akirby

EREV is a range extender, not a PHEV. You still have to charge the batteries just not as often.

Do you have a diesel? Those might be different.

The article you quoted implies you can replace a 1.5 turbo with a NA 1.5 hybrid. But most hybrids are 2.5 Atkinson cycle for max mpg and a 1.5 Atkinson cycle won’t have enough power even with hybrid assist.

Wrong. A hybrid still relies on engine power alone to propel the vehicle most of the time. To replace a 1.5eb requires a 2.5l NA engine. To replace a 2.0eb requires a 3.5L NA v6. Unless you’re willing to compromise performance with a much smaller NA engine. Ecoboosts use turbos to downsize the engine making it lighter and more efficient while still providing adequate power when needed. Even a 2.0L NA engine could be replaced with a 1.0 or 1.5eb. This whole push for “less complexity” without turbos is a red herring. The technology is reliable enough that it’s a non factor.

Let’s see the data. Nothing I said has anything to do with income or affordability. In fact it supports using cheaper engines for base models because most buyers don’t care. But you think bargain buyers want simplicity like a NA 2.5 over a 1.5 turbo and we’re trying to tell you they just don’t care. What matters is price, price, price, styling and mpg.

I’ve said it before but you don’t fix quality with a separate team. You fix it by changing your processes and by making quality a priority for compensation and promotion over cost and schedules. And you fire people who don’t comply. Suppliers should not be allowed to outsource without approval. But that also means you can’t squeeze suppliers for that last nickel. CE1 has the potential to fix some of it by having less complicated parts and doing more in house. Plus they’re already losing money with Blue providing the profits so less pressure to cut costs initially - but that obviously changes over time.

HUGE difference between full size truck buyers where performance makes a difference in towing/payload and family crossovers. There are no “slow” or really unreliable engines today and they all get good mpg. A small percentage have a preference for natural aspiration or more power but 90% just don’t care. The one exception are hybrids that get significantly better mpg. I have a 3.5eb F150, a 2.0eb Nautilus and a 2.5 turbo Boxster and they all average between 19 and 24 mpg and all should last 200k miles or more. When Nautilus dropped the 2.7 v6 in favor of a hybrid 2.0eb sales didn’t drop they went up. When Porsche switched from NA to turbos on the 718 cayman and boxster sales went up not down. The point is standard ICE engines in most regular passenger vehicles are now ubiquitous. Still matters somewhat for sports cars and trucks and a few high end luxury vehicles.

Lane departure works fine for me and so does lane centering most of the time, but sometimes lane centering draws me right into the center line for no reason. So I rarely use it.

Actually the system will detect the obstacle and brake without hitting anything, unless the obstacle appears suddenly.

Until they get stuck in a parking lot.

That’s the double edged sword. Building 300k-400k engines per year is efficient but that also dramatically multiplies any cost savings making it easier to justify cutting corners.

I was thinking more about environmental impacts and ease of manufacturing. I realize there are other limitations. The answer is likely a combination of kinetic and chemical batteries and renewable and nuclear energy.

As usual you don’t see the entire picture. It’s not worth the cost or resource impact to cater to those small groups of buyers. For every buyer that won’t buy a turbo there is one who loves it and is probably willing to pay more for it. All sales are not equal and sometimes it’s better to lose certain sales.

Because….

Tesla already proved it’s not safe.