OT:Ford Lightning Follow-Up
- Thread starter PooPopsBaldHead
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How does that vehicle work? Do you have to plug it in to charge it? Does the engine/brake regen charge it at all?
Give me the pros and cons. I'm interested.
My "gubmit subsidie" pet peeve is some of the farm subsidies that pay farmers NOT TO GROW SOMETHING. If your dubmass grows something that there's NOT a market for, maybe you shouldn't grow it but don't ask me to pay you NOT to. It's an old article but still applies.......
Here Mr. Farmer, here's a check now don't grow something!
If I weren't mostly ignorant on subsidies, I suspect this one would not be my top one. Something to keep farmers alive and providing food for the nation seems like at least a reasonable place to subsidize things. Having a viable food production industry is certainly of national interest. If you think about availability of market information, futures, etc. I suspect that there was a time that farmers simply did not have the resources available to know in planting season what would be surplus come harvest. Toss in environmental factors where some crops make and others don't and it could be a crap shoot.
You did force me to look at the origin and it looks like the government used to buy crops that farmers couldn't sell and store them until they rotted or got eaten by rodents. At some point everyone realized that it was cheaper for everyone to just pay them not to plant crops that were in surplus. No land prep/fertilizer/fuel, etc. They sold it to the public under the label environmentalism preventing chemical runoff, etc. because of your point above. Kinda weird to pay people not to do something.
Be curious to know an actual farmer's take on this one?
In 20 early on after shutdown you could get a good deal. That’s when we bought my wife’s car. 21 and 22 the prices got outrageous but interest rates were fine. Now like you stated both interest rates and prices are high. This smells like a hard correction coming to all car sales related industry. By the end of 2023 maybe I can look for a vehicle again.
I think the true paying people not to farm was phased out with the Freedom to Farm Act and basically replaced with subsidized crop insurance? But there is still the CRP program which is pretty close to paying them not to farm, but it's actually paying them to make land unproductive for 10-15 years. It's supposed goal is environmental and conservation more so than price supports. Certainly doesn't make it a good program. As far as I can tell, it's main accomplishment has been to help a lot of people to get subsidized hunting land.
The subsidized crop insurance is probably one of the less terrible programs, at least as it applies to food crops. It encourages US farmers to farm land that would otherwise be marginal, increasing the food production of the US. There are worse things to subsidize I think.
The crop insurance and CRP programs basically work to offset each other. Subsidized crop insurance makes marginal land more economic to farm. CRP gives an incentive to leave it unfarmed. Not sure which way that balances out. Guessing the longer term commitment for CRP means the crop insurance dominates except for really ****** land or land the owners just want to be used for hunting and recreation.
If chips start flowing once again, the new car purchase prices will start to fall. Which should be by the end of 2023.
Then as I said in the other post, if there's not a market for it maybe don't grow it to begin with? Just because everybody since Great Great Grandaddy has grown rice on the family land, maybe its time to try something different? Time to move on to another crop, or occupation on that land. It's just an absurd concept to me to use my tax money to give to somebody for doing absolutely nothing, especially when its those huge comglomerate world wide companies.
I traded in during 21’ and early 22’. Got more extra on the trade in than prices had climbed on new at that point.
I bought a new F150 and my wife’s Volvo in spring of 2017. Both were caught in a hailstorm in 2019. $25k worth of damage to the Volvo and $15k on the f150. Had the Volvo fixed and took the settlement on the truck and replaced the hood and windshield for $1k and lived with the other damage in order to have a paid off truck.
The roof and back cab looked like hammered **** on the truck. But unless you were 6-8 you couldn’t see the roof and I put a camper shell on the bed to cover the cab. I bought that truck for just under $35k on a smoking deal Labor Day weekend of 17’ (Sticker price was $45k.) When I traded it in June of 21’ it had 95k miles and they gave me $28k for it. Got a 2019 F250 with 12,000 miles for $20k more than my trade. No brainer, especially seeing where 3/4 ton prices have gone since then.
Nearly the same deal with my wife’s Volvo. I traded it in for 70% of its new price when it was 5 years old with 50,000 miles and it had nearly been totaled by a hailstorm. In February 2020 I figured we’d have to drive both for another decade (scary proposition with a Volvo) because the hail damage knocked so much off the value.
ETA. Just found screenshots of the trade in value on the F150 from March of 2019 when I was seeing if it would be totaled from the hailstorm. KBB had trade in at $25k with 40,000 miles on it pre-hailstorm.
So I overpaid some on the new truck, but not nearly as much as I got in extra value on the trade.
The Volvo was more of a push, but 17 it. I some how got my wife to trade in a Volvo for a Wrangler Rubicon. That’s a massive win in my book.
