149 Miles of Range for Just $36,000!

By
eric
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65
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Fiat used to sell a cute little car called the 500 that last sold new (back in 2019) for just under $15k to start. It was the perfect city car, being very small and so able to fit in tight spots and maneuver through tightly packed traffic. But it was also capable of going without stopping for just shy of 350 highway miles – which meant it wasn’t just a “city” car.

Now Fiat is bringing to market a battery powered version of the 500 that is only useful as a “city” car – because its best-case range is just 149 miles and that’s only if you don’t drive it on the highway. Because if you do, its range will be a lot less than that. Because – unlike other cars, which get their best range on the highway – EVs get their worst range on the highway.

Which is why they’re all – effectively – “city” cars.

If you take any of them on the highway for any length of time, you will be spending a lot of time off the highway, going nowhere “fast.” If you know what I mean. In part because these devices are so ludicrously heavy. The 500e – the name of this device – weighs about 3,000 lbs., which is quite something given this car is only 143 inches long.

For a sense of just how small that is, a ’70s-era VW Beetle was about 160 inches long – and weighed less than 2,000 lbs. A modern compact-sized sedan such as the ’24 Toyota Corolla is 182.5 inches long – or more than three feet longer than the Fiat  – and it only weighs 2,955 lbs.

Because it’s not carrying around a ludicrously heavy energy-storage device.

Fiat’s new device weighs about 500 pounds more than the old 500 – almost all of the additional weight being the battery pack, the weight equivalent of a UPS truckload of AAA batteries. The battery pack stores the energy equivalent of about 24 pounds or four gallons of gas – which can be computed based on the device’s 149 miles range vs. how far that amount of fuel would keep the old 500 (sans the “e”) going on the highway.

Even so, all of this might not be deal-killer were it not for the fact that Fiat is charging more than twice as much – $36,000 to start – for this device than it cost to back in 2019 to buy the 500 that wasn’t one.

It’s like being expected to pay $5 for a chocolate bar that used to cost $2.50 and that was also 40 percent larger.

And what you get isn’t even chocolate anymore.

The compensatory factor is supposed to be  what is styled an “interactive dealer experience” – meaning, you can buy the device online rather than in person, as you would a microwave over at Amazon. Also, that the device will be “inspired by music,” which means the device will come with a “virtual venue” audio system centered on a seven speaker JBL audio rig that “transports listeners to unique listening environments” such as “my room,” wherein you “have the feeling that the artist is playing in front of the driver.”

The sound of bullshit is included at no extra charge. But you have to listen closely to hear it.

“The Fiat 500e has many facets that reflect its Italian heritage. Celebrating style and culture, the ’Inspired By’ models emphasize the Italian DNA of the 500e in a way that only Fiat can,” says Fiat’s Olivier Francois. 

Of a piece with that old joke about the Italian Navy having glass-bottom ships – so as to be able to see the previous ships of the Italian Navy.

But wait – that’s not all.

This device isn’t even quick. It takes just shy of 9 seconds to heave itself to 60 MPH. And – of course – it is also slow. To recover. If you have the time to plug the device into what they continue to hilariously refer to as a “fast” charger – which is like referring to a crippled person as “differently abled” – you can recover all of 80 percent of those 149 miles of best-case range after waiting about 35 minutes. That’s 35 minutes to get back just shy of 120 miles of range.

The good news is the device does have a nice stereo.

The bad news – for Fiat – is that it’s doubtful there are more than a handful of people willing to pay twice as much to go half as far and (realistically) not at all on the highway. You may remember the fate of the “Smart” car Mercedes tried selling here a few years ago. It wasn’t a device. But it was absurdly expensive for what it was and – like Fiat’s device – essentially useless as other than a short-distance/commuter appliance, due to it being a two seater with very little cargo-carrying capacity.

Mercedes stopped trying to sell it in 2018.

Fiat – Stellantis – is manufacturing this device for altogether different reasons. It is a battery-powered compliance car that will allow Stellantis (the parent company) to sell vehicles people do want to buy – until they’re finally outlawed altogether. So it doesn’t matter whether the device sells. Only that enough are made to satisfy the current and pending regs – with the costs written off and folded into what people pay for Stellantis vehicles that aren’t devices.

But this is the only way Stellantis – and everyone else, other than Tesla, of course – can still legally sell vehicles that aren’t devices. The people who want us in devices – which are the vehicles to get us out of driving – are clever. They know it might not go over well – for now – if they outright outlaw vehicles that aren’t devices.

