 600 mi hybrid range, AWD, 302hp, $39k

I know which one I will choose at this point

[dwightlooi]

1 hour ago, ykX said:

 

I don't think your comparison is relevant.  You said Hybrids vs EV and than you compared Corolla to Prius.

Here is another comparison:

Base Ford Mach E - 230mi range, 255hp, RWD $44k

Toyota RAV4 Prime - 42mi EV range, almost 600 mi hybrid range, AWD, 302hp, $39k

I know which one I will choose at this point

 

[dwightlooi]

1 hour ago, ykX said:

 

I don't think your comparison is relevant.  You said Hybrids vs EV and than you compared Corolla to Prius.

Here is another comparison:

Base Ford Mach E - 230mi range, 255hp, RWD $44k

Toyota RAV4 Prime - 42mi EV range, almost 600 mi hybrid range, AWD, 302hp, $39k

I know which one I will choose at this point

The point is that a Hybrid Drivetrain is typically about $4500 more than a purely ICE drivetrain in a similarly sized and performing vehicle. For it you'll save roughly 92 gallons of fuel a year (on 13 mpg advantage) if you drive 12,500 miles. At $4 a gallon that 92 gallons will save you $368 a year. It'll take 12.2 years before you even break even on the hybrid investment.

The reason the Corolla and Prius were chosen for the comparison being that they are both economy compact cars in size, performance and interior appointments.

Edited March 18, 2021 by dwightlooi

[ykX]

12 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

The point is that a Hybrid Drivetrain is typically about $4500 more than a purely ICE drivetrain in a similarly sized and performing vehicle. For it you'll save roughly 92 gallons of fuel a year (on 13 mpg advantage) if you drive 12,500 miles. At $4 a gallon that 92 gallons will save you $368 a year. It'll take 12.2 years before you even break even on the hybrid investment.

The reason the Corolla and Prius were chosen for the comparison being that they are both economy compact cars in size, performance and interior appointments.

So how long will be to pay off price difference between ICE Escape and Mach E?  EVs don't make financial sense at the moment either.

[dwightlooi]

1 hour ago, ykX said:

So how long will be to pay off price difference between ICE Escape and Mach E?  EVs don't make financial sense at the moment either.

Simple math...

(1) The Mach E starts at $42.8K before subsidies and rebates, a comparably equipped Escape SE is $26.6K. That is a $16.2K price difference.

(2) If you drive gingerly, the Escape SE will average 30 mpg combined. That'll cost you $1,667 in gasoline a year to operate at $4 a gallon if you drive the typical 12,500 miles annually.

(3) The Mach E gets 305 miles from 88 KWh usable of battery capacity. That means it'll need 3,607 kWh to cover 12,500 miles if you drive gently. At $0.20 / kWh it'll cost you $721 in electricity to operate if you charge at home, off peak and at residential rates. Using commercial charging stations will cost a two to four times more -- $1,442~$2,884.

Conclusion: At best it'll take you 17 years to break even on your $16,200 investment in the all electric drivetrain (with savings of $949 a year). At worst you'll spend nearly $20,000 more in charging fees over that 17 years. Regardless, if you drink Global Warming hogwash, you may gladly buy an electric car today. We have no shortage of such individuals in California and/or people who buy EVs so they can hang out with their Green buddies. But... they aren't buying Hybrids anymore.

 

[oldshurst442]

5 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

@oldshurst442  as a random aside, I kept looking at the photo in your post footer and thinking it looked familar--appears to be of Athens, but the color and lighting kind of remind me of an album cover of a favorite album of mine, 'Forth' by the Verve.  Not really that similar, but it was reminding me I need to listen to that album again...been a while.

 

Yeah.  The Parthenon.  I just love that building.  I found that pic worthy of me to have it displayed.

I see where your inspiration to listen to that album came from.   The sun beaming through the clouds.   

Inspiration comes from all kinds of sources and cues.   👍

[oldshurst442]

2 hours ago, ykX said:

So how long will be to pay off price difference between ICE Escape and Mach E?  EVs don't make financial sense at the moment either.

Id say...Ford Edge more so than the Escape.

Not to take away from your argument, because I agree with what you are saying.  I just think the Mach E is a closer match to the Edge than it is to the Escape.

The Mach E is slightly longer than the current Escape but slightly smaller in length than the 1st generation Edge. 

And the current Escape is visually smaller than the 1st gen Edge...   In other words, the Mach E is right in the middle of both but because the Edge has a sportier image and look, especially the 1st generation and the Mach E is well, a Mustang...  

So... the price difference is that much less.  But your argument does hold water, but the price difference between ICE and EV in THIS case is NOT that dramatic either... 

[dwightlooi]

53 minutes ago, oldshurst442 said:

Id say...Ford Edge more so than the Escape.

Not to take away from your argument, because I agree with what you are saying.  I just think the Mach E is a closer match to the Edge than it is to the Escape.

The Mach E is slightly longer than the current Escape but slightly smaller in length than the 1st generation Edge. 

And the current Escape is visually smaller than the 1st gen Edge...   In other words, the Mach E is right in the middle of both but because the Edge has a sportier image and look, especially the 1st generation and the Mach E is well, a Mustang...  

So... the price difference is that much less.  But your argument does hold water, but the price difference between ICE and EV in THIS case is NOT that dramatic either... 

The price difference doesn't change very much even when vehicle price changes a dramatically. This makes an EV econobox an oxymoron because the drivetrain is a going to add $15K to a $15K car, whereas in a luxury car that costs $80K anyway the drivetrain adding $20K may not matter that much. This is why Tesla's business model of focusing initially on performance luxury worked whereas BMW's i3 or VW& eGolf... well... didn't.

[trinacriabob]

I find it hard to tire of garbanzo beans, and especially lima beans.  Not only that, they're really good for you.

[balthazar]

Current Wechsler Intelligence Scale scores an average IQ at 90-109.

Edited March 19, 2021 by balthazar

[balthazar]

Both spell check and automatic colorization (online) are colossal wastes of time.

[G. David Felt]

3 hours ago, dwightlooi said:

Simple math...

(1) The Mach E starts at $42.8K before subsidies and rebates, a comparably equipped Escape SE is $26.6K. That is a $16.2K price difference.

(2) If you drive gingerly, the Escape SE will average 30 mpg combined. That'll cost you $1,667 in gasoline a year to operate at $4 a gallon if you drive the typical 12,500 miles annually.

(3) The Mach E gets 305 miles from 88 KWh usable of battery capacity. That means it'll need 3,607 kWh to cover 12,500 miles if you drive gently. At $0.20 / kWh it'll cost you $721 in electricity to operate if you charge at home, off peak and at residential rates. Using commercial charging stations will cost a two to four times more -- $1,442~$2,884.

Conclusion: At best it'll take you 17 years to break even on your $16,200 investment in the all electric drivetrain (with savings of $949 a year). At worst you'll spend nearly $20,000 more in charging fees over that 17 years. Regardless, if you drink Global Warming hogwash, you may gladly buy an electric car today. We have no shortage of such individuals in California and/or people who buy EVs so they can hang out with their Green buddies. But... they aren't buying Hybrids anymore.

 

I have to disagree with your math. At most about $11 for a full charge at public charging stations still cheaper than gas.

Public EV Charging Station Pricing and Costs | Enel X

You also forget ICE has much more maintenance cost than EV excluding the abuse police put on EVs. 

Power cost, maintenance cheaper with an EV and of course no green house gas and much quieter.

Sadly you have bought into the anti-science BS about climate change, so you will continue to buy into the destroy the planet at any cost, you need to move to the south with the rest of the individuals who cannot care about the future, other than themselves. 

[G. David Felt]

1 hour ago, trinacriabob said:

I find it hard to tire of garbanzo beans, and especially lima beans.  Not only that, they're really good for you.

