All things motor vehicles

Link?

I watched an interesting YouTube at lunch from a channel called Casey the Car Guy. He designed and built a car that gets >100 mpg and does 0-60 in under 5 secs. The >100 mpg was an average that included highway and around town. Unfortunately, the talk was more about politics than the car itself, but this goes along the lines of what I was eluding to about Elio Motors.

This guy pretty much proved that we can have cars with much better fuel economy and not even have to sacrifice performance to do it. The car was also designed with recyclabilty in mind. So the $64 question is, why don't we have vehicles like this now? The answer to that question can likely be answered in one word...politics.

Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, this isn't about any particular party/candidate. This is about how big money/corporations influence what happens (or doesn't happen in this case) in the US. Politics is just a tool that allows this to happen.

If interested, Google "casey putsch omega car".

One of the vehicles I would have bought new in a heartbeat was the Elio Motors 3-wheeled commuter. Had a $9K price tag new, was a 2-seater, had a top speed of 100 mph and estimated MPG of 85 on the highway. I believe it had an 8 gal tank, so a fill up gave it a 600+ mile range.

It never made it into production, and now they're trying again with an electric version that I'm not interested in. The electric version is also closer to $16K.

I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but it would not surprise me that Elio was paid off to NOT release this vehicle. They had a few revisions of working prototypes. The claim was that they couldn't raise some arbitrary amount of money they felt they needed to go into production.

I've seen a few places where their home is on wheels and the car or truck in the yard has been up on blocks for years.

Get license plates/tabs on the home and save on property taxes. Judging by the barrels of empty aluminum cans, that allows more money for beer.

Like the $X.999/gallon price at the gas pump.

I bought exactly 1 gallon, I demand my 1/10th of a cent in change, dammit.

I understand everyone has their own set of priorities, but expensive fancy cars is not mine. My daily driver is a newer F150 four door 4x4. The wife's is a new this year Toyota 4runner. They are "nice" vehicles, but certainly not Ferrari or Lambo or even Mercedes type "nice". We like good newer vehicles and we pay cash when we get a new one, which is expensive enough these days. Dropping six figure cash on a quickly depreciating asset does not math for me however. House, property, farms, guns, YES buy them when the right deal comes up. They all appreciate over time and are enjoyable to own. Cars, NO. I look at cars in a much more utilitarian way.

There is a house I pass on occasion a few miles from us that comes to mind. A $5,000 house trailer on a few acres and no barn. Two horses in the back without any sort of shelter. However, they have a fancy new F350 dually which is pushing $100K these days and a goose neck fifth wheel camper/horse trailer that I know sells for over $100K. I'm sure they are the "baddest on the block" when they go trail riding on the weekends, but that type of prioritization does not match my own. YMMV.

Kind of funny how they list the 0-60 as 2.99 secs so people can say "in under 3 secs" ;-)

0-60mph in under 3 seconds, 165mph top speed. Very cool.

250 mile range- not so cool, but if we had a car like that, we wouldn't be driving it as a cross country/road trip vehicle, so- tolerable.

Price with the tariff- not just a no, but a full blown: Oh, hell no.

Unless we won the mega-billions lottery.

It was the 25% tariff that impacted it.

We has ordered am Eletre R - loaded to the tits to the tune of a $174k MSRP. This was absolutely the upper limit of what we could stomach.

Then came the tariffs. Base, S and R models - and our order - canceled. Eletre Carbon offered with a base of $229k.

No. Thanks. We'll take our deposit back.

Bummer. Because it was the most incredible car I ever drove. Maybe someday, but not TOday.

"Our order for the Lotus Eletre got shit-canned over the tariffs issue."

Bummer! Was that the tariff that was scheduled to increase from 25% to 100%? I take it the fact that you ordered it previous to the increase didn't matter?

~Scamp

Oh yeah.

Our order for the Lotus Eletre got shit-canned over the tariffs issue.

Car insurance rates in NOLA are ridiculous, my rate quadrupled when I moved here from Ohio 10 years ago and I was paying Geico $344/month for my car and my wife's Jeep before shopping rates again last month.

That's when I came across Nobler, a "pay as you go" policy offered through USAA where you pay a base rate ($127/mo), then per mile driven (~$.14/mi). Since retirement, we typically drive around 200 miles per month so I signed up.

I just got my first bill, $135 total for the month of September.

We take 2-3 road trips each year but when I calculated what we drove all of last year, I'll still end up saving about $1,500 a year.

I guess this could have gone in the HT thread. lol

~Scamp

Yep.. have a good friend over Div of insurance fraud in Broward County Fl.. we talk often ad he tells me Insurance Companies are denying more and more claims everyday and want people to fight them and wear them out.. its BS!!!

pay for what policies say!!! SOBs

My Mercedes C230 had that wiper feature.

Loved it.

One of the fun cars I had of the many I've owned was actually a Buick Park Ave. It was the Ultra model that gives you the 3.8L V6 with a supercharger. Definitely a sleeper type car that surprised people when you woke it up.

These cars were also one of the few cars that came with the automatic windshield wipers. I'm not big of gizmos because it's generally one more thing to break, but I loved having the intermittant wipers. You'd set them on the lowest setting and when you went from mist, to stopped, to light rain, to heavy rain, to stopped, then back to mist (etc., etc), it just automatically adjusted how often the wipers needed to come on based on a sensor.

Since then, I've have a number of used Caddys, and a Lincoln and none of them had this option.

One of the vehicles I kind of hated to get rid of was a 3/4 ton 4x4 Suburban, though I didn't miss filling that 42 gal gas tank.

