At least in my area, everyone recognizes the blue oval. Most people I talk to about my car is of the "Why did you get a Ford Sedan??" opinion.
Ford makes good trucks, but not good sedans. That's their reputation. That's where most conversations go. People ask me about maintenance issues and are surprised that I've only had to change the oil, brake pads, and windshield wipers and tires. People seem to think that Ford sedans fall apart if you look at them funny.
My hunch is the memory of bad American sedans from the late 90s to early 2000s has either stuck around longer. I think now much less of a difference now but back in the day recall seeing more Sentra/Civic/Corollas on the road into old age than domestics.
I think recently it's been a bit of a chicken and the egg problem for ford and sedans, they don't sell enough volume to justify redesigns and they aren't redesigned so they're not (at least perceived as) terribly competitive.
Ironically though Ford would go on to do pretty much the same with the Explorer's tires and the fiesta/focus' transmission[1] but as I understand the Pinto was pretty much typical for compact cars of the era (they were all death traps) and the data used in the Mother Jones/60 Minutes exposes was inaccurate.
"Perhaps the most illuminating data comes from NHTSA fatality rates per million vehicles for 1975 and 1976. In the published chart, the Pinto is responsible for 298 deaths per million cars in 1975, making it on par with the Chevrolet Vega (288) and Datsun 510 (294), but considerably safer than the Datsun 1200/210 (392), the Toyota Corolla (333) and the VW Beetle (378). In 1976, the Pinto’s 322 deaths per million cars was slightly higher than the Chevrolet Vega (310) and AMC Gremlin (315), but better than the Datsun 510 (340), the Datsun 1200/210 (418) and the VW Beetle (370)."[2]
> There could be interesting thoughts about social interaction changing and people are yet again arguing about covid restrictions.
Why would or should social interactions change? I temporarily changed my behavior to help limit the spread of covid. But now that vaccines are doing there thing, I'm going back to my old activities.
Did you read the article? Not everyone wants to go back to how things were before? Simple things like not having people stand on top of me in line. There was a year of no social pressure to do anything and it was nice. No need to feel like you needed to socialize because everyone else is. That's what this article was about.
Some people did some introspection and realized they were caught up in societies bull shit. They should be able to discuss that, instead we have internet tough guys talking about how they think we're babying mental illness or think people who are just expressing them selves are mentally weak and we need to just get back to work, that's how the world is. Except we just has a year and a half where that wasn't the case. In some ways the world was actually easier to deal with.
> Did you read the article? Not everyone wants to go back to how things were before? Simple things like not having people stand on top of me in line. There was a year of no social pressure to do anything and it was nice. No need to feel like you needed to socialize because everyone else is. That's what this article was about.
I read the article, but I will admit it doesn't really "make sense" to me. If I don't like something I don't do it or I try and change it, so it becomes something that doesn't bother me. If you don't want to be involved in certain social settings then don't go. I don't get why "Society" needs to change because some people prefer not to be around people. Its perfectly fine that you prefer less social interaction but many people are the complete opposite and that's also okay.
Society wasn't created in a vacuum to create a way of life you feel most accustomed to, that then becomes immutable. It changes all the time. and you don't notice it until it's too late because it happens so gradually.
So it will now. Society could shift to accommodating these other people and you wouldn't notice it, because you already do the thing it is shifting towards, which is maintaining better boundaries for yourself.
My life didn't really change due to the pandemic. I'm not super social. I hang out with the people I like when I like.
But yesterday, for example, I was at the gas station buying a pop and two kids were right up next to me while their mom waited behind me in line. If I had lifted my elbow, I would have caught one of them in the face. I don't hate kids, but I have a personal bubble and that was respected over the last year. I'm really not excited to go back to having strangers brushing up against my hips and sides again. It's not the end of the world, but it unsettles me and I don't feel like a foot or two of space in a store is really that much to ask.
Not everyone has that control over their life. Like some might be stuck in a cycle of work and exist. Some people lost their jobs and had time to maybe realize they really weren't happy. Some people got bored of the default social location of bars and restaurants. Now there's no more forced work events.
Maybe you had some perfect life before covid where you had a 100% control over your life and you could tell people to fuck off and not have repercussions, but most people don't and they're stuck compromising. So in someway the interruption was welcome. Now some people are demanding everything goes back to how it was, some people don't want that. So they write articles on the internet about it. Its not really hard to get, just have some empathy.
