I have been a fan of Will Prowse (fella in the video) for many years. He has been a strong voice of reason for a lot of emerging technology over the years. He seems very middle of the road and call someone (a company) out if they are making a poor product. For example, he has owned several Tesla vehicles and he had a Plaid Model S that the door handle kept breaking. I believe he returned the vehicle and moved on.

Anyway, I thought this video was informative and entertaining.

 

Buy and justify your purchase as required. What I don't want is for the auto industry to require another bail out.

 

Quite wise for such a young man indeed. I did find one fault with some of what he stated about financing vehicles, apparently he was born with a silver spoon in cheek that he doesn't realize most people, MOST people have no choice due to the insanely climbing prices of auto's..everything!

My 1st house as an example was 44,500 for 1577 sq' with an acre of rural land back in 1995. My current truck cost me damn near as much as the first house @ 34,995 in 2013.

Sorry for the digression but felt it necessary for the topic, so he does have to rethink his stance on at least that part of his opinion. I stopped watching about half way to get that out before I forgot, getting old sux and listening to him ramble on about human atrocities happening in another country just soured my stomach for the subject at hand, he still has some maturing to do. Anywho, I wholeheartedly agree that people should stop griping about what the gov/grid/etal isn't giving them and get off the **** and DIY the American way. I've been rocking a 6kW solar array on my home for 11 years now, I'd have the entire roof covered if the state would stay the hell out of my business, they put the 6kW limit on residential where I roost.

What I don't use gets fed back into the grid for everyone else to use, if ALL of my neighbors did the same thing, no one would have to pay much of an electric bill.

 

Are you just upset that he mentioned child and slave labor in rare earth mining or did you find inaccuracies with the information he presented? Slavery absolutely does exist today behind everything from cobalt, to diamond and gold in Africa, to peeled shrimp and garlic from Asia.

 

I am not sure about his upbringing, but with nearly 1M subscribers and running his own forum on solar and batteries, I would think he is doing OK by a lot of standards.

Your right about the cost of things rising and in my opinion it is difficult to compare the cost of something 40+ years ago to now. My parents bought their first home for $40,000 and it was a large 4 bedroom home. I bought my third new car (Audi S4) for $50,000 in 2004. Someone could buy a 427 Camaro for $4,500 in 1969.

For me and my research into solar power generation and battery energy storage he has been a voice of reason. He is not the only source I absorb for knowledge. I go with "trust, but verify" in almost every aspect of my life.

I hope you watched the last three segments of the video as I think it sums up what people like Tom have been saying for quite a while and only solidifies the fact that an EV is not right for everyone, but is dead on right for some.

 

I am 100,000% onboard with this! In my humble opinion, there should be NO bailouts. No corporation or manufacture is "too big to fail". The best product will win the consumers over. That product may not always be the best if the manufacturer loses their way.

If a corporation or business is going to fail without a loan or grant from the government, let them fail. Let them pay the price and provide a lesson on what not to do for any other big business watching from their boardroom.

Will is very middle of the road in my opinion and that is how he won my viewership and interest years ago. He is doing much better now than he was back then, but he still provides no BS details about everything solar and batters in an informative and entertaining format.

 

I mention "silver spoon" due to the fact anything solar, that's worth a damn isn't cheap, the system on my home installed was over 15 grand back in 2013 with no batteries, it's grid tied only and shuts off when the grid does. I can add batteries to the system for the tidy cost close to 10 grand per and size of the home dictates how many you would need. In my case 2 would suffice, 3 would be my comfort zone so another 20-30 grand/install costs. You can compare your own use case costs with this link. https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

Generac is coming out with their own version of the Powerwall or have already, I stopped looking into it after the sticker shock of the Tesla branded.

So yes, he isn't being realistic at all for the general public on that aspect, Just because he has a lot of subscribers, does not make him an expert where other peoples finances are concerned. No ev's are not for everyone, I never stated they were, I have said many times it's subjective and a lot of most people in the general public can't afford to think the way he does. There's nothing to read into what I'm saying, it is what it is.

Lagniappe: For consideration of having solar in place, here's a 10 year span of system performance, well 9.5 years thus far. Still have the unknown variable that is nature that ultimately dictates what the system will produce up to it's capacity in my area.

 

Sir, I never said you stated that EV's were for everyone or not. I merely brought his comments and thoughts to light in the way of his video. My apologies if my post insinuated that you were stating that EV's were for everyone, that was not my intention at all.

