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

Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    55,906

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    533

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    I thought all Chrysler vehicles made that clacking sound when coming to a stop. I know every Chrysler minivan does it and the Journey too.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Well... no... there would still be that little issue of building them which seems to be a challenge for Tesla at the moment.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    That's today, I'm talking 10 - 15 years in the future. The charging infrastructure is going to be going through some rapid development over the next 5 years. Charge times will drop, range will increase, the number of charging stations will grow. I'm participating in the development of some of the new charging infrastructure as part of my day job. One of Tesla's big mistake (in their list of mistakes) was not offering a high range verision of their cars instead of only the high performance version. With the battery capacity they have, they could have made a lower powered "Eco" model that goes 300 - 400 miles instead of just 250 - 300.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    I was 25 when I joined...
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Yes. The battery is upwards of 30% of the cost of the vehicle, depending on range and vehicle price of course. The Bolt would have the highest percentage of MSRP sunk in the battery of all of the vehicles on the market today. You're overthinking my simplicity argument. I'm not saying that an EV powertrain is simple to manufacture, on the contrary, assembly labor costs per unit are likely more expensive because of the need for Clean Rooms for assembly, etc. What I'm saying is that there can be far far fewer variants of the powertrain design. Manufacturers can have a single physical assembly that replaces 5 to 8 variants of ICE. Just change the software for performance differences. Tesla can upgrade you to a more powerful model over the phone as soon as your Visa authorizes. Not having to build a 10-speed automatic transmission would be a benefit to any manufacturer. The kinds of cars you and I love @ocnblu are already toast. I'm sure your Compass is fun as far as new cars go, I enjoyed my drives in them, but there is nothing like the soul of the older stuff. It's all 4-cylinder automatic Camrys, Accords, CR-Vs, and RAV-4s these days. If buyers cared about soul, those wouldn't be the biggest sellers out there. My prediction that when EVs reach price parity with ICEs wasn't wishful thinking.... it was a warning. The moment a Camry can pick an ICE 4-cylinder Camry or EV Camry for the same price, the ICE's days are numbered. The manufacturers will respond by raising the prices on ICE cars in order to push people into the vehicle that is more cost efficient for the manufacturer to build. That's what they did with V6es... they're pushing us all into Turbo-4s instead. That's what Ford is trying to do with V8s in the F-150 and has done in the Expedition and Navigator. Didn't anyone notice there are only two V6 mid-size family sedans left on the market today?
  6. Drew Dowdell
    A completely loaded Enclave Avenier AWD is $59,720, and the equipment that gets you is very competitive. A completely loaded XT5 is $66,230... so an XT7 will go higher.... much.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Who's paying an average $200 a month in maintenance? Maybe a used Benz owner... But in all seriousness, 20 years is still too soon for it to be the majority of transportation in this country. Product plans are being put in place today for vehicles that will hit the market in 10 years. While I do agree that automation will increase... the half life of vehicles is just too long for the transformation to happen that quickly.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    Care to expand on why you think that?
  9. Drew Dowdell
    That's a pretty big chunk of cars. I thought this was a story about a month or two ago and BMW said there wasn't any problem.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    Aside from the name, which I dislike, Avenir is mainly for China. U.S. tastes are no longer Buick's priority.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    While he may be right eventually, I think his timeline is a bit too short. I'd guess 30 - 50 years only because of the long period of turnover for vehicles which is only growing. I regularly encounter, while driving my 35 year old car, other vehicles of similar vintage on the road. My 13 year old Honda is as common as anything out there, enough so that I have to look for the faded Mile 0 sticker on the back window to make sure I'm getting in my own silver CR-V and not someone else's. Even if we get widespread adoption of autonomous cars on the market in 10 years, the cars that are new 9 years from now will likely still be on the road in 2042.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    What's everyone think of the updated front page?
  13. Drew Dowdell
    A Honda rep this morning - "95% of Hondas sold in the US are built in the US"
  14. Drew Dowdell
