OT: THE OT Thread: Grass mowing szn is here

[Old Navy Goat]

I find people complaining about how other people spend their money quite hilarious. You don't see it so much here but the price and budget threads on my Pattaya board crack me up. I mean damn poor old Elon spent 1/10th of his net worth, ie a year's interest in a diminishing product ie a tax write off and had the added pleasure of pissing off millions of lefties

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Nobody I know has even talked about it. Then again, where I live, there’s only a couple of electric charging stations (I’m assuming the CT is electric), and it gets extremely cold here in winter. Any Teslas I see is during the summer, so it’s safe to assume they’re tourists or they have a secondary winter vehicle.

To be honest most contractors I know have vans, because they hold more and keep tools out of the weather. It’s the employees of the contractors that have trucks, because they either also do winter plowing and/or go mudding. We get on average about 4+ feet of snow a winter here, but it’s more of a consistent small amount than “here’s 2 feet all at once” like Buffalo gets. Here it’s more of 4 inches of snow every night for a week, three days off, then repeat.

So thankfully the job I’m currently doing it’s just down the hall from me, especially given the temperatures over the past week. No driving necessary.

Yes, CT is electric. Tesla will never even make a hybrid, let alone an ICE vehicle. Its mission statement precludes it - to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.

The Soo doesn't have great coverage - just one Supercharger location on each side of the border. The closest nearby Superchargers are Blind River to the east and Wawa to the north. They're primarily used for road trips, for which the existing coverage is just fine anyway. I wouldn't recommend an EV to anyone who can't charge at home. Suitable infrastructure just isn't available yet.

Ya, most contractors around here seem to prefer vans too, landscapers being an exception. Much easier to secure expensive tools and to keep them out of the elements.

 

[oldgoalie]

Jeez.
My brother in Marilla is sitting in 5 feet of snow, and my niece (his daughter) in West Seneca is sitting in 7 feet of it.
I can happily say f*** that shit. I’m moving to the Blue Ridge area in Virginia next month, and they definitely get more snow than we do here in the tidewater area, but I can take a couple inches of snow here and there.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Yes, CT is electric. Tesla will never even make a hybrid, let alone an ICE vehicle. Its mission statement precludes it - to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.

The Soo doesn't have great coverage - just one Supercharger location on each side of the border. The closest nearby Superchargers are Blind River to the east and Wawa to the north. They're primarily used for road trips, for which the existing coverage is just fine anyway. I wouldn't recommend an EV to anyone who can't charge at home. Suitable infrastructure just isn't available yet.

Ya, most contractors around here seem to prefer vans too, landscapers being an exception. Much easier to secure expensive tools and to keep them out of the elements.

Given the area, that infrastructure won’t happen for a long time. It should have, but years ago the city f***ed things up. Hyundai wanted to build a factory here, which makes sense given the location and the fact that there’s a steel mill here. The city said no, not seeing how many other businesses that would have brought.

Instead two decades ago, they decided to bring a bunch of call centres here. Now none remain, so the city has moved on to “shopping”. The Soo is basically “MAGA” with a meth addiction. Aka cold Florida

 

[Sabresfansince1980]

Honest question - how is the EV industry supposed to be viable and/or eco-friendly with the scarcity of metals and the type of mining required to supply it? It just seems quite short-sighted to me, unless lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc is somehow more prevalent than oil, and somehow becomes renewable in EV batteries in the future.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Given the area, that infrastructure won’t happen for a long time. It should have, but years ago the city f***ed things up. Hyundai wanted to build a factory here, which makes sense given the location and the fact that there’s a steel mill here. The city said no, not seeing how many other businesses that would have brought.

Instead two decades ago, they decided to bring a bunch of call centres here. Now none remain, so the city has moved on to “shopping”. The Soo is basically “MAGA” with a meth addiction. Aka cold Florida

By infrastructure I meant building more Supercharger locations, installing charging units in apartment building parking lots and garages, converting gas pumps to charging stalls, etc. It's inevitable as EVs supplant ICE vehicles in the global fleet.

How the additional power to satisfy increasing demand from the power grid is provided is another topic.

