Sounds like it was out of warranty and the replacement fuel cell cost on an experimental limited production vehicle wasn’t something the buyer considered?
It makes me not really understand why people do conversions in articles, especially not for more volatile things like cryptocurrencies. "$100K in bitcoin stolen" hits differently depending on whether the article was written in 2011 or 2021. Just say "100 BTC stolen", MAYBE include a widget that will offer a conversion to your currency of choice, with options to have it translated to current values, values at the time of writing, and values adjusted for inflation.
WHat is so expensive? Cost of labour? Cost of the part? If you literally have to take apart most of the car, than can end with hundreds of human-hours of labour and depending on the price per hour, can get very very expensive.
On the other hand, I agree that parts costs should be regulated, where a sum of all parts should not exceed eg. 3x the cost of a new car (some overhead is of course needed in selling separate parts). But we don't know that either.
The referenced Auto Bild article https://www.autobild.de/artikel/hyundai-ix35-fcev-mit-defekt... has an image showing how the quoted price was calculated, including 1009.05 euros labor costs, 86187.73 euros parts (of which 3.03 euros for a gasket) and 16567.39 euros taxes.
It's possible you just have poor taste. Personally, I think the reasons for the repair cost aren't relevant, same is pretty obvious. It's an unconventional car that had limited production. I'm sure they're adding in the cost of parts (they'll likely have to buy another insurance of this car to rip the parts out of, or they'll have to fabricate it themselves. Which could require hiring an engineer to make sure they don't get sued if the car bursts into flames) and labor that comes with learning how to repair a complete unknown for them, plus a good helping of uncertainty.
The most relevant part of this story is that there's a guy who bought into a new tech, and who is being unreasonable when it didn't work for as long as he had hoped. And that comes through fine in the article.
> If you literally have to take apart most of the car, than can end with hundreds of human-hours of labour and depending on the price per hour, can get very very expensive.
FYI, many repairs require taking apart most of the car. For example, replacing gaskets requires taking apart the entire engine. And yet, garages aren't charging 100,000 euros to do so. More like 500 to 1000
Exactly. I had to have my 2004 LR Discovery 3 completely disassembled, as in - body taken off the chassis, engine and transmission out, all components stripped, cleaned put together, chassis sand blasted and redone - all in all paid about £6000 for the whole thing. The 100k euros is a "we don't want to do it" quote. I'm just surprised Hyundai quoted him anything, LR has no issues telling me "sorry we don't have parts for your vehicle anymore".
This seems expensive but it an out of production vehicle with a unique fuel source and not really supported.
He bought the car in 2015 so he’s lucky to get 8 years. Especially since Hyundai only provided a 5-year warranty. That seems pretty crazy to spend US$100k on a vehicle with a new technology.
When the Prius first came out they offered an 8 year warranty (or maybe 12) on the hybrid system. And that’s more familiar to mechanics than this fuel cell tech.
Tl:dr; don’t do stuff like this unless you’re ready to lose all your money. The owner got 8 years of utility out of the vehicle.
> He bought the car in 2015 so he’s lucky to get 8 years
Well now I understand why manufacturers say transmission has lifetime oil in there... because some people think that 8 years old car is... an old car that could as well be done?
I could afford buying new car and paying xxx/€ per month, but I choose to buy ~10 year old car and if I'm lucky it has <200k km on odometer. But then I'm debt free.
If I'd be paying xxx/€ per month and having a broken vehicle after 8 years, I'd be very disappointed to say the least.
The point isnt that 8 years is a reasonable lifespan for a generic car, rather that getting 8 years out of a car with early stage, novel tech is not so bad
There's warranty and there's estimated life. Nobody claims that their cars should be salvaged after warranty period. Producing repair parts for 20-30 years after the car has been sold is a norm. I owned 20-year old BMW and I was able to order parts for a reasonable price from BMW dealer, they were genuine new parts.
>He bought the car in 2015 so he’s lucky to get 8 year
I disagree with eight years being adequate for a modern car. I'd argue 10 to 15 years is more reasonable. I know it's unique system but even so it should last at least a decade.
Years ago cars were crap past three or four years. Any cars I had in the 80s as a teenager were bought used since cars four years old were very rough (rust, general wear and tear, electrical, carb issues, leaks). Anything 10 years old was ancient. Now my Mom had a 10 year old Toyota Camry and it's like a three year old car.