Excellent source of protein, but have a nasty side affect that if not eaten in moderation does hurt you.

GAS, CRAMPS, Kidney Damage, Heart Damage, decrease in medicine effectiveness. 

Garbanzo & Chickpeas Are Gluten Free, But With Side Effects – Superfoodly

Chickpeas: Benefits And Side Effects | QriousMag

Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans): Nutrition, Benefits, Side Effects, Info (seedguides.info)

I do love them on a salad, but like all things, moderation. I will say that there are some very yummy recipes for Chickpeas.

Chickpea Recipes | Allrecipes

Roasted are awesome, fun munching snack while watching a movie.  

[trinacriabob]

@David  I like the chick peas better as hummus.  I like the lima beans better in purist form.  I just had some tonight.  So good.

[dwightlooi]

19 minutes ago, David said:

I have to disagree with your math. At most about $11 for a full charge at public charging stations still cheaper than gas.

Public EV Charging Station Pricing and Costs | Enel X

You also forget ICE has much more maintenance cost than EV excluding the abuse police put on EVs. 

Power cost, maintenance cheaper with an EV and of course no green house gas and much quieter.

Sadly you have bought into the anti-science BS about climate change, so you will continue to buy into the destroy the planet at any cost, you need to move to the south with the rest of the individuals who cannot care about the future, other than themselves. 

The math is accurate and the numbers I used are truthful and transparent. $0.20 is approximately the price per kWh in CA. $4 per gallon is the price of gasoline in CA. In parts of the country where electricity rates are $0.11 per gallon, gasoline is also $2.60 a gallon -- those also happen to be sensible states where they are not mandating power generation using expensive renewables or subsidizing "green" vehicles. When you use a commercial charging station you are paying two to four times the cost of electricity because, they companies who put in and maintain that stuff has to make money. At 25% utilization (which is better than average) each commercial charger is making maybe $30~40 a day. Not much considering that it costs tens of thousands of dollars in equipment and labor to put that stuff up. It is no different from gas stations making about $2~4 per fill up over what they pay for the gas they sell. The difference being that a car occupies a fuel pump for 2~3 minutes during refueling whereas it occupies charging station for 2~3 hours, hence the margins have to be higher.

The point is that the price premium of the EV drivetrain can be seen as a $15,000~20,000 pre-payment on fuel (or energy). How long it takes for an ICE vehicle to catch up to that is the gasoline cost per mile minus electric cost per mile multiplied by the number of miles driven a year. 17 years is about right -- "about" being the key word.

What is anti-science is the Climate Change BS itself. There is no reason to believe that the climate is in anyway abnormal given that we are NOT seeing the warmest weather in the history of the planet or even the last 5000 years. Not only that, but the fact that the Earth had be frozen to the tropics with CO2 at 8~10x today's level and warmer during umpteen periods with half the CO2 in the air throws the argument that CO2 is a significant contributor to climate patterns into the BS category. Science is not a belief system in people who claim to be scientists; science is a system of empirical observations. I do care about pollution and the future, I simply do not consider CO2 emission a pollutant or something we need to reduce at all.

[balthazar]

1 hour ago, David said:

excluding the abuse police put on EVs.

Stands entirely to reason that a groups of operators that are "abusing" a BE vehicle are going to do the same with an IC vehicle. 

[dwightlooi]

4 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Stands entirely to reason that a groups of operators that are "abusing" a BE vehicle are going to do the same with an IC vehicle. 

It's not so much abuse but USE. Police vehicles put on a lot of miles in a few years since they are driven almost continuous. That also means a lot of charge discharge cycles if it is electric.

[balthazar]

^ The study David & I am referring to was posted here last year somewhere, but the service interval wasn't long- it was a Model 3 vs. a Dodge Charger, IIRC, and I think the timespan was only 1 year. Tesla had maintenance costs like 4 times that of the Charger, according to it.

[daves87rs]

16 hours ago, David said:

Totally agree with your thinking, you know how the auto has been cared for and all the quirks if any, better to buy it out than buy an unknown used. Nice is that you can always if you so choose upgrade the head unit with a modern one if you want the latest Blue Tooth Android/Apple play system and anything else not currently in your auto.

I love the Pioneer head unit I have in my SS, so nice to have my phone connected in the auto.

Also could come in handy for a young driver in the family down the road......

[Drew Dowdell]

15 hours ago, dwightlooi said:

Simple math...

(1) The Mach E starts at $42.8K before subsidies and rebates, a comparably equipped Escape SE is $26.6K. That is a $16.2K price difference.

(2) If you drive gingerly, the Escape SE will average 30 mpg combined. That'll cost you $1,667 in gasoline a year to operate at $4 a gallon if you drive the typical 12,500 miles annually.

(3) The Mach E gets 305 miles from 88 KWh usable of battery capacity. That means it'll need 3,607 kWh to cover 12,500 miles if you drive gently. At $0.20 / kWh it'll cost you $721 in electricity to operate if you charge at home, off peak and at residential rates. Using commercial charging stations will cost a two to four times more -- $1,442~$2,884.

Conclusion: At best it'll take you 17 years to break even on your $16,200 investment in the all electric drivetrain (with savings of $949 a year). At worst you'll spend nearly $20,000 more in charging fees over that 17 years. Regardless, if you drink Global Warming hogwash, you may gladly buy an electric car today. We have no shortage of such individuals in California and/or people who buy EVs so they can hang out with their Green buddies. But... they aren't buying Hybrids anymore.

 

Is electric that much near you? I’m at like 14c/KwH total, and I’m on renewable energy.

[ccap41]

13 hours ago, David said:

I have to disagree with your math. At most about $11 for a full charge at public charging stations still cheaper than gas.

Public EV Charging Station Pricing and Costs | Enel X

You also forget ICE has much more maintenance cost than EV excluding the abuse police put on EVs. 

Power cost, maintenance cheaper with an EV and of course no green house gas and much quieter.

Sadly you have bought into the anti-science BS about climate change, so you will continue to buy into the destroy the planet at any cost, you need to move to the south with the rest of the individuals who cannot care about the future, other than themselves. 

So what are your calculations on payoff for the two mentioned vehicles? At what point is the Mach E actually saving the user money? 

Edited March 19, 2021 by ccap41

[ccap41]

16 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

Id say...Ford Edge more so than the Escape.

Not to take away from your argument, because I agree with what you are saying.  I just think the Mach E is a closer match to the Edge than it is to the Escape.

The Mach E is slightly longer than the current Escape but slightly smaller in length than the 1st generation Edge. 

And the current Escape is visually smaller than the 1st gen Edge...   In other words, the Mach E is right in the middle of both but because the Edge has a sportier image and look, especially the 1st generation and the Mach E is well, a Mustang...  

So... the price difference is that much less.  But your argument does hold water, but the price difference between ICE and EV in THIS case is NOT that dramatic either... 

Interior volume is pretty close to the Escape, and slightly smaller, actually. 

 

Here's actually a pretty good comparison of the two vehicles.

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/17/ford-mustang-mach-e-vs-ford-escape-cost-of-ownership-specs-features/

 

[oldshurst442]

15 hours ago, dwightlooi said:

The price difference doesn't change very much even when vehicle price changes a dramatically. This makes an EV econobox an oxymoron because the drivetrain is a going to add $15K to a $15K car, whereas in a luxury car that costs $80K anyway the drivetrain adding $20K may not matter that much. This is why Tesla's business model of focusing initially on performance luxury worked whereas BMW's i3 or VW& eGolf... well... didn't.

Well... you took the lowest priced Escape in your example.

I said that the Mache E is closest to the Edge rather than the Escape.   It dont matter.

