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Captain Ned wrote:

Also, the only way an Uber/Lyft driver is getting the mileage deduction is if they file their driving income on a Schedule C. Ordinary taxpayers can no longer deduct unreimbursed employee travel expenses under the 2017 tax law changes. See here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-02.pdf.

So Uber/Lyft drivers, many who want to be classified as employees, would lose their mileage deductions if they were successful in that quest.

Yeah exactly! That's probably why the retired dude was so against it as well, the flexibility of work hours and the access to those savings when filing with his Prius.

It's one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations for sure.

Captain Ned wrote:

Also, the only way an Uber/Lyft driver is getting the mileage deduction is if they file their driving income on a Schedule C. Ordinary taxpayers can no longer deduct unreimbursed employee travel expenses under the 2017 tax law changes. See here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-02.pdf.

So Uber/Lyft drivers, many who want to be classified as employees, would lose their mileage deductions if they were successful in that quest.

Its very complicated though. Uber/Lyft drivers are on the hook for Social Security Taxes as independent contractors (12.4% Social Security tax on self-employed), while if they were an employee, their Social Security tax would be halved (6.2% for the employee, 6.2% given to the employer). It'd be a lot of math for me to see which one is beneficial at the end of the day. Ditto for Medicare taxes and workers comp.

dragontamer5788 wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

Also, the only way an Uber/Lyft driver is getting the mileage deduction is if they file their driving income on a Schedule C. Ordinary taxpayers can no longer deduct unreimbursed employee travel expenses under the 2017 tax law changes. See here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-02.pdf.

So Uber/Lyft drivers, many who want to be classified as employees, would lose their mileage deductions if they were successful in that quest.

Its very complicated though. Uber/Lyft drivers are on the hook for Social Security Taxes as independent contractors (12.4% Social Security tax on self-employed), while if they were an employee, their Social Security tax would be halved (6.2% for the employee, 6.2% given to the employer). It'd be a lot of math for me to see which one is beneficial at the end of the day...

It is probably impossible to figure that out with any degree of certainty. If they get reclassified as employees, you can bet their gross compensation will also get adjusted downwards so that they're effectively still paying part of that "employer's" share.

dragontamer5788 wrote:

Its very complicated though. Uber/Lyft drivers are on the hook for Social Security Taxes as independent contractors (12.4% Social Security tax on self-employed), while if they were an employee, their Social Security tax would be halved (6.2% for the employee, 6.2% given to the employer). It'd be a lot of math for me to see which one is beneficial at the end of the day. Ditto for Medicare taxes and workers comp.

Since I've already uninstalled TurboTax for my 2018 filings, I'll let someone else work the multi-variate equation.

Captain Ned wrote:

Also, the only way an Uber/Lyft driver is getting the mileage deduction is if they file their driving income on a Schedule C. Ordinary taxpayers can no longer deduct unreimbursed employee travel expenses under the 2017 tax law changes. See here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-02.pdf.

So Uber/Lyft drivers, many who want to be classified as employees, would lose their mileage deductions if they were successful in that quest.

Depends -- it can actually be a better deal if the employees successfully demand expense reimbursements. I get reimbursed at the IRS standard mileage rate for business use of my vehicle conducted on behalf of my employer, and that's a straight cash reimbursement, not a tax deduction that I have to claim later. The only limit is that expenses have to be submitted within 30 days of being incurred.

Of course, given Uber/Lyft's true financial predicament and necessary push toward autonomy, if they get forced into that corner I would expect them to pinch every penny until Lincoln screams.

ludi wrote:

Of course, given Uber/Lyft's true financial predicament and necessary push toward autonomy, if they get forced into that corner I would expect them to pinch every penny until Lincoln screams.

My guess is they'll probably go a step further and tie things up in court for as long as they can if they have to while they wait for their self driving stuff to work well enough to deploy.

I think that's probably their end game and they're pinning their hopes on that happening in the next few years. In theory that would drop their costs down from ~80 to ~20 cents per mile if they can pull it off.

That's my guess as to what they're up to, they're just delaying things.

