Car Chat

[Eye of the Tiger]

The article has 7 exterior and 1 interior pic, how many more Citations do they want?

All of them, in proper APA format.

[Soup DeVille]

I'm no expert but I'd say that's an IIHS fail on the small overlap rigid barrier test. Folded like a wet Kleenex.

Passenger compartment is intact. Not even the glass is broken. That's damned good actually.

[r0tor]

Isn't that part of a roll cage behind the front seat?

[CaminoRacer]

Isn't that part of a roll cage behind the front seat?

Looks like it. I wonder if it has any bars forward of that, or if it's just a hoop.

I'm guessing the car has subframe connectors.

[FoMoJo]

BMW M Quad-Motor EV Spied In The Cold Testing As Modified i4 M50

Is that camouflage or just the stupidest looking grille since the Edsel?

[Morris Minor]

One of my neighbors just traded in his Q7 for a BMW X7. I can barely show my face around here with my lowly CX-5 & old Obama-era Infiniti.

[Eye of the Tiger]

One of my neighbors just traded in his Q7 for a BMW X7. I can barely show my face around here with my lowly CX-5 & old Obama-era Infiniti.

Oh, the humanity. What are you going to do about it?

[MrH]

One of my neighbors just traded in his Q7 for a BMW X7. I can barely show my face around here with my lowly CX-5 & old Obama-era Infiniti.

I've got a big brain idea I might pull off this weekend and trade the Outback in.  Been searching for a Bolt EUV for a long time, but I think that's a lost cause.

[FoMoJo]

Work of art...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDATeokA99M&t=1s

[r0tor]

Seems like this is the real answer at the moment to saving the planet from cars
https://youtu.be/yRHabI5MA3k


MPG puts it on par with average EV efficiency/CO2 taking into account the grid.  1KWh battery means for the amount of minerals you can build ~18 of these for every PHEV or ~ 80 for every BEVs and make no difference to electrical infrastructure.

[MrH]

I've got a big brain idea I might pull off this weekend and trade the Outback in.  Been searching for a Bolt EUV for a long time, but I think that's a lost cause.

The Bolt is tough to find.  Best bet is to order one, but even that is a total crap shoot in how they do allocations, etc.  And of course, the dealer needs me to go in person to do even that.

Came across a BMW G20 330i xDrive for a great price.  Turns out they're all really cheap, and supposedly pretty good to drive?  Depreciation is brutal on these.  I could get one with less miles, a year newer, and CPO for $5k-$6k over what the Outback is worth.  And it was a $54k MSRP vs the $38k MSRP of the Outback.   B48 engine is supposed to be reliable.  Great infotainment.  ZF 8-speed.  The transmission + infotainment alone is probably worth the price of admission.

I started digging in a bit to understand.  Found a great color combo that's pretty close to me, tons of options.  It has the Driver Assistance Package.  But it turns out the Driver Assistance Package doesn't include adaptive cruise control?!  Even though ACC is standard on a Civic, it isn't even included in the Driver Assistance Package.  You need the Driver Assistance Pro Package.  I hate BMW.

So I start searching, and none have it.  I found a ton of things on the forum of people thinking they'd get it, and it wasn't there when they took delivery.

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/43048/here-are-the-features-missing-from-new-bmws-thanks-to-the-chip-shortage

Turns out they cut it from all 4 cylinder BMWs for the most part, along with a lot of other things (no upgraded sound system, etc).  Now I'm understanding why these things are probably so cheap.  Is it worth $6k to upgrade, but lose the ACC features I use every day?  Probably not.

[AutobahnSHO]

Seems like this is the real answer at the moment to saving the planet from cars
https://youtu.be/yRHabI5MA3k


MPG puts it on par with average EV efficiency/CO2 taking into account the grid.  1KWh battery means for the amount of minerals you can build ~18 of these for every PHEV or ~ 80 for every BEVs and make no difference to electrical infrastructure.

Definitely the right answer.

[Laconian]

80mpg!? Was he driving down a hill? Ridiculous clickbait fodder. All the reviews I've read have reported much lower mileage figures. MT suggests between 38-48 is more realistic. The Prius is a more impressive car, and from the reviews I've read, it sounds like a more pleasant/less loud drive.
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2023-honda-civic-ehev-hybrid-first-drive-review/

50mpg isn't on par at all - that's 1.5mi/kWh. Many EVs do 3+.

[AutobahnSHO]

LOLOLOLOL
The "Crazy" drivetrain is basically the same as the Prius and Maverick...

