Getting a survey (ostensibly) about satisfaction with my new car.

 

The other day, I received an email from Subaru asking me to take a survey regarding satisfaction with my new car. Although most of the questions in the survey involved my reasons for buying my car and how satisfied I was with the new car, a good 10% of the questions involved my concerns about buying an electric car.  I have been saying for a long while that America's answer to global warming will be the conversion to electric vehicles.  But it won't happen until using an electric vehicle is as convenient as using a gas powered vehicle is for 99% of the public.  So, seeing these questions in a survey got me to thinking.

For a long while, I have been saying that America will NOT reach its goal of shifting to electric vehicles by 2035.  The infrastructure needed to charge these cars is not yet being built out, and there are no signs that this will happen soon.  Additionally, most electric cars are not built for long road trips, nor can they be charged fully as quickly as a gas vehicle can be refueled. Although many homes can be fitted with a home charger, most people living in apartment buildings do not have access to home chargers and must depend on the more inconvenient public charging networks. Virtually none of these charging stations have human attendants, many are vandalized, and they are often non functional due to problems with software or hardware.  There are way too many problems for a "one size fits all" solution being forced upon us by our state and federal governments.

I'm a person who'd gladly switch to electric vehicles if the conveniences of our current gas powered vehicles would exist for me.  If it meant doubling the time needed to being my car up to a 350+ mile usable driving range, I could accept it if I could go into a nearby 24x7 store to kill time.  But most charging stations I see are unattended, open to all weather (no protection from rain or snow), and more than 100 feet away from a quick mart.

As much as I believe that we will need to shift to electric vehicles, I don't believe that battery powered vehicles will be the solution for everyone.  But if batteries are part of the problem, then what could be an alternative solution?  Hydrogen.  If we develop a surplus of renewable energy, we can use that energy to generate Hydrogen from water, and then use it in motor vehicles as fuel for generating electricity for the vehicles' propulsion.  However, when hydrogen burns, it gives off a single byproduct: Dihydrogen Monoxide in gaseous form - Steam.  Steam contains no hydrocarbons, and does not contribute to global warming.

The technology to use Hydrogen as a fuel already exists.  It has been used in cars such as the Toyota Mirai. But there are virtually no hydrogen fueling stations in the USA.  Yes, there are risks in storing hydrogen.  Yet, we know how to manage those risks.  If we are to shift to non greenhouse gas emitting vehicles, then we need to consider hydrogen as a fuel for the rest of us. It could be distributed in a manner equivalent to that of gasoline, and refueling would be as convenient as now done for gas powered cars.  Conversion to a hydrogen fuel infrastructure could be done faster than upgrading the electric grid, and would be easier to accept for the driving public.

What do you think?

Car shopping - Weekend #2

 

I'm certainly not in the market for this old truck.  But I am in the market for a new car, and it will most likely be an SUV, given the options available to me.  Gone are the days of nice sedans and coupes.  We are now in the age of the do anything vehicle.  And this is not a bad thing, considering that we all seem to need to carry large things in the back of the car now and then.

This weekend, I was forced to stay in Mario mode, so that I could visit several car dealerships and have ID that matches my gender presentation.  What bothers me is that I won't be able to get my nails done for a few weeks, so that Mario looks like he's expected to look - like a boring, heavy set, old guy.  And we had a frustrated laugh at the first dealership we visited.

Most of us have gone through the frustrating experience that is new car shopping in the Unites States. First you enter the showroom and meet a salesperson.  Then, they ask for your license, so that they can check your credit report and start the process of structuring a deal designed to get you to buy their car with maximum profit. When the salesperson comes back with your license, he starts asking you about your budget for the car, whether you will be financing the car and what kind of monthly payments you can afford, whether you have a car you'd like to trade, as well as other information he will need for his finance guy to structure a deal.  Only then, do you get to the process of taking a test drive.

Now, I have been around this block before, and I have had many dealers try to screw me - even when I was willing to buy a car at MSRP (both before, during, and after Covid-19).  So, I've taken the time to learn how to NOT provide much negotiating information to the "enemy". And RQS has been a great help to me while we have visited the dealerships.

Before RQS came up this weekend, I had a pleasant test drive of a Honda at a local dealership.  The salesman knew that I've been to this dance before, and didn't try to hard sell me on the car I tested.  Instead, we had a long, leisurely test drive on both local roads and the highway, and I found this to be the best car I had tested so far.  Although there is one thing I don't like about the car (the CVT transmission), I'd buy this car at the right price.  This would become the car I measure things against in test drives planned when RQS arrived.

On Saturday, we visited the first of these dealerships, a Mazda dealership, where we were greeted by a salesperson who offered us coffee and proceeded to ask for my license, so that he could make a copy.  After an excessive amount of time, RQS and I were starting to get frustrated.  But then, I think the salesperson couldn't pull a credit on me, as I had frozen it when my wallet was lifted in Chicago.  And only when he gave up, did he return to the desk to try and extract more information from me - which he didn't get.  After the test drive, we chatted and I got his opening price for the car - something in a fair range for the vehicle we tested.  Unfortunately, it was getting dark, so we suspended our shopping for the day.

Sunday came, and we ended up visiting 3 dealerships.  The first one we entered, a Subaru franchise in Yonkers, got me to write a "Nastygram" (as I call it).  We entered the dealership, and the receptionist was doing her business on the phone and didn't bother to acknowledge us.  After 10 minutes of walking around, no one bothered to ask us anything, so we left.  (Given the large inventory on their lot, I don't think they are too successful a dealership.)  And then it was onto the next dealership - a Yonkers Honda dealership.  Although we were acknowledged promptly, we still had to wait a while due to short staffing. When we finally met with a salesperson, we were told that they don't do test drives on Sundays, and that she couldn't give me an out the door price - she was required to haggle.  Since there's no way we'd even consider doing this without even a test drive, we moved onto a third dealership in White Plains. This time, we were greeted promptly, "interrogated" for sales information, and given our test drive. Although we did get an out the door price, it would not be as good as the price I got before the weekend started.

Monday came, and I wrote the "Nastygram" I mentioned above.  Even though I received an apologetic response later in the day, I won't return to that dealership.  I figure that I can get a better deal from other dealerships that carry its brands, assuming that I don't go with the Honda....