Thought this was cool to share:

"Tesla Model 3 Performance shatters all-time EV lap record at Laguna Seca"
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3 ... eca-video/

The electric four-door family sedan’s 1:37.5 lap time soundly beats the Jaguar I-PACE, driven by legendary racecar driver Randy Pobst around the track in 1:48.6, by nearly 11 seconds. More importantly, Model 3 Performance beat the previous all-time record set by Lucid Motors in their purpose-built, 1,000 hp Air prototype that included a stripped out interior and a full roll cage.

The electric sedan’s new lap record at Laguna Seca Raceway suggests that the CEO’s words were accurate, as the vehicle’s 1:37.5 time bests that of far costlier performance cars, including the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, BMW M4 GTS, the Porsche 911, and the Aston Martin Vantage.

Not bad for a souped up family sedan lol.

Autonomous vehicle technology is going nowhere fast, so if that's all the rideshare companies got they may as well start planning the bankruptcy papers. It's got basically the same problem that the additive manufacturing industry had when it went after consumers, it all sounds really great in the marketing spiel but falls apart when some of those much-hyped regular guys actually go off and try to use the stuff. They also have the small problem that what they do is borderline illegal in most jurisdictions, they only get away with it through a combination of R&P marketing and a public that sees them as less crooked than the taxi cabal.

wierdo wrote:

Thought this was cool to share:

"Tesla Model 3 Performance shatters all-time EV lap record at Laguna Seca"
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3 ... eca-video/

The electric four-door family sedan’s 1:37.5 lap time soundly beats the Jaguar I-PACE, driven by legendary racecar driver Randy Pobst around the track in 1:48.6, by nearly 11 seconds. More importantly, Model 3 Performance beat the previous all-time record set by Lucid Motors in their purpose-built, 1,000 hp Air prototype that included a stripped out interior and a full roll cage.

The electric sedan’s new lap record at Laguna Seca Raceway suggests that the CEO’s words were accurate, as the vehicle’s 1:37.5 time bests that of far costlier performance cars, including the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, BMW M4 GTS, the Porsche 911, and the Aston Martin Vantage.

Not bad for a souped up family sedan lol.

They took the corkscrew turn at 90! Oh, the driver was at km/hr instead of miles/hr. Stupid. Lol. Anyway, that's a good time for sure for Laguna Seca.

But in any case, that's a horrible article.

It should be noted that the Model 3 Performance is Tesla’s most affordable Performance vehicle in its lineup. The car currently retails for $59,900, and is available in multiple territories today, meaning customers in North America, Europe, and China could acquire a car with the performance to beat nearly all production cars around a track. If that’s not an inflection point for the motoring world, it’s hard to imagine what is.

Uhhh... the car that was tested on that track was heavily modified. They shouldn't be implying that a stock Model 3 could do the Laguna Seca in that kind of time. Stock cars probably will have their brakes overheat if you ever drove them as rough as the driver does in that youtube video. Laguna Seca is a very difficult track.

But yeah, that's definitely a good time for sure. I don't think I was expecting to see an EV sub 1:40 for a few more years.

dragontamer5788 wrote:

They shouldn't be implying that a stock Model 3 could do the Laguna Seca in that kind of time. Stock cars probably will have their brakes overheat if you ever drove them as rough as the driver does in that youtube video. Laguna Seca is a very difficult track.

But yeah, that's definitely a good time for sure. I don't think I was expecting to see an EV sub 1:40 for a few more years.

Yeah I think they probably modified it similar to this early model in white that they were working with (modifications listed toward the end):

https://www.mountainpassperformance.com/the-future/

Probably stiffer suspension parts, bigger brake rotors and pads, and better track tires. The old white one was a non-performance model that they hacked to disable the traction control, the black in the video was the performance model so they skipped that modification since they now had track mode to use instead.

The standards brakes are solid Brembo stuff, fine for the occasional action, but they do indeed end up overheating after a few laps, not ideal for full-time track racing. I'm not sure which brand they replaced that with, looks like their own brand.

I guess too early for extreme mods, but the scene is starting to grow lately, and I'm kinda keeping an eye on these guys cause they seem to know what they're doing, their background was modding ICE cars in the past.

