Have Electric Cars finally killed muscle cars???

Hurricane77

Master Mechanic
Nov 11, 2020
338
684
93
Ottawa, Canada
still curious why you all think there's some "cutoff" date when all the engines quit running and only electric will work. Like "mark your calendars we're shutting off the pumps July 5th!!" This is going to take years, quite a few of them. To build out the infrastructure, to phase things out, to invent new tech and toss out the stuff that doesn't work..... And in the end all of us with our dino burners will still be here. Yeah its gonna get more expensive. Ask the guys maintaining those 1900-1930 ish cars how cheap it is to find parts and keep going. This is the way. Always has been.

"omg these new fangled cars where are people gonna drive them, there's no roads or highways or gas stations or anything yet its so dumb"
"gasoline is so dangerous, did you know it can explode and catch fire?"
"you have to buy MORE oil and gas and parts and tires just to keep it running, sounds like a racket to me."
"soon they're gonna come for the horses and the wagon, you just hide and watch."

The Sky Is Falling Reaction GIF

There are dates for stopping the sale on new ICE passengers car in several countries. Here it's 2035 - assuming the legislation don't get changed or cancelled. And I wouldn't be so sure that a conservative government would cancel the law or change the date. The UK has a Conservative government as well and they've got a date of 2030.

But there are were ~345,000 new vehicles sold in Canada each year. Average distance driven per year is ~15,000 km. (Sorry for the metric, but it won't matter when I get to my point :) ) An EV currently uses about 5 km per kWh of energy. Assuming driving habits don't change, and the efficiency of EVs doesn't change, you have 345,000 vehicle each driving 15,200 km per year. That's ~5.2 billion km. Divide 5 and we'll need ~1 billion kWh of additional generating capacity each year - or ~1,000 TWh. The country only produced 151 Twh of electricity back in 2018 (latest year I could find stats for)

I think the point many are trying to make is that we don't believe ICE are going anywhere, because despite government mandates to sell only EVs, we're just not prepared from an infrastructure standpoint to make that move. Even with the 10+ year timeline it doesn't make sense.

And I really hope someone can find an error in my calcs, because assuming that we need to increase our generating capacity by almost 7 fold in ~13 years seems really, really shortsighted.
 
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Ugly1

Royal Smart Person
Oct 26, 2021
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Lost in the woods of NH
like i said above what powers the EV? where is the charge coming from? as they are sitting on oil-soaked asphalt roads. and the plastic they are made of and the rubber tires they ride on, what are they made from, and the grease and oil that keep them lubed, where dose that come from? no, nothing is free! there is no utopia!
They are getting better at the synthetic end of the spectrum for grease and oils. Not cheap but available.
 
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Clone TIE Pilot

Comic Book Super Hero
Aug 14, 2011
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Galaxy far far away
I don't know about that. Electrical motors are older tech than petroleum combustion power. The hackery now is on the computer controls that run the show, I think it will be the same for electrical cars.

Again, a big difference is that EVs like Teslas are smart phones on wheels. They are wirelessly tethered to OEM HQ, collecting all sorts of data on you to send back to them. Tesla remotely monitors their cars and can allter anything about them over the air including range. A few years ago when a hurricane was going to hit a city, they gave Tesla drivers free temporary extended range upgrades, normally its an upcharge. So if you want to upgrade a Tesla you just pay Tesla to download tuning upgrades of to activie options already installed in the car. They can even remotely kill Tesla cars which means you can't truely own one.

People have hacked Teslas but they end up losing OEM support. They ard blackballed from services such as software updates and fast charging. My main problem with EVs is the insane monetization in them.
 
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Clone TIE Pilot

Comic Book Super Hero
Aug 14, 2011
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Galaxy far far away
There are dates for stopping the sale on new ICE passengers car in several countries. Here it's 2035 - assuming the legislation don't get changed or cancelled. And I wouldn't be so sure that a conservative government would cancel the law or change the date. The UK has a Conservative government as well and they've got a date of 2030.

