Some years ago I had a 2002 BMW 3 series in the UK. It had a mottled bonnet (hood) but drove like a dream. I never got round to getting the bodywork done because I thought it wouldn't be worth it. Other things were broken. Yet you see cars like this on the road all the time, well maintained. Newer models even 8 years old are costing 10s of thousands of pounds now. My newer car needs a touch up and a timing belt change, which will be expensive. Yet it's way less than trying to get a newer car. Sometimes maintaining what you have is all you need.
I have a 2004 Toyota sienna minivan with 150,000 miles on it. Fully paid for and runs like a top. I don't enjoy driving a minivan - we bought it when the kids were little, now they are 25. BUT. It's paid for and has another 100k miles in it. O&M is minimal. So...why switch?
If the new EVs were substantially cheaper, or gasoline became rare and precious...maybe. Until then - minivan.
Yep, I have been sucked into a new ride that has more buttons and technology then I know what to do with. The car is a dead-set mental case, beeping, flashing and pulling me this way and that. Apparently it can see white lines sometimes but not the potholes, pedestrians, cyclists or even oversized vehicles coming the other way. It's a perfect car for PERFECT conditions! Conditions that don't exist on Queensland country roads! I will be buying an "old" car for my next ride, and likely a V8!
From the standpoint of fuel economy and pollution, hybrids make more sense than ICE vehicles. Serial hybrids such as the discontinued Chevy Volt are simpler and more efficient. They don't have a torque combiner like parallel hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, and the gas engine either doesn't run, or runs at its optimum settings. Unfortunately, the Volt was under-powered. A completely EV-powered vehicle fleet is physically impossible because of metal availability. For USA alone, 1.6 times more copper, thirteen times more nickel, thirty times more cobalt, … would be needed than are known to exist in economically recoverable form. Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?" Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations so you can verify that I didn't just make up stuff.
"If oil didn't exist we'd have to invent it." Eventually it won't exist. Fortunately, we've already invented it: Extract CO2 from seawater where its concentration is 150 times greater than in the atmosphere using the PARC BPMED process. Separate hydrogen from water using a thermal (not electrolytic) process. The copper-chlorine process is the most energy efficient and coincidentally needs heat at almost exactly the core temperature of a nuclear power reactor. Combine CO2 and hydrogen using the hundred-year-old Fischer-Tropsch process. The US Navy is already investigating this to make jet fuel at sea on aircraft carriers, so their deployment time will be limited by food and toilet paper, not jet fuel on board or jet fuel tankers keeping up with them and surviving battle.
If I was to build a histogram of the years of cars that I probably am interested in driving, enjoy driving, have owned, or have enjoyed owning, I would say that it probably has the distribution somewhat centred on the decade following Miami Vice. I’m not sure there’s much built after Year 2000, with the possible exception of my Honda CRZ that I really enjoy driving just for the sake of driving. And I mean enjoy without the knobs, screens, features or anything else - just me and the road.
That's a nice fleet you've got there! All are pretty maintainable, especially the pickups, which should have plenty of salvage yard parts available by now.
As the proud owner of an '06 Impala that still *averages* 28 MGP w/200k+ miles, I hate to see people burn up otherwise good vehicles simply due to neglect and in most cases ignorance of function and proper maintenance, which leads to bad experiences with mechanics when things do break. That's something to consider w/EVs - who's gonna work on it? Do you know the dealership can handle it?
My take as a crazy American: That would be interesting to research, but it's doubtful that the fleet's age has a connection to injury/fatality rate, as there are too many other factors definitely contributing, e.g., total distance of roadways in US, impaired driving, lack of drivers' educational standards, distracted driving, wildlife collisions, and sometimes horrendous road conditions - rural and urban. Our vehicles (esp. the new ones) are built to distract you from driving to a much greater degree than I've observed and heard of in other countries. I've spoken w/Germans and Americans that served there and found that Germans may drive faster, but their cars are solely designed to drive comfortably, w/little else in the way of amenities like cup holders, etc.
I'd also question how old the US fleet is versus the rest of the world's, and suspect it's either similar or newer.
Maybe my Mercedes cars (C and D and E and S and GLC classes) were made for an American market. They all (except the 190D) had cup holders. And the newest ones (my wife's two-year-old GLC) have way too many toys, especially in the multimedia system. She insisted on replacing her 2002 S430 because it needs new catalytic converters, which would cost 5% of what she spent on the new GLC.
