What Is The Future of The Cobra Replica Industry?

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by sunman

Superformance is already selling a Mark III-E.

The video says "coming soon in development" and shows about 5 seconds of one rolling down the road.

https://www.superformance.com/factory-models/mkiii-e

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

What I will say is that there are many, many, many homes in my neigborhood with 2-4 EV's charging everyday in our hot summer weather. And PG&E hasn't had any issue to my knowledge.

Again, I don't know who's BS'ing who.

No problems. yet. Wait until every house on every street tries it... Newer subdivisions might be OK with excess capacity, but those neighborhoods that were built in the 60s in CA that had 75A or 100A services that have been upgraded to 150 or 200A don't have the transformers for everyone to draw that much all the time and eventually the feed lines up stream will be too "small"...

Flush, flush, flush...

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

What I will say is that there are many, many, many homes in my neigborhood with 2-4 EV's charging everyday in our hot summer weather.

So Tesla says their chargers need a 40 or 50A service for the charger and they recommend a minimum 200A service (this is just for one charger port). They don't say what the peak vs steady state, nor what the duty cycle is, but with 2 at a time at night with careful power management you might be able to run two charging simultaneously and still keep things like air conditioners (30A ea) and the pool pump (30A) running at the same time. Anyone running more than one 50A load has probably brought in a second load center from the transformer. Plus, my load center had had a breaker consolidation (dual breakers per slot) to make room for a 50A motor home and hot tub 220V pair, and my panel was full - I decommissioned that for my pool pump.

Maybe you make a dedicated solar/battery system just for EV charging but I don't know what kind of Amp-Hour supply they are.

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that the typical car buyer that goes and gets a Tesla for daddy and a Ford for mommy is likely going to be surprised with a fairly expensive power upgrade.

And I don't see new home builders in Nevada touting "ready for 4 EV charging stations"... Not yet. Some day.

[t walgamuth]

The thing is that everybody will not be hooking up at the same time, so the increased capacity to serve will need to be phased in.

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that the typical car buyer that goes and gets a Tesla for daddy and a Ford for mommy is likely going to be surprised with a fairly expensive power upgrade.

And I don't see new home builders in Nevada touting "ready for 4 EV charging stations"... Not yet. Some day.

Here in Silicon Valley, I walk my dog past homes with multiple EV's charging. How they do it? I don't know, but my neighbors do have money.

The Tesla here is like a VW Bug back in the 1970's. They're everywhere, but the Taycan, Audi's, VW ID4's, etc. are popular too.

And the US just passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and EV charging infrastructure is included in there.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/10558...-bill-into-law

[Harpoon PV2]

This reminds me of the big New York City car show just before WWI. Remember Michigan was a no place still! So the big question on the journalist minds was, what will power the automobile in the future? The top two hands down was, steam and electric, petrol didn't hardly register. So who knows, may be something we are not even paying attention to! As for good old gasoline, there was a time when you could only buy it from the pharmacist, maybe we will go back to that. As for 20 years from now, I probably won't be here, 30 years I will most certainly be dead! On that bright note, cheers, Dennis

[cycleguy55]

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

The thing is that everybody will not be hooking up at the same time, so the increased capacity to serve will need to be phased in.

True, and EV charging systems are programmable to charge in 'off-peak' hours to take advantage of lower rates. That spreads the charging load on the grid over a much longer period of time.

[Buzz]

There's no way in the world that the increased demand on the power grid will go unanticipated and everyone will suddenly be left sitting in the dark with one big bang when everyone plugs in their EV's.

[fordracing65]

Electric daily driver cars ok. Electric cobras hell no.

[Unique427]

Originally Posted by fordracing65

Electric daily driver cars ok. Electric cobras hell no.

Sadly, there will likely come a day when the only option to drive something
remotely resembling a Cobra will be in EV form.

An EV Cobra replica is just too far detached from the original Shelby
cars. If it doesn't have the aroma of race gas and oil, shake like a
caged predator at idle, scare children and the elderly when revved,
then it's simply snake oil not a snake.

[Tommy]

Originally Posted by Buzz

There's no way in the world that the increased demand on the power grid will go unanticipated and everyone will suddenly be left sitting in the dark with one big bang when everyone plugs in their EV's.

My insight into commercial power companies is at least 20 years old and was in only one specific state, so it may not apply in other places. But many in the power business consider it to have three elements: power generation, long distance power distribution, and local service. When power demand increases and all you have to do is turn up the generators you can make more money and the only expense is fuel for the generator. If it's hydroelectric, its free money. But when demand exceeds the capacity of long distance distribution, even if its only for a brief period of time, it cost's a lot to add capacity that won't be used most of the time. So its hard to recoup that expense. That is why most power companies are all about evening out the demand. . . . When they want to raise rates to pay for additional distribution and/or power generation capacity, the ones I knew had to get approval from an elected government commission. Those commissioners were trying to keep their jobs by keeping rates down and often denied requests for rate hikes. It wasn't until a crisis revealed the lack of capacity that they would approve the rate increases needed for more infrastructure.

