Anyone Shying Away from the Complexity of New Equipment

[ultrarunner]

The fleet owners I know saw this coming and did massive sell offs here in California... the utilities were ahead of the curve.

The owner operators are the ones hurting... know several that decided to shut down... they simply could not justify the expense.

 

[3930dave]

The fleet owners I know saw this coming and did massive sell offs here in California... the utilities were ahead of the curve.

The owner operators are the ones hurting... know several that decided to shut down... they simply could not justify the expense.

Complexity has a price.

Either:

1) Material transportation costs will go up.

- or -

2) The 1% need to figure out how they are going to off-shore domestic trucking.


UR - what are the CA utilities doing now ? Leasing trucks, then dumping them at 2 years ?

Rgds, D.

 

[ultrarunner]

PGE covers a lot of the State... they were auctioning off equipment... one of the guys told me a lot of it was going to Oklahoma???

I still see chippers cities are selling off because of non-compliant Diesels... funny thing is it has reversed the market... used gas chippers sell for more than used diesel chippers.

One of the guys I work with was able to keep his Dump because his land is zoned AG with a boarding barn... there are limits...

Basically, it all comes down to anyone other than AG that makes a living... so over the road truckers, utilities, municipal and contractors are the ones biting the bullet.

 

[3930dave]

Other than Ag, the options seem to be:

1) Buy new diesels, and deal with the downtime and major repairs as they come along.

2) Lease new diesels, and short-cycle them back if major repairs turn into an epidemic.

3) Keep old pre-emission diesels on the road.

4) Go out of business.

For jurisdictions (like Cali. ?) that don't allow #3, I can only see consumer costs going up.

Rgds, D.

 

[randy41]

this thread should be called the rage against the machine thread.makes you wonder who's in charge? the chips or the humans?

 

[3930dave]

It's the diminishing return thing.... on a personal level that is.

It's almost as if most product companies looked at the cell phone market and said "Ya know, if we could get our customers trained to buy that often..... " :checkeredflag: :checkeredflag: :checkeredflag:

I appreciate not changing spark plugs every few thousand miles. I can install and gap points just fine, but I'm OK with skipping that too.

Sorry.... when the NEW IMPROVED bell goes off, I don't start salivating just becuz that new car can auto-sink my DumbFone with some Twit talking about his Noze_In_A_Magazine in 0.2739 nanoseconds.

Produce the EV1 Parallel diesel hybrid, and you have my undivided attention though.

Substance I'll look at, baubles and trinkets, not so much. :2cents:

Rgds, D.

 

[adirondackmtnman]

It's almost as if most product companies looked at the cell phone market and said "Ya know, if we could get our customers trained to buy that often..... "

I've often thought that consumer product companies milk us for big purchases with a 'How much is the top dollar they'll spend every month, and how can we make sure they trade up every time they get close to the end of their financing?' attitude. Unfortunately, seems like a lot of companies keep us buying new with a lack of quality/durability.

Sent from my LGL35G using TractorByNet

 

[3930dave]

I've often thought that consumer product companies milk us for big purchases with a 'How much is the top dollar they'll spend every month, and how can we make sure they trade up every time they get close to the end of their financing?' attitude. Unfortunately, seems like a lot of companies keep us buying new with a lack of quality/durability.

Sent from my LGL35G using TractorByNet

There is a line of popular tablets that I won't buy. On those, if you want more memory, you have to buy a new one.

I choose to not ignore the lesson from "640k is enough". If/when I buy a tablet, it will have expandable memory.

That's my preference, but a major company that wants to produce in high volume can't ignore consumer trends. New vehicles are being differentiated more and more as "mobile interconnect platforms" and other similar phrases that don't have anything to do with the utitility of physical transportation.

Vehicle marketing has usually been directed "Young". Some of this latest marketing spin may be motivated out of desperation - fewer young people (being mostly an urban population today) are getting driver's licenses than in the past.

These interconnect features are being added to vehicles partly as an attempt to get these "late bloomer" drivers to put down their smartphones, and get behind the wheel.

Often Ignorance is Bliss..... you really don't want to know about the # of software control threads zooming around on a modern car.... and that's just in the infotainment system !

I expect this trend to keep moving past light vehicles in a big way, once it has a critical mass there.

Rgds, D.

 

[ultrarunner]

Vehicle marketing has usually been directed "Young". Some of this latest marketing spin may be motivated out of desperation - fewer young people (being mostly an urban population today) are getting driver's licenses than in the past.

So true... I know many kids having no desire to drive... some in their early 20's without a license.

On the other hand... parents seem to drive their kids everywhere and in California... someone age 16 cannot drive other minors not family.

When I was 16 some high school friends and I drove from Oakland CA to Canada over Christmas... great trip and good memories... it would be illegal today.