The FORD Lounge

There's certainly no waiting at the rest stops around here. These photos are of the other side parking lot of the same "welcome center"

This is I-95 in lower Fairfield county, where we see over 300,000 cars a day.
There's one of these about every 10 miles, at least as far up as New Haven.

Nothing Special wrote

I'm not really a big fan of electric vehicles,
..... personal pickups aren't a great fit to start with!  Who can justify driving a heavy brick as a commuter car?  Or on family vacations?  It's just the wrong vehicle for most of the jobs it's used for.  But still we do it because gas is still pretty cheap and very energy-dense, so it's not that bad to pay our way past the bad decision to have a pickup.
I keep driving my 3/4 ton crew cab as a commuter car.

And even city commuting.  Sure it's cheap and easy to charge your car during off-peak times so you can drive it to work.

"Peak times" are when everyone gets up, turns on the coffee maker and takes a hot shower.   Then again in the evening when people get home, crank the AC and cook dinner. (at the same time)

With more and more renewables on the grid there's often such abundance that rates go to zero before the utilities need to curtail production.
With vehicles added to the grid there's extra grid storage available and 'smart chargers' can not only take advantage of this, but they can help with balancing the load.
(take a look at the stats for wind in West Texas last year!)
If they actually had grid connections none of that curtailed power would have had to be dumped into the earth.....  

Yin and Yang at my workplace. 460 equipped 40 year old truck and a Tesla that will be defunct in another 15 years due to ridiculous battery replacement costs. Only ones that buy EVs are ones that are tired of waiting for an oil change and others that can afford one.

Not saying we aren’t on the correct track as a society with EV adoption.

The downright ridiculous EVs are the new dodge chargers and challengers. I’m keen to see how many of them are sold.

Tesla's everywhere up here.
You see a few Rivian's and Ioniq's

Some like the almost complete lack of maintenance, but after being given a ride in a dual motor Model S Plaid, I can tell you 0-60 in 2.5 seconds and 10 seconds quarter miles without any noise or fuss at all really does have it's appeal.
I can only describe the acceleration as violent.

There's one guy in town with an original 2010 Roadster (the stretched Lotus Elise model) in British racing green with over 300k still on his original battery.
He owns a solar company and the vanity plates say SUNPWR.

I think the biggest argument comes in when we are having something forced on us. for whatever reason. if you want a Prius, buy a Prius. great car! I do not. I prefer old trucks but that's just me. anywhere from the lowest cost electric to a Maybach.  does not matter. when the market fails, the market adjusts. but when a govt fails the people as a whole suffer. nothing comes free of charge. some cost is born by someone!

Gary is griping about how electric pickups don't have the range he wants to drag a load of stuff to his kids house in SC or FL.
Or to drive the trails of Ouray. (?)

BTW I towed a Maybach the other night.
They really are luxury incarnate!
Not that I would want one,

The acceleration is a joy. I went for lunch with my co-worker with a Tesla and every time I go to lunch with him, I tell him to "hit it". When I am pushed back in the seat, I feel like I'm on a roller coaster.

I still don't know how I feel about something that is built to be disposable after 15 years.

My other "gas saving" vehicle today is a 1999 Honda Accord. It is still going very strong. Parts still very cheap to service. I just think once its all EVs, the common man or student who relies on an older affordable vehicle is going to suffer.

My Sister had a 99 Accord in light metallic green.
When she moved to SC last year she gave it to my great nephew.
I'm still mad that I didn't get ANYTHING for the month+ of work I did so she could sell.
I'd told her I loved that little car(and fixed it multiple times)

I'm not sure what you mean about the used car market???  
It's not like people don't buy new cars every day.🤷‍♂️
The old ones either get traded in, or sold on.

I was just thinking of a scenario where in the future if/when its all EVs, and a student is only able to spend <$5K, they will only get an EV that is maybe 10+ years old and with an almost dead battery.

Battery replacement is cost prohibitive.. Did you see the news where a guy was quoted $50K to replace the battery on his Ioniq.

https://tnc.news/2023/11/22/ev-battery-replacement-cost-50000/

First off, that's 50k Canadian.
Second, there is no history given for the previous owner.
Third, it wasn't charging and he continued to drive it. (If the charge controller isn't functioning, Lord knows how badly he abused the battery)
But the early chemistry on those batteries (2017 model, so 2016 built) was not the greatest.
Just like a phone, laptop or any other NMC battery, it's best not to load it when it's really low.

I'd like to have heard from the dealership, or something other than just him crying about it.
You'd have to be a fool to make a big purchase without a balance and load test.
Or! Maybe he bought it dirt cheap because he already knew it was trashed.

This is NOT investigative journalism. This is sensationalism, and click bait.

OK I'll ignore this example. Maybe journalistic sensationalism.

It is however my guess that these EVs will only have a service life of 15 years before they are recycled. Once the battery is dead, high replacement cost will total them out. If they engineered it such that the battery can be swapped out with less labor, how nice would that be. Why bury the battery deep inside, like these smartphones.

Don't ignore ANY example.
It's all a data point.
Just take it in context, like understanding the high VAT in Canada, not to mention the exchange rate.
Cory/Rembrandt has shocked me a few times with the cost of things up there.

