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I feel like, in the near term, this has created a bit of a ‘buy a v8 while you can’ mentality with negative environmental effect. It’s part of why I just bought
by antiterra 5y ago
I feel like, in the near term, this has created a bit of a ‘buy a v8 while you can’ mentality with negative environmental effect. It’s part of why I just bought a 500hp SUV that averages 9 mpg when my foot gets heavy. (I do feel a little guilty.)
- brtkdotse 5y ago> 500hp SUV Environmental issues aside, this sounds like a comically impractical vehicle.
- antiterra 5y agoIt’s smaller than the minivan it replaces and is more comfortable with less road & wind noise. It often switches to four cylinders for whatever effect that gives.
- 11thEarlOfMar 5y agoCorrect. And Tesla's Plaid is twice as comical. The Model S Plaid features Tesla's first-ever triple-motor system, producing a staggering 1,020 horsepower and 1,050 lb-ft of torque. https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-s/2021/2022-tesla-model-s-plaid-first-test-review/ https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-s/2021/2022-tesl...
- gambiting 5y agoI mean......I find that you can have both power and practicality, but you don't get there by buying a massive V8 SUV. I got a Volvo XC60 T8 last year, a plug in hybrid. Rated at 400bhp total. Silly amount of power, way more than anyone needs. But.....I very rarely use it. The electric range of about 25 miles means I complete 95% of my daily journeys on electric power alone. My long term efficiency is about 120mpg(imperial). But that power is still there if I need it - it had absolutely no problems accelerating to and going 140mph on the autobahn, it was great for a 800 mile drive across Europe. It's spacious, comfortable......and the fuel economy is great in daily use. But I feel like I grew out of a stage where a supercharged Range Rover V8 or a GLE63 AMG would have been the dream - my next car will be full EV if anything.
- stefan_ 5y agoYou are the exception. A ton of these cars are hybrids for nothing more than tax reasons and returned to the dealership after a 3y lease with the charging cable still wrapped in the back.
- gambiting 5y agoI know, it's shocking. According to Volvo's own statistics something absolutely insane like 70% of all owners never even plug them in. You should lose the tax exemption entirely if you do that if you ask me. Funnily enough I didn't get any tax benefit as it was a private purchase, but here in UK if you buy it as a company vehicle the taxes on it are very low(used to be zero I think).
- stefan_ 5y agoIt's not just tax, of course - we can't excuse Volvo either, they make these cars for regulatory credit knowing fully well people won't use the electric part. (And of course we need to blame the regulators that allow this, also knowing fully well what is happening.)
- sharken 5y agoPlenty of SUVs tick the 500hp checkbox such as BMW X6, Land Rover Sport, Mercedes GL63 etc. Where I live they're almost exclusively leased for a period of 12 months or less and are used mostly in large cities. I can only speculate that it's a status symbol, which for some is more important than small details such as miles per gallon.
- antiterra 5y agoMine looks unassuming, nearly the same as the 4 cylinder model. ‘Status symbol’ is too close to ‘me first against the wall in class war’ for me.
- cout 5y agoThe electric F150 Lightning puts out over 500hp, and I think the Cybertruck is expected to as well. Are these vehicles also comically impractical?
- duped 5y agoFor the vast majority of people, yes.
- chillwaves 5y agoApples to oranges.
- abcd_f 5y agoThis combo has its pluses. I used to have a 5l x6 (550hp or thereabouts?) and its 0-60 kmh time from a red light was a very big bonus in the morning rush traffic ^__^
- catillac 5y agoIt seems exceedingly dangerous to be going from 0-60 form stoplights in morning rush traffic. It’s fine if it’s a danger to you, but you would eventually kill someone who didn’t sign up for that.
- huhtenberg 5y ago60 _km_/h
- abcd_f 5y ago60 kilometers per hour, the posted speed limit. Look both ways, then gradually accelerate, but at a slightly faster rate than the most. Pray tell why you think that I “would eventually kill someone”.
- catillac 5y agoBy accelerating from 0-60 quickly in your 500hp vehicle in rush hour traffic. A vehicle with high horsepower means you can do that very quick, and rush hour traffic means there are lots of people around. Lots of acceleration + lots of people around means significantly higher risk of grevious injury or death. It’s irresponsible and I don’t mind if people disagree with that.
- dm319 5y agoI'm not sure I agree with you about this - I think your absolute speed is the main safety concern. If you're accelerating hard to the same speed, I don't see much added danger to that. You reach the road speed earlier, but you'd be traveling slower than someone going through the junction on a green light. The danger is people doing slightly higher than the speed limit in residential areas, which makes accidents harder to avoid and the speed of hitting a pedestrian higher increasing their risk of death. The only situation where I see fast acceleration being dangerous is where other cars are pulling out and seeing you are traveling slowly but not expecting you to accelerate fast. They are likely to pull out on you. I think if you're accelerating hard you have to be aware of this and not do it before junctions or be prepared to ease off.
