G. David Felt

Do not forget Rusty!

MSN posted the Best selling Cars in America by Brand. Very interesting to read. https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/research-guides/best-selling-cars-in-america-—-by-brand/ss-BBYPu65?li=BBnb7Kz#image=1 Acura RDS 62,876 Alfa Tomeo Stelvio 9,444 Aston Martin Vantage confirmed their top seller but refused to state sales number Audi Q5 67,516 Bentley Continental GT confirmed top seller, refused to state sales numbers BMW X3 70,110 Buick Encore 102,402 Cadillac XT5 49,879 Chevy Silverado 575,600 Chrysler Pacifica 97,705 Dodge Grand Caravan 122,648 Fiat 500 3,267 Ford F-series 896,526 Genesis G70 11,901 GMC Sierra 232,323 Honda CR-V 384,168 Hyundai Elantra 175,094 Infinity QX60 43,162 Jaguar F-Pace 15,491 Jeep Grand Cherokee 242,969 Kia Soul 98,033 Land Rover Range Rover Sport 25,768 Lexus RX 111,036 Lincoln Nautilus 28,573 Mazda CX-5 154,545 McLaren 600LT confirmed top seller, refused to state sales numbers Mercedes-Benz GLC 73,650 Mini Cooper 22,123 Mitsubishi Outlander 40,775 Nissan Rogue 350,447 Porsche Macan 22,667 Ram Pickup 633,694 Rolls-Royce Cullinan confirmed top seller, refused to state sales numbers Subaru Outback 181,178 Tesla Model 3 180,000 Toyota RAV4 448,071 Volkswagen Tiguan 109,963 Volvo XC90 35,760 Clearly the SUV/CUV and Truck is the rage of the auto selling world and some models are just printing money for their company.

Here every business is required to have dedicated charging spots at work, but also at restaurants. As such, stopping at a place to sit down, you pull into one of the charging sports, plug in and go eat. I get the west coast is far more EV friendly than the east coast as such you are correct that you would not get a full 1hr charge if your having to find a charging place. In time more I am sure will get installed making it easier.

I have thought of that and thank you for pointing it out, the Hybrid systems seem to be more efficient, your running a much smaller motor in generation mode than a big V8 idling all that time. Not sure who it was but I think it was @Drew Dowdell or @dwightlooi who pointed out that for a hybrid, you could have a very small 1L diesel generator that would be super efficient at recharging a battery pack. I still think hybrids can be more efficient than a city, county or state, heck even federal just buying a ton of V8 auto's.

Bigger question to ask is how many people are just waiting for GM, Ford, FCA, etc to bring out the EV Trucks and SUVs to buy as they want to reduce the amount of maintenance an ICE auto requires. Here in the growth of High Tech Seattle, many folks are driving much older auto's awaiting electric options that they like. Plus with houses pretty much having 220 chargers in the garages as mandated by the state as well as Apartments and businesses plus all the rest stops from Vancouver BC to Baha California one can easily do road trips, I get it that for some of you here you refuse to wait for the charge time on top of the cost. But early adopters like doing other things and for me, I see no reason when you stop for a 1hr lunch to not charge to full the auto then. As @Drew Dowdell has pointed out for all things plug in, it is a change of habits and an adjustment to life style where you plug in at night when you come home and start full in the morning compared to running out to the gas station. Change is good, but not always easy for everyone and I get that there can be many points made against any technology and any change.

Correct, the City of Seattle here averaged 28,000 miles a year on their fleet vehicles and during sporting events, the Seattle Police auto's are constant running at idle for 6 to 8 hrs. All that fuel is wasted.

Yes that is very true, Lucky it seems Mary is willing to push that direction. the next 5 years should prove interesting to see if she does really reinvent GM or is just playing politics internally.

For me, an Electric Challenger would be great as a weekend cruise car with the wife. 300 to 400 mile battery pack would cover the fun short road trips for me.

I can actually fit in a Challenger where I have to fold up to get into a Mustang or Camaro.

Rightttttttttttttttt You seem to forget that GM is the company that created the skateboard EV concept way before any of these other companies. MB has followed GM in so many ways and while they have surpassed them in the last 20 years or so due to poor mgmt. and leadership with the product lines, there is much MB still lags behind in. Where is all the EV tech from MB as we have not seen anything that is ground breaking. MB followed GM with bringing out an EV auto on a skateboard platform 20 years after GM created the concept. Hydrogen auto's again behind GM, Hybrids again behind GM. The list is long and distinguished on how BEHIND MB has been, a FOLLOWER to bleeding edge tech!

Thanks for posting the story, that is a good read and I would agree with the 2023 hint. I think one solid reason for the success has been the price with the body style. No short bunker pony car, but an actual comfy cruiser.

@oldshurst442 But we LOVE YOU! ?

How do you quantify that? I see so many state auto's just idle in parks, on the roads, etc. They probably burn away $10 grand in a couple years just idling. Washington state says they base replacement of an auto on mileage then years, so 150,000 miles or 5 years old if the auto has a record of problems. Otherwise the auto can go longer in the fleet if it has a low cost of maintenance. Savings on 10 grand of fuel can easily make this up.

