The Automobile Thread

I can guarantee that the image is not from my end of the state... I was there 5 days and didn't see a single German car. :p I also didn't see a single Prius or Tesla. :eek:

4 bikes... 3 were Wal-Mart specials and the 4th was an s-works road bike riding through the reservation. Dude must have been lost. :eek:
 
Danimal said:
I'll be in New York (city) for my first time this Tuesday. For work only, just a few hours there then off to Vermont for more work. Should be kinda fun though.
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I supposed I should come clean. Although my birth certificate was issued by the State of New York, and I lived there for almost 1/4 century, I've never been to New York City. I don't feel I'm missing anything... :p

I have been to just about every other locale in NY...
 
Faust29 said:
I supposed I should come clean. Although my birth certificate was issued by the State of New York, and I lived there for almost 1/4 century, I've never been to New York City. I don't feel I'm missing anything... :p

I have been to just about every other locale in NY...
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I guess that's like living in California and never having gone to the beach.
I'm not a big city guy either....
 
Faust29 said:
I supposed I should come clean. Although my birth certificate was issued by the State of New York, and I lived there for almost 1/4 century, I've never been to New York City. I don't feel I'm missing anything... :p

I have been to just about every other locale in NY...
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Thats interesting. If I were you, Id never disclose that while visiting in NY, should you ever go back.
 
SnakeCharmer said:
BTW, I got 33+MPG driving up to the high desert yesterday. :Roflmao:laugh:
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Drove my CR-V today. Left home at 6:30, got home at 7:10. 348 miles, 32.8 mpg, and probably3.5- 4 hours were in rush hour averaging 15-20 mph. The rush hour killed the usual 37 mph. Great SUV.

Took this pic on my way out of Goleta. Fire was small and maybe 15 min from freeway closure if not stopped .
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buggravy said:
This made my pants move a little. Launched the app before walking out of a work appointment to get in my car that had been sitting in the 90+ heat, and direct sun for two hours. Twas cool as a cucumber when I got in 5 minutes later.

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I’m able to start my wife’s car with an app to get the a/c going and it’s so nice to have.. but the seat and glass controls are on another level.

My 2011 4Runner has “party mode” which emphasizes the stereo sound to the rear hatch area for tailgating type shenanigans. Oh, and the rear window rolls down.
 
Cornholio said:
I’m able to start my wife’s car with an app to get the a/c going and it’s so nice to have.. but the seat and glass controls are on another level.

My 2011 4Runner has “party mode” which emphasizes the stereo sound to the rear hatch area for tailgating type shenanigans. Oh, and the rear window rolls down.
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The rear window still rolls down?
My dad's '88 4runner did that. He also used to pop the top-off, Jeep style. That was a RAD truck.
 
Danimal said:
I heard that the solar didn't work on the power outages. Kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

Off the grid is the attraction to me.
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You need a battery pack in order to have the ability to go completely off the grid. Tesla sells them, but last time I checked it more or less doubled the price of the system. The reason why your solar system has to shut down during power outages is because if it didn't, every solar system in SoCal would continue to feed live current into the electrical grid during an outage; preventing, or at least greatly complicating, the ability for the utility to work on the lines. They have to know that when they hit the "off" switch everything turns off. If your system has a battery backup, it will continue to feed the batteries, but will be "turned off" as far as feeding electricity to the grid (during an outage).

It all comes down to several cost inflection points. Battery tech keeps improving and dropping in price. Solar panel tech keeps improving and dropping in price. Traditional electricity (via bloated utilities) keeps getting more and more expensive. I called Tesla (Solar City) to ask about the cost of upgrading my system - thinking I would put a new panel cluster over my garage. The guy took a look at our system and said "no need to add more square footage - we would simply go up to your roof, remove your old panels, and install new ones using the same frames and wiring. Super fast, super cheap, and your system would double in capacity."(!) This is after only 9 years of the old system.

And FWIW... every house, every business, every company that goes solar just increases the cost of electricity for the remaining households who stay dedicated to the grid. Electricity rates are not only going up - they are going up at an accelerating rate because the utilities have to spread their fixed costs over fewer and fewer rate-payers. I'm not sure where it's going to end up because I don't plan on being here when it implodes :) If you look closely at your utility bill, you will see that the utilities are breaking out costs for generation versus distribution. They are trying to convince California law-makers that they have to be able to charge all households for distribution costs - even if they are on solar and generate a majority of their own electricity. If they are ever successful doing so, the relative cost of battery packs (and moving completely off the grid) will become much more attractive. It is a similar argument that Sacramento is now having about EV's on the roads. No gas use = no gas taxes. As more and more people drive EV's, someone is going to have to come up with a tax/fee/road miles driven program to tax people on road use - else the state will be unable to maintain the infrastructure. A problem for another day...
 
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Cornholio said:
I’m able to start my wife’s car with an app to get the a/c going and it’s so nice to have.. but the seat and glass controls are on another level.

My 2011 4Runner has “party mode” which emphasizes the stereo sound to the rear hatch area for tailgating type shenanigans. Oh, and the rear window rolls down.
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My Touareg has party mode... a cooled glove compartment for beverages. :p

I’ve never used that particular feature...
 
Cornholio said:
I’m able to start my wife’s car with an app to get the a/c going and it’s so nice to have.. but the seat and glass controls are on another level.

My 2011 4Runner has “party mode” which emphasizes the stereo sound to the rear hatch area for tailgating type shenanigans. Oh, and the rear window rolls down.
Click to expand...
Ive used this mode in my friend's 4-Runner in the parking lot for pre-concert consumption. Works as intended.
 
I was more of a motorcycle guy than a car guy but I've had a couple of "sports cars". My first was a 3rd gen '93 RX-7 R1. That thing was a rocketship! Many a time a Mustang or other American muscle car would pull up and tell me how my car sounded funny only to have their doors blown off when the light turned green. Top speed was pretty fast too.
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Right now I have a '13 Scion FR-S that I bought mainly for commuting. It's no slouch but it's no RX-7 either. It does get over 40mpg on the highway though and handles rather well so overall it's a great car.
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