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Was driving so I could not snap a picture, but the local Kia dealership is clearly getting a ton of new EVs as two trucks went by, one with EV9's and the other with EV6's.

Congratulations, nice looking SUV, Hope all goes well for you with this as I can understand not wanting to have her get stuck with your kid in the car.

Happy Tax Day . . . whew

Welp, we finally got rid of my wife's G55 AMG. I've talked about it here a few times but there was something inherently wrong with it. It had left her stranded at least 5 times and us once. Luckily everything was covered under an extended warranty, so it was minimal out of picket and the loaners were covered or just given to us via a couple different Merc dealerships. Anyway, after getting stranded once since we've had our lil baby, my wife finally had enough of it. I tried convincing her a year or two ago when the market was nuts to bail on it and just make a bunch off of it. That didn't happen, hahaha. When we got her G55 back about a month ago, we were looking for a replacement. She's been spoiled and had to have something of a luxury brand. She never said this but anything she'd look at had a luxury brand...of course.. She was stuck on the shape of the SUV and she hates how everything modern is bubbly or rounded. There's nothing "old school boxy" that's mainstream, really. I had her look at X5, GLE, Aviators, Q7 anything in that range. I ALMOST had her into an SQ7. We test drove one but there just weren't anything around us in the price and miles we were looking for. She didn't like the exterior of an X5, GLE, or GV80. @David She's a part of the "electric vehicles just aren't there yet" crew. Well, after a lot of looking and she was getting more and more anxious about the lack of faith in her vehicle, we came across a 2020 Range Rover Sport SVR that she fell in love with and it was fairly local. Typically, we have no issue driving up to 5hrs one way for a vehicle we find for the right price. She had zero faith in doing that with her G55 at this point. So the range and available vehicles decreased by soooo much. Normally we'd have Chicago, Indianapolis, Memphis, Kansas City, Louisville as potential places to buy from. 2020 13,550 miles. SVR = 575hp, s/c 5.0 V8. All of the auto lane keep stuff, auto braking stuff, head-up display, heated cooled front AND rear seats, 4 zone climate control, massive sunroof (that we don't care about), active exhaust (that we LOVE - exhaust note was actually high on her priority list - her list was...confusing, to say the least). Apple CarPlay, all sorts of off-road goodies that we will never use, hahaha, air suspension, I was waaaaay off of another all-black vehicles but, again, that was on her list. I hate the black maintenance and just how quickly it looks dirty/bad. I'm pretty sure I was all over the place with my little story but feel free to ask about any detail I probably skipped over, forgot, or jumped around and made confusing.

Trix

The successor to my first "real" favorite car, F430. The first car I really remember being my favorite was a 360, not a spider/convertible though. We saw this on our way home from a dealership. I'll post about that elsewhere. I caught this at the front of a stoplight to our right, but the light changed as soon as I saw it and I couldn't get my phone out quick enough. I was a little disappointed I couldn't get the front pictured, but it was in motion almost as soon as I saw it. Sorry if the 2nd pic is still rotated. I changed it on my computer, but it still seems to rotate when uploading it.

Life Happens, I was always planning to convert my 1994 Suburban to electric and drive it. Grandkids came last year via my son's marriage, great kids and now I have a new Grandson. As such, time to simplify my life. Sold my suburban and said goodbye over the weekend. Some one else can enjoy the custom 402 V8 making 505hp/551 lb-ft of torque. Newest Grandson Farwell pictures of my suburban. Remember when Ashtrays were common in autos?

Very cool info on expanding our power gride and connecting up green energy projects faster. The 2035 Report: Reconductoring With Advanced Conductors Can Accelerate The Rapid Transmission Expansion Required For A Clean Grid - Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology Very cool press release of Samsung enhancing Tesla Wall chargers. Weird that I missed this till now. Samsung Announces Collaboration With Tesla at CES 2024 for SmartThings Energy – Samsung Global Newsroom

Life happens, about two months behind on doing some pruning, but decided to buy an ego pole saw for dealing with some big branches over the drive way. Love that I do not have to wear hearing protection. EGO rocks!

Low headlights and a big grille DO NOT make a good-looking front end --- on any vehicle.

Nice interior. Front is very similar to Buick’s new design language with the big grille and low headlights.

Beautiful weather this weekend after a stormy few days. Went for a scenic drive yesterday, saw a sharp apple green '69 Chevelle 2dr and a bright blue '65 Chevelle 2dr sedan. Also a very clean late 90s Camaro Z-28 in dark red w/ a black roof. Parked at a couple overlook parks on Lake Erie, stormy and windy, big waves.