Your story is the typical story for maybe 80% of the drivers out there. Yes, it takes maybe 5 more minutes worth of thought to take a longer road trip, and once you make the trip you now know how and when to do the recharge.
What I think this will lead to, is for people that have an older vehicle like your Accord need something more reliable day to day, but will consider keeping their Accord for the 10 days a year it gets extremely cold out. As the batteries get better and better, and the charging stations get better and better, we will all be better off for it.
I have no idea what this means. The tax incentives will fall to the way side here soon enough. The tax incentives will benefit the entire market moving forward through growth and private investment in the backbone infrastructure. All of this will lower the price of gas over time due to the lower demand. It literally is a win win for all involved. Not to mention, less gas burning long term.
I am 100% on board with the "All of the Above" option. Keep investing in fossil fuel generation. Keep investing equal parts to green energy generation. Every KWH of green energy produces is a KWH of fossil fuels that do not need to be produced or that can be sold at a cheaper rate. Win win win.
Oh the correction is coming, and if chips get going GM and Ford are well positioned to dominate the market on both the gas and electric side.
I’m not trying to be argumentative and I believe everything you just said but your Honda with 400k miles is still worth something. What’s it going to cost to get the electric to 400k or even 150k miles. How much is a battery exchange going to cost? At what point does an electric car have zero value because it cost more for batteries than the car is worth? As fast as electric car technology is changing will manufactures quit supporting even five year old cars and parts no longer be available? There are too many long term unknowns for me to pull that trigger. If you are someone who trades every 4-5 years I think they are a great option but I generally keep a vehicle 10+ years and I just haven’t seen the evidence that they are a long term value.
This guy has pretty interesting information. Worth a follow if you are on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/GuyDealership
There are Teslas out there with as many miles as you are mentioning here and have not had to change the battery.
I've had my car for 21k miles in a little under 7 months. If I made it as little as 150,000 miles I would be mightily pissed, but I'd give the car to my wife who has a shorter commute. For the record, I haven't noticed much of a drop off if any on days with similar temperatures. Weather hits range more than anything from what I've seen.
I do know the battery won't last forever, but you don't have to replace all of the cells at once, though it would probably be cheaper on an incremental basis to do that. I think most everybody knows this, but just want to be clear though - it's not like I am going to get in my car one day and the battery would have completely died. If in the meantime from now to when it gets close they install a fast charger between my home and work, I'll have no issues for a very long time.
Maybe an EV isn't for you. That's fine. I realize I am the ideal candidate for one. But noone is coming for your ICE car. Keep in mind, ICE cars still outsell EVs by a huge margin.
It’s a plug-in hybrid. It has a 17KWH battery that when fully charged gets about 30 miles of electric only range in the summer and 20 when it’s below 32.
It came with a 110v charger that would charge it overnight, but I bought a level 2 charger off Amazon for $200. It connects to my existing 50amp outlet and charges the whole battery from empty in about 1.5 hours. We like the level 2 because we can’t run around town dropping kids off etc in the morning, go get lunch and get close to using up the battery. After lunch we can have it charged back up to full before picking up the kids after school.
Here is my setup
The drive modes are electric only, hybrid, and gas only. You can select which you prefer. It does have regenerative braking, which is an amazing tool for us. Our roads are snow covered from November until April and the regenerative braking really helps slow you down before hitting the real brake. The regeneration works too. We had drained the batter in GNP this summer and then on our return back down Going To The Sun Road, it charged 65% or so.Some pros and cons.
-It’s heavy for a Jeep. +\- 800lbs heavier than an equivalent ICE version. It actually handles a little better on the highway because of it, but if you are taking it in the mud that’s a con.
-The power/torque is incredible. I will drive in gas only until we get to a backcountry trail and then put it electric only mode for climbing. It’s incredibly efficient at off-road speeds and it is supposedly designed to complete the entire Rubicon trail in electric only mode. While I have not tried that, 470 lbs of torque in a Jeep is mighty nice for climbing trails like this:
-The gas only engine is meh. It’s a turbo 4 and is loud. Gets 20mpg or so in gas only mode.
- As mentioned before, if the cab is below 25 degrees, it doesn’t even bother with the battery. Not a problem in the south outside of a few days a year. For us we crank it every morning since it’s always cold and snows a lot and we park outside. On most days 10 degrees or warmer, it will warm up in 10 minutes enough to convert over to electric. But overall, it’s much less efficient in the cold.
All and all it’s perfect for us. Gas is still 3.75 a gallon up here in the mountains and electricity is .08 per KWH. We save $100-$150 a month on gas. At the same time I live 100 miles from any type of commercial charging station. We like exploring the various national parks and backcountry areas out here and pure EVs are not capable of doing it.
