Drew Dowdell

At 14.5 sq miles, population of 60,520 est, and 18 existing gas stations ... it's purely a symbolic gesture.

Good morning, We apologize strongly with regards to the Spam message you received overnight. We were attacked by Spam bots and they have been dealt with. In addition to addressing the bot that attacked us yesterday, we've implemented the following changes. Manual approval of all new accounts, any new user is approved by me personally before they are allowed to post anything or send Private Messages. New Users cannot PM more than 2 members until they've made 10 approved posts in our forums. New users cannot edit their About Me until 10 approved posts, this limits potential for profile link Spam. New Anti-Spam software subscription that bans messages sent from certain countries (all of the non-English speaking world) and also bans messages that contain commonly used Spam keywords. We feel that these measures we've taken will eliminate this issue from ever happening again. We are currently in process of cleaning up all 4,000+ private messages the Spam bots sent. We have been an active automotive forum for nearly 20 years and will be celebrating our 20th in August of this year. Warmest Regards, Drew Dowdell Editor in Chief CheersandGears.com

It's a really foggy area and one needs to look at the parts content to truly make an educated assessment. The Envision is pretty much a 100% chinese manufactured vehicle by a company that is 51% owned by a Chinese company and 49% owned by GM. So only 49% of the manufacturing profits goes to GM, and thus back to the US.... retail profits are split between GMNA and the dealer. The RDX and other "imports" that are built here get more complicated. Some of them are just assembled here from parts from all over the world. (I don't know of the parts content of the RDX, I'm just using it as an example)... so while Honda gets to claim that the RDX is built in Ohio, it's really just assembled in Ohio and a lot of the parts come from Japan, China, Canada, etc. GM in the past has done weird stuff like this before... the first gen Equinox had a Chinese engine. The Avalanche was assembled in Mexico using mostly U.S. parts. The C-Class is built in Alabama and if you buy the 4-cylinder you get a US engine, but if you buy any of the other powertrains, it's a German engine. The Ranger switched from a Mexican built engine to a US engine.... and at the beginning didn't even make the top 20 in the "Most American" list, and now its in a 5-way tie for 2nd place at 70% American content. ... ... so yea, things are all over the place and can even switch from year to year without a model change over. Corporate taxes are not meant to be paid. They're meant to be an incentive to invest in plants, equipment, and people. Investing in those things lowers your taxes.

I have become quite enamored with this. I may get a small used hybrid to keep the miles off the Avalanche for now and then in a few years spring for one of these to be my daily. I love this color and the green interior.

Honda CEO Stepping Down, R&D Head Stepping Up - The Truth About Cars Bronco Sport, not Bronco.

Some sort of air or hydraulic quick disconnect fitting

If you’re a Nissan fan, get the new Mitsubishi Outlander. aside from Z car drivers, are there still any fans of modern Nissans?

Oh I agree there. Cadillac naming is a complete shit show and has been for years.

as if there’s any comparison by the rogue sport to the road presence of any full size Oldsmobile. Hell, even the soap bar shaped 91 Custom Cruiser in white would command more respect on the road. but have fun with your Sentra hatchback 4WD

This is the mid-range engine in the CT4 and it’s being compared to AMGs and Ms.

I'll give it credit.... now that they'll be selling in these handy 8-packs, it will probably do pretty well. Rogue

Nissan makes the Soul? I specifically said the 2.4 when I mentioned Kia/Hyundai because that is the Global Engine Alliance engine that Hyundai/Kia/Mitsubishi/Chrysler all share the same engine architecture for. The 2.0 in your mother's Soul is a completely different engine family, thus not at all what I was talking about.

Their 2.0 and 2.4 just aren't great on NVH. Right there with the KIA/Hyundai/Chrysler 2.4. The 1.6T in the previous generation Sentra wasn't too bad, but not anything special. And yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion... I don't find most small CUVs attractive these days.

Depends on your goals. If you're trying to win at the drag strip, you're probably right. Taking it out on the Nürburgring the torque curve and the 10-speed in manumatic mode would probably do really well. In day to day driving, the 2.7 will feel significantly more powerful than the direct competition listed since the way they designed it gives it very little lag. It's probably one of the few turbo-4s I'd find acceptable because of the anti-lag design. It probably feels a good bit more powerful than the 3.6 V6 since the torque kicks in so low compared to the higher RPM in the V6.

I'm pretty sure the CTS, ATS, and CT6 (a mild version), all had it in their respective V versions.

I'm pretty powertrain agnostic, but the Nissan 4-cylinder is pretty far down on the heap of 4-cylinders in terms of being a good engine. There are plenty of powertrains, gas, hybrid, diesel, EV, that will be superior to it in every way. But being powertrain agnostic, I can still comment on its appearance.... which is bleh. Just like I think Teslas look bleh.

So I've yet to drive the 2.7T in the CT4, but that doesn't sound like an engine issue, but rather a mounting issue. I know a number of the guys at Motor1 and to say they're excitable over minor things is an understatement, though I don't know Brandon specifically. I am near certain that the 2.7 gets active motor mounts. I don't know if there is a "boot up" process for them or what, but that could explain some of the scenario he describes. That said, these days there is really no such thing as a "truck engine" unless you're talking a big diesel. There are car engines that aren't appropriate for trucks due to the shape of their torque curve, but usually not the other way around. Pretty much any and all roughness can be dialed out with the use of balance shafts and active motor mounts.

Are you doing any significant upgrades? After you get it running/driving/legal, I'd love to stop by and we take it out for a drive and photo/video shoot.

Same that I will never own a Tesla. But if they could put the power train into a CT6, I am soooo there.

Eh...

I hear that JFK lost his mind over the ‘63 Continental.

It’s incredibly complex. The stuff I’m covering here only scratches the surface and it’s pretty much close to maxing out my knowledge on the way the grid works.

Those are the interconnects. That’s one step above the ISO/RTO level. That’s not really a grid per say as each one is not operated by an independent entity, rather all of the ISOs/RTOs talk to each other and trade power within those regions. The difference between an ISO and RTO is immaterial to this conversation as they perform largely the same tasks. When I say ISO I mean RTO interchangeably. Here are some ISOs.

I just found this datapoint. This is what happens when you don’t build reserve capacity into the system and use scarcity pricing instead. Check out what “the invisible hand of the market” did during this weather disaster. ”Next-day power for Tuesday at the ERCOT North hub jumped to a record of $1,489.75 per megawatt hour (MWh), while some 5-minute power prices approached $11,000 per MWh over the past couple of days, ERCOT said. That annual average at the ERCOT North hub was $26 in 2020.” - ERCOT via Reuters And to give you an idea just how much capacity is offline, “The weather has forced about 34,000 megawatts of generation off the system, ERCOT said on Monday, or 40% of roughly 82,000 mw of expected capacity, as ERCOT instituted rolling blackouts.” And they have no way to import power from other states. The feds are working on interconnections with other grids, but those apparently will take over a week to get operational and even then will only feed outer areas of the blackout areas.

My old office was right there in MetroPark at the intersection of the GSP and Rt 1.