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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    My point was that there is a Cruze hybrid... they just don't call it a Cruze... nor a hybrid....
  2. Drew Dowdell
    The energy price is only half the bill. That is a pretty good energy rate. I pay about the same for 100% renewable, but I got a really good deal.. it's actually lower than the coal rate in my area. The other half of the bill is the delivery charge. You can't shop that around, it's the same for everyone in your service area and generally regulated by the states. It's typically 5.5c kWh - 10c kWh. So when you get your bill the total amount per kWh will be closer to 12c.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    Double it, triple it, quadruple it, quintuple it... It's still less than $44k by at least 5 figures. You're an entire Ford Focus off with your cost estimate.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    I'm assuming you don't know what F.U.D. is. It means "Fear", "Uncertainty", and "Doubt". You've certainly covered all of these in this thread. Here's just a small sampling. Fear - You're spreading fear about range. You talked about range anxiety a lot by extrapolating your own driving practices to the rest of the driving populous. Yet the Bolt's and Tesla's range is more than enough for daily use of 98% of the non-commercial driving population. For road trips I have already shown you maps of trips between a number of major metropolitan centers where you get through your whole trip with one short charge up mid-route. Doubt - You're spreading doubt about battery life. Without any proof, and in fact in spite of proof to the contrary, you are doubting the long term battery life of these vehicles. There are many documented cases of hybrids going over 400k on their first battery. Frequent regenerative braking is actually harder on batteries. Batteries cycling up and down is basically an EV "wear item". That means that hybrid taxi batteries (and in fact any part on a taxi) have a substantially harder duty cycle than hybrid batteries in a typical family car. You know that, I know that, everyone in the world who knows what a Taxi is knows that, yet you persist in trying to spread this doubt anyway. Uncertainty - You're spreading uncertainty about battery costs. The Tesla battery doesn't cost $44k. That was a wild guess by someone online, but since it suits your narrative, you went with it. Tesla was selling batteries for the Roadster for $12,000 ten years ago... battery prices per KW have gone down, not up. The Model-S's batteries are warrantied for unlimited miles in 8 years. Tesla has stated that the batteries cost less than 25% of the cost of the vehicle. Even on a $100k P90, that's only $25,000. Somewhere between $12,000 and $44,000 is the likely true number..... $25,000 sounds about right for a P90. For a vehicle like the Bolt which has a smaller battery pack, that amount is likely a lot lower. As the batteries in both the hybrids and EVs (yes, I'm aware they use two different technologies) have largely proven to have longer lives than the cars themselves, the whole replacement cost uncertainty is largely academic.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Erm... no. The difference between the Silverado and Sierra is no different than the difference between an F-150 XL and a Lariat and a Kind Ranch and a Raptor and Super Duty. It's just a different grille/headlights/hood in the half ton GMs and Ford does the same thing just without swapping out headlights. Which badge is on the GM trucks is largely immaterial. Even if you wanted leave out the GM Mid-sizers (which I'm sure you do since Ford has a big fat zero in that sales column right now), the two companies are pretty close.. .GM isn't behind Ram as you tried to imply with your original post and I have since corrected. When you look at the YTD numbers for half-tons and 3/4 tons at Ford and GM, you get Ford at 595,656 and GM at 589,996.... or a difference of only 5,660 units... GM is less than 1% behind for the year to date. When you include the mid-sizers, GM's number rises to 697,249 while Ford remains at 595,656... meaning GM sold 100,000+ more trucks than Ford so far for the year.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    Yes, 400k. The Escape Hybrid Taxis age out before the batteries die. $44k is not the cost of a Tesla battery. Tesla is on record saying that it is less than one quarter the cost of the car and they credit you the cost of the old one. The Tesla batteries are also refurbishable. They can take out worn out cells and replace them. Therefore they can sell you a refurbished pack for less money. Even if after 300k miles the battery capacity is down to 75%, in a P85, that's still 200 miles of range. Stop spreading F.U.D.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    The batteries are lasting longer than anyone ever expected them to even in hybrids. The Escape Hybrid's batteries generally don't quit below 400k miles.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    I think they should have just called it Super.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    The current Regal was always capable of having a V6. It was built to be able to handle the 2.8TT, which while no longer in production, is the same basic block externally as the 3.6. So there's no reason why even in the current car, the 3.6 wouldn't just drop right in.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    oreally?