    You mean pricing the car higher because of the implied savings at the pump? At the moment I think only Tesla can sort of get away with that, but it's more of a Tesla prestige price rather than an EV savings price. Tesla does some pretty deceptive lease pricing by factoring "gasoline savings" into the lease price they present. Volt, Bolt, Leaf all seem to be priced a bit on the high side, but in the case of the Bolt at least... GM seems to be losing money on every one they sell. And yes, once EVs hit mainstream, they won't be able to price gasoline savings into them, however, I do think they will be more profitable for the manufacturers to build, so in essence, gasoline drivers will start to pay more for their cars than EV drivers do. Again, this is 10 - 20 years in the future by my toss of a dart. Once EVs reach price parity with ICEs, the ICE is toast.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    I mean if the policy being discussed is industry related.... it doesn't mean that we should get into the weeds on the healthcare debate just because the auto manufacturers issue health insurance. In the case above, it was the head of the Dept of Energy talking about how fossil fuels are needed to prevent sexual assault... which is simply ludicrous.... yet that same department has information for EVs on its website.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    Sure, why not. Highly informative threads like this make C&G fun! I re-learned a bunch of stuff today re-reading this thread.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    It's scary when Albert goes from the Buick to the Honda and backs up without the rear-view camera and no parking sensors......
  18. Drew Dowdell
    We don't have a free market. I disagree with the idea that EVs won't be priced like a comparable ICE. Eventually, competition will start to heat up and someone will try and sell on price. For the moment, EVs are still a novelty item, but as soon as someone gears up to crank them out like Accords, the price wars will start. This won't happen for at least a decade or more, but it will happen eventually. The reason it will happen is that aside from the cost of the batteries, EVs are inherently less complicated vehicles to assemble. They don't have 10-speed transmissions, they don't have exhaust or emissions equipment, they don't need to get EPA emissions certification, they don't have fancy AWD system with multiple clutches. Build electric motor powertrains in 3 sizes and the performance can be tuned completely by software..... GM could build every single model in their lineup with just 3 motor powertrains and some software instead of however many different engine designs they have today. Just look at the 2.0T alone... they have 8 different tuning variants and FWD/RWD/FAWD/RAWD orientations coupled with multiple transmissions (6-speed FWD, 6-speed manual RWD, 8-Speed RWD, 8-Speed FWD, 9-speed FWD, probably 10-speed RWD in future). Imagine if all of those could be cut down to EVPU Medium FWD and EVPU Medium RWD with just software changes for power output. Once battery costs come down, that will become a huge savings for manufacturers. AWD will most likely be handled in the Tesla fashion of adding a smaller motor at the other end of the car rather than a driveshaft and transmission. That smaller motor would be pilfered from some compact vehicle like the Bolt. The eventual cost savings to manufacturers is why I see EVs as inevitable.... not any government mandate.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    As I stated, if it involves the automotive industry in some way.....
  20. Drew Dowdell
    Oh jesus tapdancing christ, we can't be mature and not pedantic on this? There is going to be some crossover of policy, political figures, and automotive. There were automotive execs on government advisory councils. Trump just asked the PM of Japan to build more cars in the US instead of Japan, which only goes to show how badly read Trump is on the industry. These are things we should be able to post articles about and discuss, but for those who can't handle it in a mature fashion, I'll just mod them into oblivion in those threads. And don't think it has anything to do with disagreeing on politics. There are plenty here who I disagree with on those terms who do handle themselves in a mature fashion and debates with those people are fun and interesting.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    The credit is used to reduce the cost of the lease substantially. With exceptions for local dealership shenanigans, the credits usually act as a dollar for dollar down payment on the lease.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    GM didn't give up on it. They make a Lacrosse eAssist, Impala eAssist, Silverado eAssist (only for CA) still today. The CT6 PHEV has the most advanced hybrid system on the market today. The fact remains is that the 48 volt system that the Germans are going for is still them catching up to GM. It may enable other technology in the future, but GM still got there a decade before them.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    Again trying to move the goal posts. Mercedes Pre-scan Active body control has been available since 2013, which means it clearly does not require 48 volt electronics in order to run. But if you insist on not taking my word for it that Benz is just a decade late to GM's eAssist party. Read Jalopnik https://jalopnik.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-upcoming-48-volt-1790364465
  24. Drew Dowdell
    GM already uses electric power steering, electric oil and water pumps, electric A/C for the Volt and CT6 PHEV, and they've had the fastest reacting electronic suspension for more than 25 years. The germans are playing catch up here.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Not at all confirmed. We've had a great spirited and fun debate in the tax credit thread. It's the kind of civil discourse I wish we could have here without the need for anyone to police the threads. If you want to have the same civil debate over Perry's statement that "fossil fuels prevent sexual assault", we can have one, but I promise you it will be short.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.

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