But Id say...if you want to be TOTALLY  unbiased (because your views on climate change is certainly telling when you are explaining that it will take 17 years to pay off the difference in savings)

Id say, people just dont buy base vehicles anymore, so it dont matter what vehicle we choose to compare the Mach E to.   But Id say, an Escape lease or even a sale would be closer to the low to mid 30 000 dollar range.  While the Edge's base starting price is already to 32 000, Id say an Edge lease or sale would be about the same as the Escape which would be mid 30 000s.   Never you mind that the Edge creeps up to where the Mach E resides in price...

It dont matter, Ill give you an increase of 8 000 dollars in your lovely example.  

Then...Ill go on and use QUEBEC as an example rather than California.   The price difference for our NEW example remains constant, even when CDN prices are to be used. BUT...where as YOU live in lovely, sunny California, I live in frigid Quebec.  (Well, at least during winter...)  

20 cents per kw/h.  You'de be shocked (pun intended) to learn how low we get to have our electricity. ALL RENEWABLE...    Find out. It be a fun exercise. 

Our gasoline prices....   Ill tell you this one.  1.23-1.26 CDN dollar per LITER.  times 4  equals (because there is 4 US gallons to a metric liter.  5 CDN dollars per gallon.

5 CDN dollars per gallon.  If you want to, you could do an exchange rate, but that disadvantages you even further.  

Like I said...the drama of "taking x amount of years to"  is  not as...dramatic as one seems to make it.  

 

@ccap41

https://carbuzz.com/compare/ford-edge-vs-ford-escape-2021-se-awd-vs-ford-mach-e

 

Like I said, the Mach E is right smack in the middle of the two.   

Keep in mind that I said 1st generation Edge.  The 2nd gen Edge grew a little while I also think this generation Escape also grew a little from the previous gens.  

It dont matter. Its all semantics anyway. 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by oldshurst442

[oldshurst442]

And THEN...there are MORE variables to consider.

THIS lovely example we are currently at, is with folk who drive AVERAGE miles per year.   

And obviously,  EV tech is still in the adoptive phase...  

Back to my point... there are folk who exceed that amount by quite a lot.  And in Quebec, yes Quebec, California is NOT the center of the universe....  That price difference between gasoline and electricity just accelerates the savings...   

Its no surprise that EVs are more expensive still, than their ICE counterparts.

At THIS point in time, its if you want to make the change or not.  Its if you WANT to adopt EV tech, or not. 

It does not take a thesis to discover that fact.      

 

[oldshurst442]

Pre-emptive response (because I gotta go to work and do not know when Ill be able to respond back)

Keeping it real...

Let's be honest about the choices of cars we used....

It does not matter what CUV from Ford we are going to use to compare it to the Mach E...

NOBODY that is thinking about buying a base 26 000 dollar Escape is thinking about upgrading to a 40 000 dollar Edge let alone a 50 000 dollar Mach E.   (double the price of a base Escape...)   Like I said...lets keep it real.

The would be Escape Hybrid owners might want to jump to a Mach E.  Ditto for a would be Edge owner.

Would be SE Hybrid Escape ($28 000) owners is still far away from their dreams of owning a BEV.   They know that. They wouldnt be upgrading to an Edge let alone to a Mach E.   

THAT is why I went with an Escape, or an Edge, that had a price tag of 8 000 dollars MORE than what was given to us as an example.  

34 000 dollars is a SE plug in hybrid or Titanium Hybrid Escape.

36 000 dollars is a SEL Edge...  Then the next in line Edge is at 40 000 dollars....

You folk could now decide what numbers to us that makes this kind of exercise more logical...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by oldshurst442

[A Horse With No Name]

Driving advice....looks like this dude could use a Mach E or an Escape to replace this crown vic, assuming he escaped this accident. 

 

[ccap41]

1 hour ago, oldshurst442 said:

@ccap41

https://carbuzz.com/compare/ford-edge-vs-ford-escape-2021-se-awd-vs-ford-mach-e

 

Like I said, the Mach E is right smack in the middle of the two.   

Keep in mind that I said 1st generation Edge.  The 2nd gen Edge grew a little while I also think this generation Escape also grew a little from the previous gens.  

It dont matter. Its all semantics anyway. 

Why even compare to a decade old vehicle though? You can't buy one new for a "savings" comparison, like what's being discussed. 

Also, no. Did you look at anything other than exterior measurements? The MachE is much more similar to an Escape everywhere inside.

[dwightlooi]

6 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Is electric that much near you? I’m at like 14c/KwH total, and I’m on renewable energy.

California averages 19.3 cents per kWh. Slightly more expensive in Northern CA, slightly less in Southern CA (18.5 to 21.1 cents), depending on your municipality. Itis more expensive mainly because of the mandate to get 33% of the power from renewable sources like wind and solar which cost more than oil and gas generation. It is going up further because of the new mandates to get to 66% renewables. Right now wind and solar is almost four times more expensive per kWh compared to piped natural gas when you amortize the capital and maintenance costs. The only renewable source that is cheaper than fossil fuel is hydroelectric. The more renewables your state uses, the more expensive your electricity rates.

[A Horse With No Name]

6 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

California averages 19.3 cents per kWh. Slightly more expensive in Northern CA, slightly less in Southern CA (18.5 to 21.1 cents), depending on your municipality. Itis more expensive mainly because of the mandate to get 33% of the power from renewable sources like wind and solar which cost more than oil and gas generation. It is going up further because of the new mandates to get to 66% renewables. Right now wind and solar is almost four times more expensive per kWh compared to piped natural gas when you amortize the capital and maintenance costs. The only renewable source that is cheaper than fossil fuel is hydroelectric. The more renewables your state uses, the more expensive your electricity rates.

Love my cheap electric here in Ohio. I run a woodworking shop in my garage, and my machines use a ton of it. 

[dwightlooi]

21 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

Id say...Ford Edge more so than the Escape.

Unfortunately, they do not an otherwise identical car to the Mach E save for the powertrain. But that 98.8kWh battery pack is a $15,000 item at $150/kWh (implemented cost) -- that is ready to put in the vehicle with the appropriate shaping, connectors, cooling system, etc. not the raw cost of Li-Ion cells. The cost of the motor and the inverter system (which charges the batteries and converts DC power to appropriate AC phases for the brushless induction motors) is usually not much more than a gasoline engine and a transmission. So about $16.2K is a reasonable estimate regardless. If you want, you can redo the math with it at $12K or $20K. It won't change the fact that you will not break even for over a decade even on the cheapest recharging rates -- the difference will be whether it is closer to a decade or two decades.

[balthazar]

Did a small job for the father of a buddy's girlfriend. Buddy was there, asked if I was working on any new car projects. I told them both I started working on my '64 Grand Prix, and the guy said 'That was my first car; my father bought it new then handed it down to me when it was 10 yrs old. It was turquoise with a turquoise interior." I replied 'My '64 is my first car, too.'

Came home this afternoon and saw on a FB group a story/link to a very original '64 GP on eBay, turqoise/turquoise.

[dwightlooi]

While we are on EVs, I must re-iterate my convictions that a superior EV is not one with a 300 mile range, but one with a 80~100 mile range and an on-board APU capable of sustaining the charge on the freeway or recharging the battery in an hour when parked.

(1) Instead of a 100kWh battery use a 32~36 kWh battery.

(2) Spend $3000~$5000 on a 30kWe (40hp) turbine electric generator.

(3) The total cost is about 2/3rds that of the high capacity battery and the utility of the vehicle will be superior.

Think about it... who drives more than 80~100 miles daily? 95% of commuters don't; not even when they take plenty of side trips to lunch, dinner, shopping and the movies. In other words, 80~100 mile is ALL THE RANGE YOU NEED except when you take a long trip (say from SF to LA).

The only reason 80~100kWh batteries are being put in EVs is to accommodate long trips. However, these expensive, heavy and space consuming batteries can;t even get you from SF to LA without spending an hour or two in limbo land recharging along the way.