I visited Cuba and pretty much all the cars were ancient, like 30-40 years old. Not sure how they pulled that off! (I think it was a Ship of Theseus kind of situation...)
Those cars are simple enough that easy repairs can be done by anyone with a bit of skill and standard tools.
In addition a lot of the parts that wear out can be manufactured locally with a manual lathe/milling machine/welding, or simply be replaced with a similar enough part that you make fit with a bit of elbow grease.
We got a 2002 Honda Insight near the end of its life (2nd battery, 3rd transmission). Nifty little vehicle but it showed the early iteration design all over. It was obviously not a mass production item; theres lots of "tuner" type details.
If you're the type of person to treat a car as a pet and replace major subsystems anyway; this kind of prototype thing can be great fun. I'm trying to get my nephew the e-scooter builder interested in redoing this car's heavy electrics from the engine back; it's got 300k miles on it but it can burn another transmission off at least, i think. If the wife lets me (its her car) I'm so tempted to explore the madmax weapons opportunities offered by that big chonky battery pack just sitting there.
Warranty length is not and should not be the expected lifetime of the product. You don't expect your phone to die the day the two years of mandatory warranty (or whatever the length is where you're from) runs out, do you?
I expect the manufacturer to not fix anything past that date. Other than that it’s the reputation of the manufacturer. Some brand last long, some don’t.
This is a new product line from a brand that, although getting better, doesn’t have a great reputation for quality or longevity.
I think it’s unpleasant, but is part of my critical thinking skills for not buying fancy, unproven tech from Hyundai. Especially for $100k. If I bought that, I would treat it like buying a baseball card or a kayak or something.
Yup. It really needs to be stressed that hydrogen-powered cars are a mix of compliance and "halo" vehicles - vehicles designed to showcase the bleeding edge of what a manufacturer can do.
Halo vehicles are usually focused on performance, and any car enthusiast can tell you that they can be a nightmare of compromises, unique-to-the-model low-volume (and thus very expensive) parts, and so on. Enough to look good and work well for the press and the first owners. The high development costs are a write-off, but that doesn't mean they'll eat the cost of the parts outside warranty.
For example, the first Audi RS6 had a biturbo V8 shoved into a mid-size engine bay. The battery was relocated, almost as an afterthought, to sit smack dead-center in the back of the trunk, just bolted down in a carpeted box.
8 years and only 80-90K kilometers, that's not a lot. And we should expect better from cars, they should last at least twice that long with regular maintenance, and five times as much range.
That it's not 175k$ but 113k. But now that I see this comment again, I notice that it's 175 in Australian currency which is conveniently also called dollars apparently so that's actually my bad
It likely uses liquid hydrogen for fuel which can be difficult to come by as there aren't a lot of fuel stations that have that available. I found this video interesting and informative and it goes over some of the pros and cons of owning a hydrogen powered car - https://youtu.be/rtZQLUtckS4
So fuel cell cars other than one exception that I am aware of only use compressed hydrogen not liquid. Dealing with compressed hydrogen is difficult but manageable, dealing with liquid hydrogen is extremely difficult.
I had a Hybrid Audi Q5 and one day it just stopped working.
The dealership quoted me $25,000 for a new battery, plus labour, plus they said I had to manage the recycling of the old battery. They estimated that at $6,000. My head was spinning.
Eventually through a few Facebook groups I was able to find a battery technician. He happily opened up the battery, checked the cells, found the failed cells, repaired them and then had to do some work on the vehicle diagnostics to get it to forget there was ever a problem.
Voila, it was working just fine. Took him 90 minutes.
Chris Fix has a video showing how to replace all the cells on a Prius battery. It's not the hardest DIY thing I have seen by a large margin. I recall seeing a single cell replacement video a while back as well, but don't remember where.
Imagine a post-apocalyptic world with fully functional technology that surviving humans are hopelessly locked out from using. The Master-Blaster rulers will be the ones who are, or who control, the hackers.
Chris Fix's videos are a wonderful. High signal to noise with a very pleasant presentation.
They are mostly car repair, maintenance, and modification. No real theme, just whatever he happens to be doing and find interesting.
