Gotterdamerung for the Boxster

[equ]

Originally Posted by ZBB

Yes. As an EV-only household, I’m excited for a sports car and convertible EV

I have nothing against EV options being out there, even those of hallowed machines such as 911's, boxsters & caymans. But this is about ending the production of normally aspirated cars.

It seems like some EV-folks aren't satisfied with EV options being out and getting popular but they want non-EV choices to be snuffed out.

I do buy the climate change arguments, but that is to a point. Gasoline sports cars are a speck of impact compared to beef, shipping, heavy diesel and a billion other things. And it's not like EV is zero impact. So while I have no issues with EV options coming out, I do have issues with options I happen to enjoy being snuffed out (and apparently enough folks with enough money that these are being bid up). It's similar to what happened with manuals, all three cars in my household are still manual, however they will become harder and harder to replace. I don't have an objection to automatics getting better and more popular, but again not to the point of snuffing out manuals completely.

[lemming]

Originally Posted by equ

I have nothing against EV options being out there, even those of hallowed machines such as 911's, boxsters & caymans. But this is about ending the production of normally aspirated cars.

It seems like some EV-folks aren't satisfied with EV options being out and getting popular but they want non-EV choices to be snuffed out.

I do buy the climate change arguments, but that is to a point. Gasoline sports cars are a speck of impact compared to beef, shipping, heavy diesel and a billion other things. And it's not like EV is zero impact. So while I have no issues with EV options coming out, I do have issues with options I happen to enjoy being snuffed out (and apparently enough folks with enough money that these are being bid up). It's similar to what happened with manuals, all three cars in my household are still manual, however they will become harder and harder to replace. I don't have an objection to automatics getting better and more popular, but again not to the point of snuffing out manuals completely.

Couldn’t agree more.

A single jet plane spews more global warming gases than a household of 3 cars does over the course of a year.

[equ]

And you know what? All this EV solar stuff becomes necessary when you have a massive footprint to begin with. I live in a dense, urban environment. I use public transit or cycling to get to work (pre-covid).

My boxster does 1800 miles/year, the 340i about 3500. I do about 2 to 4000 miles on motorcycles that average 40mpg at worst. I do not AC or heat a whole house, just relevant rooms. We sit in chilly rooms in the winter and sweat a bit in the summer. I eat minimal red meat.

The few pleasures that I cherish, hearing a nice engine, letting out a clutch, shifting by sound and buying a manual 5-series, a ZHP, an M3, a 911, a cayman, a boxster for reasonable sums of money with color, option choices are all being taken away for the sake of a bunch of anodyne compliance vehicles that will be used by folks who impact the environment far more than I to begin with. So yeah, I'm bitter.

[SCA]

What!?

[JST]

The problem is this: investment in new ICE technologies is simply going to drop to near zero. New engineers aren't going to go into that field, car companies will stop spending money on it, etc. They'll do it not because they want to kill every ICE car out there, but because all of that investment relies on scale and when the scale goes away, there just isn't the business case anymore.

To the extent there are niche products that will still offer ICE engines, those will be much higher cost. That's why you see Porsche now saying that the 911 will stay ICE, I guess. The Boxster presumably is high enough volume and "low enough" cost that it falls on the other side of that split.

I've said this before, but lots of the reasons why ICE cars are more convenient than EVs have to do with scale and infrastructure. As EVs increase, that will flip and it will flip fast, faster than most people think, and the externalities that make ICE cars so easy to live with now (gas stations, repair shops, etc) will all start to disappear. How many people are going to want an ICE when you have to drive to the airport to put gas in it?

So, anyway. I don't disagree with you about the personality of an ICE engine. They are more fun to live with in sports cars. And the Taycan is, for me, a warning sign that EV platforms might be much less interesting than what they replace. But at this point we're screaming at the tide. ICE vehicles are going to be entirely extinct within 20 years.

[Theo]

And I can see states like Ca taxing you big time to keep one at some point.

[clyde]

Originally Posted by Theo

And I can see states like Ca taxing you big time to keep one at some point.

It will be interesting to see how automobile taxes evolve over the next 30 years. Any kind of ICE tax will be inherently super-regressive and would have to fight a truly bizarre consortium of groups that would align against it.

In terms of the 911, it sounds like where China goes, so goes the 911. The time where China is the only market where they will be able to sell new ICE 911s is on the foreseeable horizon. Committing to sticking to it is...strange. Milking it as long they can, sure, but...

I agree with JST that when the switch comes it will come fast. For new cars, anyway.

In the US, the cheapest of new ICE cars are already way out of financial reach. I'm still curious how the EV optimists think they're going to solve that problem. A huge number of people will not be able to afford EVs anytime soon, let alone be able to efficiently charge at home. A glut of ICE vehicles on the used market will drive used ICE prices down and keep them there...which will encourage those people to stick with ICE. Etc. (Not looking to rehash this, only to point out that it's still an issue that no one ever seems to address.)

I still think my next car will be an EV. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

[JST]

EV costs will also come down farther and faster over the next ten years, but the days when car companies wanted to sell cheap cars are long gone. The majority of auto companies will relish being able to move their lowest products up a rung. Look at Ford; it’s “entry level” vehicle is a $20,000 pick up, now that they’ve killed the EcoSport.

That means gas cars will hang around as used cars longer than they might have otherwise, but again see my point above; you won’t need to tax them, people will walk away from them when they start getting inconvenient.

One of the first things that will happen is a domino effect with gas stations. Selling gas makes little money and comes with huge environmental costs; if your station sees a 20 percent drop in traffic, do you keep selling gas? I bet you don’t.

Quickly enough, entry level cars will become used EVs.

And for true entry level, I can see an expansion of car sharing, too.

[wdc330i]

Originally Posted by JST

EV costs will also come down farther and faster over the next ten years, but the days when car companies wanted to sell cheap cars are long gone. The majority of auto companies will relish being able to move their lowest products up a rung. Look at Ford; it’s “entry level” vehicle is a $20,000 pick up, now that they’ve killed the EcoSport.

That means gas cars will hang around as used cars longer than they might have otherwise, but again see my point above; you won’t need to tax them, people will walk away from them when they start getting inconvenient.

One of the first things that will happen is a domino effect with gas stations. Selling gas makes little money and comes with huge environmental costs; if your station sees a 20 percent drop in traffic, do you keep selling gas? I bet you don’t.

Quickly enough, entry level cars will become used EVs.

And for true entry level, I can see an expansion of car sharing, too.

Gas is already the loss leader for the convenience store. Wonder what the new model will be. And, as you mention, how we feed the remaining ICEs—whether at the top of the market or bottom…

Also, as Clyde points out, how do you accommodate the folks in Multifamily situations, where the model has already been to to do away with individual parking spaces that could have had their own power sources? The long-term play is a one-percent scenario with those of us who can afford single-family housing owning cars and those in denser housing doing some sort of shared ownership or Zip Car solution.

[JST]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Gas is already the loss leader for the convenience store. Wonder what the new model will be. And, as you mention, how we feed the remaining ICEs—whether at the top of the market or bottom…

Also, as Clyde points out, how do you accommodate the folks in Multifamily situations, where the model has already been to to do away with individual parking spaces that could have had their own power sources? The long-term play is a one-percent scenario with those of us who can afford single-family housing owning cars and those in denser housing doing some sort of shared ownership or Zip Car solution.

I bet a lot of those places just disappear and/or are redeveloped into something else--maybe those Amazon type stores manned with AI?

As for charging, a combination of fast chargers and a profusion of slower charging infrastructure in public parking spaces is going to fill the gap. Building that infrastructure is going to be a trick, but the demand for it will be there.