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People must really hate cars. I like to drive and be in control of the vehicle. Often I go for drives in the country for a couple of hours. It's not about speed

People must really hate cars. I like to drive and be in control of the vehicle. Often I go for drives in the country for a couple of hours. It's not about speed it's just fun to drive a nice car. Sure I like EVs but range (for now), lack of control, the sound of them are many things that ruin the art of driving. Pretty soon mechanical cars will be like expensive mechanical watches, rare.

pathartl 7y ago
I like cars, but I hate driving my commute. I hate road trips. I still like to take my car out on weekend drives. I'd rather not have to do the monotonous stuff.
dangus 7y ago
Cars are transportation appliances. If they weren’t, the most popular cars wouldn’t be Toyota Highlander or Toyota Camry-style vehicles. “Drivers cars” are already rarities. Look at yearly sales figures for something like the Mazda Miata. Look at the overall sales numbers for manual transmission vehicles. They are not increasing and non-SUV vehicles are dying out (see Ford and GM). Cars are an expensive, depreciating liability. That’s why buying a fun car makes no sense from a financial perspective. An SUV is essentially the type of car that is least likely to be unusable for a particular task, which is why (now that the gas mileage is acceptable) it is the most popular form of vehicle. If I buy a Miata or even a Camry, one trip to the Home Depot can leave me wishing I bought a big, slow-ish SUV. This is a long-winded way of saying that the majority of the public won’t miss internal combustion engines. Electric cars are quiet and require less maintenance by far. Battery technology and pricing doesn’t have far to go before buying a gas car makes no sense. There will always be enthusiast cars of some kind, for the foreseeable future, but most people have no business buying them. In my view, any emotional attachment to them has been curated over decades by car advertisements. Sure, feeling some G-forces and the wind in your hair is fun, but I can do that at an amusement park for far less money, too.
- theFeller00 7y ago
  Why would people have no business buying them? The cars I like aren't influenced by ads. Simpletons buy their cars based on the auto ads they see. How many times do you go to an amusement park in a year? My 950whp car puts a smile on my face every time I'm in it, which is multiple times per day. I'll take being able to make any commute a riot, that isn't bumper to bumper, which isn't even a thing where I live, over a couple yearly trips to Great America.
  - dangus 7y ago
    Talking down to people with name-calling won’t get you anywhere. You are not superior to other people because of your choice in hobby. In no way did I say that enthusiast cars should not exist, so I’m not even sure what you’re trying to disagree with. If you’re looking to argue just for the sake of arguing about something, that wasn’t the purpose of my comment and that’s not what you’ll get out of me.
- Hamuko 7y ago
  >If I buy a Miata or even a Camry, one trip to the Home Depot can leave me wishing I bought a big, slow-ish SUV. For what reason?
  - dangus 7y ago
    Cargo volume and trunk opening dimensions. But I also neglected the other reason people like SUVs: driving position and ease of entry, especially with child seats. If an SUV is priced equivalently to a car in terms of fuel costs and MSRP, it’s essentially a better choice for most people.
grecy 7y ago
> Sure I like EVs but range (for now), lack of control, the sound of them are many things that ruin the art of driving. Have you driven a Tesla Model S? I drove a friend's P90D, and I have to say it's one of the best "driving" cars I've ever driven. The steering is extremely precise, the throttle response literally demolishes any petrol vehicle, among other things.
- theFeller00 7y ago
  It seems strange to me how no other company has been able to put together such an attractive package to car enthusiasts like Tesla. Porsche might be close and will eventually get there if the first attempt doesn't succeed, but it really is kind of baffling. But with Elon being a car enthusiast, maybe it makes a bit of sense. Once they're able to do something about EV's low trap speeds, I think it will be time to make the switch, or at least pick one up as a commuter car. 10 or 15 years ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd be a fan of an electric car company. I am a fan of Tesla.
  - grecy 7y ago
    I honestly think it's because they started with an entirely clean slate. They didn't go into this saying "We're going to design a new vehicle, but it has to be built using the same factories and tooling and processes we've poured a few hundred billion dollars into." Also remember the large auto manufacturers have hundreds of millions of R&D sunk into internal combustion engines they still need decades to re-coup. I got a tour of a massive OEM assembly line in the US this summer, and it was utterly jaw-dropping to see how many people are paid to do the most menial tasks possibly imaginable, that could easily be replaced by a robot. I was told the Union forces those jobs to stay, and they're actually the highest paid in the entire factory.
- dghughes 7y ago
  At $107,000 + 15% taxes I wouldn't want to like it because I wouldn't be able to afford it, or even if it was $50,000. edit: Canadian dollars and taxes. No we don't have EV rebates in my province.
proc0 7y ago
The problem is you can't trust other drivers.
hadlock 7y ago
There's two primary use cases for car use: 1. Joy ride; going for a drive to clear my mind, possibly in a motorcycle or jeep, or just your car 2. Human transport; personal bus/taxi 95% of the time spent in your personal vehicle is use case #2. Nobody is arguing (yet) to take away motorcycles, corvettes, jeeps etc
- theFeller00 7y ago
  The thing that a lot of non-enthusiasts don't get is that, with a fun car, number 2 often becomes number 1. The only time it isn't is when you're in gridlock traffic. Thankfully that doesn't happen where I live.
- mymythisisthis 7y ago
  In the 1950s people walked to work, to get groceries, to the movies, to the hardware store etc., cars were almost not needed in cities (except delivery trucks). Imagine how nice it would be to get off work, walk 10 minutes to get groceries, another 10 minutes are you are home with all your shopping. Then walk 10 minutes in the evening to the library or bar. This is what people want again. It was lost when we created car-centric suburbs in the 1950s as part of a large post-war housing boom.
jiofih 7y ago
There is nothing here about self-driving cars. And by the way Tesla’s are praised for how fun they are to drive, and still mechanical...

