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Obey...

Interesting piece of wood my friend Jason just found... Nomad!

Truth for Thursday

Mercedes needs a new naming scheme for their EVs. And a design language that is not so pitiful/ugly.

Knock on wood the ecoboost 4 in my Ranger is doing fantastic. Neighbors Ecoboost V6 is like 180,000 trouble free miles in his F150, its a 2011 or 2012, so about ten years old. technology can be good when it is sorted and vetted. That being said, 3800 V6 is one of the best motors GM ever came out with... A thing of beauty... Looks like what passed thorugh my intestines and colon after I ate some not so good mexican food. The CT5 has really grown on me, especially in that color, that looks fantastic. Stuff like this is why I buy woodworking tools and audio equipment rather than emotionally or financially investing in a lot of modern cars. We ought to road trip together some time. I think it would be a blast!

Very excited to watch this "MATRIX RESURRECTIONS"

Worst music ever. If peanuts was honest about the way people actually think...

A few of us might be in trouble.

Seems Mercedes has revealed their Electric version of the G Wagon. EQG in the blah naming convention of what MB has become has released the electric off road machine. Stronger than time: Mercedes-Benz G-Class ready for the age of e-mobility - Daimler Global Media Site Mercedes G-Class EQG concept wows off-roading aficionados at IAA - Electrek

^ Looks like an older honda.

De-chroming Cadillacs should be punishable by death.

She was really hot in that left pic era.

Have passed 2500 miles- no problems or issues to report. Suspension settled down, MPG is edging upward. Still : ?

Looking forward to the new Matrix movie. Watched the trailer today. Too bad they didn’t get Elon Musk to play a new Architect.

Yes. Makes sense. Im shocked. I not only remember the movies, but completely understand them too! Neo beat the agents which in the end was only one, Mr. Smith cloning himself. But I suppose the peace between the humans, machines and the agents wanting more power has been broken. I think this is the storyline of Resurrections.

Yes, the Oracle was written to ensure balance against the Architect. As such, I could see the Machines seeing a need for Trinity and Neo to balance against the Agents.

Yes. That would be a plausible way of introducing them back. If I was to understand the logic of the Matrix, wasnt the black woman, forget her name, the Oracle I think, wasnt she a software code written by the machines?

Wow. Ford cannot build profitable cars in India. Yet it might move an entire back office to India instead. A Sad Day for Dearborn.

Well....I only listened to about 8 minutes of the video. The driver/tester/opinion maker states that this is a modern electric interpretation of an electric muscle car. Without the nuisances of what truly makes a muscle car... I wanna be clear about one thing though... Is a Dodge Challenger Hellcat Red Eye or a Mustang GT500 or a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 or a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 or a Mercedes GT AMG Blackseries or a Ferrari/Lamborghini whatever model Superleggera also waste of money unless you are a rabid fanboy of MOPAR, Mustang, Chevrolet (Camaro or Corvette), Mercedes, Ferrari and Lamborghini too JUST because the lesser models of those cars could be driven on public roads with less speed and more manageable and because they cost less to purchase therefore more of value too? I get that the Plaid trim of the Model S is overkill, but its in the same vein as a sub 900 horsepower Challenger Demon. Its cray cray. But THAT is why we fall in love with automobiles, especially certain sports-y automobiles...because of the cray cray factor. Musk canceled an even more crazier version (because of reasons) of the Plaid. Im pissed at him for NOT releasing it. I dont care if there is a more sensible Model S to be bought, or a more manageable Corvette Stingray, or an all wheel drive Pentastar powered Charger. I LIVE FOR STUPENDOUS VEHICLES that manufacturers continue to throw at us. No matter what brand or what motorvation powers them. I want manufacturers to continue to give us these absolute idiotic machines... Ludicrous speed and Freedom mode! Howling superchargers of hell sucking up air and gasoline!!! THAT is what I want. The MORE the better! Fuc Forget that video and fuc forget Edmunds!

This story posted by Nissan makes me wonder if we might not see skirts on the wheels again as we move into the electric age of auto's. Nissan goes back to the future to electrify 1960s Silvia (nissanstories.com)

Just not Tesla or Mercedes needs to be aware of what the competition is doing, this latest video showing the 2022 Black Label improvements shows Lincoln is out to be a luxury leader and right now, WOW, I like what I am seeing. Exquisite Craftsmanship: Lincoln Introduces Exclusive Black Label Themes with New 2022 Navigator | Lincoln Media Center Have to say they have some nice looking updates on their news release. This right now is a very sharp SUV! Very luxurious interior.