Maybe some day they'll dabble into adding ultra-capacitors, now that would be hardcore, would love to see that lol.

Talking of extreme mods to electric cars https://www.flux-capacitor.co.uk/

notfred wrote:

Talking of extreme mods to electric cars https://www.flux-capacitor.co.uk/

Man this brings memories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6VJ6_4yCkw

Two years later and this Johnny guy now co-hosts on that channel, and the popularity of the show is now at a point where they do large annual EV events that attract almost every car manufacturer showing off their EV goods, really good stuff.

broke the street legal EV record at Santa Pod running 10.84 seconds at 121.11mph (0-102mph in 6.9seconds)

Fun stuff lol.

He's gone faster since then:
https://www.flux-capacitor.co.uk/0-121m ... seconds-2/

A pair of 10.24s within 5 minutes to sit a world record, and a single 9.86 @121mph

wierdo wrote:

Maybe some day they'll dabble into adding ultra-capacitors, now that would be hardcore, would love to see that lol.

I believe Tesla buying Maxwell was largely in part due to the technology Maxwell had concerning their ultra-capacitor technology.

Sargent Duck wrote:

I believe Tesla buying Maxwell was largely in part due to the technology Maxwell had concerning their ultra-capacitor technology.

So, we've gone from hybrids providing low RPM torque to normal engines to ultra-capacitors doing the same for electrics. How, then, do we juice the ultra-capacitors? Mr. Fusion?

Sargent Duck wrote:

I believe Tesla buying Maxwell was largely in part due to the technology Maxwell had concerning their ultra-capacitor technology.

Could be, Maxwell also has this "dry electrode coating" technology that may give Tesla a nice savings on battery costs as well as an increase in energy density. This might be the biggest reason, as even a 5-10 percent cost savings would pay for the acquisition within a year at Tesla's production scale!

Prior to the acquisition I believe Tesla was visiting their labs regularly for a year or two to try out their solutions, I guess they really liked what they saw and moved from licensing plans to outright buying the company out lol.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/t ... nsity.html
https://insideevs.com/news/352697/tesla ... ment-cost/

The Maxwell dry battery electrode technology could increase battery energy density by 50% and eventually could nearly triple energy density from current levels. The technology can also lower the cost of batteries by 10 to 20% and double the life of batteries.

For reference, 500Wh/kg could give the Model 3 a ~900 mile range. I’m sure they won’t do that cause that’s nutty, they’d just put a smaller pack in a car for less cost per car and lower weight

Exciting stuff, and Tesla seems to be excited as well as they're talking about hosting a "battery" conference soon, similar to the one they did for their self driving technology, which sadly went over the heads of Wallstreet suits that attended, but had a ton of really cool technical info.

Maybe they'll use this as an opportunity to give their Model S/X lines a major refresh, who knows!

wierdo wrote:

Prior to the acquisition I believe Tesla was visiting their labs regularly for a year or two to try out their solutions, I guess they really liked what they saw and moved from licensing plans to outright buying the company out lol.!

Tha could have been a defensive move to keep it out of the hands of the competition who have deeper pockets and much larger potential scale.

With all of this great industry insight and informed speculation flying around this thread, can anyone venture a guess when hybrids or EVs will reach price parity with ICE?

Exciting stuff, and Tesla seems to be excited as well as they're talking about hosting a "battery" conference soon

Not really.

Tesla simply doesn't have the money to spin up a mass-production Lithium Ion cell production line.

FireGryphon wrote:

With all of this great industry insight and informed speculation flying around this thread, can anyone venture a guess when hybrids or EVs will reach price parity with ICE?

Iron is significantly cheaper to mine, refine, and machine than Cobalt / Lithium / Rare Earth Metals. Its basically impossible for EVs to be mass-produced on the scale of ICE within 10 years. Battery technology will need a significant advancement away from rare-earth metals mined from unfriendly nations (or... a large-deposit of the metals need to be found in a "friendly" 3rd world country and distributed to the western world) before EVs can be built on the same scale as ICE.

