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Bringing the Bolt back is great news. The Equinox EV is 2 feet longer, and not everyone wants a larger crossover. The Ultium tech should be addressing the only major issue on the Bolt, and that is the slow fast-charging speed. While the max charging speed is about 55 kW, it also tapers off quickly. It's unknown whether the Bolt will live on in EV or EUV form or both. I would prefer the original EV body to make it an honest hatch, and the EV weighs less than the EUV because it uses several aluminum body panels versus the all-steel EUV. However, the EUV is the much better-selling body style and has more modern detailing.

BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis announced a new venture today to build out an EV charging network to rival Tesla's. The aim is to install at least 30,000 high-speed charging points in urban and highway locations across then country. The first chargers will go online in the U.S. in the summer of 2024, with chargers in Canada following shortly after. Of the manufacturers in this venture, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz recently announced agreements with Tesla for access to their SuperCharger network. While Ford, General Motors, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, have all committed to Tesla's NACS charging connector. The network will use the 350-kw / 800-volt and offer both Tesla's NACS and CCS connectors. What wasn't announced was support for the V4 version of the NACS standard, which supports 800-Volt peak charging, but 800-Volt charging is a key feature of GM's Ultium technology, so we expect it will be offered. The as yet unnamed network will be powered by renewable energy and will be open to all makes and models that use either the NACS or CCS connectors. Sorry, Nissan Leaf and Kia Soul EV owners, you're out of luck. This move reflects a frustration by manufacturers regarding the reliability and build-out speed when relying on third-party charging networks. Electrify America, one of the largest non-Tesla fast-charging networks, has a reputation for broken and error-prone charging stations. With EV adoption being a Chicken and Egg problem, this move by the manufacturers is an attempt to squeeze the egg out of the chicken. To put a project of this size into perspective, the Tesla SuperCharger network offers 20,400 fast-charging ports at 1,900 locations while Electrify America offers 3,600 fast-charging ports at 800 locations, but EA's network is mostly at the slower charge rate of 150kw rather than 350kw. General Motors and Mercedes-Benz, which are both building out their own charging networks, will continue to do so separately from this plan. Related Articles: Mercedes-Benz Announces Their New EV Charging Network Tesla Supercharger Network of North America Now a Benz Charging Option Rivian Latest to Join the NACS Camp NACS the North American New Charging Standard? Ford EVs Gain Access to Tesla SuperChargers, Ford to Adopt Tesla NACS Charge Port View full article

She is amazing Bonneville is a bucket list thing for me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpwlwlmqxY

Be interesting to see how Tesla deals with this bit of news. Course for the Fanbois it will not matter. Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints (reuters.com)

I dunno. Most charging still happens at home. 30,000 chargers for this new network is still more than what Tesla has today and the Tesla folks do okay most of the time. Plus EA and ChargePoint are still out there too along with every GM dealership. I’m not saying 60k isn’t a selling point just that Tesla sells cars fine with 21,000.

RIP Sinéad O’Connor, provocative Irish singer, dies at 56 | AP News

Years ago, "Log In with <Social Media Account" was sold as a way to get people to sign up without having them fill out a long sign up form. And that was fine until the social media networks got unstable with that function. The first to go was Google+ which then went to just Google. It was transparent to the end users, but for me, I had to rip it out and install new. Then Facebook got really strict with verification. I'm still in limbo-land with them and have to deal with that by the end of August. They need to "verify" the website, but they won't tell me what country they are verifying from and I block most non-english speaking countries in Asia and Russia because we've had hacking attempts, and that's where 99% of the spam posts come from. Elon has made Twitter... I mean.... ?.... so unstable that we're one of the few sites that use this software that the Twitter ... ?....login actually functions properly for. But I am reading about other site owners in the support forums for this software who are having user issues and the Twitter login doesn't work for them anymore. So since I'm the only one who set it up, I removed it so no one can get caught in the future without being able to log in. I have all of them set up just for testing purposes. I'll set up Log In with Apple in the future, but that's $100 a year to implement, so not a huge priority. I'm in beta testing with the software company for something that will potentially bring a nice influx of new users to the site. I've been trying it for a few days and I'm really excited for it, and it will be interesting for you guys too.

Yeah, I don't even have the ole Twitter. I've resisted getting anymore social media than just boomer Facebook. I don't need more BS to mindlessly scroll through. I do need to get the app though. I keep forgetting when I'm at home to download it.

Twitter as a login method is being removed from this site. I can tell from the admin panel that I'm the only one that ever set it up. Unfortunately, Elon has made the Twitter API too unstable to be able to rely on it as a logon method. I don't want someone setting it up and then Elon changes things, and then that user can't log in anymore. You can still set up your account to log in with Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Linked-In by going to your Account Settings.

I have not read books on diving on the "Doria;" however, I have watched some documentaries of exploration with mini-subs or equipment done on the "Doria." It was long thought that her safes contained all this money and all these valuables and, when they opened them, it turned out to be false. I've read a book and some accounts on what happened between 11 pm on July 25, 1956 and 10 am on July 26, 1956 when she rolled over and gave her last gasp. Everyone blamed the Swedes because their ship rammed the "Doria." Realistically, both sides were at fault. The Swedes had an unseasoned officer driving the ship through heavy fog in a heavily trafficked maritime lane, the radar was set at a scale that was 3x bigger, or smaller, than the true distance, and there was possibly some alcohol involved. On the Italian side, there was a breach of maritime protocols in which way you are supposed to turn (left or right) when you confront an event like this and they panicked. (To think that a sharp turn in the other direction would have avoided the collision is something that must have haunted many people for years.) As far as diving goes, she's on the shelf of the Atlantic before the edge of a big "canyon," so she sits in about 240 feet of water. Sharks are also a major problem in this area, as if we don't know that from the news. Some say that the "Doria" is considered the "Mt. Everest of dives." She was not a big ship. It was more about what she meant to a nation which had typically had good rapport with the U.S. healing from the ravages of WW2 and embarking on a rebuilding campaign that went for some 20 years, which Italians call the "boom." And how that nation would transport its people moving to the U.S., and back, including American tourists crossing the Atlantic that way instead of via the not as prevalent long haul jet. That said, while not big, they lavished a good bit of attention on the cuisine, the creature comforts, and how she was decked out. For Italians, when it comes to their transatlantics, it's the "Andrea Doria" and the "Michelangelo" - their very last and quite a bit bigger flagship (1965-1977, in my background photo; to 1991 under another country's flag) - that they more vividly remember. * I'm off my soapbox now *