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I do think that society is tired of this pandemic, yet by letting our guard down now we are seeing the last few days with 100,000 infections happening daily and thousands of deaths. A very sad time with loosing so much life needlessly. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map We still need to stay vigilant till we can vaccinate the country. I find this story very weird to me as they call the 19840Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta, a Sports Car for Luxurious People. ? I remember this car and I never considered it Luxurious! 2.8L V6 with Automatic. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/rare-rides-the-1984-chevrolet-camaro-berlinetta-a-sports-car-for-luxurious-people/ In reporting news, Ford is going back to Monthly sales reporting and leaving GM and Tesla to be the lone Quarterly reporting companies. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/ford-returns-to-monthly-sales-reporting/ In tech news for ICE Auto's. Seems the blind spots are getting so big, that one company thinks the whole dash should see what is in front of the car. Not sure how that would help you not hit your front end., An IDIOT in LA stole a customer Velociraptor Ford 6x6 HD and then tried to evade police to a no wine situation. I really like this car from Jay Leno's garage.

I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since the first week of March, also was the last time I went to a public event (a Dave Mason concert in Kent). Haven’t been to a grocery since then either. Since I work from home and get everything delivered, I can do this indefinitely. Though I hope I don’t have to...really avoiding being indoors around other people. Being an early adopter of Amazon Prime, Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats in the before time made not going out pretty painless for me.

NOTE FROM THE ADMIN: Please note this thread will be locked down temporarily as we have gotten some complaints about the conversations dealing with politics and current election. This is not the thread for these discussions! Need everyone to go to their respective corners to cool down.

Quebecois somewhat let their guard down right after the summer was over. Our politicians had to wrestle us back into reality. When the schools opened up, we got huge spikes of infections. Lockdowns happened again, albeit not all over the province, but in the "red zones". The most problematic. Lockdowns are still in effect as we speak, our cases have been stabilized, but at an average of 1000 new Covid cases/day, not exactly great news. Our deaths are about 7-8/day. Sometimes we get 20-25 deaths for a couple of days then we drop down to 5 or fewer deaths for 4-5 days in a row. Our hospitalizations are not quite critical, but we arent exactly on the cusp of being in control either. We are getting restless about the whole thing though. The confinements, the mask wearing. XMAS is just around the corner and our doctors and politicians are fearing the worst in us in that we wont respect isolating ourselves from visiting our friends and family and avoiding "super spreader" gatherings during the upcoming holidays. We barely got through our Thanksgiving. As a society in Quebec, we dont see a near future where vaccines are a reality. We as a society do see our near future as a pain in the ass to get around life as we do understand that Covid will be with us for quite sometime still. But we are also quite fed up with it and I think we are just about ready to give up on the cautious way of living and just say phoque it! I hopes that we Quebecois could hold it together for just a tad more longer.

[ Interesting how one comes into this thread which was on Alternative fuels and starts calling California Commies or specifically calling them commiefornia and I respond to his remark and he says I started the politics.] I think the issue comes in when you attempt to link incongruous ideas together, along the lines like ‘This administration encourages diesel truck sales’ or the like. Not everything you view as negative can remotely be linked to the office of the President. In fact, almost nothing can. Folk greatly overestimate the influence there.

The fact that a sheriff would run under a political party somehow seems grossly inappropriate. I don't know that I've ever realized that that's done, before.

How about a partial arrangement? Like : most government vehicles (postal trucks, etc), all transit vehicles (taxis, buses, etc), all light cargo vehicles (vans) and half the passenger cars & light trucks go BEV, and the other half remain IC. That would be a HUGE move "forward" and reduce emissions GREATLY, yet still offer choice and allow the consumer to choose. Have a goal of the year 2050 to reach this breakout. That, at least, seems feasible. The '100% in 14 years'... isn't.

Bug of the day :

I haven't been in a restaurant since 2019. But we do go grocery shopping (when they first open); wife does the supermarket, I usually do Costco. I'm not overly paranoid about this whole deal; I acknowledge it's ominpresent, but I don't deal closely with that many people and I don't know anyone who has it... other than one customer's wife who had it with short, mild symptoms... but I haven't seen her in person since last year. I get out of the house via work, that's good.