> I don't get why "Society" needs to change
And this isn't just about socialization. People, at least Americans, are uncomfortable with the idea of doing nothing. The protestant work ethic has been shoved down our throats. Its immoral to not work, or if you are working to not be at your most efficient. Covid turned this upside down, it was finally OK to be lazy, to do nothing, and not keep the capitalist wheel of buying and consuming turning. Its been ok to "steal time" from your employer or be on unemployment. This maybe isnt a radical idea to say, but to experience it and see it worked for a lot of people is changing their world view. We can do nothing, we don't need to run at 100%, the world won't collapse and I'm not immoral for it. That is a societal change.
My understanding is you will use a API to provision virtual machines on top of the Oxide hypervisor/software stack, which is bhyve running on Illumos. So you can still just run your favorite Linux distro or windows or a BSD if you want[1].
Proximity to nature? Sacramento is near the Tahoe area as well as the rest of the Sierra Nevada range. Proximity to nature is one area where Sacramento resoundingly beats the Bay area. However I agree with the rest of your examples.
Interesting, as someone who got vaccinated the first day it was available to all adults in Utah(3/24), I'm surprised that this news changed any ones mind. But either way I'm glad it did!.
The vaccine does carry the risk of side effects and adverse reactions. That risk, for most, is VERY small.
But if the person in question also has very low risk of contracting or spreading Covid (works from home, rarely goes out, young, healthy) and if being vaccinated doesn’t actually enable you to live any differently than you already are, then there’s no compelling reason to get vaccinated and assume the risk of side effects, no matter how small.
The logical decision here involves civic duty. I certainly fit into the low risk category, etc., but I also exist in society and am a willing participant, and as such have certain responsibilities to other people in my community.
As an American, I can tell you that most Americans aren't big on civic duty. And when we are, it's mostly limited to getting out to vote and not complaining too much when selected for jury duty.
American individualism also tends to downplay a person's responsibility to anyone outside their family, which some even restrict to their immediate nuclear family.
It's a shame, and I think it's one of our biggest failings as a culture. Ironically this is one of the few things where the American left and right are fairly on the same page, even if most won't admit it.
(I'm painting a pretty dire picture here, but it really isn't that bad. Communities exist everywhere, and people who care about others exist everywhere. It just seems like when the chips are down, people tend to turn inward rather than outward.)
It does... but again, if being vaccinated means that you still have to do all the other things that are done to limit the spread, then you are perceivably ALREADY doing your civic duty when you go out by masking up, distancing, and otherwise staying home.
Also, if vaccination doesn’t change the risk enough for you to drop some of the other precautions, that also lowers the perceived value of the efficacy of the vaccine as well.
vaccination is probably the most broadly effective, but there are many ways, big and small, to limit the risks of transmission, so don't fall for the fascist line of thinking that there is only one true way, especially when an understanding of the risks (airborne is highly unlikely) and effectiveness of the various mitigations (no, you never needed masks outside unless tightly packed for extended time) is so woefully lacking.
and civic duty is voting, educating yourself on policy issues, obeying reasonable laws, and tolerating and even celebrating differences of perspective and opinion. it's about participating effectively in our democratic republic. it doesn't encompass every possible responsibility to every other human, like the term 'moral duty' might.
I don’t understand this. Does the hypothetical low risk person hypothetically work from home and rarely go out.. forever? If no, when/what is the trigger that changes this behavior?
If going out means the hassle of wearing a mask, staying distanced, and all the other rules, then, yes.
Put another way, if going out feels like a big hassle, and getting vaccinated doesn’t remove enough of the rules to make going out NOT feel like a hassle, then there’s no reason to change one’s “going out” habits. And if there’s no incentive to change one’s “going out” habits, then there’s no reason to go through any process or procedure that only perceivably benefits you if you leave home.
I will be getting my vaccine soon myself.
But the world has changed. If I was isolated and nervous to “put myself out there” pre-pandemic, then I’m nearly agoraphobic now.
Nobody I work with wants to return to the office, nobody wants to return to having fun outings (at least not outside their own social circle).
There’s literally nothing for me to return to doing. I’ve built up a relatively solitary life with my dad in the last 12+ months, and everything outside of it is gone.
If you feel that you have so much to return to that the idea of rarely going out, forever, sounds unrealistic, then I would
consider yourself lucky.
