I wonder if anyone has tried “jailbreaking” their EV’s and running custom OS’s on it to get rid of the spyware.
Would most likely void the warranty, but still.
Probably not. You can modify cars pretty extensively and insurance doesn't care. As long as it's road legal, which is a very low bar in most states. There have been ECU mods forever and those are still covered.
It’s not very often people express that what they think isn’t absolutely the only opinion people should have and just wanted to say I appreciate that you’re willing to admit that.
Agreed. Not only does it lead to a more connected experience it forces the driver to may more attention to their vehicle and surroundings. I feel I am more prone to say dreaming of becoming distracted behind the wheel of an automatic vehicle.
My experience is opposite. I can focus more on driving without the distraction of gear shifting and keep both hands on wheel. Also in some circumstances having to change gear in some situations restricts your body position when you should have more freedom of movement to properly look around for pedestrians and cyclists - this is the case for me when turning into my housing estate.
The again i live in a rhd country so I change gears with my left hand. I find it a bit easier to do it with right.
Just push the clutch pedal in if it’s an emergency reaction; otherwise change into the gear you need to be in ahead of time (like downshifting into 2nd before a turn).
Sounds like you’re stretching a problem that is really just an error of usage, imo.
With less input required, people can just drift into their own thoughts and whatever emotional things they may have going on whereas the manual keeps your brain more focused in the activity of driving, even if you find it occasionally annoying.
It’s not a “problem” it’s just one of those little things that are safer with an auto.
But it depends a lot on the driver. I see lots of distracted drivers using their phone, I don’t matter what transmission they have if they don’t appreciate the power they are wielding by driving a car.
I just want to be able to drive and cycle safely. Racing on public road (or whatever is meant by sport) is not legal, I don’t see why you would defend it and resort to name calling.
“the sport of driving” as a phrase has a different meaning than the “sport driving” meaning you were mudding it with. It was obvious to everyone else, except you and whichever other trigger-happy Karen is addicted to getting on a high horse on the internet over the issue you brought up. That’s why the name-calling is there, Mr. or Mrs. Reading Incomprehension.
This is a great question, and as far as I know, the other answers are correct, you’re not going to stop any modern vehicles from publishing at least some information.
Aptera nominally seems to be more focused on consumer rights than other ev companies, but I can’t even tell if they’re in full production yet and also they’ll probably still record at least location and safety statistics.
I know a guy who sticks with his older firebird because it has zero microchips. He’s coincidentally an addict illegally overstaying his visa and missing a lot of teeth, plus the last three repairs cost more than the car is worth, but no gubbermint is going to find out he drove to Fresno.
Haven't they been a year away from production since like 2009? I stopped following their developments at some point because it had been long enough back then.
They did have some unreasonable promises when they first started.
But now they're making their production intent cars. These are like 99% similar to what the production line will look like.
They're looking to have done all or most of their crash testing and safety tests before this time next year. If the planets align, there might be actual cars delivered to customers some time in 2025.
Double the mpg for a decent diesel gives about 11p/mile, which is what I get most of the time.
Driving 8k miles per year that nets a £680 saving per year. That does not justify changing vehicles. Even a 5 grand difference in price would not be acceptable to most people imo. Even dropping road and luxury taxed barely change it.
If you double the mpg, you should double the miles per kWh, as 3 isn't very good either. I choose those numbers because that is my old diesel van vs my new EV van. 30mpg is generous and 3mpkwh is conservative. But the EV is a bit smaller, so that's about right.
I do about a thousand miles a month. I save about 20.23p per mile. So I save about £202 a month just on fuel.
The numbers of pence per kilowatt hour for an EV does not change dependent on the comparison to a petrol or diesel car. If we are talking about the efficiency savings, we would expect greater savings for the EV compared to a petrol car doing 30 mpg versus the comparison to a diesel car. And 3 miles per kilowatt hour isn't that unreasonable, you are not going to get 4 except in specific circumstances.
I think it's obvious that the more miles per unit time, the quicker an EV will pay off. But then, one does need to charge at home so the other challenges (off road parking, long enough between use periods) makes a large difference. It does not surprise me that it works better for you with a works van and high mileage, where it can be classed as a business expense with BiK bonuses. But it doesn't help Joe bloggs who does 6k/year at a push.
I'd like to buy an EV. I expect my next car to be one, whether I like it or not, and I've set everything up including solar panels to wring out every efficiency I can. But with this tax system and fuel cost differences the sums don't add up for me, and most other people.
You have to compare like for like. A 60mpg is not equivalent to 3mpkwh. 60mpg is top end efficiency and 3mpkwh is bottom end.
If you can't charge at home, right now, I'm not sure I'd advice an EV yet. Public chargers are normally a rip off. It's pretty much the same kind of costs as fossil fuels. It needs tackling frankly.
If you got solar and a home charger , then yes, you can drive around even cheaper than my numbers. I know people whose mile cost is basically zero over summer and only the same as me in winter.
The upfront costs are coming down as the ranges go up. Long run, economics alone will kill ICE. Even without the negative feedback loops it will get in as there is less ICE so less economics of scale.
