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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    Clearly Porsche & A-M are hedging their bet WRT full electrification. Smart. Plus... it may well lead to future fueling for the other 275 million IC vehicles (in the U.S. alone) for the next 150 years. ?
  2. balthazar
    Simplicity of powertrain is a non-issue with consumers, if one can draw a parallel to electronics and safety features- consumer crave MORE, not less. Multi-turbos, coil on plug ignition, cam within cam... THAT’s what gets consumers ‘excited’! Maintenance is a... ghost herring. ?
  3. balthazar
    Robb Report ~ Porsche is reporting its synthetic "eFuel" could make IC engines as clean as BEVs; that it is showing early promise to burn so clean -being a much less complex chemistry- that it could reduce the 'well-to-wheel' carbon footprint of a vehicle burning to to on parity with a BEV. Aston Martin reported last spring that it, too, is working on a synthetic fuel as a valid alternative to expensive electric powertrains. In 2020, only 3.2 million BE's were sold globally in a market that is 65.5 million - a take rate of merely 4.8%. - - - - - Exciting times we live in, eh?
  4. balthazar
    I see mass testing every 3-5 yrs as you suggest to be too arduous and costly- I doubt statistics support a considerable degradation of skill at age 50. Testing at 75 years old may have merit... but I think a 'means' methodology based on traffic infractions would also need to be considered. Plenty of people drive well into their 90s with zero issues, so forcing them to repeat competency testing every 3 years for 45 years is way beyond the reasonable. Gov't need to sit down for a while. The auto-on hi-beams toggling erratically in the snow very likely were reading reflection off falling snow, confusing the technology. Therefore, it actually becomes a safety HAZARD and not ready for release to the public. It needs to be withdrawn until a future version can possibly work around that, or upgraded with an 'automatic disable' when cameras see it's snowing or raining too hard. Headlights in general are tip-toeing over the line in brightness; it's GREAT for the driver who can see a 2/3rds of a mile down the road, but it's terrible for oncoming drivers. More is not always better, plus you have to ask if leading edge headlight brightness encourages excessive confidence/speed in disproportion of other traffic/drivers. It's well documented that differences in speed rather than merely speed is the cause of more incidents on the road.
  5. balthazar
    "I expect BE vehicle prices to fall dramatically."
  6. balthazar
    When we’re all (again) beating our laundry on a rock and hanging it over a tree branch in the sun, then we’ll be ‘primative’.
  7. balthazar
  8. balthazar
  9. balthazar
    Well, I think most folk know BE’s are generally quick, and I doubt the Bolt pictured is any quicker than any other Bolt... so that wouldn’t be a sleeper at all IMO.
  10. balthazar
    A sleeper has to be significantly quicker than the eye or 90% of bystanders assume it is. Like this crap-box :
  11. balthazar
    For Robert. Anyone recognize the blue car below the billboard?
  12. balthazar
    I only use up/down votes because you guys seem to get off on them. ?
  13. balthazar
    ^ No, it's not... but the same folk who railed against such economical practices will likely have the same issue with a 'one-size fits all models' platform under BE's. Just pointing that out; I don't have a problem with it, per say.
  14. balthazar
    Going into the mid-upper 40s beginning tomm, damn snow should really go down. It's prob about 8" in undisturbed areas. Will be thrilled to see it go. - - - - -
  15. balthazar
    Bolt did have a significant price drop; now it's $32K whereas the car it most closely approximates, the Sonic, was $18K. Not close. Tesla didn't lower prices; it shifted a grand from the base model to the performance trim Model 3. Base is still above the 6-month-only $35K offering last year. Model S is up about $12 grand from its debut. Rivian is coming in at a start of $70 or $75K, whereas the big 4 start in the upper $30s. We've been hearing about 'cheaper battery costs' for years. The gaps are still huge. Remember, we need price parity with similar IC vehicles to see mass change-over, not dribs & drabs. The 'scalable BE platform' is exactly what many folk have railed against vehemently with "too much parts sharing" and "model A is the same as model B" - that's only going to denigrate future BE's as 'rebadges' in many folk's minds. As far as luxury brands go- all the growth there is in the cheap entry-level models; the limited take upper models won't be affected much... but they don't have nearly the volume.
  16. balthazar
  17. balthazar
    ^ What's your evidence for that theory? 2021 Kona EV MSRP is 82% higher than the IC version. EQS is expected to be 35% higher than the GLS. IMO, "pretty similar" had better be no more than around 7% higher than IC to be legitimately 'pretty similar'.
  18. balthazar
    BE's take a LOT less R&D, right? Reality disconnect / wishful thinking; we're halfway thru the '21 MY already. Market share now is below 2% in the U.S., 4% globally, and peaked in 2018. Never see that kind of market penetration that quickly (8.5 years). Consumers aren't interested in suddenly paying 50%more for their next vehicle. That's FAR more significant & real than a drag strip time.
  19. balthazar
  20. balthazar
    There are pluses and minuses to BE vehicles, of course. Chief among them- price.
  21. balthazar
    I think I saw they sold 5400 I-paces globally in the first half of ‘20. That was like 40% lower than '19, but : 2020. I can see a case for a major conglomerate to hedge it's bet and intro some well-done EVs, because they have the fall-back of successful/profitable ICs doing all the heavy (financial) lifting. But when you barely eek out any volume and you dive head-first into a segment that's 2-4% of the global sales, you're going to funnel your volume thru that same constricted portal. Sure, I expect EV market share to grow. Maybe 2% a year into the foreseeable future. So by 2035 (14 years), the natural current of the consumer market should be around a 30% take rate on EVs. By extrapolation, that'd be a 70% reduction in a brand's current volume. Some brands will not survive that.
  22. balthazar
    Jag has a LONG track record of fledgling survival, I don't expect that to change regardless; it will remain a struggling niche brand (IC or EV).
  23. balthazar
    How have they done by engineering & producing an IC vehicle that surpasses the segment leaders in quality, tech & prettiness?
  24. balthazar
    Jag is going to cut it's sales by 90%.
  25. balthazar
    Cadillac-Olds-GMC-Studebaker-Willys, Longview WA ~
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