Please move offtopic posts from Q8 thread here :exclamation:
Ha thanks!
It is an interesting topic for sure!
I didn’t follow the discussion in the Q8 thread so not sure what happened there; however, I spend a lot of time working on cars and I am looking forward to reading the discussion here.
Its too early for battery powered cars: too many issues( safety ones included)
Yet it seems they are the future so maybe in….10 years(?) they could take a major market share
If they fail, we can always blame russian hackers(and of course Putin) for that 
Well a short reca
TA showed up how “normal people” look at us by claiming a car with several thousands of horse power could be a nice daily driver.
People disagreed, thinking daily driver is lots of miles on the gallon, low maintenace and such
Others stated a car that can be driven daily despite being more expensive cn be called daily driver too
IMHO it is a choice one can make oneself, in the Netherlands for example the insurance is based on the selling price of a car, and a huge part of that is taxes (think a normal US car would costs around twice in Euros as it does in the US in dollars). IN the Netherlands there is taxes for having a car, based on weight and owerline of the car. For example, we have a Citroen C4 Grand Picasso Diesel and taxes alone would be several thousands of Euros in The Netherlands. A non diesel version would be less but still a lot. Needless to say we would not drive it, we had light cars, but we don’t use it a lot and we don’t see a car as a way to show off, just as workhorse. Years back we needed a new car, a BMW 535 with beautifull color, wheels, leather luxe interior costs the same to buy as a Citroen BX for us. Monthly costs on the Beemer €800, monthly costs on the BX €75, BX very smooth ride and a lot of space to haul stuff because of the clever way the back was able to be transformed into a large area with flat floor, combined with the nice hydraulics that kept the car leveled even with a lot in it so it was obvious what we choose. Yet our then neighbor got himself a Maserati for he loved the car and would never haul stuff or go on holiday with a car. its all good.
For me living in the EU with tax hungry governments, expensive gs, mandatory basic safety checks a car guzzling gas and having a lot of power to do a quarter of a mile in a fast fashion seems typical American, even EU super and hyper cars don’t have extreme high HP engines so interesting the difference between EU en US.
Also interesting is that a nowadays even a boring family car from Tesla can do a quarter of a mile very fast
I think it was one of the lastest seasons of Topgear where they had one of the extremely boring looking Teslas race against a hotrodded car, the people cheering the hotrod, looking all mean, being all noisy, were stunned by the victory of the Tesla
Would be if your grandpa pulled out a simple supermarket flashlight that out shines the Q8 LOL
Wellp, my old Regal has a 3.8L donk under the hood, yet I can get close to 30mpg on the highway. Little over half that for “city driving” with the mazes of labyrinthine streets, and stopsigns and traffic-lights on every corner, though. That’s my daily-driver because I want to burn down some tread on the crappy tires before replacing ’em, and I don’t want any monkeys-with-car-keys dinging my new car in the parking-lot at work.
Newer LaCrosse with a 3.6, almost the same mileage, yet it’s a bigger heavier car.
Hell, in my old Cavalier with an 88hp(!) 4-banger, I was only getting 18-20mpg mixed-mileage, maybe 22 all-highway.
Trust me, it’s way more fun in the Buicks…
Therein lies the problem. A rapacious government with boundless appetite will soak you yearly for as much as you can bear, and you base your choices accordingly. Some states here have a yearly “property tax” on cars, but lots don’t, just yearly registration fees. We can actually afford to treat ourselves to nice things, like more power, bigger interior, nicer ride, etc. If taxes were to rise, sure, people would not go buying new cars every few years, and the economy would be hard-hit.
Eg, here in NYC, gas prices are higher than farther out on Lawn Guyland. So when I go out there on weekends, you bet I’ll wait and gas-up over there vs locally. If prices out there were to rise, negating any differences, I’d just gas-up wherever prices would be lowest.
All these things are a factor. So no, it’s not “American” to go fondling our cars, buying big gas-guzzlers just to spite the planet, etc. It’s because, at least so far, those vampyres in government haven’t yet hit cars with too-high tax rates. If they were to do just that, trust me, people would be buying econoboxes, and keeping their cars for quite many years before “upgrading”.
