All 2023 Volvos Will Have Hybrid Or Fully Electric Powertrains (cnet.com) 75
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Volvo will only sell electrified cars in the US beginning with the 2023 model year, the automaker confirmed Tuesday. "Electrified" means that in addition to EVs, Volvo will continue to offer gas-powered cars, but they'll all either have mild-hybrid or plug-in hybrid technology. Volvo will continue to offer plug-in hybrid powertrains, as well. In fact, these T8 Recharge models recently received a power boost, in addition to increased electric-only driving range. The 2023 model year Volvos should arrive at dealers this summer. Meanwhile, Volkswagen says it has "sold out" of battery-powered models in the U.S. and Europe for this year as persistent supply chain bottlenecks hit global production.
Sure, why not (Score:1)
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I fucking love my Volvo.
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100,000 people every year disagree with you. Volvo sales are also trending upwards.
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Does it scale? (Score:1)
No don't answer that. I already know the answer. Just keep pretending that rich person toys are going to solve everyone's problems.
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The battery mineral problem is real, however unlike existing unsustainable minerals (i.e. OIL), these only need to be mined once. And the first production sodium-ion batteries are currently rolling off the production lines, which moots a large fraction of the problem.
I mean, *I'm* not buying an EV any time soon, but I drive my mediocre small SUV about 1500 miles a year, so I'm a non-entity as far as this is concerned.
Re: Does it scale? (Score:3, Funny)
It doesn't matter if it only needs to be mined once if the amount mined and refined per year needs to go up by an order of magnitude or two in order to have even half a chance of meeting the electrification targets being bandied about by activists, politicians, and the Steve Jobs wannabe car company execs sucking up to them.
Meanwhile...synthetic fuel gets no love. Not from the oil companies who don't want to waste money on R&D when they can just drill and not from the greenies who one surmises don't lik
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Volvos are your idea of a rich person's toys? You must know a better class of rich person because Volvos are safe, practical, comfortable, and *bland*. Nobody is going to buy a Volvo to show the world he's made it.
buy a Volvo to show the world he's made it (Score:2)
Show the world that he doesn't care about driving?
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That's what Priuses are for.
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You could have just said Toyotas.
Even their most exciting cars are just less exciting than pretty much everyone else's in the same categories. Their slogan could be "only slightly less boring than Honda"
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The assholes on I-95 and the DC and Baltimore beltways aren't driving Volvos, I can assure you of that. Say, is that your phone that you're posting this on while you're driving?
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They're not inexpensive in the least (an S90 starts at 52K) and are quite comparable in price to BMW and Mercedes. I am not claiming those are 'rich person's toys' but there are plenty of folks who make good money and are driving them.
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Nobody is going to buy a Volvo to show the world he's made it.
You're thinking of "new money" rich people. There are plenty of rich folk who find the conspicuous waste of wealth to be nearly pornographic.
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Volvos are your idea of a rich person's toys? You must know a better class of rich person because Volvos are safe, practical, comfortable, and *bland*. Nobody is going to buy a Volvo to show the world he's made it.
Then pray tell who is buying them, because it sure as shit isn't the poor who can't afford it.
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rich person toys
Rich person toys?
In every picture I see of a "Let's Go Brandon" MAGA jackass they're driving an $75,000 pickup truck.
https://preview.redd.it/o61451... [preview.redd.it]
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Why do you hate progress?
No, I mean it. Why do you insult a car company trying to navigate away from using fossil fuels? Why do you insult customers/citizens who would like cleaner air and transportation? Why can't you comprehend the idea of centralizing our fossil fuel activity (via EV/battery production and coal/NG power plants) as we march toward fully renewable energy grids?
Why are you so cynical and rude?
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The argument you're making is essentially "we shouldn't begin making electric cars until power is all renewable"
That is not even close to the argument I am making.
but electric cars have to be developed, along with charging networks, while we transition to renewable energy.
Of course electric cars have been developed. What we are finding out is that there are not enough batteries to go around. The harder we go looking for raw materials to make batteries the more expensive they become. The larger the batteries the smaller return on investment we get on lowering CO2. In fact if we replace all of our electricity for electric cars with renewable energy we are still creating an environmental disaster from all the raw materials
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If battery electric is unsustainable then hybrid is unsustainable too. Hybrids use batteries too.
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They use less batteries than full EVs, so hybrids can be practical while full EVs aren't.
If they are plug-in and your commute is short then they play the role of an EV, so they offer almost all of the benefit of a full EV, plus they can make longer trips without charging which is still a benefit to some.