I have to say that Hyundai is Banging hot for style. Not a fan of Black SUVs but this is striking.

If your into battery technology, this is an interesting read and clearly GAC of China is beating Toyota of Japan in the Solid state race of EV batteries. GAC beating Toyota to solid-state battery EV with 600-mile range thanks to large-capacity cell breakthrough - NotebookCheck.net News

To answer your question, I have seen videos on YouTube where the 3.6 required more frequent maintenance than any other GM engine in order to run for a long period of miles (say, 150K+ miles). I suspect that this new Turbo 4cyl should have fewer problems (real or alleged) than the 3.6 High Feature engine. Then again, the 3800 was bulletproof while the 3.6HF was less so.

Saw my first Cyber Truck today in the wild, WOW, What an Ugly Turd of a so called truck. Blind Spots bigger than California. Pretty much a true love or hate of the Tesla truck for sure. Funny thing is it had a California license plate. Made me wonder, did they move up here or a PTO trip to the PNW. Either way, yes it grabs heads as people look.

Did I miss something that the 3.6L V6 is less reliable than the Newer Turbo 4?

The interior is very good and competitive in its market segment. I really like it. Good thing that GM replaced the 3.6 with a turbo 4, since the latter should be more reliable. The new Enclave could do without the big mouth bass type grill. It looks like it belongs on a RAV4 or some other Toyota. As for the exterior, SAD. Buick needs to go back to the 1st generation Enclave and make it curvy and Buick again. I could mistake this version of an Enclave for an Acadia or Traverse.

This is definitely true. That's why I'm interested, but not exactly compelled. On the other hand, Turkiey is a secular Muslim country. They actually chose the Latin alphabet over an Arabic (type) alphabet. Istanbul is also sprouting condo towers, but it conducts itself in mostly western ways. I don't think being disrespectful of the main religion would be too smart, though. However, it's not much different from some European capitals or major cities. A couple of their other big cities are supposed to be okay, but I wouldn't know. My understanding is that the further east you go into Anatolia, the more backwaters it will be. Not interested. - - - - - What I was really going to say: the subject matter of "if it does not fit, you must acquit" is gone. Yesterday. He got off the hook. He must have had "survivor's guilt" because he couldn't stay out of trouble and got himself locked up. They never found the person who committed the crime. Even though I never cared for Amanda Knox - don't like her vibe - they ultimately found the culprit in that mess.

I understand that the auto high beam feature is in traditional and these bumper headlights. Not really sold on the benefits of the auto on high beam headlights feature, but the styling trend seems to be to use the space of traditional headlights for style with daytime running lights/markers and then lower the headlights into the bumper. It would be interesting to see the studies / facts behind this change to bumper headlights and auto high beam lights on to understand the facts behind them.

Have to compare your Fuel costs to electrical costs to see as 2-3 years here is huge difference still making leasing a good deal. Washington for home charging is 10 cents per kW of power compared to for me with the SS, $5.45 per gallon premium that the SS uses or for average regular unleaded fuel $4.659 per gallon. With the cheap EV leases and very cheap electrical, the $500 a month I am spending on Premium fuel for the SS is easily covered by an EV with home charging. UPDATE: EV9 that is one of the two EVs my wife is considering has a 99.8 kW battery pack. Cost to charge it 100% which you really do not do is $9.98 per charge up at home on a level 2 charger. Figuring my wife fuels up the SS 5 times per month at least and usually more as she tends to fuel every 4 to 5 days currently, $500 on average for Premium fuel versus same 5 charge ups is less than $50.

The location has nothing to do with auto high beam feature. My 2016 MKC has auto high beams and it doesn't have stupid-@ss headlights in the bumper.

Yeah, I don't plan on keeping a vehicle for only 2-3 years. You kind of lose the fuel savings over ICE if you're continuing to spend more and more on a new vehicle.

Just be very careful as they have some crazy laws that western folks who do not become aware of can easily break and end up in their crazy legal system and have one less hand, foot, leg, arm as they seem to like to cut off body parts as punishment. I have never been there myself, but a couple of my coworkers have been for work related and were forewarned by our team members about certain ways to behave, what to watch what you say, etc. It is definitely not a western country, but a Muslim one that is trying to project for tourist dollars a western way, but still very strict.