The regs just make it next-to-impossible to offer them for sale without also building a certain number of compliance cars to offset their “carbon” emissions and to fluff up their corporate (or fleet) average fuel economy stats, so as to avoid being hammered by fines for non-compliance.

This is how it’s done in Soviet-era America.

Things we want that they don’t want us to have aren’t outlawed. They are out-regulated. And in their place, we’re presented with a neatly-Soviet one-size-fits-all “choice” of their making. One that costs twice as much and goes half as far, in this case.

Ciao, bella! 

. . .

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Related posts:
  1. Even 900 Miles of Range is not Enough
  2. The Price You’ll Pay for a $34k EV
  3. The Range That Isn’t, Actually
  4. First, They Lied About the Range . . .
  5. All Hope is Not Lost!

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

65 COMMENTS

  1. The Puch 500…..

    A cool, Austrian, light weight, rear engine car with a 2 cylinder hemi… boxer… flat…. air cooled engine

    …a bit like a miniature brother to the Porsche 356 or 912/911 air cooled…

    The Puch 500/650 was Austria’s last home-grown passenger car, and its technical ambitions reflected the long history of Austrian automotive engineering excellence as embodied in three of its leading exponents: NOTE…Ferdinand Porsche, Hans Ledwinka, and his son Erich Ledwinka…..Later Ferdinand Porsche worked for Mercedes…later on he started his own company…..

    Later on Ferdinand Porsche worked for Mercedes, where he designed the Mercedes Benz SSK, (voted one of the best cars in the last 100 years)… the SSK bears the direct imprint of Dr. Ferdinand Porsche. It was the last car he personally designed as an engineer for Mercedes before he left to start Porsche….some call it the first Porsche….

    Steyr-Puch produced a Fiat 500 version under licence in Graz, Austria.

    The great difference between the Steyr-Puch 500 and the Fiat 500 was the completely different engine-unit , the Fiat was equipped with an in-line 500 cc 2-cylinder air cooled engine

    The Puch 500 had a two-cylinder 493 cc. hemi (16 bhp/12 kW) air-cooled ….flat….boxer engine which proved to be far more smooth running than the in-line 2-cylinder engine used by Fiat. The Puch 500 weighed about 1100 lb….

    The most powerful version was available in 1965, called the 650TR II. It was a special racing version, a”sharp” camshaft, the so-called Monte-Carlo exhaust system and a number of other modifications gave the engine 42 bhp at 6000revs/min.

    The Puch 500 when new cost about $11,881 in 2024 U.S. dollars

    Today….
    1960 Steyr-Puch 500D…sold for £24,750…..$31,537 U.S.
    Nov 12, 2022 · Birmingham, GBR at auction…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoVNeeuK178

  2. I used to own a 1974 fiat 128…when I owned it I didn’t realize how good a car it was.

    It was light…it weighed 1760 lb and had the famous Lampredi 4 cylinder engine in it. ….a fantastic engine, the car also handled really well, like a gocart….it had a manual steering rack, everything was analog, mechanical….no computers…

    A Ferrari engine designer…Aurelio Lampredi….. designed the engine in it. One of the best 4 cylinder engines in the world…..Aurelio Lampredi worked for Ferrari, then later on for Fiat Lancia.

    1974 Fiat 128 Four-Door Sedan
    In 1974 $2760 msrp $18,146 in 2024 dollars

    1974 Fiat 128 Four-Door Sedan
    Sold for $26,500 on 1/31/23 on bringatrailer

    Here is a Fiat 127 rebuilt into a near racecar….
    Fiat 127: Metamorphosis from former junk to nearly GR.2 race car

    The old Italian cars were very cool, even their economy cars could be turned into race cars..

    If you watch this video you will want to own one….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-PHdAt8Zq8

    • Hi Anon,

      I feel the same about the ’69 VW wagon I once owned. What a sturdy, intrepid and reliable little car it was. And I completely failed to appreciate how good it was – until now.

  3. Hey Eric,

    If this thing were 1,000 pounds lighter, got about 50 miles of reliable and consistent range, could be charged overnight on standard household equipment and cost less than $15,000, it would be a great “city” car.

    149 miles of range is stupid for a car like this. It’s not enough to be practical as anything but a daily commuter, but more than is needed for a daily commuter. Put a smaller battery in it, 15 – 20 Kwh would be fine, that alone would make it lighter. Trim fat in other areas and sell it for a reasonable price. If they did that, this “compliance” car might actually sell and be profitable.