Most fun vehicle was a 1969 Firebird that was kind of a factory freak. Bone stock it would push the 160 MPH speedometer to 155 MPH, though that is likely inaccurate at that speed. It was a 2-speed auto with tall gears. It would cruise the highway all day long at 125 MPH without breaking a sweat. If you punched it at 40 MPH (sweet spot), 4 secs later you were doing 100 MPH and it would almost pull the front tires off the ground when it dumped into the higher gear.

I have Ameriprise through Costco and have been generally happy with it. One claim that they said I was at fault, but not much of an increase.

But I have a 15 year old that will be driving soon...

Even worse was we were dropped from coverage once because we were considered "high risk", even though they paid on zero claims. Lesson learned. If you call the insurance company and ask if you're covered for something that happened, they open up a claim. If you have X claims in X years, they drop you, even if they paid nothing on those claims.

Ironically, of the 3 ways I think you get financially hosed when buying a brand new car, the increase in the insurance is usually the least of my concerns. The first is the depreciation hit as soon as you drive it off the lot, and the other is the cost to register it. In NH, they don't do excise tax but they might as well because they just do that with the registration fees.

The depreciation only comes into play if something bad happens to you finanially and you have to sell your car sooner than expected. Unless you put a sizable down payment on it, you're under water right from the start because of the way loans work (i.e. pay more in interest than principle at the start).

The regisitration drops a bit if you buy a new leftover, as it is considered a year old. I usually try to target something 5-7 years old with low miles when I replace our daily driver and 10 or so years old and <100K for my car. I would consider something just over 100K miles if it was fun and considered reliable.

I had a 5th wheel I paid extra insurance for awning damage. I used it once for a branch that put a hole in it. Two years later I get an increase of my car insurance with a totally different insurance company. I inquired about why the increase and was told I had a claim. The claim was the rv awning which I paid extra for coverage. What a bunch of crap!

travelers122227 - "Jim, you really need to buy a five year old Taurus or something to visit customers bro"

Was that because the new car gave the impresson that he was living high on the hog on your dime?

We used to have a lot more policies. We had our home, rental property, a motorcycle, a snowmobile, an RV, and 5 cars insured. One time, a branch fell on the RV and compromised the roof AC seal and caused some water damage. I put in a claim and the agent told me it wouldn't be covered because I removed the branch. I did that so it wouldn't cause further damage. This was with Progressive.

I told the Progressive agent that I'd move all of my policies if they didn't cover it. Short story is, by days end ALL policies were moved to another company. All it took was a single phone call. I will never use Progressive insurance ever again and take every opportnity to steer others away from them. There is a reason that they are generally the low ball offer when it comes to rates.

Probably 20 years ago or more, but one time I called my insurance agent who had house, vehicles, farm, everything. I wanted him to come look around to see if I was over or under covered. He showed up in a new BMW, Mercedes, Lexis or some such. I told him when he stepped out of the car "Jim, you really need to buy a five year old Taurus or something to visit customers bro". He was greatly offended by that comment and told me so. I changed agents shortly thereafter.

As a contractor, 2 competing salesmen would stop by my office. They both carried a line of products I used a lot. One of the salesmen (actually one of the owners) would show up driving a Mercedes, BMW or some other expensive luxury or sports car. He had a new one every year.

The other guy showed up driving an F-150. He would drive the same truck for at least 3 years. I almost always bought from the guy driving the F-150.

I forget the whole deal but Mr. Expensivecarguy eventually had many legal issues surrounding his business and he ended up losing the business, paying huge fines and got free room and board for awhile courtesy of the State of MN.

On my way home today, I saw a Cybertruck. Not an unusual occurrence around here.

It's gotten to the point where I see one most days.

This one though had a magnetic sticker advertising what I am assuming is the guy's electrical contracting business.

Now I know electricians make a lot of money. But really?

If you are so irresponsible with your money that you are going to pay twice for a "truck" that is not really a truck than what you would for a truck that is actually a truck, and advertise your business on it, you would be one of the last guys I would call should I ever need services such as yours.

2muchfunclub2 - "The best and cheapest way to fix a Cadillac oil leak is to replace it with an older Lexus LS."

I'm already driving a 2010, so would prefer not to go older than that ;-) Still a baby with under 110K original miles on it.

I had one of those old 300CID I-6's in a 90something 4x2 F150 with AT and power everything. Not as much power as V-8s. There was no way was I passing anybody when towing a trailer, but I had 0 problems of any kind with that engine. I could just about climb under the hood and get inside the engine compartment to do tune ups, change belts and other routine maintenance. If I dropped a wrench- no problem. At the time I had a dog that would retrieve anything, I'd tell her to "fetch It here" and she'd get it and bring it to my hand.

I bought that as a salvaged vehicle (18,000 miles on it) from a guy who repairs salvaged cars/trucks and resells them, The body and some glass had damage from an accident and stains on the carpet and seats when the driver's coffee went flying all over. He did a great job on it, you couldn't see the stains on the interior, the frame wasn't bent/damaged, Genuine Ford body parts (he ran some kind of junk yard and built race cars of various types), repainted exactly like the 2 tone factory scheme (he also did custom paint jobs on cars, trucks, bikes, etc.).

Somehow the title I got was not marked as a "salvage" title. No idea how he did that, but I knew. He called me when he got the truck and I told him I'd take it as long as the frame wasn't bent/damaged. Way under book cost to me and he made a profit.

I sold it with about 230K miles on it to somebody who lived nearby. I saw it on the road for at least 2 years after I sold it. It was easy to recognize with the topper I put on it.

My first truck had the 300ci inline six cylinder with a 4 speed. I could sit on the inner fender well and change spark plugs.
As someone else pointed out however, that was back when 100K miles was the life of the truck versus 200-300K with current models.