A 30kWe turbine electric generator is the size of a carry on suitcase and weighs about 40 lbs. There is no coolant or radiator; you can tuck it where you normally tuck a muffler. They are very simple devices which looks like a turbocharger with a combustor between the compressor and the turbine with a generator on the shaft. Compression from a single stage centrifugal compressor tops out around 4.6:1 but it is since it is operating either at optimal speeds or not at all, the efficiency is not that far off a gasoline engine at low throttle openings where is sucking vacuum through a mostly closed throttle plate. More importantly, who cares if it only gets he equivalent of 25 mpg when you only use it few times a year? That is another 250 miles of electric power on a tiny 10 gallon tank which can be refueled in 2 minutes at any gas station?

Why 30KWe? Because it takes about 15kW (20hp) to sustain 75 mph on the freeway. That means that 30KWe is enough to see your battery charge no matter how you drive and it is also enough to fully recharge a 30 kW battery from empty to full in an hour (give or take).

A simple way of operating such a device is a three position switch on the dash. OFF - AUTO - ON.

• OFF = Disabled; turbine never ever runs and the vehicle is purely electric.
• AUTO = Turbine starts and sends 30kW to the battery when battery drops below 10% usable capacity and stops when the battery gets above 25% capacity.
• ON = Turbine starts and stops only when the battery is fully charged or until the user switches it to AUTO or OFF.

The generator is also the turbine starter, spinning it up to ~80,000 rpm then injecting fuel and igniting the spark igniter. The turbine is then self sustaining and revs up while gradually taking power via the generator until an equilibrum is reached at around 160,000 rpm. It takes about a minute.

Edited March 19, 2021 by dwightlooi

[Drew Dowdell]

40 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

California averages 19.3 cents per kWh. Slightly more expensive in Northern CA, slightly less in Southern CA (18.5 to 21.1 cents), depending on your municipality. Itis more expensive mainly because of the mandate to get 33% of the power from renewable sources like wind and solar which cost more than oil and gas generation. It is going up further because of the new mandates to get to 66% renewables. Right now wind and solar is almost four times more expensive per kWh compared to piped natural gas when you amortize the capital and maintenance costs. The only renewable source that is cheaper than fossil fuel is hydroelectric. The more renewables your state uses, the more expensive your electricity rates.

Well that's simply, flat out, false. I'm not sure if you're intentionally lying because of your anti-green agenda or if you're simply using data from 15+ years ago.  LCOE is the levelized cost of generation after all of the construction, generation, maintenance, and decommissioning of a project is completed. Basically every dollar that goes into building, running, and then tearing down that generation.   It's reflected as dollars per megawatt hour. 

Projected LCOE in the U.S. by 2025 (as of 2020) $/MWh

Plant Type	Min	Simple Average	Capacity weighted average	Max
Solar photovoltaic (PV)	29.75	35.74	32.80	48.09
Geothermal	35.13	37.47	37.47	39.60
Combined cycle	33.35	38.07	36.61	45.31
Wind, onshore	28.72	39.95	34.10	62.72
Hydroelectric	35.37	52.79	39.54	63.24
Combustion Turbine	58.48	66.62	68.71	81.37
Ultra-supercritical coal	65.10	76.44	NB	91.27
Advanced Nuclear	71.90	81.65	NB	92.04
Biomass	86.19	94.83	NB	139.96
Wind, offshore	102.68	122.25	115.04	155.55

 

Those are 2025 estimated numbers, but they're based on today's numbers and a prediction on the direction of costs.  However, this time last year On-Shore Wind and Photovoltaic both fell below fossil fuels in lifetime costs.

Solar And Wind Costs Continue To Fall As Power Becomes Cleaner (forbes.com)

[dwightlooi]

13 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Well that's simply, flat out, false. I'm not sure if you're intentionally lying because of your anti-green agenda or if you're simply using data from 15+ years ago.  LCOE is the levelized cost of generation after all of the construction, generation, maintenance, and decommissioning of a project is completed. Basically every dollar that goes into building, running, and then tearing down that generation.   It's reflected as dollars per megawatt hour. 

Projected LCOE in the U.S. by 2025 (as of 2020) $/MWh

Plant Type	Min	Simple Average	Capacity weighted average	Max
Solar photovoltaic (PV)	29.75	35.74	32.80	48.09
Geothermal	35.13	37.47	37.47	39.60
Combined cycle	33.35	38.07	36.61	45.31
Wind, onshore	28.72	39.95	34.10	62.72
Hydroelectric	35.37	52.79	39.54	63.24
Combustion Turbine	58.48	66.62	68.71	81.37
Ultra-supercritical coal	65.10	76.44	NB	91.27
Advanced Nuclear	71.90	81.65	NB	92.04
Biomass	86.19	94.83	NB	139.96
Wind, offshore	102.68	122.25	115.04	155.55

 

Those are 2025 estimated numbers, but they're based on today's numbers and a prediction on the direction of costs.  However, this time last year On-Shore Wind and Photovoltaic both fell below fossil fuels in lifetime costs.

Solar And Wind Costs Continue To Fall As Power Becomes Cleaner (forbes.com)

LOL... LCOE is one big fuzzy math scam coined by the Green Mafia to sell Green Energy. Let's look at four things which makes it utter rubbish.

(1) Solar and wind are NOT a 24/7 power sources. There is no solar power at night and dramatically less when the sky is overcast. The is no wind power when the air is still. This means that if you need 10MW of power for any locale you are going to need 10MW of non-renewable power regardless of whether you have 1MW or 10MW of wind and/or solar. Sure, you can use batteries but batteries are so expensive that utilities just spin up the turbines. In other words, if you need 10MW you can put in 10MW of combined cycle turbines (or whatever combustible generation plant) and call it a day. Or, you can put in 10MW of solar and you still need 10MW of combustibles for the night. However, when calculating LCOE wind and solar does not in anyway carry the capital costs of the fossil fuel generation capacity it needs to function, or account for the fact that 100% wind/solar requires 200% the installed capacity -- half of which is not renewable.

(2) LCOE includes TAX CREDITS for the capital investment and DISCOUNT RATE for it's delivered power. That is like saying my Corolla is more cost effective than your Civic because the government gives me $10,000 to help buy it and pays me 20 cents for every dollar I spend on gas, whereas you get nothing. It's the very definition of BS.

(3) Perhaps most importantly all we have to do is look at what happens when green capacity is added. From 2011 to 2021 CA went from 13.1 cent per kWh to 19.3 per kWh. During the same period the average for the 30 states that did not adopt solar and wind with any significance was stable at 11.3 +- 1.1 cents / kWh.  That 47% increase happened during a period when we went from 6% to 36% renewables. Assuming that rest of the porfolio is about the same price, the only way we get there is if that 30% of additional green power is (147-70)/30 = 2.56x more expensive, give or take. This is not counting subsidies and energy discount rates which are not reflected on your electric bill but on your TAX BILL and in State Bond issuance.

(4) Finally, ask just yourself this... if renewables (and that includes Ethanol) are competitive, why is there a need to subsidize their capacity and sale? The Model T didn't need subsidies to beat the horse drawn carriage! Cruise ship companies and freight hauling lines did not need subsidies to replace steamships with diesel (and to a small extent combined cycle turbine) vessels.

 

[Drew Dowdell]

4 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

LOL... LCOE is one big fuzzy math scam coined by the Green Mafia to sell Green Energy. Let's look at four things which makes it utter rubbish.

(1) Solar and wind are NOT a 24/7 power sources. There is no solar power at night and dramatically less when the sky is overcast. The is no wind power when the air is still. This means that if you need 10MW of power for any locale you are going to need 10MW of non-renewable power regardless of whether you have 1MW or 10MW of wind and/or solar. Sure, you can use batteries but batteries are so expensive that utilities just spin up the turbines. In other words, if you need 10MW you can put in 10MW of combined cycle turbines (or whatever combustible generation plant) and call it a day. Or, you can put in 10MW of solar and you still need 10MW of combustibles for the night. However, when calculating LCOE wind and solar does not in anyway carry the capital costs of the fossil fuel generation capacity it needs to function, or account for the fact that 100% wind/solar requires 200% the installed capacity -- half of which is not renewable.