    Cheers,
    Jeremy

    • The problem is that 149 miles of range isn’t really 149 miles of range. You need 149 miles of range just to be sure you’ll get 50. If it gets too cold or too hot, range is less. Over time, range is less. You can’t charge to 100% capacity without damaging the battery in most cases. If you start out with 50 miles range as the upper limit, you’ll be lucky to be getting 20 miles in a year or two. And not knowing if you’ll get stranded after 20 miles isn’t even a city car. It is a paper weight.

    • Hi Jeremy!

      Krista (above) pointed out something I ought to have – about the EV’s range being a fiction. If my truck has say five gallons of gas in the tank I know I will be able to drive it at least 100 miles. Irrespective of weather. An EV that has “100 miles” of indicated range actually has significantly less than that in other than ideal (for an EV) driving conditions. My own experience being a difference of 20 percent. So now you have – in our example – maybe 80 miles of total range. If it’s very cold out, the drop might be 40 percent – or more.

      But you don’t even have that much because unless you are sure you can find a place to plug in when you run out of range and have the time to wait for a charge, it is necessary to leave a reserve – probably at least 10 miles. So now you’re down to 70 miles of usable range. But even that isn’t what you have – unless you are ok with reducing the life of the battery, by heavily discharging it (and, presumably) “fast” charging it back up. This is the EV equivalent, sort of, of running a gas engine at redline with low oil.

      • Hi Eric,

        I’m well aware of the limitations of EV’s, and the fraudulent claims about range. Still, having driven a much heavier than necessary EV for a few years now, I have a good idea of the range variation due to temperature, environment, etc… I believe my Volt weighs around 4,000 pounds, which is absurd. But, the small, 16.5Kwh battery (only about 10 of which is available) still reliably provides 28 miles in cold crappy conditions, and about 42 in warm weather. Of course, this is not nearly enough to be a reliable daily commuter but, as you know, my Volt carries it’s own on board generator, so range anxiety is not an issue.

        Note, I said “got about 50 miles of reliable range”. By that, I meant the low end of the range, in the worst conditions, would be about 50 miles. If the 500e weighed only 2,000 pounds, this would be doable with a 15-20kwh battery. Such a car could never be an all-around vehicle, but no EV is (except hybrids like the Volt). If the 500e was light and cheap it would make sense for some. Alas, GovCo seems to want something else.

        Cheers,
        Jeremy

  4. Re: A lobby group to protect ice powered vehicles

    Someone asked….’Where is the lobby group to protect ice powered vehicles?”….like the old vintage, classic, collector’s cars?

    Maybe the only one is here on this site….

  5. Someone asked….’Where is the lobby group to protect ice powered vehicles?”….like the old vintage, classic, collector’s cars?

    Maybe the only one is here on this site….

  6. ‘Ciao, bella!’ — eric

    Ciao, Maserati:

    ‘Maserati is on the fast track to electrification, under the Folgore (“lightning”) banner.

    During a program based in Lecce, Italy, that ventured around the heel of the country’s boot, spokesman Davide Kluzer confirmed that the company plans to field battery versions of its current product line by the end of 2025, and all its new models will be EVs by 2028.

    ‘That date is also the year also of the redesigned Quattroporte, which will only be available as an EV. The GranTurismo Folgore is on sale this year, and the MC20 supercar gets plugged in next year.’ — Barron’s

    https://tinyurl.com/mz2mwvf9

    It took 110 years to build the Maserati legend. It will take but five years to burn it to the ground.

    Perdenti! [Losers!]

    • If I won a Maserati in a contest, I’d sell it as fast as I could, and I’d feel like I cheated the buyer even if I sold it to him for half price. They’re crap. Saw one a few months back – brand new – drove past in the parking lot. Bearings in the right rear wheel screeching as it went by at 20 mph. Total junk.

      • Ditto, Steve,

        I saw one the other day. Looked like an Altima with a Trident grille. They are – like so many other once-exotics – now merely exotically priced. I would sell a new Corvette if GM gave me one. I’d far rather have a real Corvette from the ’70s – even if the thing has a V8 with less horsepower than a current turbo four crossover like the CX-5 I just wrote about. Why? Because horsepower and 0-60 times aren’t everything.

    • Maserati is part of the Stellanis group like Ferrari… they are busy destroying all these brands.