One more funny for Today... We are pushing 5000 cases of Covid a day in Ohio, I have largely stopped going out to eat and going places for the time being. I now know a bunch of people who ahve gotten it, and gotten wicked sick.

I’ve not seen ANY guard letting down in central jersey, yet new cases are up roughly 500%. Problem is, none of the methodologies recommended are 100% effective, and some folk are still going to get sick regardless of what they do. Likewise with future vaccine-recievers.

Did I miss a Ford press release on mustang engines?

Yep, this YouTuber has this interesting collection of videos he does. He's really knowledgeable. The A-380 photographs well from some angles ... and poorly from others. I've seen some of this guy's videos, made unique by his Australian accent. As for the person who always speaks at the beginning of his videos (most likely in the tower), I need a translator.

Pan Am, TWA, United, and American all had 747s going daily from LAX to New York back in the day. I don't know if that meant fewer flights per day. There was also 747 service from LAX to Chicago, Honolulu, and Miami. It was National that flew to Miami and the airline was absorbed by Pan Am, so they got the route. Some Honolulu bound 747s marketed that they had lounges for coach/economy in the back. Continental - absorbed by United - was one such airline. First class definitely had a lounge, and it was upstairs. They then turned to using the hump for additional seating and "suites" that produced revenue. This National 747 was the -100 series, the first ones. You can see this one is named Linda (near the second level's 3 windows). They had one named Patricia. You can see their Florida themed sunburst logo on the tail. Their marketing went along the lines of "fly Linda" or "fly Patricia." Back then, it would have been considered different and humorous. Today, some snively, uptight individual would come forth and say it's sexist and be offended.

Not to mention, there's the old stereotype that 'European is high class', and to pick at it, or chose American design over European, is to be looked down upon, as if 'how dare you; that's an Aston-Martin! [snif]'. Bullshit. There it sits, right there, and I have both eyes and discerning eyes. Another myth : 'A good American design is one influenced by a European design, and never the other way around.' Yeah, OK, Guiseppe.

My criteria is not as elaborate and refined as yours. I will eventually learn to critique the way you do. Im open to it. Ill ask you why you feel that way so I could pick your brain from time to time.

Judging a car (positively) on one or two elements only is like going to an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner and just eating brussel sprouts and cranberry sauce. Euro designers seldom ever got a handle on the WHOLE envelope. GM thru history has strongly excelled in that aspect. Jag E-type is like that- lovely from a bird's eye view, or parked in very tall grasses... but the design falls down below the waist.

^ It's because European designers never could figure out what to do south of the headlights (or maybe the bumpers). Here's 2 similar-ideal cars using a lot of the same elements (even tho the A-M came 10 years later). Both have single headlights in the down-curving fenders, wide low grilles, minimal bumpers, round parking lights. See where the A-M sheetmetal just stops dead at the horizontal bumper? What's up with that? Where's the lower valence/continuation of the lines? Why is exactly 50% of the front tire exposed... is it intended to go off road? It's 'wrong'. I also find the concave 'corners' of the A-M fighting with the headlight ovals- the Corvette's convex curves there are a lot more harmonious. Next, I apreciate the Corvette's subtle wheelwell flares, it brings the eye to the wheels... where as the A-M feels like it was cut out of cardboard there. Then you have that dip at the beltline on the Corvette - S3XY.

Massachusetts passes right to repair bill meaning Tesla will have to open up their books allowing non-Tesla auto repair shops to work on Tesla auto's. Gonna be interesting to see how that goes over with Tesla CEO Musk. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/massachusetts-passes-right-to-repair-protections/ Land Rover will not Confirm or Deny reports that their two door Defender SUV that has a Turbo 4 or inline 6 engine is getting a twin turbo V8 from BMW in their refresh of the two door SUV. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/report-land-rover-considering-more-oomph-for-defender/

Ferrari 65 year old CEO says that in his life time Ferrari will not go pure EV only. He believes that customers still want the sound of their ICE motors and at the most they will offer for those wanting a bit more green in their exotic sports car a plug-in hybrid at most. https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/05/ferrari-not-going-electric/

Those... are... alll... ugly. Sorry. ?