(2) LCOE includes TAX CREDITS for the capital investment and DISCOUNT RATE for it's delivered power. That is like saying my Corolla is more cost effective than your Civic because the government gives me $10,000 to help buy it and pays me 20 cents for every dollar I spend on gas, whereas you get nothing. It's the very definition of BS.

(3) Perhaps most importantly all we have to do is look at what happens when green capacity is added. From 2011 to 2021 CA went from 13.1 cent per kWh to 19.3 per kWh. During the same period the average for the 30 states that did not adopt solar and wind with any significance was stable at 11.3 +- 1.1 cents / kWh.  That 47% increase happened during a period when we went from 6% to 36% renewables. Assuming that rest of the porfolio is about the same price, the only way we get there is if that 30% of additional green power is (147-70)/30 = 2.56x more expensive, give or take. This is not counting subsidies and energy discount rates which are not reflected on your electric bill but on your TAX BILL and in State Bond issuance.

(4) Finally, ask just yourself this... if renewables (and that includes Ethanol) are competitive, why is there a need to subsidize their capacity and sale? The Model T didn't need subsidies to beat the horse drawn carriage! Cruise ship companies and freight hauling lines did not need subsidies to replace steamships with diesel (and to a small extent combined cycle turbine) vessels.

 

Again, you’re wrong. Solar hasn’t been 3 times the cost of traditional generation for years. Same for wind. Additionally, the fossil fuel industry gets loads of subsidies too in the form of socializing external costs. 
 

I worked in the energy industry for over 13 years. I can go buy wind power for my home right now at equal or lesser cost than coal or gas.

Furthermore, a significant amount of those high California costs is the result California’s decades long boondoggle of selling their grid off to private for-profit companies to run, those companies putting profits ahead of reliability and upgrades, and way back when forcing blackouts to drive up energy prices through market manipulation.  California is still trying to catch up on years of grid neglect. And we’ve seen what can happen when you turn a power grid over to a for profit company in Texas.

[dwightlooi]

4 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Again, you’re wrong. Solar hasn’t been 3 times the cost of traditional generation for years. Same for wind. Additionally, the fossil fuel industry gets loads of subsidies too in the form of socializing external costs. 
 

I worked in the energy industry for over 13 years. I can go buy wind power for my home right now at equal or lesser cost than coal or gas.

Furthermore, a significant amount of those high California costs is the result California’s decades long boondoggle of selling their grid off to private for-profit companies to run, those companies putting profits ahead of reliability and upgrades, and way back when forcing blackouts to drive up energy prices through market manipulation.  California is still trying to catch up on years of grid neglect. And we’ve seen what can happen when you turn a power grid over to a for profit company in Texas.

You can believe the BS if you want. I stand by everything I said. The only thing worse than for profit oligopolies is a bureaucratic government monopoly. What makes you think public utilities will be working for YOU rather than public employee unions, appointed bureaucrats and their politician masters? When has public monopolies or single payer public schemes ever been efficient or affordable? Not convinced? Try the DMV for service, or try the F-35 or SLS for cost efficiency!

[Drew Dowdell]

1 minute ago, dwightlooi said:

You can believe the BS if you want. I stand by everything I said. The only thing worse than for profit oligopolies is a bureaucratic government monopoly. What makes you think public utilities will be working for YOU rather than public employee unions, appointed bureaucrats and their politician masters? When has public monopolies or single payer public schemes ever been efficient or affordable? Not convinced? Try the DMV for service, or try the F-35 or SLS for cost efficiency!

Well if I agreed with you then we’d both be wrong. 
 

I stand by my well documented 13 years in the energy industry, specifically, this part of the industry. I’ve been through the audits of the company because of what Enron did. Many/Most for-profit energy companies have to go through those audits yearly.

I’m not saying that for profit companies shouldn’t run the grid. I’m saying that they shouldn’t be able to set the grid rules and that there must be competition. 
 

Stand by your wrong statements all you like. The Forbes link disagrees with you.

 

[G. David Felt]

3 hours ago, dwightlooi said:

You can believe the BS if you want. I stand by everything I said. The only thing worse than for profit oligopolies is a bureaucratic government monopoly. What makes you think public utilities will be working for YOU rather than public employee unions, appointed bureaucrats and their politician masters? When has public monopolies or single payer public schemes ever been efficient or affordable? Not convinced? Try the DMV for service, or try the F-35 or SLS for cost efficiency!

That is BS, Washington is almost 100% green energy and we still average 6 cents per kilowatt even after shutting down our coal, almost all gas and nuclear power generation. Your anti-science, anti-green agenda has blinded you to the fact that most people are not out to hurt society but make it better and working together through better ways of doing things.

This could get ugly political if you really wanted to have pointed out to you the false destructive nature of not having a balance of government basics with for profit business. Democracy was on a balance not on a dictator wanna be with greed for the 1%. The last 4 years had the biggest destructive waste of burdening the tax payers while moving wealth to the 1% and look at the results. 

Texas had people die and poor getting 5 digit power bills to stay warm. FAILURE on way too many fronts and California is the same digging out from failure on for profit excess of 1%.

Green Energy is not the fault of higher prices nor was it the fault of power generation when you do not have redundancy and proper preparation of services by ensuring from extreme lows to highs the power plants can run. Greed pure and simple was the fault.

Solar panels are at a point that we very well could generate power at night as well. The improvements of technology will make fossil fuels needed much less.

A Solar Panel That Works at Night? That May Soon Be a Reality | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

[oldshurst442]

10 hours ago, ccap41 said:

Why even compare to a decade old vehicle though? You can't buy one new for a "savings" comparison, like what's being discussed. 

Im not...Im comparing the MSRP NUMBERS to a 2021 Edge....  Im saying that a 2021 Mach E has 2007 Ford Edge specs.   

Im aslo saying that it does NOT matter to what we are comparing the Mach E to...   

And about interior numbers...yes...the MAch E is Escape-ish.

Exterior numbers are Edge-ish.    

But..the ESCAPE is the second entry CUV for Ford.  Starts at 26 000 dollars.  Its not quite entry level stuff, that would be the Ecosport, BUT the Escape is not for the well off monetarily folk either...

The Edge is for a tad more affluent people.  

The Mach E is DEFINETALY for the affluent folk.  

Like I said...  a person who wants to buy a base model Escape is NOT looking at a Titanium 40 000 dollar Edge.  Shyte...a base model  Escape purchaser might not even buy the base model Escape but will but the top trim Ecosport instead...

Catch my drift...   

 

OK...

I mentioned that a 34 000 dollar HYBRID Escape might entice somebody to forgo that purchase and he might try to get himself into a 42 000 dollar Mach E....

But...to determine what savings EVs have over ICE and 'how many years it will take to'  math exercises  is USELESS BECAUSE a HYBRID Escape is ALREADY into the electrical world.   AND...it does NOT take a genius to figure out what the better value is as a well equipped Escape Hybrid is ONLY 34 000 dollars...  

So...what we want to do here is to determine what a COMPARABLE FoMoCo ICE CUV is to a FoMoCo BEV and how that compares to  "what savings EVs have over ICE"  and 'how many years it will take to'  math exercises...

And THAT is where the Edge comes in...

Keeping in mind...the Mach E is NOT really geared up to take FULL advantage of its EXTERIOR dimensions as its a LIFESTYLE CUV...HENCE the MUSTANG MACH E nameplate...

The ESCAPE takes FULL advantage of its exterior dimensions as its more of a family CUV.