But there are were ~345,000 new vehicles sold in Canada each year. Average distance driven per year is ~15,000 km. (Sorry for the metric, but it won't matter when I get to my point :) ) An EV currently uses about 5 km per kWh of energy. Assuming driving habits don't change, and the efficiency of EVs doesn't change, you have 345,000 vehicle each driving 15,200 km per year. That's ~5.2 billion km. Divide 5 and we'll need ~1 billion kWh of additional generating capacity each year - or ~1,000 TWh. The country only produced 151 Twh of electricity back in 2018 (latest year I could find stats for)

I think the point many are trying to make is that we don't believe ICE are going anywhere, because despite government mandates to sell only EVs, we're just not prepared from an infrastructure standpoint to make that move. Even with the 10+ year timeline it doesn't make sense.

And I really hope someone can find an error in my calcs, because assuming that we need to increase our generating capacity by almost 7 fold in ~13 years seems really, really shortsighted.

Its not a bug, its a feature. They want less cars on the road and making car ownership more expensive and difficult is one way to achieve this. Its what they try to do with firearms. Its always been a popular control method.
 
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scoti

Royal Smart Person
Sep 5, 2019
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Texas
Its not a bug, its a feature. They want less cars on the road and making car ownership more expensive and difficult is one way to achieve this. Its what they try to do with firearms. Its always been a popular control method.
Truth.
 
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64nailhead

Goat Herder
Dec 1, 2014
5,772
1
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Upstate NY
Its not a bug, its a feature. They want less cars on the road and making car ownership more expensive and difficult is one way to achieve this. Its what they try to do with firearms. Its always been a popular control method.
The crazies did the same thing with my favorite pack of Marlboro Reds too - sons o' beetches

So switched to spitting on the floor - then they taxed poor ole' Levi Garrett in the same manner - 110% tomfoolery!!!

Just wait, they'll be onto me again when they start taxing my Champagne............Champagne in a can that is - the last true American bad habit - Miller High Life. I'm ready though, I now buy it by the trailer load awaiting the Miller apocalypse.


Their hope is that I live longer ..........sober. SMH

I'm going to do whatever it takes though to prove them wrong.
 

69hurstolds

Geezer
Supporting Member
Jan 2, 2006
8,391
18,190
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Even back in the days of the "muscle cars" from the late 60s and 70s, high-performance vehicles only made up a sliver of the overall vehicle production.

Let's just take 1970 for example. Supposedly the "peak year" of high performance vehicles if you believe some of the old-timers' opinions. 489,582 of the 1970 Chevelles in all iterations and exports were produced. Out of those, 62,372 were of the El Camino/Chevelle SS variety with a big block of some sort. That equates to around 12.7% of all 1970 Chevelles/Elkys made. If you extrapolate that into what you see today, of course EVERY 1970 Chevelle you see is an SS, and EVERY 72 Cutlass is a 442. :) Just kidding. More clones today than back then.

But in the big scheme of things, even when HP and big inch engines were king, it was just a sliver slice of pie. Would just about make the cut of ONE slice of a large pizza from Pizza Hut.

To give you a visual...just ONE slice was ALL the Hi Performance iterations of the Chevelles/Elkys produced in 1970. I'm sure other car makes/models were similar, if not smaller. The motoring public just accepts most of what the car companies throw at them.

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It's not a magical cutoff date where EVs automatically take over the world. It can't be. It's more of the fact that the clueless are pushing these drop dead dates and some states are falling into that trap by making it more political than it needs to be. So they feel like they'll score points if they move up not selling any ICE vehicles to the public in their state after 2030 or some other arbitrary date. This is dangerous because there are some permanent gov. employees that will take it at face value and push the envelope harder instead of looking around and check the real viability of such an endeavor. In reality, it's more like these commercials on TV saying that you should invest in gold because some guy predicted an economic crash by the end of 2009, or 2010, or 2011, etc., (keep adding a year every year this crap's been on TV). One of these years he'll probably be right.

