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this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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"Corp execs literally don't care about your bitching, and will perfectly coordinate with other companies corp execs to make sure the same blanket policy is pushed and agreed upon by everyone else in the industry, thus making it the new standard and leaving the customer with no choice against it, for the 69 millionth time"
Just a reminder, such collusion is supposed to be illegal.
But we don't pay attention to those laws anymore.
The people who made those laws don't care nor enforce them because they're on the payrolls of the people breaking them. Were so fucked as a country.
"Congress reports that they don't see the issue, one congressman said 'lol I don't see what the big deal is, the market will regulate itself and just don't buy a car lmao' "
Don't blame me, I bought a KodosMobile!
Nice!
Good thing new cars are now out of the price range of most people. Credit is not as cheep and easy. All it would take is one place to start making cheep cars in a shed for the whole racket to collapse. And if you look at the history of consumer markets this happens often, even with the collusion and crime.
EVs actually seem to make this more inevitable to me. Most people aren't capable of building a combustion engine and transmission, but EVs are fundamentally easier from the engineering side. There are complications with the batteries but the overall thing is a lot simpler. I think that's why there are already lots of Chinese EVs available for like half the price of anything here.
Yes and no, the materials to make EVs go are much harder to source. I think ICE engines are at this point nearly impossible to stop people from getting their hands on. I think I could source the parts to make a shitty ICE car/truck/thing but the batteries for an EV that has any chance could be hard. I think it does not really matter what the type of vehicle takes the market, it matters more that the current model loses viability as the consumer base can no longer afford or borrow for the modern car/truck/other.
If you can no longer get a 7 year loan for a 100k plastic monster, you have to get something else. Since there is almost nothing else new, you have to buy used (we are roughly here). Once the used market is hot enough that used cars are worth more then new ones (Think of a lada in hand being worth 2 on order) someone will disrupt that market just out of greed. Once you have another option for a cheap car/truck/thing you will see (or seen as this has happened) lobbyists push to have laws put in place to stop the upstart (CAFE, Chicken tax, motorcycle cc limits etc.). But now you don't have so much a reluctant market but an impossible one, people will literally be unable to support the old system. At this point something has to give, ether the government protections have to go, the old companies are forced to change, or the increasing the ability of the consumer to spend more (ether though subsidies or cheap loans). I think the overall economic situation means the cheap loans are out for now, subsides are rarely popular for luxury items (the current model has forced vehicles into this category), the governments are not so stable around the world making upholding unpopular laws less feasible, and lastly the old companies are at the end of the day going to pick profit even if it means change.
You could probably just go buy some LiFePO solar kit batteries from Amazon to power your homemade electric car. They are expensive but readily available right now. They have been getting cheaper in the last year though. A 12v 100Ah one can be as cheap as $200 ...
If you took about 30-40 of those 100Ah solar batteries and wired them in series, you could make the 350-400 volts that powers a Tesla and have a comparable but not as good range. 35 of them could be about $7000 to purchase at Amazon prices.
That's possibly not even feasible with the logistics of that many batteries, but that's an example of what's available on the consumer market and comparable to what Tesla is using to make their Model 3's power. I think it's something that could be achieved by a hobbyist with a good understanding of the electronics technology and access to a good workshop. In fact I've seen it done on TV when Anthony Keidis had an old muscle car converted to electric, well over a decade ago.
I ment as a car to sell. I could not start a company in a shed to sell a cheap car using amazon batteries at the moment. Also if you look at the work to put those batteries together (aging wheels does a good job showing the effort) it kinda makes small ev production hard. Its not impossible and I would jump on a cheap dumb ev but since you can buy ice engines with a gas tank for less its still the more likely cheap option.