My 11 year old has watched his oil change video at least a hundred times. We opened the hood on my truck and he was able to find various parts that Chris had mentioned in his videos. My older two (driving age) have no clue.
Internal combustion engines are complex but, to fix them, we have a century of knowledge and a mature ecosystem: parts distributors, aftermarket, shops, amateur mechanics, books, courses, you name it.
I'm very hesitant to buy a hybrid that's so complex only highly specialized mechanics can repair them (specially certified mechanics at the dealership) and the repair ecosystem is 1% the size.
If it wasn't unsafe I'd prefer a Willys jeep that I can fix myself with chewing gum.
Car shops have nearly as much existing knowledge repairing electronics. Most of what they need isn't "highly specialized" so much as "differently specialized".
The biggest problem right now is that the training/retraining costs on those different specializations aren't current always economically worth it because overall EVs have fewer parts and need fewer maintenance cycles. That's likely going to be economic factors that will keep the repair ecosystem smaller in the long term, too. Not because the knowledge is "tougher" and "more certified" (existing work had certifications, too, just different ones), but because it is overall going to involve fewer supply chain "partners" and fewer, less frequent customers.
Fair enough. I think this is why hybrids are an evolutionary dead end in cars. GM said the era of the hybrid was already over when they discontinued the Volt in 2019, and I agree with that sentiment. They were a transition technology for a transition that is mostly already past and 2019 is a good enough death date for it to me. (I still drive a 2012 Volt myself, so I lived the transition. I would not recommend to anyone buying in 2023 a hybrid, and I expect my Volt may move on to a second owner for some time, but I would recommend an EV first to anyone that isn't the potential buyer for my car when it is time to sell.)
Sounds like there's good scratch to be made as a battery technician; one could set up a shop and offer services to all the local garages too, which will be facing this problem.
Of course, they'd rather take the 25K, or take in the car for scrap / resale themselves.
Check your state law on battery recycling. In some (most?) states, places that sell batteries have to also accept batteries (the law might say something about the cost).
> Voila, it was working just fine. Took him 90 minutes
Either the dealership is (1) incompetent, (2) this is a profit model (they quickly refusbish the old battery and resell it), or (3) it is a liability issue.
You can have my downvote. People need transport now, not in some hypothetical ideal future world.
Bikes are dangerous, even in places with good infrastructure.
Bikes are no good for carrying your shopping, or your kids, or taking your partner to dinner, or when the weather is inclement, or if your physical condition doesn’t permit it.
At best they’re an auxiliary option for when circumstances permit. In economics terms they’re not a substitute good for cars.
I love cycling and wish my city had better infrastructure. But let’s keep it real.
>Bikes are no good for carrying your shopping, or your kids, or taking your partner to dinner, or when the weather is inclement, or if your physical condition doesn’t permit it.
I've been biking for everything for over about 15 years (we don't have a car). With two bags on the back, enough to shop. With kids. Taking my partners for dinner. For works, vacation, errands, everything. When there's rain and when there's snow.
My physical condition improved thanks to biking. Idem for my finances.
I wouldn’t do any of those things you listed on a bike, except a small shop, not a Costco shop. And I cycle in the rain sometimes, but not by choice. I love cycling, but I use a car when it’s the tool for the job.
>Bikes are no good for carrying your shopping, or your kids, or taking your partner to dinner, or when the weather is inclement, or if your physical condition doesn’t permit it.
I've been biking for everything for over about 15 years. With two bags on the back, enough to shop. With kids. Taking my partners for dinner. When there's rain and when there's snow.
Bikes are not dangerous in places with good infrastructure. Why would you think that? Statistics in countries like Sweden are quite good. Biking is safe. Where I live, I'm nowhere near cars most of the time even.
Further more, it's completely normal for kids to bike. And if they're too young (<5 years old normally), it's completely normal for parents to have a seat on the bike for the kid. It's statistically safe.
I’ve never seen a city where you can stay in safe areas, not even in cities I’ve visited in Europe. Unless you’re very limited in where you go, you usually end up sharing the road with cars at some point, and that’s quite dangerous. Even if it’s just crossing an intersection from a bike lane. I almost got erased challenging a left turning car to a yellow light in Vancouver (I don’t remember if he indicated or not). After that I learned that yellow should mean stop for bikes. I don’t want “he had the right of way” to be my epitaph on my tombstone.