 

[MOGlLNY]

Watching The Godfather for the first time tonight. I consider myself a big movie guy but never jumped in. Here we go

 

[MarkusKetterer]

By infrastructure I meant building more Supercharger locations, installing charging units in apartment building parking lots and garages, converting gas pumps to charging stalls, etc. It's inevitable as EVs supplant ICE vehicles in the global fleet.

How the additional power to satisfy increasing demand from the power grid is provided is another topic.

That will never happen here, and I’ll tell you why using an example from my current job.

The window sills are so damaged after 30 years that they need to be replaced or rebuilt. I suggested replacement, and the person paying me went for rebuilt. Replacement would have cost $70-$80 per window sill (so $350-$400), plus a couple of hours of labour. That was too expensive. Instead rebuilding them has already cost $1200, and I’m still nowhere close to being done. And that is the thinking that goes on here.

 

[Chainshot]

Watching The Godfather for the first time tonight. I consider myself a big movie guy but never jumped in. Here we go

Look how they massacred our Mogilny.

 

[Chainshot]

In the realm of electric vehicles, I have seen a couple of Rivians driving around down here. No Fisker Alaskas yet - I don't think they're out - but I'm sure the horse folks in Ocala will have some since there is a lot of status crap among that crowd in my experience.

 

[TehDoak]

a reminder to never take spirit airlines.

They cancelled our morning flight. Claiming weather but a smaller flight left after our flight under a different airline with no problems. Our plane was immediately re-assigned and we were rescheduled 8 hours later. 9 hours later our new fight was cancelled an we can’t leave until Sunday. Again claiming weather when several airlines were delayed but landed fine in PHL today.

 

[Gras]

By infrastructure I meant building more Supercharger locations, installing charging units in apartment building parking lots and garages, converting gas pumps to charging stalls, etc. It's inevitable as EVs supplant ICE vehicles in the global fleet.

How the additional power to satisfy increasing demand from the power grid is provided is another topic.

Nuclear is the answer, but you can't follow the money and get to that conclusion.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Honest question - how is the EV industry supposed to be viable and/or eco-friendly with the scarcity of metals and the type of mining required to supply it? It just seems quite short-sighted to me, unless lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc is somehow more prevalent than oil, and somehow becomes renewable in EV batteries in the future.

The hyper-optimistic, long-term solution envisioned is a sufficient supply of retired vehicle batteries to recycle into enough new batteries to fully satisfy demand, a closed loop of supply with no mining required. Elon's former right-hand tech guy, JB Straubel, founded Redwood Materials with that vision in mind. Its plant is located near Giga Nevada, Tesla's battery and semi-truck facility outside of Reno.

The current situation is challenging, with geopolitical considerations.

China leads the world in the production of many of these minerals, even ones that are scarce domestically. Its lax environmental standards enable refining operations that would be undesirable in western nations. NIMBY discourages even environmentally responsible operations in the west.

Tesla is striving for cobalt-free batteries. No decent human being wants to see impoverished, barefoot children scrambling in a pile of rocks and stagnant water for the benefit of the local potentate. (Cobalt is found in every single smart phone on the planet, btw. We all have dirty hands.) The current cobalt content in Tesla batteries using it is under 5%.

On a number of occasions Elon has publicly asked, almost pleaded, for help in securing additional supplies of nickel. Seriously, comments not far removed from "psst, anyone know where I can score some nickel?"

The Model 3 RWD uses a battery containing only lithium, iron, and phosphate (LFP). Lithium and iron are two of the most common elements in the earth's crust, so raw material supply is not an issue. Lithium refining is a nasty business, from what I understand. Tesla is building a lithium processing plant, using ore from North American sources only, near Corpus Christi, TX. It claims that 2025 production will be sufficient for 1M EVs. Unfortunately, LFP batteries are currently unsuitable for use in the rest of its vehicles, which have more demanding power requirements.

To put that 1M vehicle number in perspective, Tesla's ambitious goal for 2030 is to produce 20M EVs. Current annual worldwide production is ~90M vehicles of all types. This article provides useful data for the mining implications.

Don't get me started on copper.

As I said at the start of this far-too-long rant, the situation is challenging. The good news is battery technology is quickly improving and work on substituting more widely available minerals for rarer and less acceptable ones is well underway.

