G. David Felt

I like the cleaned up look of the E-Type Zero, the electric converted version and that is what @balthazar tends to point out about all the junk hanging out like the exhaust pipe and other stuff. I do agree that the Tail lights could have been better incorporated into the sleekness of this car. They are like an after thought to me.

Right! I was shaking my head when I read A/C, Power Steering and Nav were optional. That must push this EV mini to $100K which is just stupid to me.

This next one is weird, Cell Phone Maker Kyocera has built this concept auto as a tribute to the auto industry history and to encourage new unique devices and systems for the mobility segment of the automotive market. This Japanese cell phone maker believes there is a market for a see-through dashboard on autonomous cars, even regular driven cars where people want to see everything right in front of their auto. Thoughts? https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/06/kyocera-moeye-autonomous-concept-car/

Tequila anyone? How about a Tesla Tequila? Too bad, sold out in Hours as Tesla CEO Musk made good on his April Fools joke in 2018 and offered for $250 a bottle a Tesla Tequila. https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/06/tesla-tequila-sold-out/

Seems that Formula E has continued to gain watching fans and they have decided to invest in Extreme E racing. Looks pretty cool to me. https://chargedevs.com/newswire/formula-e-makes-strategic-investment-in-extreme-e-off-road-racing-series/ Now this ICE custom build project is just ugly to me. But there seems to be people willing to order it up. Ram Trucks has a new customer in the form of Aznom Palladium SUV. A custom built auto. They took the V8, slapped two turbos on it and tuned it for 710 hp / 700 lb-ft of torque. The SUV weights 6,000 lbs. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/ram-pickup-aznom-palladium/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ugliest-car-a-ram-pickup/

There are those that Love their original Mini Coopers that made the original movie Italian Job so popular as well as the modern remake of the movie. Now comes a company that is offering one of two ways to take your old Mini and modernize it. You can buy a fully refurbished Mini Cooper from the British Company Swindon Powertrian for $88,000. This gets you a 110hp, 24kWh battery pack, usb ports, heated front seats. Optional features available are AC, Power Steering and Navigation. or you can go the project route and buy the components from them and refurbish the auto your self. Current Kit of component list and Price: Motor & drivetrain - $11,535 US Battery pack - $21,033 US Motor Controller - $5,074 Onboard Charger - $2,563 Total cost of kit - $40,205 US https://swindonpowertrain.com/documents/Classic_Mini_Kit.pdf https://swindonpowertrain.com/uk/index.aspx I honestly could not see spending this kind of money on an old Mini for the size, but some will I believe. If ya like adrenalin rushes, then this BMW powered Fly Suite is for you! According to this news story, it seems the first Yellow Tesla S taxi has hit the streets of New York. https://electrek.co/2020/11/06/first-tesla-model-3-official-nyc-yellow-cab/#more-154118

According to the latest news out of Bentley, they are changing their whole lineup to Plug-in Hybrid by 2026 with being full EV only by 2030. This comes after in 2019 a board member who is in charge of Engineering said there was no reason to spend any time with electrification. Bentley is the worlds larges manufacture of 12 cylinder auto's. It now seems that due to European and Asian changes supporting electrification and banning ICE that Bentley is seeing a need to change and with that changing fast for such a high end luxury auto maker. This does make me wonder about the CEO of Ferrari who said in his life time they would have a hybrid option but would not waste any time with electrification. Ferrari might not have a choice as governments move away from ICE to Hybrid/EVs. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1130208_bentley-plans-to-go-all-plug-in-by-2026-all-electric-by-2030

Android

overpriced

Massachusetts passes right to repair bill meaning Tesla will have to open up their books allowing non-Tesla auto repair shops to work on Tesla auto's. Gonna be interesting to see how that goes over with Tesla CEO Musk. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/massachusetts-passes-right-to-repair-protections/ Land Rover will not Confirm or Deny reports that their two door Defender SUV that has a Turbo 4 or inline 6 engine is getting a twin turbo V8 from BMW in their refresh of the two door SUV. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/report-land-rover-considering-more-oomph-for-defender/

Ferrari 65 year old CEO says that in his life time Ferrari will not go pure EV only. He believes that customers still want the sound of their ICE motors and at the most they will offer for those wanting a bit more green in their exotic sports car a plug-in hybrid at most. https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/05/ferrari-not-going-electric/

Rapid E

James Bonds (Daniel Craig's) new car for No time to Die!

