slemke

Yes. Wasn’t all that cold. It wasn’t like he was taking I-90/I-94/I-90 across MN, ND, MT, ID, and WA during the coldest part of winter. That robot charger would really come in handy in sub zero F weather. I’m still wondering though about the efficiency claims and how AAA was so much worse. Accounting for the speed difference, it wasn’t much of a penalty. Maybe the long drive and the battery pack being warm most of the time helped. The amount of battery capacity drop sitting out in the cold was a bit concerning. I probably wouldn’t leave it out in an airport lot for a couple weeks in January. But, just leave it at home plugged in and avoid the parking charges. Also interesting in that the Tesla charging app didn’t have a quickest route option that charged the battery more often within the 20-80% window to minimize charging times. The same with finding a super charger at the end of the day instead of a regular charger at the hotel and just leaving plugged in overnight. improvements will come in time. Batteries will work better in sub zero weather than currently and heat pumps will help with the electric usage for comfort.

Anyone watch the TFL videos of them driving an F150 lightning with a topper/camper to Alaska? The camper really cut down on range, but they did make it.

Which was perfectly acceptable given the perceived risk. But, there was no contingency plan to increase supplies. We see similar patterns with the F150 powerboost and escape hybrids. But, no mention of how many additional units of these Ford is preparing to make in the near future.

Touché He may not be ready to give up the large paychecks either. Never know what he did with his money during his career and what lifestyle he become accustomed to. He’s at the top of his earning potential and can easily extend his career if he so chooses. I fully expect him to surface somewhere. Even Mark Fields managed to get a CEO job after leaving Ford.

He still has 11-14 years until he can collect full social security. 9 years until Medicare eligible. 401k is normally 59, but you can start making withdrawals at 55 under certain circumstances. An office/management job is a lot different than one that requires physical labor. Many of the white collar workers who retired early had some sort of pension. Many of my engineering friends who retired with pensions in their mid 50s went on to have a second career while “double dipping” getting a pension. He still has a 10 to 15 year career ahead of him if he wants it.

Yes, it looks like Farley is getting it in order. New LFP battery chemistry should help contain costs. Now if Ford also expands hybrid and plug-in hybrid availability they could be in pretty good shape.

The trees won’t like that. Plants need CO2 to live and through photo synthesis produce O2 and capture carbon. To balance out the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, you can limit the amount produced through phasing out fossil fuels and/or increase the consumption through reforestation. It doesn’t have to come from all one side. I find the lack of expanding green zones and overall energy conservation concerning. Tree lined boulevards look nice and keeps temps down in summer. It is several degrees cooler just getting out of downtown Raleigh to the tree lined streets farther out.

This should help contain costs as it eliminates some expensive metals. Nickel has been particularly volatile in pricing and saw some huge increases in price earlier this year. Even if the price comes back down to last year’s level it is still better to have an alternative.

Or pretty much any vehicle to be built.

It wasn’t bad back in 2010 when the two tiered wages were instituted, but it hasn’t kept up with the changing labor market. I thought there was a cost of living adjustment made to the wages or was that eliminated.

The opening around the oval was more styling to make it appear floating than functional. The 1st gen SHO and police version had a slot above the bumper for additional cooling. 2nd gen SHO did away with it and relied on air flow from below the bumper. I would hardly call that a grill, but rather ducts. Same with the Tbird beak. They all had lower air openings. Nothing I would consider a traditional grill, though. Model 3 appears to also have some sort of opening below the bumper. The problem with the model 3 is the void above the bumper. It’s like there should have been something there that got cost cut away. The model S doesn’t have that same visual appearance. It is a more cohesive design.

Maybe. I think it really comes down to how much excess capacity the electric company has. The more they have the more likely the incentive to get you using more of it.

And if they have excess electricity to sell, might as well do it. No different than incentives to install any other electrical appliance (water heaters, cooktops, heat pumps, etc). Get the customer hooked and make the profit back over time.

There were many cars in the ‘80s with minimal or no grilles that looked just fine. Taurus/Sable, Thunderbird was minimal, Probe, even Crown Victoria tried the look for a while. Air intake was under the bumper for cooling. The big non functional grille may go down as one of those “what were they thinking” styling statements.

2030 is awfully close. Have you seen how long E series has stuck around with little to no investment? I don’t think Ford will have the supply chains setup to handle all the volume before the late ‘30s. Let’s see how the blue oval city thing works out. That will give a better indication of how fast things are actually moving in the EV direction.

Just what I need….my car sneaking out at night for a few electrons. Maybe Apple will come out with a mag safe charging cable so you can’t drive off with the charger attached. Or is there some sort of interlock that won’t let the car move if it is plugged in?

How so? What are the leading disagreements about?

No, but the sedans would get some sort of lowered ride height, wider tires, aero package, handling, etc instead. Think Taurus SHO or Fusion sport. Or you could go with the vinyl coach roof.

We may be thinking of different scopes of electrical work. Adding a charger to a single family home isn’t nearly as expensive as adding them to large apartment complexes that may require new feeder lines, etc. it is those large projects I was thinking would be impacted. It comes down to how much the required upgrades cost relative to what the cost of the project would be without them. Let the market decide. It is more efficient at allocating scarce resources than government.

Which is great until buildings just don’t get renovated. The added cost of new government regulations makes it prohibitively expensive so it just doesn’t get done. My neighborhood pool is an example. There was talk of expanding the pool, but the added cost of bringing everything else up to the latest codes made the project prohibitively expensive and the proposal was dropped. Eventually we’ll be faced with upgrading the whole thing or closing it down. NC wants to take out the free public chargers. Pretty sure there was some lobbying by the service station owners that want to expand and put up their own for profit charging stations. It probably needs to be done, though, in order to attract the private investment needed for long term success.

Maybe we shouldn’t. It does explain some of the high costs and poor return on investment. Takes money to do unique things. I’m sure they thought it was a better idea at the time.

Perhaps. He likely saw what was coming for product development and funding for what he would be working on and didn’t want a part of it. Better to retire in good standing. He’s young. I’m sure he will pop up at a supplier or startup doing something he enjoys.

You still lose energy in the charging- discharging cycle. That was the point. You will lose 10-20% in the process depending on how efficient the power conversion is.

Think engineering and product development cost. Spread that over 2x the number of vehicles and you have considerable savings.

Epa range isn’t the same as real world. The miles to empty on gas fords don’t match up with epa either. It is based on driving history. If the battery had degraded that much, TFL would have mentioned it. TFL may have been using an optimistic 1/2 the range and found a fast charging station close to that. How much the range drops when towing is highly dependent on the trailer. A boat will decrease the range much less than an empty enclosed cargo trailer of similar weight. I’d like to see a follow up taking a boat to Andre’s favorite lake.