How do you guys like the 15-20's?
- Thread starter Merc1973
- Start date
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Wrap your head around this: Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds and costs $81.00 requires 20,000 pounds of EV batteries that cost $200,000. Now imagine how much mining we have to do in order make 20,000 pounds of battery. #GreenEnergy
Many of you think "green energy" drops out of a unicorns ass. It doesn't, it takes a great deal of mining. If it wasn't for TRECs, RECs, ROCs or simply Green Certificates (your tax dollars) "green" would never be made. It's a scam to steal your money. Not save the planet.
Oh and all this ignores that you’ve got to get that energy from somewhere which will cost something and have an additional environmental impact.
Fix it and it’s still not a lot better, that battery can take maybe a 1,000 charges before it starts to seriously deteriorate, so that’s $80k of oil or 300k lbs. vs those batteries take 10 million lbs of earth mined to create. Li-ion batteries just can’t get you to green goals.
I don't think we should mindlessly trash this planet, but forcing EV's on us is NOT the solution to save the planet. It's the solution to big wigs "needing" even more money. They've been working for years to get people in the mindset of "needing" a new car every 3-5 years instead of taking care of and fixing what they have and now this is the next step to make it where you can't even fix your own car if you want to. Just like Apple changing from lighting to USB-C. There was literally NO reason for it except to make all your existing accessories garbage.
Looks great, what year and did you buy used? I sold mine just like if and have regretted it
WillCO
Full Access Member
Mine is a 2016 Tahoe LT. I bought it new; it's at about 93K miles now. Upkeep cost has been very acceptable - beyond scheduled maintenance I've only paid for one repair, where some oil gasket started to leak under the front differential, $800 to fix.
Amazingly I am still on my first set of brake rotors and pads at 93K. I am obsessive about gear-based braking in the mountains though.
I'm on the second set of tires, which is more about the tires than the truck. But, I'll tell anyone who will listen than Michelin Defender LTX are the best tires you can buy, as long as you don't need a specialty tire.
I'm not usually this guy, but I have to say that I like the look of this generation more than the new ones. These were no larger than they needed to be given their purpose, and the lines on them are nicely athletic. The new ones, when I find myself next to one on the road, seem 15-20% larger and a bit overweight in the design.
Coming up on 7 years and 100K miles. I'm long since paid for and probably in the golden age of ownership of this thing for a while. As long as it doesn't start to develop recurring issues I'll keep it 2-3 more years.
Amazingly I am still on my first set of brake rotors and pads at 93K. I am obsessive about gear-based braking in the mountains though.
I'm on the second set of tires, which is more about the tires than the truck. But, I'll tell anyone who will listen than Michelin Defender LTX are the best tires you can buy, as long as you don't need a specialty tire.
I'm not usually this guy, but I have to say that I like the look of this generation more than the new ones. These were no larger than they needed to be given their purpose, and the lines on them are nicely athletic. The new ones, when I find myself next to one on the road, seem 15-20% larger and a bit overweight in the design.
Coming up on 7 years and 100K miles. I'm long since paid for and probably in the golden age of ownership of this thing for a while. As long as it doesn't start to develop recurring issues I'll keep it 2-3 more years.
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WillCO
Full Access Member
This is not a forum where anyone can make any progress in rational discussion about electric vehicles. I've tried before.
But. Arguments about electric being less environmentally responsible than ICE are perfunctory. Most that I see are based on supposition or something people pulled from a biased source. Your post uses language like "now imagine..." which is a non-rigorous form of opposition. Let's say I do imagine, and I imagine you're wrong. What then. And "it's a scam to steal your money" is just FUD really. I suppose everything anyone posts on these boards is, like, their opinion, man.
Most of these are a comparison of the efficiency in a totally mature fossil fuel industry against that in a nascent electric industry. In other words, whatever issues may be are problems we can and will solve. Just, a lot of people don't want to. Maybe they are in a situation where the fossil fuel industry provides their livelihood. Maybe they love the way ICE engines sound (I have a Porsche 911, it sure sounds nice). Maybe they just don't like the fact that the world is changing. I get all of that.