THIS current Edge is also more of a family CUV...rather than the 1st gen Edge which had a sportier persona.  But this gen Edge does not shy away from its sporty intentions either. 

Keep in mind that FoMoCo also has a larger CUV in the Explorer that is less sporty and more family...  

The Mach E is closer in spirit to the Edge than it is to the Escape no matter what you may think...

So...

At the end of the day...all that does NOT MATTER....

At THIS point in time...EVs are PRICIER than there ICE counterparts.  No buts, ifs or ands. 

At THIS point in time...the question is NOT about what has more value, ICE or BEVs or what x amount of years it will take to arguments...  Its whether a person WANTS to adopt the EV lifestyle or if that person does NOT want to...

But...keeping it real...

Lets be honest...

|Its closer to the truth to take a 35 000-40 000 PURE ICE vehicle that is CLOSE in specs...ALL specs, than to take a 26 000 vehicle to make an argument.   AND...not a HYBRID model either...  Seeing the Edge has NO hybrid...seeing the Escape HYBRID is part of the EV family...than a 36 000 EDGE makes the MOST sense...

That would be an additional 2 000 dolllars to the equation.

I saw that his argument went from 17 years to now saying a decade to two decades.

He kinda admitted (without wanting to) that the calculations might be down to 10 years...

Well  17 years down to 10 is quite a lot.   But Im sure using HIS California numbers its clsoer to being 9years as his price different was 16 thousand.  (42  thousand minus 26 thousand).  I halved it when I did 34 000.  

Well...using the more realistic scenario of an EDGE... the NEW math is 42 thousand for the Mach E minus 36 thousand for an Edge...  the price diff plummets another 2000.  Now from 9 years, we are saving another year at 8...

8 motherphoquing years is not 17... 

And then if we want to use Quebec as an example NOT California...that 8 years shrinks down even further...

It dont matter...

Whether its 10 years like he corrected himself reluctantly...or the closer real calculations which would make that 10 years be less than, and if wanna use Quebec or not...well...its definitely NOT the overdramatic, fully disingenuous 17 that he first tried to peddle...

But Ill repeat...it dont matter...

What vehicle we choose, what numbers we want to use..

The bottom line is right now...IF we CHOOSE to buy an EV or we just stick to ICE...

If we choose to buy EV, then we have to learn to live with some of its drawbacks.  We ALREADY KNOW that EVs are slightly more expensive...    

 

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by oldshurst442

[daves87rs]

9 hours ago, dwightlooi said:

While we are on EVs, I must re-iterate my convictions that a superior EV is not one with a 300 mile range, but one with a 80~100 mile range and an on-board APU capable of sustaining the charge on the freeway or recharging the battery in an hour when parked.

(1) Instead of a 100kWh battery use a 32~36 kWh battery.

(2) Spend $3000~$5000 on a 30kWe (40hp) turbine electric generator.

(3) The total cost is about 2/3rds that of the high capacity battery and the utility of the vehicle will be superior.

Think about it... who drives more than 80~100 miles daily? 95% of commuters don't; not even when they take plenty of side trips to lunch, dinner, shopping and the movies. In other words, 80~100 mile is ALL THE RANGE YOU NEED except when you take a long trip (say from SF to LA).

The only reason 80~100kWh batteries are being put in EVs is to accommodate long trips. However, these expensive, heavy and space consuming batteries can;t even get you from SF to LA without spending an hour or two in limbo land recharging along the way.

A 30kWe turbine electric generator is the size of a carry on suitcase and weighs about 40 lbs. There is no coolant or radiator; you can tuck it where you normally tuck a muffler. They are very simple devices which looks like a turbocharger with a combustor between the compressor and the turbine with a generator on the shaft. Compression from a single stage centrifugal compressor tops out around 4.6:1 but it is since it is operating either at optimal speeds or not at all, the efficiency is not that far off a gasoline engine at low throttle openings where is sucking vacuum through a mostly closed throttle plate. More importantly, who cares if it only gets he equivalent of 25 mpg when you only use it few times a year? That is another 250 miles of electric power on a tiny 10 gallon tank which can be refueled in 2 minutes at any gas station?

Why 30KWe? Because it takes about 15kW (20hp) to sustain 75 mph on the freeway. That means that 30KWe is enough to see your battery charge no matter how you drive and it is also enough to fully recharge a 30 kW battery from empty to full in an hour (give or take).

A simple way of operating such a device is a three position switch on the dash. OFF - AUTO - ON.

• OFF = Disabled; turbine never ever runs and the vehicle is purely electric.
• AUTO = Turbine starts and sends 30kW to the battery when battery drops below 10% usable capacity and stops when the battery gets above 25% capacity.
• ON = Turbine starts and stops only when the battery is fully charged or until the user switches it to AUTO or OFF.

The generator is also the turbine starter, spinning it up to ~80,000 rpm then injecting fuel and igniting the spark igniter. The turbine is then self sustaining and revs up while gradually taking power via the generator until an equilibrum is reached at around 160,000 rpm. It takes about a minute.

If nothing else, it would make for lower cost EVs. Pretty sure Chinese companies will be going that route to hit their goal for zero emissions.....

[dwightlooi]

9 hours ago, David said:

This could get ugly political if you really wanted to have pointed out to you the false destructive nature of not having a balance of government basics with for profit business. Democracy was on a balance not on a dictator wanna be with greed for the 1%. The last 4 years had the biggest destructive waste of burdening the tax payers while moving wealth to the 1% and look at the results.

Philosohpically, I am not a Socialist in any way shape or form. I aspire to the rich, I do not hate the rich. I aspire to privilege, I do not scorn the privileged. If anyone is not paying their fair share it's the losers making who either do not pay any net taxes or get money back -- about the bottom half of Taxpayers really. I reject the rewarding of failure and punishment of success. I reject the re-distributionist ideas of equalizing outcome. I reject invented racism and victimhoods.

Individual GREED -- if you want to call it that -- is the ONLY thing that keeps an economy functioning, by ensuring that what people want gets produced and delivered in exchange for the resources that they hold. GREED is the reason people go to work, invent stuff and deliver good service. The notion that somehow we can entrust that to well meaning politician and government bureaucrats is utter folly. Why? Because of three fundamental problems:-

(1) Because while you may wish that politicians and government employees will selflessly work for your benefit in a way that greedy corporate types and rich individuals will not. The truth is that such individuals are as rare in government as they are in private enterprise -- if not rarer.

(2) Even in the rare instances when they are magnanimous and benevolent, government types do not necessarily KNOW what the people want, how to provide it or have the imperative to quickly figure that out.

(3) When private enterprise produce a good or service that sucks and nobody wants, they must quickly make it not suck or go out of business and be replaced. When government does the same, well... you can pay your taxes or you can be arrested, thrown in jail and have your property seized. If FoMoCo can make cars that you HAVE TO BUY or be thrown in jail and have your home taken from you, you and I will still be driving Model Ts available in any color as long as it is black!

--

BTW, an elected leader is not a dictator, period. A dictator -- by definition -- pays no attention to court rulings, dictates laws and cannot be removed from power except through revolution. Have you seen any of that?

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Drew Dowdell
Removed propaganda and other lies

[balthazar]

20 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

Individual GREED -- if you want to call it that -- is the ONLY thing that keeps an economy functioning, by ensuring that what people want gets produced and delivered in exchange for the resources that they hold. GREED is the reason people go to work, invent stuff and deliver good service. The notion that somehow we can entrust that to well meaning politician and government bureaucrats is utter folly. Why? Because of three fundamental problems:-

(1) Because while you may wish that politicians and government employees will selflessly work for your benefit in a way that greedy corporate types and rich individuals will not. The truth is that such individuals are as rare in government as they are in private enterprise -- if not rarer.

(2) Even in the rare instances when they are magnanimous and benevolent, government types do not necessarily KNOW what the people want, how to provide it or have the imperative to quickly figure that out.

