G. David Felt

The Suburban tanks are out and about playing in the snow here in Washington.

This is awesome, always like it when they point out their own errors or false stuff that gearheads know would not be possible, but it does play for a good laugh.

Most people are not aware that Braking in your auto could change starting January 1st 2021 when a no copper law goes into effect for California and Washington state in regards to brake pads. As such a R&D storm has been going on to find a suitable replacement. Copper is toxic to both humans and animals and as such, the west coast had back in 2014 passed laws giving till 2021 to replace it to meet clean water quality standards. This was led by San Francisco that was failing their water quality tests due to the high copper concentrations from brake pad dust. I had forgotten about this till I came across this updated story here: How the New Copper Ban Is Affecting High-Performance Car Brakes (thedrive.com) Yes they focus on high performance auto's as Europe also pushes to ban copper in break pads, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Seems JLR is defending what it sees as a theft of intellectual property by the VW company. To quote the story: The vehicles in question include the Porsche Cayenne; Lamborghini Urus; Audi Q8, Q7, Q5, A6 Allroad and E-Tron; and VW’s Tiguan. Seems that VW tried to get this dismissed, but the US court system found sufficient evidence to allow the trial to move forward to the court room. JLR says that VW can remove the illegal AWD traction control option systems from their auto's to continue to sell them in the US. Who knew that the ability to select Snow, Mud, Rain, Sand, etc. modes in an SUV was patented to just one company. Jaguar Land Rover Sues to Ban VW Group's SUV Imports to America (thedrive.com)

Seems the first 6 months of production for Rivian which will cover the Launch Edition of the R1T truck has sold out with their reservation holders. This is from June 1st 2021 to Dec 31st 2021. I wonder how many this will be? Rivian has said they will ramp up to 100,000 models of each R1T and R1S per year and higher if needed. Be interesting to see how many they deliver by the end of the 2021 calendar year. I suspect the R1S will be even more successful.

Interesting that in the interview with Business Insider and a comparison to Tesla Cyber truck that a base 4x4 model of Lordstown EV truck starts at $52,500 and you can choose between a Standard Endurance 5.5 or Long Endurance 6.5 ft bed. https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/hereaposs-how-lordstown-motorsapos-new-endurance-electric-pickup-truck-compares-to-teslaaposs-cybertruck/slidelist/76798420.cms#slideid=76798498 I am willing to bet that Ford will offer a couple sizes in beds also as people like you and me want the 6.5ft bed over the shorter 5.5 bed. RJ, CEO of Rivian has stated that once the R1T and R1S are in full Production they are going to consider additional bed lengths for those that need a bigger bed. Current for the R1t is just 4.6 ft long which is fine for weekend haulers from Home Depot of most stuff, but fails for standard lumber. Options I think will come in the next few years for EV trucks with various bed lengths. Be interesting to see what Chevrolet offers since they have moved up the full size Silverado pickup to 2024 and are on record saying that buyers will have just as many options in configurations as traditional ICE trucks have had.

Toxic

Deadly Habit

Productive weekend with planting my Garlic. 252 individual seeds planted of 7 kinds, 4 hard neck and 3 soft neck.

Cigar

Iced charge spots is just selfish BS of those doing it. Wonder how they would feel if EVs blocked the gas/diesel fueling spots. Amazes me when people cannot be considerate of others and just get along. THANK YOU @balthazar I truly appreciate your time and effort in letting us know about the Charging infrastructure by you. Yes, they do have a ways to go to properly have it available for all. I do find it odd that the gov web site says these are the publicly available charge sites and then details and actual checking shows they are not. Frustrating for sure.

Cheer Leaders

Yup always will be a need for oil, just one less thing that has to rely on burning it while using it for all the other materials in the auto.

Been a very productive day. Started at 4am with some work to get done before the holidays. Then went off at 6am to Costco to get Thanksgiving stuff. Since we are in lock down till December 14th, took the early hours to get everything and my wife and I will start cooking everything early Thursday but then package it up and deliver it to the doorstep of our parents, grand parents, and kids that live in their own house. Full meal plus desserts. Once T-Day dinner is delivered, will return home to have a quiet dinner with the wife, wine and movies. I always used to drive everyone that wanted to go to the midnight Black friday sales after we rested, but this year, I do not have to do it, so Wine Away my evening! ? Back to today, got the Holiday lights up on the house for the wife to have it festive. Blew the yard and picked up all the leaves, so it is all clean. Gonna go eat lunch and then out to the garden area as it is Garlic Planting time. Have a great day everyone!