IMO, the problem is they're forcing commerce and not letting the technology to catch up to the wants and needs to support such follies. The result could be a catastrophic outcome by imposing $$ penalties for NOT doing something like converting to an EV, while at the same time not being able to do that thing because there's no charging stations, or some other reasonable situation where you can't. It won't be business as usual, because people are going to be putting fingers in the pies when the pie isn't ready to come out of the oven yet. It's similar to a proposal right now to charge gov. oil lease holders penalties if they don't produce oil, but are not allowing any change to current regulations and red tape to be reduced so they can actually do that if they want to avoid the penalties. Sh*t ain't ready. This paints everyone into a corner. There's no long-term plan in place, or even being discussed. Not publicly anyway. But saving face by forcing people to do things is more important than gentle nudging and influencing a more natural pace for change.
 
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69hurstolds

Geezer
Supporting Member
Jan 2, 2006
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oh hell yeah, that and the entire switch over to FWD in the 80's comes to mind. OMG ITS THE END OF RWD AS WE KNOW IT.
1988 was. Just in case you forgot which forum you were on. :)
 
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motorheadmike

Geezer
Nov 18, 2009
8,976
27,522
113
Saskatchewan, Truckistan
still curious why you all think there's some "cutoff" date when all the engines quit running and only electric will work. Like "mark your calendars we're shutting off the pumps July 5th!!" This is going to take years, quite a few of them. To build out the infrastructure, to phase things out, to invent new tech and toss out the stuff that doesn't work..... And in the end all of us with our dino burners will still be here. Yeah its gonna get more expensive. Ask the guys maintaining those 1900-1930 ish cars how cheap it is to find parts and keep going. This is the way. Always has been.

"omg these new fangled cars where are people gonna drive them, there's no roads or highways or gas stations or anything yet its so dumb"
"gasoline is so dangerous, did you know it can explode and catch fire?"
"you have to buy MORE oil and gas and parts and tires just to keep it running, sounds like a racket to me."
"soon they're gonna come for the horses and the wagon, you just hide and watch."

The Sky Is Falling Reaction GIF


They think they are saving the rainforest.
 
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olskool

Apprentice
Sep 26, 2021
89
133
33
That is apparent to me as well. The statement that was posted & that you quoted/responded to with:


was that hotrodders & auto enthusiasts are a minority when it comes to the transportation sector as a whole. It's not nonsense just because it's different from your experiences (you're older than me but not significantly).

Maybe in your area, every one of your neighbors has a 4x4 or hotrod. My experience is vastly different. In the cities I've lived in (suburban cities), there might be one other household on the block of 40 homes that also has an automotive enthusiast living there. Driving to work I might see a couple of older/classic vehicles & a few later model horsepower infused modern cars. The masses encountered on the road daily however are not hotrods or classics hence hotrods & classics designated as a minority vs general transportation used by the majority of folks. Heck, there's a thread on this site dedicated to this...... https://gbodyforum.com/threads/the-spotted-thread.26005/unread
i am not just talking hotrods and 4x4 i am talking about common sense. and people's ability as a whole to afford EV, and the fact that they are not yet feasible to own and put everybody in one. like i said i look at the polls, and people in general. and the ones that desire to stay with gas and understand everything will never be so called green. the way i believe, and a whole lot of us, is God put the Resorces he for a reason, i hope we are not arrogant enough to think we have a better way than he provided. what would be gained if all the cars in the world were electric? absolutely nothing! you still have to burn coal or gas, or nuclear to make the EV and all the plastic and petroleum product that goes along with it. no, the do gooders of America makes themselves feel good cramming another thing down the Americans peoples throat that we do not want, all the while, while they are getting richer on a worthless scheme that has no value to man kind!
 

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