That's why I'm heavy in energy stocks. The Left is pushing energy that is dependent on increasing mining on a dozen different materials by 1000%, yet they fight even a single mine opening in a U.S., and for those that do manage to open, it is a 15-20 year process to get through the courts and red tape. Either we use fossil fuels or we move back into caves.
Prof. Simon Michaux has pointed out that in addition to taking 20 years to bring a new mine into production, only about 5% of "strikes" turn out to be economically viable at today's prices.
Several Car makers, especially Ram have built super pricy pick up trucks that are not selling. These beasts costing 70,000 to 100,000 are just too much. Even 60,000 is too high for most. This is insane. Making PU's luxury vehicles might have sold well in the past but they are not selling now. When times were good young construction guys were going deep in hock for these pricy trucks but no more. Inflation is a big part of this. Its hard to find a reasonably priced truck, new or used. So, I'm hanging on to my 2007 Ford F150 and will just keep fixing it. Electric vehicle? No way.
We are hard-pressed to find ICE cars in the USA with greater than 30 mpg. Meanwhile Europe is a boon for 50+ mpg. I am struggling to understand the logic of our emissions standards in this country that keep reducing fuel efficiency. Except for pushing an agenda of climate change, and gas taxes and EV. SMH…
2011 VW Polo GTI - right on the US average but in Australia instead. VW in a world of hurt right now based on their EV delusions. My guess is they will be forced out of Germany entirely to a location with cheaper energy costs.
The leasing game is part of this. Wonder what the correlations are to household wealth accumulation, or lack of it.
Some years ago I had a 2002 BMW 3 series in the UK. It had a mottled bonnet (hood) but drove like a dream. I never got round to getting the bodywork done because I thought it wouldn't be worth it. Other things were broken. Yet you see cars like this on the road all the time, well maintained. Newer models even 8 years old are costing 10s of thousands of pounds now. My newer car needs a touch up and a timing belt change, which will be expensive. Yet it's way less than trying to get a newer car. Sometimes maintaining what you have is all you need.
I have a 2004 Toyota sienna minivan with 150,000 miles on it. Fully paid for and runs like a top. I don't enjoy driving a minivan - we bought it when the kids were little, now they are 25. BUT. It's paid for and has another 100k miles in it. O&M is minimal. So...why switch?
If the new EVs were substantially cheaper, or gasoline became rare and precious...maybe. Until then - minivan.
Yep, I have been sucked into a new ride that has more buttons and technology then I know what to do with. The car is a dead-set mental case, beeping, flashing and pulling me this way and that. Apparently it can see white lines sometimes but not the potholes, pedestrians, cyclists or even oversized vehicles coming the other way. It's a perfect car for PERFECT conditions! Conditions that don't exist on Queensland country roads! I will be buying an "old" car for my next ride, and likely a V8!
2008 dodge ram heavy duty and 2011 Lexus rx 350.
Probably could sell the Ram for more than I paid for it but why as a new truck probably 65-70k for a basic 1/2 ton.
From the standpoint of fuel economy and pollution, hybrids make more sense than ICE vehicles. Serial hybrids such as the discontinued Chevy Volt are simpler and more efficient. They don't have a torque combiner like parallel hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, and the gas engine either doesn't run, or runs at its optimum settings. Unfortunately, the Volt was under-powered. A completely EV-powered vehicle fleet is physically impossible because of metal availability. For USA alone, 1.6 times more copper, thirteen times more nickel, thirty times more cobalt, … would be needed than are known to exist in economically recoverable form. Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?" Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations so you can verify that I didn't just make up stuff.
"If oil didn't exist we'd have to invent it." Eventually it won't exist. Fortunately, we've already invented it: Extract CO2 from seawater where its concentration is 150 times greater than in the atmosphere using the PARC BPMED process. Separate hydrogen from water using a thermal (not electrolytic) process. The copper-chlorine process is the most energy efficient and coincidentally needs heat at almost exactly the core temperature of a nuclear power reactor. Combine CO2 and hydrogen using the hundred-year-old Fischer-Tropsch process. The US Navy is already investigating this to make jet fuel at sea on aircraft carriers, so their deployment time will be limited by food and toilet paper, not jet fuel on board or jet fuel tankers keeping up with them and surviving battle.
