The Gas Vehicle Thread

[JoeWras]

Best ICE vehicle I have ever had was the 2018 Ford Transit 250 van we bought new for $31,500 and sold in 2022 for $32,000 after going across the country with it on a epic road trip, hauling materials for our house, camping, etc.

Never did any maintenance except oil changes (4 total I think with the 28,000 miles it had on it).

So....cost of ownership of an ICE vehicle like that was about negative $150 a year.

You could likely sell it for more today.

The used car market is still nuts.

 

[ls99]

Penssylvania's EPA has been ruling vehicle emissions based on California's CARB rules.
A current lawsuit https://www.ttnews.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/PMTA-DEP-Complaint.pdf challenges that, since PA Code says can not delegate rule making to other states. California is attempting to ban via zero emission rules, all diesel engines in favor of EV by 2036.

The petition challenges the current PA regualtions as wholly adapted California CARB rules, as they were not adopted via proper PA legislative procedures.

 

[indiajust]

Agreeing with Midpack on the race capability of EV. They were banned from drag racing against ICE for a reason... no ICE could compete with EV.

I was just watching coverage of wrecks at Nürburgring.

Meanwhile, I am nursing along my 98 VW and my 94 Ranger. I hope to get 5 years and 50k more out of the Jetta. I think I am done changing the oil in the Ranger... Just top and go till it dies.

 

[boont]

Porsche

I recently bought a Porsche Cayenne with an eight speed V6. I love driving this car. I have three other cars so I mostly only drive it on long trips.

There is a very twisty road on the last 20 miles up to my weekend home that a lot of wine tourists don't like and I love.

 

[Montecfo]

ERd in 2015. We tow a 7500lb travel trailer for most of our trips to state and federal parks around the country each year so the f150 will stay. The DW loves her 04 v70 w/274k miles and we hit 34.2mpg on our recent 3500 mile road trip. She said she's going to drive it till the wheels come off. I'm the mechanic, so it's going to take a while.
I personally am a fan of hybrids. My brother has three Priuses in his family and the latest generation gets 55 mpg (three times the mpg and 1/3 the emissions of my F-150).
Imagine if the government laid out a 20-year plan to upgrade the electrical infrastructure while simultaneously pushing up MPG requirements to get hybrids up to maybe 80-100 miles per gallon. Such a path would solve some real and perceived problems.

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Only problem is that sounds really sensible and you would not need to spend a trillion dollars subsidizing it.

 

[Safe Harbour]

Best ICE was my last ICE!

Proud owner of two EV's since 2019. They can crush any ICE. They cost almost nothing to maintain - seriously almost nothing. I fuel them with sunlight for free (well in three more years absolutely free). Today at current electric rates ($0.12 per kWh), I get $0.04 per mile. Try beating that with an ICE. And don't get me started on not being able to travel. That's a fallacy.

I must say that for our current state, hybrids give the most return for battery investments. I saw something that other day that showed the reduction in carbon from an EV was less than 1/50th of that from the equivalent of the same kWh of batteries installed in hybrids. But driving an EV is so much more enjoyable to an ICE that I could never go back, even to a hybrid.

Of course this is all my humble opinion and I know there are people who love their ICE. If I was really to pick my best ICE it would have been my 1969 Alpha Romeo Spider! What great car. Of course compared to my 2019 Tesla M3 it would be a wimp today.

 

[Safe Harbour]

Only problem is that sounds really sensible and you would not need to spend a trillion dollars subsidizing it.

You don't think oil companies are subsidized?

 

[Gumby]

Moderator Note: Things will work best if the EV advocates and ICE advocates stay in their own respective threads; there is one for each. Thanks.

 

[Koolau]

Imagine if the government laid out a 20-year plan to upgrade the electrical infrastructure while simultaneously pushing up MPG requirements to get hybrids up to maybe 80-100 miles per gallon. Such a path would solve some real and perceived problems.

I believe I shared the "Do the Math" thread on 100 MPG cars. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/100-mpg-on-gasoline/

Not theoretically impossible, but the "levers" for improving ICE cars to that level are probably financially impossible. It would be inappropriate for a gummint to "mandate" something they know to be virtually impossible (at any kind of reasonable cost.) Increasing mileage of 15 to 30 (think '78 Lincoln Town car) to a '94 Toyota Corolla was a breeze. But doubling the 50 MPG of a current Pirus to 100 MPG would be a fools errand given current (or even anticipated) technology.

 

[Montecfo]

You don't think oil companies are subsidized?

