My parents are in the market for a new car and were retching to new car prices. Google turned up the average new price for February: $48.8K. Yikes.

QOTD.

Agree - EVs fit great with luxury cruisers: Thunderbird, any old straight 8 Buick, pre-1970 Caddy, Duesenberg (ducks to dodge rock)...

How incredibly thick that A-pillars are on my everyday car.

Yup, there are some great use cases for fuel cells (big ships, long-distance trucks, mining, etc.), but as time goes one, there are fewer and fewer of other transportation use cases that can compete with the latest battery electrics.

Okay, work on EV fire prevention has been ongoing for decades. The electric utilities have been working with the national fire folks (NFPA) since the 1990s. In fact, “In the case of electric vehicle safety education, in 2009 NFPA received a $4.4M grant through FEMA and DOE to support a nationwide education outreach pro…

When is the 4xe PHEV version coming? A burly electric motor with instant torque? Now that’s luxury.

That’s for two reasons:

Yup. You are spot-on.

That’s true. I was thinking of the medium-sized (?) crossovers and SUVs like the Explorer and bigger (Expedition, Excursion, Tahoe, Suburban). Those rigs’ MPGs would really benefit from even a few electric miles.

It’s complicated, but comes back to a mix of industrial policy (near zero here in the U.S., very strong in China), the requirement for quarterly profits to Wall Street and the relative lack of long-term incentives to invest in the future, legacy costs and structures in the automotive industry, and perhaps some…

We may be seeing more PHEVs. It got lost in the headlines, but back in August 2022, CARB updated the rules that encourage more strong* PHEVs starting with the 2026 model year (that’s about a year-and-a-half away).

Yup. A mass-market PHEV crossover / SUV is a market segment that is largely ignored, even today.

The vehicle part of developing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle you can live with is challenge, but that’s the easy part. The hard part is the hydrogen fueling infrastructure. We were actually looking into demoing one of these in the Bay Area a few weeks ago, then Shell announced they were closing a dozen hydrogen fueling…

LS all the things, indeed.

Yes, my friend has a Mirai. He said it’s $18/gallon equivalent. Thankfully, he leased it.

This. Well-said.

Thanks for this. I was wondering the exact same thing. What’s the improved electric range?

BYD just launched a fully-electric version of this yesterday. The price? $15K.

Inspired by the mouth of a baleen whale? The taillights were inspired by melted eye makeup of an 80s glam rocker.