Do I need it ... No, but I want it. Rivian Truck

[Thunder21]

When you make promises you can’t keep you just move the goalposts.

Opinion: Natural gas and nuclear power are now considered green investments in the EU. Will Canada follow suit?

The European Union’s contentious decision sets a precedent for Canada to include nuclear power and natural gas in a list of acceptable ESG investments

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Bill 310]

Three different heat sources! I'm guessing multiple renovations?

Nope, architecturally designed home built in 2008.

We are the 3rd owners.

I went and met the architect after we bought the house.

It was a lot subdivision and a custom build. As he told the story, the owner was hiring the best trades until money got tight

The concrete work is amazing and my BIL who is a Red Seal builder who does custom stuff on the island says the house is well built.

Apparently, the original owner started to get squeezed later on in the build a bit money wise.

To be fair we have turned on the top floor electric heat maybe 5 times in 8 years. When we bought the house we spent a fair bit getting the little things up to snuff.

We had the outside of the house painted 3 years ago by our long time painter. The house was painted white stucco. The back side of the house had never been painted and was not noticeable. It took 7 coats hand brushed on. It was like painting a sponge. Of course the house now glows and our painter who is in his late 60's keeps getting referred to people who come by ring the door bell ask us who did our stucco house painting.

When we bought we paid to have a roof inspection (3% slope) done by a guy who does commercial buildings we used his professional inspection to judge and filter quotes. There was a repaired water mark and a patch when we bought the house and we figured that a new roof when we were still working was a good plan.

That report was $750.00 well spent .

Houses cost money to be kept up. We have always sold a house that was in better condition than when I bought it and we make a binder up of all the work that was done during our ownership with the invoices.

I think that sells the house faster and for more money. Home repairs done by guys like me are not equity building items.

Hire a pro or be one.

My professional career is based on fixing things done by tier two teams . I could knock 5% of any house's value with a few weekend's of my handy work.

 

[OldBlackDog]

E-Vehicles Are Like Covid Vaccines: Sold to Public Based on Wildly Unrealistic Exaggerations

In summary, by the time you’d reach your destination (if ever), your vacation would be long over. Gasoline, and especially diesel, leave electric vehicles in the dust.

wattsupwiththat.com

 

[sly_karma]

^ Well researched, fair and balanced article. If you're a hater.

 

[Sotally Tober]

Hee hee, I'm not one to talk. I'll confess to having switched from electric range to gas so I could free up the 40A 240V circuit that I need for level 2 EV charging (when those #$%ers at Ford get around to building my truck). I'd been wanting a gas stove for years anyway, but the advent of an EV was what triggered the switch. So I got a shiny new kitchen toy and saved tens of thousands by not tearing up and re-laying driveway, sidewalk and retaining walls to provide access for larger conduits and upsized electrical service.

There is a new option that’s coming out so people don’t have to upgrade their electrical panel.

It is supposed to be cheaper than upgrading and a quick installation

Siemens' new home EV charger adapter ends need for electrical panel upgrades

Siemens' game-changing EV charger adapter can end costly electrical panel upgrades and enable home chargers to be connected in minutes.

electrek.co

The new adapter will enable electric car owners to charge their EVs by connecting chargers directly through the house meter socket

 

[sly_karma]

Saw my first F150 Lightning "in the metal" yesterday. Licence plate from Jacobsen ford in Kelowna, so I guess the local dealerships are getting their deliveries now. I'm resigned to waiting for a 2023. The pain is real.

 

[Bill 310]

No more dealer markups: Ford wants to move to online-only sales for EVs​

Ford thinks its distribution model costs $2,000 more per car than Tesla's.​

JONATHAN M. GITLIN - 6/2/2022, 11:40 AM

Enlarge / Ford's electric F-150 Lighting (L), eTransit (M), and Mustang Mach-E (R) battery-electric vehicles have all been such successes that they're all sold out for the rest of the year


Few Americans enjoyed the car-buying process even before supply chain chaos, and the chip shortage led dealerships to mark up inventory by thousands of dollars. But buying a Ford electric vehicle might be a lot less painful in the future, if Ford CEO Jim Farley gets his way. On Wednesday, Farley said that he wants the company's EVs to be sold online-only, with no dealer markups or other price negotiations, according to the Detroit Free Press.

"We've got to go to non-negotiated price. We've got to go to 100 percent online. There's no inventory (at dealerships), it goes directly to the customer. And 100 percent remote pickup and delivery," Farley said while speaking at a conference in New York.

One of Tesla's most popular innovations was to eschew traditional dealerships and sell its products directly to customers. But traditional manufacturers like Ford are usually prohibited from selling their products directly to customers, a legacy of fears over vertical integration written into state laws during the early 20th century. As such, Ford's franchised dealers will almost certainly still have a role to play.

"Then we have this opportunity to use our physical presence to outperform [competitors]. I think our dealers can do it. But the standards are going to be brutal. They're going to be very different than they are today," he said.

The move away from dealerships carrying extensive inventories of cars should save Ford money; the company says that its current distribution model adds around $2,000 in extra costs per car compared to Tesla. A third of that cost is tied up in inventory, and another third is spent on advertising.

"Our model is messed up. We spend $600 or $700 on the vehicle to promote it, and we spend nothing post-warranty on the customer experience. The problem is, on a parts business, which historically has been very profitable, we only get, maybe, only 10 or 20 percent of the customers come back to us," he said.