I intend to get vaccinated just to be safe to anyone I might come in contact with, but to your point, even once I get vaccinated, I honestly see no trigger to change my behavior. I highly doubt I’m alone in this.
I would prefer to wear a mask at the grocery store, but not at work when physically on-site. I'm low risk, and don't really have any desire to go out and get vaccinated mostly because I'm lazy, don't like needles, antisocial, and generally anxious in public.
I don't really ever go out willingly, so I didn't really have an incentive to get vaccinated. Now I can get vaccinated and not wear a mask at work when it's 100+F in a few months.
Now that it's socially acceptable to wear a mask when in businesses and isn't a fashion trend, I will continue to do it since it should impede facial recognition. Except if it's a bit hot, I now can choose not to :)
I think this will be a great incentive to drive vaccination rates.
I'm really glad that you're going to get vaccinated!
But the thing that really bothers me about your previous rationale is that it doesn't take anyone else into account. What about people who would like to get vaccinated, but can't because they're deathly allergic to components of the vaccine (or some other medical reason)? What about people who would like to get vaccinated but can't afford to take time off work for the shot, or to rest during possible side effects?
You getting vaccinated protects those people too, when you walk past them in that grocery store. They deserve to be out and about without fear of infection just as much as you or I do.
Totally, at the store there's definitely other people to take into account as well as at work. I don't think about other people much in my daily life, so it's easy for me to fall into that (false) mentality of being unlikely to have any meaningful impact by not getting vaccinated.
If you were in a very low risk group, I can see delaying taking the vaccine to avoid blocking a higher risk person. Absent that I truly don't understand declining any of the vaccines for COVID. The risk of serious side effects is negligible. Meanwhile, every day you are alive you move into a higher risk group both for COVID and for longer recovery of mild side effects. So why wait?
A family can spread it to their child, who brings it to school and then home to their family. I agree the chances are lower, but even if the kids themselves don't have severe cases or bad outcomes, if they have any symptoms they are probably spreading it to the rest of their household.
> I have a belief that human ingenuity will be able to generate truly clean power.
There's no such thing as truly clean power. Even renewables have huge environmental consequences. Hydro floods huge areas of land[1]. Renewables and batteries require huge sums of metals to be mined[2]. Solar and wind also take up huge sums of land that could otherwise be left alone. Everything has trades offs, there's no reason nuclear cant be one more tool in the tool shed.
I think your missing the point of the above poster. Why get rid of nuclear power until its replaced with some other non carbon polluting source? It just raises the amount of co2 going into the atmosphere. If all renewable energy grids work, great. But don't replace nuclear with fossil fuels, like California, Vermont and many others have done.
No matter when the nuclear is shut off, it's going to cause an instantaneous uptick in fossil usage, because that's the dispatchable power we use. Even if you plug in an extra 4GW of solar/wind to the grid before you turn off the nuclear, the event of turning off the nuclear reactor will still make it look like fossil fuel have replaced it. (That is, until storage becomes the dispatchable replacement not only for peaker plants, but also for open cycle or combined cycle natural gas).
The event that is precipitating CA's shutdown has been planned for more than a decade. And the cost of keeping the nuclear plant would be $7B-$14B, before any of the inevitable cost increases that accompany large construction projects. $7B for solar and storage will easily replace nuclear. At $1/W for solar, and $250/kWh for storage, $7B will buy 4GW of solar and 12 GWh of storage, and cost overruns are unheard of for solar and storage installations.
Well $7B now, and a fraction of that in 25-30 years to replace the aging panels and batteries. (I think 12-15 years is a common battery warranty for grid batteries with daily cycling, but why might fall even further in price in 15 years than solar).
The nuclear plant that is shutting down is already at the end of its original license, and the $7B of work would be for 20 years or less of nuclear.
> Define "middle of nowhere", I guess? Not a lot of places, even in Utah and Wyoming, are more than 100mi from an interstate.
In Utah and Wyoming you can be on the interstate and still be far from a gas station[1]. I don't think most people who don't live out west are aware of how remote parts of this country truly are.
I've been there (though not recently and not in an EV). And you'll find charging of some form everywhere you find gas, including the stretch of I70 in that article. (Actually in this case it's trivial for Teslas: there are superchargers in both Green River and Richfield, 123mi apart. I don't see any non-Tesla DC supercharging in Green River though.) Check https://plugshare.com if you just want to see charging facilities.
