Drew Dowdell

I’m perfectly fine with 1996 tech. I’m getting more suspicious of modern tech because of the issue of spying. I think my 300C hits a sweet spot on technology in that it has things like car play , automatic braking, and adaptive cruise, but it’s not calling home and telling mom every time I accelerate too hard.

This is a 328 hp / 326 ft-lb 4-cylinder, but I think your point holds.

Like a crossover version of the Buick Electra Concept in China I mean... they're actually already doing it. LGA is in the final stages of a total rebuild now. EWR is getting completely rebuilt too. That said, there's only so much they can do with the real estate they have. It's kinda the reason for the weird design EWR had in the first place. They were trying to cram more gates in. LGA was NEVER intended to be the major hub that it is. It was suppose to be for short haul flights (by our modern standards) mainly and when JFK was built, that was for the longer haul stuff. LGA had to extend the runway into the Hudson to accommodate the larger planes. The airport was originally built in 1939.

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled beautiful cars thread. Please keep it to cars.

Can we stick to cars please? I'll clean up this thread later today.

Samples, lots more to come. VID_20250821_163330_00_686.mp4 VID_20250821_162533_00_871.mp4 VID_20250821_221432_00_758.mp4

He was sleepy joe because we could all sleep at night and he wasn't up at 2 a.m. posting unhinged tweets. You're right about all the rest, but here's some additional context. The Chinese EVs are so cheap because there is a price war going on in China in the EV market right now. They are being sold at a loss even in their domestic market because they have so many companies producing them, they are trying to outlive each other to eventually dominate the market. The Chinese goverment also is subsidizing the purchase of EVs on the consumer end while supporting the industry with subsidies. It's the EV tax credit and battery plant subsidy we did but times 10. The Chinese want entry to the North American market for the same reason. They don't want to just sell here, they want to put the legacies out of business so they can raise prices later. They did this with the solar industry already. We once had a booming solar panel production capacity in North America, but China came in and undersold everyone and now China controls that market.

Keeping this non-political, but still educational on the topic of alternative types of voting. The basic idea is that no one can get elected without 50% + 1 of the vote. We would no longer have elected officials who win with 43% of the vote. People who don't get their first choice have their votes moved to their second choice candidate. That way, people can now safely vote for third-parties without fear of having their vote thrown away and helping elect someone they dislike. For example, people who voted for Jill Stein may have selected Hillary Clinton as their second choice back in 2016 and that would have produced a very different 10 years for all of us. You don't have to vote for every candidate on the ballot. If there's only 3 candidate you like out of 5, you can vote for just your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick, leaving the others off. In the NYC Mayors race, there was an active campaign by supporters of the progressive side to encourage people to not even rank one of the competition. It worked. Most people picked the two progressive candidates, and their combined vote was well over 50% (56% from memory), making Zorhan Mamdani the winner of the primary. The two candidates actively campaigned together and said, "Hey, pick both of us and rank which one of us you'd like first". The runner up is highly likely to end up serving under a Mayor Mamdani after the general election making the voters for both candidates happy.

Right now, states and even cities can institute Ranked Choice voting, but it might only be for certain elections. Zohran won the primary for NYC mayor partially because of RCV. But that's only NYC. State level elections are the traditional sort, you pick between two parties or you throw away your vote on a 3rd party. In the general election in NYC in the fall, voters are going to get to choose between 4 candidates, the current Mayor Adams (running as an independent this time), former governor Cuomo (was running for the democratic nomination, lost to Zohran, now running as an independent), Zorhan Mamdami who won the RCV democratic primary, and a no-name republican nutjob who will lose. My position is that all elections, whether for president or dog-catcher, need to be ranked choice and every race should have a box for "none of the above". If I interpreted your question wrong and you don't understand how RCV works, Balletopedia has an explainer and video on ranked choice voting.

We could do it with one simple change to the constitution, all other changes would flow from that. We need an amendment for ranked choice voting required in every election, even dog-catcher. Also the elimination of the primary elections. This will do several things. 1. It will stop extremist from both sides getting elected unless a true majority of the voters want it. The primary system is the primary cause of the extremism we've been seeing. Only the lunatics can make it through their party's primaries and the sane, sober "boring" people don't get soundbites or traction. 2. It opens up the door for 3rd parties to make a real go of it. Ranked choice, even in just the general election, would likely have changed the outcome of 2016 and 2024. Once the sane people are back in charge, we could look at things like breaking up monopolies/oligarchies and retiring the Electoral College.

This is a last hurrah sort of thing. The Durango was supposed to have gone out of production 5 years ago, but Stellantis has been in such turmoil they never build a replacement. They could make short work of it by doing a re-body of the Grand Cherokee L and making it more street-sport than off-road.

