David

Auto Evolutionary EVs

Calling all Auto Fans Any Idea the year? I am pretty sure this is a Toronado, but not sure of the year. My coworker who knows I am into auto's took the picture of his neighbors dads car in their barn and sent it to me.

Very cool, the first non-Tesla branded V4 Superchargers are installed. First non-Tesla branded V4 Superchargers are being deployed | Electrek

Nothing like an EV Battery Glut to start a price war pushing cost of EVs even cheaper! Battery price war is kicking off that could soon make electric cars cheaper (msn.com)

I really like the style inside and out. Love the color options. Glad to see some physical buttons along with the touch screen.

Yes and I still feel the same about these not being that safe compared to a full cushy head rest. Ya nailed it as you have touch or the rotary dial and I think again that it is too much touch versus a balance of touch and physical that I think it should be.

Honestly, nice looking is being nice as it already looks dated on the outside and the inside they have gone touch pretty much everything and as such with no physical buttons, I have to wonder just how easy it is to make the basics work. I also would have serious concerns about the head rests as that metal crown around the seat I can see hurting people seriously in a crash and having some bruises by just smacking it in normal use. I honestly have mixed feelings as some things are nice others are WTF were they thinking. Very weird SUV. I feel they are trying to make the old older work with the newest new of tech and just not getting it to blend well.

Pic 2 looks off to me, pic 3 is a red WTF mess to me. The rest I love. Please point me to this AI generator as I would love to play with it. I also think AI generated auto's should be it's own thread. This is Great!!!

Some cool Science. Seems we have natural Superconductor Mineral that can be made in the lab purified to be a perfect superconductor with only one catch, still has to be lowered to -449F. For the Science Geeks, you can read the massive paper released by multiple colleges here that confirm this work. Nodal superconductivity in miassite Rh17S15 | Communications Materials (nature.com) For those that want a less nerdy version, read Tom's Hardware write up. New research shows naturally occurring mineral is an 'unconventional superconductor' when purified | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com) End result is that a natural superconductor has great potential in the electronics world for advancements.

So it is narrowed down to the following 2 options: Not sure what she is thinking, but due to the differences in 400V for the Ford EVs versus 800V for the Korean autos, she has decided to go with the Korean options. So this coming weekend, another teste drive time to see how it plays out for her.

Some very cool tech to help batteries and food. Startup deploys AI to expedite development of cutting-edge battery technologies without sacrificing accuracy — here's how it works (thecooldown.com) Biochemists deploy AI to develop dairy alternative from pineapples and cabbage: 'It tasted exactly like milk' (thecooldown.com)

No, but have been joined to their email alerts and they sent out their latest email on the Tesla chargers, R2 and other updates coming to the R1 line.

Got my email on this, this morning, very cool.

I can understand this, but then this is part of my daily life. With two kids with their own families and grandkids it is not uncommon for us to be out and about for the day, come home for a bit before heading out to help with the grandkids and their afterschool activities. Plus, with family that is living from both sides north and south of us, it would not be uncommon to drive 75 miles down south to deal with my wife's side of the family, see the nieces/nephews and then up north to my side to see folks and with both our parents in senior years with health issues, also moving back in forth. Course this is why Sun puts on about 15,000 miles a year on the SS. We all have different use cases.

@ccap41 @Drew Dowdell Thank you both, this is the kind of dialogue I feel the Auto buyers need to be made aware of and the various use cases in understanding as I feel most DO NOT really understand this and give into the FEAR Mongering of News Stories. While I still feel that everyone should have the same charging rate capabilities, I also understand both your points. I do feel that this will change electrical across the WORLD over time due to the need of charging.