In general anywhere in the USA that is "on" an Interstate is solved problem for EVs. If you want to drive on I-whatever you're covered. The question above was about getting to remote areas far from infrastructure. And even there you need to work really hard to be far from a wall outlet.
Again, incremental costs to build out (non-supercharger) vehicle charging is much cheaper than installing a gas station, because it's ultimately just freeloading on the long-established electrical infrastructure.
Ohh so I need a specific brand of car so I can use a specific charger, and If I leave the interstates I have to be very careful about where I can charge? Also I'm not counting anything that is not a fast charger, I don't want to have to wait somewhere for hours to charge my vehicle.
Edit:
Do the downvoters really think the above scenario is acceptable? Being limited on where you can go, what chargers you can use and the increased time to go places?
This sounds like you're starting fights, honestly. Maybe you can propose an itinerary and someone can post a reasonable way to handle that in an EV?
If you're demanding to know that there is no where that your hypothetical gas vehicle is going to be an exclusive choice vs. an EV, then clearly the answer is no. Different vehicles have different capabilities.
And that includes your car! Do you normally get nagged by helicopter owners about all the places they need to be that your ridiculous wheeled thing can't reach? The whole thing seems a bit specious.
So pointing out that EVs can't go all the same places as ICE cars is picking a fight? Also EVs take longer to charge, cost a lot more, haver fewer places to charge, charging stations are incompatible between some brands, and EV cars don't last as long. If EVs are going to replace ICE cars they need to be equal or better, not worse. And finally the fact that you suggest to post an itinerary so I can figure out how to get somewhere by EV is a huge red flag. In an ICE vehicle I don't need to plan out my trip, I just drive and fill up when I need.
Presumably your going to sleep somewhere. Anywhere you sleep that has a 120V outlet is effectively a charging station. Which means staying in a rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere for a weekend is still going to fully charge you for the return trip.
Generally you end up spending less time filling up in an EV than gas powered cars due to this kind of convenience. Filling up once or twice a week gets replaced with 2 or 3 fast charger stops on long trips and simply plugging in at home.
What about a long day trip or a weekend camping trip not in a cabin, which I do all the time. For the day trips I will be sleeping at home, so I don't want to have to take an extra day to charge my vehicle overnight. And for weekend trips camping there is again no place to charge when your in the middle of the woods, mountains or deserts. And a 120V outlet is going to be slow. Seriously why would I spend 30,000 - $50,000 on an electric car when it's less capable than my current vehicle?
This is getting ridiculously contrived. You now demand to pick a vehicle capable of taking you to locations outside of round-trip range from a fast charger that lack any alternative charging facilities AND any place to stay, so you're going to drive straight there and back.
Are you writing a novel adaptation? This is how Heart of Darkness works. It... ends badly.
But sure: expeditions into the untamed metaphorical wilderness of the depths of the human condition probably do want to stick with ICE vehicles for now. But Tesla will probably get the savage wastes a supercharger soon enough.
Can your gas powered car go months between fillups doing 20 mile commutes every day? Get 100+ mpg? Do 0-60 in less than 4 seconds?
Stuff is different. Different stuff works better in different situations. The point everyone is making is that long road trips and access to very remote locations are definitely not the sweet spot for an EV, but they're tasks it's capable of doing well enough.
Seriously if you desperately want to do your crazy day trip where you drive for 9 hours, and you own an EV... just rent a Jeep or an Outback.
Because you can do things in an EV you can’t do in a gasoline powered car. EV’s can’t win the cannonball run, they can drive to and from every residential address in the US that a gas powered car can. Conversely, I can’t fill up a gasoline powered car at home or in a remote area with solar.
So you’re going to travel 400+ miles in one day for a day trip? That doesn’t leave much time to do anything while you’re there. Still a long range model 3 will do ~530 miles with a single 15 minute charge stop, actually spending 450+ minutes driving is a larger issue.
If that’s not enough for a day trip I have questions. IMO, even traveling that range for a weekend is questionable.
What EV gets 400 miles on a charge? And all I'm talking about is driving for a couple hours, rock climbing until its dark and driving back. For many of the places I like to go an EV is unpractical or not even an option.
Long range model S actually has a range of 412 miles and several other EV’s are similar.
