Apparently Being A Red Neck Is Not Exclusive To The Southern States Of America

Hey, the heater in my Ford sucks too.

I have to wear gloves because of that cold assed plastic steering wheel.

11.55 Seconds in The Quarter Mile , An Electric Car.

OK, now somebody in Detroit needs to explain to me why there aren't thousands of these being built every day.
I don't want to hear about crash tests and air bags, I want to know why we can't have a small runabout town car that has half the horsepower and the simplicity of plugging the damn thing in to go get groceries that this vehicle obviously has.Yes, it isn't cheap, no, there is no good reason not too.
At this point, after GM and Chrysler have announce they are shutting down for a month, why the hell not do this and jettison the money losing vehicles they are trying to keep foisting on the American consumer?

Reality is a bitch boys, get with the program, this is really making you look bad.

H/T to my Pop.

Big Brother Is Watching You, Much Closer Than You Think

Get a load of this.

They already have cameras all over every major city and even some highways.

Bush just turned our own spy satellites on us, on top of tapping all of our web surfing and Emails they intercept.

My Dad sent me this video and I JUST FELT A CHILL RUN DOWN MY SPINE.

Notice that this was filmed in Canada, also notice at the very end how he says it is going to revolutionize police work ALL OVER NORTH AMERICA!

Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.




Don't forget they also put RFID chips in the new passports......

Cross posted @ Ornery Bastard

New Blood

The only thing that is permanent is change.
The new generation of car designers is already making their mark and showing their stuff to us old farts now and they have some wild ideas for getting us down the road in the present and near future.

The New York Times has an article today that introduces the cream of the crop.

They also have a slideshow to accompany the article with the pictures of the young designers they are introducing.
Take my word for it, you want to click the link to see the picture of the interior designer that works for Lincoln, trust me.

An Entertaining Review

In one of the most entertaining reviews of a car in recent memory,writer Dan Neil
takes the new Lexus hot rod out for a spin, I'll let you see what he thinks, strike that, I HAVE to tease you with one piece first;

The car also sings. The IS-F is equipped with an eight-speed automatic transmission, in which the gear ratio intervals are very evenly spaced. Eight speeds happen to correlate to eight notes of the diatonic scale -- do, re, mi, etc. If you hold the throttle and speed steady, and you shift up and down with the shifter paddles, you can actually coax simple melodies out of the stacked-pipe quad exhaust, for instance, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." And, yes, I get paid for this.

snip

Now go read the rest.

The End Of An Era

General Motors now has a reason to pull it's head out of the sand and start getting serious about a few things.
Quality products for one,putting hybrid and electric vehicles on a fast track for two.

It's a safe bet that the days of the Hummer are limited, it was a niche market anyway.

GM is going to have to get real serious about costs too, something they whine about constantly.

GM, Toyota in Dead Heat in 2007 Sales

WAPO,
By TOM KRISHER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 23, 2008; 10:04 AM

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp.'s 76 years of global sales supremacy is ending, as totals for 2007 released on Wednesday showed the automaker in a virtual tie with Toyota Motor Corp.

GM said it sold 9,369,524 vehicles worldwide last year, up 3 percent from 2006. Earlier this month, Toyota reported global sales of 9.37 million vehicles, but the Japanese automaker did not release a number down to the last vehicle, leaving the sales race too close to call.

Detroit-based GM has held the title of world's largest automaker since the 1930s, but Toyota's strong U.S. growth and GM's U.S. sales decline helped Toyota move closer to the top spot in recent years.
snip

Better Living Through Chemistry

Better Plastic From Detroit?

By William Diem

DETROIT — One nice thing about being a journalist on the show floor during press days is that you run into people who have answers to your nagging questions.

Ever wonder why Toyota interiors are better than those from Ford or Chevrolet?

snip

Ford, General Motors and Chrysler have had less money than their competitors to spend on car projects because they had to spend so much for pensions and health care, Mr. Cole said. And because interiors are the last part of a car to get commitments for investment, that is where corners are cut when the money runs out.

According to Mr. Cole, thanks to new contracts signed last fall with the union workers, G.M. will save $5,000 per car by 2010 and be on a level playing field with Toyota. And the first place consumers may notice a difference is better quality in future interiors.

And here I always thought we had the best plastic shit.
Who knew?

New Vette, New Price, New Top End

Better start looking under the couch cushions now, Gord.
Estimated to cost a Hunnert Grand.
602 HP, 200MPH flat out.
It's a quick little Devil, but whatever you do, DON"T SCRATCH IT!!!

General Motors says that the clear coat paint additive used on top of the carbon-fiber parts costs $60,000 a gallon, which breaks down to $900 a car. As for the rest of the car, Mr. Danahy said, “We tried not to go too crazy with the appearance.”

Jeez Mareze!

The original article is from the Automobile section of the NY Times.

I couldn't afford to pay anymore attention.

This Is Exciting, I Just Punked Myself!

No batteries, gas, oil, or coolant.
A regenerating super efficient electric motor, with an automatic behind it.
You can use this thing to make electricity for your house, barn, you name it.
This is fantastic.


H/T to my buddy Dale, my Dad's oldest friend.


Cross posted at Ornery Bastard

Update
I've had Bullshit called so take it at face value until I can look into it.
I put it up right after getting it.


Update two
OHHHKAY, I see where I screwed up now. A nice gentleman pointed out the way I said regenerating violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Gotta love Google, I didn't have a clue.

