oldshurst442

I dont think these are going to be produced like the cheaply made Chinese products that Walmart and Dollar Tree sell to us. If GM is serious in bringing these to North America, or similar small EVs, Im sure GM will make sure they are not junk. But then again, GM did sell Vegas, Citations and Chevettes to Americans. Oh...the calendar says 2021 and not 1981? That's right...2021. Here we are bitchin' that EVs are waaaaay too pricey and electrification is damn near impossible because there is suuuuuuch a low take rate yet this thing exists...with an interesting marketing angle. Sold like designer clothes. Like everything else we buy in North America since...I dont know...the 1980s, with both the young and the old. The Millennials, Gen Xers and the bloody Boomers... We are conditioned to buy consumer products this way anyway... With Disney AND Nike co-branding... An angle like that seems...fun. Like who knew cars could be fun again? And affordable. If I were them, Id try to get Hot Wheels involved as well. And since Nike could be a co-branding entity, why not try to get the NFL, MLB, NBA and the NHL involved for North America too. Id buy a Boston Bruin or a Darth Vader (Disney owns Star Wars...) version of this over a ho-hum Chevrolet Bolt any day of the week! I absolutely agree with @daves87rs 's post above mine!!! A basic car, that is affordable. And it be fun to buy since it looks like it could stylized like a customized car, but at the car store (GM dealership) directly...

lots of whining? Dude, I have never remotely been to Taiwan. I dont order from Door Dash or Amazon. I dont even use the self serve counter lanes at the grocery store nor do I use the self serve menu at McDonald's. But Im quite adept with technology and inserting my visa card in receptacles and I could change my propane gas tank on my BBQ once in while and when I clicked on that link and saw and read how things are done...I dont even Bixie and yet Im sure I could do this ease... Did you even click on the link or are you THAT skeptical on how easy it is to do so? 200 000 battery swaps per day it says. 95% of all scooter owners in Taiwan use the system. Or are you that in dis-belief that in other parts of the world, folk actually do just fine without being soooooo cuddled... I mean, are you THAT cuddled? Like seriously... Like how many phoquing road trips are YOU taking...on a phoquing scooter...for phoques sake???!!!

This video put a HUGE smile on my face regardless if Im not a Porsche guy to the fullest and Im not really into manual transmissions and Im embracing an all EV future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvnJr82oULk

The link https://www.gogoro.com/ is both related to the battery swapping consortium plan of Honda/Suzuki/Yamaha/Suzuki for future EV Japanese motorcycles that I just posted above this post and to the conversation we had about India and how India will be electrified. Gogoro is a Taiwanese scooter company doing exactly that. Battery swapping and the like. Click on the link to see how they are actually doing since 2015 and another solution on how the planet, especially in countries where mopeds, scooters, bicycles are THE transportation mode, a solution on how the planet will become fully electric by 2035. Dont want to cause any hurt feelings, but some of us North Americans really do whine a lot and really do nothing else. We dont really innovate anymore. Taiwan has a working system out already with EV battery swaps for scooters... Guys...we've been so comfortable in our smug, shytty ways and so phoquing blinded by our shyte politicians with their corrupt lobbyists pulling our wool over our eyes that we havent noticed that former 3rd world countries are kicking our ass...

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/03/26/honda-kawasaki-suzuki-yamaha-motorcycle-batteries/

A couple of sexy, well dressed men in their twilight of their years, singing the macarena joined by a couple of young, sexy well dressed men.

That is all I ask of that post, is for us to discuss the various angles to which we hold judgement on what is of value. Of what is something worth. Technology? Lux interiors? Speed and performance? Ive only seen 2 Mach Es so far. The Ford dealership near my house where I bought my wife's Fusion, they had one outside. And on the road. I have not gotten the opportunity to sit inside one myself. I saw the interior much like yourself and I deduced that its an interior like a Titanium trimmed Edge. Ive not sat in a recent BMW therefore I could not comment on how upscale BMW's have got since a decade ago, but a titanium trimmed Ford is on par with BMWs of a decade ago. But on the flipside, that 50 000 dollar BMW X4 also has a 4 cylinder engine. My internal struggle went deep. I was thinking about how GM and Ford kept on whining on how they can NOT build small cars in North America as its too expensive for them and they can NOT make money on them. With THAT thought in mind, I internally made the connection that EVs too, the tech behind them, OEMs can NOT make money on them on the lower priced scale as the tech and batteries are too expensive for them to make any money... Yes...I know. Not quite the same thing. But its an angle that I wanted to tackle just the same. There is more. Speed and performance. While Im NOT doubting that the regular X4 may not be a slouch despite its 4 cylinder, the Mach E DOES spank it in performance. Both performance models start at the same price at 60 000 dollars but the X4M shoots up in price THAT much faster. All for an inline 6. I believe no V8 is offered. With THAT in mind, we are now seeing a RETRACTION of cylinders with the internal combustion engine for high end products. THAT would be another angle I wanna talk about. We are seeing that the V8 that was all too common not too long ago, as the decades have come by since the 1970s, the common V8 is now an aristocrat's engine. A little less lux interior versus state of the art powertrain for lesser 4 cylinder and 6 cylinder ICE, to which the electric powertrain will trounce the ICE counterpart in speed and performance... FoMoCo could have gone to sell this product as a Lincoln, price bump could have been made...a nicer Lincoln interior to rival a Mercedes or BMW etc... They went with a Ford. A Mustang name plate. marketing reasons. They figured they could make money on an EV that starts in the 40 thousands... With a controversial nameplate. Keeps a buzz about the product... Seeing average transaction prices are at 40 000, the Mach E is just there at that price point...the point of my exercise was to show that EVs are not really THAT far off with price parity with ICE. I had some logic to it. If one has an open mind about it, much like yourself, THANK-YOU, one could have a different take on this whole EV/ICE thing and to how we will get there by 2035. Couple that with crude Chinese EVs that are 4000 dollars which are not as far off in concept and execution and price corrected from a 1920s Ford Model T... Yes...yes...we have come a loooong way from a Model T and our vehicular expectations... THAT is NOT the point of my angle here... There is a middle ground here to where affordable EVs NEED NOT be crude 4000 dollar death traps and NEED NOT be high priced (like a Tesla Model S) or toys like the Mach E either. There will be an EV that WILL be sold in the mid $20 thousands to $30 thousands that will be the equivalent to a Ford Escape. Its not now, but by 2035? Maybe...

