Ford Electric Vehicles Rendered Unprofitable

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by thisoldman

For my use case... a hybrid, on the other hand, makes perfect sense and that's why I bought one.

Hybrids are an interesting proposition but their total "emission" cycle is a disaster.
Recently a saw several articles showing several cases where 10 year old Prius in good condition where going to be scraped because to replace the battery would cost more $ than the value of the vehicle.
My teenager sons drive a 16 year old bimmer and a 10 year old Mazda.
The bimmer is a guzzler but the Mazda with more than 106K miles still does 24mpg in city and 45mpg on highway but BOTH still have some value for resale and have (knock on wood ) many years of service.... Talk about recycling !!!

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Scubawise

Yes many people FOOLED!

This is, I think, what will be the end of the electrification discussion.
The technology has its place but at the moment NOT as a total solution to everything...
But when people find themselves lied to about the performance of a certain tech., they become averse to it and that kills any discussion in the future.

You add to that the growing general understanding that inflation and high price of gas are being CAUSED by the push to electrification then you have the picture....

[Scubawise]

Originally Posted by 16ACE27

It's different because a car is not an RV. I don't plan fuel stops for my RV, I certainly don't plan fuel stops for my car on any trip because I know fuel is available almost anywhere I drive with a 5 minute stop, not an hour stop 30 minutes out of my way.

An electric vehicle would work for 90% of the car driving my wife and I do, but the 10% of inconvenience and the $25K price of admission make it not a good decision at this time.

Same as you would work 90% for us but out of town trips and extra cost is a no no.

I hear China has Ev that go further and cheaper but no here yet. May consider

[Chance]

Regardless of which way we lean on the subject of electric RVs, Thor and most other manufacturers have made it a topic for “civil” discussion with ads stating they see electrification in the future.

The Thor Vision ad below is one example (though fuel cell) and also their self-powered battery-electric camping trailer. To me at least the future doesn’t seem as clear as some would like it to be. Thor like all companies are trying to make money and may just be paying lip service to environmental issues/concerns, or may be seeing a different future.

In fairness, let’s keep in mind that Thor and other manufacturers can’t turn (alter significantly) RV manufacturing on a dime. I’d guess they have to plan at least 5 ~ 10 years in advance.
.

[Matthew]

Originally Posted by thisoldman

For my use case, an electric-only passenger vehicle just doesn't make sense. Now a hybrid, on the other hand, makes perfect sense and that's why I bought one. The local Ford dealer from which I bought my 2020 Escape SEL Sport Hybrid must send me a letter at least once a month offering to buy the vehicle. Sure, I'll sell it back to you "for top dollar" so that I have to go out and buy another new vehicle at something well in excess of "top dollar." I don't think so.

Off topic, but Ram offers me $2,000 more than I paid for my truck new 3 years ago. It has 110,000 miles on it.

[Chance]

Originally Posted by HMCSW

Battery costs or up over 400% in the last year. China is enjoying the increase as they build more coal fire power plants every day.

Retail battery costs which had been declining steadily bottomed out and are now increasing, but I don’t see evidence of quadrupling yet. I don’t know what auto industry is paying, though many are building their own batteries and wouldn’t necessarily share costs.

The common Lithium Iron Phosphate battery often used in RVs, manufactured and or sold by companies like BigBattery and many others, had dropped to as low as $300 per kWh of capacity. The same BigBattery company list prices as low as $400 per kWh today. Range depending on size and voltage has gone up from $300 ~ $400 to about $400 ~ $500, give or take. No doubt more expensive but not even doubled.

From my perspective an important question is whether high battery cost is temporary, or a long-term issue. Broad electrification of transportation depends on lower battery costs leading to cheaper EVs affordable to most buyers. Cost is not there yet, and moving in wrong direction.

I agree lowering CO2 is extremely complex when countries like US can’t control what others do. We can try to influence with trade, but that’s no longer going to work with economies as large and as powerful as China. They will put themselves first and will build coal plants if it’s in their best interest.

[Richie Rich]

Yeah, the ENTIRE electric car issue is plagued with tons of problems that have NOT been carefully thought out! Hybrid? Maybe. Full-On Electric? No Way is it practical at the level that is being pushed!

[DogLovers]

Originally Posted by 16ACE27

Why is nuclear power worse?

Storing spent nuclear fuel is a real issue as are potential accidents.

[DogLovers]

Originally Posted by GordSanClemente

I keep looking at the URL at the top of my screen.
It still says “thorforums.com”
Why is this here?
I dropped “Nextdoor “ because a warning about a coyote on the street ended up being blamed on a political party.
Huh?

That Nextdoor App is run by the "You know who's" in San Francisco. You know the city with the highest homeless population where the government feeds them, gives them "camping tents" and raises taxes to clean up their human waste on the streets. All while Walgreen's pull out of town because it's an open city for shop lifters. Nextdoor can visit hades in my opinion.

