The Car Thread

[Heimdallr]

4 minutes ago, MrDrew said:

Until Tesla starts it's own finance company, you're not seeing 0%. When they do start doing that, they're going to have to make a lot more vehicles.

PayPal? I could see Elon using them to handle Tesla financing

[winitall]

35 minutes ago, MrDrew said:

Until Tesla starts it's own finance company, you're not seeing 0%. When they do start doing that, they're going to have to make a lot more vehicles.

I think @Glen was referring to the $100 refundable deposit that Tesla is offering on the CyberTruck to reserve your spot. You basically loan them $100 and receive no interest for the 2 or 3 years they hold that money before production begins. 

[MrDrew]

1 minute ago, winitall said:

I think @Glen was referring to the $100 refundable deposit that Tesla is offering on the CyberTruck to reserve your spot. You basically loan them $100 and receive no interest for the 2 or 3 years they hold that money before production begins. 

After a re-read, you are correct.

@Glen How much of a difference would it make if you got additional money off when you bought it, and how much would it take for you?

[MrDrew]

52 minutes ago, Heimdallr said:

PayPal? I could see Elon using them to handle Tesla financing

That would be just crazy enough for Elon to try, and crazy enough to work.

[Glen]

1 hour ago, MrDrew said:

After a re-read, you are correct.

@Glen How much of a difference would it make if you got additional money off when you bought it, and how much would it take for you?

I’d probably do it for $1000 off without question.

Probably also would do something like 10% interest/per month after deposit.

So if it took 5 years till it shipped, I’d get $600 off on top of my $100 down.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Glen

[Tugboat]

9 hours ago, theJ said:

Yes in cities, but America is too spread out for that overall. There's a definite future in self driving family vehicles. 

Okay, this may sound crazy and i know it's a bold, mind-blowing concept...but hear me out here...

 

Trains can also go...outside of cities.  

 

3 hours ago, MrDrew said:

Don’t unsubscribe just yet. Electric cars can be really fun, but they have to make them work For the average consumer before we start to see the enthusiast versions. You have to remember that the first Tesla car was an Elise with the drivetrain swapped for an electric system. They can do it, but right now we’re in the discovery or show off phase. 
 

Even looking at regular cars, the performance segment isn’t doing well. Using the Civic as an example, Honda will sell 1 Si for every 1,000 base models, and 2,000 Si for every Type R. They’re still on the super high end, and the base right now. Eventually they’ll hit the middle, and then the fun stuff comes. 

There's nothing interesting about electric cars.  Take away the sound and the feel and mechanical involvement of a nice sounding combustion engine running through a manual transmission at my fingertips and feet...and i'd rather just ride a bus.  I'm a huge car enthusiast, but commuting and driving in heavy traffic just to get somewhere is a chore i could easily do without, altogether.

 

Just putting a couple thousand pounds of batteries in a "sporty" car and/or making an electric car fast, is completely missing the point of what makes cars fun and interesting.  Yeah...electric cars can be fast, and there are plenty of those out there...but it's not spec sheet racing.  That's not what i enjoy about cars.

For the same reason the modern "performance segment" probably should be doing poorly.  There are still a few good ones out there, but the majority of them have become big bloated boats with giant ipads, extensive acoustic isolation and fake noise pumped through the stereo, numb steering, lame sounding engines, hard to find manual transmissions, and a zero-to-sixty time you can't even actually enjoy on the road.  It's like they've taken everything that makes a classic muscle car or sports car cool and interesting...and did the exact opposite, but with more power and performance.

[Tugboat]

8 hours ago, Glen said:

Seems aggressive 

It is.

8 hours ago, Glen said:

Whew lad

Hopefully someone enjoying a product hasn’t ruined your day.

It has.

6 hours ago, theJ said:

He does have a bit of a point though.

Those Tesla trucks are butt fugly.  I don't get the appeal.  It's like they designed it through the lens of the 80's vision of the future.

Honestly, i think the Cybertruck actually looks really cool.  It's just a kinda stupid thing run by a deplorable human being, and it's just insane to me that somebody would be lining up to buy one, without even driving one first...or even having the actual thing exist in anything resembling true production form.

 

5 hours ago, titansNvolsR#1 said:

Can’t imagine getting that riled up over people liking a superior product. 

It's not even a product at this point.  It's a concept demonstrator and free piggy bank for Elon.  There's nothing "superior" about any of that.