Rivian depending on which way you want to turn, as example to turn to the left, the passenger side wheels will move forward, the drivers side wheels will move backwards. This will keep it much tighter than braking one side and only using wheels on the other side. Be interesting on how they are doing this with the differentials. You can do it on dry pavement, but I would imagine it would be hard on the tired and the rest of the power train.

I see plenty of Hybrids and Tesla's when I go skiing. Today I saw my first Bolt and it did really well on compact snow n ice.

23 Views and no comments, very surprised that some have not stated how they feel about the style of this truck. @balthazar What do you think of this truck and semi from a style point of view? @Robert Hall @ccap41 @USA-1 @daves87rs @loki @smk4565 @ykX @regfootball @surreal1272 @oldshurst442 @ocnblu Take a look at the link, some very innovative seating options for the Truck/SUV/VAN depending on configuration.

Hybrids make better sense for State, County and City fleets. They waste so much fuel idling their auto's that the higher mpg of a Hybrid makes sense as even in the case of a 5 year turn, they probably save money even with the higher initial costs. Police auto's should all be hybrid with the amount of fuel they burn just idling. Plus they could benefit from the electric instant torque to get going.

Thanks for posting, will be interesting to actually see this in action on the Yukon. I honestly after reading the story at the link do not think it will be as tight and controlled as the Rivian. Either way for folks that go off road or are up in the snow level area and get pinched into a tight spot, this can come in handy to get out of the tight space.

India is a caste system of rich and poor, plus the poor infrastructure and lack of electrical to a majority of the people will always make it a hard sale. Until the government corruption stops and they actually start investing in the country and work to improve basics such as clean water, sewer, electricity and roads, EVs will only sell in the rich sections that can support it and that is even a small segment due to the poor infrastructure of the country. On top of those issues is what Drew points out, majority of our auto's in the US are too big for the country and road system as such the most you could export as CPO would be the Sparks, Sonics and Fiestas. India is the 4th largest auto market focused on compacts here being extra large auto's there, so you have sub compacts as mid size, micro as compacts and what ever is under micro as sub-compacts in comparison of India to the US. Most folks there are used to driving motorcycles and they come here and get a car and cannot drive worth shit. Price is not the biggest issue, reliable electricity is a bigger issue in India as they are a country with sparse gas stations too so you need high mileage auto's to get around. As one that spends too much time there for work, I can tell you, it is very common to see stores sell 1, 2, 4 and 8 Liter containers of gas due to the lack of gas stations. Yet due to this ability to package and sell, gas autos and bikes sell and will continue to sell till the country fixes their poor infrastructure. I could go on about the differences between there and here but would be a way too long of a rant that some people complain about others do. Ciao,

No one ever said making auto's was easy!

I like this and agree that these 5 trucks will challenge Tesla and it will be interesting to see who wins. Good write up on the EVs that go on sale in 2020 and their range. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/every-electric-car-ev-range-audi-chevy-tesla/

NEURON EV CES 2020 has been a busy place this year with more auto companies showing of prototypes and finally production ready auto's than ever before. We have seen so much including the latest in super dense solid state batteries for the EVs to motorcycles and bikes. This year we now get to see the latest competition to Tesla and Rivian in a well funded California / China based EV auto company called NEURON EV. This company has a swiss army knife of a truck/suv auto as well as a Semi truck that they say is going into production in 2020. The truck which is seen here in Silver has a sister truck that was running around the streets which is the following Black T-One. All the details you could ever want can be found here on this truck: https://www.neuronev.co/new-products/t-one-p-gyrwr The cool thing about this modular truck is that is can be more than a truck, a tractor, a van. there are no limits to how one can configure up this beast of an EV. The seat options are an interesting take as you can go like how Tesla showed their Semi with a center driving position as a base 3 seat configuration of 3 captain chairs, or a single drivers captain chair and a bench seat behind for 4 people and go from there to cover a wide range of colors, materials, etc. in customizing your auto. While this company is looking at this modular truck and semi for the US, in china they will have many more auto options including their V.E.G.A. or Versatile Electric Grand Automobile. The company has great plans and while they have only two models for the US market, China will get many more that includes a medium duty truck, a bus, a MAP or Multipurpose Autonomous Platform focused on shipping yards, a HUB or autonomous transportation auto, in addition to the car, semi and truck. NEURON EV has not released any details about their hp / torque other than to say class leading at this time. Two wheel drive and All Wheel Drive will be the choices folks will have and talk of a base 300 mile range battery pack. More details are to come later this year. First Press release of 2020 can be found here: https://www.neuronev.co/01102020 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC69MUFfq-4W8qxUWcGltBUg

Hey, I know we have covered this somewhere, but could not remember, @Drew Dowdell @William Maley and anyone else, The platform that the Trailblazer is built on, is it used by Cadillac?

While not a car fan, I will say I like the interior dash on this.

+1,000,000