2020 Defender

[discostew]

I've just been told about this.
Awesome, a truck laden with lithium batteries and body panels made out of .120 Stainless steel out-tows an empty F150.
Big Fucking Deal.
The F150 will continue to motor on, for about 600 miles. Then it will top off the tank in 3 minutes and be ready for another 600 miles. All the while the driver of the cocaine-haze brainchild of Elon Musk will be looking for a donkey dick to consume because the nearest nuclear power station is in Mexico.

I've had a real hatred for electric vehicles since it started to look like I was going to have to work on them. The risks in my opinion are huge to anyone servicing them. They tell you that's just not the case but every manufacturer issues some sort of non conductive hook and jag pays a second tech to stand by with the thing. I totally get your hatred for the stuff.

Then I drove an I Pace for about 500 miles. It's fucking exciting. That thing will put you back in your seat and not make a lot of noise doing it. To make the same power in an SVR Sport or better still an SVR F Pace, every cop in a mile radius will be hearing you. It's a rush, try it. I'm not running out to buy one, but it's a lot of fun.

 

[mgreenspan]

I think you can’t really appreciate the performance of an electric vehicle until you’re in one driving or as a passenger when flooring it and actually driving it. The speed matched with the lack of noise catches you off guard. Until you look at the battery draining quickly from driving like that. Fully expected. You have to really drive a car like an asshat to eat up your fuel in the same way.

Aside from that, everything else about them is no different than a car. The one thing Tesla has is the autopilot features. Once everyone else figures that out they won’t be special.

Once the semi comes online and they have charging ability built into the suspension electric vehicles will have changed the game. Until then, they are limited to commuting, around town, or the most painfully planned long distance drives with lots of time wasted. When driving 2500+ miles over a few days, you cannot afford to wait 30 minutes every 2-2.5 hours.

 

[Blueboy]

The new Defender (with or without quotes) is an admission that (a) we can't build reliable farm trucks and (b) we don't give a shit about them anymore.

Especially (b) for the majority of current potential Landy Rover customers.

 

[kennith]

I think you can’t really appreciate the performance of an electric vehicle until you’re in one driving or as a passenger when flooring it and actually driving it. The speed matched with the lack of noise catches you off guard. Until you look at the battery draining quickly from driving like that. Fully expected. You have to really drive a car like an asshat to eat up your fuel in the same way.

Aside from that, everything else about them is no different than a car. The one thing Tesla has is the autopilot features. Once everyone else figures that out they won’t be special.

Once the semi comes online and they have charging ability built into the suspension electric vehicles will have changed the game. Until then, they are limited to commuting, around town, or the most painfully planned long distance drives with lots of time wasted. When driving 2500+ miles over a few days, you cannot afford to wait 30 minutes every 2-2.5 hours.

It really comes down to this:

If I wanted to take it to the beach, it would be out of juice when I got there and there's nowhere to charge it back up.

Here's a cheap tint job in blue:



I wasn't going to bother, but someone did one in white, which left me free to add a color quickly.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[p m]

I've had a real hatred for electric vehicles since it started to look like I was going to have to work on them.

Stew,
I have no hatred for electric vehicles. As a matter of fact, had I some cash laying around, I'd have converted the Wagoneer to full-electric.
But there's a giant and widening gap between capability and serviceability.
Keep in mind also that most of the guys designing this truck have little clue of the real world.

 

[kennith]

Keep in mind also that most of the guys designing this truck have little clue of the real world.

It seems to me that 80% of the people in this nation have little understanding of the real world.

I'm not concerned about Musk's Tesla project. The bandwagon that's growing around it is what bothers me. You can't change things this quickly without horrible side effects.

The world simply isn't prepared for electric vehicles. What you're seeing out of Tesla is nearing the absolute best that current technology can support, with no regard for other implications. Lessons have not been learned. It's fine if it's a niche market, but it's not staying that way long enough. That's all thanks to the web, and the average human who can't think properly being sucked right into this new "sound bite" era.

All they want is one person to tell them it's a good idea, and then it's just a festival of confirmation bias automatically generated by Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

We'd better hope these cars start getting much, much cooler, because it's too late to drop anchor. We're already headed down this path.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[p m]

Whenever our friends tell us about the beautiful new Tesla (or other EV) they bought, I suggest them googling "Grassberg Mine."
In essence, this is a classic "not in my backyard" thing - we benefit from a clean technology, conveniently ignoring the damage done away from our eyes.