 

[Chainshot]

Nuclear is the answer, but you can't follow the money and get to that conclusion.

Hydrogen fuel cells also had some traction (no pun intended) and since it is very similar in the basic level of fueling a vehicle at a distribution center akin to how we fuel at gas stations, there is some ease in transferring people over. The issue of course is that hydrogen is ridiculously reactive. I'm wondering if there winds up being some measure of several varieties of propulsion as we move forward since just EV leaves issues of battery production and waste that can't be ignored.

 

[Chainshot]

a reminder to never take spirit airlines.

They cancelled our morning flight. Claiming weather but a smaller flight left after our flight under a different airline with no problems. Our plane was immediately re-assigned and we were rescheduled 8 hours later. 9 hours later our new fight was cancelled an we can’t leave until Sunday. Again claiming weather when several airlines were delayed but landed fine in PHL today.

They are the worst. It always seems like they are going to charge you for the air you breathe on their flights.

 

[Ehran]

a reminder to never take spirit airlines.

They cancelled our morning flight. Claiming weather but a smaller flight left after our flight under a different airline with no problems. Our plane was immediately re-assigned and we were rescheduled 8 hours later. 9 hours later our new fight was cancelled an we can’t leave until Sunday. Again claiming weather when several airlines were delayed but landed fine in PHL today.

Oh, so that explains why Portnoy dumped a ton of money into their stock.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Nuclear is the answer, but you can't follow the money and get to that conclusion.

Fully supportive, but Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima have made it a very hard sell politically.

a reminder to never take spirit airlines.

They cancelled our morning flight. Claiming weather but a smaller flight left after our flight under a different airline with no problems. Our plane was immediately re-assigned and we were rescheduled 8 hours later. 9 hours later our new fight was cancelled an we can’t leave until Sunday. Again claiming weather when several airlines were delayed but landed fine in PHL today.

Dude.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

In the realm of electric vehicles, I have seen a couple of Rivians driving around down here. No Fisker Alaskas yet - I don't think they're out - but I'm sure the horse folks in Ocala will have some since there is a lot of status crap among that crowd in my experience.

Fisker? ngmi (probably). Their chart is just brutal. They'll be delisted by the NYSE after 30 trading days below one dollar. Would have to think that would be a death sentence.

Rivian might have a shot. Their products are well received, afaict. 60K production expected next year, which is decent. They lose over $30K per vehicle, however.

I don't think most people appreciate the enormous challenge in making EVs at a profit. To my knowledge, only Tesla and BYD, to a lesser extent, have done so. Ford loses something like $35K on every EV sold, and it appears to be the Big 3 auto maker most committed to EVs. The other two don't even break out their EV numbers separately. What does that tell you?

A reminder that precisely two American automobile manufacturers have never gone bankrupt - Ford and Tesla. It's a jungle out there.

 

[Gras]

Fisker? ngmi (probably). Their chart is just brutal. They'll be delisted by the NYSE after 30 trading days below one dollar. Would have to think that would be a death sentence.

Rivian might have a shot. Their products are well received, afaict. 60K production expected next year, which is decent. They lose over $30K per vehicle, however.

I don't think most people appreciate the enormous challenge in making EVs at a profit. To my knowledge, only Tesla and BYD, to a lesser extent, have done so. Ford loses something like $35K on every EV sold, and it appears to be the Big 3 auto maker most committed to EVs. The other two don't even break out their EV numbers separately. What does that tell you?

A reminder that precisely two American automobile manufacturers have never gone bankrupt - Ford and Tesla. It's a jungle out there.

View attachment 806524

Take away the tax credits for buyers and they will be in even more trouble.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Take away the tax credits for buyers and they will be in even more trouble.

The regulations about (North) American content and labor, and max price and income are quite stringent, and seem to change arbitrarily.

This is the latest info I can find quickly. No credits for Fisker. The Rivian models qualify for a $3,750 credit, half of what Tesla purchasers are provided.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

SMH. My kid is roasting the hell out of me tonight. Everyone I know is “meh”. Well known bands or artists like Green Day, Metallica, Blink-182 are meh. Hasek is meh. Like dude, you have personally addressed autographs… why is this coming up?

