Drew Dowdell

Happy Birthin day!

IF the E was a diesel, I'd go that route... those tend to be the long-lived MB's rather than the gassers. 170k on a gasser MB would make me nervous.

Also... building great cars doesn't hurt either. The CR report about being the best car ever tested plus this crash test report will do wonders for them.

The supercharger stations are solar powered and feed electricity back into the grid when they have extra or feed from the grid when there isn't enough sun to charge the car. The cost of the power to Tesla will be net 0 or even negative. The only real cost to Tesla is building/maintaining the stations which then becomes a gateway to selling more cars. It's a play on the cellular network business model. Build the best network of cell towers and you'll get the most customers buying your service, but in Tesla's case it is SuperCharger locations and selling cars. They plan to have 98% of the US & Canadian population covered by the end of 2015. But in the end, Elon Musk is a multi-billionaire... Tesla only has to break even for the next few years.

The CL isn't as sexy as the Elmiraj.... not by a long shot.

Buick had a combination of issues getting these out with the production line being in Korea and high initial demand. We were being patient and waiting till we could find the exact configuration we wanted, but our dealer had been looking for us since April. You can order them, but there is a huge turnaround time. We had actually given up on the Encore and were just telling the dealer to put together the options we wanted on a Verano when he called back and said he found the configuration we wanted in an Encore at a another local dealer. He swapped it for us and we completed the sale Monday night. It is primarily Albert's car, thus the low mileage lease. He was averaging 8k a year on the CR-V even with our occasional road trips, so a 10k a year lease is plenty safe especially since I plan to start scheduling cars to review soon. Which reminds me... I need to prep storage for my Toronado for the winter.... we're not going to have enough room if a test car shows up.

Depends... how how big a disaster would a high price repair be to you?

Cadillac is doing a ton better than they were 10 years ago.

AWD and Fully loaded. The only two factory options we didn't get and didn't want were the Oil pan heater and the chrome wheels. We even got the extra cost paint (Carbon Black) It's a 24 month lease. I'll be treating this as a long term review.

That isn't the premise of the article... but the article is discussing the failure of E85.

In 12 months or less, there will be a sufficient number of Tesla SuperCharger stations that offer 30 minute recharges such that you will be able to travel coast to coast for FREE.

So a properly "defanged" 3.6 will probably be about 280 lb-ft @ 6000 rpm 280 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm. Which is about the same result as you'll get with the Camry or Accord engines if you simply add Direct Injection and crank up the compression ratio by a point or so. That's actually already pretty close to the 3.6 in the Traverse. 281 horsepower @ 6000 RPM / 266 lb-ft @ 3400 rpm

Because I am just gathering ideas for an article

The Tesla Model S has a longer range than our 2004 CR-V

Name: Buick Encore (2013) Date Added: 21 August 2013 - 09:55 AM Owner: Drew Dowdell Short Description: None Provided View Vehicle

I may use comments from this thread as quotes in an article and by posting in this thread you grant your consent for me to do so. Thought/Reasons why E85/Ethanol hasn't taken off?

beetle has been around for longer than Eldorado... VW should kill it.

I understand that you would eliminate pumping losses, but there is still a large change in overall effort there. And why not just use Start-Stop at idle instead of using the electric motor to keep the diesel engine spinning?

Wouldn't that engine shut down technique be rather jerky... particularly in a diesel? I mean, if I can feel the A/C compressor kicking on and off through the gas pedal on lower powered cars, the drag of spinning a dead diesel is going to be felt too. Also, diesel engines don't really like being shut off and then back on again often. It's bad for their health, and they are noisy and jerky about it.

NYC 2014? NYC is mostly for production vehicles though. ATS was Detroit 2012 CTS was NYC Show 2013 Escalade is OCT 7 in NYC 2013

Two brand new and one completely rebuilt Toyota dealers have gone up near me. SCION is but a corner in the new dealerships. The dealership that was rebuilt booted Scion out of its building on the same lot and used it for the Toyota brand while the Toyota building was flattened and rebuilt. At the end of construction, the Scion building was flattened to make room for more lot space.

Happy Birthday old man!

The thing is their previous perception. For a previous Subaru owner, that would be a big step up in luxury and they would be thrilled with it. Coming from just about any luxury make, the more economical underpinnings of the car and the car's interior will show through.

Apparently, the Rover name was not sold to the Chinese as I had thought.... Tata owns it as part of the Range Rover marque/..... hmm