Justin Bimmer

And her daughter drives a 16 mpg Escalade Hybrid, as opposed to a 15 mpg normal Escalade. What a bargain.

More like 21 vs 16 which is a significant improvement.

Maybe a bleep button for editing?

What is automotive rust? In Cali we deal with paint oxidation.

Still birthday in California!

30 for me today. Happy birthday to camino and Ted.

Sorry to hear about the loss of you dog.

I love the German ride in my car. The Verano and Regal are very close. But I like the looks of my car more and the main reason I would pick the Verano would befor price.

Made by PAS the same company that made the GMC performance trucks and CNG vehicles for GM in the early 90s.

It is the xts concept.

Safety standards won't allow

If I push the button for Siri on my iPhone in the car the hands free via Bluetooth automatically picks up. This will just be a software fix with an extended push on the talk button in cars.

Where on earth would you find parts for that center stack?

Imperial blue?

I think those struts under the hood were installed by GM.

Jalop just wrote about CNG today

http://jalopnik.com/5911513/why-we-arent-driving-natural-gas-powered-cars

Okay, time for me to chime in on this discussion.

I have had extensive experience with CNG transit buses. I drove them for 4 years. I fueled them for 2 years, talked to the mechanics who worked on them etc. Here is what I experienced:

CNG is less efficient than diesel. Cummins and formerly John Deere have had CNG specific engines for a decade now. At first, they were converting diesel engine models to run on CNG, but now Cummins has the experience engineering etc to build them on their own merit and not copy a diesel engine.

CNG fueling in large quantities requires HUGE HUGE compressors. Fueling to 3,000 PSI on these buses would take much longer than filling a bus up with diesel that drove the same distance. Also, CNG compressors tend to fail a lot more than a diesel pump. CNG compressors require lots of electricity to operate.

CNG engines do blow up and require overhauls. Their turbos go out. They can overheat because they run hotter than diesel engines.

CNG works well for things like UPS and buses which have a planned route and home base where a large compressor house can be stored. For the public, there is still lots of work that needs to be done. Commercial over-the-road trucking LOL! Not going to happen for a loooooooong time.

I think the black boxes in 70% of the new cars on the road are already saving lives. To name a few things:

Improved abs function

Improved air bag deployment

Improved safety belt pretensioners

Accident avoidance software

Adaptive cruise control

while that might be controlled by another "black box".... i thought black boxes = data recorder, not anything else. another box would use that information to "learn" the driver's habits....different box... only accessible by dealers(manufacturers) for firmware changes (and hackers), right?

Data obtained from black boxes after accidents helps with the list I created.

I think the black boxes in 70% of the new cars on the road are already saving lives. To name a few things:

Improved abs function

Improved air bag deployment

Improved safety belt pretensioners

Accident avoidance software

Adaptive cruise control

Guess what guys! Law enforcement can get a court order on anything in your life. It is called a search warrant/ body warrant/ arrest warrant etc. They will have to show the same probable cause just as they would for any other court order to obtain this information.

Plus, the companies I listed earlier that ALREADY have them in their cars makes up like 70% of the car market. I don't see any government UFOs floating around sucking up data from theses cars already.

Edit:

Yes, I can see ALL the data from 7 out of every 10 cars sold.

Many cars built by the following companies HAVE black boxes in them already!

GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota and Honda

Get over it!

There is a reason why vehicle fatalities and injuries are going down.

The bill is actually good for privacy in a few ways. In the past, there were questions about whether the data belonged to the manufacturer or the owner. This would establish that the data in the recorder belongs to the owner (or lessee) of a vehicle, meaning that interested parties such as insurance companies, dealerships, or advertisers won’t be able to collect info from your black box without your permission. The only exceptions would be when a court grants access to law enforcement, when an emergency medical team needs the info, or in the event of a National Transportation Safety Board investigation (I’m sure the gov had the Toyota accelerator investigation in mind here). Two wins for privacy here: insurance companies aren’t granted access to the valuable boxes and the bill says police have to get a court order to peek at the data under your hood.

From Forbes:

A commenter on autoblog said it best: "A lot of grandkids will be getting ipads for Christmas"

But really, this seems like a nice idea to help people get familiar with the system without crashing into a kountry kitchen.

not better different

Welcome back to the site!