Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close

Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    55,018

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    444

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    I configured them like for like. 10k was the base lease. But for 12k and $1,999 down 36 months, the rates are Ioniq 6 SEL $356 / Sonata SEL $355 / Sonata Hybrid SEL $426. Still easy math. Hyundai clearly wants you to only take a 2-year/10k lease on the Ioniq 6 because it is heavily subsidized down to $289 and 12k is $307.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    This has been resolved.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    There is a major outage at a data center in Northern Virginia due to a cooling system issue. This data center stores most of the images and some of the code for the site. I have been informed that the restoration of that data center could last as long as 4 p.m. on May 31st. The site will appear in a broken state until the data center is back online. Thank you for your patience. Click here if you'd like to follow the restoration status.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    True for the Kia, not as true on Teslas. Once NACS and the IONNA charging network and Walmart Charging Network roll out, I expect to see a lot more competition on rates. EA and Chargpoint have non-Tesla drivers by the junk these days with rates because there's no real alternative. Once you put the purchasing power of Walmart and 6 of the major automotive manufacturers behind two competing networks, EA and Chargepoint will need to relent. On a recent Tesla trip, I got as low as 24 c/KwH at a supercharger. At those rates, even public charging is cheaper than fuel. As someone who worked in this industry, be very careful with this if you decide to go forward. The loans on the install are NOT transferable to new owners and often have early payoff charges. This can cause big headaches if you go to sell your property even 10 years down the road. Additionally, unless you're in an area with extreme utility rates like California, the solar cells don't add enough value to the home to cover the cost of the install, meaning you can potentially put yourself under water on the value of your home. I love the IDEA of solar, I hate what the financing structure has done with it. They make all their money on your loan, and very little on the installation and electricity sold. They might not even talk to you if you offered to pay cash for it. Unfortunately, it is likely that Tesla is going to end up saving that industry, too, because they're the only ones who don't structure the financing that way. There's a 2-3 year wait for them and they're focusing on only certain states.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    There won't be any that are MSRP cheaper than an ICE, but with certain lease rates, there are several that are cheaper to lease then the equivalent ICE. Model Y versus BMW X3 is the first that comes to mind. Now we can quibble over which one has a nicer interior (The BMW) and build quality (The BMW), but Tesla doesn't try to charge you a subscription for heated seats and nickel and dime you for accessories like active cruise. These two are pretty close in terms of carrying capacity and price. The Teslas routinely lease better, that's why they are outselling BMW. The Kia EV9 is a 7/8ths sized Tahoe and it is lock-step price equivalent to a Tahoe all the way up the trim and options sheet. Is it a size equivalent to a Traverse? Sure, but it's got the power of the Tahoe, so the comparison gets murky. Several EVs have cheap lease deals right now. The Subaru Soltara, the Kia EV6, the Ioniq 5, and certain trims of the Ioniq 6 are just some examples. Right now, an Ioniq 6 SEL is $2k down and $289 for a 24-month lease. A Sonata SEL is $2k down and $348 for a 36-month lease, 24 isn't even an option. Sonata SEL Hybrid is $418/month - $2k down. A loaded Ioniq 6 Limited with $2k down is $442/m - 36 months. That's pretty easy math when one fill-up per month in the mid-range Sonata Hybrid puts you over the lease rate of a loaded Ioniq 6.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    I hated it for what it wasn't... a comfortable luxury vehicle. But for what it was meant to be, it was fine. Besides, the Prologue is mostly GM tech and interior bits.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Of note, Rivian is rumored to be adding CarPlay and Android Auto on the R1 refresh.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    GM. It is an incredibly consumer-hostile move they are taking with their stance on phone projection. This will probably swing me to the RAM electric when it's time. I still have a reservation, but I'm inclined to cancel it now.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    Oh I'm going to blast them for that.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    My bad, missed the original context. because of the substantial cost difference, I fill up almost exclusively at Costco and Sam’s. Around here that can save me 35c to 50c a gallon. On 27 gallons that makes a big difference. The downside is that there’s almost always a wait.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    @ccap41 and @G. David Felt - to expand on this a bit. Even if I didn't have a Level-2 charger at my house (which I don't), for the average daily commute, even a Level-1 charger can be sufficient if you plug it in every night. For most use cases, you'll be able to start each morning fresh with an 80% battery.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    I'm riding in The Distinguished Gentlemen's Ride tomorrow, raising money for colon cancer and men's mental health. So tonight, Gunther got a bath.