It's not far from the whole "EV's catch fire, and you can't put them out" BS.
I spend the whole night dealing with accidents 30ish% of the time.(the rest are police calls and tow away' s)
Do you have any idea how many gasoline fires there are per X miles traveled v/s EV?

I can tell you that battery packs have way less actual energy stored than a fuel tank (remember, 65+ percent of an ICE power becomes waste heat) and I've never seen anyone immolated by being drenched in batteries.
They also don't run down the gutter catching other cars in the accident on fire.

Reduce, reuse, recycle...

A 75% car battery is about perfect for storage of a residential solar system, and probably costs far less than a Powerwall or whatever other flavour you choose.

If the average home uses 10kwh per day you can do the math on what an EOL EV battery @ 75% of rated capacity will hold.(depending on the vehicle)
And, of course, you can run directly off' the panels, if the sun is shining.

Another topic in the Ford lounge. Family.

Certain things were discussed yesterday including mostly the fact that Mrs. said I pay more attention to the vehicles than anything else. I told her "that's not a bad thing right.. you know what I am up to always".. Well that didn't go well. Jokes aside... she is very understanding being the daughter of a car guy (but a hardcore Chevy guy who has never owned a Ford ). Mrs. says I'm doing exactly the same thing her dad did, and my dad as well in his own way. I said "sounds like a dude thing?"... again didn't go well.

I do feel guilt a lot from time to time that when I'm not at my job, I am messing with something in the garage. I try to do most of the work on time or days-off from work when kids are in school. I like solving problems, its almost an addiction. When children are older I'm sure we can do things together. But I'm in the odd place where kids are too young to join and learn. The bronco project has been my largest so far, but collectively i'm less busy in the garage this year as I am working on only 1 vehicle so I guess that is a good thing.

What else do you guys do to ensure the family time doesn't suffer while working your own projects ?

All of us here could sit in circle and begin with «hi, my name is bullnose addict» than all others answering together «hi, bullnose addict».


Joke aside, it’s tough to put a mechanic project aside, but think about the fact that your tools will calmly wait for you, no matter the time you take to come back.
You’ll find your project the exact way you left it (although with some little dust covering it).

But kids and family are « time stamped ».  And time goes really fast.   Leave your kids for too much long, and you’ll discover a completely changed universe when coming back.  And this lost time that will never come back.

You’ll never regret time spent away from a project, there will always be a moment to come back to it, in the exact same state you left it.  This is not possible with the kids.

When I had such moment in my life (for job, or projects), I asked myself «hey, at your very last minute, what memories will you want to take away with you» and the answer was always the same «memories of my people».

Not my truck.

I really like your thoughts on projects waiting for you vs. family. I totally agree with you on that

In addition to my vehicles I also played hockey, and I bird hunt and train my own bird dogs.  But you've got to prioritize family.  I probably didn't do that enough when the kids were really young.  But as they got into elementary school I started into Cub Scouts with them, being a den leader and committee chair, and then assistant scoutmaster and eventually scoutmaster when they got into Boy Scouts.  That took a lot of time, but it was mostly time with them.

Of course that made it all the harder to spend time with my wife, and I probably didn't do as much of that as I should have for a while.

While the boys were still in Cub Scouts I had a "career ending" shoulder injury, so hockey stopped taking time.  And the dog I was supposed to be training then ended up being more of a house pet than a bird dog.

But vehicle-wise I made a bad choice.  As a family we always did 'wheeling vacations.  We started with the Jeep CJ5 I had bought when I was single and rebuilt before the kids were born.  The boys were outgrowing the back seat of the Jeep, so I sold it and bought the Bronco I have now.  Not that I'm at all sorry that I have the Bronco, but that was a mistake.  I couldn't prioritize it so we missed several years of 'wheeling vacations.

But still, my folks have a cabin and we did other trips, so we still did family vacations.

Now that my kids are grown and moved out Lesley and I have been able to spend more time together which has been great.  I've done a better job with my current dog.  But I still need to budget the time I put into my vehicles.

I don't have any real point to this.  I guess just to agree that you need to prioritize family, but it's not always easy.

it is an interesting topic. it is real for anyone with family. my wife loves that she knows where I am. I keep busy as much as when I was working. on days that I go to the shop I often come home excited and rambling on about what I get to do. on the days in my home shop, I'm busy doing all the automotive that I can unless grass needs cutting. my kids are all grown though. fourth grandchild due in a few months. I did not always get it right though hence wife number two. I closed my business which did not always have me coming home so happy. too many people are chasing the wrong dream! doing what society says that they should do. to put it simply, we do not need all that we think we do. live simply. within your means. and save all that you can. this way you are available to them. ironically, as I say this, I catch myself saying often that I have too much. I am a very rich man. I just don't have the money.

Thanks Bob and Matt for sharing your experiences. You have definitely already been through everything that I am probably 15 years behind.

mat in tn wrote

I am a very rich man. I just don't have the money.

I love that!

It's peak commuter traffic and I'm just getting off.
Here I am at the last rest stop on 95, before NJ.
There's a single car on the chargers...

People have this ingrained idea that you have to stop to fuel up.
The 50 or so Tesla's I've seen on the  road this morning woke up refreshed, just like their owners. 💡

I doubt those garages with those 50 Teslas had nary a tool in it and spotless. I’m sure some of us here live in a tool and parts jungle, one that a Tesla would not want to be near.