Even in shared areas, bikes and pedestrians can be prioritized. Continuous sidewalks (at sidewalk grade) give the mental impression the road is crossing the sidewalk (instead of the other way around in the US).
Plus, cycling is normalized - drivers are cyclists and more aware of the damage they can do by texting or driving dangerously.
Where I live cyclists rarely need to share the road with cars. Sidewalks are a bit wider so that cyclists can use half and pedestrians the other half. Almost all sidewalks I have seen here are shared pedestrian/cyclist ones.
Bikes are only dangerous when they are mixed with high-speed auto traffic. On dedicated paths, they're pretty safe. More so when the bikes are lower-speed townie bikes (dutch style or similar, vs a "TdF race bike") and helmets are worn.
Cargo bikes exist. Racks and bags are available for most normal bikes. Some cargo bikes have platforms that can be used as a seat (similar to a motorcycle). No such thing as poor weather, only poor clothing choices. Yes, there are people who will never be able to ride a bike and we need to build with them in mind as well.
The US, in general, is terrible at building for an array of transportation alternatives. It's basically cars, cars, cars. Are bikes (or scooters or buses) a 100% substitute for cars today? No. Could they be for a large portion of the population? Absolutely, we just need to push for it. In the long run, we'll be better for it. Cars have massive costs - not just buying the car, but maintaining it, fueling it, building roads, opportunity costs related to parking spaces, environmental impacts, etc.
Even if we get to the point where a typical 3-4 person family has one car instead of 2-3, we'll be better off.
Canada entering the chat. There is definitely poor weather.
I know people will cycle in the snow and ice, but I don’t recommend it.
I agree that bikes are great, when the infrastructure supports them, and reducing usage of petrol cars is sensible for the planet. But they still can only supplement a car for most families in most places.
I think the point he was making was that in the winter in Finland there was "only" a drop of ~40% in cycling. I say "only" because for many people, myself included, my winter cycling drops by ~100%.
> People need transport now, not in some hypothetical ideal future world.
This is the only part of your comment that I can really agree with.
Aside from weather and physical conditions the rest is simply not true. I used to live in San Francisco and had both a pickup truck and an electric assist cargo bike. I could get anywhere in the city on that bike, and typically was able to get door to door even quicker than I could by car because I didn't need to spend an extra 10 minutes finding a place to park a motor vehicle.
The bike served as the mini-van. I'd drop my kids off at their two different schools, each in different parts of the city, and then head to work, doing all of that in less time than I could in a car.
I also used it to help people move households. It's carried a full size refrigerator from the top of Potrero Hill (one of the steepest in SF) across town to Outer Sunset. It wasn't even difficult, and probably took less time getting it from one house to another because it was easier to load (the "deck" of the bike is less than a foot off the ground) and moved just as quick as a loaded truck through the city. I've used it to tow a friend's broken Honda Accord a similar distance as well. Getting rolling was challenging, but only because the bike tires lacked the traction needed and would do burnouts unless the bike had a lot of weight, so we solved that by also moving a small motor cycle at the same time.
I don't have data to back this, but it's safe to say that I've moved more cargo (in weight) with that bike than the pickup truck I'd owned for 10 years prior to getting the cargo bike.
My experience may be unique, but it's totally within the ability of anyone who can afford even a cheap used car to do today with ready built models shipped overnight via Amazon Prime.
In other words, the people who need transport now can have it in a very non-hypothetical world.
All this coming from someone who does not believe simply advocating for people to use public transit is a fix-all solution. Use it when the weather isn't great, or when you sprain your ankle, or when you don't want to fuss with finding parking.
> Live somewhere that isn't bike friendly? Do the right thing instead of the easy one and campaign for better infrastructure.
A bus out to my subdivision will always be a worse experience than driving to work, even if they made a custom bus line straight from my house to there. I can't always schedule when I need to go home, and no one else would be riding with me. I assume by "better infrastructure" you really mean everyone should give up any free space they have and move into high-rise apartments or densely-packed townhouses?
If you live in some tiny EU city then sure or a small US town then sure. It's unrealistic for 99% of Americans. My girlfriend lives 17 miles away. My job is 12. I rode a bike when I lived in a town small enough that I could ride a bike across it and most of the roads were residential.