 

[kennith]

Whenever our friends tell us about the beautiful new Tesla (or other EV) they bought, I suggest them googling "Grassberg Mine."
In essence, this is a classic "not in my backyard" thing - we benefit from a clean technology, conveniently ignoring the damage done away from our eyes.

People just don't fucking understand how ecologically damaging this shit is. The life on this planet can sustain petroleum use, but it cannot sustain such an increase in lithium cell production. The human cost dials right back to the worst days of colonialism, and the environmental cost... It's almost incalculable.

They don't care because it's out of sight and out of mind; they've never seen it, smelled it, observed the environmental damage, or met the people it affects.

People here just have to have something right now; damn the consequences. TL: DR culture at it's finest.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[Tugela]

Whenever our friends tell us about the beautiful new Tesla (or other EV) they bought, I suggest them googling "Grassberg Mine."
In essence, this is a classic "not in my backyard" thing - we benefit from a clean technology, conveniently ignoring the damage done away from our eyes.

Not so much a NIMBY issue as a market externality. If there were rare earth deposits in your neighborhood that could be mined then it would be a NIMBY situation. Instead this is the end user not paying the full price of the costs of production, which are borne by the communities affected by distant degradation. You are right in that the damage done is often not fully appreciated by those who benefit from it. If the environmental and social costs of the Grassberg Mine were accurately priced into the MSRP of a Tesla not many people could afford them. This is one of many aspects to think about when evaluating the life-cycle sustainability footprint (or whatever you want to call it) of a new vehicle.

The environmental impact of resource extraction needed for modern technology is extensive. Another consideration is the source of your electricity. Here in the Pacific Northwest almost all of our electrical power generation is hydro. This has environmental impacts in other ways, but GHG emission is small. To charge your Tesla in Seattle the carbon footprint is low. To charge your Tesla in China where your power is coming from a coal-fired plant is a different story.

I haven't done the math and I imagine there are resources available to help figure it out, but I'd like to think that, in aggregate, the life cycle environmental impact of keeping a 26-year old vehicle running is less than the impact of owning 4 cars over that same time span (average duration of car ownership in America is under 7 years).

 

[kennith]

Not so much a NIMBY issue as a market externality. If there were rare earth deposits in your neighborhood that could be mined then it would be a NIMBY situation. Instead this is the end user not paying the full price of the costs of production, which are borne by the communities affected by distant degradation. You are right in that the damage done is often not fully appreciated by those who benefit from it. If the environmental and social costs of the Grassberg Mine were accurately priced into the MSRP of a Tesla not many people could afford them. This is one of many aspects to think about when evaluating the life-cycle sustainability footprint (or whatever you want to call it) of a new vehicle.

The environmental impact of resource extraction needed for modern technology is extensive. Another consideration is the source of your electricity. Here in the Pacific Northwest almost all of our electrical power generation is hydro. This has environmental impacts in other ways, but GHG emission is small. To charge your Tesla in Seattle the carbon footprint is low. To charge your Tesla in China where your power is coming from a coal-fired plant is a different story.

I haven't done the math and I imagine there are resources available to help figure it out, but I'd like to think that, in aggregate, the life cycle environmental impact of keeping a 26-year old vehicle running is less than the impact of owning 4 cars over that same time span (average duration of car ownership in America is under 7 years).

There's almost no point considering it, because nobody will listen. It's not going to change. The race is over.

The world of science and reason was soundly defeated.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[CORover]

A quick 10 or 15 inches of snow overnight and my disco tried to be a Defender. Look at those lines in the back.

 

[Blueboy]

I haven't done the math and I imagine there are resources available to help figure it out, but I'd like to think that, in aggregate, the life cycle environmental impact of keeping a 26-year old vehicle running is less than the impact of owning 4 cars over that same time span (average duration of car ownership in America is under 7 years)

Yep. Which is why early Landy Rovers are so good in this respect. Pretty easy to just continue rebuilding and keeping them on the road.

 

[DiscoHasBeen]

The world simply isn't prepared for electric vehicles.