Second Law of Thermodynamics - Increased Entropy
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is commonly known as the Law of Increased Entropy. While quantity remains the same (First Law), the quality of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time. How so? Usable energy is inevitably used for productivity, growth and repair. In the process, usable energy is converted into unusable energy. Thus, usable energy is irretrievably lost in the form of unusable energy.

Thus the word regenerative would imply something along the lines of a perpetual motion machine, my bad.
I did find a reference to Mr. Reed and his remarkable engine here;
Conspiracy Central.
It concludes that attempts to locate Mr. Reed were unsuccessful.

Update 3.

Turns out he never did have a self sustaining motor and the video is bogus.
Nice.
Thats what I get for getting excited and putting it up without thinking critically.

My sincere apologies.

Go here for what happened and where it stands as of right now.

H/T One Fly for pointing me to the error of my ways.
Thanks bud.

Mazda Furai

It looks like a sci-fi,steroid enhanced tadpole to me but you gotta know it's fast. A 450 HP, 3 rotor Mazda rotary engine decked out in Le Mans finery.
Take a close look at the nose and sides and tell me they didn't spend a ton of time in a wind tunnel with this thing.
This is a proto type, and they are famous at the American Le Mans series for using state of the art engineering and aerodynamics to try and edge out the competition for bragging rights.
Here is a quote from the article;

"Furai takes Mazda's unique Nagare (Japanese for "flow") design language a step further as it is translated into a concept car based on an American Le Mans Series (ALMS) racing car. The car utilizes the Courage C65 chassis the company campaigned in the ALMS series only two seasons ago, and the 450-hp three-rotor rotary engine that distinguishes it from anything else on the track."








"Flow" certainly comes to mind when looking at the aero styling on the front of the thing.

Original article here, where I also got the pictures.

Alternative Engine Equals Direct Current Here.

To start, a tantalyzing snippet;

Motor

Some people find it hard to imagine our car’s Lamborghini-beating acceleration comes from a motor about the size of a watermelon. And while most car engines have to be moved with winches or forklifts, ours weighs about 70 pounds — a strong person could carry it around in a backpack (although we don’t recommend it). Compare that to the mass of machinery under the hood of $300,000 supercars that still can’t accelerate as quickly as the Tesla Roadster.

But more important than the motor’s size or weight is its efficency. Without proper efficiency, a motor will convert electrical energy into heat instead of rotational energy. So we designed our motor to have efficiencies of 85 to 95 percent; this way the precious stored energy of the battery pack ends up propelling you down the road instead of just heating up the trunk.

snip
Here is the link for more about the drivetrain of this electrical demon;
http://www.teslamotors.com/engineering/how_it_works.php

Zero to sixty in four seconds. No blower, turbo, carb,pistons or gas.
It's all electric, and it is bad assed.

The Tesla Roadster.
The car is under production now and they are taking orders for the '08 model.
Two cents a mile to run ,by their estimates, it has revolutionary battery packs to store the electricity that it uses and can create its own by using regenerative braking.
This uses the electric motor to create electricity as a generator and greatly increases the distance you can go on a single charge.
For us older gearheads, remember the old days when cars still had generators instead of alternators? How did we test them?
By hooking up a battery to it and turning it into an electric motor.If it spun, it should generate when hooked up and driven by a belt.
Same thing here, just wayyyy modern electronics governing the input and out put.
Here is their home page.

High Tech Weed Whacker

Direct Injection 2-Stroke Technology

Direct in-cylinder fuel injection (direct injection, DI) is a technology that has shown the ability to greatly reduce emissions from two-stroke engines. In a DI system the carburetor is eliminated, and the fuel is introduced into the combustion chamber via an injector mounted in the top of the chamber’s cylinder head. This allows exhaust products to be scavenged from the cylinder using air only. Fuel is injected into the cylinder later in the cycle, greatly reducing the amount of unburned fuel that is allowed to escape during scavenging. The DI process allows for a locally rich region around the spark plug, eliminating the need for enrichment of the entire cylinder to achieve stable combustion. Elimination of rich air/fuel ratios significantly reduces carbon monoxide emissions.

Snip.

The link.

Gordon?

How long has this been around?

I will admit that I don't keep up with Motorcycle technology like I used to, but I have been waiting to see this for a while now.

Lawnmowers, outboards, yes, even weed whackers can greatly benefit from this.

There are literally hundreds of small engines used in construction, all powering different types of useful devices.

No more choke, no more fiddling with the damn mixture screws trying to make it run right, I like it.

Something new in valves.

To kind of continue the conversation in the comments on the last post, I googled poppet valve technology and found they are soon to be obsolete if this outfit has anything to say about it;

Art Vatsky, P.E. Explains Coates Spherical Rotary Valve Technology

Coates Spherical Rotary Valve Cylinderhead

WALL TOWNSHIP, N.J.--Coates International, Ltd. (OTCBB: COTE) announced that Art Vatsky, a well-known professional engineer and CEO of Future Fuels Technology, has provided a clear explanation of the company's technology. That independent report is as follows:

"An Elegant Solution for Today’s Internal Combustion Engine Valves

Improved Engine Breathing, Reduced Internal Friction, Lower Production Cost"

George G. Coates, CEO of Coates International, Ltd. has devoted a good part of his career to developing and perfecting a spherical rotary valve to be used to replace poppet valves in internal combustion piston engines.

Snip

You can find the rest of the article here.