Sorry; my mistake.
To: outpostinmass2  To: outpostinmass2  |
Posted on 03/07/2021 8:08:35 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Car dealer Brad Sowers is spending money to prepare for the coming wave of new electric models from General Motors Co. He is installing charging stations, upgrading service bays and retraining staff at his St. Louis-area dealership to handle the technology-packed vehicles.
But when he considers how many plug-in Chevy Bolts he sold last year—nine, out of the nearly 4,000 Chevrolets sold at his Missouri dealerships—it gives him pause.
“The consumer in the middle of America just isn’t there yet,” when it comes to switching to electric vehicles, he said, citing the long distances many of his customers drive daily and a lack of charging infrastructure outside major cities.
As auto executives and investors buzz about the coming age of the electric car, many dealers say they are struggling to square that enthusiasm with the reality today on new-car sales lots, where last year battery-powered vehicles made up fewer than 2% of U.S. auto sales.
Most consumers who come to showrooms aren’t shopping for electric cars, and with gasoline prices relatively low, even hybrid models can be a tough sell, dealers and industry analysts say.
Auto makers are moving aggressively to expand their electric-vehicle offerings with dozens of new models set to arrive in coming years. Some like GM are setting firm targets for when they plan to phase out gas-powered cars entirely.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Sorry; my mistake.
To: outpostinmass2 To: outpostinmass2 |
Old style pumps with old style prices.
I wonder when and where this photo was taken.
East of Indy today the 87 octane is $2.509
A neat addition to the instrumentation on BOTH kinds of cars would be to tie the GPS info and GasBuddy knowledge and fuel gauge data by software to alert the driver more and more excitedly as the reserve gets lower.
It could plot a course to the nearest station for you.
“A neat addition to the instrumentation on BOTH kinds of cars would be to tie the GPS info and GasBuddy knowledge and fuel gauge data by software to alert the driver more and more excitedly as the reserve gets lower.”
Tesla calculates distance to charging stations and warns if none are in range. It monitors your power usage and will suggest slower speeds that extend the range if needed to reach a charger.
Old style station.
I wonder when and where that photo was taken.
Well, that’s good! We’re most likely to be rear-ended.
“Well, that’s good! We’re most likely to be rear-ended.”
That is what the seat backs and head restraints are for!
I guess that’s what saved us!
That actually *is* good. A front airbag going off in a rear ending can actually amplify/make worse things like whiplash and cause sternum/rib/chest cavity injuries that could have been avoided. Your best bet in a rear-ending is to make sure you have your belts on properly and have your headrests adjusted properly.
The side curtain airbags are only useful if there’s a lateral vector to the rear end impact that could cause the side of your head to drive into the side window glass or the reinforced steel pillars where the seatbelts mount, etc.; no lateral vector and there’s no point to them going off.
Why do you believe you are more likely to be rear ended? That is counter to most US crash statistics.
We once almost got hit on the side, but the only times we’ve been hit, it was a rear end-er.
I don’t really like the idea of airbags - I’ve heard that they have sometimes damaged people. But I’m glad when they recall defective ones; those could possibly go off for no real reason (wasn’t it just heat involved in some scenarios?)
” I’ve heard that they have sometimes damaged people”
Yep! They give you bruises instead of death!
“......You see, you can buy a Tesla, but you’ll struggle to break free of the company’s orbit even after you’ve handed over your money. The company owns the retail and repair channels, and it controls sales of many parts as if they were state secrets. With its ability to monitor and update vehicles over the air, Tesla can extend and shorten a car’s battery range, cut off its access to the Supercharger network, and learn of its behavior in fatal wrecks to deflect blame from the company, all without ever touching or seeing the car.........”
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33660589/rich-benoit-tesla-rich-rebuilds/
I'm sure glad that NONE of the other manufacturers can do this!
Airbags can be dangerous, yes. But they’re often better than hitting the dashboard or steering wheel, especially for the elderly. Mostly airbags are only dangerous to smaller people, pregnant women (on the passenger side in both cases, which is why cars allow them to be turned off), improperly seated and secured small children and people that are not wearing their seatbelts properly. They’ve cut *way* down on traffic deaths and injuries in smaller/lighter vehicles.
Aside from the above, most airbag injuries are due to badly designed or badly implemented airbag system designs; something that surprisingly few cars have these days (just don’t buy a GM). Or just supplier stupidity, as in the case of Takata.
Ummmm... hate to tell you but a *lot* of cars can do that. Anything with OnStar, for example.
Well, I guess I’ll be ok.
Thanks for the information.
I once had an accident when I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt; slammed into the dashboard and head hit and cracked the windshield. I couldn’t walk right for the next couple of days, and it probably aggravated a spinal problem that was congenital.
That cured me - I’ve never been in a car without using the seatbelt, since.
So, I’m open to safety features. I just don’t see auto windows and no mechanical keys as ‘safety’. They just seem to be complicated, expensive stuff that many of us don’t need - just like we don’t want to have to constantly recharge an electric car.
Auto windows are caused by market forces. Power windows considerably lighter than manual windows (important in a world where fuel economy is mandated by the government - every pound matters) and they’re actually mechanically less complicated in many ways. It costs very little more to change the relays that control it to allow it to do auto/one touch up/down and that’s a feature that people want, so not having it is a disadvantage for your product.
No mechanical keys is another matter, but market forces contributed to this as well. It’s safer in terms of theft in some ways; you can’t steal a car with a screwdriver any more; you have to bring radio relay equipment or a tow truck to steal a car with keyless-go. Those who are racing fans often like having a racing style push button start. There is also the fact that the lack of a key sticking out of the dash/steering column means there’s one less thing to be impaled on in an accident.
Yes. When we bought our Fit, we actually wanted one of the less expensive Jeeps. But they had completely changed the design from the ‘boxy’ sort of Jeep to something more streamlined, which was ugly. The dealer told us that it was due to fuel usage regulation. (People also told us that they were no longer really the ‘Jeep’ that we had known for decades.)
Lost interest in Jeep, then.
We need space to haul small animals in carriers, and other stuff. We liked the Fit because it had the most interior space of compact, economical hatch-back cars. We can put down the back seats and have plenty of space for hauling what we need to.
It’s been a nice, reliable little car, for our very modest needs.
The Wrangler is the only traditional Jeep left in the lineup.
And it’s got all the traditional Jeep reliability problems... but so does the rest of the line. The Italians didn’t do Jeep any favors; most of the rest of the line is rebadged Italian Fiats.
Our 1999 GC croaked at 290k+
Bought a 2011 Compass - it’s still going.
Bought another GC last fall.
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