He also doesn't see the point in advertising a car that's already sold out. "If you ever see Ford Motor Co. doing a Super Bowl ad on our electric vehicles, sell the stock," he said.

 

[Bill 310]

Well it's not like the Dealers didn't do this to themselves.

On the Mach -E Ford said $500,00 refundable deposit. Local Ford Dealership demanded $5,000 non refundable.

I sent the email to Ford. They were pretty upset, to put it mildly, they asked me if there was anything they could do to make things work. I said , well if the dealership is screwing me over 10 fold and contravening Ford's policy when I am trying to buy a vehicle how do you think my service experience will be at said dealership?

 

[gone fishin]

Who is going to do the service and repairs on these hi tech EV's AND how are they going to pay their share of the gas tax for road maintenance?
A lot of details need to be worked out before we get to mass EV's including where are all the materials coming from and recycling all those spent batteries

 

[sly_karma]

Who is going to do the service and repairs on these hi tech EV's

EV drivetrains have a fraction of the parts of ICE, and ancillary items like fuel pump, radiator, oil cooler, alternator, water pump don't exist at all. Having said that, there's still some diagnostic work needed when something goes awry - but it will probably be software or firmware related and may be fixed via download. Running gear work like tires and front end will still happen, but that doesn't need dealership specific knowledge. Brake pad replacement is rare, high mileage EV owners reporting brake pads lasting 400,000 km and up.

Parts and service are a major profit centre in any traditional dealership business, and in the coming EV era that centre will shrink dramatically. There's going to be some serious adaptation needed. Business in any direct to consumer area is ruthlessly evolutionary - adapt or die. The dealership model will have to adapt like any other sector affected by change. They'll have to prove they add value, or consumers and automakers will abandon them.

 

[sly_karma]

Who is going to do the service and repairs on these hi tech EV's AND how are they going to pay their share of the gas tax for road maintenance?
A lot of details need to be worked out before we get to mass EV's including where are all the materials coming from and recycling all those spent batteries

Road maintenance being paid for by fuel taxes is already an unfair system and needs review, as the trucking industry pays nowhere near its share of the damage it does to roads. You'd think most jurisdictions will switch to an annual user fee as part of annual registration renewal. A few govts have tried already on EV but been attacked for disincentivising a green initiative. Probably a case of right.model, wrong timing.

 

[smokedvw]

Was at kal tire today. Tries for the 2 tesla Y's in there were $750 a piece and no all weather options.

That's about 4k for install and taxes for 60k. That's what the guy got to before replacing.

1k for my diesel VW.

 

[Stizzla]

So you won’t be able to test drive a $80,000 vehicle before buying it?

 

[sly_karma]

So you won’t be able to test drive a $80,000 vehicle before buying it?

Not with Ford at least. Some of us are so jonesed on the idea of a regular, proven pickup with an electric drive train that a hundred thousand of us plunked down written orders with $1000 deposits back in Feb, knowing that only one in 4 or 5 would get a truck this year. Test drive out of the question back since production hadn't begun yet. And now the trucks go direct to owners, dealers that did get demos mostly succumbed to intense pressure to sell them.

 

[Gong Show]

People have been buying million dollar houses without an inspection for over a year, and they were used!!
At least this has a warranty.

 

[Salmon Seeker]

Watch Rivian R1T Drive Into Idaho's Bear Lake To Launch Boat

The owner did his homework first, choosing a beach with hard sand and without mud; he also made sure not to exceed the R1T's 42 inches of maximum fording depth.

insideevs.com

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Watch Rivian R1T Drive Into Idaho's Bear Lake To Launch Boat

The owner did his homework first, choosing a beach with hard sand and without mud; he also made sure not to exceed the R1T's 42 inches of maximum fording depth.

insideevs.com

This is how most people launch boats now. Take their expensive pickup a back into the saltwater at least this guy was in fresh water.

 

[sly_karma]

Yesterday I rolled over my Lightning order to a 2023. Shee-it, $11,000 jump in price! I know inflation is real, but a 16% jump since I signed the order for a 2022 back in February is pretty spicy. I guess my commitment to not putting any more ICEs on the road just got real. Will be well into year 4 by the time I'm in front on ownership costs.

 

[Corey_lax]

Yesterday I rolled over my Lightning order to a 2023. Shee-it, $11,000 jump in price! I know inflation is real, but a 16% jump since I signed the order for a 2022 back in February is pretty spicy. I guess my commitment to not putting any more ICEs on the road just got real. Will be well into year 4 by the time I'm in front on ownership costs.

Weird that they don’t honour the price that you signed up for. Have you seen any on the road? I thought I saw one yesterday but might have just been a customized f150

Edit: I just drove by one. Not much different looking than the regular f150. The daytime running lights look a little silly. Kind of looked like a fluorescent light after than a fancy led that you would expect

 

[Maxpri]

Weird that they don’t honour the price that you signed up for. Have you seen any on the road? I thought I saw one yesterday but might have just been a customized f150

Edit: I just drove by one. Not much different looking than the regular f150. The daytime running lights look a little silly. Kind of looked like a fluorescent light after than a fancy led that you would expect

I seen quite a few recently actually, I think it looks pretty good. Pretty much any truck that doesn’t do the ridiculous bed side to cab body lines gets a pretty good grade in my book.