- iso1210 5y agoYou live in a country where people modify their vehicles to deliberately cause more pollution - and not just CO2 emissions, but local particulates that do immediate damage to your community. Appeasing that mentality is not the solution.
- antiterra 5y agoIt’s more that I think responsible way to write about these changes is to write about all the awesome EVs in development instead of pointing out a nearing scarcity of what people like and are used to.
- gameswithgo 5y agoElectric motors are better at being a big V8 than a big V8 is. Its like God came down and said "In fact there is a replacement for displacement! behold!" A model X has about that same power, goes faster for it, and you can put a dead body in the front where the engine isn't.
- b3kart 5y agoBut does it go vroom vroom when you accelerate? No? Waste of time... /s
- wumpus 5y agoAll you need is a smartphone app for that.
- hef19898 5y agoLoud speakers in the interior and exhaust, like all modern cars that go vroom. Not that modern engines make any sound anymore.
- antiterra 5y agoThere is no speaker in my exhaust and there are three resonators to tone down its sound.
- hef19898 5y agoDepends on the car. You can have speakers, valves,... anything to make a modern, powerful 4 cylinder turbo engine sound like a Group B rally car. The more upmarket and sportive the car, the more likely.
- wumpus 5y agoCan't you just hold your cellphone up to your ear? Use the cellphone accelerometer to figure out what noise to make. I'm sure this app would make at least dozens of dollars.
- dm319 5y agoThe way you use the word 'created' makes me think you are externalising the ethics of your choices.
- antiterra 5y agoI am aware of the ethics of my choices, and they are not always good, particularly eating meat. Where I live, fossil fuels still make most of the electricity anyway, and while electric vehicles allow for taking advantage of a cleaner grid, we’re not there yet. Further, when saying ‘created,’ I am talking more about a market effect on a larger section of the population.
- markvdb 5y agoDo you know what made you do this? Can you explain? I would honestly like to understand.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoI blame Edward Bernays.
- antiterra 5y agoSeating and cargo capacity, smaller than the minivan it replaces, comfortable ride if I want it, reassuringly fast acceleration onto the uncontrolled highway intersection by my home, fun, bumpers align with all the trucks and other SUVs, solid quality AWD (unlike the Volvo hybrid.) Might be worth noting there are heavier and less efficient cars, it’s not at the top of the list for either of those things. What’s difficult to understand?
- markvdb 5y agoI come in from a rather different angle. I currently own a 2007 diesel station wagon, mostly by accident. It's a hand-me-down from my parents. Fuel consumption is 4.25l/100km (~55 mpg). It's plenty comfortable to me. It has the safety features that matter (ABS, airbags and whatnot). I've never ended up in an unsafe situation due to a lack of acceleration either. It's got plenty of cargo capacity on its own. In the unlikely event I need more, I can easily hook up a trailer. Which is exactly what I plan to do on the way to the holiday house this summer. Plenty of rather rough unpaved roads there, and yet hardly an SUV to be seen. All of this fits well with a personal strategy: - frugal. I try not to spend more than the median unskilled labourer reasonably can. - political. I try to make sure as little as possible money goes to Russian (48%), Saudi (~20%) or other middle eastern (~5%) oil firms of vey questionable ethical reputation. Just thinking of Mohammed Bin Salman is stomach turning enough for me to lower my speed to the fuel efficiency optimum. - ecological. Used car, fairly clean burning engine, using it as little as possible, driving it at optimal speed ~90km/h (~56mph) . My significant other is on board with this. The tradeoff was between owning a car or not. She absolutely wants one. I absolutely want what we own to be frugal, aligned with our political choices and ecological. I can really appreciate the engineering that went into a massive engine, very much so. Same for a friend's custom leather car upholstery rework. True work of art. An acquaintance of a friend's converted an old Volvo 240 to run on wood (!) [0]. To me, the comfort and fun you described sound bland, hollow, empty even in comparison. Why go with the boring highly polluting v8 when you can get something similarly boring with more positive externalities instead?
- hellotomyrars 5y agoOkay but... why? I own two vehicles, One is a cheap base model Kia Soul that I got used for very little. I also own an F-350 Dually Super Duty King Ranch edition. I used to use the truck to tow my house (42 foot fifth-wheel). It's somewhere in the 500HP range, but I needed it for what I was doing at the time. Got about 8 MPG highway pulling the fifth-wheel. Nowadays I use the cheap Kia for almost everything, because I don't need 500 ponies under the hood and parking that monster sucks as well. I get that a cheap Kia maybe isn't a fun car for most people, especially when they can afford a lot more car, but you don't need to get a giant SUV just to spend a lot of money on a nice/fancy car. Do you have literally any specific need for that vehicle other than the fear you won't be able to get one later? I just don't get it. It isn't like electric is lacking in power either.