> Electric bikes are cheap, efficient, fast enough, safe, good for your health, and good for the environment.
Electric bikes are a very positive direction. Society should be doing a lot to push them as a primary choice.
I used to commute 20+ miles on a road bike (not electric). I don't have a commute anymore but if I did I'd have an electric bike and it would probably increase my tolerable range at least to 50 miles.
For longer distances I don't want an EV car. I've had them, too much hassle with the charging and range limits. I feel the sweet spot is an electric bike for 90+% of local travel and a regular car/truck for when the distances are big and/or need to tow and carry heavy things. Which is rare, so most usage can be the bike. EVs fill a niche that doesn't exist for me.
Kind of surprised they sold the car today him in the first place. In the US, as I understand it, the Toyota Hydrogen program, all of the vehicles are leased, perhaps to prevent just this thing but also to actually protect the consumer from having a worthless used car.
Perhaps the original vehicles were subsidized by Hyundai, but this part is “actual price “ with the expectation that we’re it ever to be used, it would be under warranty.
Could just be on the wrong side of accounting gimmicks that companies use, especially on experimental development vehicles.
I believe you can purchase a Toyota Mirai but it doesn't make much sense to. On lease you get $15000 in free hydrogen to be used in 3 years. If you purchase it outright you get the same 15k but you get 6 years to use that. But your resale value after that is going to be terrible since the next owner will actually have to pay for hydrogen(And it isn't cheap), so you are better off just leasing.
I a few years ago I talked to people from Honda about their fuel cell plans. They laid out how many fuel cell vehicles they were planning on selling and it wasn’t that many. What was left unsaid is that they lost money on every vehicle and therefore weren’t going to sell that many, at least until that get costs down.
It’s likely in this Hyundai story that Hyundai doesn’t want to lose additional money on this fuel cell vehicle and that’s why they quoted the astronomically high price.
I'm very much worried that this will happen with electric cars as well, that their batteries will just run out and will need to be replaced wholesale, but that it won't be economically viable.
I mean there's a project out there that monitors the battery capacity and lifetime of electric cars, tracking those of Tesla's Model S from over ten years ago now; those seem to be holding up all right.
But it will cause more trash. 100 year old cars can still run today because the parts can be replaced, or worst case, engine components can be machined.
That said, maybe over time there will be new generations of battery tech that will make it viable to replace and even upgrade old electric vehicle batteries. It's not likely in the near future though. And I think it'll be suppressed by existing battery manufacturers, Tesla being foremost - I'm not convinced cars are Tesla's long term goal, it'll be battery tech and charging infrastructure.
> That said, maybe over time there will be new generations of battery tech that will make it viable to replace and even upgrade old electric vehicle batteries.
That exists in limited capacity today. There are shops that have replaced older Leaf model batteries with upgraded batteries. That's a big deal for some of the earliest Leaf models because they had tiny batteries by today's standards (or Tesla's) and get double or triple range compared to when they were new. There aren't going to be as many models today that will benefit in quite the same way as those early Leafs, but it will probably still be a niche thing once we figure out what the average lifecycle of a car battery is. (As you mention, it is certainly greater than ten years we're seeing from Tesla batteries and others. Based on current data, it seems like it may be close to 20 years or possibly more that batteries last in their "first use" in cars.)
Also, there's a bunch of companies working on electrifying old ICE cars today, which uses similar skills. I think it's fun to watch decades old cars with very new life as EVs. Some of those cars drive better than they ever did before.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] threadSounds like it’s working exactly as planned.
WHat is so expensive? Cost of labour? Cost of the part? If you literally have to take apart most of the car, than can end with hundreds of human-hours of labour and depending on the price per hour, can get very very expensive.
On the other hand, I agree that parts costs should be regulated, where a sum of all parts should not exceed eg. 3x the cost of a new car (some overhead is of course needed in selling separate parts). But we don't know that either.
It's possible you just have poor taste. Personally, I think the reasons for the repair cost aren't relevant, same is pretty obvious. It's an unconventional car that had limited production. I'm sure they're adding in the cost of parts (they'll likely have to buy another insurance of this car to rip the parts out of, or they'll have to fabricate it themselves. Which could require hiring an engineer to make sure they don't get sued if the car bursts into flames) and labor that comes with learning how to repair a complete unknown for them, plus a good helping of uncertainty.