 

4 hours ago, Shanedorf said:

Not sure, but those batteries are really a hot item on the open market as car dudes convert combustion-cars to electric
I've seen the electric conversions done on some muscle cars, Ferrari's and vintage classics -  several companies are offering the service- but they all say getting the batteries from scrapped collisions is the rate-limiting step.

This deeply offends me.  Permanently ruining perfectly good classic cars by removing the heart and soul of them.  Rich people are the absolute worst.

 

4 hours ago, Shanedorf said:

The self-driving application that makes the most sense to me is this:

You drive to the bar, the car drives you home.

It doesn't need to do anything more than re-trace your route and deliver you safely into your driveway.
The first one who patents and makes this possible wins big. Its a simple add-on module to your current car and takes drunks off the road. 

It's called a taxi, or in some regional parlance, an Uber.

[theJ]

7 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

Okay, this may sound crazy and i know it's a bold, mind-blowing concept...but hear me out here...

 

Trains can also go...outside of cities.  

 

Sure.  Would also mean that commutes for people are tripled or more.  

Drive to train station because it's more than a 1/4 mile away
Wait for train
Get on train, go into city
Rent car/take bus(?) to drive to work

Seems impractical, and much longer than just driving into work.

Basically people aren't going to do that.

[MrDrew]

3 hours ago, Tugboat said:

There's nothing interesting about electric cars.  Take away the sound and the feel and mechanical involvement of a nice sounding combustion engine running through a manual transmission at my fingertips and feet...and i'd rather just ride a bus.  I'm a huge car enthusiast, but commuting and driving in heavy traffic just to get somewhere is a chore i could easily do without, altogether.

I went from a GLI with a 6 speed manual to a GTI with a DSG. I can explain it the same way that I would electric cars.

The feeling is different, and it takes some getting used to, but the experience is better. 

Like normal cars, it’s not just about being fast, it has to be fun to drive. We’re not there with electric cars yet. They’re still trying to make it a normal experience, and since the normal experience is a base model Accord/Camry, just being fast is enough of a difference for the average driver. Eventually we’re going to see the changes we’ve seen with regular cars. In late 50’s and early 60’s it was all about the big cars with the big engines, then came the Mustang and Camaro. We went from the V8 pony cars to the small cars that didn’t go too fast, but are fun to drive fast. I think we’re going to see that in the electric market too. Right now we have the big engine, big car, Teslas, or the tiny commuter car. Eventually we’ll start seeing stuff that will be the equivalent of the GTI/Si/GT-S/WRX, and that’s when the fun will begin. 

[Tugboat]

On 08/06/2020 at 3:00 PM, theJ said:

Sure.  Would also mean that commutes for people are tripled or more.  

Drive to train station because it's more than a 1/4 mile away
Wait for train
Get on train, go into city
Rent car/take bus(?) to drive to work

Seems impractical, and much longer than just driving into work.

Basically people aren't going to do that.

This is why you have to actually collectively decide to invest in the expansion and improvement of public transit.  Instead of dumping billions of dollars of subsidy into the private pockets of Elon Musks pet projects under the guise of "self-driving cars", when it's all just a cash grab reaching at the next big cash grab.

Proper public transit isn't so patchwork and limited as you're describing.  It's functional and extensive...like, a lot of the rest of the civilized world.  Where people would rather have those options available, as opposed to spending tens of thousands of dollars to spend hours every day in barely moving traffic.  You have to think beyond what is...to what could be...

 

On 08/06/2020 at 6:21 PM, MrDrew said:

I went from a GLI with a 6 speed manual to a GTI with a DSG. I can explain it the same way that I would electric cars.

The feeling is different, and it takes some getting used to, but the experience is better. 

Like normal cars, it’s not just about being fast, it has to be fun to drive. We’re not there with electric cars yet. They’re still trying to make it a normal experience, and since the normal experience is a base model Accord/Camry, just being fast is enough of a difference for the average driver. Eventually we’re going to see the changes we’ve seen with regular cars. In late 50’s and early 60’s it was all about the big cars with the big engines, then came the Mustang and Camaro. We went from the V8 pony cars to the small cars that didn’t go too fast, but are fun to drive fast. I think we’re going to see that in the electric market too. Right now we have the big engine, big car, Teslas, or the tiny commuter car. Eventually we’ll start seeing stuff that will be the equivalent of the GTI/Si/GT-S/WRX, and that’s when the fun will begin. 

You can explain going from a GLI with a 6 speed to a GTI with a DSG, the same way you can explain electric cars.  It's called backsliding and a lack of passion and desire to be engaged in the driving experience.  If your version of "better" experience, is more isolated and disengaged from the drive...by however small a degree.  That's the direction "progress" has taken, and it sucks ***, while simultaneously blowing a completely unsustainable and pointless system.  It's negative progress.