[MrH]

80mpg!? Was he driving down a hill? Ridiculous clickbait fodder. All the reviews I've read have reported much lower mileage figures. MT suggests between 38-48 is more realistic. The Prius is a more impressive car, and from the reviews I've read, it sounds like a more pleasant/less loud drive.
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2023-honda-civic-ehev-hybrid-first-drive-review/

50mpg isn't on par at all - that's 1.5mi/kWh. Many EVs do 3+.

Imperial vs US MPG play a part in it I think.

  You can't just convert mpg to mi/kWh?  The losses are at entirely different places for gasoline vs electricity

[Laconian]

The EPA thinks you can, that's what the MPGe rating is all about - it's a measure of how good the car is at converting energy into distance. mi/kWh can be computed by multiplying MPGe by 1gal/33.7kWh.

I agree it's kind of a nonsensical stat, but r0t0r claimed that the energy efficiency of the Civic Hybrid is on par with a pure EV, and I don't know of a better yardstick that could be used to make that assertion. In any event, all our numbers are endlessly muddied on the ICE side too. You're not seeing the energy that's wasted as part of extracting, refining, and transporting a gallon of gasoline.

In my state the energy is pretty clean: water make turbine go brrr.

[r0tor]

50mpg isn't on par at all - that's 1.5mi/kWh. Many EVs do 3+.

Sure, they do EVs do 3+ kwh/mile... However every 3kw that reached your car consumed 6kw to make it at the power plant.  Extraction losses are basically the same at the door of the power plant or the gas station.

So reality is once you get above 50-60 mpg there is no longer a net difference in this day and age

[Laconian]

In some states, perhaps. My state's energy mix is 65% hydro, 9% solar, and 8% nuclear, with natural gas filling in the gaps. An EV running here is a lot cleaner than one running in West Virginia - 90% coal!

[Eye of the Tiger]

My XBox runs best on nuclear power.

[Eye of the Tiger]

FUSION

[Morris Minor]

The MPGe thing is total fucking bollocks dreamt up by a committee of speds.

[r0tor]

In some states, perhaps. My state's energy mix is 65% hydro, 9% solar, and 8% nuclear, with natural gas filling in the gaps. An EV running here is a lot cleaner than one running in West Virginia - 90% coal!

You can't go by state - need to look at what the grid your attached to looks like as some grids are net importers or exporters.  Your region for instance draws in some significant coal power from the mid west

https://www.epa.gov/egrid/power-profiler#/NWPP

[Laconian]

That is a cool site. The regions that are well stocked with nuclear plants - upstate NY, New England - have great CO2 numbers. My utility lets customers pay a little more to buy only hydro, but I bet most customers probably are unaware and/or don't care. My parents' utility district is 100% hydro, no questions asked, and they pay less for their power than my default "dirty" power mix, and much cheaper than my hydro-only option.

My region has a CO2 footprint of 634lb/MW. That's the equivalent of 21.3 pounds of carbon released to produce the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. That is slightly higher emissions than simply lighting a gallon of gas on fire - that would release 20 pounds.

I concede your point that electricity is similarly "dirty", and if you are only focusing on emissions reductions, it really just comes down to how efficiently you are converting energy into work. Big EVs with big battery packs that seldom break a sweat will probably never be "green" versus a hybrid Civic or Prius... though, apples to apples, they are still a heck of a lot more efficient than their ICE equivalents. The Lucid Air has performance which annihilates every ICE executive car ever made and still gets 122MPGe.

For max efficiency, we'd drive little econoboxes with 20kWh batteries sized with just enough capacity to get to work, do a quick errand, and not much else. But nobody would buy that.

[r0tor]

Home owners paying extra for solar/hydro/nuclear is sort of dubious.  The company you pay takes the money and enters a long term power purchasing agreement with companies that have that type of power in their portfolio on your grid.  So up front this seem reasonable.

The kicker however is these types of power generating facilities generally operate at full load regardless of if the output is locked into contract or not just because the nature of the generation - there is basically no fuel cost, therefore no incremental cost like a natural gas plant has to crank up output from a min to base or peak load.... So in other words it never makes sense to restrict something like a solar panels output so you can't exactly increase it either.

So in the end did the home owner actually do something?  It's a question without any answer.  On one hand they probably did not change the loading on the grid at all on any particular day.  On the other hand though it does signal to generation companies that the market exists, there are buyers willing to pay a premium for it, and could entice further investments or facilities.

This is a massive argument at the moment at corporations globally whom have adopted carbon neutral plans.  You can literally do nothing but enter contracts like these for clean energy and achieve goals - but is that actually making the impact you are claiming or just "greenwashing" things

[Morris Minor]

But if my local "dirty" utility is buying in from a renewable squeaky-clean utility, doesn't that reduce the overall load needing to be met by "dirty's" fossil fuel infrastructure?

