G. David Felt

End of a Terrible Year!

Ultimate Music Festival done every year here in Seattle. Bumbershoot — One Reel Should be an nice color. Pacific Blue Metallic. Great technology, ugly auto style sadly. I will take the Rivian or Hummer over a Tesla.

EGO is sure making a push to replace ICE yard tools.

Rum

Congratulations, It will serve you well. Looking forward to the pictures of the truck. What color did you get?

EV News, Been an interesting week for EV news. First is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 launch that is coming and someone accidentally leaked the specs. Ioniq 5 midsize CUV will be available for sale Q2 of 2021. Technical specifications: Electric motor power: 230 kW / 313 PS Drive: All wheel drive Standard range according to WLTP: 450 km Acceleration: 5.2 seconds 0-100 km/h Charging processes: Schuko socket 1-phase: up to 2.3 kW Wallbox at home, 1- or 2-phase: up to 11 kW AC accelerated charging: at a public charging station up to 11 kW DC fast-charging: In 15 minutes from 20% to 80% charge possible, thanks to 800-volt technology Dimensions: Length: 4,460 mm Width: 1,890 mm Height: 1,600 mm Wheelbase: 3,000 mm So seems a 280 mile battery pack that uses the 800V system of charging with AWD. Hyundai accidentally leaks IONIQ 5 electric car specs and it's not bad - Electrek Seems NIKOLA is a slow dying company. They originally signed a deal to provide several waste companies with zero-emission garbage trucks. That has been canceled as it seems it is too hard to engineer according to the news stories. Seems while MACK and VOLVO have built and is selling EV garbage trucks and Daimler has announced they will go into production next year with a Garbage truck for global sale, Nikola has failed to deliver. Nikola (NKLA) kills deal to make electric garbage trucks because it's too hard? - Electrek Seems that the software fix to correct the frozen charge cable locked onto Tesla Auto's in Europe was to cycle the lock pin up and down constantly. As such, it would be locked one second and the next would not be locked. As such, the home charging cables cost $520.00 online from Tesla web site. Seems a black market has shown up with cables being stolen and resold. Thieves are stealing Tesla charging cables, some are suspecting lock defect in cold - Electrek VW has officially killed the e-Golf auto as the superior ID.3 has picked up in sales to the point that no one wants the compliance e-Golf. Over the 6 year life of the e-Golf, VW produced 145,561 of those electric cars. They have now found themselves with enough sales of the ID.3 to justify killing the e-Golf and using that assembly line to produce the same number of e-Golfs but as the ID.3 within the first year. VW ends production of electric e-Golf in favor of new ID.3 - Electrek FORD F-150 EV truck is showing how it can handle the snow and offroad. Seems it is on schedule for production launch in Q2 of 2022, so a late spring early summer release for sale. Final bit of GREEN News is that New Jersey, @balthazar Should be happy that the Offshore wind industry has started production with a Monopile factory in NJ. New Jersey trailblazes with monopile factory for US offshore wind - Electrek

GMC Crew cab, standard bed, SLT?

Baby

Sounds like if you want a ricer racer, then this car would be for those fans, otherwise pass as it is under powered, over priced and over all a bit of a let down. Be interesting to see if the traditional Lexus Fit n Finish is there as my Aunt loves Lexus, but seems in years 3 to 5 you start seeing stuff fall off like the head lining over the rear seats, knobs, etc. @William Maley Over all Fit n Finish on this car? What about big people?

Tomorrow, Dec 24th I celebrate 29 years of Marriage.

Yes out side of the abuse from Police departments on EVs that caused higher costs to check everything, EVs are still cheaper as no Oil Changes, Differential fluid changes, power steering pump changes, etc. etc. etc. For the average user, the EVs cost less to run and maintain than an ICE auto. And not a single one can perform like a V8 Powered auto does car, truck or SUV from the past. Not a single one of those cars can tow a boat like the old full size V8 powered cars could. If you put a trailer hitch on them, that MPG would be in the toilet. Producing power, yes, Torque, a bit, but that MPG would not handle what traditional V8 powered cars could do. I do believe EVs will clearly show as we get the mid and full size models to market that they can outperform what the 3 & 4 bangers are doing.

Welcome to Cheers and Gears Alisa! Home Made Chicken Noodle Soup is the Bomb! I start with roasting some chickens and then debone them and use the rest of the chicken to make natural broth. Add in all the veggies and simmer for hours. Best base you can have to build a yummy Chicken Noodle Soup. Good luck.

Thank you for proving my point that Trucks are pretty much the only place outside of large size SUVs that you still find a V8 and with MPG to match what we have seen over the last few decades.

Movie

I remember dancing to this song 4 plus decades ago. Was good then as it is now today. Course lovely woman bouncing around does help.

Yet Buick for the last Decade plus has constantly beaten Toyota which is very interesting! The only American Chinese brand around I guess.. This is interesting considering Toyota bought Subaru from GM at the Bankruptcy stage of GM.

Day 6 of skiing at Stevens pass and I noticed something very interesting. Last year saw plenty of Tesla's. This year, specifically today especially I saw a number of Audi E-TRON, Toyota Rav 4 Hybrid and the following two GMC Crew Cab Pickup Trucks in Elevation and AT4 Trim with what was a standard on the Avalanche and now an option the multi-part bed cover with the GMC logo.

