It's EcoModder's 11th birthday! That means another great contest to win prizes!
 

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1544630917
Photo credit: R4vi

It's time to celebrate another year of a bunch of strange people who are STILL talking about fuel economy!

As usual, we're marking the occasion by giving away Birthday Loot!

To note the continuing decline of public interest in fuel economy (judging by forum traffic), we're celebrating this year by giving away what everybody REALLY wants and needs: a 2020 Chevrolet Silverado HD to commute to work in!!

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1544554962

Just kidding!!

On Monday, January 14th, we'll randomly draw for the prizes below, based on forum posts made between today and then. (So the more you post, the better your odds. Not that our hard-core members need any motivation.)


Here's the loot!

• ONE ScanGauge II: (once again generously provided by Linear Logic) will be awarded at random to one member* who posts in any thread in the forum between 12:01 AM EST today (Dec. 12) and noon EST on Monday, Jan. 14th.

• ONE ScanGauge-e: (generously provided by Linear Logic) the ScanGauge II's little brother (see comparison)

• ONE EcoModder t-shirt: (more photos/details here).

• EcoModder decals: one member will receive a pair of decals.

* NOTE: Only members who joined before today can win. Winners must claim their prize within 10 days of the winners announcement (by contacting us via private message), or we reserve the right to draw another name in your place. We're not kidding - we've had to do this before.

Good news/bad news: forum participation generally tracks gasoline prices in the U.S., which means with low prices your odds of winning are near 11-year highs!

On that note, Happy Birthday and THANK YOU everyone for helping to make EcoModder both a community and a resource to be proud of.


Discuss...


A decade from now, what do you think will be your biggest automotive change?

Thanks for making this happen Darin!

My biggest change in the next decade will be driving almost exclusively EV. I'll probably have a used Leaf, Spark, or Bolt soon (year or 2), and I imagine in 10 years will have a used Model 3.

Maybe I'll have a wind turbine installed on my property. I'll have to get property first though.

I expect to have some sort of AV capability in a vehicle within the next decade. Would be nice to at least cover the highway portions of a trip autonomously while I sleep. Hopefully that would cut down on the amount of flying I do.

Happy birthday Ecomodder!

A decade from now I hope to still be driving my Insight, but by then I hopefully will have a better understanding of its mechanics so I can do all the maintenance and repairs myself. Maybe a boattail by then, who knows. We'll see!

I drove a bunch of different OEM EV's this year, Bolt, iMiev, Leaf. I really liked the Prius Prime my friend loaned me for a week. I'm not sure if there's one in my 10-year future, though, mostly because I don't drive a lot (~5k miles / 8k km this year), but when I do it's almost always a highway trip. We'll see what happens to used prices of the bigger battery options.


One thing I'm pretty sure the future holds: partly because I drive so little, I plan to still have my Firefly (Metro) in another 10 years (touch wood). At the rate I've been using it, it might have 50 or 60k kms on it in when it's 30 years old.


I'll almost certainly adopt a used Mirage at some point in the next 5 years.

I hope to have a last year Prius V by then. Because I doubt I can limp my 06 that long.

Good stuff for my girlfriend's Prius!

I realize that you wrote "Change," but I read "Challenge," and I think that is the more interesting question.

I expect to find it challenging to keep my 2000 Civic on the road in 2028. I am confident that I will be well past the point where it is cheaper to keep, but cheaper-to-own vehicles will be more expensive to buy.

The bottom 30% of the Nut Wagon will have been entirely replaced with canned expanding foam.

Yeesh! Has it been that long already?

Ugh. Hard pass. In 10 years, I expect I will not be driving a full-size truck.

You were a pioneer to this forum. I was rather late in comparison, though I'm sure I had read posts on here prior to signing up.

I used to spend all my forum time in specific auto forums and slickdeals.net /podium.

A decade from now, what do you think will be your biggest automotive change?

I will be car shopping at one of the last three remaining auto manufacturer's dealership.

Happy birthday Ecomodder!

Big thanks to all who come here and contribute. Its such a great place because of you guys. Darin and I really appreciate it.

In 10 years.... I'll definitely be driving an EV. Not sure what though. I'll probably go through a half dozen vehicles on the way too hah.

In 10 years I hope to still be driving my 2008 smart if gas is still available at reasonable prices, if not I might turn it into a trailer and pull it with whatever is available at the time . Chumly

I'm still driving a 2000 Insight with 270K. Regrettably I blew the engine in my other 2000 Insight with only 148K. I still have a 1999 Metro as a backup.

Mt biggest automotive challange in the next 10 years will probably be due to various physical limitations associated with advancing age and the challenges / ailments that go with it .

Such as diminishing night vision , difficulty getting in & out of the car & repair work that I used to take in stride / for granted .

Getting old is not for cowards .

God bless
Wyr

I was just thinking, in 2028 my Prius will only be 15 years old; I expect it will be on its second battery by then, and I'll still be driving it assuming it doesn't rust out in the meantime. It might look quite a bit different by then, given all the iterations it's gone through so far.

In 10 years, I expect I will convert my bmw e36 to EV!

In the next decade I would love to convert a 4 door truck to EV. Most likely I'll just have to buy one *cough* *cough* hopefully a tesla

What I'm planning to do:
 

I'm planning to keep all of my present vehicles in operation and in fine repair. It is possible that the most economical and ecologically friendly vehicle is one that doeasn't have to be made. I'm planning to make incremental changes and improvements to my 4 vehicles and drive the one with the best mpg the most and the one with the worst mpg the least.