      A Maserati used to be a cheaper Ferrari.

      Unless reversed….everything will be an ugly, useless, very dangerous, defective, very expensive, over weight EV soon….

  7. This car is worth about 10k like the BYD Seagull that US automakers are so afraid of. It would be worth considering as a local only runabout for that price.

  8. The world went crazy…instead of cool, simple, economical, cheap, 1100 lb cars like the old Fiat 500, which cost $1100….. $11,881 in 2024 dollars….. they are forcing people to buy a 3000 lb EV version for $36,000

    we are now being pushed into $50,000 5000 lb EV abortions.

    These old school Fiat 500’s are great tuner cars….small light cars are very cool…..

    197hp Hayabusa Engined Fiat 500 ‘Fiabusa’ with 11,000 RPM redline

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UftETsSi4cs

    • 1966 Fiat 500F….Sold for $18,300 on 2/1/23 on Bringatrailer

      when new it cost $11,881 in 2024 dollars

      The new $36,000 EV version, after 10 years when the battery is useless, might be worth zero…lol…that is progress….

      $36,000…the message is they don’t want people driving around, price them/force them out of their cars…..

      https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1966-fiat-500-15/

      • Hi Anon,

        Yup. With care, one can keep a car like the ’66 Fiat operable for decades. This is not feasible with EVs because of the cost (relative to the value of the vehicle) of replacing the battery pack, which will be necessary if the vehicle is used regularly before a decade goes by, if not sooner. The bleed of value is unprecedented – and (for most people) unaffordable.

        And that is deliberate.

        • “one can keep a car like the ’66 Fiat operable for decades.”….

          right…for example….it also has a Weber carburetor…like you say…can be rebuilt over and over…with a $35.00 rebuild kit…..

          fully analog and mechanical…no computers….

    • That is a slick little car! And yeah 180HP in a 2400LB car is no joke. I wonder if I can buy one of these? Never heard of it but it is like a little rally car.

    • My first car was a Fiat in 1973, I was getting almost 50 miles per gallon. This plot to get rid of affordable cars that use less fuel has been going on a long time and just like all the other psychopathic agenda’s they are forcing on the American people, no one does a thing to stop it.

  12. NOTE: Since 2012 the total emissions produced by vehicles has not gone down.

    The engines have become more efficient, but emissions have not gone down.

    The reason why?…The vehicles have gotten a lot heavier, so they use more energy to move.

    The reason is….heavier vehicles are allowed by regulations to have higher emissions, so manufacturers built heavier vehicles to take advantage of this loop hole.

    The outcome?…..these heavy vehicles are destroying/ripping up the roads and causing more deaths/damage when they crash.

    The solution?….Build lighter vehicles that use less energy…less energy burned = less emissions produced….

    EV’s are worse….there is huge amounts of energy and resources used to manufacture one EV….and the EV uses more energy to move, but nobody cares, it is at a remote power plant spuing out pollution…..

    The eMPG for EV’s quoted…. is calculated on the energy already in the battery…the losses through burning fuel to produce electricity, back at the power plant and all the losses in transmission, distribution lines, chargers, etc., are not calculated…..the biggest lie….

    The average EV gets 25 mpg….they are worse then an ice engined car…..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg6fqqylQ9E

    Save the environment….get rid of all the small and diesel powered cars…lol….how stupid are they……

    • these heavy vehicles are also causing more pollution through increased tire wear…this pollutes the air and water with tiny particles of rubber, the biggest pollutant now….gas and diesel engines are already down to .000012% emissions…..they are not the problem….

    • “Save the environment….get rid of all the small and diesel powered cars…lol….how stupid are they……”

      Keep in mind most political hacks are political science majors . . . Or lawyers.

      Zero understanding of the physical sciences as a general rule. To believe in EVs, basically requires a belief in magic.

      Magical, unlimited electricity.

      Magic battery technology is always just around the corner

      Magical zero emissions

    • Amen, Freeholder!

      I would not think twice about spending what it took to rebuild my old truck from the contact patches up. The end result would be a truck like they used to make them. As opposed to how they make them now.

      • For the price of a new car today, you could certainly make an old car like new again. Not a mint condition Pebble Beach car, but functionally new.

  14. “The sound of bullshit is included at no extra charge. But you have to listen closely to hear it.”

    You got an actual lol from my wife for that one!

    Nice review for another absurd clown car!