The most relevant part of this story is that there's a guy who bought into a new tech, and who is being unreasonable when it didn't work for as long as he had hoped. And that comes through fine in the article.
FYI, many repairs require taking apart most of the car. For example, replacing gaskets requires taking apart the entire engine. And yet, garages aren't charging 100,000 euros to do so. More like 500 to 1000
He bought the car in 2015 so he’s lucky to get 8 years. Especially since Hyundai only provided a 5-year warranty. That seems pretty crazy to spend US$100k on a vehicle with a new technology.
When the Prius first came out they offered an 8 year warranty (or maybe 12) on the hybrid system. And that’s more familiar to mechanics than this fuel cell tech.
Tl:dr; don’t do stuff like this unless you’re ready to lose all your money. The owner got 8 years of utility out of the vehicle.
But I'm sure they'd throw in free oil changes.
Well now I understand why manufacturers say transmission has lifetime oil in there... because some people think that 8 years old car is... an old car that could as well be done?
I could afford buying new car and paying xxx/€ per month, but I choose to buy ~10 year old car and if I'm lucky it has <200k km on odometer. But then I'm debt free.
If I'd be paying xxx/€ per month and having a broken vehicle after 8 years, I'd be very disappointed to say the least.
1. Your car is easier to repair
2. It is easier to find mechanics for repair
3. You get the treasure trove of pre-existing repair videos/guides in case something goes awry and you want to DIY.
I disagree with eight years being adequate for a modern car. I'd argue 10 to 15 years is more reasonable. I know it's unique system but even so it should last at least a decade.
Years ago cars were crap past three or four years. Any cars I had in the 80s as a teenager were bought used since cars four years old were very rough (rust, general wear and tear, electrical, carb issues, leaks). Anything 10 years old was ancient. Now my Mom had a 10 year old Toyota Camry and it's like a three year old car.
In addition a lot of the parts that wear out can be manufactured locally with a manual lathe/milling machine/welding, or simply be replaced with a similar enough part that you make fit with a bit of elbow grease.
Cars that will survive decades in California will rust out in a few salty, winter years in Canada.
He bought the car for US $55,074 (inflation adj:$71,805 per article)
If you're the type of person to treat a car as a pet and replace major subsystems anyway; this kind of prototype thing can be great fun. I'm trying to get my nephew the e-scooter builder interested in redoing this car's heavy electrics from the engine back; it's got 300k miles on it but it can burn another transmission off at least, i think. If the wife lets me (its her car) I'm so tempted to explore the madmax weapons opportunities offered by that big chonky battery pack just sitting there.
This is a new product line from a brand that, although getting better, doesn’t have a great reputation for quality or longevity.
I think it’s unpleasant, but is part of my critical thinking skills for not buying fancy, unproven tech from Hyundai. Especially for $100k. If I bought that, I would treat it like buying a baseball card or a kayak or something.
Halo vehicles are usually focused on performance, and any car enthusiast can tell you that they can be a nightmare of compromises, unique-to-the-model low-volume (and thus very expensive) parts, and so on. Enough to look good and work well for the press and the first owners. The high development costs are a write-off, but that doesn't mean they'll eat the cost of the parts outside warranty.
For example, the first Audi RS6 had a biturbo V8 shoved into a mid-size engine bay. The battery was relocated, almost as an afterthought, to sit smack dead-center in the back of the trunk, just bolted down in a carpeted box.
= $AU 175,000
= US$ 113,650
Total repair/replacement estimate: €103,764.17 ($113,262 USD)
Archive (in German): https://archive.is/w0Dq5
Original article (in German): https://www.autobild.de/artikel/hyundai-ix35-fcev-mit-defekt...
The dealership quoted me $25,000 for a new battery, plus labour, plus they said I had to manage the recycling of the old battery. They estimated that at $6,000. My head was spinning.
Eventually through a few Facebook groups I was able to find a battery technician. He happily opened up the battery, checked the cells, found the failed cells, repaired them and then had to do some work on the vehicle diagnostics to get it to forget there was ever a problem.
Voila, it was working just fine. Took him 90 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHaYXBFnJo
We need more right to repair and requirement to make things repairable regulations. The balance is in the wrong spot right now.