I had to laugh as I just recently, last weekend drove across the 520 for once and through the new tunnel under Seattle. Fast, better than the old way, but still crazy expensive. LOL It is very weird to think about how long both have been operational and still people have not used them.

I think it will be grand when it crosses Lake Washington and connects the east side to the city proper. I know that's coming and I can't wait to ride on it when it does. I still need to drive across the new 520 bridge! It's all on my bucket list.

A 2021 GMC Canyon Denali - White with Cocoa/Dark Atmosphere interior. Big change from the CTS but not the first truck I have had. It's been a number of years now but I have had two S10's and two Rangers through the years. So why a Canyon you ask? Well, I decided I wanted a truck for towing the camper and full size, while very nice, just didn't suit our needs. It doesn't fit in the garage and would be hard to get around when parked in the driveway. I did really want the 3.0L Duramax, though, so I gave it some serious thought. I was either going to get a truck or buy the Cadillac. Eventually decided on either a Colorado or Canyon but the initial stop at a Chevy and GMC dealer did not result in encouraging leasing rates for either. I had decided to order a 2022 Canyon Elevation pretty well loaded up and just extend the Cadillac lease until it came in if necessary. I prefer the no chrome look and bright blue of the Elevation and was going to go that route. Then I received a mailer from another local GMC dealership offering an attractive lease price on a Canyon Denali so I went and talked to them. The out the door deal wound up reasonable enough that I decided to pull the trigger. I generally prefer brighter exterior colors but after having several cars in a row with black interiors I decided to prioritize the interior color over the exterior color. Since inventories are tight, I had to go with what the dealership had so white it is! While not my first choice (I would have preferred Hunter Metallic as you can't get the Denali in blue), I actually do think it looks pretty good in white. I have only put a couple hundred miles on it so far so too early to offer in depth driving impressions. I am a bit disappointed with some missing features on this "loaded" truck that I hope GM addresses on the next iteration. Call me spoiled but I haven't had a car that required me to get my keys out of my pocket for close to 10 years. They have all been proximity keyless entry and push button start. Now I have to lock/unlock with a FOB and use a key to start it. First world, problems, I know! There is no garage door opener, no blind spot monitoring and no memory seating. All of those are features I would expect on a top trim vehicle these days. I don't particularly love the old school, dim incandescent interior lighting either. I'll be towing my camper a 100 miles or so this weekend so I'll circle back in a week or two and give my driving/towing impressions. My initial impressions is that it is a bit bouncy like you would expect an unloaded truck to be but overall it rides and drives pretty nicely.

yeah! Wouldn't have THAT been a hoot!

We have almost 800 miles on the truck already! Was trying hard to get it through the 500 mile break-in period before leaving for our trip but fell a bit short. Here are my initial driving impressions after our couple hundred mile round trip camping adventure last weekend: As expected, it pulled our 2100 lb popup camper like a champ. It even got decent gas mileage doing it. It came in at around 17 mpg with 75% to 25% split between 2 lane 55 mph highway and 70 mph Interstate on the way out due to being diverted by construction traffic combined with 95% interstate driving on the way back. It is also averaging around 17.5 mpg around town since we got back. I expect the mileage to get even better as I get even more miles on it. I'm not sure if these had stop/start prior to the chip shortage and it got removed or if they never had it but after our last two new vehicles having it, it seems almost odd and wasteful to not have it. I didn't necessarily like the feature at first but once I got used to it, it didn't bother me. While my complaints of missing features mentioned in the first post are still valid, I like the interior more than I initially thought I would. I am very happy with my choice of cocoa/dark atmosphere over black. I think it looks quite nice. The seats were also more comfortable than I initially thought they were going to be. So far all the features I have used have been pretty intuitive and have worked as expected with the exception of the trailer brake and I am pretty sure that is due to them being out of adjustment on the camper, not due to a problem with the truck. I've never used them before and I doubt the first owner of the camper did either since they were towing it with an Escape. One more minor annoyance that I noticed on the trip: the HVAC blower makes more noise than I would expect at just a medium fan speed. And it isn't a wind noise but more of a weird, almost whistle sound. Not sure if that is something specific to my truck or common on all of these. Overall, the build quality seems pretty good. The dealership had to fix the front fascia that was not installed correctly (they did this before I took delivery) but everything else seems fine. These trucks were initially built with missing parts due to the chip shortage so I wonder if they had to remove the fascia to install something prior to shipment and didn't get it reinstalled correctly. Lastly, I did buy some GM accessories so I guess I can comment on those. I bought the front and rear floor liners. The quality seems good and the fronts fit very well but the rears don't fit quite as well. The fronts definitely fit better than the WeatherTech liners my Dad bought for his Terrain. I also bought the tri-fold tonneau cover. It seems to fit quite well and everything stayed dry in a serious downpour the other day. It was easy to install and is easy to unclamp and fold. No complaints. Let me know if you guys have any questions about the truck I can answer!