British Humor

Same here @Robert Hall Wife, kids and I have not been in a restaurant since February. I do pickup an occasional curbside order from the couple places locally here to support our local small restaurants, but otherwise, we have been avoiding everything, but I do a once a week shopping trip to Costco. Yes I could have it ordered and delivered, but this keeps me sane getting out of the house.

Asian Cheerleaders

I do think that society is tired of this pandemic, yet by letting our guard down now we are seeing the last few days with 100,000 infections happening daily and thousands of deaths. A very sad time with loosing so much life needlessly. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map We still need to stay vigilant till we can vaccinate the country. I find this story very weird to me as they call the 19840Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta, a Sports Car for Luxurious People. ? I remember this car and I never considered it Luxurious! 2.8L V6 with Automatic. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/rare-rides-the-1984-chevrolet-camaro-berlinetta-a-sports-car-for-luxurious-people/ In reporting news, Ford is going back to Monthly sales reporting and leaving GM and Tesla to be the lone Quarterly reporting companies. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/ford-returns-to-monthly-sales-reporting/ In tech news for ICE Auto's. Seems the blind spots are getting so big, that one company thinks the whole dash should see what is in front of the car. Not sure how that would help you not hit your front end., An IDIOT in LA stole a customer Velociraptor Ford 6x6 HD and then tried to evade police to a no wine situation. I really like this car from Jay Leno's garage.

EV update of the day. Tesla has secured a 150 Tesla Semi Trucks from a truck leasing company with options for 350 more surpassing Walmart's firm commitment to 130 Tesla Semi Trucks. https://electrek.co/2020/11/05/tesla-tsla-order-tesla-semi-electric-trucks-biggest-yet/ Australia has been struggling with brown outs this past year much like California has due to fires and extreme climate change. As such, South Australia has committed to what is being called the Worlds Biggest Tesla Battery for a green renewable storage system to insure power supply. https://electrek.co/2020/11/05/tesla-tsla-wins-contract-giant-battery-australia/ California has landed on a bumper crop of Lithium, enough to support 1/3rd of the worlds needs due to California's expansion of GeoThermal Power. Seems the Lithium is a by product of using GeoThermal to create power to supply the state. https://chargedevs.com/newswire/report-highlights-the-potential-for-lithium-recovery-from-californias-geothermal-industry/ FOR THE SPEED FREAKS, Audi has released their E-Tron GT details. Plenty more pictures and slides covering their tech at the story link at the bottom, but the car will have a 235 HP front motor and 449 HP rear motor for a total of 684 HP total but limited to 590 HP all the time and an overboost feature of 640 HP at this time. 0 to 60 time of 3.6 seconds. Rather than a 79 kWh battery pack or performance mode of 93 kWh battery pack like Porsche is offering, Audi is going with a 83.7 kWh battery. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1130199_2022-audi-e-tron-gt-electric-car-details-battery-charging-performance