There is some progress being made, like https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64206913 - but absolutely, legislating RtR is the way to go.
400V or 800V at those amperages can easily be fatal even through a pair of rubber gloves.
They are mostly car repair, maintenance, and modification. No real theme, just whatever he happens to be doing and find interesting.
My 11 year old has watched his oil change video at least a hundred times. We opened the hood on my truck and he was able to find various parts that Chris had mentioned in his videos. My older two (driving age) have no clue.
I'm very hesitant to buy a hybrid that's so complex only highly specialized mechanics can repair them (specially certified mechanics at the dealership) and the repair ecosystem is 1% the size.
If it wasn't unsafe I'd prefer a Willys jeep that I can fix myself with chewing gum.
The biggest problem right now is that the training/retraining costs on those different specializations aren't current always economically worth it because overall EVs have fewer parts and need fewer maintenance cycles. That's likely going to be economic factors that will keep the repair ecosystem smaller in the long term, too. Not because the knowledge is "tougher" and "more certified" (existing work had certifications, too, just different ones), but because it is overall going to involve fewer supply chain "partners" and fewer, less frequent customers.
Of course, they'd rather take the 25K, or take in the car for scrap / resale themselves.
Either the dealership is (1) incompetent, (2) this is a profit model (they quickly refusbish the old battery and resell it), or (3) it is a liability issue.
Electric bikes are cheap, efficient, fast enough, safe, good for your health, and good for the environment.
Live somewhere that isn't bike friendly? Do the right thing instead of the easy one and campaign for better infrastructure.
And in the mean time, buy those Teslas, i4s, Mach-Es and Leafs.
Bikes are dangerous, even in places with good infrastructure.
Bikes are no good for carrying your shopping, or your kids, or taking your partner to dinner, or when the weather is inclement, or if your physical condition doesn’t permit it.
At best they’re an auxiliary option for when circumstances permit. In economics terms they’re not a substitute good for cars.
I love cycling and wish my city had better infrastructure. But let’s keep it real.
I've been biking for everything for over about 15 years (we don't have a car). With two bags on the back, enough to shop. With kids. Taking my partners for dinner. For works, vacation, errands, everything. When there's rain and when there's snow.
My physical condition improved thanks to biking. Idem for my finances.
Do you even ride a bike?!
Am I reading too much subtle failure here?
I've been biking for everything for over about 15 years. With two bags on the back, enough to shop. With kids. Taking my partners for dinner. When there's rain and when there's snow.
My physical condition improved thanks to biking.
Have you tried riding a bike?
Plus, cycling is normalized - drivers are cyclists and more aware of the damage they can do by texting or driving dangerously.
Bikes are only dangerous when they are mixed with high-speed auto traffic. On dedicated paths, they're pretty safe. More so when the bikes are lower-speed townie bikes (dutch style or similar, vs a "TdF race bike") and helmets are worn.
Cargo bikes exist. Racks and bags are available for most normal bikes. Some cargo bikes have platforms that can be used as a seat (similar to a motorcycle). No such thing as poor weather, only poor clothing choices. Yes, there are people who will never be able to ride a bike and we need to build with them in mind as well.
The US, in general, is terrible at building for an array of transportation alternatives. It's basically cars, cars, cars. Are bikes (or scooters or buses) a 100% substitute for cars today? No. Could they be for a large portion of the population? Absolutely, we just need to push for it. In the long run, we'll be better for it. Cars have massive costs - not just buying the car, but maintaining it, fueling it, building roads, opportunity costs related to parking spaces, environmental impacts, etc.
Even if we get to the point where a typical 3-4 person family has one car instead of 2-3, we'll be better off.
I know people will cycle in the snow and ice, but I don’t recommend it.
I agree that bikes are great, when the infrastructure supports them, and reducing usage of petrol cars is sensible for the planet. But they still can only supplement a car for most families in most places.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/01/22/meet-the-bike-...
Like I said, even if we get from 2-3 cars/family to 1 car/family, we're WAY ahead in resource use, health, space usage, etc.
This is the only part of your comment that I can really agree with.
Aside from weather and physical conditions the rest is simply not true. I used to live in San Francisco and had both a pickup truck and an electric assist cargo bike. I could get anywhere in the city on that bike, and typically was able to get door to door even quicker than I could by car because I didn't need to spend an extra 10 minutes finding a place to park a motor vehicle.
