I wouldn't buy a electric car from

This is the one subject that forces me to put finger to keyboard.

I like the Tesla, I've been in a few but agree that the whole electric car thing is a falsehood. You take the average Northampton street, 100+ vehicles with no permanent parking places or room for charging points. In fact take any suburban area built within the last 60 years - crazy 60's/ 70's housing estates where there is only community car parking which may have been fine in 1968 but 60 years later wholly inadequate for projected and practicable EV use.

We're generations away from car sharing.

Whilst public transport is patchy, unreliable and expensive, you wont prise people away from their vehicles.

I can still buy a car, insure it and drive to a long distance destination for less than the equivalent standard train fair - this is so totally arse about tit as I may even get to sell the car at the end for roughly what it cost.

Workers used to travel short distances to their places of employment, now people travel for hours for work.

Then theres the marketing - 'SUV' - the most insidious 'automotive oxymoron' yet. We didnt 'need' these vehicles but somehow marketing said we did and now many manufacturers push these vehicles at us, a continuous beating about the head with adverts about how great you'll look in a heavy, inefficient over stuffed but the latest must have if you want to text whilst driving or that it might match your handbag - yes, its is that bad.

Something went horribly wrong in the early 2000's. Cars were getting efficient and safe. You had the Audi A2 and the Mercedes A-Class, lessons in how to make small efficient vehicles that were safe and had a small footprint. Yes they had their flaws but the direction was there, cars were to get smaller and lighter.

But no...

I dont know what the **** happened but we got an arms race instead. Frighteningly heavy vehicles such as the Renault Espace, famously heavy - ok it was safe for its occupants but woe betide anyone if you happened to be hit by one. The Land Rover Discovery, nearly 3 tons, Range Rover Sport, something like a 3070kg curb weight and the BMW X5 and X6 - what on earth went wrong?

What justifies these vehicles? I cant understand how they came about yet marketing says we needed them. Clever marketing - we 'need' these vehicles'.

My works 2013 Fiesta 1.5 TDCi Van weighs 1575kg, my 1980 Rover SD1 V8 had a curb weight of 1360kg

The Mercedes W124 220e had a curb weight of 1635kg - this car was the basis for the Euro Ncap safety. It was and still is a 'safe' vehicle - it had airbags and crumple zones etc etc. So why is my Fiesta such a fat lardy turd? A new Range Rover sport is supposedly 2100kg, why? Why do you need a giant car? The Nissan Juke - a masterpiece of marketing. They are so cramped inside I dont know how anyone can live with them yet they sell like cosy warm muffins, same with the Cashcow, its an estate seen via a wobbly hall of mirrors image. Add to that the Jaguar F-pace. Daft looking 'suv' that demand bigger carparking spaces because they have 'shrunk' - when they havent, they vehicles have ballooned

Where are the MPG and safety details in current car adverts? Its not sexy is it, 'technology' sells or at least thats what we are told - again clever marketing and an onslaught of terrible adverts.

Then, if your car is older than 5 years, you are then seen as poor or a bit mad for driving such an old vehicle, why havent you upgraded to a newer cleaner vehicle!

I admit, I have a 20 year old Nissan Elgrand. It old school diesel, it does about 40mpg at best, its a bit lardy but its horribly practical with room for bikes and room to sleep. It can be easily serviced and repaired, the belts are at the front and are all accessible via the bonnet. It always passes its MOT without any advisories. Yet its more environmentally friendly than any new car because it already exists.

The missus car is 12 years old but looks a lot newer, is fuel efficient and is very safe, the private plate takes care of the age thing, it came with the car...

Other countries dont seem to have quite the same obsession and use their vehicles to destruction rather than throw them away after a few MOT's.

I dont know what went wrong, I work with cars and trucks every day. Old trucks get sent abroad where legislation is less or non existent. Emissions just get pushed elsewhere to become someone elses problem. Kids get sucked into personal contract plans so they can have that shiny new car regardless of what they'll have to fork out in 3 years time when the debt owed is more than the vehicles worth.

Its a sad mess. In truth, its fucked up. I'm sick of it, I cant be alone but manufacturers seem to have this hold over governments. It needs to end, it needs to change.
 
legrandefromage":3p4per4h said:
]We're generations away from car sharing.

You'd be surprised, but many of the twenty-somethings nowadays are going through their lives without owning, or even driving, a car. Whilst a car used to be a right of passage, or a marker toward becoming an adult (for our generation) ... a car has no such power any more.


Something went horribly wrong in the early 2000's.

I dont know what the f**k happened but we got an arms race instead.

Greed happened - pure greed.

Its a sad mess. In truth, its **** up. I'm sick of it, I cant be alone but manufacturers seem to have this hold over governments. It needs to end, it needs to change.[/b][/i]

How does one 'enlighten' the masses, pray tell ... :?:
 
Re: Re:

RadNomad":1d00qktt said:
Agreed his rants about the Brit diver in Thailand are hard to explain and not acceptable, and some other things too...