Not in the same way. The oil and gas industry has tax benefits such as percentage depletion and also gets to deduct and not capitalize intangible drilling costs (IDCs). These are tax incentives to encourage a risky activity by making it less expensive to do so. So you have to have income to benefit from percentage depletion. This has been in the tax code for approximately 100 years.

In contrast, the government is directly subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles with large incentives to benefit relatively rich people (e.g, up to $300k MAGI for a couple). Goldman Sachs (as recently reported in the WSJ) estimates these and other incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act will cost $1.2T versus the $400B the administration estimated in the runup to the vote on the legislation. Yes 3x as much.

Cheap plentiful oil and gas gas raised millions out of poverty. It is one of the reasons the US economy has grown faster than other developed countries and is the envy of the world.

Green subsidies by contrast make everyone poorer. The industry would not exist without massive subsidies.

And then trillions of dollars which will be necessary to enhance and expand the grid to carry far more energy than it was designed for have not even been part of the discussion, but should be.

And now of course we have "carbon taxes" too.

Good question.

 

[d.davis]

But doubling the 50 MPG of a current Pirus to 100 MPG would be a fools errand given current (or even anticipated) technology.

I'm an optimist. I remember a guy over a hundred years ago saying "everything that can be invented, has been invented." I think I just heard that in your post wrt hybrids ,[emoji16].


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[Koolau]

I'm an optimist. I remember a guy over a hundred years ago saying "everything that can be invented, has been invented." I think I just heard that in your post wrt hybrids ,[emoji16].


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The site I gave looks at it in terms of physics. We've gotten Cd down to .25 for a Prius - which isn't much higher than the lowest achieved so far for a "real-looking car." (I think they got down to .17 or .18.) The Prius already has a very efficient (for an ICE) engine because it uses the Atkinson cycle. Heat engines physics shows serious limitations (not the least of which is that Tc is already a high 300 degrees K) In short, there's only so much you can do to coax more efficiency out of an ICE. They are simply bounded by physics.

I'm not suggesting fuel mileage can not be increased, but it will be incremental and limited by physics. That probably means no 100 MPG cars but YMMV.

 

[d.davis]

Koolau - on the same page. Toyota's done well reducing drag. I don't think we've seen all the battery technologies evolved yet. I don't think Toyota is using GDI yet (smaller engine) but also remember a hybrid engine optimized for cruise rpm, not acceleration or a broad power band has a lower power requirement and I don't think Toyota is doing that yet. Let the electric motors do all the acceleration.
In my career, and in my teams, you weren't allowed to think it can't be done. You approached every problem as if there's at least 20 solutions and I/we just need to identify one of them...

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Edited to specify electric motors.

 

[Texas Proud]

Proud owner of two EV's since 2019. They can crush any ICE. They cost almost nothing to maintain - seriously almost nothing. I fuel them with sunlight for free (well in three more years absolutely free). Today at current electric rates ($0.12 per kWh), I get $0.04 per mile. Try beating that with an ICE. And don't get me started on not being able to travel. That's a fallacy.

I must say that for our current state, hybrids give the most return for battery investments. I saw something that other day that showed the reduction in carbon from an EV was less than 1/50th of that from the equivalent of the same kWh of batteries installed in hybrids. But driving an EV is so much more enjoyable to an ICE that I could never go back, even to a hybrid.

Of course this is all my humble opinion and I know there are people who love their ICE. If I was really to pick my best ICE it would have been my 1969 Alpha Romeo Spider! What great car. Of course compared to my 2019 Tesla M3 it would be a wimp today.

I have no problem with you love of your EV... zero... really....


I do have a problem with you saying it is charged for 'free'... that is so false.... you (or the gvment) paid big time for whatever you are using for electricity... I keep reading about 15 or so years for payback (could be less, who knows) so it is not FREE... and if you are not 100% off the grid then the rest are subsidizing you as they maintain the grid for you to use when you need too... sure, it is a lot less than gas etc... but free not...

 

[ls99]

Modest proposal, ban the laws of physics, to achieve 100mpg gasoline engined car.

 

[Golden Mean]

Agreeing with Midpack on the race capability of EV. They were banned from drag racing against ICE for a reason... no ICE could compete with EV.

The quickest EV drag car is nowhere near as fast as the quickest ICE in drag racing. Not sure what 'banned' means. I regularly see street car EVs running (and racing other cars) at the dragstrip. They are nowhere near the fastest of the cars running.