If we were on this forum in 1908 (ha), anyone could easily have said "these automobiles are a terrible idea, there aren't nearly enough roads or gas stations."
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You cannot prove electric cars are truly better for the environment any more than someone else can prove they aren’t. You can take an ICE car and put a sniffer in the tail pipe and read the emissions output. You can’t do that with an electric car because the emissions are elsewhere and spread out over multiple locations and it different depending on where the car came from and where it is now.
Most people who push electric cars are or come off as holier than thou elitists who wouldn’t change their mind even if you did have facts to prove the opposite of what they think and that never leads to productive conversation.
I believe electric cars are much more about changing the lighting connector to USB-C so you keep up the good consumerism and have to buy a new car when you don’t need one. People have already been very well conditioned that they need a brand new car every 3 years and not to bother taking care of it any more so there aren’t any good used cars to buy either. I think it’s all about the money and nothing more.
Most people who push electric cars are or come off as holier than thou elitists who wouldn’t change their mind even if you did have facts to prove the opposite of what they think and that never leads to productive conversation.
I believe electric cars are much more about changing the lighting connector to USB-C so you keep up the good consumerism and have to buy a new car when you don’t need one. People have already been very well conditioned that they need a brand new car every 3 years and not to bother taking care of it any more so there aren’t any good used cars to buy either. I think it’s all about the money and nothing more.
WillCO
Full Access Member
Yes, yes. Argument #A-4: EVs are no better than ICEs because the sources of the energy upstream are still dirty.
#1: Fossil fuels as used in ICEs are by far the dirtiest source of energy we use today, except a nuclear reactor if it melts down.
#2: No power grid I'm aware of in the world creates power by burning gasoline. There's coal, which isn't super clean but isn't nearly as bad. That's the bulk of it in 2023.
#3: A fleet of EVs will be ready to accept power, over time, from whatever source we develop. Wind, waves, hydrogen, solar, nuclear, whatever it ends up being.
The other issue people bring up is the battery situation. Are lithium batteries bad for the environment? In a word, yes. We need to improve upon that technology a lot to be able to confidently move away from ICEs. That said, even right now the overall environmental impact of an EV, even with a lithium battery, is objectively seen as lower than an equivalent ICE vehicle over its lifetime. So if we can improve upon the weak points, it gets even better.
Here's a good and very balanced article on this from AAA. I choose this article because based on the source and content I can't envision how anyone would be able to discredit it out of hand. You guys will probably try anyway.
Are Electric Car Batteries Bad for the Environment?
Everyone knows about the clean aspects of electric car batteries, but there are a number of environmentally harmful ones that need to be addressed.
magazine.northeast.aaa.com
AWSMBLU
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Yes, yes. Argument #A-4: EVs are no better than ICEs because the sources of the energy upstream are still dirty.
#1: Fossil fuels as used in ICEs are by far the dirtiest source of energy we use today, except a nuclear reactor if it melts down.
#2: No power grid I'm aware of in the world creates power by burning gasoline. There's coal, which isn't super clean but isn't nearly as bad. That's the bulk of it in 2023.
#3: A fleet of EVs will be ready to accept power, over time, from whatever source we develop. Wind, waves, hydrogen, solar, nuclear, whatever it ends up being.
The other issue people bring up is the battery situation. Are lithium batteries bad for the environment? In a word, yes. We need to improve upon that technology a lot to be able to confidently move away from ICEs. That said, even right now the overall environmental impact of an EV, even with a lithium battery, is objectively seen as lower than an equivalent ICE vehicle over its lifetime. So if we can improve upon the weak points, it gets even better.
Here's a good and very balanced article on this from AAA. I choose this article because based on the source and content I can't envision how anyone would be able to discredit it out of hand. You guys will probably try anyway.
Are Electric Car Batteries Bad for the Environment?
Everyone knows about the clean aspects of electric car batteries, but there are a number of environmentally harmful ones that need to be addressed.
If you think that was my “argument,” you clearly didn’t read what I said, proving exactly what I said.
