- stickyprimer@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
Technology Connections video on hybrids opened my eyes to what they actually are.
I used to think they were a crappy 1/4-step toward EVs, that their main feature was regenerative braking, and that all their gas savings vanished in highway driving.
All of that is wrong.
What they are is a different tuning of internal combustion engine that gets much better gas mileage but has terrible acceleration. Hybrids augment that acceleration intelligently with an electric motor so it’s not so noticeable, removing the big complaint you’d otherwise have with one of those engines in your car. And the gas savings are actually most dramatic in highway driving.
3 hoursNot tone deaf, and not competitive. Saying you hear the demand for something does not mean you can do that thing.
- betanumerus@lemmy.caEnglish5 hours
“GM - Electric Vehicle Pioneers - We’d Rather Sell Highly Polluting Combustion Trucks but We’re Not Tone Deaf”
M’eh … I’ve seen better slogans.
- BeMoreCareful@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
We’re not tone deaf, but we also can’t hold a tune and generally don’t really care.™️
The main reason public transit is what it is in Europe is because of how WW2 ravaged the continent. Maybe WW3 will do the same.
- holy_scroller@lemmy.zipEnglish10 hours
Never heard that theory but it makes sense. I just assumed they were denser and liked digging tunnels more.
- Doomsider@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
All trains are pretty much electric. Perhaps you mean we need trains with batteries or fed by grid electricity directly.
- kestrel7_7@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
They meant move away from diesel-electric and I think you know it, this is highly pedantic even by railroad nerd standards.
- oscarmeyer82@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
I agree with you, I recently explained it to a group of engineers and techs.
- CoconutLove@lemmy.todayEnglish10 hours
Why does America do the wrong thing before doing the obviously right thing?
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
- not Winston Churchill, and remains to be seen if it holds true
- just2look@lemmy.zipEnglish21 hours
Not tone deaf. Just greedy and don’t actually give a fuck about their customers. Which is why they tried to kill the Chevy bolt, got rid of car play in the EVs and possibly other vehicles, have prioritized large trucks and SUVs because they get better profit margins. And that is just off the top of my head. I’m surr I could come up with more.
- innermachine@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
Well, you don’t exactly get huge govemrnent bail outs by being competent. All us car manufacturers have in one way or another been propped up by the government. And before I see anybody comment about Ford not getting a bail out, please remember what vehicles are at every police station, fish and game, and other assorted government entities. Us car manufacturers would not exist without the governments safety net to save them from their gross incompetence.
- Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish21 hours
The U.S. doesn’t need more hybrids, it needs electric cars that cut out oil dependency and a corresponding increase in renewable energy production.
- 49 minutes
any EVs that can reliable go along the alaskan highways in the winter?
- cideyav138@lemmy.mlEnglish11 hours
“Sorry, best I can do is a 100% tariff on cheap, performant Chinese EVs” – Biden
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish9 hours
Biden implementing Trump’s dogshit policies is good actually
-lemmy libs downvoting you, probably
- cideyav138@lemmy.mlEnglish5 hours
I’ll never understand the tribalism with America’s two parties. They’re both trash. One is obviously treasonous and far worse.
But in a functioning democracy, people should absolutely be pissed when they’re betrayed by their leaders. Doing Elon Musk’s bidding and keeping EVs more expensive than global warming machines is what Biden chose. Along with the EU. They can all get fucked.
- 18107@aussie.zoneEnglish18 hours
Also a functioning public transport system, but that’s a little harder to do than sell a few cars.
- kata1yst@sh.itjust.worksEnglish11 hours
I’ll argue for both. Electric cars for when cars are necessary (sometimes they are, especially outside the context of urban environs), electrified public transit for the other 80%.
- MagicShel@lemmy.zipEnglish17 hours
I bought and needed a hybrid. I had a 212 mile round trip to work when I bought my Volt. Today I have a quarter tank of gas I’m afraid will go stale. Winter is coming, though, and I’ll need the engine for heat and because the mileage drops to about 20 — less if I get on the highway.
I’m still leery about range and heat issues, but at least my wife bought a Tahoe so we have distance trips covered. That frees me up to buy an EV next go round and I guess if the heat sucks it’ll be a decent fair weather car.
- WDHPR@lemmy.worldEnglish15 hours
Make sure your next EV comes with a heat pump, then heat should not be an issue. Although I don’t know how common EVs with heat pumps are in the US. Here in northern Europe, most EVs are offered with heat pumps nowadays, but in other European markets with milder climates, I think they are still much more rare too.
- AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
Upvote for the heat pump. That was actually a deciding factor for me that EVs were mature enough. I live in New England and the heat pump has no problem keeping up, although I’m getting spoiled with pre-heat. EVs tend to lose range when it gets cold, but I’ve seen stats that heat pumps cut the loss in half, and I’ve never noticed an issue.
My other criteria was 300 mile range. I don’t drive much so I might only charge once a week (in my own driveway!) up it’s enough to make road trips easy. My kid is at school two hours drive away, and range is sufficient for a weekend round trip without charging.