My point is that I don't find it unthinkable that politicians might delay the infrastructure needed to meet a rapid rise in demand associated with electric vehicles. The problem might not be obvious until a combination of weather and other factors cause a new peak high in demand. But it won't surprise me if it happens in multiple places across the country in coming years.

[Buzz]

Deficiencies in electricity distribution due to poor planning and allocation of budgeted funds occur all over the world. In every industry the combination of incompetence, politics and shortage of money will always lead to corners being cut in areas that come back to bite when things go bad.

It's the constantly repeated message from people who simply can't abide the very idea of electric vehicles that there's this huge overlooked issue of grid overload that makes EV's non-viable that makes me chuckle. Does anyone really believe that pundits on car forums are privy to this groundbreaking revelation and that industry moguls, scientists, infrastructure planners and engineers have never had it occur to them?

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by Buzz

Deficiencies in electricity distribution due to poor planning and allocation of budgeted funds occur all over the world. In every industry the combination of incompetence, politics and shortage of money will always lead to corners being cut in areas that come back to bite when things go bad.

It's the constantly repeated message from people who simply can't abide the very idea of electric vehicles that there's this huge overlooked issue of grid overload that makes EV's non-viable that makes me chuckle. Does anyone really believe that pundits on car forums are privy to this groundbreaking revelation and that industry moguls, scientists, infrastructure planners and engineers have never had it occur to them?

If you ask the planners they have been planning for incremental growth which is slowly, over time. Just like water, high load service areas can be upgraded as demand increases, but it's not overnight.

EVs are a paradigm shift - trading one source of energy for another. This is incremental usage that occurs, in the scale of time as utilities plan, "suddenly" and in areas that have had the same capacity for decades.

There will be capacity issues, but my guess is they will occur locally first since transformers are "right sized" and not capable of suddenly supplying twice the load...

[Buzz]

No doubt there will be localized issues. Gas powered vehicles will not go away overnight and the mass adoption of EV's will be a fast-tracked but still gradual shift that will (or should? lol!) allow for planned infrastructure upgrades in areas where the growth in demand is anticipated to be the highest.

[twobjshelbys]

In an attempt to return this to the original topic of the future of Cobras, it's interesting that the Hurricane saga is unfolding now. I seriously doubt anyone will continue the business.

[Buzz]

Sadly I agree. They made a pretty nice looking replica at a price point affordable to the average enthusiast.

[RodKnock]

What is the "Hurricane saga"?

[ERA174]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

What is the "Hurricane saga"?

[url="http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/hurricane-motorsports/146163-hurricane-motorsports-manufacturing-sales-opportunity.html"]

[eschaider]

The wife has had two Tesla's and the charging performance of the two is noticeably different. The first had an 85KW battery and the second has a 100 KW battery. The installer set our home charger for a charging amperage of 64 AMPS. The charger was attached to a 240V 200 AMP service. I asked why he chose 64 AMPS and got an unintelligible answer. I asked if a 200 amp service would support the top 80 amp charging available on the unit. The answer was a clear yes. When I asked him to use the 80 amp setting, we were again back to the unintelligible communication mode of operation.

I used it at the 64 amp setting for a month or so and was not particularly impressed with charging speed. I elected to open the wall unit and reset the controls for 80 amp service — big difference in time to charge. Instead of a nearly all-night charge time, it dropped to a done by about 3 AM or so performance with an 11:30 PM start time.

When she got the new Tesla, even with the service on the wall device set to 80 amps, the car would only use 72 amps and the charge time predictably was proportionally longer.

The highly touted gas savings that EV vehicles provide is not as significant as it seems pre-purchase. Until gas prices went crazy, my 520HP BMW only ran about $150 to $190 per month — about $2000 or so for a yearly high water mark. With Biden's gasoline pricing, that is obviously different, but with normal gasoline pricing, the fuel cost incentive to buy an electric vehicle is simply not there.

While Tesla has significantly improved the driving experience with respect to vehicle handling since the early vehicles, it is still not what the BMW is, and the fit, finish, and creature comforts of the BMW far exceed the TESLA. At least as of right now, a dollar spent on a non-electric vehicle buys you a better driving experience at a small (pre-Biden) increase in fuel cost than the same dollar spent on an EV. Even with the post-Biden gasoline pricing, the non-EV alternative still looks pretty good to me.

Parting thought, an interesting observation about car performance, the Tesla is a close but not quite an even match for the BMW from a dead stop. From a roll like you might experience, passing on the highway, there is no comparison. The BMW wins, hands down.

From a creature comfort, performance, and cost of operation perspective, EVs are close but not quite there yet.

[mr bruce]

Way more stuff that affects your daily life is made outta that barrel of oil, than gasoleen.