The bike served as the mini-van. I'd drop my kids off at their two different schools, each in different parts of the city, and then head to work, doing all of that in less time than I could in a car.
I also used it to help people move households. It's carried a full size refrigerator from the top of Potrero Hill (one of the steepest in SF) across town to Outer Sunset. It wasn't even difficult, and probably took less time getting it from one house to another because it was easier to load (the "deck" of the bike is less than a foot off the ground) and moved just as quick as a loaded truck through the city. I've used it to tow a friend's broken Honda Accord a similar distance as well. Getting rolling was challenging, but only because the bike tires lacked the traction needed and would do burnouts unless the bike had a lot of weight, so we solved that by also moving a small motor cycle at the same time.
I don't have data to back this, but it's safe to say that I've moved more cargo (in weight) with that bike than the pickup truck I'd owned for 10 years prior to getting the cargo bike.
My experience may be unique, but it's totally within the ability of anyone who can afford even a cheap used car to do today with ready built models shipped overnight via Amazon Prime.
In other words, the people who need transport now can have it in a very non-hypothetical world.
All this coming from someone who does not believe simply advocating for people to use public transit is a fix-all solution. Use it when the weather isn't great, or when you sprain your ankle, or when you don't want to fuss with finding parking.
A bus out to my subdivision will always be a worse experience than driving to work, even if they made a custom bus line straight from my house to there. I can't always schedule when I need to go home, and no one else would be riding with me. I assume by "better infrastructure" you really mean everyone should give up any free space they have and move into high-rise apartments or densely-packed townhouses?
It's not going to change overnight.
Electric bikes are a very positive direction. Society should be doing a lot to push them as a primary choice.
I used to commute 20+ miles on a road bike (not electric). I don't have a commute anymore but if I did I'd have an electric bike and it would probably increase my tolerable range at least to 50 miles.
For longer distances I don't want an EV car. I've had them, too much hassle with the charging and range limits. I feel the sweet spot is an electric bike for 90+% of local travel and a regular car/truck for when the distances are big and/or need to tow and carry heavy things. Which is rare, so most usage can be the bike. EVs fill a niche that doesn't exist for me.
Perhaps the original vehicles were subsidized by Hyundai, but this part is “actual price “ with the expectation that we’re it ever to be used, it would be under warranty.
Could just be on the wrong side of accounting gimmicks that companies use, especially on experimental development vehicles.
It’s likely in this Hyundai story that Hyundai doesn’t want to lose additional money on this fuel cell vehicle and that’s why they quoted the astronomically high price.
I mean there's a project out there that monitors the battery capacity and lifetime of electric cars, tracking those of Tesla's Model S from over ten years ago now; those seem to be holding up all right.
But it will cause more trash. 100 year old cars can still run today because the parts can be replaced, or worst case, engine components can be machined.
That said, maybe over time there will be new generations of battery tech that will make it viable to replace and even upgrade old electric vehicle batteries. It's not likely in the near future though. And I think it'll be suppressed by existing battery manufacturers, Tesla being foremost - I'm not convinced cars are Tesla's long term goal, it'll be battery tech and charging infrastructure.
The recycling rate on lead acid batteries is over 99%. Li ion batteries will likely end up with a similar number.
That exists in limited capacity today. There are shops that have replaced older Leaf model batteries with upgraded batteries. That's a big deal for some of the earliest Leaf models because they had tiny batteries by today's standards (or Tesla's) and get double or triple range compared to when they were new. There aren't going to be as many models today that will benefit in quite the same way as those early Leafs, but it will probably still be a niche thing once we figure out what the average lifecycle of a car battery is. (As you mention, it is certainly greater than ten years we're seeing from Tesla batteries and others. Based on current data, it seems like it may be close to 20 years or possibly more that batteries last in their "first use" in cars.)
Also, there's a bunch of companies working on electrifying old ICE cars today, which uses similar skills. I think it's fun to watch decades old cars with very new life as EVs. Some of those cars drive better than they ever did before.
EVs are still 'unusual' technology. (That includes all varieties of EVs)
When they become as ubiquitous as petroleum-powered internal-combustion vehicles, that might change. Prices might fall.