I don't believe this statement is 100% correct. I believe the world isn't prepared for EVERY vehicle to be electric. The world isn't ready for electric combines, or tractors, or tugboats, or semis, etc. But for a lot of people living in suburban areas or cities, an electric car may make perfect sense. My daughter bought a Tesla. She's in real estate and as such spends a certain amount of time on the road but not leaving the surrounding area. For that they have an SUV. That said yes, electric is not as environmentally friendly as some would have you to believe. The other thing is accidents. A battery may not be as explosive as gasoline but once on fire putting them out can be problematic.

 

[pinkytoe69]

...for a lot of people living in suburban areas or cities, an electric car may make perfect sense. My daughter bought a Tesla. She's in real estate and as such spends a certain amount of time on the road but not leaving the surrounding area.

My cousin is an Uber driver back on Maui.

He bought a Tesla S cause when gas prices (Maui gas is well above $3 per, not unusual to hit $4) and the amount of driving were calculated, it was actually one of the more cost effective options.

 

[Eliot]

Whenever our friends tell us about the beautiful new Tesla (or other EV) they bought, I suggest them googling "Grassberg Mine."
In essence, this is a classic "not in my backyard" thing - we benefit from a clean technology, conveniently ignoring the damage done away from our eyes.

You can argue that electric vehicles are immoral, for just that reason. You’re also shifting tailpipe emissions to a power plant somewhere else, and somewhere much poorer.

 

[p m]

You can argue that electric vehicles are immoral, for just that reason. You’re also shifting tailpipe emissions to a power plant somewhere else, and somewhere much poorer.

Yeah, I made a social "faux pas" recently while talking to our enlightened neighbors (who just installed 10kW solar system and ordered two Teslas) and elaborating on this matter.
I won't say they are immoral, just misused.
I wonder if the time will ever come when people buying EVs in Soutwest USA will realize that the vehicles are more beneficial to be used as powerbanks during the night than to sit by their offices during the day.
Buy a used Tesla, hack the electronics and firmware, and cut the cord. That justifies the purchase, to me.

 

[kennith]

Yeah, I made a social "faux pas" recently while talking to our enlightened neighbors (who just installed 10kW solar system and ordered two Teslas) and elaborating on this matter.
I won't say they are immoral, just misused.
I wonder if the time will ever come when people buying EVs in Soutwest USA will realize that the vehicles are more beneficial to be used as powerbanks during the night than to sit by their offices during the day.
Buy a used Tesla, hack the electronics and firmware, and cut the cord. That justifies the purchase, to me.

It's hypocrisy, willful ignorance, apathy, vanity, dishonesty, and greed.

Whether or not someone considers those things philosophically immoral is not relevant. They are biologically immoral. They promote neither your personal bloodline's survival nor that of the species. From any perspective, supporting the mass adoption of electric cars at this time is the hallmark of a damnable and dangerous fool.

When all those things in the first sentence must be true to describe a person, can that person be considered moral by any sane man who doesn't wish ill upon humanity?

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[Eliot]

I won't say they are immoral

People buy products like they're buying indulgences from the Catholic Church.

Organic food, round up for charity.

Teslas.

I like to poke holes in balloons.

I wonder if the time will ever come when people buying EVs in Soutwest USA will realize that the vehicles are more beneficial to be used as powerbanks during the night than to sit by their offices during the day.

I don't understand, how so?

 

[Eliot]

From any perspective, supporting the mass adoption of electric cars at this time is the hallmark of a damnable and dangerous fool.

People have a dim idea of what it would take, and what it would cost, to electrify the country.

And they assume that everyone would be okay with the limitations in an EV.

They also overestimate how efficient they are, and how green they are.

-

The town recently purchased an electric bus.

I'm skeptical.

What will the range be when it gets down to -40?

 

[jymmiejamz]

The new Defender (with or without quotes) is an admission that (a) we can't build reliable farm trucks and (b) we don't give a shit about them anymore.

Was the real Defender even a viable farm truck? It had been drive by wire since the TD5 and has several modules on a CAN bus network.

IMO, anything that requires any kind of diagnostic computer isn't really a viable farm truck. I don't see the Pretender being any less reliable than the Defender. I hate the Pretender, but it is probably going to be a better car than the Defender.