Also, in road racing an EV will get slower with each lap as the battery is depleted.

 

[mh]

Bring back the Honda Element. When we first saw one it was a what the hell were they thinking moment...but then we learned about how practical it was. Clam shell tail gate, flat hard rubber like flooring and rear seats that folded up and to the side and removable too. Tons of cargo fit inside. Hauled mountain bikes, 55 gallon aquarium and stand. Many trips to Home Improvement stores and nurseries. We camped in it a few times. Regret selling it after 10 years of ownership.
Over on the Element website there are a couple of threads on people wanting a new EV Element. There many there opposed to the idea but I would take one in a heartbeat...the practicality of a Element with the efficiency of an EV sounds like a winning combo to me for my use needs.
For now we will enjoy our Bolt EUV....the closest thing I could find to an Element that Phoenix would allow us to use in the commute lane if one needs to go it alone on the freeway here.
Bring back the Element in ICE and EV options..

They did bring back the ICE element , didn’t they ?

 

[Retired Expat]

I am in the market for a new car. The choice is either ICE or a hybrid. Since I only drive 2000 miles a year, I may just get an ICE. In California, the year 2035 will be the year to stop selling ICEs. If I am still fit at the age of 80 by then, I may have to buy an EV.

I only do about 3000 miles a year and my car can sit for extended periods. Terrible things happen to ICE when they sit so will go electric when next my car dies. Has. 100k so will see how long it lasts.

Have only driven an electric once or twice and really liked it once I got over the paranoia of running out of juice. Even put in a level 2 charging plug in my garage. I had one and and the panel is right there and since out house is an AirBnB when we aren’t there it seemed to make sense.

 

[Ian S]

For us, EVs don't make sense... yet. We live in a tourist town ~100 miles north of Phoenix. I'm retired and DH works from home. Most of our driving is Interstate or rural highways. Seven or eight times a year, DH makes the nearly 1000 mile round trip to San Diego to visit family including his elderly father. I usually go along too with our dog. Much of that trip (especially on I-8) is at speeds of 75 and higher. Only stop for potty breaks, one gas fill-up and a quick fast food stop. Once a week, DH drives 100 miles round trip to get an allergy shot. Once or twice a month one of us will be driving the 200+ miles round trip on freeway to Phoenix. I see no way that anything other than an ICE makes sense for us at this point. So last year, we replaced DH's 18 y.o. Camry with a new non-hybrid 4 cylinder one. Gets well up the 30's mpg with our driving. I have 13 y.o. Hyundai Genesis sports coupe with a powerful V6. Granted its mileage is only low to mid 20's but it's only driven about 5000-6000 miles annually and again most is at fast highway speeds where it does best mpg-wise. We're certainly amenable to change but neither a hybrid nor an EV makes sense at this time.

 

[Montecfo]

And don't get me started on not being able to travel. That's a fallacy.

Don't get started. Range, availability of charging stations and time to charge are actual issues, speaking objectively.

They may not be issues for you or you may be fine working around these issues, but they are real.

 

[Koolau]

In my career, and in my teams, you weren't allowed to think it can't be done. You approached every problem as if there's at least 20 solutions and I/we just need to identify one of them...

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Edited to specify electric motors.

I think that's probably a good philosophy if the goal is realistic. I wouldn't want to be on the team, for instance, that is tasked with turning a 100 tons of lead into gold.

I'm sure if money were no object, you could come up with a 100 MPG car but it would be too expensive to sell. IIRC there were several university teams that tried to build cars with amazing mileage. Of course, they ended up with essentially soapbox derby cars on bicycle tires that hold one person.

Having said all that, I would like to be on a legitimate team trying to build a practical 100 MPG car. I have no skills but I have a ton of ideas.

But, even if I (heh, heh, and my team that actually does all the w*rk) came up with a 100 MPG car, it would do it within the laws of physics. Heh, heh, YMMV.

 

[Koolau]

Modest proposal, ban the laws of physics, to achieve 100mpg gasoline engined car.

Heh, heh, you're gonna need to change your screen name to Jonathan Swift.

 

[JoeWras]

"The Gas Vehicle Thread". I think. Am I in the right spot?

 

[Koolau]

"The Gas Vehicle Thread". I think. Am I in the right spot?

Heh, heh, kinda reminds you of the EV thread, eh? Keeping us on track is kinda like herding cats. Just enjoy.

 

[aja8888]

"The Gas Vehicle Thread". I think. Am I in the right spot?

For a while.....soon to be closed, I bet.