The car thread

Makes me wonder...

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With the Tesla & many other electrics, the "online nature" nulls the very independence the personal-car has always been. The concept of outright ownership of Teslas has been blurred, people "Losing supercharger rights" is a very real thing. If you work on your Tesla yourself, you can quickly & without notice lose your "connectivity", upgrades, supercharger abilities, up to & including a complete shutdown of functionality.
Welcome to the future people...even if you own your Tesla, you are vulnerable to corporate tyranny...see the guy blowing up his 2013 model S.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
 
... Meanwhile in Norway.

Still very happy with my Project 45 edition Ioniq 5. Not the sportiest drive, but very well tuned to actual real-life roads. A bit hard to make it go sideways properly since it's 4wd and the torque is not only instantaneous but there's also much more of it than my previous cars. Easy to go fast regardless of the conditions, hard to go sideways.

I got to sit in the new Porsche Taycan 4wd (think it was "Cross Turismo") not long ago, and while the drive "feel" is better in the Porsche and you can adapt the height with driving modes and such, things like range and power vs weight is somewhat compareable. The Ioniq 5 has much better space and storage capacity though, and more practical.

So I guess I'll stop trying to go sideways and just be happy with the grip.
 
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With the Tesla & many other electrics, the "online nature" nulls the very independence the personal-car has always been. The concept of outright ownership of Teslas has been blurred, people "Losing supercharger rights" is a very real thing. If you work on your Tesla yourself, you can quickly & without notice lose your "connectivity", upgrades, supercharger abilities, up to & including a complete shutdown of functionality.
Welcome to the future people...even if you own your Tesla, you are vulnerable to corporate tyranny...see the guy blowing up his 2013 model S.
Talk about independence and dependency...folks in Texas, Louisiana and Florida are used to "evacuating". In one case my sister, husband and their kids took 8 hours to get out of Houston. Nobody in Washington, Tallahassee or Austin seems to have developed a "Plan B" for re-charging tens of thousands of EV's stuck on the Interstate in hurricane season.

There is nothing you can fix on a new Volvo -- you can't even top up the tires!
 
I managed to reserve a limited edition Ioniq 6 in "Biophilic Blue Pearl" just like in this picture, so it looks pitch black from some angles and blue or purple from others. All of the 600 cars to Norway sold in well under 3 minutes, maybe under 2.
Did not want the matte "Gravity Gold" finish like the car I have now, it looks great but IMO it is easier to take care of a glossy finish.
Drag coefficient of 0.21
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Still haven't decided if I want it, but it does look very nice...
My wife is happy with our Ioniq 5 but it is likely to sell for same price or perhaps slightly higher than I paid for it, the 6 is probably a bit lower in terms of ground clearance.
 
There is nothing you can fix on a new Volvo -- you can't even top up the tires!

That's way over the line in my book. In general I can't stomach new cars with all their infotainment crapola and other uber expensive fluff.

I miss cars that I can fix myself. I couldn't really do much any more but I'm still looking for some kind of practical truck like an older Toyota Tacoma. I'm waiting for prices to come down. I know they won't come down much on this vehicle but that's my plan.

There's a whole lot of Teslas in my neighborhood. There's two Tesla households. Lots of solar panels too. My neighbor, who paid cash for his house a couple years ago, has two Chevy Volts and he loves them.
 
The Solara's brake lines busted. I donated the car to Kars4Kids.

It wasn't about cost. It was about dropping the gas tank.

That's the 3rd vehicle I donated due to busted brake lines. I gave my wife's 1995 Dodge Neon Sport 2.0L SOHC with a 2001 PT Cruiser 2.4L DOHC engine swap away to Neon buddy of mine.

I donated my 2001 F150 SuperCrew to Kars4Kids in 2019. And I actually dropped the tank for a fuel pump replacement a few years earlier. I was going to pull the engine a SECOND time to replace all the freeze plugs since 1 of them busted between the transmission and engine block. I should have replaced the the 1st time I had the enginin out in 2017 to remove a broken spark plug in the passenger side cylinder head. Anyways, the brake pedal went to the floor when I went to put it in the garage.

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Talk about independence and dependency...folks in Texas, Louisiana and Florida are used to "evacuating". In one case my sister, husband and their kids took 8 hours to get out of Houston. Nobody in Washington, Tallahassee or Austin seems to have developed a "Plan B" for re-charging tens of thousands of EV's stuck on the Interstate in hurricane season.
Hurricane Ian in Florida has brought a new issue to light. Apparently, a week or two after a Tesla or other electric car gets flooded with storm water having a high salt content, the car will spontaneously burst into flames. There were five or six reports of flaming electrics in south west Florida the last time I heard about it. Two houses burned from EV created garage fires.

Electric cars are being touted as "green" or low emission, but most of the electricity used to charge the car is made by burning fossil fuel. In this area much of the electricity is generated from burning coal. So instead of having one energy conversion, gasoline or diesel burned to generate mechanical power, we now have two energy conversions, burned fuel to electricity, and electricity to mechanical power and a somewhat lossy storage system, the battery and charger. Does the overall efficiency really add up to justify electric cars.

https://abc7.com/hurricane-ian-ev-car-fires-electric-cars-damaged-florida-flood-damage/12356326/
 
It's not quite what it seems.

It started out as a 1953 Bentley R Type saloon which was exported to the USA. It was purchased as a rolling chassis from a specialist breakers in South Carolina and brought back to the UK. The special hand made aluminium body work was added in 2016 after the chassis was shortened and the engine moved back a bit. The radiator shell is original R Type but was shortened and re-plated.

The engine is the R Type 4.5L inlet over exhaust straight 6.
 
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It's not quite what it seems.

It started out as a 1953 Bentley R Type saloon which was exported to the USA. It was purchased as a rolling chassis from a specialist breakers in South Carolina and brought back to the UK. The special hand made aluminium body work was added in 2016 after the chassis was shortened and the engine moved back a bit. The radiator shell is original R Type but was shortened and re-plated.

The engine is the R Type 4.5L inlet over exhaust straight 6.

The Bentley GT3R is probably the best sounding V8 racecar I ever heard.

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