Endless Denial.  No matter how much the same objective is repeated, there are some who never want to hear it.  That "nicely under $30,000" goal is now 17 years old.  It was the ultimate articulation of what had been so obvious, it went unsaid for ages.  In short, we need entry-level offerings... which this latest claim provided great denial for: "If you want a 25k Tesla, buy one used.  There are no new 25k cars selling in volume in north america so why are we expecting bev to fill that gap?  The only ones available in near future are from China and EU, and none of those brands sell in n.a., and likely never will."  Really?  We are just going to push used vehicles onto those who don't need or want large guzzlers?  Why would someone looking for a small, ultra-efficiency runabout want an old Model 3?  That doesn't even make any sense.  You can't just ignore a market that has been a vital part of the industry for longer than most of us have been alive.  Troubled by the endlessness of such denial, I challenged that statement with:  Pretending BEV don't have to compete with ICE anymore is blatant denial.  True, we still have a few years, but kicking the can further will have consequences.  2024 Toyota Corolla is a high-volume seller.  It has a starting MSRP of $22,050.  The 2024 Toyota Camry is another.  It starts at $26,420 and the hybrid will become standard for 2025.  Between those two, that's well over Half-Million annual sales in North America alone.  Not setting an expectation for a competitive BEV provides a vote of low confidence and equates to business suicide.  That's why we see Toyota focusing so much on next-gen offerings.  They know the paradigm-shift will take far more than the current "more" obsession addresses.

Analysts Warn.  Market change was not what enthusiasts anticipated.  They sincerely expected more of the same.  Somehow, Tesla would achieve 20 million sales annually without having to diversify.  Demand for Model Y would continue on so strong that optimizations to design & production was all that was necessary to not only retain the top-seller title, but to also grow in volume significantly.  Combine that with runaway sales for CyberTruck, it was an unquestionable formula for success.  Dropping prices to remain competitive and the rapid sour of acceptance for an impractical, polarizing, electricity-guzzling vehicle unable to draw interest from pickup shoppers has put Tesla in an ugly position.  Analysts are warning about that, seeing a new offering like Model 2 still years away.  It gets worse the more you dig into it.  This stood out in today's discussion: "Why are we talking about Model 2?  Elon Musk said it himself that Tesla is basically worthless as a company without FSD."  I was all too happy to sound off about that, especially since the comment can from a foe from long ago.  I replied to that with:  He has been enjoying the niche.  This is textbook Innovator's Dilemma that investors now recognize as having reached peak.  There is simply no next step available that doesn't require compromise.  Abandoning FSD to offer a competitive entry-level vehicle is not appealing to him.  It means others will seize the opportunity.

Charge-Account Preload.  Have you ever thought why you have to preload most charge-accounts before being able to use the charger?  That's because a credit-card transaction cannot be held in unfinished status for more than a very short time.  Since it can take many hours for some charging sessions, the only simple workaround is to preload.  It's one of the complications rarely addressed.  People want a simple user experience from a situation that does not make that easy.  Use of an account through an app at least gives you some insight & control.  If you want to use the charging-station like a gas-pump, the transmission to your credit-card company would be something like an immediate $30 purchase.  Upon completion of the charging session, you would have either hit that $30 limit for time & electricity or the difference will be returned as a second transaction.  There just no other of doing it on-the-fly like that.  At some point, that could change.  But for now without any well-established standard, it's the best option to keep progress moving along.

Affordable, profit.  A comment about affordability of EVs was finally posted.  $33,600 plus $1,395 destination minus $7,500 tax-credit ends up delivering a price of $27,495 for the base model Equinox EV.  It's difficult to know how many will actually be made available to consumers (since stripped down vehicles tend to be for commercial use) and if that could ever deliver a profit.  But the assumption was that would be more than just a halo offering.  So we had something to discuss.  Since the next model up was $8,300 more, any exchange of thoughts may just be academic anyway.  I still appreciated seeing this though: "Chevy coming out with some aggressive pricing.  Nice decision."  Knowing how GM operates, there is no reason to give any praise until what was promised is actually delivered.  I tried to approach the matter in a constructive manner:  Depends upon how selling what will initially be a loss-leader achieves.  If it establishes the vehicle and production catches up to deliver a sustainable profit dealers will embrace, then kudos.  The point is to break the status quo, something neither Volt nor Bolt was able to achieve.

Affordable, better.  Before even giving him a chance to reply, I fired off a second reply to the other part of his original comment: "An L2 of 6kW is O.K., 9.6kW to 11.2kW better."  That was especially strange.  Why choose such an arbitrary set of speeds?  Seeing no recognition of what should have been there, among the most popular of speeds, it was my opportunity to provide some exposition.  I jumped up onto that soapbox and did exactly that with:  Strange how the most common setup was excluded... 7.7 kW... providing 32 amps from a 40-amp circuit on a 240-volt line.  My vehicle draws a steady 7.3 kW overnight. It provides about 58 kWh overnight (8 hours).  At an efficiency of 3.5 mi/kWh, that delivers 203 miles of range.  If we are talking the goldilocks zone (SOC from 10% to 80%) for a 300-mile vehicle, that's only 7 miles shy and most owners won't be driving all the way down to 10% anyway.  In other words, on this topic of affordable choices, we need to address EVSE setup... which you can pretty much hit the bulls eye by using a 40-amp circuit on a 240-volt line.