[MrH]

The EPA thinks you can, that's what the MPGe rating is all about - it's a measure of how good the car is at converting energy into distance. mi/kWh can be computed by multiplying MPGe by 1gal/33.7kWh.

I agree it's kind of a nonsensical stat, but r0t0r claimed that the energy efficiency of the Civic Hybrid is on par with a pure EV, and I don't know of a better yardstick that could be used to make that assertion. In any event, all our numbers are endlessly muddied on the ICE side too. You're not seeing the energy that's wasted as part of extracting, refining, and transporting a gallon of gasoline.

In my state the energy is pretty clean: water make turbine go brrr.

It's dumb to try to compare efficiencies between totally different energy sources.  I think the MPGe is very disingenuous to say the least.  It's designed to push things in a certain direction.  The losses for EVs comes from the electricity generation, transmission, and storage.  To only look at it after those happen, and then compare it with gasoline, which suffers the efficiency loss at the point of consumption mostly, is a very apples to oranges comparison.

I think comparing $/mile is probably the most meaningful comparison.  I guess you could look at emissions of the whole value stream per mile of both.  But efficiency at an arbitrary point in the process isn't relevant.

[r0tor]

But if my local "dirty" utility is buying in from a renewable squeaky-clean utility, doesn't that reduce the overall load needing to be met by "dirty's" fossil fuel infrastructure?

In the world of deregulation, generation is separate from distribution. 

Your distribution provider (your utility) goes out and buys power from the generation market to meet it's loads - generally at the cheapest rate possible.  You can add your own middleman in the mix if you sign an agreement with company XYZ forcing your utility provider to buy your electric from them.  So yes, you can make your utility provider buy something cleaner then normal.

On the flip side is the generation market.  Generally the grid controllers (not your utility) has a day ahead market where they make load estimates and set pricing and generation companies bid their output and pricing - lowest combo of generation wins the bids to be online the next day.  Then there is the spot market which is realtime (with realtime pricing) which covers the grid controllers for being off on their projections, generation tripping offline, or generation that just says f it all we are staying online or offline even if we lose money (common case for plants that could have startup times in the days instead of hours).

So theoretically the home owners contract could put a clean generation company in a bind and force them to go online if it's profitable or not which could theoretically force off a cheaper dirty generating company in order for the clean company to fulfill their contracted outputs.  Remember the grid has almost zero storage so generation must always equal load, if something additional goes online something needs to come offline.

The reality though is renewable and nuclear energy is already lowest cost and has no incremental costs - so with or without the homeowners contracts they are still going to be outputting their base load regardless.  It never makes sense for an available solar farm or nuclear plant to not be delivering their full load.

So in the end it really comes down to if all these home owner power purchase agreements drive new generation projects which then can eventually force dirtier generation offline.


In the carbon credit trading world there exists a renewable energy credit product that is actually tied directly to creating new generation investment.  Currently these products are being seen as actually having a real (auditable) effect  while clean power purchasing agreements are being increasingly seen as just greenwashing or numbers only on paper.

[Laconian]

Home owners paying extra for solar/hydro/nuclear is sort of dubious.  The company you pay takes the money and enters a long term power purchasing agreement with companies that have that type of power in their portfolio on your grid.  So up front this seem reasonable.

The kicker however is these types of power generating facilities generally operate at full load regardless of if the output is locked into contract or not just because the nature of the generation - there is basically no fuel cost, therefore no incremental cost like a natural gas plant has to crank up output from a min to base or peak load.... So in other words it never makes sense to restrict something like a solar panels output so you can't exactly increase it either.

So in the end did the home owner actually do something?  It's a question without any answer.  On one hand they probably did not change the loading on the grid at all on any particular day.  On the other hand though it does signal to generation companies that the market exists, there are buyers willing to pay a premium for it, and could entice further investments or facilities.

This is a massive argument at the moment at corporations globally whom have adopted carbon neutral plans.  You can literally do nothing but enter contracts like these for clean energy and achieve goals - but is that actually making the impact you are claiming or just "greenwashing" things

Hydro is one of the easiest kinds of power to throttle, so additional demand for hydro can easily result in additional power generated.

[r0tor]

Hydro is one of the easiest kinds of power to throttle, so additional demand for hydro can easily result in additional power generated.

Why would it be ever throttled though?  There is no difference in cost for throttled vs unthrottled. 

The only reason I know of for regulating the hydro output is for level control of the reservoir or pumping (or backing up) water at night to allow for more flow during the day for profit reasons.  That is just the nature of the business and will always be present.

[AutobahnSHO]

If they don't throttle hydro it can be too much power in the grid, or just wasted power.