EV Horror story

[bobthehobbyguy]

Saw this on YouTube.

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

Stuff like this is not at all unusual.

EVs are failing fast and furious globally, but we're not supposed to notice.

Plus there are a host of other problems that only this guy and a few others who live in reality ever mention.

As I've said for decades, EVs have a place in a rational vehicle mix...but they're not the be-all end-all transportation solution the proponents would have us believe, and frankly, the tech is no more ready for full-scale deployment than most commercial AI products intended for mission-critical applications.

But humans tend to jump the gun whenever new-oh-so-mo-better comes along.

[bobss396]

People believe what the idiot box in their living room tells them to do.

Save the world, buy an EV. Although some come with rebates and so on, they are no bargain.

The news and manufacturers gloss over what it really takes to make an EV battery.

Virtually tons of raw ore is mined to make that 500-700 lb battery. Then it has to be processed and refined.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Speaking of horror stories...

EDIT: A client wanted me to do a Tesla powertrain swap into a perfectly good Jag XK120.

Nope. If it was a gutted shell, I'd consider it. Better yet, one of the old fiberglass kit cars that can be had for around $10-15,000 (a real one, even a rat, is worth at least $30k, and this was a decent driver). But ya know, my thought was that the kind of guy who has zero respect for what a 120 is is probably the kind of guy who'd sue me after he found out the Tesla-swapped car was worth nothing.

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:28 AM by Ace-Garageguy

[stavanzer]

MGuy! I love Him!

He is spot on about the EV's. 15 years from now, there won't by any of them on the roads.

Which, in a way is very sad. They Do have a place in the transport mix, and used in the proper ways, can be a good fit.

But, the are still too fragile, too costly, and and undeveloped to work for the everyday user.

(yes, I know we have a couple EV drivers on the board. All is going well for you... So Far. One spilled Bottle of water, one short circuit, and the "Going Well" bit vanishes in an instant. You are gambling with every mile you drive)  

A robust, simple, EV has an excellent, Real World Use Case as a Small City Commuter Car, or Delivery Van. But We are not there yet.

[Volzfan59]

I won’t have an EV, screw that. We’ll stick with our hemi powered, 6 speed manual Challenger and Toyota Tacoma.

Edited Wednesday at 04:45 AM by Volzfan59

[peteski]

11 hours ago, stavanzer said:

(yes, I know we have a couple EV drivers on the board. All is going well for you... So Far. One spilled Bottle of water, one short circuit, and the "Going Well" bit vanishes in an instant. You are gambling with every mile you drive)

Even every new internal-combustion-powered vehicle is so full of electronics that similar thing can happen in one of the "dino fuel" cars.

11 hours ago, stavanzer said:

A robust, simple, EV has an excellent, Real World Use Case as a Small City Commuter Car, or Delivery Van. But We are not there yet.

Exactly, but without trying and trying again, we will never get "there". If people didn't try advancing, we would still be riding horses.  You do have a point about need for simpler vehicles. We need to get rid of the bloat of electronics in our contemporary vehicles, but somehow I don't see that happening either.

[Ace-Garageguy]

45 minutes ago, peteski said:

...We need to get rid of the bloat of electronics in our contemporary vehicles, but somehow I don't see that happening either.

"Butt I gots ta have muh technology !!!!!!!!"

[iamsuperdan]

EV or ICE, all new cars are dangerous, can catch fire, and have more tech than anyone needs or knows what to do with...tech that will fail at some point. I don't care what brand you're loyal to, it ALL glitches or fails.

 

I'm 100% for EV swapping classics if it means keeping them on the road instead of scrapping them. The 911 posted above was a shell with no drivetrain. Of course, that owner figured an EV swap was easy and obviously made a few errors. Done right, by a reputable company, and I'd be all in because it's better than crushing them.

Vintage Re-Power

Electric Classic Cars | The World's Largest Converter of Classic Cars

 

 

[stavanzer]

1 hour ago, peteski said:

Exactly, but without trying and trying again, we will never get "there"

I'll  call You on that.

We know exactly what to do, and how to do it. We have over 100 years of automotive engineering experience to draw from on how to design a rugged, useful, inexpensive EV.

But, we (collectively) will not do it. Why? Over the last 50 Years, we have taught the car buying public to expect the Latest, Greatest , most technologically advanced Cars and Trucks ever. A simple, robust commuter car, has been teased by Many Companies both Mainstream and Startup. None have been successful. There is no money to be made on these cars.

[stavanzer]

3 minutes ago, iamsuperdan said:

EV or ICE, all new cars are dangerous, can catch fire, and have more tech than anyone needs or knows what to do with...tech that will fail at some point. I don't care what brand you're loyal to, it ALL glitches or fails.

 

I'm 100% for EV swapping classics if it means keeping them on the road instead of scrapping them. The 911 posted above was a shell with no drivetrain. Of course, that owner figured an EV swap was easy and obviously made a few errors. Done right, by a reputable company, and I'd be all in because it's better than crushing them.

Vintage Re-Power

Electric Classic Cars | The World's Largest Converter of Classic Cars

 

 

Nope!

Double Nope!

Want an EV. Buy One. Live with it!

But, keep your hands off original Gas Powered Cars.

What's that tired old Automotive Collector saying? "It's only Original Once".

Those "reputable" Companies? Grifters, catering to a Tiny percentage of an already Niche Market.I've seen some of their work. It's lousy. (as is most 'work' done these days,by newer techs- See Ace and his experiences) So, Don't give them more credit than they deserve. There will not more more than two or three of those "Converted Cars' on the road  in 10 years, due to the lousy quality of both the work, and the cheaply made components.