Exciting

I have to question this statement. IF THIS IS TRUE, then we would still have V8 engines in every auto out there and not the few V6, Majority Turbo 4 and 3 bangers. What Americans tend to like is Big full Size auto's and that used to be some very cool cars and now is replaced by Trucks and SUVs with AWD. As such, fuel economy is not more efficient on the current engines but by a very small amount. HOW CAN I SAY THIS? Easy, look at the crazy EPA figures for Ford EcoBoost or GM turbo engines and yet when they are driven to enjoy the power and boost, the MPG is in the Toilet and that has been posted all over the internet by people owning these auto's. So I say we HAVE NOT seen ICE become more efficient in MPG. WE HAVE seen ICE become more efficient in POWER, be it HP and Torque. It still takes lots of Petro to make those numbers and if you do not drive like a little old senior, then you do not really see the MPG benefits. ICE can become far more efficient when pared with a proper HYBRID system. This has been proven with the Toyota Rav 4 Hybrid as well as many others. Exception is Honda who has had Hybrid Auto's, early models were very fuel efficient, later models all are about performance, not MPG.

Shadowman

Very interesting read on Future energy Battery and Storage Tech. Energy's Future - Battery and Storage Technologies (forbes.com) While this report is from Aug 2019, they do talk about the challenges but the aggressive change in technology that will change our life style over the next Decade. Quote: It’s not like we’ve been idle. We just haven’t been wildly successful. Battery technologies do keep getting better. Recently, Jack Goodenough, the inventor of the Li-ion battery, came out with a new fast-charging battery technology using that uses a glass electrode instead of a liquid one, sodium instead of lithium, and may have three times as much energy density as lithium-ion batteries. The exciting part of the rapidly changing battery world is the move to not only solid state batteries but WattJoule batteries that will benefit the Commercial market more so than the EV or Residential market. Quote: Li-ion batteries have too short an operating life and have issues such as rapid heat generation. For the near-future, they will dominate the small-volume niche such as personal devices and electric vehicles, but for the utility-scale commercial battery market, we need bigger systems that last longer. The latest technology to emerge is the vanadium redox battery, also known as the vanadium-flow battery. And the best one seems to be from WattJoule, especially because their cost is so much lower than other V-flow batteries. V-flow batteries are fully containerized, nonflammable, compact, reusable over semi-infinite cycles, discharge 100% of the stored energy and do not degrade for more than 20 years. The Earth’s crust has much more vanadium than lithium, and we produce twice as much V as Li each year. While this is all valid science from the University level, commercial production is coming and I believe we will see a rapid change from the current Lithium Ion battery to Solid State to WattJoule which is where I can easily see Semi truck long haul to residential EVs having very long range use.

Yet todays Electric motors and batteries are far more advanced than they were in 1912. Technology progressing beyond what we had back then. With reports showing that instead of 2025 we hit the $100 per kWh battery pack wholesale pricing this year is exciting as I truly believe that between now and 2025 as we see a large assortment of Subcompact to full size EVs hit the market at a wide range of price points we will see a move to EVs over ICE and then as I do agree with you, it will take a few decades to fully replace ICE. Long term, I believe that Green (solar, wind, hydro, ocean) power will allow even in remote places of Africa and central to south america where transporting fuel has been the norm, it will be replaced with cleaner easier to generate power that can benefit both quality of life living in a home to modern transportation. Here is one of the latest research reports and I think it makes valid real reasons why in the short term petro is and will remain King for Now, but a Mixed Energy Future is what the next decade will be and eventually a Green energy future. 2030 is a valid tipping point of moving from petro to green energy production in the US as well as around the globe. Renewable Energy vs. Fossil Fuels for Electricity: Facts and Forecasts - Beachapedia

While this year we saw price increases on EVs, Pandemic affect I think might be one reason, we have seen as battery prices have dropped, range has increased. So while prices have not come down, the range has increased which is a similar affect. Keep the price static and increase what you get in this case how long you can drive on a single charge. Hopefully with the higher density Solid State batteries which in turn means smaller over all battery pack we can also see a lower cost come to EVs and more than anything, entry level and mid level competitive EV products.

Interesting survey showing far more interest in EVs than most are aware of and yet both pricing and recharging is the top two concerns. New Consumer Reports survey finds majority of drivers are interested in electric vehicles A Major PLUS for Green Energy as the largest Coal Power Generation plant and Smoke Stakes are destroyed. Seems Arizona has chosen to be carbon neutral if not free by 2050 using only Green Energy to run the state. [Update] The West’s largest coal plant’s smokestacks will be destroyed Friday (electrek.co)

I know you have stated that EV prices have not moved, but then ICE technology has also just like EVs always started with the best at the top which is what we are seeing with EVs. This is on par with recovery of extensive R&D costs. We have Hyundai, Kia, GM, Ford all saying that EVs need to also have entry and mid range cost auto's. GM has been the only one to publish a road map of auto's coming by 2025 and here we see that Chevrolet will have both entry level to truck level EV's and GM has stated they will be ICE comparable in price. Time will tell, I see that Nissan Leaf EVs are following normal used car pricing and that gives great inexpensive auto's for teens and college students as well as low income people to afford. Yet their short range battery packs might also have something to do with the pricing. Chevrolet Bolt with double the operational range seem to be holding a better than average resale price. I think a more traditional look that the Next generation Bolt and Bolt EUV will have will make it more palatable to many more buyers. Here Chevrolet will have their SubCompact Bolt and the Compact Bolt EUV. Being on the next generation platform that will also be used by the other brands all the way up to Cadillac, I wonder what the new price points will be. If they stay the same as you have stated, then I do think it will be hard for more conquest sales. Yet if they do the right thing in moving each auto into the proper price tier for the size, I think conquest sales will follow.