However, the long range Model 3 only does 353 miles without charging. But you’re adding ~175 miles in 15 minuets, which is where I was getting the 530 mile figure. Basically 400+ miles is where charging wait times become noticeable.
Of course numbers depend on driving habits etc, but that’s the rough ballpark.
We enjoy mild backroads - dirt, sometimes rutted or washboarded or sandy, but not strictly "offroading" in the sense of Jeeps. I drive a Subaru Outback.
My dad & I have done driving around Bears Ears, Grand canyon, various national parks & forests in Colorado & Utah, and have basically had to roll downhill into Loa (if I remember the town right) when we were at the bottom of a tank.
Blanding, UT surprisingly shows a tesla supercharger, but Monticello doesn't. So I imagine the overall situation will get better over time too.
Sorta another side question - I assume any sort of car-hauled solar is too weak to meaningfully charge a car? Totally back of the napkin math (80kwh battery @ 200w portable solar = 16 days to charge). Obviously a partial charge could be had quicker, or a larger solar setup, but not really feasible, even if you figure out all the connections.
Exactly, I want to go visit the Deep Creek Mountains in western Utah, and I've heard that bringing your own gasoline is a good idea because of just how far the Deep Creeks are from a gas station or civilization for that matter. I love exploring the deserts of Utah, and that just wouldn't be possible with current electric vehicles.
Absolutely, but the vast majority of drivers will never desire to or do this.
This is like asking how to tow the Space Shuttle with your pickup truck. It can be done (Toyota did it with a Tundra pickup for marketing), but no one is selling into a market to do so. You’re better off outfitting a used 4x4 for overlanding (as @grecy did [1]).
> This is like asking how to tow the Space Shuttle with your pickup truck. It can be done (Toyota did it with a Tundra pickup for marketing), but no one is selling into a market to do so.
Sorry but that's a ridiculous comparison, I just want to be able to drive to places my current gasoline vehicle can travel to, but in an electric car. Also there are large numbers of people out west camping, climbing, skiing, etc on all sorts of remote backcountry roads far from services. Its the reason many of us live out here.
How many vehicles a year do you think get sold to folks who are going to be so far off the grid, they might consider jerrycans for fuel security? 10k? 20k? 17 million new cars a year are sold, for comparison.
I admit you adventurous folks exist (and commend your wild spirit), just not in sufficient quantity to sell vehicles at volume, considering the average American light vehicle use case (a few road trips a year, ~40 mile daily round trip commutes).
I think your looking at this all wrong. Why would I or any other person spend $30,000 - $50,000 on a vehicle that is less capable then the vehicle I currently own? I cant charge at my apartment so I'm totally dependent on charging infrastructure, which is slower, has less locations and has compatibility issues that gas stations do not have. Even if most Americans dont use the full capabilities of their ICE car, why would they pay more for a less capable EV?
If new gas vehicles are banned, it’s not much of a choice. Several states have new combustion vehicles bans (between 2030-2035), and more are expected to follow.
I’m looking at it from the perspective of what options are left, based on the legislation I mention.
I'm assuming the charging infrastructure, and electric vehicles in general around 2030 - 2035 to be way better and not suffer from these issues I mentioned above. I just think right now EVs are unpractical for people who don't live in their own house and people who travel long distances or into very remote areas.
Do they have RV parks out there? Because if they will allow you to use them, most of those are suitable for overnight charging. I'm not familiar enough with the routes and distances involved to know, but it'd be interesting to see some of the specific locations you are thinking of?
In the deep creeks there's nothing, no RV parks or anything for that matter, but that is a pretty extreme location to get to. But every other place I've been to in western Utah for climbing, hiking, camping is also quite remote, not as extreme as the Deep creeks, but they all involve driving down horrendous 4x4 roads with no services let alone charging for miles. Here's some of the climbing areas I'm talking about[1]. Although most areas are not written down as that is the local tradition.
Hmm, seems like the closest high speed charging is Fillmore, UT, about 60-70 miles away?
Obviously, I don't know of any current EVs that would be suitable for those kinds of 4x4 roads, but it seems like it isn't impossible from an infrastructure standpoint.
TBH, part of me thinks that in the long run getting electricity near places like this will actually be easier than getting gasoline there.
Really? I own a 2017 Ford Focus RS in the states and I get a lot of compliments on my car. Most people don't even realize its a focus.