  15. Wasn’t the Fiat 500 called “500” not only because of its 500 cc engine, but also because it would go 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) between fill-ups?

    The Fiat 500 in its original incarnation was actually one of the greenest cars even built, if you go by the true definition of being “green” as meaning conserving natural resources and limiting waste and pollution.

    It conserved natural resources in its manufacture: Being a small and simple car, it took relatively little steel, aluminum, glass, rubber, plastic, copper wire, cloth, and leather to build.

    It conserved natural resources in its use: It used very little gasoline and oil, it used no coolant, and it went a long time between fill ups. It was easy to maintain and needed little maintenance. It was light, so tires and brakes lasted longer, and it didn’t wear out roads and bridges too much.

    It conserved natural resources in its disposal: It had a relatively long service life of 10 years or more and its design wasn’t changed a lot, so it could be kept running longer. It was economical to repair—even to replace the engine and transmission. And when it finally was time to scrap it, every part of it except the beep-beep of the horn was able to be recycled into new materials.

    The Fiat 500 EV is, in contrast to its predecessors, is wasteful of natural resources and it pollutes from cradle to grave.

  16. Only in the US can you attempt to sell such a thing. No Europeans are buying this shitbox, so who is the target market exactly?

    There is a misconception among Americans that EVs are mass adopted in Europe that is utterly -false-. In wealthy countries, like the US, that can afford to commit slow suicide, yes, they are pretty well adopted. Norway, Germany countries filled with the richest dumbest white people. The ones that are also all in on “climate change”, especially in the case of the Germans who have gutted their energy industry and industrial base.

    Anglos and Saxons and Teutons are the people that suffer the worst from this mind virus no matter the continent.

    The rest of Europe is quite literally too poor to afford such a triviality. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the -other- Fiat. The original Fiat 500 ICE version mentioned at the start of the article is absolutely everywhere. And why wouldn’t it be? 350 miles (560km) range at half the price point. They are like Honda Civics were in the early 00s. Just too good of a deal to pass up so they are even more prevalent than Civics were in the 00s, they are just all over the place, every 5th car basically.

    • Having roots in Eastern Europe and Southern Italy, I can attest that the relatively poorer Slavic and Mediterranean Europeans are a lot less into the politically correct mind virus.

      Part of it is that being (relatively) poor means that they simply can’t afford it. Part of it is that Slavic and Mediterranean cultures are devoid of the Puritanism and, yes, guilt of Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian cultures. And part of it is that they believe that life is for living.

      • ‘they believe that life is for living’ — Bryce

        This is elemental — a fact that can best be appreciated by visiting these areas of Europe, or Latin America.

        Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian cultures had their day in the sun. It was called the 20th century. Now it’s over.

        The Scandinavians, in particular, just cast their lot with NATO, which will drag them down with it.

  18. If I was an auto industry CEO that had to build a stupid compliance car, I’d make it the lowest cost bare bones POS possible. And it’d be an asterisk in the catalog and would never find itself on a dealer lot. Special order only.

    Instead the industry, at the behest of their bureaucratic overlords, goes all in. They lose their ass on a product that no one wants because it’s an expensive POS.

    Makes perfect sense.

    • It’s what they used to do with their compacts and subcompacts, at least with the [soon to be] BK THREE, so they are not unfamiliar with the concept.

  19. ‘The sound of bullshit is included at no extra charge. But you have to listen closely to hear it.’ — eric

    Music to my ears!

    The shills are alive with the sound of bullshit
    With songs they have sung for a thousand days
    The shills fill my car with the sound of bullshit
    My heart wants to trash every song it plays

    — Kostal / Andrews, The Sound of Music

  20. I’m going back to college to finish my degree. I’m currently enrolled in BIOL 101. Oh fuck my life! From day 1 they are incessantly spewing the climate change propaganda and even the covid mania. They made us watch a video about climate change which was nothing beyond speculation of doomsday — zero components of measurable science or application of the scientific method. But ok, I had to write about it. They mentioned deforestation in passing and that triggered my memory of reading about that. So I looked it up and posted the following comment:

    “While the video only briefly mentions deforestation, i.e., the direct actions of industry upon the ecosystem (rather than indirect causes), it is equally as severe as the other factors that were highlighted. For example, we read in Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest: causes, effects, solutions (DGB Group, 2023) that 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by deforestation each year which is roughly equal to the worldwide emissions of all transportation including cars, planes, and ships.”