Realistically, companies are going to be buying cells from Panasonic, LG Chem, and other chemical companies for quite some time into the future. Eventually, new battery chemistry will change everything for the better, but car companies aren't really making the investments in this hard science yet. No, not even Tesla.

I know Tesla / Elon Musk likes to pretend that they're doing things. But just take a look at their R&D expenses, they simply can't afford new R&D research on top of everything else they're doing. There's no Tesla Semi yet, there's no Tesla Truck, the Model Y needs to be rolled out, and the Model S and X need a refresh. And their R&D budget hasn't changed at all. Its all just hype, you can't fund all of these research projects unless you have... well... funding.

You look at all the projects that Tesla is hyping, and the ONLY feasible project with their current budget is the Model Y, maybe the Model S & X refreshes. Maybe the Tesla Semi, if its a "small" enough project (non-mass production. Very small production lines. Etc. etc.). Otherwise, expect these moonshot projects to go the same as the "Tesla Solar Roof". Completely nowhere and ignored in just a year.

Sargent Duck wrote:

To Lease or too buy an EV?

Lease.


Alright.....there, I’ve answered it. Everyone can go home now, discussion is over.

FireGryphon wrote:

With all of this great industry insight and informed speculation flying around this thread, can anyone venture a guess when hybrids or EVs will reach price parity with ICE?

Hmm I had a detailed post here but for some reason it seems to be gone. Here's the brief:

Experts expect EV prices to hit parity somewhere between 2022-2025, and then become even more affordable than ICE vehicles after that point.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scen ... ry-prices/



EVs have around 20 moving parts vs 15000 in ICE vehicles, so they can be much cheaper to manufacturer aside from battery costs, and those prices have been dropping rapidly every year, prices have gone down by around 85 percent since 2010.

What that graph is telling me is that most of the cost reductions available via cheaper battery tech have already been realized. That does not bode well for future EV price reductions.

Also, claiming that EVs have only 20 moving parts is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on the internet.

wierdo wrote:

Experts expect EV prices to hit parity somewhere between 2022-2025, and then become even more affordable than ICE vehicles after that point.

Again, the CEO of Tesla has made a public statement that the battery pack of a Tesla Model 3, currently, is between 3k and 7k.

That is replacement pricing, which is presumably higher than the internal cost to Tesla as installed at the factory as part of the original OEM sale of an entire vehicle.

Which means that, even liberally, this is still either 10% or 20% of the cost of the vehicle.

Thus, assuming the cost was eventually driven to zero (impossible!), that means that battery price improvements can only ever provide a 10%-20% price differential.

Hence, the methodology of using battery price as the determinant for "EV prices" is already absurd.

Because EVs aren't really just "10-20% more expense, are they?

JBI wrote:

What that graph is telling me is that most of the cost reductions available via cheaper battery tech have already been realized. That does not bode well for future EV price reductions.

In particular, it's not really due to the tech, primarily just mass production.

Which can misleading, because EV battery packs have gone "since 2010" from being completely bespoke concept vehicles, to truly mass produced cars.

Of course the unit cost is absurdly higher for a Roadster's "battery pack" versus the Model 3. They made as many roadsters is like 3 years as they make Model 3s in THREE DAYS.

wierdo wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

I believe Tesla buying Maxwell was largely in part due to the technology Maxwell had concerning their ultra-capacitor technology.

Could be, Maxwell also has this "dry electrode coating" technology that may give Tesla a nice savings on battery costs as well as an increase in energy density. This might be the biggest reason, as even a 5-10 percent cost savings would pay for the acquisition within a year at Tesla's production scale!

Ah...the dry coating makes more sense. I remembered reading something about Tesla/Maxwell, just couldn't remember what. Thanks for the links.

just brew it! wrote:

claiming that EVs have only 20 moving parts is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on the internet.

I don't see what's ridiculous about this, it's just an obvious benefit of the motor design, modern ICE engines are extremely complex beasts, it's a wonder they're so cheap to manufacture, all thanks to a century of investments and research sunk into them.

By comparison an EV motor, in simple terms, is just a big weave of wires around a moving pole, powered by a static bank of batteries and usually a fixed gear ratio setup.