Affordable, best.  Topic of the day looks to be "affordable" EVs with ranges of at least 300 miles.  Right away, the topic meandered over to EVSE.  This 19.2 kW was states as the "best" choice.  I found that claim absurd.  So, I poked the bear with this comment:  Faster is not better.  There's no way to take advantage of that 100-amp connection.  If you need such a large amount of electricity quickly, you certainly aren't going to want to do that during peak hours.  It would be just as expensive as DC fast-charging elsewhere.  Late at night when you can get an off-peak discount, you won't be driving again for many hours anyway.  Also, you're shooting yourself in the foot by dedicating an entire sub-panel for a single vehicle.  You would be far better off running two 50-amp lines instead.  Coming from a household with dedicated level-2 EVSE, one for each plug-in vehicle for now almost 7 years, I know benefits of that sharing situation well.

Supercharger Misleading.  That same guy who discovered propaganda pays is still going strong.  It's quite annoying such a source for spreading information for profit can survive.  In this case though, I couldn't just let it go.  Such blatant cherry-picking needed to be called out.  It's not really about the topic, though the subject matter is important.  It's the fact that so many people are gullible enough to simple accept the information presented without question.  I had an opportunity to draw attention to how easily a narrative could be created.  Someone watching the video could be convinced it was true, then may notice the comment afterward pointing out there was missing information.  I tried to provide such a circumstance by posting:  Omitting the reason why Tesla fast-chargers cost less tells us a lot about intended perception.  They are portrayed as the same, but in reality there are major shortcomings.  Tesla's cord isn't long enough and their stations don't offer any type of interface... no screen... no payment interface.  To be NEVI compliant, it will cost Tesla more.  Others already meet those requirements. Ordinary consumers want a fast-charger to work just like a gas-pump.  Until V4 is rolled out everywhere, claims of Tesla superiority fall short.

Private Enterprise.  I found this quite annoying: "It will be mainly private enterprise that established supply in markets such as the US, for sure."  After see lengthy discussions about how Norway being a terrible model gets ignored, it's basically pointless to anger.  They used oil subsidies to force change with very enticing incentives.  Doing that for a small population spread across geography favorable to infrastructure build up, since travel corridors were so orderly, you would think such a difference would be acknowledged.  Nope.  Enthusiasts pretend none of that information has ever been shared or has any relevance.  As far as they are concerned, the United States is exactly like Norway.  Ugh.  Even the preference of what we drive is such a mismatch, there's nothing to gain from arguing.  So, I don't.  Instead, I refer to requirements.  Knowing certain criteria must be met to receive funding, all I have to do is keep provide those specifics.  Here's how I'm dealing with that:  Push for standards comes from the government... like NEVI requiring minimum speed (150 kW), minimum accessibility (4 stalls each with simultaneous 150 kW output), minimum interface (screen with touchless payment), minimum reliability (>97% up time for each station).

GM Software Fixes.  The stop-sale on Blazer EV has been lifted.  GM has fixed the variety of software issues.  With so much hype on one side and so much FUD on the other, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.  My guess is it will all get lost in the noise.  There were so many promises made and expectations set so high, perception of failure is inevitable.  What exactly what GM's goal when those issues started to overwhelm?  When sales were stopped, what was outlook for when they resumed?  You can't really do damage control without looking forward.  Knowing Equinox EV will follow and the Honda rebrand will somehow make a debut, it makes sense to have some kind of revised plan.  But since the "wheels fall off" nonsense is still used to draw attention away from such well executed software from Toyota, it's reasonable to expect any fix to quickly be downplayed as never being that big of a deal.  Ugh.  Oh well.  There is actually some logic to that.  People simply don't understand.  Knowing that, I basically just abandoned the discussion with:  Some of that attitude comes from people not recognizing what "software" actually has control over.  We have seen hardware & chemistry limitations along with executive decisions all get that label.  It makes sense too.  Those without enough technical background will attribute/blame behavior as something that can be improved with software.  My guess for reason is OTA gets oversold as a fix-anything solution.

