The kids are all right

[64nailhead]

You're really just reinforcing what I said. The technology wasn't there when emissions first hit, so performance had to suffer to meet requirements. Time Marches on, technology Marches on, and we have the best of both worlds. I see the same thing happening here as the bigger EVs take longer to become suitable replacements for what we have now. There will be azzpain with this transition no matter how you look at it. It's the forced obselescence (?) that drives me nuts and the fact that it's flat out going to be a lot more expensive. My old dinosaurs will be rendered obselete and I'll be forced to buy something newer, that I don't want, or walk. I doubt in the future you'll be able to buy an old pickup truck for $5,000 and run it for 10,15+ years the way I have. Then of course there's the politics I'm intentionally leaving out.

2035- not a chance - someday perhaps.

Emissions specs have created much more good than bad in the long run. You guys seem to be well versed about gasoline vehicles. The advances made in diesels though is astounding in terms of emissions and performance. Being someone that deals with these turds on a daily basis, the reliability has suffered - DRAMATICALLY, but it's a safe assumption that it will improve with time the same as it has with gasoline powered vehicles.

No one 20 years ago would've ever considered that a truck pulling 80k lbs could achieve 7.5 mpg. Getting 4.5-5 was considered a win. And it took a very conscientous driver to get to see 5.5. Now the truck is considered to be broken if it's getting 5.5 mpg. Consider that approx 4 times more diesel fuel is consumed annually than gasoline -emmisions/mileage standards weren't really a bad thing. Add that onto the concept that we now need less oil to move the same amount of product the same amount of miles and it's not surprising that we rarely if ever heat about or have a concern of OPEC - which is great to me.

To think that we won't have gasoline powered vehicles filling at a gas station in 2050 is a scare tactic AFAIC. Will there be a sh*t ton of electric cars by 2050? I'd guess yes, but perhaps not. Maybe we'll be running hydrogen cell vehicles. Taking a progressive concept that an exec at GM or any other car manufacturer states as a mission statement to eliminate what has brought us together here at the G-body forum is ...... ummm..... a little silly ..... to me. Definitely not fighting words.

Sincerely -

 

[ck80]

Yeah I was sitting here doing something else and a little voice in my head said “2035 is only 14 away dumbass”. Post edited.

I was just going to call it "millennial math"

 

[jiho]

In 2035 I'll be 85 and looking for a way to quit driving anyway .... if I haven't already for some other less foreseeable reason. In some ways, given the torque curve, I think I'd rather have an EV. But I was just reading that the experts -- the same experts telling us we MUST jump straight from gasoline to electric right NOW -- don't expect much improvement on the power grid before 2050. So what are we supposed to be accomplishing now? And of course the batteries still suck. Until recently solid state batteries were expected to bring big improvements real soon now. Only it turned out in actual use -- as opposed to in the lab -- the state of solid state batteries becomes, uh, less solid. So that idea has been kicked down the road in hopes they can figure out how to keep them solid. But the whole bum's rush to electric is premised on better batteries than what they have now. Adding insult to injury, there are other ways to make vehicles carbon neutral (or close to it) right now -- more practical, less disruptive ways. But it's looking like I'm doomed to spend the remainder of my driving days spewing fossil carbon as the poles melt and the forests burn.

 

[jlcustomz]

All this made me think of seeing the same 4 people doing their afternoon horsie ride at Amelia Island beach every time I work there lately, as well as a large number of horses scattered in local rural areas , as well as having an equestrian center here.
Gas cars may be the same way some day, eventually mostly well off people having & taking them out. Hearing a group doing burnouts in an abandoned parking lot with gas engines will sound like the dead coming back to life. Speaking of that, past year or so keep occasionally hearing a group between 10 pm & 1 doing burnouts about a mile from me on weekends. Sounds make your tired heart come back to life every time. Now is really the turn key high horsepower era.

On the good side of the future of electric street racing, there may be more of it without people getting busted as much.

 

[ssn696]

Yep. No ‘exhaust note’. Won’t hear them coming until you’re under them.

 

[ck80]

Al this made me think of seeing the same 4 people doing their afternoon horsie ride at Amelia Island beach every time I work there lately, as well as a large number of horses scattered in local rural areas , as well as having an equestrian center here.
Gas cars may be the same way some day, eventually mostly well off people having & taking them out. Hearing a group doing burnouts in an abandoned parking lot with gas engines will sound like the dead coming back to life. Speaking of that, past year or so keep occasionally hearing a group between 10 pm & 1 doing burnouts about a mile from me on weekends. Sounds make your tired heart come back to life every time. Now is really the turn key high horsepower era.

On the good side of the future of electric street racing, there may be more of it without people getting busted as much.

Interesting how you raise the battery tech side of the issue. Very VERY few of the proponents are aware of the severe environmental damage occurring to obtain battery materials.

Oh, we all know how cobalt is in short supply via cell phones and where in the world it is. (Or at least may have heard.)

But read up about lithium, needed for all these ev vehicles. Entire regions, areas that take the space of states, countires become devastated to extract the lithium from the brine and flats.

Keystone xl is so horrible it cannot proceed on cultural and environmental grounds. But lithium mining that makes keystone look like your nephew digging a 1 Sq ft hole in your back yard garden with a toy truck is OK.

NIMBY. get to know it well.

 

[pagrunt]

Here's something else that might of been a reason. Keep in mind GM kept Buick not based on US sales but China sales. It brings up China's requirement for most cars sold there by 2035 be electric. From a buisness point of view I don't think the North American market isn't GM's main market they really care about.

G.M.’s Electric Car Push Could Put China in the Driver’s Seat (Published 2021)

With government support and lavish subsidies, Chinese companies have come to dominate the market for batteries, motors and other essentials Detroit may need for its new fleets.

www.nytimes.com

 

[jlcustomz]

Very true on battery components environmental impact . Lead was bad enough, new stuff is a whole new level.
There is really no free safe energy when you really think about it.

 

[64nailhead]

Very true on battery components environmental impact . Lead was bad enough, new stuff is a whole new level.
There is really no free safe energy when you really think about it.

E98 - not free, but we, or I should say our government, are presently paying farmers to not grow fuel.

 

[ck80]

E98 - not free, but we, or I should say our government, are presently paying farmers to not grow fuel.

Ahh, but I forget all those non-diesel burning tractors working the land, and all that nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides that don't run off I to the river systems causing poisonous algae blooms, and the dead zone from the Mississippi delta quickly taking over larger and larger areas of the gulf.

Then again ethanol and it's touted benefits as being closer to carbon neutral assumes that the emissions it's makes are offset by fixation of atmospheric carbon in the growth process. Problem expands when you consider the energy needed to generate the ethanol, all the manufacturing and emissions while making consumables and equipment used in the process....

Even the so called 'green energy' from solar or wind, once you get past the manufacturing of equipment has impacts not even modeled or studied yet. Wind, waves, jet streams, gulf streams, all occurs due to heating and cooling of the earth. As you remove this atmospheric energy you begin altering weather patterns, heat that causes evaporation and upwelling/downdrafts, so on, so forth. Just a nudge here and there at first, but at what point does the change and system alteration start running away - - just like releasing a little extra co2 by burning fossil fuels. Starts with a tad, then you've altered the mechanics of the natural system.