Do you drive a Tesla? If so, go fuck yourself.

Yeah, the day I need online access for a car is the day I stop driving

Brainworms

https://twitter.com/mhp_guy/status/1639060412887957505?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

Oh fuck THAT noise. Fuck ALL this big brother black box in your car bullshit. Not having it.

wut? that's private industry in your car bullshit that you bought. Well, not you personally as you're driving a 40 year old POS. But it's the marketplace at work. Insurance mostly unless Tesla is charging premiums.

Damn right not me. I will NEVER own a vehicle with this kind of functionality.

U.S. highway safety regulators have opened an investigation into complaints that Tesla seat belts may not hold people in a crash.

https://twitter.com/seattletimes/status/1640832010573717508

Seems like a bad feature of a seat belt.

The 15k cost to replace the battery is a nonstarter for me.

How many engines have you replaced?

Don’t talk nonsense to him! The battery shouldn’t cost more than a couple hundred dollars! Doesn’t mattter if, in a Tesla, it’s a totally different component! A battery is a battery!

Most of the cars I’ve owned have cost less than $15K. Combined.

It's about economy, numb nuts. The added smugness that I'm helping the climate and putting underage miners (minors?) to work is icing on the cake.

I bought a 2015 Leaf in 2019 with 22K miles for 8 grand. I've put 50K miles on it. I put on a set of tires. It's worth about 8 grand in today's strange market.

The fuel at 30MPG and $3/G would have cost $5000 for the past 4 years. Instead of pumping tons of stuff into the air (GA is a good amount nuclear and renewable) I used 14,000 kWh (43miles uses 12kWh according to chargepoint stats on my car). At the GA rate of $0.12/kWh the electricity would have cost $1674. Since comcast pays for my charge, I actually paid less than half that.

How much did you dump on your beaters per year to keep them running? I bet they didn't get 30MPG. I bet you paid more than $3/gal most days.

I know you're riding a razor today, so good for you.

Hell, my 2-year old Mazda CX-30 only averages 35mpg much of the time, because I live somewhere with a lot of hills and only do short trips much of the time (it'll get up to 50mpg visiting my Mum 150 miles away).

I'm seriously considering an EV for my next contract (due next year) but I doubt I'll stick with Mazda - their main EV in my price range is the MX-30, the electric version of my current car. It only has 124 mile range and that's closer to 100 in practice. Fine for most of my driving but hopeless for a longer trip. There's a range extender version due out this year but it's essentially a hybrid (it uses the Mazda proprietary Wankel engine to charge the battery back, boosting range to 400 miles).

Might look at the Hyundai Kona... I used to drive Kia vehicles and liked them, but I run into the same problem there as with the Mazda - impossible to get serviced by an approved garage without a 2-3 hour drive (I live in Wales). Hyundai use the same underlying chassis and tech as Kia but have a local dealership.

Opinion seems to be the Kona has slightly better range than the Niro in real range tests and is a bit cheaper (~£1K), but less driving comfort on uneven roads and a smaller boot, though it's only the ride comfort thing that would really matter. As they're local, I can look into a test drive to see if that's a deal-breaker.

for the longer trips, rent a car. Or have a cheap beater. Or keep the CX-30. Or take the train. (didn't we already have this discussion).

I have a 40 year old hobby car that serves this purpose. It gets a miserable 17MPG and eats wads of cash going nowhere.

Here it is again, hope you're nauseous:

That's how I do it. Bicycle around town, rental cars for road trips.

You drive it with the roof extended like that? No wonder you only get 17MPG

Yeah, I'd do that if the hills here didn't challenge the Tour de France in terms of thigh muscles, and the roads weren't blind-corner deathtraps for cars suddenly finding there's a bike in the way.

Also my job does sometimes demand I be able to get six miles away in less than the 45-60 minutes it would take me on a bike (hills - 10mph would be pushing it), plus not be wheezing like an asthmatic or sweating like FF at a Klan rally on arrival.

Besides, I'm single - keeping more than one car, even if one IS a beater, is fucked up. I'm not Jay Leno FFS.

E-bikes broken in over there? Really open up lots of geography and demographics to biking.

Although to be fair Omaha isn’t exactly known for its hills.

Not broken but I'd be limited to scooter versions unless I pass another test.

And there would still be the blind corner issue.

ETA: if you meant e-bicycles rather than e-motorbikes, they need you to pedal at a certain speed to get the motor to kick in, and that's still hard on these hills. Also, most are limited to 100kg rider weight - I'm ~110kg.

Wait what? The scooter versions you can drive out the door but for the pedal ones with just the hill assist you need to retest?

So backwards. But totally believable.

I may have expressed myself poorly - to ride a motorbike here you need to take a test but can ride a scooter (i.e. a Vespa) on your regular driving licence for 2 years before needing to test. These are limited to about 30mph or 40 with a tune-up. These:



"Scooters" as in the e-version of a "push it along with your foot" are NOT legal on highways if privately owned as they don't comply with traffic laws - no rear lights or licence plates. They are limited to cities that allow them and rent them out via apps. These:



E-bikes are legal and need no licence, but need you to pedal. These:

Maybe among people who have never been here.

May not be “known for it”, but they are there. I couldn’t bicycle from UA”s apt to his work - which he does every day.

Future training regimen for you?

Ooh, I want one of those, with a trailer attachment for my large clarinets

Walking. Definitely not biking.