Go pure electric—BEV are a blast to drive and you will love not buying gasoline.
i bought a used mitsubishi imiev for $7k, and it goes 60 miles on a full charge, which is plenty for most folks daily commute. They are quite roomy inside, rear seats fold down and you can carry lots of flashlights and stuff. They are the best kept secret in electric cars. Plug them in when you get home and ready for work in the morning. 10 to 16 kwh of electricity costs me $1 to $1.60.
At stoplights it never gets old to pull away off the line and outdrag everybody (sports cars and cops) up to 50 mph—great low-end torque (max torque immediately).
If your daily commute is longer, there are other choices available but the price will be higher.
That’d be great if you have a garage or at least a driveway, but here when you almost always have to park streetside (shared driveway… what to do when your neighbor would “rather not” use it?), it’s not really an option.
Even parked right in front of the house, I can’t keep an extension cord draped across the sidewalk. Some idiot would trip on it and sue me. 
I looked into electrics, but here it’s just not feasible.
Yeah i feel your pain—you have a tough problem there. i park mine outside, but i have a driveway and no sidewalk worries.
In some towns, such as mine, they have started putting 120 and 240 vac outlets at the bottom of street light poles to allow EV charging and food trucks to have an access point. It can’t hurt to ask if your councilman would approve to put one in on your street close to home. Or for a small fee, the utility company can put a metered outlet wherever is convenient for you, maybe tied in to your existing meter. An outside box with padlock that you have the key. You might be surprised at the possibilities when you start asking. Also there is a site, plugshare, that has a map of available outlets, mostly for free charging.
Tesla has the best charging network of free superchargers—high speed charging able to fill 80% in about 20-30 minutes. Those cars get 300+ miles range on a “tank”, but are very expensive.
A small inexpensive BEV would be ideal in nyc if you could solve the charging issue. i bought a used Blink Level 2 charging station for $300, and installed it on my driveway, and listed it on plugshare. Some folks have these for free charging and others have a small fee/wifi access app. If you could put one on your street it might pay for itself and give you free charging too.
Hi neighbor, I figured you were from the North part of Alabama when I read this… before I even checked your location. 
$0.10 per kwh was a dead giveaway…. to me anyway.
You in or around H’ville? I’m in Gadsden…… 
I drive a Renault Duster 4x4 SUV with a 1.5l turbodiesel engine.
In that I consistently get just over 1000km on a 60l fill, which works out to about 40 miles per gallon in the U.S.
Best vehicle I have ever owned, good at everything from off-road to cruising to city driving, and plenty of room. Tows really well also.
Zulumoose, aware bad fuel and oil. This engine can die fast from this two reasons.
Not a problem here, I have done 105000km so far without a hiccup, fuel quality is (now) very good here and I am dealer servicing until 150000km warranty runs out.
Funny to see that with the Renault badge, here in The Netehrlands it is sold as a cheap renault clone brand, Dacia
I am aware of that, value for money is its best quality, but it seems to be really well made where it counts, the only criticism reviewers have had of it here is that the dashboard is a bit plasticky, which doesn’t bother me. It is not meant to be a luxury vehicle. I like things to be practical above all else, and good value.
I don’t know how much it shares with the Dacia, but Renault here are swiftly earning back their reputation based on quality products like this, a couple of years ago they couldn’t have sold a Mercedes built vehicle if it was branded Renault, they had lost it so badly.
Lexus LS, buy them old, it doesn’t matter, they will run forever.
And Duster is similar to those renault cars. It is based on B0 platform which is based on Alliance B platform that is known from late 90s. And problems that had met clio 2 owner (automatic transmission, crankshaft bearings on diesel engine, simple electric issues like window cleaner/light switch problems) will be easily found on many dusters and other dacias.
French car manufacures have strange politics, they dont admit mistakes and dont use others experience. DP0/AL4 transmissions problems are known for almost 20 years and they continue making successors with same issues (while manufactures from other countries just contact gm/zf/aisin/jatco and get proper solution from specialized company that have enough experience to fix any problem).
Howdy teacher, you’re right, thanks to TVA dams on the tennessee river we have really cheap lectricity. i’m north of Alabama A&M University just outside the huntspatch city limits. This is a great forum—who knew there could be so much cool electronics and tech in flashlights… If you get up this way you have to try out the electric go-kart racing at Veloce, it’s a blast.