Vachina

Same here @Robert Hall Wife, kids and I have not been in a restaurant since February. I do pickup an occasional curbside order from the couple places locally here to support our local small restaurants, but otherwise, we have been avoiding everything, but I do a once a week shopping trip to Costco. Yes I could have it ordered and delivered, but this keeps me sane getting out of the house.

Asian Cheerleaders

skanky

It's somewhat of a relief that not many people are talking about coronavirus these days ... - - - - - @A Horse With No Name In terms of random one hit wonder-ness, I immediately think of this one. It might be the "king" of one hit wonders of its era ... by King Harvest, no less ...

I dont like BMW, but hey...this is an EV thread after all...

Ill meet the Hummer sometime later in the day. Thanx!

With those light clusters, it's the refreshed 2010. The 4.0 was replaced w/ the 3.7 Duratec V6 in 2011...

Flag

Yes, beautiful area... drove up to Lake George and Saratoga Springs in a Mitsubishi Diamante rental on a long weekend in Albany back around 2001. So beautiful up there in the fall. Oh yeah..I don't think it's that way everywhere, but county sheriffs are very politicized in many places in the US>..

^ the 3 lil dots in the upper right corner...

Yes. Very beautiful. Ausable Chasm are awesome. Lake George is awesome. I always enjoy that drive going to Lake George. I only have one huge regret, is that I have never been to Lake Placid...yet. One cant edit anymore I noticed. OK... you folk are possibly going to witness PLENTY of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors from my posts going forward.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to fly on 747s on British Airways several times during the '00s...flew on BA 777s also, but the 747 is my favorite...flew on them to Hawaii also. I wish I had had an opportunity to fly on Pan Am...my folks and siblings flew on Pan Am 707s from Cleveland to San Francisco to Hawaii then not sure what on to Guam and other parts of the Pacific during their years abroad in the 60s...(a few years before I was born). IIRC, my first flight was Miami to Tampa on Eastern in 1984...

Beautiful. I love the Hudson River Valley. And driving along I-87 between Montreal and NYC. I stopped in Plattsburgh, where SUNY is located just south of the Canadian border, and got a fantastic gyro meal. And, a long time ago, I met up with "razoredge" in Albany, his general area, and that was a hoot. If you ever fly into Newark or LaGuardia airports and you diagonally go over the Hudson River Valley, it's amazing that so much pristine, wooded land is that close to NYC. The same would apply to the eastern ~2/3 of Long Island. The middle of it is very rural once you go way east.

And probably a lot of custom 'mil-spec' parts that you can't find from normal GM suppliers...

And other minor trivialities like all the spare parts, the engineering, the testing....

Each vehicle is probably $50k and the rest of the cost is paperwork, overhead, fees, etc...

That is not how it works; there a lot more involved than merely dividing the contract amount by the number of vehicles.

GM Defense was awarded in June a $214.3 million contract to build the all new Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV which is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. GM Defense will build 649 ISV's with a extension of up to another 2,065 ISV's over eight years. The initial contract order of 649 ISVs makes each auto cost $330,200.31. If the full contract is full filled, the additional cost for the 2,065 ISVs is $681,863,636.36 or what is approximately a $900 million contract. The ISV is light enough to be sling loaded from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter for air transportability. More details at the link below. https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/oct/1027-gmdefense.html GM-Defense-Delivers-First-Infantry-Squad-Vehicle-to-U-S--Army.mp4

Battery tech is moving forward at Warp Speed. The new SuperBattery using man made curved Graphene carbon material has the individual battery cell down to a 15 second recharge time. This is brought to you by Skeleton Technologies and KIT or Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. A $1 billion letter has been signed with an Automotive OEM to bring these cells to market. This would make a 40 kWh battery like what the Nissan Leaf uses recharge from empty to full in 6 minutes. https://www.skeletontech.com/news/skeleton-and-kit-are-developing-a-new-graphene-battery-charging-in-15-seconds

I could deal w/ that also...been there, love them.. and they have diesel Grand Cherokees in Europe...

RIP Sir Connery Beautiful cars he will be forever associated with onscreen real life

If 'you're' going to scream incessantly "VOTE!!!", but then your election coverage maps immediately call a state the literal minute the poles close with ZERO data in, you're just disenfranchised an entire state of voters.

Ashtray from Belgium celebrating teh anniversary of a GM plant there.

We have a company send a guy in and do it, he's not an employee.

Over and over