IMO only plug-in and mild hybrids should exist, full hybrids with no plug-in are actually very stupid.
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Right, you just run out of limited resources more slowly - that is not sustainable, its just a different runway. Assuming there really is a resources limit, and that technology will not evolve.
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Assuming there really is a resources limit, and that technology will not evolve.
Resources are always limited, but there's super shitloads of lithium out there and the technology for collecting it is evolving. But frankly the problems with lithium supply are geopolitical, not technical. Most of the world's lithium is in salyars in Chile. TPTB just haven't figured out how to fuck them out of it yet. The amounts of other materials that go into lithium batteries are generally decreasing over time, notably the latest designs use zero cobalt. We also have a number of lithium battery technolo
Good and Bad Things (Score:1)
Good that it's got elec. to get you around town.
Bad that it costs more; if you don't drive much, a waste of money and time if you have to plug it in. And a ton more weight when you run over the cyclist who thinks a bike lane is only for bikes. Bad?
Worst of all,though, it's still a VOLVO.
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Autonomous (Score:1)
They *STILL* do not get it. The car of the future is not only electric but has advanced active safety systems to reduce the one million worldwide traffic fatalities. 40,000 people were murdered in traffic accidents just in the USA last year that is over 3 times the number killed by guns. Yet people want to ban guns, and nobody (except me) wants to ban vehicles.
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and nobody (except me) wants to ban vehicles
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of people who believe that primitive vehicles like current cars don't belong on public roads. For one, I believe that that one day they *will* be banned once that becomes both practical and necessary.
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No, we tried the walk-based transit for 5000 years and it led to tribalism and isolation. Cars allow you to travel places, trade, and see different people and things. If it becomes a chore to travel, people will stay home and become tribalist.
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Haha, you think encountering people different from you will make you understand and like each other?? If that is the case, slave owners would have freed their own slaves. The people in the slave owning states would have wanted them freed them ASAP. Heck the civil war would have been fought in reverse. Marie Antoinette would not have treated her servants like dirt. Notice after the internet, the world got more polarized. If you look at where the most wealth disparity exists, it's in the cities. Reference: ht [brookings.edu]
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No, there is a difference between forced encounters versus encounters in like settings. For example, meeting people from a different culture at a tech conference, event, or friend's house. It is a different experience when you have something in common that you can relate to with the other person. You are allowed to see that someone from a different race or tribe can have similar interests as you. It's a very different thing from re-inforcing the stereotypical case on the subway.
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Yes, because the ones local are going to reinforce your stereotypes.
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Walking:
1. Walking in a city keeps you within a certain radius, so you meet people who will reinforce your negative stereotypes and make you more tribal. Like in a prison, people join race or city based gangs.
2. Walking in a rural area, you wouldn't meet anyone other than people like you. This means you will only know what your local pastor or authorities tell you. If your pastor happens to be a racist, well you're going to be one.
Car:
1. When you go someplace by car, you will encounter people in different s
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Car: 1. When you go someplace by car, you will encounter people in different settings and situations from the ones local to you.
Haha, you think encountering people different from you will make you understand and like each other?? If that is the case, slave owners would have freed their own slaves.
Re: Autonomous (Score:2)
The places you can go by car will be very different than your local setting. Your radius of travel is inhibited by walking. A place you go by walking will not get you anywhere vastly different, or, to a central gathering point of people who share your interests. For example there is unlikely to be a Star Trek convention in your village or town. If you do not live near the beach, how will you meet a surfer? You might meet one at an electronics conference held in Vegas.
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Going to a distant meetup and seeing people who I normally assumed wouldn't have anything in common with won't increase tribalism. It would make me realize that the categorizing based on how my local town is divided isn't logical. For example, if all the Mexicans in my town are farm workers ... if I go to an astrophysics conference and meet Mexican scientists .. I would realize my assumptions about Mexicans are wrong. How is that promoting tribalism?
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I don't think what kind of vehicle (or lack thereof) you're using is going to be the primary factor in who you're encountering, unless you're taking public transportation. Even then it can be routed through particular neighborhoods so that the classes don't have to mix. If you so choose, you can plan your automobile route such that you visit only ultra-sanitized franchise and chain operations that ensure that if you do have to interact with someone who doesn't look like you, they will at least be wearing a
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No, we tried the walk-based transit for 5000 years and it led to tribalism and isolation.
Who said "walk"? Can you point to 5000 years ago people biking and using public transit in population centres?
