Is Ecomodder dying/dead??
 

When I join this page probably about 9 years ago, it was always active, always something new to read and learn.

What happened?

It looks like the main page hasn't been updated in years.
We still get some people posting fuel logs, but nothing like it once was. It use to update what seemed like 50 times a day. Now we get less than 10, along with less and less new cars added it seems.

I think car ownership itself is kind of dying. Younger people my age don't want to own a car, or don't want to commute more than a few miles.

Also at the same time, new cars have gotten more fuel efficient and fuel prices were pretty low for the last few years.

Yep zoomers don’t want a car let alone drive one.

They want a car to be a boring appliance like a toaster and don’t want to touch it or fix it.

Many “car” forums have died
The diyelectriccar forum has suffered even more

Also a reflection that many zoomers hate forums in general and just want to watch as created 15 second videos instead and make comments that disappear after a few minutes

Different world

Ecomodder.com came along at the perfect time.
Gas hit $3 a gallon for the first time, there were no useable electric cars in production, hybrids were almost nonexistent.

That is kind of true for most of my generation indeed.
However there is also a huge cultural gap between zoomers and boomers.
Forums like this often also are near unsearchable, links are often dead and if you ask something you often get told to just use the search function.
And info from 10+ years is often outdated.

Car ownership has also gotten more expensive while wages where outpaced by inflation for decades and then we got covid.
We zoomers are basicly ****ed big time at the moment, and it doesn't seem to get better anytime soon.
And since people are often working from home now, buying a car is often a bad idea for them.
Cars have also become harder and harder to fix, everything is controlled by computers that can't be acecssed while mechanical complexity has increased as well.
Laws also became more and more strict in most places.

Cars aren't as appealing as a hobby anymore for all these reasons.

To see what's going on you can go to Alexa.com. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ecomodder.com

90-day trend: 491,383 global ranking and people spend 1:59 minutes of their attention per visit. See also [SIMILAR SITES BY AUDIENCE OVERLAP].

Compare with thesamba: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/thesamba.com

90-day trend: 111,274 global ranking and people spend 2:47 minutes of their attention per visit.

There is still interest in cars that are uncomplicated and hold their value. I went to a small show and swap on Father's Day and saw one $60,000 Karmann Ghia and a Beetle with a Datsun pickup bed (it had a new paint job this year).

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vw+meet+2021

Don't mention TheSamba.com or I'm liable to go buy another air cooled VW!

Cars do seem to have become boring appliances. Their main selling point anymore is the size of their infotainment screen. Most people buy CUVs and they buy them grey with the occasional extremist that buys a black or white CUV. (I think they do it just to make other's think they could be a police officer.)

I've noticed that the forum seems to have been getting a lot of questions about how to make one ton trucks and SUV's more efficient. Fuel efficiency seems to be the last thing on people's mind.

Now, because of COVID, US used car prices are up 30% (and rising!).

People think car efficiency is good enough. Why try to get 50mpg when you can get 40mpg in a CUV?

The low fuel prices are transitory. Seems there are people that modify stuff for whatever reason.

Doo eet!

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...9-100-0138.jpg

1974 Volkswagen Type 4/ 412 Wagon

Now you have me going through the classifieds! You happy!?

Now I just need to convince my wife we really need one.