(3) When private enterprise produce a good or service that sucks and nobody wants, they must quickly make it not suck or go out of business and be replaced. When government does the same, well... you can pay your taxes or you can be arrested, thrown in jail and have your property seized. If FoMoCo can make cars that you HAVE TO BUY or be thrown in jail and have your home taken from you, you and I will still be driving Model Ts available in any color as long as it is black!

If Big Gov’t actually worked for the people, they’d only accept the median U.S. salary & be on conventional healthcare like the rest of us.

[dwightlooi]

34 minutes ago, balthazar said:

If Big Gov’t actually worked for the people, they’d only accept the median U.S. salary & be on conventional healthcare like the rest of us.

If individuals can put everyone else before themselves and government can be counted on to put the interest of the People before the interests of Government, then COMMUNISM would have worked. The concept is simple enough -- everyone should be selfless and government should decide who deserves what. Why hasn't it ever worked? Because people will not be selfless; in particular those in power who gets to define and decide what's selfless.

Edited March 20, 2021 by dwightlooi

[Drew Dowdell]

You always run to extremes. Private companies have done horrible things in the name of profit and you should be every bit as wary about rampant capitalism as you are socialism. We had an excellent example last month of why letting for-profit companies run essential things like monopoly utilities with close to zero regulation and oversight is a bad idea.

We can’t have decent passenger rail in the US, even just regionally, because of private companies.

we can’t have decent, low cost healthcare in the US because of private companies.

For profit companies aren’t your friends. You are merely something they can extract money from while paying their employees as little as possible. 

The energy company I worked for added ZERO value to the product they sold. The bought up capacity at low prices and sold it at high prices. It is literally traded like the stock market. All they did was extract money from their customers to pay exorbitant executive salaries and fancy marketing campaigns. They could have shut down over night and nothing of value would have been lost.

[dwightlooi]

4 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

We can’t have decent passenger rail in the US, even just regionally, because of private companies.

we can’t have decent, low cost healthcare in the US because of private companies.

For profit companies aren’t your friends. You are merely something they can extract money from while paying their employees as little as possible.

Socialism is for suckers who enjoy having government thugs rob your rich neighbor so they can give you a small cut of the loot.

(1) We can't have decent passenger rail because NOBODY wants to take passenger trains. Unlike Japan or Europe, the USA is a great and vast ####ry with urban centers pretty far apart. Once you get to about 500 miles people will rather fly than spend half a day on a slow train or 3 hours on a fast one. That is why we have massive airport hubs like Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Huston, Atlanta, etc. That is also why AMTRAK has been a bottomless pit for taxpayer subsidies.

(2) If nobody has insurance and the government does not provide a thing, private healthcare costs will plummet and it will almost immediately become very affordable irrespective of how "greedy" the industry is. If no money equals no care, you can be assured that $49... $39... $29... $19 signs will pop out in front of clinics and Ads for $19,995 flat rate heart surgery with 1.9% APR financing will run on TV. Why? Because if they don't make it affordable they are going to lose out on 90% of the market and go out of business! As a matter of fact, all you need to do to lower healthcare costs is mandate that the minimum out of pocket you have to pay before ANY insurance plan is allowed to pay a single cent is a relatively high number -- say $20,000 -- you'll reap much of the same effect.

The problem with healthcare isn't that it is private, but rather that a 3rd party (somebody else) is picking up the bill. It is not that not everybody has insurance, but rather that most people do! Or, if they don't the government picks up the bill or the hospital pass it on to the guy who does. Think about it... when all you pay is a $10 co-payment why do you care if the doctor charges $50 or $500 for that office visit? Why do you care if that blue pill is $1 or $100? When insurance pays for everything above a $2500 annual of pocket expenditure, why do you care if your surgery costs $2,000 or $200,000? If you don't care, why would why wouldn't they charge a lot? The insurance company might care, but only to the extent that they are not paying more than the other insurance companies. As long as that is true, every insurer can simply charge higher premiums and both the insurers and the providers can laugh all the way to the bank. Imagine that dinning out is paid for by insurance. The waiter at your restaurant probably can't tell you how much that plate of Pasta is except that your "co-payment" is $1, just like your doctor probably doesn't know how much his office is billing your insrance except that your co-pay is on your card! If you think that a public healthcare system with the government as a single payer will resolve the situation, think again. Government has always been the single payer for defense. Is that $1.7 Trillion F-35 program affordable, timely or problem free?

(3) No, for profit companies are not my friends. They don't have to be. All they have to be are a bunch greedy bastards fighting for my willing business. If I don't like their stuff, I don't have to buy it. Government is not my friend either. They come up with utterly deplorable schemes and rotten services. I have to pay for them with more than half my income or go to jail! That is the difference.

 

[trinacriabob]

I'll join in on the number crunching, but mine will be simpler and even useful for some C&G folks.

Ok, so you've got Costco tires.  They credit you back what part of the treadwear you don't attain.  It is based on the price of the current tires on your car that you bought at Costco, and not that of the prospective tires you plan to purchase.  So I thought, "Cool, just time the replacement with when your preferred brand of Costco tires is couponed or on special with the $ 150 off for a set of 4."  No can do!  I learned you only get one or the other.  For most people who don't need a hazard repair or replacement, that makes the treadwear guarantee worthless if you did fairly well with your tires' longevity.

Michelin Defender unit price of current tires (ea.): $ 130

Attained treadwear down to 2 mm remaining (of previous 90,000 mile warranty):  65,000 miles

Proportion used:  .7222

Reciprocal owed to you as a credit:  .2778

Total purchase allowance owed to you:  $ 130 x .2778 x 4 (tires) = $ 144.46

You actually come out about $ 5 ahead by just taking their coupon / featured special rather than claiming the credit for your unattained tread life, given that you cannot "double dip."

- - - - -

What?  And this is what I got a full-fledged undergraduate degree in business for?   You can figure this out with a mere minor in it, and with marginal grades.  

Edited March 20, 2021 by trinacriabob

[Drew Dowdell]

3 minutes ago, dwightlooi said:

Socialism is for suckers who enjoy having government thugs rob your rich neighbor so they can give you a small cut of the loot.

(1) We can't have decent passenger rail because NOBODY wants to take passenger trains. Unlike Japan or Europe, the USA is a great and vast ####ry with urban centers pretty far apart. Once you get to about 500 miles people will rather fly than spend half a day on a slow train or 3 hours on a fast one. That is why we have massive airport hubs like Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Huston, Atlanta, etc. That is also why AMTRAK has been a bottomless pit for taxpayer subsidies.

(2) If nobody has insurance and the government does not provide a thing, private healthcare costs will plummet and it will almost immediately become very affordable irrespective of how "greedy" the industry is. If no money equals no care, you can be assured that $49... $39... $29... $19 signs will pop out in front of clinics and Ads for $19,995 flat rate heart surgery with 1.9% APR financing will run on TV. Why? Because if they don't make it affordable they are going to lose out on 90% of the market and go out of business! As a matter of fact, all you need to do to lower healthcare costs is mandate that the minimum out of pocket you have to pay before ANY insurance plan is allowed to pay a single cent is a relatively high number -- say $20,000 -- you'll reap much of the same effect.