So I posted this in my company Slack auto channel and am reposting it here to share my crazy Sunday with the Wife who is now considering retiring the SS for a new auto. Interesting, my SS that the wife drives has started to have gremlins. As such upon my return on Saturday from my work trip, she complained to me about not feeling she can rely on the auto. I asked her what she would like to do since I picked the SS for her and over all she loves the power, AWD of the 2008 Trailblazer SS AWD, but at approaching 300,000 miles, it is coming time to retire rather than put money into the auto. She responded that she would be open to an EV. So, Sunday we spent the day driving EVs to check them out. My wife's response to the following EVs we drove: BMW - Nice to drive, was fine with the interface, but the exterior was just ugly with the big kidney grill in the front and weird pinched rear end look. Still will consider. Mercedes - Interface was fine, driving was nice, liked the interior for the most part, but what were they thinking with the Jellybean shape? Hard pass. Cadillac - Nice to drive, exterior was far better than the Mercedes or BMW, Failure in that they do not support Android Auto / Apple carplay. As such not acceptable. Yes, there is the * that Lyriq has a limited support for Android Auto, no Apple Carplay and the sales rep did say that GM was moving away from it with their Android system that is voice controlled and easier than using your cell phone. Wife was not impressed with the limitations, wants full support of her Ultra S23 in the auto. Hyundai - Was not wowed with the style exterior, but interior loved it and roomy for me. Loved the full Android Auto/Apple Carplay support. A solid candidate to consider. Kia - Again the exterior was not bad, but not wowed by it either. Interior was nice and fit her well, but the tight bucket seats of the EV6 were super tight for me and she said it would not work for us due to my size as no one could sit behind me. EV9 was great, anyone can sit behind me and was very spacious for both of us. Liked the style much better exterior and interior was very nice to her. One to consider, only thing was the poor slow charging speed for L1/L2. Genesis - GV60, she liked exterior was fine, Interior was very nice. It fit us fine though no one could sit behind me. Interface was very easy to use. But she even asked them if there was a bigger version for the GV70 or 80 and they said not yet, it was coming. Ford - F150 Lighting she liked allot about it exterior and interior wise, just was hoping for a mid-size rather than full size vehicle so would think on the truck. Mach e she liked, we both fit comfortably and clearly anyone could sit behind me, as the lead developer who is 6'2" tall stated, the EV was designed to handle tall people. Major dislike was the salesperson who was very pushy and made comments that told my wife he was a male chauvinistic pig. He actually to me to man up as the wife would drive whatever I decided for her since I was the man. Big mistake, if we go with a Ford, it will be a different salesperson and might even be a different dealership. Rivian - Exterior and Interior were big wins for her, she loved everything about it and even the test drive was great. Sadly, Rivian is off the list as she asked the counselor about Android Auto/Apple Carplay and no support, no plan for support. FAILURE big time. Tesla - She wanted to look at the Y. We went in and over all the experience was good, but no one can sit behind me. The counselor went over the interface and then offered for us to take it for a drive. Wife asked if it supported Android Auto/Apple Carplay and the Answer was no, and then they said a major failure. Musk knows how to build a superior interface, and no one needs those old cell phone connections, only Bluetooth to use your phone. With the crazy way to start the EV and lack of cell phone support she passed on even test driving it. One thing my wife did tell me was that an all-software app interface is a failure point to her. She wants physical buttons for the basic stuff and then will be happy using the touch screen. Not sure what her choice will be, but she is going to think on this.

Yes I get all that you said and most EVs have it set for 80 to 90% charging level unless your on a road trip and at a DC then you can choose to go 100%. Point I am making is that if all levels of ICE fuel at the same rate, why not have this for all EVs. Yes charging overnight would not be an issue, but if you had been out and about and did not charge the night before and got home with only 10% left and needed to go out in a few hours, having a fast L2 charger (19.2kW) versus the Bolt (7.2kW) levl 2 charger would get you juice into the battery pack fast so you can run out later. I also have to believe that if an OEM standardized on a top charging controller economy of scale would push down the cost and their whole product portfolio would benefit with all EVs having the maximum capable charging speed.

This is my feeling about this that Auto companies are shooting themselves in the foot in regards to EV charging. GM is a perfect example of this in that the Chevrolet line of EVs have the slowest L1/L2 charging controller and Cadillac has the fastest. The charging speeds start at a pathetic 7.2kW to 19.2kW. Yes when it comes to GAS Autos they all fill the same into the tank. As such, if an Auto company really wants to give the best experience possible and not have charging complaints, all their Autos from the lowest level to the highest should have the fastest possible. Mercedes is pathetic with only an 11kW onboard controller for charging their EVs at home compared to Porsche and Audi that are 19.2kW charging controllers. Mercedes FAILs here in that this is an EQE and as such should have the highest available charging controller. 19.2kW

Interesting read, I think some over estimated the ease of an ICE to EV transition as Hertz never took the time to train and inform renters of the difference between EVs and ICE in driving and operating them. https://fortune.com/2024/03/15/ceo-steps-down-prices-following-purchase-teslas/

If your into tech, then this will be of interest to you. Seems Microsoft is working on crazy fast SSD storage and the leak of such storage shows just how fast and big it is in an NVMe M.2 format, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB size with Read/Write speeds of 2,400 mb/s / 1,800 mb/s which is rapid fast. Think of it this way, while like the reading states, it is probably designed for Microsofts own cloud use, it is backed by Dell Technologies and this could find it's way into laptops. A laptop that could have crazy storage as the Precision Dell Laptops have three NVMe slots, which would make it a 12TB storage for a laptop using three of the 4TB NVMe units. Newly discovered Microsoft Z1000 SSD baffles experts — no, world's most valuable company won't start selling SSDs anytime soon but it may well be tinkering with data center storage as it did with CPU | TechRadar

Cool Read The Tesla Cybertruck Engineering Teardown Is Finally Happening (thedrive.com) Well worth the watch, interested in what others think. Another good watch.

Ok auto friends, running from my Madrid to Frankfurt flight to catch my Frankfurt to Seattle flight I spotted this auto on display and have no idea the brand. Striking and good looking, was in a hurry as I had no time to stop due to passport control being so slow. What is the brand?

While Ugly as hell and you and I agree on that, I will say I do like the Rhino color that has become very popular on many an OEMs product line. Rear Lights are nice and very visible. I like that the charging menu is very easy to understand and straight forward. Need that for my wife who is not a tech person. Sorry to hear about the G wagon, sucks when you have to get them repaired.

One thing I forgot to mention is in the picture with the Pizza, you see a bag. They bring you fresh out of the oven hot bread. so yummy, it was great to eat by itself and I am sure if I asked they would have brought me butter to go on the hot bread.

Saw these two interesting versions of Jeep and Honda. Jeep Avenger Honda 2 door civic type S