 

[HaNotsri]

Family of the victim asked people to share, figure we'd have some locals:

 

[Sabresfansince1980]

The hyper-optimistic, long-term solution envisioned is a sufficient supply of retired vehicle batteries to recycle into enough new batteries to fully satisfy demand, a closed loop of supply with no mining required. Elon's former right-hand tech guy, JB Straubel, founded Redwood Materials with that vision in mind. Its plant is located near Giga Nevada, Tesla's battery and semi-truck facility outside of Reno.

The current situation is challenging, with geopolitical considerations.

China leads the world in the production of many of these minerals, even ones that are scarce domestically. Its lax environmental standards enable refining operations that would be undesirable in western nations. NIMBY discourages even environmentally responsible operations in the west.

Tesla is striving for cobalt-free batteries. No decent human being wants to see impoverished, barefoot children scrambling in a pile of rocks and stagnant water for the benefit of the local potentate. (Cobalt is found in every single smart phone on the planet, btw. We all have dirty hands.) The current cobalt content in Tesla batteries using it is under 5%.

On a number of occasions Elon has publicly asked, almost pleaded, for help in securing additional supplies of nickel. Seriously, comments not far removed from "psst, anyone know where I can score some nickel?"

The Model 3 RWD uses a battery containing only lithium, iron, and phosphate (LFP). Lithium and iron are two of the most common elements in the earth's crust, so raw material supply is not an issue. Lithium refining is a nasty business, from what I understand. Tesla is building a lithium processing plant, using ore from North American sources only, near Corpus Christi, TX. It claims that 2025 production will be sufficient for 1M EVs. Unfortunately, LFP batteries are currently unsuitable for use in the rest of its vehicles, which have more demanding power requirements.

To put that 1M vehicle number in perspective, Tesla's ambitious goal for 2030 is to produce 20M EVs. Current annual worldwide production is ~90M vehicles of all types. This article provides useful data for the mining implications.

Don't get me started on copper.

As I said at the start of this far-too-long rant, the situation is challenging. The good news is battery technology is quickly improving and work on substituting more widely available minerals for rarer and less acceptable ones is well underway.

Appreciate the time. So renewable EV batteries is a goal but the tech is far off. Lithium mostly/only batteries is a goal but...that is also a challenge because the energy required to process that material and others is up to three times what it takes to refine oil into gasoline. It takes gas powered machinery to process these materials, and the notion of eventually having all EV machinery to process the materials to produce EV batteries is far, FAR beyond any possible justification in time, money, and resources.

For now, it looks like the EV industry is putting the cart before the horse, and is a venture in choosing one inefficient eco-evil over another. It's ironic to me how we have to wait for old-school green peace types to die before we can move forward with the safe nuclear tech that the US developed in the early '80s, and what France has been using for a decade or more to power their major grids. A bomb drop and a few incidents like Three Mile Island and Fukushima have turned them off from the tech that truly works, just because "nuclear" is in the same sentence.

I know nuclear tech doesn't solve any problems for vehicles, but it frees up a major block where non-nuclear resources wouldn't have to be used, greatly reducing the need/use for oil and electric.

 

[Burgmania]

Sorry to hear it dude, but don’t blame ya one bit. Where you thinking of moving to?

If I had my druthers, I'd go back to Texas. Central Texas, to be exact. Not as humid as the Gulf Coast - and Austin is a pretty happening place.

The absolute reality of the matter is that we're not leaving WNY. We would be absolutely stupid to give up unionized county jobs, the cost of living notwithstanding. We will be finding another apartment this summer, though. Preferably one with secured garage parking. I'd love to move downtown - commute to work & most hockey could be by MetroRail instead of by car.

Can we afford that? Probably not - but we're looking.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

If I had my druthers, I'd go back to Texas. Central Texas, to be exact. Not as humid as the Gulf Coast - and Austin is a pretty happening place.

The absolute reality of the matter is that we're not leaving WNY. We would be absolutely stupid to give up unionized county jobs, the cost of living notwithstanding. We will be finding another apartment this summer, though. Preferably one with secured garage parking. I'd love to move downtown - commute to work & most hockey could be by MetroRail instead of by car.

Can we afford that? Probably not - but we're looking.

Best of luck on it, and hey man, you never know!