[16ACE27]

Originally Posted by DogLovers

Storing spent nuclear fuel is a real issue as are potential accidents.

But we're talking about the effect on "global warming" of fuels like coal, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, etc.

Although there have been incidents with nuclear power, it by far has the best industry safety record.

And we have made room to store nuclear waste (that isn't recycled) for hundreds of years, miles below ground. It won't be showing up in the neighborhood landfill any time soon.

[Chateau_Nomad]

There's quickly becoming a huge hole in the ground where Lake Mead once thrived. Maybe bury the nuclear waste there in a few years when it dries up as a reminder of the effects of climate change? No... that's an awful idea...

But seriously, I'm getting on board with nuclear... Statistics prove it's safety over other fuels, there's literally no emissions - and it powers a whole fleet of subs and Navy ships.

We need to think of solar/wind/hydro as supplements to the grid. It might take 100 more years to perfect solar farm technology/efficiency. Then there's that damn battery storage issue.

If we can keep the rampant corruption out of nuclear energy... we have a few Ohio politicians who are known to have sticky fingers. But I think nuclear is the next reliable energy source in place of fossil based fuels.

[16ACE27]

Originally Posted by Chateau_Nomad

There's quickly becoming a huge hole in the ground where Lake Mead once thrived. Maybe bury the nuclear waste there in a few years when it dries up as a reminder of the effects of climate change? No... that's an awful idea...

But seriously, I'm getting on board with nuclear... Statistics prove it's safety over other fuels, there's literally no emissions - and it powers a whole fleet of subs and Navy ships.

We need to think of solar/wind/hydro as supplements to the grid. It might take 100 more years to perfect solar farm technology/efficiency. Then there's that damn battery storage issue.

If we can keep the rampant corruption out of nuclear energy... we have a few Ohio politicians who are known to have sticky fingers. But I think nuclear is the next reliable energy source in place of fossil based fuels.

It is/was, but now you have to overcome the optics of TMI and Chernobyl to build any new plants.

[DogLovers]

Originally Posted by 16ACE27

But we're talking about the effect on "global warming" of fuels like coal, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, etc.

Although there have been incidents with nuclear power, it by far has the best industry safety record.

And we have made room to store nuclear waste (that isn't recycled) for hundreds of years, miles below ground. It won't be showing up in the neighborhood landfill any time soon.

Naw I say we just distribute all the nuclear waste above ground all over California. That way it can disperse easily and maybe do some good :-)

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by Chance

Regardless of which way we lean on the subject of electric RVs, Thor and most other manufacturers have made it a topic for “civil” discussion with ads stating they see electrification in the future.
.

Absolutelly, the all need to sing the same marching orders or they can't benefit from the Swift payment system...

[RACarvalho]

Originally Posted by 16ACE27

Although there have been incidents with nuclear power, it by far has the best industry safety record.

There is what we are told and then there is the truth.
Some truth on the above is that Chernobyl was one of the most catastrophic Nuclear accidents in History but when Russia started their military intervention in Ukraine one of the first places they took over was.... Chernobyl????

Maybe the safety is higher than reported but the electricity is too cheep???

[Chance]

“Texas power demand breaks record for second time this week“


76,708 MW yesterday following 76,600 MW record on Monday, and its only June. I expect July and August which are hotter on average to set more records, assuming ERCOT can meet demand.

Even if we built large Nukes, that’s a lot of new power plants. We better get busy building something soon at this rate.


Increase in Texas population is more to blame than electric cars, but it all adds up.

[Scubawise]

EV EV will your future be bright ?

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/pole...ndroidappshare

[EA37TS]

Toyota recalling electric vehicles because the wheels can fall off. Don’t drive them. Now that’s an alternative fuel solution.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/23/toyota...-loose-wheels/

Another feature of that remarkable automobile quality control that’s not present in RVs

[Chance]

Interesting data from article for Japan:


“Gasoline-electric hybrid models remain far more popular in Toyota’s home market than EVs, which accounted for just 1% of the passenger cars sold in Japan last year, based on industry data.“


Also of interest to me that of the 2,700 electric cars in question, most were headed to Europe.

[Hugh.vines@att.net]

These cars are not made by Toyota they are made by BYD a Chinese company second largest electric car manufacturer in China Toyota doesn’t make any total electric cars. Most electric cars are sold in Europe because the travel distance is so short compared to US. More diesels in Europe too. That’s the ones they are trying to get rid of. Chine is trying to take over the automobile industry in Europe and pacific and doing a pretty good job of it. I’ll stick with my Ford F-150 and Ford E450 until we run out of gas. Probably not in my lifetime.