I have: 1) 1994 F-150 4.9L manual 5 speed
2) 2000 Ford Focus ZX3 manual 5 speed
3) 2012 Ford Fiesta Automatic
4) 1979 Kawasaki KZ400

In 10 years I’ll finally have reached my financial goals and I’ll be driving a Lamborghini for the best MPG possible! :D

I think I have a thread talking about helicopter efficiency. If my dreams came true I'd be flying in 10 years. Unfortunately helicopters are so expensive to maintain that I'd need to make it my job.

Change from econocar to big RV
 

My biggest change will be to a big diesel pick up pulling an 11k pound trailer and trying to eek the best fuel mileage out of ithe combo.
Already thinking of aerodynamic mods by having the front of the fifth wheel trailer closer and lower to the truck cab and bed, plus a possible bed cover with a hole for the hitch. Maybe some bump-outs on the front lower panel of the trailer that's even with the tailgate to direct air flow around..
Gonna be interesting!

Awesome giveaway! This forum has helped me a lot although I rarely post. I'm currently in possession of two civic vx's. One is for parts and one is going strong, albeit at 42mpg average - can't seem to get much higher than that. Currently pulling the motor from the parts car to rebuild it and have a brand new D15Z1.

And yes, I do have a little sticker on my VX that says "My other car is a GTR"...and it is true! lol.

In 10 years I hope to still be driving my CNG powered dual fuel Ford F150 Ecoboost. I also hope see a re emergence of natural gas as a main stream fuel supply. It's abundant, affordable and has a huge potential as a motor fuel. Just look at the European manufacturers? Many have a CNG or several CNG vehicles in their line-ups! We just need the infrastructure to support it (like Tesla has done with charging stations).

In 10 years I hope to have replaced my Subaru Outback with an EV of similar size and function, replaced my motorcycle with an electric one, and maybe even replace the Nissan Leaf we got last year. If I am instill in the same house, I hope I have installed PV, either in the front yard or on the roof and have a battery to help distribute load and help charge up the EVs.

Hard to believe I have been a member of EcoModders for over 10 years now... I do not post as much as I used to, but I do still lurk around here.

My personal believe is that as EVs become more of a mainstream option, traffic will drop off, but then pick up as the owners of ICE vehicles try to keep their vehicles up and make them as efficient as possible...
In 10 years, I hope that the lessons learned in the aeromods forum is not lost, as I learned a lot of both theory and practical implementation there that would apply to EVs as well.

My biggest change (I hope) will be that my children are paying for their own insurance! :D

Actually, I have already made what I think will be my biggest change for the next ten years when I bought my 2015 BMW i3 this month. Aside from towing, it does everything I need, so as long as it lasts. I can't see myself ever buying another gasser.

Congrats on the i3 Snax. We'd love to hear more about it.

Agreed - would love to know more.

In 10 years time, I expect that I will be sharing city driving vehicles based on fleets of competing companies, trying to curry favour with me by "giving" me "free" km's. And I will be remembering the good old days when I could modify my driving habits to improve efficiency. And I hope that highway driving will cease to be a game of chicken with thoughtless and inconsiderate drivers using others as slolam poles weaving in and out of traffic.

M

Happy birthday EM! it’s nice to see such a great site still going strong...

In ten years time I can see more EVs driven as they become more common and affordable around here... I’d like to think I’ll still be driving my Saturn by then(though it would be approaching 25 years old at that point), but I’d also love to get into an EV, and not ever forget what I’ve learned about aero...

I can see hypermilers expressing their efficiency in Wh/mi more than in mpg in ten years though...

Cost of electricity per mile is so cheap that from a financial perspective, I don't care if I'm getting 15% better efficiency or not. That said, I do care that I can actually make my trip with the given charge, so from the perspective of maximizing range, I do care about EV efficiency.

Didn’t realize this contest started again, saw another post referencing it.

In 10 years hopefully I will be riding motorcycles everywhere. Not sure how long I’m gonna keep the V6 Accord, I might even go full race car with it some day. A mirage doesn’t sound bad. Would love to get an insight, but with how little I will likely be driving cars in the future, an insight would be better off with someone else.

Thanks for the great contest! You got me posting again (something I'd been meaning to do for a while anyway). I'm still eco'ing, although my fuel economy got a bit worse recently when I switched my 3 year old summer tires to brand new snow tires.

That is really hard to say. I'd love to get an EV, but unless it has 400+km range, I'd still need an ICE or hybrid car too. I live far enough away from things that charging stations are too distant, so unless they become more common, long-EV-range plug-in hybrid would be my best bet.

I also hate spending money on cars. The last time I bought a car was in 2009, and that cost me all of $5K. Since I really like Saturns, and they stopped making them in 2002, it's unlikely I'll find another pristine low-mileage one 17 years after the last one rolled off the line.

But it's really hard to know where things are going. I don't see EV displacing ICE any time soon, but unless it does (and a lot of other things change too), we're all doomed anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

The other issue is that I really like to tinker with stuff. Older cars were more "open", in that you could see what everything did, and you could tweak and modify things. The newer the car, the more "closed" it is (even my 18 year old Saturn has a software issue that's interfering with my use of a kill switch). I doubt there's much that could be tinkered with on a 2018 Bolt or Tesla.

You're in Ontario, would a little warming really doom you? :p

It's not the warming. It's the extremes. Floods. Droughts. Tornadoes. None of that used to be that common here. I also like to think beyond my own neighbourhood.

Happy Birthday EcoModder

The future is i think EVs, thats why i am now in the process of getting solar installed on my roof, to start with i am getting 12 panels, to be expanded in a few years to 18 and then also a Tesla battery pack and hopefully a Tesla 3, but dreams are free.

I like hybrids better than EVs. Miles per gallon sounds much more of an accomplishment, to me at least, than miles per...kilowatt. YMMV. :)

The ScanGuard would be a nice new to me toy to play with.
Of course the Chevy would be nice too if it was an older 4X4 1-ton.