If you are going to commute in it, I guess it could work for that too. In the south you may actually lose efficiency on hot days too because AC is a drain. If you are driving 25 miles back and forth no problem. You can double that with level 2 (30-50 amp power) charger access at the office. If you are running around all day in it for work or commuting 50 miles each way, it’s less beneficial.
Most importantly it’s a Jeep. Don’t get it if you’re only going to use it as a mall crawler. The Sahara was a few K cheaper than the Rubicon, but low profile tires on 20” rims don’t work very well out on the rocky trails we drive on. With as much snow as we get, every road is basically off-road in the winter as well. If you’re going to take it off road regularly go Rubicon. If you are only going off road a few times a year and never on rocky trails, go Sahara. If you’re just going to drive around town in it with a well manicured beard, high dollar aviators, and your idea of going outdoors is taking a $3000 custom AR to the outdoor shooting range… well that’s when you get a Ford Raptor.**
ETA. Another con. Engine heat doesn’t melt the snow of the hood in the Jeep like it does my truck.
Get an eBike or even cheaper, an acoustic bicycle for your 4 mile commute.
To expand on this you have to consider geography. If you live anywhere outside of the area circled in red and rarely if ever travel to the circled area by car, you can likely make an EV work as a replacement for a ICE car as long as you’re home allows for home charging.
If you live inside the red circled area, you might be able to make it work as a passenger car if you only occasionally drive long distances or if you have a second ICE vehicle.
But if you live anywhere, EV trucks suck balls. If you cannot tow or haul heavy loads more than 100 miles, it’s less effective than a team of horses and a good wagon. Now, many truck owners use their pickups as cars, so in that application the EV car applicability still applies.
But there are 20 million RV and boat owners in the US that use trucks and SUV’s to tow. Plus millions more who tow for work applications. Ford tried to act like the Lightning was going to fill that need and they missed by a damn sight. Based on their performance and that of the Tesla Semi that’s only capable of hauling bags of potato chips in their trucks without destroying range, I think it’s another decade plus before a real EV truck is on the market.
I am guessing there will be enough feedback that we see at least a half ton plug-in hybrid truck in the next few years. 80-90% of your driving could be in electric only mode, but you could still pull your boat or camper on the weekends. It’s really a no brainer.
If we're gonna rail on the government about agriculture, let's rail about the ethanol racket. Numerous articles out there about the true cost of growing corn for ethanol production just to add to gasoline.
I agree, I hate the stuff. For my boat engine, weedeater, generator, mowers, chainsaw, etc I use ONLY non-ethanol stuff. Costs a lot more but I'm not constantly replacing primer bulbs and fuel lines like I was before I started that.
Nice account from an actual owner.
I never got the pearl clutching about EV’s.
By most accounts, both the driving and ownership experiences are phenomenal compared to gas burners. Many are stated above.
EV’s are currently cost prohibitive for many people on the front end, but that will change over time. There was a once a time when VCR’s were $400 and a 70” television screen would cost you $5000, too. Like with anything, as production scales up with infrastructure and distribution improvements, prices will come down.
Regarding “freedoms”, yes, you’ll still be able to get a gas vehicle far into the forseeable future. The market for them will decline, but won’t go away. The feds aren’t issuing any requirements banning the sale of ICE vehicles to the public. The only actions there have been done via ”states rights”….funny how that works. If you don’t live in California, you can buy one after 2035. If you do, you can still drive one in California if you buy it in another state (or used in CA). For other states that mimic CA’s regulations….same deal. And we’re not going to be in a world anytime soon (if ever) where we won’t still need gas powered commercial trucks, heavy equipment and machinery, and large recreational vehicles. Gas isn’t going away.
Regarding how “green” it is, honestly nobody gives a sh*t. It’s way down the list on why people buy them. Yes, EV’s are far more efficient at converting fossil fuels used for power generation into energy for the vehicle than an ICE vehicle is at converting hydrocarbons. No, they aren’t 100% green, nothing made and operated by humans on this planet is or ever will be. But this is all mostly irrelevant for the American consumer. Outside of the vapid status symbol types, they only care about the bottom line and the driving / ownership experience.
The market and infrastructure will dictate how soon wide scale EV adoption occurs. It will occur, but people have choices and will continue to have choices. It’s stupid that a great technological advance has become a political lightning rod, but its par for the course these days.
Hard (impossible?) to tell if you are replying to me or not, but it's basically insurance for the poor in the US and elsewhere. Most of the time it just makes food cheap by encouraging over production, but when there is a regional crop failure or geopolitical uncertainty, we're happy to have the extra land in production. Maybe it's still on net a bad idea, but of all the bad things the government does, being a little inefficient and it resulting in excess food each year seems like it would be way, way down the list of things to be upset about.