 

Electric cars aren't just going to become "exciting".  They're missing the fundamental elements of what makes them cool.  There were small, light, and wicked cool little cars all over Europe and the rest of the world while America was obsessed with big boats.  They existed, they just weren't popular because people in the most car-centric place in the world...prefered to just roll around in big barges trying to ever more isolate them from the world and become ever easier to drive without thinking.

 

But smaller cars only really became a thing in America, when the oil crisis hit, and the industry had to scramble to compete with foreign manufacturers with already tailored efficient models to stay in business.  Which they did very poorly, and had a near industry-wide crisis for a while.

 

Ever since though...America has largely been concerned with driving car sizes right back up again.  Trying to make cars as big as they can, while still maintaining "efficiency" numbers that look good on the ads.

 

There ain't a hint of any of the "good parts" of American Car Culture in there anymore.  The passion and excitement, replaced by an endless march to make a car as big as possible with as small an engine as possible to still move it around.  Very little of the real "pony car" spirit, of trying to put bigger engines into a smaller car.

 

Electric cars are going to be the same.  There are plenty of "high performance" things out there right now, and not a single one of them is actually interesting.  The actual push, is going to make "decent enough" electric cars more available to the masses so they can all drive around in their own electric Toyota Camry level car for that same price level with range that actually works to replace anything outside of a metropolitan area where monorails and better urban density are a vastly superior and more efficient option, compared to wasting thousands of acres on roads and parking lots and charging stations in supposedly "developed" urban areas.

 

Unless you fundamentally change the infrastructure...people are just going to want a bigger Nissan Leaf that can last their whole 3 hour commute every day in sluggish traffic with the AC and stereo blasting and charge their phone without dying.  Like an electric Camry.  Then they're going to want something even bigger, like an SUV that can do the same for an affordable price.  Not some "fun affordable electric sports car" (if such a thing is even theoretically possible - which it's not because the concepts are fundamentally antithetical).

[theJ]

2 hours ago, Tugboat said:

This is why you have to actually collectively decide to invest in the expansion and improvement of public transit.  Instead of dumping billions of dollars of subsidy into the private pockets of Elon Musks pet projects under the guise of "self-driving cars", when it's all just a cash grab reaching at the next big cash grab.

Proper public transit isn't so patchwork and limited as you're describing.  It's functional and extensive...like, a lot of the rest of the civilized world.  Where people would rather have those options available, as opposed to spending tens of thousands of dollars to spend hours every day in barely moving traffic.  You have to think beyond what is...to what could be...

 

Yeah but everywhere it's functional and extensive, you have denser population clusters.  Is there an example, anywhere, where public transit works in rural areas?

And i'm not talking like an isolated thing where a few people use it.  But examples of an extensive system like you describe that almost everyone in that rural area use it?  Bonus if it's not a downtrodden area where no one can afford a car.

[MrDrew]

5 hours ago, Tugboat said:

You can explain going from a GLI with a 6 speed to a GTI with a DSG, the same way you can explain electric cars.  It's called backsliding and a lack of passion and desire to be engaged in the driving experience.  If your version of "better" experience, is more isolated and disengaged from the drive...by however small a degree.  That's the direction "progress" has taken, and it sucks ***, while simultaneously blowing a completely unsustainable and pointless system.  It's negative progress.

It makes me sad that you've never drove a true dual-clutch with paddle shifters. I know you haven't because that's the same thought most people have before they do.

I still have to shift. It just happens way faster, since don't have to take the extra time to push in the clutch. That means I can come into a corner/curve hot, drop 2 gears, and have the RPMs way up when I'm coming out because I don't have to take my foot off of the gas. There's nothing less engaging about that, but there is a difference where your focus goes. I'd much rather be able to drive harder, put my focus on the road, have both feet in use, then have to push in a clutch. Then I have the advantage of being able to throw it in auto when there's traffic. If that doesn't sound engaging enough, look at every form of racing that isn't NASCAR. All of them use a dual-clutch, or a sequential. Either way, they're not using a clutch. I'm pretty sure F1/GT3/WRC drivers are all pretty engaged.

[Tugboat]

2 hours ago, MrDrew said:

It makes me sad that you've never drove a true dual-clutch with paddle shifters. I know you haven't because that's the same thought most people have before they do.

