G. David Felt

This is too funny, never seen a Mach-e Hearst till now and that is crazy looking, reminds me of the Munsters. Photo of ‘menacingly’ unusual car at charging station sparks debate online: ‘I wouldn't be caught dead in that!’ (thecooldown.com)

In searching for this, the Cadillac 1998 STS was the first model to have the Steering column tilt and adjustment setting saved due to it being completely electronic and tied into the setting for seat, mirrors, radio and HVAC also. Cadillac CTS, ATS and current cars have it also as does the LYRIQ. I have discovered that the Steering Wheel position was added in 2021 Model Year for the Escalade when they went away from a manual steering wheel column to an electronic one.

No Escalade has memory for seat, pedals and mirrors, but nothing for the steering column. The seat does go all the way back when you go to exit and return to the preset position when you get in unless you press one of the two settings buttons.

Interesting as I have never seen this before till the Kia and never heard of it. One would have thought Mercedes would have talked about making life easier for the driver and highlight this.

Very cool to see that prices are dropping much faster on the cost of battery cells than expected. EVs Set to Match Gas Guzzlers in Price as Battery Costs Plummet - CNET

@smk4565 It is official, the EV9 will start in RWD base at $54,900. ALL-NEW 2024 KIA EV9 STARTS AT $54,900(1) (kiamedia.com) QUOTE: Kia America announced today the base price for the all-new 2024 Kia EV9, Kia’s first three-row SUV EV. Starting at just $54,9001 (excluding destination), the EV9 Light RWD will come standard with DC fast-charging capability, roomy accommodations for up to seven passengers, full SynTex leather-trimmed seating, 19-inch alloy wheels, 8-way power adjustable driver’s seat with heating4 and ventilation all powered by a seamless permanent magnet synchronous electric motor that produces 215 horsepower and 258 lb.-ft. of torque.

Agree, I feel Nissan sat on the Leaf at a time that they should have advanced it to be a Tesla 3 fighter and better than Tesla offers. They are now playing catchup, will be interesting to see what comes of this refocus and change to younger leadership on EV design.

The lady in the blue shorts and sports bra is really getting into it.

NISSAN Motors which sparked the electrification of cars has announced that effective immediately, every new Nissan model in Europe will be 100% electric from now on as all R&D will only be done on EVs and the Nissan products will be 100% electric starting in 2030. Nissan President and CEO Makoto Uchida stated that EVs are the ultimate mobility solution with more than 1 million Nissan customers having already made the switch and are experiencing the fun of driving electric. Long-term vision: Nissan Ambition 2030 | Our Company | Nissan Motor Corporation Global Website (nissan-global.com) Nissan has updated and released their Ambition 2030 plan which was originally released in November 2021 with reaching carbon neutrality and zero-emission vehicles by 2050 globally. This has been dialed in as Nissan has acknowledged that the new emissions standards by Europe have made it unprofitable to continue to develop and sell ICE autos in Europe. Globally NISSAN MOTORS has committed to using their EV platform to develop and introduce 27 electrified vehicles for global markets with 19 being pure EVs and the rest Hybrid depending on markets. Nissan has also committed to have Cobalt free batteries by 2028 in their EVs globally as they move to make their EV batteries solid-state with an average cost per kWh of $75 by 2028 and $65 per kWh by 2030 on par with the cost of gasoline vehicles. Nissan has stated that from 2018 to 2022 sales of Electric vehicles rose from 5% to 44% for the whole auto market in Europe as Nissan EV sales have rose from 1% to 16% in Europe with a total sales of EV and Hybrid making 50% of Nissan sales in Europe. Nissan is expecting this to reach 98% in the next 3 years. With Nissan having an R&D center in Cranfield and Bedfordshire England, they wanted to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the London design studio with the unveiling of this all-new sporty urban electric concept car built on their new EV platform. The Concept 20-23 was lead by Nissans younger members of the Nissan Design Europe (NDE) team with a simple directive of designing a car they would want to drive with no constraints on the streets of the city where they work. This team took this to heart in using the influences from Nissan's Formula E success in building a 3-door hatchback body-style that incorporates extreme aerodynamics and deep skirts to direct the airflow away from the front of the car, auto cooling of brakes and the battery pack and out the rear of the car. Everything on the auto is low power usage components including the LED lighting from the front to the interior to the rear of the car. Safety has taken a focus in that one has to step over a brace bar to get into their seats and carbon fiber components are used throughout the car to give lite weight to the EV yet being minimalistic. Complete gallery of the car can be found at the press release here: Nissan celebrates 20th anniversary of London design studio with unveil of Concept 20-23 show car (nissannews.com) Nissan is looking to the future of exciting desirable cars, trucks and SUVs in EV format for global consumption starting with the European market. Nissan counts down to electric-only sales in Europe (nissannews.com) View full article