I want EVs to work.

Nothing we have now works.

[Volzfan59]

For me, I’d love to have a good early 70’s Ford F-100 with a 300 inline six cylinder, three on the tree and zero electronics other than a nice radio. 

[mcs1056]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

"Butt I gots ta have muh technology !!!!!!!!"

AGREED!

How could I live without my sequential turn signals, my interior lights that slowly dim instead of just shutting off, my 30 presets on the radio I don't use (well...who uses the radio?), my infinitely adjustable electric seats (which, by the way, means I'm NEVER happy, because they're infinite and could always be better. I'm happier with the four-position lever/cable combo on my F100), or the 17-inch flat screen I can't use?

[iamsuperdan]

1 hour ago, stavanzer said:

Nope!

Double Nope!

Want an EV. Buy One. Live with it!

But, keep your hands off original Gas Powered Cars.

What's that tired old Automotive Collector saying? "It's only Original Once".

Those "reputable" Companies? Grifters, catering to a Tiny percentage of an already Niche Market.I've seen some of their work. It's lousy. (as is most 'work' done these days,by newer techs- See Ace and his experiences) So, Don't give them more credit than they deserve. There will not more more than two or three of those "Converted Cars' on the road  in 10 years, due to the lousy quality of both the work, and the cheaply made components.

I want EVs to work.

Nothing we have now works.

Oh please.

I'm all for originality, but if someone sees an engineless, interiorless, rotting old car in a field and thinks that it would be awesome to restore it with an ev drivetrain and get it back on the road, I will always be in support of that. So much better than letting the classic keep rotting away to the point it's unrestorable. But I guess it's better to crush 'em than save 'em, right?

 

And just like with ICE vehicles, there are shops that do amazing work, and there are shops full of hacks. Just like there are excellent kits people can purchase and do at home, and there are crappy kits. Regardless of what people are working on, they have to research and make sure they aren't paying for cheaply made components or lousy quality.

 

EV or ICE, it's all the same.

 

 

[peteski]

2 hours ago, stavanzer said:

I'll  call You on that.

We know exactly what to do, and how to do it. We have over 100 years of automotive engineering experience to draw from on how to design a rugged, useful, inexpensive EV.

But, we (collectively) will not do it. Why? Over the last 50 Years, we have taught the car buying public to expect the Latest, Greatest , most technologically advanced Cars and Trucks ever. A simple, robust commuter car, has been teased by Many Companies both Mainstream and Startup. None have been successful. There is no money to be made on these cars.

No need to call me on that.  In my reply to your post I agreed that we need to go back to basic vehicles, not giant smart phones on wheels (full of distracting electronic trinkets and hard-to-deal-with-in a moving cars touch screens with so many features and settings they will make your head spin.

 

Like you mentioned, the sheeple of this world want to have all the bells and whistles that can be possibly crammed into a vehicle, while also paying top dollar for those feature-bloated vehicles.

[bobss396]

18 hours ago, Volzfan59 said:

For me, I’d love to have a good early 70’s Ford F-100 with a 300 inline six cylinder, three on the tree and zero electronics other than a nice radio. 

My ex had a '65 Falcon with the 170 and 3 on the tree. This was around 1977. We split up and she sold it cheap to spite me. Radio delete, black outside, red inside. It got 28 mpg constantly.

[Mark]

There are places for EVs to get into now, and become mainstream later.  The Amazon delivery trucks, for example.  At the end of the shift, there's a bunch of them in one place, where the charging facility is ready to get them charged up for the next day's work.

It would have made more sense to sell EVs to the public as a second car or a commuter.  Short range, charge it at home overnight.  Heck, I'd have bought a Miata type two-seat roadster as a second car for commuting and short weekend drives.  But then again, the dealers would kill something like that with markups and other nonsense like they do with anything else that has more appeal than the average car. 

Get people used to the idea of it as a second car, some will take the leap to the idea that they could get away with one as primary transportation.  The charging stations would pop up to service the "second cars", and gradually there would be enough of them to take care of additional cars coming in each year.  

Nope...someone had to put their thumb on the scale, forcing manufacturers to build and sell cars without enough places to charge them.  

[peteski]

1 hour ago, Mark said:

There are places for EVs to get into now, and become mainstream later.  The Amazon delivery trucks, for example.  At the end of the shift, there's a bunch of them in one place, where the charging facility is ready to get them charged up for the next day's work.

Or USPS local mail delivery vehicles.  This is already happening. I've seen both - amazon and USPS electric delivery vehicles.  They look really strange - you instantly recognize them, but it is a good thing to see them slowly being introduced for that type of a role.

 

 

Edited 15 hours ago by peteski

[Ace-Garageguy]

3 hours ago, peteski said:

 

 

Yup, I agree.

But what no-talent idiot came up with the design of that aardvark-looking postal disaster?

I mean, really, when did UUGLY become a virtue?

Edited 11 hours ago by Ace-Garageguy

[Mark]

The weird styling is there to make these things stick out.  Same goes for the Amazon trucks, Cybertruck, Rivian, Hummer, and Priuses until recently.  You could say "virtue signaling", or you could say that the mere sight of one is free advertising.  It worked for the Gremlin and Pacer, and the Jeep before that, so why not?

[stavanzer]

The Odd Styling is the result of a lot of Driver Input, and Human Factors engineering.

Visibility was a apparently a HUGE deal to the drivers, and the duck nose is a crash safety item.

I'll admit is does look strange,  but there are good reasons behind the choices.