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For the first time in a bunch of years, I am actually looking forward to the new year. Work has been quite the roller coaster for me, but I'll have some career change news to share in a week or two. Happy New Year to all.

Well, it was a little sooner than I expected... Today was promoted to Director of Communication for the municipality I work for. After a few decades in I.T. and Project Management, I am stepping away from those and more into a field that I enjoy. Clearly I will still be using some of those skills in my new position, but they will allow me to finally pivot away from I.T. which I've grown tired of. In the next year I will be leading a complete rebrand of the local government including a new website. In the process, we will completely revamp the way we communicate to the community. It's going to be a fun ride and with a larger (and, frankly, more competent staff) it will also allow me much more time to spend here. I don't expect this to be a long term post, but it is a great jumping off point for where I want to go next.

2022 is another year from which everyone is ready to move on. The world continued to recover from the impacts of COVID and is learning to live with the variants. Mass shootings unfortunately remain common, though this past year had particularly shocking events at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado. Inflation was rampant, with high gas prices due to the conflict in Ukraine affecting the cost of almost everything. Putin's misguided war in Ukraine has cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives of both military and civilians. Cryptocurrencies crashed, and home mortgage interest rates doubled as the Fed tried to control inflation. Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. The political red wave that was predicted in the fall elections from the adverse economic news did not materialize, seemingly because of abhorrently poor candidate quality and youth turnout from backlash to the abortion ruling. In popular culture, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscar’s. Ye, aka Kanye West, spewed antisemitic remarks and was dropped from major business partners. The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial mercifully came to an end after two months. Prominent deaths included Bob Saget, Mikhail Gorbachev, Naomi Judd, Queen Elizabeth II, Jerry Lee Lewis, Loretta Lynn, Angela Lansbury, Kirstie Alley, Olivia Newton-John, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, and at the end of the year, Pele, Barbara Walters, and Pope Benedict XVI. In automotive news, the push for electrification is unrelenting. The Inflation Reduction Act brought revised tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles, restoring credits to purchasers of GM and Tesla EVs, but it came with confusing new restrictions based on location of assembly and source of battery mineral content. At the beginning of 2022, Chevrolet revealed the Silverado EV. Cadillac started deliveries of the Lyriq crossover in August as the brand started the transition to an EV-only lineup. Corvette is to become a sub-brand in two years with a sedan and SUV, and there are rumors of a Camaro EV sub-brand as well. Electra is becoming the EV sub-brand for Buick. Updating logos continued to be a thing for automakers. Buick unveiled a new logo that ditched the familiar circle to help signify the new direction of electrification. Audi flattened the ringed logo, as is the current trend. Citroen and Lancia also have updated logos. Dodge announced the end of production for the current Charger and Challenger models but revealed an EV Charger concept car with fake engine sounds. Toyota introduced a new generation of Prius to a gushing press. It has more power, bigger wheels, and most importantly better looks, but less interior room, less cargo capacity, and worse aerodynamics than the outgoing model. Dealerships still had low inventory amid the supply chain constraints, and added dealer mark-up or exorbitantly priced add-ons persisted. GM lost sales leadership to Toyota in 2021 amid supply chain issues but is poised to regain the title in 2022. EV startups like Canoo and Faraday Future struggled to reach production. Canoo is testing vehicles with Walmart in Texas, and vehicle deliveries are expected in a few months, about the same time Faraday supposedly will start delivering vehicles assembled in California. The Fiskar Ocean is about 9 months from starting deliveries. Lucid has struggled to produce the high-end Air sedans. Departing vehicles include the Kia Stinger, Acura NSX, and Ford GT, as well as the Hyundai Accent, Ionic Hybrid, Ionic Hybrid Plug-In, and Veloster N. Here is the 21st annual edition of Cheers and Jeers for some of the best and worst of all things automotive in the past year: Cheers to the Best Scoop on the hybrid and AWD 2024 Corvette E-Ray found by Corvette sleuths on Chevy’s website. The visualizer gave a glimpse at the new colors and body-color trim. Cheers to Cadillac for the Boldest Move by introducing the handbuilt $300,000 Celestiq. It’s a statement of confidence but is also risky because Cadillac does not have a good track record with low-volume boutique models. The styling is polarizing, but it will debut the new Ultra Cruise with lidar. Cheers to the Best Vehicle Introduction, the Hyundai Ionic 6. It’s not exactly pretty, but it does have a best-in-class 0.21 drag coefficient, Hyundai’s excellent EV propulsion, and it’s a car. Honorable Mention goes to the BMW I4, based on the 4-Series 4-door Gran Coupes, resulting in an ICE-looking EV for those who may not want to stand out, BMW has their wild-looking iX, but the I4 and forthcoming I7 will appeal to those who want to blend in. It goes without saying Jeers to the hideous grills. Jeers to Toyota for the Worst Vehicle Introduction with the ungainly Crown. It replaced the Avalon as their new flagship and has a storied name, but it’s unclear who would want to buy such a thing. Jeers to the Biggest Troll Man-Child, Elon Musk. The Twitter takeover has been nothing short of disastrous, and alienating the greenie and techie base of Tesla vehicles is a questionable marketing strategy. Tesla had to resort to ever-sweetening deals, up to $7,500 and free Supercharger miles for some models, to move vehicles at the end of the year, though some drop in demand is likely from the tax credits resuming in January. The value of Tesla stock dropped by two thirds in the year, and Musk saw his personal fortune drop by $200 billion. The years late Cybertruck is still undergoing engineering and the new Roadster is nowhere to be found. Jeers to Toyota for Failed ZEV Leadership, having placed all their ZEV marbles on hydrogen but seeing consumers gravitate towards battery EVs. Hydrogen continues to have potential in certain segments like trucking. For their one BEV offering, Toyota tried to buy back all the bZ4X crossovers due to the wheels coming off, and they have had to revamp their EV strategy to catch up. For the New Year, wishing all your EV and ICE dreams come true. Hope you all have a safe, prosperous, and Happy New Year!