    But ending the rape of the Amazon forest by industry is not on the agenda! I went on to point out:

    “Equally concerning is that deforestation has not slowed even despite the growing concerns over climate change with 2022 seeing record highs. The Brazilian Rainforest lost the equivalent of 3000 soccer fields daily due to deforestation alone at its peak in 2022.”

    So, yes, I am playing along to some extent but I’m doing my best to point out the inconsistencies of their story while feigning concern. These fucken people are so thoroughly brainwashed though, they might not even understand the point!

    • You’ll really love the irony then, that Bill Gates wants to cut down forests and bury the trees to trap the CO2 they release under the ground.

      • I guess that Bill Gates was so busy making software and living, breathing computers during his high school and college years that he didn’t pay any attention in science class when they explained that trees ABSORB CO2 and release O2! So basically his proposal would increase CO2 in the atmosphere rather than decrease it. XM’s point above is that just planting more trees in the Amazon would wipe out the CO2 created by all our cars.

    • I am sorry you are having to suffer such nonsense, XM. How insufferable! The last time I was in college, I was taking a chemistry course. It seemed more like an environmental class than anything else. The professor was cool as hell. He was talking about alternate energy sources, and how we are screwed up here when it comes to alternate energy sources, due to the long, dark Winters, and lack of wind in many places. He probably could not say what he said back then, but he stated, “we need to drill for oil, but to hell with California and the west coast, we need that oil for ourselves”. This pregnant roller-skate of a car shown above would never make it up here in the cold. No, sadly, it is difficult to wake someone up when they are comfortable being enslaved in their sleep, and thus, ignorant of what they would rather not ever see the truths that are right in front of them.

    • Satellites photograph images from space of Amazon deforestation.

      You have to zoom in to the areas being impacted. It is minimal.

      It’ll take 500 years to clear-cut the Amazon, it’ll never happen.

      The Amazon forest will grow back faster than can be harvested, just won’t happen.

      A Sequoia will grow one foot per year, after 90 years, it is 90 feet tall. From a seed about 3 mm in length there will be a tree that will grow for 2000 years. Can’t beat that.

      After a couple of thousand years, Redwoods keep on truckin’.

      Don’t knock it.

      Save the trees, Bill Gates can be compost instead.

  22. Stellantis is also screwing up Ferrari…it will be selling an EV Supercar…with fake noise, just like their new charger with fake noise, instead of a real hemi V8….Ferrari used to sell just beautiful sounding V12’s, with stick shift manual transmissions only, back when they made good cars, like the Ferrari GTO, the 2nd most valuable collector car in the world, one sold for $70 million, now they have been going downhill for quite awhile.

    Porsche is also going downhill, their Cayman will be an EV only soon unless they retreat from this EV insanity. Their Macan which is their best selling vehicle, is going to be an EV only soon, if not reversed.
    The value of Porsche’s old na air cooled cars are very high, the resale value of their new EV is very low…..there is a message there….

    Porsche made one good move, they brought back the V8 in their Cayenne SUV, now it will have a na V8 in the base model again instead of a turbo V6…sales dropped when they dropped the V8…..The V8 has about the same HP as the Hybrid V6, but is quicker because it doesn’t haul around a heavy battery….proving pure ice engines are better…..

    • [Stellantis is also screwing up Ferrari…it will be selling an EV Supercar…with fake noise, just like their new charger with fake noise, instead of a real hemi V8….] Article

      Screwing things up and fakery seems to be the last few generations forte.

      Working on watches of the 18th and 19th centuries is a hobby of mine. Just finished up one about two hundred years old. Keeps time perfectly. The design and engravings are eye popping beautiful. In today’s world, beauty and pride are nonexistent. I doubt any digital crap would ever survive two hundred year much less in workable condition. The engravings would be considered a waste of time and money. Profit has replaced beauty and eliminated humans capable of producing it.

      • ‘The engravings would be considered a waste of time and money.’ — ken

        What do you think of Bulgari’s new Octo Finissimo Sketch ($55,000), sporting a casual sketch on the dial, depicting the micro-rotor, escapement, bridges and rubies inside?

        https://tinyurl.com/4sf56eev

        Before joining Bulgari in 2001, designer Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani created cars for Fiat and Alfa Romeo at Centro Stile Fiat, where he honed his fast-sketching technique using a pen or marker on paper.

        It’s all very meta and ironic — a tongue-in-cheek, post-industrial wink at hokey old gears and movements that aren’t needed in electric skates like the Fiat 500e.