This is essentially it. The surge in demand probably came from company cars and those who can afford to buy expensive cars, but now that demand has been met then sales have dropped off. We're not yet in the market to replace our car but I do keep an eye on things, and every time I look at a new EV, they're like 30 or 40k over what I'd be willing to pay.
I imagine it's an issue of economies of scale, they're more expensive because they're producing less than ICE vehicles; the only way to get them cheaper would be for some heavy government subsidies.
I didn’t read the article, but in a modern ev I can only see merit in maybe 2 or three speeds plus reverse if it’s an actual transmission and not just a parameter change.
With the stick shift Honda civic converted to electric that I tried out when deciding if I wanted to convert my own, it had the original transmission and you really only used gear 2 and 4. You came to a full stop geared in, and changed directly to 2 while at 0 rpm. Definitely a strange experience to anyone used to stick shift.
What is the charging infrastructure like in other parts of the UK outside of London? I don't see any on-street charge points, the multi-story car parks here have about 6 charge points combined, and I think Tesco's has 3. Other supermarkets appear to have none.
Like a very large section of the UK, I don't have a driveway. If these car manufacturers were actually wanting to shift EVs they would be investing in the charging networks but it appears that like most things "that's someone else's job", so no-one does it.
I don't even reach the point of caring about price, or range, when I'm more concerned about charging the thing in the first place.
What is the charging infrastructure like in other parts of the UK outside of London?
I don't have an EV, so I am probably not keeping as close an eye on it as I would be, but it isn't great. And the price can be off-putting - they discussed this story on the radio yesterday an expert said you could pay 7p/kWh at home but ten times that amount elsewhere.
People really buy the propaganda around EVs and so many other things that it is a little depressing. You cannot even argue with most as they are so firmly entrenched in their beliefs that have been carefully fed to them.
EVs solve very little problems related to cars. Replacing every car with an EV but doing nothing to address the impacts of car dependancy and car centric urban planning changes very little in the grand sense of economic and environmental sustainability.
Particulate pollution and NOx/CO/CO² emissions for starters.
No, heavier electric cars don't mean more brake wear and particulates, because regen braking means brakes last longer. A lot longer.
No, you're not just moving emissions to a power plant, because the UK grid is only 35% powered by fossil fuels (natural gas). Even if it was, not polluting outside someone's home or a school is a good thing.
No, emissions aren't worse building new EVs than keeping the old cars because in less than 4 years the EV is in credit Vs just the fuel burnt in a petrol car. They last a lot longer than that.
Replacing every car with an EV but doing nothing to address the impacts of car dependancy and car centric urban planning changes very little in the grand sense of economic and environmental sustainability.
Urban planning is what happens when you avoid car dependency. People need to move to work, and unless your plan is that we regress to a largely agrarian culture, that means public or personal transport. Public transport only works with a high enough density of people to make it worthwhile. i.e. urban centres. Outside of urban centres people need personal transport, so let's have a cleaner form than most of us currently do.
Can someone explain exactly how a car is a privacy nightmare? Like what data does it collect and how does it transmit it? Does it have GPS? Is it recording audio somehow? Is it transmitting over cellular data? Verizon, T-mobile? Who’s paying that data bill, Toyota?
I just don’t get it.
My RAV4 has Android Auto, but I don’t have a Toyota app on my phone or anything so how would toyota get stuff from my phone?
Here’s a useful link from Mozilla that details some of the carmakers doing some shady stuff with their models. In a nutshell, these cars have a GPS transceiver, microphones, and cameras to monitor your location, hear your conversations, and even see who’s in the cabin with you. Usually this info can be sold to third parties like insurance companies, cities, advertisers, and more. They can even give the data to law enforcement with few limitations if any. There could be a bunch of other ways this data could be exploited.
Usually these cars have some basic cellular modern to transmit the data but I wouldn’t know how much the carmakers pay for the service.
I bought a Suzuki Swift. As best I can tell, there is no GPS or cellular radio. Higher specs come with GPS but I think still no cellular.
The NZ privacy policy is very good but is really only referring to service information and the website.
The global privacy policy is still mostly focused on service/dealer information and the website, with a note that they might receive medical information if one of their vehicles is involved in a crash.
The infotainment system (at least this one) comes from Directed Electronics, who again have a privacy policy that appears to be focused on using the website and directly selling things.
There is a section in the manual about ‘Vehicle Data Recordings’ which says that “these data are exclusively technical” and appears to be a reference to fault codes and crash black-boxes.
There is a Suzuki Connect app that has a privacy policy, which appears to include the ‘usual’ speed/location/mileage/braking/acceleration, but not the more ridiculous stuff like audio or video, and also says it won’t be sold.
Of course, they’re not available in the US. You might be able to get one from Mexico? Not sure about legality.
Used electrics are good value now. I have an electric car which I lease, and so far the depreciation on the car has outstripped the cost of the lease by a factor of 2, meaning I will definitely be "up" vs having bought it outright. I'll definitely buy a used electric once the lease expires.
There's no way the cost of new electrics won't come down, economic gravity will force it.
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