Some things in life are best left alone. I was not aware that in 1975 there were GM certified custom coach builders and as such with full warranty this 1975 Cadillac Eldorado went from the factory to the coach builder and was converted into a station wagon before going to the Cadillac Dealer and sold with full GM warranty. This is one of 2 certified Eldorado station wagons built and blessed by GM. More pictures of the interior on the link below. https://www.thedrive.com/news/37758/this-very-rare-custom-1975-cadillac-eldorado-station-wagon-could-be-yours-for-just-30000

Honda E EV auto while having great reviews failed in one area that led to only 1,000 units sold so far year to date. The reason is range. Honda went with a 35kWH battery pack good for 137 miles of range and at the same price you have the Renault Zoe which is #2 in EV sales behind Tesla in Europe selling 10's of thousands of auto's that has a 245 mile battery pack for the same price in the same segment. Honda has since partnered with GM to use their EV platform to offer subcompact and compact EVs to the world on the same platform that will lower EV entry prices. As such in the mean time till Honda can start producing their new line of EVs, Honda has followed FCA in buying hundreds of millions in clean air credits from Tesla. https://chargedevs.com/newswire/did-poor-honda-e-sales-spur-the-decision-to-buy-ev-credits-from-tesla/

Texas continues their march away from the Oil industry by embracing Green Energy and focusing on the new business that will go into the next century and beyond. Texas will now host the largest solar power station in the US. Producing 1,310 Megawatts of energy upon completion. The Solar Farm or what is being called the Samson Solar Energy Center will support five major consumer brands and three Texas municipalities. AT&T: 500 MW Honda: 200 MW McDonald's: 160 MW Google: 100 MW The Home Depot: 50 MW City of Bryan, TX: 150 MW City of Denton, TX: 75 MW City of Garland, TX: 25 MW This is a $1.6 Billion dollar capital investment supporting over 600 jobs over the 36 month construction period. Additionally this will bring more than $250 million to Landowners for payment of land use and support the local community in what is estimated at $200 million in property tax payments over the life of the project. The project will be online and fully operational by 2023. The power produced will support 300,000 homes. The Texas power grid is becoming one of the most modern in the country as they add 3.5 GW of green energy capacity this year and an additional 5.5 GW in 2021. https://electrek.co/2020/11/20/texas-largest-solar-project-us-samson/

I will take the Dash of the 63 with the red seats of the 62. I hate white seats as they show all the dirt and over time become more grey than white. White is one of the most terrible interior colors for an Auto. The 62 dash has way too much chrome in comparison to the 63 which I like way better and the over all layout is just awesome I think.

I understand and respect your work ethic. In regards to the 455 stations, those are the Open to the Public ones. I get that you might think that one listed at a police station is only for Municipal vehicles, but supposedly they are supposed to be open to use by the public otherwise they are not included according to the fine print. That does not include the private service charge points which increase even more charge locations if your part of that companies plan. I find it weird that your Costco does not have Diesel as every Costco here has diesel in addition to multiple regular gas. Put in your zip code and you can see what the current gas price is for the Costco closest to you. https://www.costco.com/warehouse-locations Update: I did find that Business Costco does not have Diesel here but all the regular ones seem to have diesel.

https://www.drivegreen.nj.gov/charging.html That is a good read, thanks for posting Surreal1272

Cool rides, lots to like about them and a few things to not. But over all, cool rides for the outdoors.

I like this

Teriyaki Chicken

Distracted by those Pec's and guns I see!

Take a time machine and you can get this awesome little 1980 truck in your color. They even sold it in Diesel. In Highschool and College, I had my dads 1976 Luv Truck in White like this one. Awesome little trucks, solid and just went. So much better than the S10 Chevrolet replaced it with initially.

Yet you probably do not have a gas station on site at your home, maybe a holding tank for some Jersey cans, but you probably do not have an in ground with active electric gas pump on site to fuel your auto's. Yet you already have all you need to recharge and insure having a full battery pack every day from your house so there is no need to stop in the morning to fuel up. For the type of work you do, you probably have access to electrical outlets so you could always top off as they say with electrons if you needed it. Your right New Jersey away from really dense areas has far fewer charging outlets than other areas but it is growing and upon looking at the map with 1,350 public charging outlets from 455 charging stations that are Type 2 and DC fast charging. Over all there is more than enough charging stations that allows one to be able to do road trips across all of New Jersey. As @Drew Dowdell has stated before, it is a change in mentality of going from stopping to fill up the tank at the end of the day or first thing in the morning to plugging in when you get home and have a full battery pack in the morning. Of the almost 300 million auto's in the US, I doubt most of them like 85% ever really go on a road trip compared to just being driven for local errands and work. Most people can and would be just fine having an EV. I find it interesting to look at various states and see how fast things are changing. State of Texas, a land of Guns and Oil has 1,445 EV stations with 4,386 charging outlets. State of Pennsylvania has 672 EV Stations and 1,856 charging outlets. State of Florida has 1,595 EV Stations and 4,681 charging outlets. State of Alaska has 26 EV Stations and 46 charging outlets. State of California has 6,936 EV Stations and 29,194 charging outlets. Course this does not take into account how fast businesses are adding charging on site for employee use nor the fact that many never use public charging as they have a level 2 charger at home or for the frugal ones which I have many coworkers this way who say I am not going anywhere over night so why spend money when I can just plug into a 110 outlet.