Hybrids can cut emissions, for most people, by 90%. And use 1/5th the batteries. So, what's the case for EVs again?
PHEVs I mean.
If I was to build a histogram of the years of cars that I probably am interested in driving, enjoy driving, have owned, or have enjoyed owning, I would say that it probably has the distribution somewhat centred on the decade following Miami Vice. I’m not sure there’s much built after Year 2000, with the possible exception of my Honda CRZ that I really enjoy driving just for the sake of driving. And I mean enjoy without the knobs, screens, features or anything else - just me and the road.
That's a nice fleet you've got there! All are pretty maintainable, especially the pickups, which should have plenty of salvage yard parts available by now.
As the proud owner of an '06 Impala that still *averages* 28 MGP w/200k+ miles, I hate to see people burn up otherwise good vehicles simply due to neglect and in most cases ignorance of function and proper maintenance, which leads to bad experiences with mechanics when things do break. That's something to consider w/EVs - who's gonna work on it? Do you know the dealership can handle it?
I understand the injury and fatality rate on US roads is very high. Any possible connection with vehicle age?
My take as a crazy American: That would be interesting to research, but it's doubtful that the fleet's age has a connection to injury/fatality rate, as there are too many other factors definitely contributing, e.g., total distance of roadways in US, impaired driving, lack of drivers' educational standards, distracted driving, wildlife collisions, and sometimes horrendous road conditions - rural and urban. Our vehicles (esp. the new ones) are built to distract you from driving to a much greater degree than I've observed and heard of in other countries. I've spoken w/Germans and Americans that served there and found that Germans may drive faster, but their cars are solely designed to drive comfortably, w/little else in the way of amenities like cup holders, etc.
I'd also question how old the US fleet is versus the rest of the world's, and suspect it's either similar or newer.
Maybe my Mercedes cars (C and D and E and S and GLC classes) were made for an American market. They all (except the 190D) had cup holders. And the newest ones (my wife's two-year-old GLC) have way too many toys, especially in the multimedia system. She insisted on replacing her 2002 S430 because it needs new catalytic converters, which would cost 5% of what she spent on the new GLC.
That's why I'm heavy in energy stocks. The Left is pushing energy that is dependent on increasing mining on a dozen different materials by 1000%, yet they fight even a single mine opening in a U.S., and for those that do manage to open, it is a 15-20 year process to get through the courts and red tape. Either we use fossil fuels or we move back into caves.
Prof. Simon Michaux has pointed out that in addition to taking 20 years to bring a new mine into production, only about 5% of "strikes" turn out to be economically viable at today's prices.
Several Car makers, especially Ram have built super pricy pick up trucks that are not selling. These beasts costing 70,000 to 100,000 are just too much. Even 60,000 is too high for most. This is insane. Making PU's luxury vehicles might have sold well in the past but they are not selling now. When times were good young construction guys were going deep in hock for these pricy trucks but no more. Inflation is a big part of this. Its hard to find a reasonably priced truck, new or used. So, I'm hanging on to my 2007 Ford F150 and will just keep fixing it. Electric vehicle? No way.
Amen to your comments Mr. Bryce. The crucial nature of crude oil is completely evaded and ignored by the brain-washed crowd that wants its use banned.
Ron Stein writes extensively (and almost exclusively) about essential non-energy things we get from oil (many of which we could also get from coal).
Gonna keep my Ram 1500 eco diesel for as long as I can. BTW. Good Old Dino Juice - Great name for a country band :-)
We are hard-pressed to find ICE cars in the USA with greater than 30 mpg. Meanwhile Europe is a boon for 50+ mpg. I am struggling to understand the logic of our emissions standards in this country that keep reducing fuel efficiency. Except for pushing an agenda of climate change, and gas taxes and EV. SMH…
2011 VW Polo GTI - right on the US average but in Australia instead. VW in a world of hurt right now based on their EV delusions. My guess is they will be forced out of Germany entirely to a location with cheaper energy costs.
2002 Buick Park Avenue, 2005 2500 Dodge Cummins, 2014 Kia Sorento. Not planning on trading or upgrading.
Renting cars I agree with you. It takes 20 minutes in the drivers seat figuring the car out before I can safely leave the garage