Tour-X reminded me of this and our discussion of SUV love/hate versus cars. Made me realize after seeing @ccap41 ask for his like/dislike of his Tour-X made me realize this was a perfect time to update this thread. Youthful is a good thing as staying physical, mental and driven is a must as we age. Like I said, it sucks as how slow we heal as we get older. Like @Robert Hall did, I am thinking of getting a Jacuzzi next year after I finish the backyard remodel which got postponed due to my son buying a fixer upper Home for his growing family. He surprised his mom and I that he and his wife are expecting, so going to be a grandpa again, so now extra effort to get the new home ready for the family to move into. Been using Tylenol/Advil to get through the hours of standing and working on the house. Will say that I am excited to hear from @regfootball on an update on his Tour-X love/hate at 37,000 miles. Will say, I would love a lifted AWD Tour-X as I think it would be a great auto especially in EV form for folks to drive. Imagine with the right packaging a huge FRUNK on that station wagon.

Just looking around at all the lovely woman can keep one youthful! Having split my meniscuses pad in my knee, I now have to deal with daily the slow healing of the pad and the discomfort that comes from twisting the wrong way on my left knee and have it shoot pain up and down my leg or just want to give out. It sucks and now as such I am even more happy that I do not have a car that I have to get down into as an SUV makes it much more comfortable with my knee.

I would suggest he updates his thread with a good Love/Hate review of his Tour-X after 37,000 miles.

Are you talking about the Mirrors, Rims and the body trim pieces? How is being Gloss black bad when the paint job is a gloss paint job. It compliments it. This is no different than the glossy plastic front nose that Mercedes puts on and their god aweful grey aero rims they offer on the EQS where it is a 6 figure SUV with what clearly looks like cheap rims. Just like you, I can nitpick every EV from every manufacture, but the EV9 is clearly going to be a home run hit for Kia. This is one of many, but it seems Kia is guiding the auto industry for a pricing range of $55K to $70K fully loaded and I think based on what I saw it will sell just fine. 2024 Kia EV9 Price, Pictures, Release Date & More | Kelley Blue Book (kbb.com) 2024 Kia EV9 Review, Pricing, and Specs (caranddriver.com) 2024 Kia EV9 Prices, Reviews, and Pictures | Edmunds

Very interesting read. https://www.topspeed.com/chevy-equinox-ev-vs-toyota-bz4x/

Today was a day of change, for almost 2 months I have been on a family home remodel project for my son and today he wanted to go check out the Kia EV9 that is making the rounds of the local Kia dealerships. My first impression was that Kia has nailed the traditional brick on wheels style of SUV that Americans should appreciate. I started at the front of the EV9 wanting to see the Frunk. Surprise, not as big as the F150 Lighting or GM's EV pickups but double, maybe even triple the size of what Tesla offers. While not real deep, you could have two bags of groceries on their side. Observation is under this frunk is where the 12V battery is located. From the back is where the cabin airfilter is located and I noticed it was a HEPA filter. Funny thing is that you can see on the left hand side an whiteish lever. This is an emergency frunk lid release. Not sure why they have one as I cannot think of any way a human could fit in this frunk even if they were part of the tiny or dwarf size humans. Interesting note that I wish I had taken a picture of was that in the very front deeper section, they had a NACS to CCS adapter. Surprised to already see one built by Kia. My son opened the front driver's door and I wished now I had taken a video of this as the steering column auto moves up out of the way and then after you get in and close the door, it returns to the position that is set. Very cool, I love this kind of tech where I do not have to adjust things once it is set. I did as you can see in this picture observe the issue that many folks have complained about on touch screens and that is all the fingerprints. David Size test commenced, I set the front passenger chair for my comfort and 3 inches between the front of my knees and the dash. I then got out and into the back seat and WOW, roomy and comfortable. This wins the 6'6" 300lb David test. Plenty of head, shoulder and girth room. This SUV will be a winner for many folks due to the roominess of this EV. As you can see by my left knee is a USB C port for connection to charge and connect to the internal media system. The 3 levers you see on the side of the seat are for upper seat comfort adjustments. Now one thing I was happy about was the heated and cooled seats in the front and back. Kia did some smart thinking here and that is where would be a good place to put the controls? They put them on the internal arm rest and this arm rest had additional thinking as many times when you adjust the back of the seat for relaxing the arm rest in many current SUVs today have limited fixed positions. Here you can pull the arm rest all the way up, go all the way down and then in micro adjustments pull it up till it is comfy for the seat occupant. Controls for the seat moving forward, up, down lumbar, etc. are the same for all four captain's chairs. On the right side bottom cushion. Have to say that while Kia will have a basic all black interior, they are offering as an upgrade multiple two-tone interiors and I really like this brown/black one in this unit. I did sit in the 3rd row split-bench seat and while I could get back there and had headroom, leg room kept me to the middle of this seat. I could make it work for a short ride, but it really is not an adult seating area. The next thing was to check out the back for storage behind the third seat as this is an issue I have seen even in ICE auto's where you either have enough for 6 to 8 bags of groceries or you have pretty much nothing. Kia has actually given a decent set of space where you could get two rows of 8 bags of groceries in terms of traditional paperbags. It of course gets even bigger with the third row of seats down. If you look at the picture with both third row seat areas up, you can see the controller below the European plug and that is four buttons that allow you to open or close the second and third row seats. So, for those running to Home Depot or Ikea and need to put something large in, you can easily do it all from the back and not have to move around to the different sides to do each seat. Decent storage was under the back lift cover. Better yet, while this was clearly told to me by the Kia sales folks that it was a pre-production model off the assembly line that will be producing the EV9s for Asian and European area, the fit n finish was some of the best I had seen. No info on pricing, but I was asked if I was interested in putting down a deposit to save a place in line for the EV. End result is that this Kia EV has way better fit n finish than current production Tesla and I suspect it will really give a run for its money to Tesla and other EV manufacturers. I have always stayed true to my roots and bought GM, Ford, Jeep and Dodge. The EV9 is a strong contender for a possible next auto in my household especially since like GM they are by default offering bi-directional power so that with the EV9 plugged into the home charger, you could power your home if you wanted when you have a power outage. Ask away any and all questions. Happy to Answer! View full article