Hippie Chicks

I had an internal struggle regarding the price argument. Yes, an ICE version of the SAME model that also has an EV version, will be CONSIDERABLY LESS. No buts, ifs or ands. But we CONTINUE to bang that drum all across the EV board. And its kinda false. We seem to always make this argument and to justify our point we will take a LESSER ICE vehicle and compare it DIRECTLY to a more advanced EV model... Example from last week: We took a 26 000 dollar base Escape and compared it to a 50 000 dollar Mach E. Wrong in 2 ways: 1. base model family CUV 2. FAMILY CUV We then proceeded to compare the Mach E to its other brother. The Escape's bigger brother. The Edge. While the Edge is closer in spirit to the Mach E, THIS is where my internal struggle begins. While in those two scenarios, the Mach E and EVs in general, seem to lose the value argument on fuel savings and we equate that being more expensive than their ICE counterparts. BUT... after reading and listening to many other opinions on how ICE vehicles average transaction prices are going up and up and up...I started looking at another angle that EVERYBODY seems to miss. More or less on the Mach E rather than another EV. I done a quick research and found that a BMW X4 is actually about the same price as a Mach E... The exterior and interior dimensions are 99.9% identical. https://www.cars.com/research/compare/?acodes=USD10FOS392B0,USD10BMS261A0 In this case of a Mach E and a BMW X4, I wanna know why are we tooting that EVs are inherently pricier? Both are lifestyle, sporty coupey CUVs trying to sell to the same lifestyle, sporty coupey CUV buyer which is a more affluent buyer. And BOTH the Bimmer and the Ford are marketing to. The Escape is just a pedestrian, family haulin', CUV for the Average Joe. Doesnt seem logical to me to try and tell me EVs are pricier than when we do comparisons like that. When you look at the EV that is the Mach E and we compare it to a VERY comparable and SIMILAR ICE CUV in EVERY way INCLUDING to what market niche they BOTH belong to...then in THIS case I'll have to argue that: NO! EVs are not NECESSARILY more pricier than their ICE counterparts. At least in THIS case, they are actually the SAME price. I see progress to which EVs are starting to get price parity as their ICE counterparts ESPECIALLY when ICE average transaction prices are going higher. And when we choose to say that EVs are just 2% of the market place, its NOT the EVs that are making the average transaction price go up. Its ICE vehicles themselves. I dont want to confuse the situation and you folk will think that Im saying that EVs have price parity...Ive said in the beginning of this thought that turned into a long post that they do not. Its just that in the coming year or two, when many EV models will be available to the US consumer from GM, VW and others, many scenarios like this one will be replicated. And eventually, cheaper MSRP EV models will be introduced. When will that be? I do not know. But in the 40 000-60 000 dollar range, EVs will CERTAINLY be on par with their ICE counterparts offering same interior and exterior dimensions, luxury and options and even LONGER drive ranges than fuel tanks...

Scooby-Doo! Mystery Machine

1821-2021

Imperial Oil

Yeah...I know. You disbelieve.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-biggest-car-brand-launches-031639709.html The bolded parts have all kinds of implications. Especially if those goals are met... We could dismiss all of that, but I find it intriguing to where Geely wants to go in the global market place. Especially with what they own or co-own and/or are partnered with... Couple that with the many other Chinese cheaply priced EVs and things get real very quick to what kind of future awaits us in 2035...

Oh...THAT is actually a thing. Its actually a way of life in MANY places on this planet. JUST because in America we like to live large does NOT mean the rest of the world lives large like we do. But dont kid yourself, even in North America, there is a big enough movement to where our very own society is ceasing to consume voraciously and couple that to where the ones that DO consume voraciously wont be able to because our personal debt load cant sustain that shyte any longer and before you know it, we in North America WILL start living like my mom did in Greece... Forget EVs, Balthy...we might be buying donkeys... 1. to farm our own lands again and to use as personal transport. 2. probably cheaper to buy, own and maintian a donkey than it is a car. Any car. And yes, Im being sarcastic. But not really. We do have a huge poverty problem in North America and it aint getting smaller or resolved. So by you mentioning the tiny house revolution as a way to mock this, Ill turn it up and make sure that we are aware that North America's poverty problems and personal debt load is severe... A tiny house in 2035 might just BE the norm in North America to go along with that crude 4 000 dollar Chinese EV...

Well.. Consumers wont have a choice... ICE will be banned past 2035... Cry, yell, moan, bitch. Or laugh. ICE is no longer going to be sold past 2035. Oh...your classic V8 car. Yeah...you will be able to own that. Wont be able to daily drive. Probably only on a track or on a "special" 'remember the good 'ole days' day 2 times a year or something...