pathartl 7y ago

I like cars, but I hate driving my commute. I hate road trips. I still like to take my car out on weekend drives. I'd rather not have to do the monotonous stuff.

dangus 7y ago

Cars are transportation appliances. If they weren’t, the most popular cars wouldn’t be Toyota Highlander or Toyota Camry-style vehicles. “Drivers cars” are already rarities. Look at yearly sales figures for something like the Mazda Miata. Look at the overall sales numbers for manual transmission vehicles. They are not increasing and non-SUV vehicles are dying out (see Ford and GM). Cars are an expensive, depreciating liability. That’s why buying a fun car makes no sense from a financial perspective. An SUV is essentially the type of car that is least likely to be unusable for a particular task, which is why (now that the gas mileage is acceptable) it is the most popular form of vehicle. If I buy a Miata or even a Camry, one trip to the Home Depot can leave me wishing I bought a big, slow-ish SUV. This is a long-winded way of saying that the majority of the public won’t miss internal combustion engines. Electric cars are quiet and require less maintenance by far. Battery technology and pricing doesn’t have far to go before buying a gas car makes no sense. There will always be enthusiast cars of some kind, for the foreseeable future, but most people have no business buying them. In my view, any emotional attachment to them has been curated over decades by car advertisements. Sure, feeling some G-forces and the wind in your hair is fun, but I can do that at an amusement park for far less money, too.

theFeller00 7y ago
Why would people have no business buying them? The cars I like aren't influenced by ads. Simpletons buy their cars based on the auto ads they see. How many times do you go to an amusement park in a year? My 950whp car puts a smile on my face every time I'm in it, which is multiple times per day. I'll take being able to make any commute a riot, that isn't bumper to bumper, which isn't even a thing where I live, over a couple yearly trips to Great America.
- dangus 7y ago
  Talking down to people with name-calling won’t get you anywhere. You are not superior to other people because of your choice in hobby. In no way did I say that enthusiast cars should not exist, so I’m not even sure what you’re trying to disagree with. If you’re looking to argue just for the sake of arguing about something, that wasn’t the purpose of my comment and that’s not what you’ll get out of me.
Hamuko 7y ago
>If I buy a Miata or even a Camry, one trip to the Home Depot can leave me wishing I bought a big, slow-ish SUV. For what reason?
- dangus 7y ago
  Cargo volume and trunk opening dimensions. But I also neglected the other reason people like SUVs: driving position and ease of entry, especially with child seats. If an SUV is priced equivalently to a car in terms of fuel costs and MSRP, it’s essentially a better choice for most people.

grecy 7y ago

> Sure I like EVs but range (for now), lack of control, the sound of them are many things that ruin the art of driving. Have you driven a Tesla Model S? I drove a friend's P90D, and I have to say it's one of the best "driving" cars I've ever driven. The steering is extremely precise, the throttle response literally demolishes any petrol vehicle, among other things.

theFeller00 7y ago
It seems strange to me how no other company has been able to put together such an attractive package to car enthusiasts like Tesla. Porsche might be close and will eventually get there if the first attempt doesn't succeed, but it really is kind of baffling. But with Elon being a car enthusiast, maybe it makes a bit of sense. Once they're able to do something about EV's low trap speeds, I think it will be time to make the switch, or at least pick one up as a commuter car. 10 or 15 years ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd be a fan of an electric car company. I am a fan of Tesla.
- grecy 7y ago
  I honestly think it's because they started with an entirely clean slate. They didn't go into this saying "We're going to design a new vehicle, but it has to be built using the same factories and tooling and processes we've poured a few hundred billion dollars into." Also remember the large auto manufacturers have hundreds of millions of R&D sunk into internal combustion engines they still need decades to re-coup. I got a tour of a massive OEM assembly line in the US this summer, and it was utterly jaw-dropping to see how many people are paid to do the most menial tasks possibly imaginable, that could easily be replaced by a robot. I was told the Union forces those jobs to stay, and they're actually the highest paid in the entire factory.
dghughes 7y ago
At $107,000 + 15% taxes I wouldn't want to like it because I wouldn't be able to afford it, or even if it was $50,000. edit: Canadian dollars and taxes. No we don't have EV rebates in my province.

proc0 7y ago

The problem is you can't trust other drivers.

hadlock 7y ago

There's two primary use cases for car use: 1. Joy ride; going for a drive to clear my mind, possibly in a motorcycle or jeep, or just your car 2. Human transport; personal bus/taxi 95% of the time spent in your personal vehicle is use case #2. Nobody is arguing (yet) to take away motorcycles, corvettes, jeeps etc

theFeller00 7y ago
The thing that a lot of non-enthusiasts don't get is that, with a fun car, number 2 often becomes number 1. The only time it isn't is when you're in gridlock traffic. Thankfully that doesn't happen where I live.
mymythisisthis 7y ago
In the 1950s people walked to work, to get groceries, to the movies, to the hardware store etc., cars were almost not needed in cities (except delivery trucks). Imagine how nice it would be to get off work, walk 10 minutes to get groceries, another 10 minutes are you are home with all your shopping. Then walk 10 minutes in the evening to the library or bar. This is what people want again. It was lost when we created car-centric suburbs in the 1950s as part of a large post-war housing boom.

jiofih 7y ago

There is nothing here about self-driving cars. And by the way Tesla’s are praised for how fun they are to drive, and still mechanical...