It is surprising to see that a Country would just turn over in this case an island and let them change the way auto's are used by the population. I totally agree with you that changing Transit, Municipal and commercial auto's can have a huge affect and give a much more decent time frame for conversion of the private residential auto's. I do get that they are wanting to reduce the chance of pollution into the local eco system, but a flip like this so fast is pretty surprising. I do wonder how the 1,400 permanent locals think about this. Did a Search and found more detailed writings about this carbon neutral mobility project. All power comes from burning fossil fuels and with 72,000 tourist a year as well as other ships stopping by the island, the need to reduce the carbon footprint has led the Greece government to the following conclusion, Government nor Private business can fix the problems, only working together with the local population can fix the problem. As such the Island residents have chosen this route in such a short time frame. Seems VW sustainability council working along with the Greece Government sustainability council and the local Island Council that is wanting to get to a Climate Neutral Mobility and power supply has chosen this path. Seems this is a 6yr plan according to the press release from VW and Greece is planning for the whole country to be Climate Carbon Neutral by 2050. ? https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/volkswagen-group-and-greece-to-create-model-island-for-climate-neutral-mobility-6583

Freedom

Interesting how one comes into this thread which was on Alternative fuels and starts calling California Commies or specifically calling them commiefornia and I respond to his remark and he says I started the politics. ? So back to our Alternative Fuel Propulsion thread. Greece is working with VW to change over to pure electric auto's and renewable power starting with the island of Astypalea in the south Aegean Sea. This will be the start of the country converting all areas to clean renewable power and transportation reducing contamination from the environment by petrol. The current 1,500 ICE auto's on the island will be replaced with 1,000 EVs as well as all municipal and commercial auto's. Public transit is very limited as such the island will be setup as a sharing service for private EV use. VW did not confirm or deny that this is related to their diesel-emissions scandal, but this does mirror other settlement programs with other European governments and looks like what Renault also did with an island off France and another off Portugal where their own issues were settled out with those governments. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1130195_vw-project-to-transition-greek-model-island-to-electric-vehicles-renewable-power

GM Defense was awarded in June a $214.3 million contract to build the all new Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV which is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. GM Defense will build 649 ISV's with a extension of up to another 2,065 ISV's over eight years. The initial contract order of 649 ISVs makes each auto cost $330,200.31. If the full contract is full filled, the additional cost for the 2,065 ISVs is $681,863,636.36 or what is approximately a $900 million contract. The ISV is light enough to be sling loaded from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter for air transportability. More details at the link below. https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/oct/1027-gmdefense.html GM-Defense-Delivers-First-Infantry-Squad-Vehicle-to-U-S--Army.mp4

Meet the hummer team, story at this link: https://plants.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/ev.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/nov/1102-hummer.html Cool vid on the Ultium Battery Pack. https://www.gm.com/masthead-story/ultium-battery-electric-future.html Battery-Pack-modularity-enables-range-variance.mp4

BMW has started production of their all new BMW ix3 EV suv in China and will export it to Europe for sale. Plenty of external and internal pictures at the link below. Quote from the story: BMW confirmed the specs of the iX3. The BMW iX3’s 80-kilowatt-hour battery pack — 74 kWh of which is useable — offers a range of 460 kilometers (286 miles) using the generous WLTP testing numbers. That likely translates to around 200 miles in real-world driving. The battery pack feeds a 210 kW/286 hp electric motor with a peak torque of 400 Nm (295 lb-ft). and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h [62 mph] in 6.8 seconds. As for charging, the BMW iX3 can take a 150 kW DC fast-charge output. The electric SUV costs about €70,000 in Europe. As we previously reported, BMW canceled its plan to launch the iX3 electric SUV in the US, but the price would translate to about $67,000 USD before taxes and incentives. https://electrek.co/2020/11/04/bmw-ix3-electric-suv-price-specs-gallery/

Battery tech is moving forward at Warp Speed. The new SuperBattery using man made curved Graphene carbon material has the individual battery cell down to a 15 second recharge time. This is brought to you by Skeleton Technologies and KIT or Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. A $1 billion letter has been signed with an Automotive OEM to bring these cells to market. This would make a 40 kWh battery like what the Nissan Leaf uses recharge from empty to full in 6 minutes. https://www.skeletontech.com/news/skeleton-and-kit-are-developing-a-new-graphene-battery-charging-in-15-seconds