I still have to shift. It just happens way faster, since don't have to take the extra time to push in the clutch. That means I can come into a corner/curve hot, drop 2 gears, and have the RPMs way up when I'm coming out because I don't have to take my foot off of the gas. There's nothing less engaging about that, but there is a difference where your focus goes. I'd much rather be able to drive harder, put my focus on the road, have both feet in use, then have to push in a clutch. Then I have the advantage of being able to throw it in auto when there's traffic. If that doesn't sound engaging enough, look at every form of racing that isn't NASCAR. All of them use a dual-clutch, or a sequential. Either way, they're not using a clutch. I'm pretty sure F1/GT3/WRC drivers are all pretty engaged.

lol.  I don't like the thing, so i've never driven one.  They're not some rare special thing anymore.  They're everywhere now, especially the VW ones in regular, everyday cars.  I just don't like them, i just don't like the ones i've driven, or even the principle of them in general, like a real manual.

For pretty much the reasons that you described there.  It's less involved and less engaging, to just pull a paddle and mash the throttle.  More satisfying and engaging to work on nailing those rev-matched downshifts yourself.  Where it's more involved and engaging, because you are doing more manually.

 

Sure, it's prevalent in racing cars.  Even NASCAR are moving to a sequential gearbox in 2022, to more accurately reflect how common that kind of thing is on actual "stock" street cars these days.  But personally, i don't find what's "engaging" to full fledged top series race cars on a track, is particularly relevant to having fun driving around day to day or even the occasional amateur track day or autocross.   To me, so much of the real "fun" in those sort of things, is just in learning and honing your craft, and learning to manually operate everything more skillfully.  It's something you can sorta take personal satisfaction and pride in - like, "i made this".

There's no doubt it's "slower", but i'm not in some Formula 1 car top flight racing series.  So i don't really particularly care about shaving off tenths of a seconds, at the expense of engagement, by automating something i enjoy.

[Tugboat]

7 hours ago, theJ said:

Yeah but everywhere it's functional and extensive, you have denser population clusters.  Is there an example, anywhere, where public transit works in rural areas?

And i'm not talking like an isolated thing where a few people use it.  But examples of an extensive system like you describe that almost everyone in that rural area use it?  Bonus if it's not a downtrodden area where no one can afford a car.

You've gotta dream bigger man.  What could be...not just what is.

Public transit is massively underfunded across all of North America.  That's the point.  It would be a massive infrastructure project...but that's not a bad thing.

 

Like...by the same token, i could ask you...where is the example of such an extensive system of fully self-driving electric cars driving around successfully?  Bonus if it's in the real world and not a posh or isolated testing simulation where everyone can afford a self-driving electric car.

That doesn't really exist either...but you seem to have plenty of confidence that it is fully realizable in the future.  You have to apply that to bigger dreams, outside the box imo.  Rather than mild ambitions of marginal tweaks to a mostly broken current system of commuting and traffic congestion and parking nightmare with thousands upon thousands of acres of wasted pavement space with financial accessibility burdens out the wazoo.

[theJ]

28 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

You've gotta dream bigger man.  What could be...not just what is.

Public transit is massively underfunded across all of North America.  That's the point.  It would be a massive infrastructure project...but that's not a bad thing.

 

Like...by the same token, i could ask you...where is the example of such an extensive system of fully self-driving electric cars driving around successfully?  Bonus if it's in the real world and not a posh or isolated testing simulation where everyone can afford a self-driving electric car.

That doesn't really exist either...but you seem to have plenty of confidence that it is fully realizable in the future.  You have to apply that to bigger dreams, outside the box imo.  Rather than mild ambitions of marginal tweaks to a mostly broken current system of commuting and traffic congestion and parking nightmare with thousands upon thousands of acres of wasted pavement space with financial accessibility burdens out the wazoo.

The difference is that a self driving car network doesn't exist because the technology doesn't exist.  A massive public transit system doesn't exist because it doesn't make any sort of financial sense.  

Look, i'm not trying to be difficult.  I hate driving.  So much.  I would gladly board a bus or train or w/e and go to work that way.  But i live on 2 acres 13 miles outside of what anyone would consider an urban area.  Within a mile radius of me there's probably like 100-200 people?  You're asking me to dream of a system that works for that, and i just can't.  It's all so expensive, and frankly probably not much better for the environment anyway.  I don't know how many people live in settings like that, but it's not an inconsequential number.

Even self driving cars - i'm mildly skeptical that a fleet of cars you could call to your door would work in a rural setting.  The cost may be prohibitive, or wait times for a car may just be outrageous.  But at least that one i can envision (in my vision of this, the technology is there...if it can't be made to work, then obviously it's out the window).