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The future of the automobile..?


Ashley P

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What do you think about automobiles of the future?   5, 10, 25 years ahead, what's gonna happen?   Locally the independent repair shops are closing up.  My brother is wanting to build a bigger service shop.   What do you think repair trends will be?  

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So, as far as repair work both now, 5, 10, 25 years out, what is demand going to be?    If you think that eventually electric is everything, until then.....will people double down on keeping "old" (paid for gas/diesel) stuff on the road?   Will the "simple" things of the early 2000s remain repairable and competitive....like Cuba's 50s cars?

If gov mandates electric, and/or prices petrol WAY up, then there won't be much choice.  

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Well, I think you are all correct.   Cars are NOW heavily electronic, and moving toward electric.  Currently (pun intended) electronic gremlins are a pain for me (a small % of the number of jobs, yet a much larger % of time).  And  I know fully electric can't happen in the next few years.  In between, petro cars will be clung to like my "guns and religion" as long as that fuel is remotely affordable/available.

I guess the price of petro determines if petro vehicles remain.  If they do, there will be very few shops locally (if trends continue) that have the knowledge to keep them going.   At a car show a few weeks ago a woman with 60s chevys lamented that there's almost nobody to work on her cars.  I just nodded in agreement since I'm 6-8 weeks behind since about july of 2020.

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There is more than the electrical grid to be figured out.

The hazardous waste will be the biggest issue.

How do we keep the toxic materials out of the environment?

How do we recycle it all?

And my question personally, what happens in a crash when the battery is ruptured under your seat? 

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Rick Schmidt, CEO of National Parts Depot, is the guest on the Musclecar Place Podcast on the first Friday of every month.  Rick is SHARP.  He definitely has his finger on the pulse of the automotive industry, aftermarket world, and the supply chain issues.  I highly suggest listening to the weekly podcast, if nothing else, for the monthly chats with Rick.  In one of the interviews, he talked about how it will take well over 100 years to move all transportation to electric.  Before a full conversion, the "experts" still have to figure out an answer for switching over the planes, trains, and heavy movers (semi-trucks, tractors, equipment, etc.).  As long as we have these things, gasoline must still be produced.  There are a couple of companies switching classic cars and trucks over to electric.  Out of curiosity, I priced doing my lowered truck.  For the high performance kit and labor, it was going to be in the neighborhood of $75k.

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I'm more optimistic. I see more and more younger people in older mustangs, Camaro's etc. and newer stuff with turbo's. They like boost,V8's and noise. Its like when I was a kid and idolized 60's muscle. Same thing different generations. Whats hurting the independents are the proprietary diagnostic tools/systems that are required to work on new cars. You have to invest in the future but ensure you can repair the past as well.

 

Electric cars are coming and will be part of the game. The ICE is not going away anytime soon. We hear all about the end of the gas engine yet we have companies investing in new ICE's. Hell Jeeps new straight six turbo just came out. Then there is the infrastructure that requires coal to make the power. If we are willing to go all in on nuclear then I would say, sure everything will be electric. We wont so.......when you see politicians standing at the chargers espousing how wonderfully clean they are, ask them about the coal plat generating the electricity to make the chargers work.

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, JohnC said:

Add, TVA already sent out an email asking customers to use the least amount of electric possible because they're at max capacity.

Much more and we'll be having blackouts.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/tva-asks-customers-to-reduce-power-usage-due-to-high-temperatures/

I had a customer a year or so ago tell me the opposite.  He claimed that there was very little demand for electricity compared to a couple decades ago, all because of the massive decrease in industrial output.   

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