Featured 100% Tariff on Chinese EV's in the USA.

Are the batteries explosive? I wasn't aware of it. Anyone want to talk about TNT or nitroglycerin?

To be honest, I'm not sure of mine either. Sometimes we think there's an easy solution that is being held back by that one thing. But if it were so easy, why doesn't someone just bypass that one thing and let the solution do its thing?

We can state some facts and then armchair engineer some uneducated solutions that will likely never come to fruition.

 

Can we learn anything from some place that is making EV's a success in their country (or whatever the goal is)?

Norway comes to mind. 80% of new vehicles being sold there are EVs, but only 20% drive EV's. The average American cannot afford a new car. Insurance prices also make buying used EV's prohibitive to a lot of us. So we'll just keep buring fuel, then get blamed for destroying the planet.

 

I don't shop around for all vehicles, and I wish they made it easier to shop around. It seems like you ask a quote from someone and you get bombarded for the next 6 weeks with emails, phone calls and text messages. But of the few I've quoted, it has been more in many cases. The Nissan Leaf ($160/mo) was a bit more than the Toyota Avalon ($130/mo). A Tesla Model Y ($190) I got several quotes for was quite a bit more than the Avalon. The used Model X was something outrageous like $400/mo IIRC, and I had got three quotes for it.

I miss my $30/mo for my 1985 VW Golf n/a diesel. Of course that was liability only, but man, that car was cheap to own. Find me an EV like that, I don't care if it looks like it survived WW2, but it needs to be easy to repair, cheap to insure, get great mileage (could do 600 miles on 10 gallons) and that just won't die like that ol' diesel.

With my current budget, a car like that ol' Golf is probably all that I'm going to be able to afford when the Avalon quits.

 

Those were basically a Golf or Rabbit with a pickup bed. They had the same engine and FWD setup.

 

Is that insurance? Per month or per 6 month term? Low priced state or high priced?

I'm in a higher priced state. Insurance here is expensive, both for cars and for health. And most jobs here don't offer health care, so that's how I know.

 

Wow! Thanks!

I find that the great diversity of insurance rates all over the nation is kind of crazy. When I post that I spend some $130 or so on insurance per month, some forum members will jump all over me with remarks about how I must not shop around or that I must be paying for extras that I don't need. The reality is that I've tried to spend less than $130, and the only way I can is if I drop collision and comrehensive, which maybe I should, but isn't what's being questioned.

This question made me go look at the Kelly Blue Book value, and according to them my Avalon is still worth just over $7,000 for trade in and just over $9,000 for private party. I do wonder how much of that is true or just a big error that's messed up due to the whole COVID pricing. How does a car not lose hardly any value in 6 years and 100,000 miles? I took out a $10,000 loan on this car, and it's still worth $9,000!? Anyhow, I thought that was interesting, but don't know if that should move me to do something about it or not.