This is Ranger sized. Purely a guess, but I'm thinking we'll see the debut of the truck by April. The Model T moment is the reinvention of the production line. A 40% reduction in build time is huge. Why? People are switching to Equinox EVs en masse and it isn't even that great. A base 'Nox EV is $33.6k before incentives and it's the best selling non-Tesla. Prologue is higher and sells great too. The "Ranchero" EV truck would be the only one in the segment at that price. The Scout and the Rivian are more than double. It's going to be a RAV-4 sized interior with a lockable bed and frunk, at a price lower than a RAV-4. There will be waiting lists for the first few years.

They said during the press conference that it was going to be ultra-high speed charging. Whether that matches them to Hyundai/Kia or beyond, I don't know.... but LFP batteries are those batteries in China that can do 1000kw charging.

Maybe check the date on that article.

There's so much to digest with this: 1. This is a new way of assembling vehicles. The new production line is now a production tree with three branches that converge into one. 2. Ford has cut a lot of weight out of the platform. 4,000 fewer feet of wiring harness, 25% less fastener. Lower weight will mean more range with less battery. 3. LFP cells that are built in the US without cobalt or nickle. 4. Faster production, while overall production time will drop 15%, the assembly process will drop 40%. Ford will use some of that savings to in-source some component production. 5. 52,000 sq/ft expansion of Louisville facility. 6. Ford claims lower total cost to own than buying a 3-year old Model-Y. (I'd like to read the fine print on this one) 7. The way the components are assembled is now significantly more ergonomic, less twisting and bending for assembly workers. There was an audible gasp from someone in the crowd of assembly workers at the press event when the presenter said "You will never need to put a dash cluster through a door opening ever again". 8. The platform will allow many kinds of body styles including crossovers, sedans, and sport cars. The debut vehicle will arrive in 2027 as a mid-size truck.

Today, Ford took the wraps off its breakthrough Universal Vehicle Platform, a new EV platform intended to bring a new level of affordability to electric vehicles. Ford is investing $5 billion in its Louisville, KY assembly plant and the BlueOval Battery Park in Michigan to bring this new platform to life. As part of this project, the Louisville plant will expand by 52,000 square feet and secure 2,200 jobs. The first UVP product will be a 4-door electric pickup with a targeted base price of $30,000 and going on sale in 2027. Ford says it will have more passenger space than a Toyota RAV-4 and be faster than an Ecoboost Mustang while having a frunk and truck bed. Ford is taking the inspiration for the Universal Vehicle Platform from the Model-T built over 100 years ago. The idea is that Ford will have one platform that supports multiple body styles. While the first vehicle is a mid-size truck, the platform is destined to support sedans, crossovers, and sports cars. The platform reduces parts by 20%, uses 25% fewer fasteners, and 4,000 fewer feet of wiring than Ford's first-gen electric SUV, the Ford Mach-E. With this new innovation, Ford is again innovating the production line as it did with the Model-T. Instead of using a single line, Ford will move to a production tree, three parallel lines move sub-assemblies down simultaneously and then joined together mid-way through. Ford is using large, single-piece aluminum castings to allow the frond and rear of the vehicle to be assembled separately. Ford predicts that this new process will speed vehicle assembly by up to 40%. Some of that savings will be redirected to quality control for a net speed increase of 15%. The big bet Ford is making is on new prismatic LFP batteries, built in the United States. These new batteries are cobalt-free and nickle-free, greatly increasing the sustainability of the batteries' construction. The battery pack is structural to the vehicle, giving a lower center of gravity and greater interior space. View full article

Just a few months ago I was getting Kerry Gold on sale for $10.99 Your grammar lesson for today.

That's where your Windows Updates are being stored. If you're going from 10 to 11, Windows just treats that like a really huge Windows update. 11 sucked when it first came out, but for the last year they've fixed it up enough that it runs better than 10 now.

This one is a rat bastard to change. There isn't enough clearance to get the housing out because you bump the thermostat housing. I have to almost take the carb off (4 bolts plus choke heater) to slide it back enough to remove the fuel filter housing. I had to replace the housing because the threads were damaged on the old one and I needed new gaskets. The whole kit was like $18.

Yeah, I was changing the fuel filter on the toronado along with the fuel filter housing (the bright new brass piece) and the wrench slipped and I snapped the old brass tubing.

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So, unfortunately no, especially on a vehicle that age... and there is precedent for it. The most you can hope for is some sort of Visa gift card for a very modest amount IF you kick up enough stink with Lincoln Customer Service. Back in the mid-2000s, the Buick Lucerne and the Cadillac DTS had heated washer fluid. There was an initial fix to move the system to a larger fuse, but the systems still were shorting out and causing fires. The supplier ended up going into bankruptcy over it. The recall was to disconnect the system and owners received a $100 gift card. That's while the cars were still in production, so I can't imagine Lincoln doing much for yours now.

What precisely are you smoking?