Drew Dowdell

Well regardless if they charge for personalization ability or not, they should at least have a default bootup sound so that there is audible feedback that the car is ready to go.

Post pics!!

Should just be part of SYNC

Oh yea, trip home: 9.3 miles, 38.3 mpg, .3 gallons used mostly uphill, stop and go traffic with the heated seats on.

Don't you have a Miata?

I have not. Two suggestions I would make to Ford: 1. Make a boot up sound. Since I still have to crank the key to "start" the car, give me some more feedback than the small green light on the lower right dash. Extra points if you make the bootup sound programable so I can copy any .WAV file I want and assign that to the boot up sound. 2. Maybe I haven't found it yet, but a button to put all the LCDs into nightime minimalist mode without scrolling through menus would be nice.

Running the accessories doesn't effect the behavior of the car. I haven't run the battery down low.. .it's consistently above 50%. I'll have to get back to you on this one.

I plan to update the fuel economy using the car's trip summary as much as possible. You can drive in all electric mode up to around 45mph, but even the slightest of upward slopes will kick the gasoline engine on. I really feel like Ford could have tuned the hybrid less conservatively and allowed it to run in EV mode longer. However, it is made up for by the fact that even the slightest downhill slope will start recharging the batteries again. That said: There is a stretch of fairly level 2 lane highway that I ran on last night at 45mph. I was in pure EV mode most of the time, with exceptions being when going up slope or accelerating from a stop light. I was getting a ridiculous 60mpg according to the instant readout. The steering does have that weird feeling most people complain about with electric power steering, but since you're not going to be street racing the car it probably won't matter to most people. Fit and Finish seems fine from an initial view, but I still want to crawl around the car for a closer inspection this weekend.

On the highway. In city, the roles are reversed. Gas is predicted to go over $3.50 again this summer. You'll see hybrid interest perk up around then.

Ya know, I'd be ok with that if it meant that China was buying raw materials from us, fashioning them into something and then selling the finished product back to us. That's trade. Right now, our biggest export is dollars.

I'm sure they are segregated with separate but equal UPC codes....

I have to be careful what I say in this thread. I have the tendency to be extremely politically incorrect.

One of the extra nice touches is the "Trip Summary" you get each time you shut the car down. Today's commute into work. 9.3 miles, 40.8mpg, 0.2 gallons of gas used.

No. The customers devalued the black doll. Walmart has to lower the price to what the customer will pay.

Who?

WE DON'T HAVE FREE TRADE WITH THE CHINESE! THEY ARE A COMPLETELY PROTECTIONIST COUNTRY! THE CHINESE HAVE (relatively) FREE TRADE WITH THE U.S.! Get back to me when the Chinese are buying as much from us as we are from them.

You misrepresent me. I am not protectionist. I'm all for free trade... as long as it's truly free and not one way like it is now. When Oshwa and Kansas City are running 3rd shift to be able to supply Buicks to China, then we'll have free trade. When the trade picture with China is not 296b imported to 69b exported,and something more even, then call me. What exactly does Phoenix produce besides real estate agents? How much of the growth of either city is from northerner's moving to warmer climates? My point is that he would have lost his job and thus not been able to afford a Packard OR a Lexus.

If you worked for an AMC dealer, you wouldn't be able to choose between any product.

All of that would be true if the Chinese were actually buying anything that we export. The won't and don't. They won't even buy Buicks made in the U.S. ... and they LOVE Buicks. What you describe is the fantasy world of "free trade". The Chinese are hording dollars. They aren't spending them here. A small slice of that $20 DVD player remains here in the U.S. with some Walmart worker who probably doesn't even have healthcare. The rest flows either into the pockets of the already wealthy shareholders of Walmart or directly into the Chinese economy to remain indefinitely. What on earth was I talking about is the entire support food chain that exists to bring a product to market. By bypassing the American manufacturing system and buying directly from China, that entire employement food chain is destroyed. Yes this happens as industries change. But when it happened in the buggie market with Ford, the employment food chain was replaced domestically. We've cut off the roots of the economy(the manufacturing base). We're watching the trunk die (the middle class). Yet you think the tree will continue to bare fruit forever for the rich. Again, we've had 30 years of proof. Unless you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 and haven told us, you're poorer than you would have been had we not offshore our entire manufacturing base.

1950's General Motors Ford Motor Company Chrysler Studebaker Packard Hudson Nash Willys-Overland Kaiser International Harvester Mercedes Benz Volkswagen Today: General Motors Ford Motor Company Chrysler Toyota Honda Nissan/Renault Mercedes Benz BMW Volkswagen Hyundai/Kia Tata-Jaguar/LR Yup... sure looks like "more competition" today..... Looks like "more competition" from non-domestic sources is more like it.

Your statements are too vague to address specifically... other than your completely laughable N. Korea references. Another Economics course? really? I've taken some. See I know the difference between "price" and "cost". These vast riches you keep referring to.... you cite price but ignore cost. Yes it's just nifty that the DVD players at Walmart are priced at $20... but what is their cost? Their cost are the jobs in the US manufacturing that DVD player.... and there are the costs of the jobs to manufacture the components... and even the cardboard packaging it comes in. All of those are opportunity costs that the U.S. no longer has. The cardboard packaging is a great example since because of it's relatively low price per pound, it is not something that is usually "globalized" since it costs more to ship it than it does to produce it locally. Since the DVD player is produced in China, the corrugated it comes in is also produced there. That just cost the U.S. how many timber jobs? how many paper plant jobs? how many corrugated manufacturer jobs? how many box cutter jobs? (yes these are generally separate industries. How about the front office workers for all of those manufacturing plants? How about the companies that build the machines for the respective industries? Hell that $20 DVD player probably cost Briggs and Stratton the sale of 50 chainsaw engines. So a DVD player is priced at $20 at Walmart, but because it was sourced entirely out of country, it actually cost thousands of jobs domestically. Most people, if they understood the ramifications their actions, would be willing to pay $50 for a DVD player if that meant all of their neighbors would keep their jobs.

Sounds like a variant of HCCI.... but with a catalyst added.