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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2025

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  • There are some unfortunate facts to consider.

    1. PHEVs get nowhere near the claimed CO2 emissions because a lot of people simply don’t charge them
    2. PHEVs that DO get used mostly as EVs can develop issues with the ICE not being used enough (cars are funny: parts that are supposed to move, wear when they move, but also don’t like it when they don’t get to move enough)
    3. Okay, cool, you like PHEVs. Toyota now finally has options for you on that front (They even lagged with that, at least here in Europe they had mostly non-plugin hybrids for the longest time), but what about the people who’d like to cut their emissions now rather than in 2040? Toyota offers them no viable solutions unless they want a BZ4X which is a boring box. Which is what Toyota has always done, but here’s the thing: The boring Toyota box was always more reliable than the non-boring competition. With EVs this is no longer such a clear-cut case, as the most important bits get an 8 year warranty from nearly everyone, and there’s no quad-turbo setup to go wrong on BMW EVs, no expensive timing chains on Audi EVs, etc. THe BZ4X doesn’t really stand out in anything.




  • Ah, so I have a joke about Soviet corruption that applies to modern Russia too

    A brand new apartment building in Moscow collapses. Investigators are sent to interrogate the suspects.

    First they ask the sand. The sand defends itself: “How could you even suspect me? I’m so white, pure of heart!”

    Second they ask a brick. The brick replies: “Look at me, so red. An exemplary communist, how could you suspect me?”

    Last, they ask the cement. The cement goes: “Why are you blaming me? I wasn’t even there!”



  • There are no competitive Japanese EVs

    Gonna have to agree there.

    Years ago, I thought Toyota would pivot and become a forerunner in the EV revolution. They already put electric motors in their cars, they had hybrid versions of nearly everything they made a decade ago already!

    Now it’s been over a decade since Tesla made EVs an actual thing you could drive in the public’s eyes… and the only electric Toyota that’s not a van, that I can buy right now, is still the bZ4X which was kinda uninspiring when it came out… let alone now.

    At least earlier European electric cars (Volvo, BMW, Audi mostly) have started depreciating enough that they’re in my ballpark now. I don’t want to pay 30k EUR for a car that costs 30k EUR new, but I’ll pay 30k EUR for a car that was 80k just 2-3 years ago. It’s just one of my quirks, I want to get as much car as possible for as little money as possible, and to make up for it, I’ll do my own repairs on formerly expensive, complex European automobiles.