I totally get the point your making, I also was pissed on the PALPATINE and Rey issues, but then like you went with the ride to enjoy it and have it in my movie collection. Having a minor in film analysis, I am just interested to see if the Machines created Neo and Trinity as Software code, cloned for a new body or what????? I am also very excited for the reboot of DUNE!

LOL When it comes to milking money from the would be movie goers, I am sure the writers found a clever way... Sometimes these things are seamless. Sometimes writing back characters, especially from the dead, dont seem quite so logical and/or subtle... *cough* PALPATINE *cough* If in THIS case its kinda dumb as like it was with *cough* PALPATINE *cough* , lets just enjoy the ride! Movies are meant to enjoy the ride and not obsess over the nuances of how it should or shouldnt be. I was pretty miffed over the fact that Palpatine was even a thing...for the first 30 minutes of the movie. Was pretty pissed that Rey was his granddaughter for another 15 minutes. I buckled down and enjoyed the ride. I bought the DVD and have seen The Rise of Skywalker several times since and enjoy it immensely every single time. I still think it was a stupid writing choice. But still entertaining nonetheless. I think Trinity and Neo being brought back will be more logical than Palpatine was. So there is that! PS: I aint preaching to you or anybody about enjoying or not, the ride of movie going. Just shooting the shyte... Explaining how I will be looking at it!

I always thought the Matrix franchise used Billy Idol's Shock to the System. But no! I guess seeing this video in the past made me think this way. Anyway, the song is PERFECT for the Matrix franchise as is White Rabbit!

A lot of our problems can be safely boiled down to a LOT of poor management and a lack of leadership, and not just in business.

A sad day for a lot of big American companies. Lots of inability to lead....

Seems Honda wants a more rugged image and as such is making their truck an off road version. Honda Introduces TrailSport: New Direction to Advance Rugged Off-Road Design & Capability of Light Trucks (hondanews.com) TrailSport For those wanting to dial into a specific brand by Stellantis, go here, choose your brand and check out the 2022 stuff. Stellantis 2022 Product Information (stellantis-na-product-media.info)

All sorts of animal videos end up on my homepage. I was looking at this one, thinking, "Wow, that looks like a warm and familiar area, with those houses and that vegetation ... " Well, it's in a suburb of Los Angeles abutting the San Gabriel Mountains. How do videos wind up capturing these random events? This teenage girl was brave.

One of my bucket list cars!

It's a move in the right direction to use more wind power. Thanks for the fact check, but also, here is to more wind power. We need to invest in infrastructure. Don''t want to veer off into politics, but it's gotta happen. One more mem for now, got to get to work.

^ looks like a BEV version of the current GLB.

WOW, This is ONE UGLY CUV from Mercedes. The EQB will have 260 miles of battery per Europe test cycle so about 232 for the US maybe. Multiple sites say you take the European WLTP and divide their range number by 1.12 to equal EPA range. Mercedes EQB electric SUV: Specs and features confirmed for 2022 US arrival (greencarreports.com) The EQB will be offered in the U.S. in EQB 300 4Matic and EQB 350 4Matic versions—both in a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive layout. EQB 300 models will deliver 225 horsepower and 288 lb-ft of torque, while EQB 350 versions will be quicker due to their higher ratings of 288 hp and 384 lb-ft. Interior is nice, but the exterior is just so dated already.