I have found that SS Trailblazers come in two conditions, those of us that take care of the rare SS and those that trash them hard till they break and go to the junk yard. Lucky for me, I see them pretty much all the time here in the PNW and they all seem to be in very good shape.

Growing list of folks supporting NACS. More automakers plug into Tesla's EV charging network | Reuters

Seems the list keeps growing for EV NACS support. More automakers plug into Tesla's EV charging network | Reuters

So, my SS today decided to not have the right turn signal working. So, I did the normal thing since the SS has both a LF turn, and RT turn fuse, replace them both since they are original from 2008. Nope did not work, so I replaced the turn signal relay. Nope did not fix it either. Did a search and found in the SS forum that one member has had this issue and helped multiple others out as the SS Hazard relay powers the Turn signal relay and fuses. Usually, it is the right side that goes when the Hazard relay starts to die and sure enough if I turned on my hazards, only the left side of the auto blinked. So replaced the Hazard relay and all works now. $122 Hazard relay $42 Turn signal relay $0 cost as I had the 10amp fuses If I had gone to a GM dealership here, it would have cost me $250 troubleshooting fee and then $150 for the labor and the cost of the Hazard relay. So, I figure I saved myself $400 minus the $42 for the turn relay as they probably would not have changed it, but I am happy as I have new relays and fuses in all those places that had not been touched since 2008.

@oldshurst442 New BMW Style Concept Current 2023 M3 Style Current 2023 7 series Which one you like better?

Gotta Love this. Cadillac Buyers Are Getting Younger (gmauthority.com)

Very cool C8 Corvette Z06 Drag Races Manual 1,000-HP Cadillac CT5-V Blacking, Someone Gets Schooled - autoevolution

IAA Mobility 2023 International Motor Show in Munich, is going on in Germany and BMW and Mercedes launched their new EVs and so we start with BMW. BMW reinvents itself: The BMW Vision Neue Klasse. (bmwgroup.com) Have to say that I like the new BMW style, away from the HUGE KIDNEY grill approach. Mercedes has launched their EQE SUV and Sedan special Edition. ENGLISH: EQE Sedan and EQE SUV now available as Edition Special models with extensive equipment and attractive price advantage - Mercedes-Benz Media Mercedes is saying they are the first in moving their next-generation MMA production to a Digital First production process. Mercedes-Benz pioneers ‘Digital First’ production for next-generation MMA platform - Mercedes-Benz Media Production debut: Mercedes-Benz factories in Rastatt (Germany), Kecskemét (Hungary) and Beijing (China) to produce new MMA (Mercedes Modular Architecture) models from the middle of the decade. New production techniques created within the MO360 digital ecosystem Ramp-up accelerated: Virtual Ramp-Up of new halls and systems thanks to the use of digital twin of production developed with NVIDIA Omniverse Mercedes-Benz Operating System (MB.OS) in production: Continual updating of vehicle software during production via the Mercedes Intelligent Cloud – Rastatt serves as the blueprint Data democratization: Production employees use ChatGPT for data processing with the MO360 Data Platform Artificial intelligence (AI): Improves efficiency in paint shops: Rastatt plant achieves energy savings of 20 % in the energy-intensive topcoat process