There are a few companies making engines like the 4-6-8 where it only shuts down some cylinders and not the whole engine. It isn’t all the engines they make, nor do they use them in all the cars, but it’s making a “comeback”. Here’s a slightly old article(2019). https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/cylinder-deactivation-how-it-can-save-fuel Just learned something new. The 4-6-8 wasn’t the first. We’ve had it for over 100 years. https://www.hagerty.com/media/archived/gm-pioneered-cylinder-deactivation/
We have had pretty good luck with our Model S, no quality issues and has been very reliable. I have heard (and seen) nightmare issues also though. QC is a big issue especially with their higher end vehicles. That said this will be our last Tesla, they can no longer complete with options in the $80+ market but we will definitely keep an EV for our daily commutes.
That is the appropriate use for an EV, IMHO. Most two-car households have a local runabout and a highway cruiser. EV is fine for the former, but you need an ICE vehicle for the latter.
I think the big issue is many EVs are designed with the battery pack as an integral part of the chassis which makes fixing a minor fender bender a job that requires replacing the battery pack. Which are unholy expensive and insurance companies will opt to have the car totalled making insurance expensive. And while similar things can happen to ICE vehicles like your wife's, that Audi probably got sold to a salvage yard and parted out. No can do with an EV battery pack , particularly since they have a tendency to burn and explode.
try fixing a gas car with minor finder bender these days, all the electronic sensors and cameras if they get misaligned\damaged, etc.... I think both ICE and EV would do better without all the digital stuff
Disagree. Reliance on fossil fuels is an archaic way of thinking. Regardless of environmental concerns, this fuel source is limited, and fossil fuels will still be needed for things like building energy, large transportation like airlines, buses, semi-trucks, etc. Something has to give or quite frankly, at some point, we are just going to run out. Cars are for all intents and purposes pretty small fuel consumers, there just happens to be billions of them. Cars are easily transitional to electric energy which offers far more opportunities to creating beyond fossil fuels. Why anybody would be opposed to them when the majority of people travel daily well within the range of EVs doesn't make sense to me.
The engine bay on a ICE car is subject to far more damage from collision that an under body battery pack considering most accidents impact the front. I would think EVs are subject to more damage from the bottom, like pot holes, going off the roadway, etc. They both have weak points. And agreed, they parted out the Audi, but not most of the engine. Everything else. Same with an EV, the battery packs wouldn't be parted out at least not the damaged ones, but everything else would be.
That is the appropriate use for an EV, IMHO. Most two-car households have a local runabout and a highway cruiser. EV is fine for the former, but you need an ICE vehicle for the latter. As for fuel: “Our supplies of natural resources are not limited in any economic sense. Nor does past experience give reason to expect natural resources to become more scarce. Rather, if history is any guide, natural resources will progressively become less costly, hence less scarce, and will constitute a smaller proportion of our expenses in future years.” ― Julian L. Simon
An EV is a second car. You don’t go launching out without know where your plug ins are. It is similar to flying a plane a long distance. The details will leave you out of gas in some hick town airport. But what the hey, the taxpayers paid for my solar, why not an electric car too?
I don't think anybody's opposed to EVs at all. What they're opposed to is being forced to buy one. And using tax money that can be used elsewhere (or just simply not taken from people in the first place). And banning ICE vehicles by 2035 (one of the stupidest ideas to ever come out of California and that's saying a lot). You want one, buy it. Nobody's stopping you. And they haven't been stopping anyone for the 100+ years of the EV. Or the 40 years of the modern EV. Or the 20 years of Tesla. But the same weaknesses still exist. And it's not my fault and I don't need to be forced into any of it if the product is still relatively lousy.
