Article Link! The Great American EV Fire Sale Is About to Begin

[Bongo Lewi]

This trend isnt going away. The future is knobless.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

During the aformentioned hurricanes or natural disasters the fast and slow chargers will also be dead.

Maybe. But gas pumps will be dead too. As will the compressors that run the pipelines feeding fuel distributors.

In the aftermath of Sandy, people attempting to siphon gas from gas stations were arrested for looting.

If you have solar panels or a propane generator, you will be able to charge your EV. I have both. Or... a typical EV can run an average home for about 3 days. Maybe longer if you are frugal about power use.

If we have no sunlight, there are much bigger problems to consider. Like I said before, making your own gasoline is a little tricky. Making your own electricity is easy.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

YIKES, I-90 in Montana is 552.54 miles (the longest segment of I-90 within a single state)

However, I see that there MAY be 1 charging station along the route. What could go wrong

Move to South Dakota?

Take I-80 vs I-90. A friend of mine drove his Tesla from Maryland to Washington State a couple years ago. With a plan, it's really not a big deal. For the hold my beer types that carry a piss bottle, drive 15 hours a day, and filling up is performed like a NASCAR pit stop.... EVs might not be a good choice.

Four out of five cardiologists recommend those people unpucker their bung hole. It adds years to their life. As the locals around my shack near the beach say to tourists, "I'm sorry you are in a hurry".

 

[NavyVette]

Maybe. But gas pumps will be dead too. As will the compressors that run the pipelines feeding fuel distributors.

In the aftermath of Sandy, people attempting to siphon gas from gas stations were arrested for looting.

If you have solar panels or a propane generator, you will be able to charge your EV. I have both. Or... a typical EV can run an average home for about 3 days. Maybe longer if you are frugal about power use.

If we have no sunlight, there are much bigger problems to consider. Like I said before, making your own gasoline is a little tricky. Making your own electricity is easy.

Yes but if a hurricane is coming and you need to leave the state or even go a few hundred miles inland good luck taking your solar charger

Assuming (which I am for this excercise) a gasoline powered vehicle has a full tank and will leave an EV in its dust.

Even if there are chargers operating good luck getting off and back on the majjor highways.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Yes but if a hurricane is coming and you need to leave the state or even go a few hundred miles inland good luck taking your solar charger

Assuming (which I am for this excercise) a gasoline powered vehicle has a full tank and will leave an EV in its dust.

Even if there are chargers operating good luck getting off and back on the majjor highways.

My place on the coast has flooded a bunch of times during storms. Nothing in it. The water recedes and you dry it out. It's a shack and probably getting close to a century old. I have a portable solar kit that I take there. Folding lightweight panels and a battery/inverter. Runs a fan. Provides lighting. I can run a computer and charge my phone. That's all I need. There is no grid power.

My full time home is on high ground and there is no need to ever evacuate. Solar and also a generator.

If you evacuate to couple hundred miles from danger there will be power or working charging stations. If not, bring the portable charger with you. It's 110V. Takes a lot longer at household voltage but it works. If you have evacuated... what's the hurry? For most evacuees.. they go someplace and wait with friends or family. Or maybe a motel. Lots of motels have hitching posts for EVs now.

 

[Racer88]

This trend isnt going away. The future is knobless.

Actually not true. The trend is actually reversing. Touch screens suck. People don't like them. They're cheaper, which is the main reason manufacturers went to them.

But, the manufacturers are reversing the trend in response to consumer demand. The newest generation of Subaru Outbacks have more controls back to physical buttons. To wit.... all the A/C controls have gone back to buttons instead of a drill-down menu on the touch screen. Good move.

 

[NavyVette]

Yeah, my Sierra is the same - buttons all over the place, as opposed to that craptastic RAM

 

[Bongo Lewi]

I prefer buttons and switches ... said young people never.

2025 Bronco

15 Cars With The Largest Touchscreens

With massive screens all the rage these days, automakers too are jumping in on this trend, in order to provide the ultimate onboard experience

www.topspeed.com

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Actually not true. The trend is actually reversing. Touch screens suck. People don't like them. They're cheaper, which is the main reason manufacturers went to them.