Weight savings will probably BE in the cards for the ZR1. More power etc... But...the damned thing will have a trunk in the back to fit those damned golf bags and a frunk in the front to carry anything else a Corvette owner would want to carry and thus, the ZR1 will be a GT car again. NOT a bad thing. A VERY VERY good thing. But like you said, 90% of what @ccap41 and I are saying will be. We want 100% of what we are saying. A Corvette that is just NOT a GT car. A Corvette variant to forego a freakin trunk and frunk so it could be less livable, to be NOT a GT car, and to be a MORE visceral speed machine. To actually compete with the less comfy variants of the very same Porsche and Ferrari GT cars that Porsche and Ferrari have made into PURE track machines that Corvettes competes with as a GT, but now, Corvette ALSO has a very very UNCOMFORTABLE track variant too... And a hypercar with NO radio, NO heated and cool seats, no frunk and trunk. And another hypercar variant WITH a radio and heated and cooled seats and the hypercar that is a shytty daily driver because its a machine, it would cost MORE to buy with LESS equipment because THAT is EXACTLY what Porsche does. And Porsche succeeds with!!! THAT is what I want from Corvette!!! But you and I know, that will never happen. I dont think the Corvette brand thing is going to happen as well. But...even Corvette staying the course the way it has been doing for the last 70 years, its still good enough for me!!! its a helluva machine this C8. Im happy to let the hot rodders do what I want Chevrolet to do with the Corvette. To me, its the same thing!!!

A Corvette VARIANT like what we are saying and wanting, doesn and t even NEED to start as low as 100K. it could even start at 150 000 and with all kinds of boutique personalizations through the Celestiq program type of deal where GM whould have already set-up the network, a Corvette variant of hypercar magnitude could even end at 200 000. Even kiss and be just shy of 250 000. A carbon fibre platform OF the C8 aluminum platform to save THAT much MORE weight....THAT kind of thing does NOT need to be mass produced and only a handfull could be produced. In fact, Corvette HAS done something like THAT in the recent past when aluminum frames were a common thing for supercars but carbon fibre frames were still prohibitive and only the most expesive supercars were using that. Lets not forget that the Ferrari F40 was carbon fibre...anyway... The C6 Stingray was a STEEL frame but when Chevrolet introduced the Z06, the Z06 went aluminum. GM had the frame built by a third party manufacturer. The ZR1 C6 used aluminum frame as well. https://www.motortrend.com/features/corvette-chassis-dave-hills-superior-evolutionary-c6/#:~:text=The Z06 frame is 50,Corvette Bowling Green assembly plant. When the C7 arrived, all C7 variants went aluminum. So Chevrolet has done what Im proposing before. And by shorting the body just a tad to eliminate the golf bag trunk in the back, and the built-in aero that comes with that, then Corvette goes hypercar with a Corvette type price tag. Sure, it wont be a Corvette that costs 60 000, but its a Corvette hypercar that only costs 150 000 or so...