        What’s Stigliani’s next career move … becoming an anime artist for Genshin Impact, or its hentai derivatives? :-0

  23. I believe that a lot of people think that they will be able to pick up a vehicle like this used for about half the price in a few years, maybe as a kid’s car or a toy, not realizing that an EV that is 3-4 years old does not have the same service life remaining that a similar age IC vehicle would have left.

  24. This Periscope Film short “How to Build Your Own Dune Buggy,” came up on my YouTube feed Friday night. If you’re feeling nostalgic for the old days it’s worth a watch.

    https://youtu.be/ACmQPnW4g7Y?si=ju4d77YtkC9h1fY-

    It’s also worth a watch to see what has been lost by us as we morphed into consumers. I imagine plenty of you guys hanging out here played with old VW chassis and other body-on-frame cars. Maybe did some stick welding to fix a rotted floor pan or weld in a patch on a body panel. And you probably had enough room to work on your cars in the garage, and maybe a few buddies to help out for the heavy lifting.

    The EV “skateboard” might make an interesting base for customization. Too bad no one has any ability to make alterations. Elon’s folly is mostly glued together plastic and carbon fiber, and the bonding agents are unavailable to home gamers. Most everything else is more of a mix of unibody and floor pan with battery protection. I’ve watched some footage of the F150 EV going down the production line, it looks a whole lot like body on frame, so maybe if it went on a serious diet and downsizing it could be a contender for modification. But you’ll still have to deal with the weight of the battery pack, and the associated danger. And you’ll need to come up with some sort of work-around for all the sensors, tattlers and tethers that would rat you out when you pull seats, airbags and anything else the DOT forces on us.

    When Steve Wozniak designed the Apple ][, he insisted on an expansion bus. Jobs hated the idea, thinking that the computer should be a “complete product” with no need for the user to alter anything. Jobs wanted to sell televisions. Woz wanted to sell a tool. In the end Woz won and much of the success of the Apple ][ was in that easy integration of third party add-ons. With Macintosh, Woz wasn’t involved in the project so Jobs was able to get his way. Even the screws that held the case together were proprietary and dealers had to buy a special screwdriver just to service the machine. Jobs wanted to sell to the average American who would rather throw away a failed product over looking at a simple service manual for the problem. Eventually even the Apple ][ line became closed to user access. And because Apple was always the darling of Wall St, every other public company decided that selling sealed up slabs was the right strategy, at least if you want your quarterly bonus. Jobs won. Woz lost. In the case of cars, that happened to make it easier for regulators to force their way too. Cars became complete units, never to be modified. If the radio quits… well, time to scrap the car or spend a few thousand in labor to get the dashboard off. Or just stick a bluetooth speaker on the dash, but not too close to the airbag lest you get a JBL logo embossed on your forehead during a fender bender.

    Nope, just throw it away and buy new. And if you want a dune buggy, buy one of those too. And the toy hauler trailer that the wife can cook a 10 course meal in, and the truck that can tow the trailer, and insurance, and monthly payments forever…

  25. Someday, perhaps, folks might realize that quite the contrary to being their friend and protector, the US FedGov is their worst enemy. That nearly everything bad in their lives is a product of it. Indirectly, or as is much more common, directly. After all, it really does hate you, especially if you are a white man.

    • My wife was telling me about a thing called toxoplasmosis today where animals with the toxoplasma parasite no longer are afraid of predators or danger. She attributes this to how many animals are getting themselves killed on roadways, i.e., they have lost their fear of the dangerous roaring cars.

      Thinking about it, I said that I think that humans must have toxoplasmosis because they clearly do not recognize that the government is a dangerous predator. They just go along with whatever it says like toxoplasma infected fools.

      • Ironic, is it not? The government does not fear the people as they should, because they know they can do whatever the hell they want, knowing that there will be plenty of bitching, but little in the way of real push back. Thus, they are in no danger of losing their heads so to speak. Three years of COVID lock-downs and mandatory jabs…people losing their jobs, their businesses, their homes, and still, no one rose up and pushed back. The Feds know good and well that the next pandemic (real or otherwise), they will be able to push forward even more, knowing that the country is full of sheep willing to get slaughtered in the name of DEI, political correctness, and fitting in with everyone around them. Well, not people here, I know, but others we all come in contact with on a day-to-day basis that do not know any better, and do not care.

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