The world's best and most livable cities are universally those who are all in on a non-car transit *mix*. It's quite telling that in most indices of livability and quality of life, USA cities don't feature in the top 10.
If it becomes a chore to travel
It's a real chore is to use my car. It's far far simpler to cycle everywhere, catch metros or trams into the city, and catch trains intercity. It's faster too and I don't need to pay
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Bollocks. Big cities have the 4 tribes of the thugs, the workers, the elite and the parasites. The current fad is to let the thugs run wild, release them arrest without trial in the name of "wokeness". That tribe will probably get the jackboot soon if they don't shape themselves up.
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40,000 people were murdered in traffic accidents just in the USA last year
Murder is a deliberate act. People having car accidents are not delierately running into other people. Your hyperbole negates whatever message you were attempting.
Also, your numbers are wrong, There are an equal number of gun deaths in this country [usafacts.org]. So not only are you spouting hyperbole, you're also wrong.
Yet people want to ban guns, and nobody (except me) wants to ban vehicles.
Then you can stay in your five mile square area your
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40,000 people were murdered in traffic accidents just in the USA last year
Murder is a deliberate act. People having car accidents are not delierately running into other people. Your hyperbole negates whatever message you were attempting.
Also, your numbers are wrong, There are an equal number of gun deaths in this country [usafacts.org]. So not only are you spouting hyperbole, you're also wrong.
Yet people want to ban guns, and nobody (except me) wants to ban vehicles.
An equal number of people in the USA are "murdered" by Influenza every year. So when you guys are doing the thing where you ban your way into perfect safety, you should just use one omnibus decree to ban guns, ban cars, and ban two or more people sharing the same physical space unless wearing medical grade PPE and sterilizing body surfaces at every entry/exit.
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They *STILL* do not get it. The car of the future is not only electric but has advanced active safety systems to reduce the one million worldwide traffic fatalities.
Volvo is actually a leader in advanced automotive safety systems, so it's not clear where you're going with that.
nobody (except me) wants to ban vehicles.
Wrong again. For example I've been agitating for PRT here on Slashdot (and elsewhere, of course) for probably a decade now.
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40,000 people were not murdered by guns last year. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Of the 40,000 people killed each year (with some annual variation) in the USA the majority of them are suicides. Suicide is distinct from murder, and you don't stop suicides by taking guns. There's plenty of evidence that removing firearms doesn't lower suicides. What does lower suicides is improvements in mental health care.
Of the 20,000 or so of firearm homicides every year not everyone is murder. There is
Passenger cars are a start (Score:2)
Re:Passenger cars are a start (Score:5, Interesting)
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Worth noting that Geely are all in on electric. Beside Volvo they own several car companies that are all electric. Some gaining prominence in the west including Polestar and London EV Co. Others which are prominent in Asia such as Jidu and Geometry.
Re:Passenger cars are a start (Score:4, Informative)
Volvo cars are still developed in Sweden. Geely is fairly hands off with them.
They do use parts made by Geely in China, but so does everyone. For example, Tesla uses batteries made by CATL in China.
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Through 20+ years of owning various Volvos, including a 2021 XC40 Recharge, I can confidently say that this is bullshit.
The consumer automobile division has been sold twice, yes, but that was more than a trademark sale a la Sunbeam appliance
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New one for me. Was always "Fix Or Repair Daily"...
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Found on Road Dead (FoRD)
New one for me. Was always "Fix Or Repair Daily"...
Found on road dead is the better as it leads directly to the hilariously apt reverse substitution, driver returned on foot.
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Volvo + electric = (Score:1)
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I can't speak to Volvo electrical but I can say that as someone who has owned something like 30 used autos and 0 new ones :D a lot of the "electrical" problems I've seen have actually been oil leaks that traveled downstream or even upstream, since oil will wick in stranded wires and along cable assemblies. There's a common problem with Mercedes where the NAG1 transmission electrical connector plug (which is at the bottom, good work Mercedes) leaks expensive synthetic ATF and it will literally climb up the h
Mild hybrid... (Score:3)
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Mild hybrids offer 80% of the benefit of a normal non-plug-in hybrid at a very small percentage of the costs, including resources. They solve the auto-start-stop problem (people wanting to disable it) by making it seamless, and they offer regenerative braking in stop-and-go conditions. They are certainly inferior to plug-in hybrids, but they are not a scam at all.
The only kind of hybrid which should never be built is full non-plug-in hybrids. Those are stupid. But every car should be at least a mild hybrid.
Well this is only gonna get worse. (Score:3)