But, the manufacturers are reversing the trend in response to consumer demand. The newest generation of Subaru Outbacks have more controls back to physical buttons. To wit.... all the A/C controls have gone back to buttons instead of a drill-down menu on the touch screen. Good move.

View attachment 35318

I understand Subaru's motivation. It's a well known fact that lesbian dog breeders prefer switches and knobs.

 

[NavyVette]

I prefer buttons and switches ... said young people never.

2025 Bronco

View attachment 35323

15 Cars With The Largest Touchscreens

With massive screens all the rage these days, automakers too are jumping in on this trend, in order to provide the ultimate onboard experience

www.topspeed.com

Still buttons and knobs for the HVAC.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Still buttons and knobs for the HVAC.

Yep. You know why? The carmaker marketing people do focus groups and ask customers if they like this or that. They dont redesign shit just because it's cheaper. Even if it is, they do market research. A lot of it. Millions of dollars spent on that.

Cars have flat screens because their market research says people like it. So car nerds hate it. Carmakers don't give a fuck what they think. They are in the minority. The most likely scenario for the heat/cooling controls is people like that separate. Or it's too expensive for the carmaker to redesign that system right now. Maybe both.

Remember the Apple iMac that looked like candy? Steve Jobs didnt give a flying fuck what IT people thought of the design or the colors. That saved the company. They sold millions of them. Apple was on the ropes until the iMac and Jobs return. Look at them now. I remember my mother seeing the commercial for those colorful all-in-one iMacs. She said one of those would look nice on the kitchen counter. Bingo.

Musk is a lot like Jobs. He doesnt give a shit what the status quo thinks. Every technological breakthrough in the past 200 years has been disruptive and grumpy old fucks can be counted on to say it's folly.

 

[NavyVette]

We made Phaser printers to match the imac for a while
I'm not sure which colors other than blue we made, but I do know that there was at least one that we could not as it tended to melt from the heat required in a solid ink printer.
I built one out of the scrap piles and used it for years.

 

[Racer88]

Cars have flat screens because their market research says people like it. So car nerds hate it. Carmakers don't give a fuck what they think. They are in the minority.

Look it up, dude. The pendulum is swinging back. And car makers are adding buttons BACK because of that same market research. Turns out people don't like drilling down through multiple menus to get to basic functions like changing a/c functions.

Also, research has shown touch screens are dangerous because they require the driver to take his eyes off the road to find the virtual button. Physical buttons can be found / felt without looking. Touch screens require DISTRACTED driving.

So, yeah... Because of market research, car makers are adding buttons back, especially for A/C functions.

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/buttons-are-coming-back-to-cars-but-they-will-take-time/

Rejoice! Carmakers Are Embracing Physical Buttons Again

Amazingly, reaction times using screens while driving are worse than being drunk or high—no wonder 90 percent of drivers hate using touchscreens in cars. Finally the auto industry is coming to its senses.

www.wired.com

Rejoice! Carmakers Are Embracing Physical Buttons Again

Amazingly, reaction times using screens while driving are worse than being drunk or high—no wonder 90 percent of drivers hate using touchscreens in cars. Finally the auto industry is coming to its senses.

www.wired.com

https://insideevs.com/news/752840/vw-brings-back-buttons-switches/

Touch Screens Are Making Cars Worse. It’s Time to Bring Back Buttons and Knobs.

Big touch screens look cool, but they’re difficult (and sometimes dangerous) to operate.

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Also, research has shown touch screens are dangerous because they require the driver to take his eyes off the road to find the virtual button. Physical buttons can be found / felt without looking. Touch screens require DISTRACTED driving.

Psychobabble. Contrairanism sells magazines. Wired has been wrong on every major technology trend in the past 20 years. It should be renamed to Wishes vs. Wired.

Industry pundits are wrong 50% of the time. Popular Mechanics said in the 1960's that by the turn of the century cars would be able to fly. Still waiting.

I made my bones at the dawn of man-machine interfaces and tons of research behind it. Making the leap from switches and buttons to a screen.

There's science behind why this:

Has replaced this:

This isn't just about cost to manufacture. It's evolution.

Now, I realize that a vast amount of discrete switches and knobs give some people an erection and foster the illusion of being in control. But that ain't where the world is going.