To be fair he rubbed Musk up the wrong way. Musk had sent a team of engineers, funded out of his own pocket with the best of intentions. OK, the submersible capsule idea turned out to be impractical, but instead of thanking Mr Musk and explaining rationally how his scheme wasn't going to work (or even just keeping his mouth shut, seeing as it was none of his business), he made some rude and disparaging remarks of his own to the press taking the pith out of the gent. I can't defend Musk calling him "pedo guy" by way of a response, but having indulged in childish insults I also can't see why he was surprised when Mr Musk sent some childish insults of his own back at him. If anything, I think the guy is aggrieved because Musk is clearly a league above him in the childish name calling stakes.

You cut up rough in the playground then sooner or later you'll come across a kid who'll give you some back. This chap is in his fifties and hadn't figured out that simple life lesson yet, so while I don't approve of Musks choice of words I have little sympathy for the gobby little man that started the insult ball rolling.

Going back to cars, pollution, and the lack of genuine environmental credentials of the Tesla range, there is one thing that caught my eye recently. Land Rovers new advert, describing a 2 tonne 4x4 as "At home in the town..." I mean, WTF? This is 2018, right? You know, global warming, road safety, chi,d deaths now linked directly to air pollution, all that sheet going on and Land Rover think that is an appropriate marketing strategy? Just demonstrates the intellect of the typical lifestyle driven LR buyer these days.
 
Re: Re:

It was explained to Musk at the time that it wouldn't work but he wouldn't go away. That's why the diver was blunt on TV. Musk's remarks weren't insults, he was very explicit that he was making a literal accusation of pedophilia. He confirmed this to a journalist.

RadNomad":37ttgmas said:
Elon Musk is a brilliant and dramtically forward thinking engineer

No he isn't. I cut off the rest because we can point to this last word here as the exact moment it stopped being a matter of opinion. Elon Musk is not an engineer.

What he is, is childish. His behavior is bizarre and self destructive. He responds to problems with his car company by acting out, which only causes him more problems, so he acts out again.

The personality cult has gone to his head. He doesn't have the maturity to be calm and think things through because he's surrounded by people who've told him he's a genius and a saint for ten years now, and now he thinks he's justified to do and say whatever he wants, and that everything is everyone else's fault.
 
I wonder if he's heading towards a break down with his increasingly irrational behaviour? Hes certainly a visiomary, but some of his recent actions make me wonder what percentage is brilliance and what percentage is insanity.
 
I wouldn't buy a car from him as they are crap.
They said he was "disrupting the industry" by launching electric cars. All the major manufacturers were already looking at electric drivelines, most of them were holding off due to the issues around battery tech. Once Tesla launched, everyone crawls all over the cars to find out how Tesla solved the issues.
Answer = They haven't.

Not only that, they've created a whole new raft of issues for themselves. Most of them are just going to be a pain. Some are legislative failures, some of those are being investigated.
Then they launch the "not really autonomous, but we'll say it is" Autopilot system.

It's not a car company, it's a personality cult masquerading as a business.
 
I couldn't really agree more with LGF's post, above. The Audi A2 is a good example of the relatively forward-thinking outlook of the late-nineties. What the hell happened? I live on a 60's estate, and the street's are full of balloon cars because they can't fit them onto the (perfectly adequate) driveway's which were designed for Ford Anglia's! (anything "normal sized" fit's, I might add).

It's totally bizarre to me that in the space of circa 10 years, it has become completely abnormal to 90% of people to buy a used car. I drive a flipping Toyota Starlet (bought as a "stop-gap"......3 years ago). Bombproof, quick enough, does 35 mpg round town etc. People at work think I am "into classic cars"?! It cost £300. Bloke I work with is paying £500 PER MONTH on his Land Rover!

Would I buy an Electric car? Unlikely, but can never say what will happen in 20 years. For now, I'm sticking with 2nd hand petrol cars, and trying to reduce my driving as best as I can.
 
mattr":1u5usqju said:
I wouldn't buy a car from him as they are crap.
They said he was "disrupting the industry" by launching electric cars. All the major manufacturers were already looking at electric drivelines, most of them were holding off due to the issues around battery tech. Once Tesla launched, everyone crawls all over the cars to find out how Tesla solved the issues.
Answer = They haven't.

Not only that, they've created a whole new raft of issues for themselves. Most of them are just going to be a pain. Some are legislative failures, some of those are being investigated.
Then they launch the "not really autonomous, but we'll say it is" Autopilot system.

It's not a car company, it's a personality cult masquerading as a business.

I liked the bit where Autopilot autopiloted someone off of a motorway and head first into a concrete wall and killed him, and then all the Musk sniffers came out of the woodwork to explain how actually you shouldn't expect something called autopilot to do what the word autopilot means and so it's the dead guy's fault.

On a lighter note, the Model 3's are falling to bits morris marina style because they're made outside underneath a big open sided tarp. The spy photos are bloody shocking. Huge mountain of bin bags in a corner of their land, and several storage areas where cars that haven't passed quality control are just sitting there in mud because they don't have the time to go back and fix them. They even paint the cars outside in the wind.

Absolutely bizarre.
 

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