  11. Drew Dowdell
    Silverado + Sierra = 63,488 Also - Canyon + Colorado = 13,332 Meaning GM sold 76,820 trucks last month
  12. Drew Dowdell
    That may be partially because there's no alternative until now. I think once EVs become more mainstream it will become a thing. I'm already there with my lawnmower... I switch from gas to an electric that was given to me and I doubt I'll ever go back to gas.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    Selling this in the US is an afterthought. They are going after the wealthy Chinese here. Also, the comparable Cadillac is still going to be more. A 2017 Lacrosse AWD rollin on 20s and every option box checked is $50k. An AWD XTS with no options checked is $53k. The Regal GS Gone Wild is $42k... equip an ATS the same way and you'll be over $47k.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    It only works in custom streams, not the built-in Unread Content. Are you looking under custom streams? Mine just happens to be named Unread Content.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    If they get access to the better engines, I agree. What I think this really is, is for China. Buick has clout there and they probably feel that a high end luxury trim of each model will sell well. 3 out of every 4 Buicks sold globally is sold in China. We're only getting it here as they throw us scraps of what they plan for China... it costs them nothing to slap the same trim pieces on that they've already designed for overseas and charge a giant markup for it. I don't have the numbers from this year, but as far as Denali goes, as of last year, just the Denali trim outsold the Lincoln brand. It also outsold Jaguar and Land Rover combined. So I can really see why GM would want to try and replicate that with Buick.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    It really depends on how Buick goes about doing it. If this is just another way of saying "Limited" or "Platinum".... then meh.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    I'm okay with the idea, but eh on the name. It just doesn't flow well with the other names in the lineup. Buick Encore Avenir.... Buick Lacrosse Avenir.... Buick Enclave Avenir.... Denali worked because it was its own high end model first and had unique front sheet metal to make it something "more".
  18. Drew Dowdell
    In many/most of the high energy cost markets, something like Tesla's Powerwall would pay for itself in increased home value. So even if you sell the home, the money you put into buying the powerwall would likely translate into a higher home value. There are a number of home upgrades that are like that.... we did that last year with our furnace and A/C. The value of the home increased by more than what we spent to have it installed because the old furnace was really old. And yes, that's the primary reason for the timers on those units. I suppose you could schedule it for other reasons too like noise... but it's primarily about energy rate planning. Texas has some of the largest variety of rate plans that I've seen. There are plans that give you free weekends for the generation side of the bill (again, disclaimer, I work for an energy supplier that offers a plan like this, I am not promoting any specific company). A smart consumer who knows they are home all day on Saturday can save up their laundry and some dishes and run them all day saturday. Or if they do a lot of cooking for the week and have an electric stove, they can save money that way. Theoretically, such a consumer could "fill up" their Bolt for the week over the weekend if their commute is short enough (under 20 miles each way). It would make the cost per mile of driving the Bolt virtually zero.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    They're done from the app. You put your electric rates and times into the app and the car decides when to start charging in order to finish a complete charge by a set time. Generally, those rates only change every 6 months to 2 years. The windows of on-peak and off-peak rarely ever change. For example, you can tell your Bolt that you leave for work every day around 7am. You pull into the garage at 6pm and plug it in. Since that is peak time, the Bolt won't start charging just yet. It will wait until 9pm when the rates switch to off-peak and start charging as fast as possible to get you to full before 7am. If you know you'll be leaving again at 9pm and need the full range of your battery, you can override the charging schedule in the app and ask for a full charge even at the on-peak rates.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    There's a reason Mercedes doesn't have a dealership in the middle of Cornfield, Ohio and they make you go into Columbus to get your S-Class serviced.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Hourly charges are typically only for businesses that use a LOT of electricity. Homes generally have rate windows, typically 3, sometimes 4. Its for that reason that most new dishwashers and laundry units have timers built in to automatically start after a set number of hours. After dinner, load up the dishwasher and set it to start in 4 hours when it's low price electric time. Tesla's powerwall is setup to take advantage of this. It will recharge from solar or during off-peak times, and then it can release energy back into the grid at peak time. In a properly optimized house, the Tesla powerwall could (slowly) pay for itself by nearly zeroing out an electric bill even without solar panels on the roof.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    One utility for one locality doesn't make it proof for the country as a whole. Right now, I have a fix rate of 7.5 c/kWh for 24 months... yet if I posted my electric contract, that wouldn't be proof of anything. Furthermore, knowing what prices are at what times allows you to program the car to only charge during the cheap times. It's like knowing that the price of gasoline will be 25c lower in a few hours, so you wait to fill up. Stop spreading F.U.D. about Electric Vehicles....
  23. Drew Dowdell
    Very few states have hourly metering, though I'm sure more will be coming. Furthermore, the Bolt and Tesla both allow you to schedule your charging to be completed only during the cheap rates. Second, if I'm environmentally conscious enough to buy an EV in the first place, I've also probably done some shopping on my electric generation supplier (disclaimer, I work for one). That means I can pick a 100% renewable option to recharge the car, thereby entirely zeroing out the vehicle's carbon footprint. In my own case, I have a 100% wind contract for my electric...so any EV I bought would be wind powered. Homeowners with solar panels can recharge from the sun, etc. I'll repeat - buying an EV is about saving a different kind of green.... it's not about the money.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    Edited for clarity.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    177 lb-ft @ 1600 rpm is excellent for a 1.6t in a box this size/weight/price
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