Since the COVID debacle of 2020, our quiet country home is not so much in the country any longer. There has been a mass exodus from the cities to our area due to the climate, access to niceties and the lake living environment. My wife and I have been contemplating purchasing some land in the mountains of NC, GA, TN, WV, etc that is off grid and very rural. We as a family that plans and lives debt free know all too well what the cost of a reliable and efficient home solar system and battery storage costs are. We would be producing energy via solar, wind and hydro with adequate battery storage capacity to supply our home and a propane or diesel generator for backup/emergency service. We are considering selling the property we own now and going all in on a self sustaining homestead, but we will ponder on that for a bit and go from there.

I appreciate you taking the time to educate other readers and give them a bit of insight into what they may not be aware of though.

The subscriber count was not an assumption that he knows what he is talking about or is an expert. Again, I go with "trust, but verify" as a mantra for most things in my life. I simply meant that he is likely doing reasonably well financially due to YouTube ad payments.

Have a nice weekend!

 

I would love to have a place in the mountains with a strong running stream for hydropower. Couple that with solar would be ideal, If batteries weren't so expensive. Tap into geothermal and all other natural power sources are obsolete but at what cost? I'm afraid to look that one up.

 

With China being allowed to dump their solar panels via cheap prices made possible by their highly questionable labor and environmental practices, the solar boom people want to see will only reward China's ruthless quest for cheap labor(at home as well as in overseas regions where labor is even cheaper than in China) and blatant disregard for the environment in their pursuit of solar power market domination, all the while telling the US to pound sand.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/b...olar-boom.html

 

Bit curious... Did you have any information for the silver spoon comment or was it a baseless assumption? It got me curious so I did a bit of quick looking and found him saying he had lived in vehicles for 8 years in a 2017 post when he introduced himself on vanlivingforum and a thread about his background on the diysolarforum so unless the dude is a huge scammer, I do agree with your later comment:

but not because he is clueless about their finances, but because he is clueless of their attitudes.

 

I sort of like the new "Ford Ethics" about Dealership Participation.
"Let's just get em sold and read reports later about the facts as they happen."
The Owners will take care of the systems deficiencies. They'll charge em.
They will take them to somebody for repair. It's all their problems. ...
Ultimately the publics will carries what happens. Bailouts are part Auto Mfg.
After all its the Buyers power that pushes changes, not us.
We are too big to let fail. We deserve the Taxpayers support too! ...
__________________________________________________
"Master Sarge'nt, it? Sell - Sell - Sell !"
"You're the Guy, Sign here !" "The World needs you!"

 

Figure of speech. Born with a silver spoon, has money, born into money, who knows. To spell it out in plain clear English. He stated "People shouldn't finance vehicles"

Maybe he hit the lottery or some rich relative died or maybe he has no family and only himself to support who knows, point is, MOST people can't just come out of pocket like he thinks they should in saying they shouldn't finance.

 

Telling people who cannot pay cash for something to not get into large debt on depreciating assets is hardly a controversial position.

My folks were lower middle class at best when I was a kid, and they didn't buy a new car until their 40s and always paid cash for used but well taken care of cars before that. They instead put what extra cash they had toward a house. If you HAVE to finance a car, you cannot afford that car. In my life time I have had many people telling me "I finance so my money can invest and grow on the side", of those people exactly zero had the equivalent of the purchasing price stashed away in a brokerage account, and they have no idea how much they get taxed on short term realized gains on investment when they tell me how many percent they *could* make.

The fast increasing car prices of today is a direct result of people willing to take out ever larger loans to get butts in new seats. Any time people have access to easy credit, price of goods and services go up, be it cars, education, home renovation, mattresses, appliances, whathaveyou.

 

Spring 2021


The reason for high inflation really isn't that complex. It is driven by Government Deficit spending and Pandemic, stay at home rules. No stuff was made.
Not one bit of the Money the government sent Taxpayers of the BS Check meant a thing. Yellen raising interest rates fueled it. Why, Gov overspending.
We get hit from both ends certainly. Sure workers need raises to offset high prices. Drive across a city, no traffic during the pandemic. Parking lots MT.
So you figure it. Is the new auto worth 33,000 - $90,000 ? Is the used Auto worth $20,000 - $40,000 ? Public transportation is attractive for many now.

Credit card interest rates of 22% - 27%. ... Over $80 for a sheet of tongue & groove plywood.

They're building a Duplex across the street for 2 years now. Can imagine its selling price for 2 families. No basement. At Least 10 large Cement trucks poured it all.