greg1647545532

Glad you got your dig in against me. I'm suitably hurt. Do you remember the "Buy American" campaigns from the 80s? This isn't a new sentiment. Ironically, those were closely tied to union pride as I recall, and many were funded by the UAW and the like. But who's going to stop production from moving overseas? The government? We don't do that in this country. The Republican party especially was all-in on global production right up until Donald Trump reinvented protectionism with his tariffs. So here we are. Personally, I think the current manufacturing struggles are a result of JIT supply chains and not necessarily where things are produced. It's all well and good not to carry any local inventory to save money until the supply chain hiccups. Then JIT looks incredibly short-sighted.

The entire rest of the supply chain is in China, though. You can make chips in America but those chips go into products with thousands of other components, accessories, and packaging. If you're an American company making semi-conductors with robotics and you have an opportunity to move that facility to China where getting those semi-conductors into finished products is going to involve local trucking instead of international shipping, you'd be a fool not to. That's just smart business. It's amazing how often unions get blamed for the work of capitalists.

Why?

Technically Ohio's mask order is in effect until today, but people definitely started not giving a shit when the end date was announced (in conjunction with the CDC recommendation). I've just been following what the signs on the doors tell me to do. At Dunkin' yesterday, only 1 other guy was wearing a mask. Then later when I wanted ice cream for dinner, you could almost hear the record stop as I walked into a Dairy Queen and about fifteen of Ohio's finest maskholes looked at me like I was wearing a turban. But the sign on the door still says mask required, so what am I gonna do? Ignore it like a dickwad? Not how I was raised. As an aside, this labor shortage has made going out rough. Expect to wait 2 or 3 times as long for basic food service right now. In any case, I didn't have time to wait behind 15 chuckleheads while the poor Dairy Queen employees struggled in what was clearly their first week on the job, so I went over to UDF for the first time in probably 20 years. UDF has really made a turnaround, by the way. Clean, delicious, no wait, and no mask sign on the door. So I didn't put on a mask. Didn't seem that difficult.

Maybe they can't read. So sad.

Sign on the door still says wear a mask though. DeWine said businesses can choose to set their own mask policies. Guess not!

Why are suddenly so many people refusing to wear masks inside stores that have signs indicating they're still required? Do private property rights mean nothing in this country anymore?

Hey since you’re here, what claims did you want facts for? I’m happy to oblige, just don't know what in my post isn't considered general knowledge.

Well you didn’t say how old they were but yes, thank you for keeping me honest

I’m so confused.

What claims?

I can’t imagine spending 4 years in medical school and 4 years in residency learning to be an expert in healthcare and then being turned down by a patient for a miracle vaccine for a virus that has killed millions because the lottery terms weren’t good enough.

There are inherent efficiency benefits to electric vehicles that sorta let them punch above their weight class in terms of stored energy versus range, so I think a lot of people, myself included, expected those efficiencies to carry over into towing. But real world testing of e.g. the Model X showed that they take an bigger hit to range than gas vehicles. I suppose people in the know expected this but I was disappointed. Towing is an area where they just can't engineer their way out of physics, and work is work at the end of the day. Fortunately for Ford, there are plenty of people who buy F150s for the image and don't care about towing.

That was a bad tweet. Also, you should wear a mask and/or get vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Yeah just the rears, our fronts are legal.

The Koni adjustables I bought for my E36 328is aren't ChampCar legal, I need something non-adjustable (like, non-adjustable from the factory). The Konis are from 2018, they have about 20 hours of track time on them. If you have an E36 M3 or a 325is or something with OEM shocks in GOOD shape, I'll do a straight swap just to make this problem go away.

It makes it naturally inflationary. All currency is intrinsically worthless.

You're really fixated on forcing things down throats, eh?

Should automakers target country-dwelling brokedicks when making their 20 year product plans? Yes, it's generally wealthy urbanites buying the electric cars now. That's who GM wants to sell to. That's who Ford, Hyundai, BMW, VW want to sell to. That's why they're all abandoning ICE cars over the next 15 years. They don't want to get caught on their asses when the people who can actually afford new cars only want EVs. They don't care if their consumers are pompous twits taking out 84 month loans to buy cars they can't afford. In fact, that's been their MO for years. You think the average Mustang buyer is looking for anything other than a status symbol? You think they're not stretching their budgets to get their dream car? But I'll get off my high horse, if someone wants to post up some actual evidence that automakers choosing to drop ICEs over the next 15 years is anything other than rational actors reacting to consumer demand in a free-market economy, I will change my mind. Hit me with facts.

Are Model 3s piling up in a warehouse somewhere, or is Tesla doing everything they can to make production meet demand? They sold 450,000 Model 3/Ys last year. That's a lot of product to move for any single model, yet alone one in that price segment. What am I missing?

If you lived in an apartment then you would install a gas pump OUTSIDE and let everyone in the complex use it and you float the bill?

I'll reiterate -- automakers are clamoring to ramp up EV production to meet consumer demand for EVs. ICE powered cars are going to be around for decades; nobody is talking about cash-for-clunkering all ICE cars in the next 5 years. There's so much fear-mongering in this thread. I agree with the posters above, EVs are not a solution to global warming, and politicians who talk a big game about how they'll clean up emissions are just pandering. BUT -- EVs have a lot of advantages as cars, and as long as cars are a viable product in 15 to 20 years, they're pretty much all going to be EVs because that's what consumers are going to want. Get used to it, but nobody is shoving them down your throat.

EVs are pretty bad right now, compared to where they'll be in 10 years. There are affordable EVs, and there are "long range" (220+ mile) EVs, and there's no overlap yet between those. Also, the charging infrastructure is still relatively nascent. And yet, 80% of consumers who switch to EVs don't look back, according to the article linked in the OP. Evidently the pros outweigh the cons. This is sending a message loud and clear to automakers -- start phasing out your ICEs now, or be left holding the bag in 15 to 20 years when the only people who want them are niche customers who commute 110 miles a day and can afford new vehicles but can't afford houses with decent wiring. I know Biden is talking about EV targets, but like everything else Democrats do, none of them are "mandates," nor will they have any teeth. California and maybe some other places have targeted sunset dates for sales of non-EVs, but honestly... the only way you're going to be "forced" into an EV is the exact same way you're "forced" into buying a car with fuel injection. The free market is screaming for EVs, get on board or get left behind.

My CMax does that, there's a button to set the EV mode. "EV Now, EV Later, Auto". Of course, the absolute top end of the EV range is about 18 miles so they have to be real short trips, but I like being able to force it not to use the ICE around town, or like to force it to use the ICE on the highway so I can use the battery power on the other end. Eta: I assume the same system is in the Fusion Energi and whatever else they slapped the drivetrain into.

Yes, people who choose to have unusually long commutes will have a few additional decisions to make. They can buy GM's last ICE vehicle, a 2034 model, and drive it for 10 years, thus delaying all further decisions until 23 years from now. They can choose to move closer to their place of work. Or they can upgrade their shitty house wiring. Seems like there are plenty of options and so the market doesn't need to worry about those folks.