The established carmakers are tripping all over themselves trying to figure out how to stay relevant. These 'announcements' of going back to traditional controls is just marketing bullshit. I do concede that old farts love knobs and switches. And right now those are the only people who can afford a new car. So in the short term they pander to geezers with money so shareholders don't demand their heads. As soon as the knob lovers are all dead or in wheelchairs, knobs will disappear. Again.

Consumers confuse 'better' with 'what I grew up with' all the time. Human nature.

Me... I hated it when full stroke keyboards with tactile mechanical switches went the way of the dodo. But I dont delude myself into believing they will make a comeback. You can still get them as an accessory if you want to pay for it. I also preferred my Blackberry to the original iPhone. I liked the little keyboard. The only constant in the universe is the laws of physics and change. I just roll with change. There's much more important things to bitch about.

Your grandkids as adults will never see a knob or switch. As the parable goes... In a world of digital watches, nobody knows what clockwise is. And in space, there is no use for a compass. Such is the future of knobs and switches.

 

[Racer88]

. These 'announcements' of going back to traditional controls is just marketing bullshit.

Ummmm.... no. Not bullshit. More than announcements. It's already done. Currently. Current models now have buttons replacing touch screen controls. It's already happened. My '24 has touch screen control over the a/c system. The '26 model of the same car has physical buttons. NOW. TODAY.

There is still a touch screen for some functions (infotainment). But some of the controls formerly accessed through the touch screen (A/C) have reverted back to physical buttons in DIRECT RESPONSE to consumer demand. Again... not marketing hype. Done and done! On the market now.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Ummmm.... no. Not bullshit. More than announcements. It's already done. Currently. Current models now have buttons replacing touch screen controls. It's already happened. My '24 has touch screen control over the a/c system. The '26 model of the same car has physical buttons. NOW. TODAY.

There is still a touch screen for some functions. But some of the controls formerly accessed through the touch screen have reverted back to physical buttons in DIRECT RESPONSE to consumer demand. Again... not marketing hype. Done and done! On the market now.

Enjoy it for the next couple of years. That's about how long this will last. When they realize it doesnt improve sales, they will flip flop again. Display/controls technology in automobiles is not going to reverse.

 

[Bongo Lewi]

There are a lot of people who would insist this is better

than this

Those people have their heads firmly stuck up their ass.


As much as I love these old machines... they are never going to be like this again.

 

[Racer88]

Ford CEO ‘Surprised’ Customers Don’t Want $75,000 EVs​

Ford Admits It Was Very Wrong About EVs

Speaking at the first Accelerate conference in Detroit, Ford CEO Jim Farley had a few things to say about hybrids and EVs.

carbuzz.com

Farley has previously stated that big, heavy, expensive EVs don't make sense. But it was apparently a lesson the company learned a bit late in the game. Noting that customers can be "pesky" when it comes to technology, he admitted that Ford vastly overestimated the EV market.

"That’s maybe five, six, seven percent of the new vehicle industry," explained Farley. "So I think it’s going to be a vibrant industry, but it’s going to be smaller, way smaller than we thought."

"They definitely surprised us. Customers are not interested in a $75,000 electric vehicle. They find them interesting; they’re fast, they’re efficient. You don’t go to the gas station. But they’re expensive."
– Jim Farley, Ford CEO

 

[Bongo Lewi]

Ford CEO ‘Surprised’ Customers Don’t Want $75,000 EVs​

Ford Admits It Was Very Wrong About EVs

Speaking at the first Accelerate conference in Detroit, Ford CEO Jim Farley had a few things to say about hybrids and EVs.

carbuzz.com

They don't want $75,000 anything. The engine has nothing to do with it. Maybe they dont have enough knobs and switches so that's why sales are in a slump.

People are financing cars for 6-8 years now. Crazy.

 

[Racer88]

They don't want $75,000 anything. The engine has nothing to do with it. Maybe they dont have enough knobs and switches so that's why sales are in a slump.

People are financing cars for 6-8 years now. Crazy.

Yep. That is true, too. Last I looked... the average car payment in the US is $740. And something like 20% of car payments are $1,000+ / month! That's NUTS! Average price for a car in the US is now at $49k!!!

How many of those cars financed for 6 - 8 years will even LAST that long?
(Mind you, I typically drive my cars for 10 years. But they are notoriously reliable cars like the Camry, Accord, etc.)