Hate To Say It.  Yet, he did anyway: "I hate to say it but this classic '70s muscle car will outlive anything EV on the road and also will hold more value than anything EV on the road and also more enjoyable than anything EV on the road also cooler than anything EV on the road... your Tesla will not have people taking pictures at car meets or even just propped up at the gas station getting fuel people turn their head to look at a nice classic car."  It was a random post that showed up on my Facebook feed.  I was amused.  I didn't bite.  I could have though.  CyberTruck is already turning heads.  True, it is more of a spectacle.  For the infamous Ford Edsel, there were 118,287 produced & sold.  Tesla could easily fall into the same category.  So, the poster doesn't really even compete against the 50's either.  What makes me most curious about such attitude though is the performance.  We have reached the point where very few ICE can compete with a high-end BEV.  In a few years, even BEV sold to the masses will perform better than most of those 70's muscle cars.  It makes you wonder how they will be promoted at some point.  They'll have an appeal to the ears and perhaps the eyes, but when it comes to power... no.  They will hate to say it too/

Nice Park.  I finally heard back from the city about chargers at the newly renovated park: "There are plans to install a few of them at designated parking stalls and they have installed conduit to these stalls for future installation.  They are looking at working with Xcel Energy on this project as they are vetting out a larger plan of attack to install EVC stations on a more regional wide level."  It didn't make any sense that such a large suburb city wouldn't have planned for that with so many others in the metro already doing so.  I was relieved from that news:  That's what I was hoping to find out.  I seemed odd for such a nice park (especially with the adjoining trail) to not have included that in long term plans.  Hearing it is staged for later is great!

Measuring Deterioration.  That topic always interests me.  How is that achieved?  Leaf has always included an indicator on the dashboard, an analog gauge featuring bars.  ID.4 has an ODB-II featuring "energy content" telling you how many Wh can be contained.  I suspect values like that are simply calculated values retained in memory.  bZ4X doesn't have that.  Values for that calculation are available though.  I shared that info on a discussion about that topic:  True measure of deterioration is based upon kWh values, basically how many can the battery hold.  Remember, the software update we got altered how both efficiency was calculated and "empty" was indicated.  So, there's nothing on the dashboard to compare with.  Ideally, you would run the vehicle from full to completely dead then see how much it takes to recharge, minus charging losses.  Not only is that difficult, it is also very hard on the battery.  The easiest gauge of health is to look at voltage for each cell (we have 96 in our pack).  Knowing what it should be for a specific state of charge, then finding a match means it's still operating in peak condition.  Finding it lower indicates aging. Finding one that is much lower than others is an indication of a cell going bad.  btw, since there really isn't such a thing as battery gauge, voltage variance is used to determine state-of-charge level.  That's why charging to 100% is so important for LFP chemistry.  It's much easier for NCM and NCA, since their "full" to "empty" voltage difference is greater.  LFP is minor in comparison, so 100% is used to calibrate.

Volt Legacy.  It was the Chevy vehicle from GM destined to fail from the moment it was revealed.  With such an aggressive deadline and so much uncertainty who it was for and what goals it was set to achieved, talk of vaporware emerged immediately.  Since there were some of us to just witnessed the full life-cycle of GM's problem with "over promise, under deliver" having literally just happened (Two-Mode), the pattern was already recognizable.  Ugh.  When Bolt was eventually revealed as another choice, suspicion was immediately raised about the similar sounding name really being a means of concealing inevitable doom.  Sure enough, that is indeed what happened.  Volt was swept away as if it never existed, easily dismissed as a misnomer.  Anywho, there is now talk of GM bringing back that technology from the dealer.  Their dealers want hybrids, not full electric vehicles.  Offering a PHEV is an excellent tradeoff.  There's a problem with that though.  That technology used in Volt was a bit rough still.  Both EV & HV efficiency wasn't competitive and the design itself was far too expensive... 5 years ago.  Now, the situation has grown worse.  The next-gen just rolling out now is receiving praise for being among the best choices ever offered by any automaker.  That's because Toyota never stopped refining their technology.  They kept pushing, hoping it would provide a means of transition.  It was absurd for GM to think they could simply skip that step, somehow making a paradigm-shift realistic by just hoping people would embrace change.  Ugh.  Anywho, the situation is actually worse than that.  Turns out, there was a special coverage bulletin just issued (N232432680) for Volt: "2016 through 2018 Chevy Volt units affected by the battery energy control module fault may experience several problems as a result.  These can include reduced power, a failure of the vehicle to start, and/or inability of the vehicle to charge when plugged in.  Vehicles should be checked in the GM Global Warranty Management system, under the Applicable Warranties section, to see if they have special coverage.  The available repair for this BECM malfunction consists of the dealership service personnel replacing the module entirely.  Up to 8 quarts of coolant may need to be added to the Volt unit as well.  The repair is available free of charge to the owner if it is carried out on March 6th, 2024 or a later date.  Repairs carried out before March 6th which were paid for by the vehicle owner are usually eligible for cost reimbursement by GM."  With the endless stream of attacks on Toyota making fun of wheels coming off (which none never actually did, only 3 vehicles worldwide had loose bolts reported), it would be incredibly hypocritical for them to say anything now.  Both PHEV generation from Toyota for Prius (2012-2015 and 2017-2022) haven't ever had any type of recall.  Their drive-system worked so well, it contributed to 3 other variants being created (RAV4, Crown, CH-R) along with a next-gen upgrade for Prius itself.  So as far as legacies go, you know who look toward for actually moving the market forward.