[cogman10]

> Brooke Rennert, a 21-year-old from Rochester Hills putting herself through welding school by working as the only woman at her oil-change job, isn’t having any of it. “I don’t like electric cars. I like the sound of a heavy engine. I like the power,” she said. “An electric vehicle has power, but in a different way. It’s not like a big V8, big-block sound.”

This, IMO, is exactly why they are dying. They are more expensive than regular cars and the only reason anyone likes them is because they are loud and obnoxious.

There's just fewer and fewer people that need a loud noise maker to be happy, certainly not when that noise maker will cost you $60k you likely don't have since inflation has gone crazy while salaries have stagnated.

The people that do end up gravitating to the noise makers will choose a loud motorcycle instead.

[dotancohen]

I spent years driving, modifying, and racing V-8 Fords from the mid sixties to the early seventies. I've replaced the 2.3 TurboCoupe with a 351W I built myself. I'm very familiar with muscle cars, both carbureted and FE, with points and with electronic injection, smog-legal and without carbs.

My electric family sedan (Tesla model 3 long range) has everything I've ever liked about muscle cars - in abundance. 498 horsepower, a "first gear" that will wind up past 200 kph, instant throttle response. The only thing missing are the impracticalities - the noise, the small back seat, the smell of tires and soot and oil leaking from somewhere. Oh, and the oil changes, and the plug changes, and the stolen catalytic converters, and the coils that go bad, and the fan clutch, and the PCV system, and the fuel/oil/air filter maintenance, and the drive belt, and the injectors, and the exhaust manifold gaskets, and the muffler, and the yearly smog checks.

[rconti]

There are lots of reasons to like combustion vehicles outside of noise. The varying way they deliver power across the rev range is different in every vehicle, for one. One of my cars is a small displacement turbo motor and I love pinning it low in the rev range and feeling the power surge as the boost ramps up, and this is different under all kinds of conditions; different engine speeds, air temperatures, altitude...

A nice, tactile gear change is particularly pleasurable as well. And sounds do go along with all this, but they don't necessarily need to be loud.

I can imagine a bizarro version of this comment where a future person in a world where all of your caloric needs are met by a pill you take daily, ranting about how food enthusiasts insist on shoving their smelly food up your nostrils as you walk by an unnecessary-in-this-day-and-age restaurant, and how they only do it to annoy other people.

[amanaplanacanal]

You can imagine a time when humans will no longer enjoy eating food. Ummm... Ok. I can imagine a time when we will all be brains in jars, but it's never gonna happen.

[rconti]

I didn't say it was going to happen. I was trying to come up with an equally silly comparison where someone argues that a person couldn't possibly enjoy sensory experience, and therefore the _only_ reason anybody could enjoy an ICE vehicle is to make loud noises in order to annoy a HN commenter.

[amanaplanacanal]

Well sure. Plenty of people enjoy activities that are antisocial. I quite like it when they are called out on it though.

[herpdyderp]

Most of the people I know (including myself) that are into these kinds of cars buy used instead. Or they bought their car 50 years ago and still maintain it.

[cosmic_cheese]

The noise aspect is actually one of the things that’s keeping me away from cheap used ICE and hybrid cars right now. Some amount of premium for full electric is worth not having to listen to an engine, particularly on models that aren’t expensive enough to come with good sound isolation.

The sound profile of a V8 is very different from the 4-cylinder and similar I’m shopping for of course, but the principle still applies. I also just don’t want to be my neighbor who finds it necessary to come and go at odd hours in the most abrasive manner possible.

[MisterTea]

I don't see loud cars dying off with muscle cars because I see more obnoxious BMW's along with a few Honda and Infinity with pop and gurgle tunes and open exhaust than Chargers, Mustangs, etc.

> There's just fewer and fewer people that need a loud noise maker to be happy,

Come to south Queens NYC and you'll find plenty of these people. There's a shop around the block from me that builds these noise makers and I get to hear them test drive them up and down the block.

[winrid]

They don't need to be that expensive. Allow people to opt into lower safety standards (you are comparing with a motorcycle after all) and add a carbon tax with a threshold so I can pay for less complicated emissions equipment.

Also, the loud sound != big. V8 != Loud, esp when many v6 motors are close in displacement to Ford's 5 liter V8.

[hatthew]

Muscle cars are cool in the same way that smoking is cool. Impractical, dangerous, and expensive, but has strong associations with "cool" people: noir detectives, rebellious teenagers, action movie heroes, etc.

[thmsths]

Isn't Harley Davidson dying too though?

[cogman10]

There are much cheaper and louder competitors to Harleys. It doesn't help that harleys are pretty strongly associated with Gen X and Boomers now. You don't usually see millennials or Gen z riding a harley.

[SoftTalker]

They'll probably become popular with the Alphas or Betas again.

[vonneumannstan]

>certainly not when that noise maker will cost you $60k

As opposed to the 60k for a nice Tesla??

[a2dam]

Salaries have outpaced inflation until recently.

[selectodude]

Don’t even bother coming here with facts. Inflation is just a vibe, dude. Never mind that real median personal incomes are up 10 percent in the last decade.

[bill_joy_fanboy]

> Salaries have outpaced inflation until recently.

This is just not true.

[sokoloff]

Take a look at a chart of real median income. Which while it is admittedly somewhat different from salary, is a hell of lot more than “nuh-uh”

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

[amanaplanacanal]

"household income". Not individual. It used to only take one person working to support a family.

[sokoloff]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=MEPAINUSA672N

also supports the upthread claim.

[a2dam]

Thank you, I did indeed mean income and not salary (though real median salary for full time workers has also outpaced inflation).