The problem with healthcare isn't that it is private, but rather that a 3rd party (somebody else) is picking up the bill. It is not that not everybody has insurance, but rather that most people do! Or, if they don't the government picks up the bill or the hospital pass it on to the guy who does. Think about it... when all you pay is a $10 co-payment why do you care if the doctor charges $50 or $500 for that office visit? Why do you care if that blue pill is $1 or $100? When insurance pays for everything above a $2500 annual of pocket expenditure, why do you care if your surgery costs $2,000 or $200,000? If you don't care, why would why wouldn't they charge a lot? The insurance company might care, but only to the extent that they are not paying more than the other insurance companies. As long as that is true, every insurer can simply charge higher premiums and both the insurers and the providers can laugh all the way to the bank. Imagine that dinning out is paid for by insurance. The waiter at your restaurant probably can't tell you how much that plate of Pasta is except that your "co-payment" is $1, just like your doctor probably doesn't know how much his office is billing your insrance except that your co-pay is on your card! If you think that a public healthcare system with the government as a single payer will resolve the situation, think again. Government has always been the single payer for defense. Is that $1.7 Trillion F-35 program affordable, timely or problem free?

(3) No, for profit companies are not my friends. They don't have to be. All they have to be are a bunch greedy bastards fighting for my willing business. If I don't like their stuff, I don't have to buy it. Government is not my friend either. They come up with utterly deplorable schemes and rotten services. I have to pay for them with more than half my income or go to jail! That is the difference.

 

You just love being wrong like a dog loves a good rawhide.... and no amount of bolding will change your false statements into true ones.

First, I'm not arguing in favor of socialism. I'm arguing in favor of capitalism with strong regulations, and direct oversight in situations where the company is providing a public good.  Private companies should be running grids and health care, but the utilities should be heavily regulated and required to meet certain reliability and resiliency standards.  What happened in Texas is exactly why your "ideal" does not work. It puts profits over people in emergencies, it fails to take appropriate measures to prepare for emergencies (Texas/ERCOT was warned of this exact scenario in 2011 in a comprehensive report, they did NOTHING because it would have cut into their profits) , and then it price gouges customers during the emergency.  ZERO of the other grids that are heavily regulated (and in my opinion still not regulated enough) had the issues ERCOT had.

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(1) We can't have decent passenger rail because NOBODY wants to take passenger trains. Unlike Japan or Europe, the USA is a great and vast ####ry with urban centers pretty far apart. Once you get to about 500 miles people will rather fly than spend half a day on a slow train or 3 hours on a fast one. That is why we have massive airport hubs like Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Huston, Atlanta, etc. That is also why AMTRAK has been a bottomless pit for taxpayer subsidies.

FALSE - In areas where Amtrak offers high speed (Acela or North East Regional) Amtrak regularly serves more passengers than multiple airlines combined, plus they also serve many intra-trip stations. Not everyone in New Haven wants to drive to NYC to fly to Philly to get to Wilmington. As you point out, there is a whole country between the major metros and those are severely underserved by the airlines.  Even here in Pittsburgh, going somewhere is always "Step 1. Fly to Charlotte, Chicago, Philly, or Atlanta.  Step 2. Fly where I actually want to go.  I can drive faster in under 500 miles than an airline can get me there because of the security waitlines, connections, baggage, etc. Unless I'm traveling directly to a hub, total travel time by car will beat nearly any flight under 500 miles.  An Acela can do even better.  But even Metro to Metro, the Acela will beat the airlines EVERY TIME.  Going from Manhatten to Philly, the Acela will get you from New York Penn to 30th Street Philly before your taxi even pulls up at LaGuardia.  Going out of NY, NO ONE, takes a flight if their destination is served by Acela or North East corridor.  Amtrak makes a profit on these routes.   Amtrak started offering higher speed service (110mph) out of Detroit to Chicago and before Covid, ridership was way up.  You are correct that over 500 miles, Amtrak's usefulness starts to wain, but most Metros are within 500 miles of another Metro and those highway connections have a lot of traffic.  A Dallas-Houston HSR would do very well because again, it's a 40-50 minute drive just to get from downtown Houston out to IAH to drop off the rental car.  HSR could do the trip in 2 hours or less.  People will use high speed rail if and when it is offered, and it wouldn't even need a subsidy to operate. (Airports are subsidized by the government, ours has a huge debt issue right now, so don't try to imply that airlines don't operate without a subsidy)

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(2) If nobody has insurance and the government does not provide a thing, private healthcare costs will plummet and it will almost immediately become very affordable irrespective of how "greedy" the industry is. If no money equals no care, you can be assured that $49... $39... $29... $19 signs will pop out in front of clinics and Ads for $19,995 flat rate heart surgery with 1.9% APR financing will run on TV. Why? Because if they don't make it affordable they are going to lose out on 90% of the market and go out of business! As a matter of fact, all you need to do to lower healthcare costs is mandate that the minimum out of pocket you have to pay before ANY insurance plan is allowed to pay a single cent is a relatively high number -- say $20,000 -- you'll reap much of the same effect.

False (kinda) - The insurance industry is the cause of the wacked out insurance rates.  Further cause is the 30% of people who don't have insurance and defer treatment because of the lack of insurance.  That means what starts as a small treatable lump turns into stage 3 cancer because the person is afraid to seek treatment due to costs.   So when they get admitted for cancer care on Medicaid or whatever, they cost hundreds of thousands more to treat because they waited too long.  An I would much rather pay for someone to go get treated early than pay for a full on cancer treatment. And don't be fooled, you're already paying for those people... that's why your insurance costs so much even if you're healthy. 

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If you think that a public healthcare system with the government as a single payer will resolve the situation, think again. Government has always been the single payer for defense. Is that $1.7 Trillion F-35 program affordable, timely or problem free?

The F-35 program was a political action boondoggle. People in Canada pay around the same total tax that we do and they get healthcare for it while we have to pay extra to have insurance.  And don't try to talk about rationed care, people in Canada with an emergency get treated promptly.  We ration care also by letting 30% of the population die in the street.

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(3) No, for profit companies are not my friends. They don't have to be. All they have to be are a bunch greedy bastards fighting for my willing business. If I don't like their stuff, I don't have to buy it. Government is not my friend either. They come up with utterly deplorable schemes and rotten services. I have to pay for them with more than half my income or go to jail! That is the difference.

Companies are often-times actively your enemy. Texas power producers shut down power during the storm when they realized they weren't going to be able to make a profit.  People died in that storm due to lack of power.   The number of deplorable schemes companies come up with that actively harm you far exceeds what the government has done.

25 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

I'll join in on the number crunching, but mine will be simpler and even useful for some C&G folks.

Ok, so you've got Costco tires.  They credit you back what part of the treadwear you don't attain.  It is based on the price of the current tires on your car that you bought at Costco, and not that of the prospective tires you plan to purchase.  So I thought, "Cool, just time the replacement with when your preferred brand of Costco tires is couponed or on special with the $ 150 off for a set of 4."  No can do!  I learned you only get one or the other.  For most people who don't need a hazard repair or replacement, that makes the treadwear guarantee worthless if you did fairly well with your tires' longevity.

Michelin Defender unit price of current tires (ea.): $ 130

Attained treadwear down to 2 mm remaining (of previous 90,000 mile warranty):  65,000 miles

Proportion used:  .7222

Reciprocal owed to you as a credit:  .2778

Total purchase allowance owed to you:  $ 130 x .2778 x 4 (tires) = $ 144.46

You actually come out about $ 5 ahead by just taking their coupon / featured special rather than claiming the credit for your unattained tread life, given that you cannot "double dip."

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What?  And this is what I got a full-fledged undergraduate degree in business for?   You can figure this out with a mere minor in it, and with marginal grades.  

I like the Defenders, but I have only ever gotten 40k out of them at best.... so that's why I keep buying them because I use that treadlife warranty. 

[Drew Dowdell]

I will also point out that Amtrak’s annual subsidy is less than the cost of a single highway interchange in a major metro area. 
 

Amtrak’s profits on the North East corridor help fund the rest of the system, though that’s a rather large cross for it to bare and that’s why I’d does need subsidies.

when Amtrak started offering multiple daily trips to DC from Richmond VA, it quickly reached capacity because suddenly people could do easy day trips to the Capital. It wasn’t even high speed.

People will use trains if given good service.
 

[oldshurst442]

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by oldshurst442