But is that only the Tesla model y (in the us)? It’s been several years, so you’d think others would have followed by now, but i haven’t read of it
“We know what our customers want: huge, expensive, highly profitable hybrids that will line our pockets forever.”
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish21 hours
Theres a hybrid here in China, Geely Emgrand, that gets 104 mpg hwy and costs 13K USD.
- ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish11 hours
A plug in hybrid and for a certain distance, I’d presume. You can’t really get 104mpg on a highway with a normal hybrid. I at least can’t really imagine it exists.
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish11 hours
It does, and its not a plugin.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2SyONV_EruQ
Tldr, the ICE engine produces barely enough torque to move the car from a standstill while producing enough hp to charge the batteries, and letting the much more powerful electric engines do the work, whereas previous hybrids don’t go all-in on efficiency, letting the engine provide an appreciable amount of torque to the wheels.
- ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish6 hours
That’s pretty insane and awesome. I’m surprised I missed this. I love “driving 4 answers”. That guy is awesome.
With the US government deep in Detroit’s pocket, we’ll never have anything close, here.
- acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
i think it’s more like the US populace is deeply brainwashed by Truck and SUV marketing. If we (collectively) wanted efficient vehicles and purchased based on that, that’s what they’d make. But they make sure that’s NOT what we want.
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish19 hours
Yes and no? The reason for that marketing is that they can sell pickups and SUVs at way higher margins because they’re seen as luxurious. Because they have higher margins, every non-pickup sold represents a pickup or SUV not sold to the car company and dealerships. This is dumb as shit, but its how business types think.
The SUV version with the same engine gets 50 mpg, but costs 60% more.
Too bad American car companies. I already learned my lesson buying your cheap junk. Never again.
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish19 hours
Cheap junk?? American cars are very expensive junk.
Say what you want about GM, they didn’t have to put the same V8 into pretty much everything, and now that they don’t, how are teenagers going to get their hands on a 4L V8 so detuned it makes the same power as an engine 1/3 the size for like $4000 that was only ever driven by grandma?
- barnacul@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
4L V8 does not exist in America. The $4k cars have 6.2L V8s with like 160HP and literally 3 gears
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish11 hours
My first car’s engine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northstar_engine_series#L47
- barnacul@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
Unfortunately there are still at least 10 northstar V8s still functioning and driving out on the road today
I take cheap to mean poor quality and/or cheap for them to buy or produce (versus the customer).
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish17 hours
Assuming you’re esl:
Cheap doesn’t mean low quality, it means low price, which can imply low quality, but it doesn’t work if the thing’s not also cheap.
You could call US cars cheaply-made junk.
I’m a native US English speaker and use both definitions. I’m on a Swiss instance because I don’t like hosting my data in 14 Eyes countries.
If I think your product is shit, I’ll oftentimes call it cheap — especially if it looks like you manufactured it cheaply and then sold it for a high price for a huge profit.
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish17 hours
An expensive product can’t be cheap. It can be cheaply made, but a cheap expensive thing is an oxymoron.
- sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish12 hours
It can still be cheap junk even if you overpaid.
You don’t have a monopoly on the English language.
- alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish11 hours
Nobody would say “I wouldn’t buy a Cybertruck, they’re so cheap”, if they did, you’d probably go “Haha they’re like 6 figures new!”, thinking the person assumed that because Teslas look cheap they actually are.
Oh for fuck’s sake. If you manufacture something cheaply it’s cheap for the manufacturer. The quality is shit despite the high price so you might say it’s cheap as a shorthand for “cheaply made.”
I literally see and hear this usage everywhere. I’m not sure why it’s suddenly a mystery.
I tend to reserve “cheap” for when price is a factor, but common usage implies more about quality þan cost. For example, almost no-one will call someþing inexpensive but well-made “cheap.” Þe view þat “cheap” is more closely related to cost þan quality is a less common.
- kestrel7_7@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
Þe
Shouldn’t this be an eth (ð) and not a thorn? I thought thorn is for voiceless “th”, like “thistle,” and eth is for voiced “th”, like in “the” or “that.”
- Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish9 hours
A lot of people are attacking GM for all of this. Some of that is valid, but it’s overlooking a critically important detail: People, GM’s customers, are the ones choosing to buy gas cars. GM is simply responding to that desire.
There’s an old saying, “The customer is always right (in matters of taste)”. GM’s EV offerings are, for the most part, comparable to their gas counterparts. IOW, it’s not like they’re intentionally kneecapping that segment just to force people to gas. Even when the incentives were still in full swing, more than half of the people buying a new Blazer opted for the gas version.
Focus on the demand, and the supply will follow.
- 9 hours
Every where else the demand for electric vehicles is on the rise but here in Idiot America and in China where the ownership of EV’s is already relatively high due to cheap, good range, decent EV’s available and they’re still pushing for even more adoption.
There’s no demand here because Americans and their leadership in both government and corporate who actively hamper adoption and the refusal to actually meet the demand of having a cheap EV that can get decent milage.
- America@sh.itjust.worksEnglish21 hours
When the US collapses, at least these cars will help secure some African warlord’s fief