Yeah I'm waiting my 2023 Bolt EUV to come in. I wanted a PHEV but even a RAV 4 Prime basic model starts at like $45k. Way more than I'd pay for a RAV 4. The Bolt Premiere with Sun and Sound came in less than an Accord with similar features (leather, ventilated and heated, Bose, sunroof, rear view mirror camera, etc.). And thanks to shipping delays, I'll be taking ownership in 2023 and it'll be eligible for the tax credit again. I just wanted something comfortable to get around town in... maybe 15-20 miles a day. It's got a 240 mile range but lacks a lot in fast charging department, but the wife has a Pilot in case we travel and she's only putting 10-15 miles a day on it. The Bolt will be the first non-Honda I've had in a long time, which is the only think I'm somewhat worried about.
There's the crux of the matter. You need to have alternate vehicles lying around in case you need to tow, go further than a few hundred miles, it gets cold, etc.
It would be decades, if ever, before EVs would be anything better than a supplement. Yes, they're great for some people, and they are a great supplement to the overall transportation industry. A small sliver. But 85%? Nope. There are myriad reasons why, but let's start with the big ones. If 85% of all vehicles were electric tomorrow, A.) it would consume around 75% of the world's current electrical power generation capabilities to charge them and B.) we would run out of the minerals needed to make all of those batteries in very short order (destroying millions of acres of the earth in the process). Then we have the problem of battery disposal. Then you still have planes, personal watercraft, barges, cruise ships, freight trucks, heavy equipment, etc. etc. etc. that are still needed and will be ICE for at least a couple more decades.
Maybe they're not a "scam". But they're nowhere near a final solution yet. They're a nice development that needs a ton more R&D, a massive infrastructure put in place, and a lot of advancements in a many areas before they become practical for anything more than a supplement to what we already have in place. Maybe we'll get there, but I believe we'll find a better solution in the future. It's far from a slam dunk. But, I know they make a lot of people feel some sort of moral superiority, so they'll be on the roads for the foreseeable future.
It would be decades, if ever, before EVs would be anything better than a supplement. Yes, they're great for some people, and they are a great supplement to the overall transportation industry. A small sliver. But 85%? Nope. There are myriad reasons why, but let's start with the big ones. If 85% of all vehicles were electric tomorrow, A.) it would consume around 75% of the world's current electrical power generation capabilities to charge them and B.) we would run out of the minerals needed to make all of those batteries in very short order (destroying millions of acres of the earth in the process). Then we have the problem of battery disposal. Then you still have planes, personal watercraft, barges, cruise ships, freight trucks, heavy equipment, etc. etc. etc. that are still needed and will be ICE for at least a couple more decades.
Maybe they're not a "scam". But they're nowhere near a final solution yet. They're a nice development that needs a ton more R&D, a massive infrastructure put in place, and a lot of advancements in a many areas before they become practical for anything more than a supplement to what we already have in place. Maybe we'll get there, but I believe we'll find a better solution in the future. It's far from a slam dunk. But, I know they make a lot of people feel some sort of moral superiority, so they'll be on the roads for the foreseeable future.
I’m awaiting my i4 based on your post. Should be here in Feb / Mar 2023. I gotta be honest, I’m having cold feet. I’m worried I’ll miss my center engine rumble.
I absolutely love mine. Super quiet and the smoothest ride I've ever been in. In my opinion, it is a superior build vs a Tesla, but I can see why Tesla is as popular as it is.
As I've said before but not in this thread, I didn't get it to be "green" or to be "morally superior". I got mine for a couple of reasons.
1) the cost to operate my Accord was a large part of my monthly payment
2) I needed something that had enough range to get me to and from my work and there were very few options when I placed my order.
3) The cost to operate an EV vs an ICE car of similar size on a per mile basis is significantly lower.
4) I could finally afford a nicer car.
5) Maybe I'm going through a mid life crisis and. needed to get a nicer car.
Maybe EVs aren't t for everyone. That's fine with me. I'm not going to push them on anyone. But I will state that in my case, it's clearly better than an ICE car for my needs.
As I've said before but not in this thread, I didn't get it to be "green" or to be "morally superior". I got mine for a couple of reasons.
1) the cost to operate my Accord was a large part of my monthly payment
2) I needed something that had enough range to get me to and from my work and there were very few options when I placed my order.
3) The cost to operate an EV vs an ICE car of similar size on a per mile basis is significantly lower.
4) I could finally afford a nicer car.
5) Maybe I'm going through a mid life crisis and. needed to get a nicer car.
Maybe EVs aren't t for everyone. That's fine with me. I'm not going to push them on anyone. But I will state that in my case, it's clearly better than an ICE car for my needs.