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    The Avalanche has a 27 gallon tank. The problem isn’t the fill up time, the problem is the wait for the pump. I do notice that the pumps slow down when they are busy. But the problem is both side of this argument miss the point. If I had an EValanche, I’d never even make the trip to fill up in the first place. It would charge while I sleep. If I was on a long trip, I’d charge whenever I needed to stop for food or bathroom and then leave when I was done, not when the truck was done. I’ve done trips like this in a short range Model-3, driving from Pittsburgh to NYC to Philly to Pittsburgh. 10-15 minute bathroom and/or food breaks is enough to keep the range within the comfort level even on 150Kw chargers which is all the faster the Model-3 SR can pull power. Something that charges at 250Kw or 350 Kw would be even easier. The EValanche can take on 150 miles of range in 15 minutes. I can burn 15 minutes waiting for my food at a Sheetz pretty easily.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    You need to watch the charger from the app or when you're in the car to see the charge speed you're getting. And, it is odd that it would say "no conditioning needed". Even in 80 degree weather in Florida, the Tesla would condition the battery on the way to the supercharger.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    This sounds like a difference in KWh in chargers more than what percentage you started at. Plus, you also need to make sure you always use the NAV to tell the car you are heading to a charger. This preconditions the batteries so they will accept the charge faster. You should always enter the charging station into the NAV even if you know the way there.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    That’s not what I was asking. I think there’s a way to set up your EA profile, either through the car or on your app, that all you do is plug it in and go. You don’t even need to tap.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    I thought this had plug-n-charge?
  18. Drew Dowdell
    So we're all moved into the new server, but part of the process didn't fully work and I need your help to track some things down. The URLs for a number of pictures didn't update to their new locations. Your job, when you spot one of these, is to use the Report Post/Article/Gallery button so I can fix it. If we get a lot of these, I'll think up of some prize for the person with the most reports. It can be missing emojis, missing pictures in threads, or missing pictures in an article. The fix for most of these is super simple, but I need to crowdsource finding them. I'm leaving the 2025 Acura MDX and 2025 Infiniti QX80 articles up as an example to look at. But you can also see it in this screenshot below, where it shows: 2025 Acura MDX Interior infotainment screen and dash Thanks for any help you can offer.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    I would look at an Ohio chapter if you want to join. You're probably too late for seed distribution this year, I got mine right around this time last year. My membership is expired as it was paid for through my prior employer, but it is something I'd like to join again.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    Once they get in the ground they will grow very rapidly until the blight gets them. These two seeds are from different, naturally blight resistant trees. They’ll be planted near each other in the hopes that their seeds will also be blight resistant and if I’m still here in 10 years and the blight hasn’t gotten them, I can share the seeds with others. This was once the most populous tree in North America, numbering in the hundreds of millions, and the blight wiped it out in a matter of three decades. Now it is rare to see one more than 10 years old in the wild and the ones that are out there are protected and studied. I believe there’s less than two dozen wild ones in PA now.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    This is all the bigger they are after 11 months. They were started in May. Very distinct leaves.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    I see your rental, and raise you mine..
  23. Drew Dowdell
    If you do tomatoes or any water hungry container veggies, Pittmoss is the GOAT and will save you a ton of headache with watering.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    The two big things you need to know are How Acidic and how well it drains or not. I took a class last year on how to grow the American Chestnut. American Chestnuts like to be high on hilltops with very well-drained soils. There's a geomapping tool in Pennsylvania that uses known land and altitude data to populate the best places for Chestnut plantings, and my property is one of the best in the county. What I used was a mix of planter soil and something called Pittmoss, better than Peatmoss. Its manufactured here and is mostly recycled newspaper. It's good for containers because it holds moisture better than peat. Just put them in some 5-gallon buckets and let them go. I need to move them around a bit soon. True genetic American Chestnuts are very hard to find. If you find them online, they are most likely crossbred with something else that is blight-resistant. I got my seeds directly from the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation at one of their research centers at Penn State.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    They look like sticks right now, lol. Their leaves are just starting to come back. But here's what they looked like going in.
×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search