Engine specific estimate on the high end:
http://evworld.com/library/American_Gro ... eport2.pdf

I describe the simplicity of the motor with one moving part, and compare that to the complexity of 15,000 moving parts that must all be working together synchronously in order for the engine in their car to operate properly.

And for fairness, since defining and counting the moving parts can results in a variety of numbers depending on how you want to define it, this one's more optimistic in its measurement, maybe the best case for an ICE vehicle's system complexity, still counting in the thousands:
https://medium.com/@tomprice_22461/the- ... 1adec75498

Fewer parts means less wearing out. Which means less replacing, and higher use factors. The NTSB says the average ICE will last around 150,000 miles. An EV? At least 500,000, maybe as much as 1,000,000. Or put another way, as much as you will ever drive in your lifetime. Then there’s the fuel — to drive 15,000 miles costs about $1,400 using gas, but only $540 using electricity. At the same time, the cost of electricity from solar is plummeting, dropping 90% in the last ten years with no floor in sight — meaning every mile is just going to get cheaper to drive.

An EV with no gear box, pistons, starter, etc, it all adds up. Either way you cut it, the difference is usually somewhere between 2 and 3 orders of magnitude in moving parts.

Also seems the article has a nice price chart showing EVs hitting the $22k cost point in 2022, which apparently is considered low-end ICE vehicle price range by the piece:

Right, so someone thinks road ICEs still use carburetors. Sounds like a reliable, up-to-date source of information.

If the goal is to point out that brushless direct-drive electric motors are reliable beasts, no argument there. However, a good many of the parts in an ICE are not high wear merely because they move. Routine maintenance and failures are limited to a few specific areas of the engine, while other areas often last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Also, a major cause of vehicle write-off in roughly half of the US and all of Canada isn't drivetrain failure, it's rust from aggressive winter road maintenance. Accidents also take out a large number, and increasingly the write-off isn't due to the cost of repairing the body or drivetrain, but of replacing and/or calibrating the airbags and various automation sensors and systems.

ludi wrote:

Right, so someone thinks road ICEs still use carburetors. Sounds like a reliable, up-to-date source of information.
If the goal is to point out that brushless direct-drive electric motors are reliable beasts, no argument there. However, a good many of the parts in an ICE are not high wear merely because they move. Routine maintenance and failures are limited to a few specific areas of the engine, while other areas often last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Also, a major cause of vehicle write-off in roughly half of the US and all of Canada isn't drivetrain failure, it's rust from aggressive winter road maintenance. Accidents also take out a large number, and increasingly the write-off isn't due to the cost of repairing the body or drivetrain, but of replacing and/or calibrating the airbags and various automation sensors and systems.

Sure, but what about the operational expenses? You have to maintain all those moving parts to stave off a premature end of life, the more there are the more potential points of failure, and obviously adds more complexity and cost to maintenance for the owner.

How many moving parts would you consider a modern ICE vehicle to have? I've seen anywhere from 2000 to 15000 from what I've read so far.

Visually speaking and in simple terms, we can tell the massive difference in complexity, one is dealing with the complexity of thermodynamics etc, the other is just working with a magnetic field:


vs


https://www.samarins.com/glossary/dohc.html
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/11/te ... -in-depth/

Why is is strange that one technology would have less moving parts then? The advantage of ICE engines is not in their simplicity, but rather the extremely high energy density of gasoline compared to current battery technology.

That chart BLATENTLY says it assumes that an EV costs 3x its battery and 16٪ annual improvement in battery cost.

Since Elon Musk publicly said that the model 3 is either 5x or 10x the cost of its battery, we are already done. This model is already bluntly wrong.

And of course it is absurd anyway, why would the proportion be fixed?

This is abject nonsense.

Battery cost trend so far:

wierdo wrote:

Sure, but what about the operational expenses? You have to maintain all those moving parts, the more there are the more potential points of failure, and obviously adds more complexity and cost to maintenance for the owner.

The maintenance of the ICE specific parts tends to be "change the oil" for the first 100k miles for most people these days, at least in my experience.

Meanwhile, in an actual independent dataset, tesla contends for the bottom three in reliability.