Thank you for posting this. I totally agree that RJ has Rivian dialed in to compete and Tesla has lost a HUGE HUGE HUGE chance to dominate in electric trucks. Musk's various distractions will hurt him long term I believe. I am very excited as the Rivian experience store is just about done in Bellevue and I am excited to actually go there and see how I fit in an R1T.

I dunno- it looks slightly worried.... Also; the last Flying Goddess @ Cadillac.

purchased. very glad, dealers have very few vehicles to sell nowadays!

Finally officially in!

And, being the "late adopter" that I am, I wondered how the new cast iron block / aluminum head / SOHC of the 4.6 L V8 would teeth for FoMoCo. It fared well. And so did the Chevy 3.5 and 3.9 V6 with newly added VVT that was inserted into Monte Carlos and Impalas in the mid 2000s. With basic engines that were meant to be good (some Chevy small blocks in the late '70s with premature cam wear, Buick 252 V6s born of the 231 V6 that had their issues, some Iron Duke 4s that lost a tooth or a cog in their timing chains, etc.) and still gave problems, a prospective buyer gets a little wary of auto engine technology that hasn't been on the road for a few years.

I’ll go one step further on that loss of advantage. From an MT article on the Rivian. “Once plugged in and chatting over lunch from Holly's kitchen, Rivian's staffers asked us what we thought of the R1T. "It's annoyingly good," was all we could think to say. No brand-new automaker has any right to build a vehicle this competent right off the bat. And that initial impression held true as the pavement increasingly gave way to gravel, mud, and water crossings the farther west we traveled.” https://www.motortrend.com/features/2022-rivian-r1t-exclusive-drive-review-trans-america-trail-off-road/

http://energyfairness.org/dutch-trains-really-running-completely-renewable-power/ Are Dutch Trains Really Running Completely on Renewable Power? "... What’s the trick? A little more than a tenth of all electricity consumed in the Netherlands comes from wind power, some of which is imported. But none of this wind power is directly connected to the NS rail system. Even the two Dutch wind farms with which NS contracts directly for wind power, Noordoostpolder and Luchterduinen, are tied generally to the Dutch grid and not tied directly into the NS rail system. Plus, it turns out that about half the electricity NS uses to power its rail system comes from outside of the Netherlands. Some of the nations that supply power to NS such as Germany, Belgium, and Finland, do generate wind power, but only in modest amounts. That means electrons traveling across international borders to help power the NS railway system come in some amount from wind power, but in much larger amounts from non-wind sources. “Putting these numbers together indicates that only 10-15% of the electricity consumed annually by NS’s electric trains will come from wind, with the rest a mixture that includes mostly Dutch gas and coal plus a small amount of Belgian and German coal, nuclear and lignite – and maybe even a little German solar,” Andrews explains. When challenged on its claim, NS clarified that only the electrified portion of its system runs completely on wind power. This is about two-thirds of the system. But of course even two-thirds of the NS system doesn’t run “completely” on wind power. The electrons that run the electrified portion of the NS system come from many sources, including wind, but also from coal, natural gas, and nuclear. The truth is that it’s impossible to determine the source of electrons actually moving NS trains down the track. What is clear is that most of those electrons didn’t originate from wind turbines. There are many reasons, of course, why NS would claim its trains run completely on wind power and even more reasons why many would celebrate this apparently breakthrough. Headlines like this make people feel good. It feels to many like progress. But let’s be real. The evidence speaks for itself. Claims that Dutch trains running entirely on wind power are way off track."

The public Lite Rail that is being installed from north to south of Seattle is all powered by Hydro Electricity.

Imagine an upgraded Amtrak (or any train-type public transportation) doing just that in the United States.

You mention a few products but a few products don’t make a car company. Like GM needs 12 electric SUVs at minimum, probably more like 15-20. They need EV sedans, EV pickups and vans. Question is if GM, Ford, Mercedes or anyone else cancelled all their gas cars, could they survive? The Mach-e might have a nice conquest rate but Tesla sold 200,000 Model 3/Y in Q2 of 2021 worldwide. That’s like an F150 sales rate, the Mach-E is no where near that.

looks great! I do love the big boxy new grilles on the GMC's these days. Looks great here.