siegen

Toyota. Always Moving Forward.

Lol. I haven't been keeping up with Lincoln but it looks like they're trying to follow Acura's path in differentiating themselves, and are failing just as bad.

Using what browser? I mentioned above that it loaded much quicker in Firefox. I personally don't use IE7, but my Firefox is modified and I didn't want that to affect the load times. A good website should load the same on every browser. The next list I may use Firefox. I would like to do a comparison between various browsers, but don't have the patience for something like that.

If anything, this is the most "Honda" Honda in a long time. Not sure what you guys are smoking. There have been some awful pictures floating around (have a look at Jalopnik's gallery and ROFL a bit), but this car is very nice looking. Of course if you dislike the small car/CRX look then you probably won't like it. Can't wait to see this in the flesh.

Also. For all the sites, I typed in their URLs directly (http://www.fordvehicles.com, http://www.gmc.com, http://www.bmwusa.com, etc) to eliminate as much browser/DNS latency as possible. Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge websites were all very similar and had similar times. They appear to be all essentially the same site with a different skin. Mazda, Mercury, Subaru, and VW sites had very fast load times to the vehicle selector element, but took a little while to get the rest of the main page elements loaded. Edit: One last thing. Saab's website loaded much quicker in Firefox than IE7. There must be some sort of hang in IE7. GMC still took forever and a day. Volvo and Infiniti also loaded decently on Firefox.

The problem is that with modern safety standards and expected amenities, it's difficult for a manufacturer to make a really lightweight car. Or at least make one that gets 5-star crash ratings. The closest you might get to the CRZ in a gas version is the Civic coupe, which gets 29 combined EPA mpg to the CRZ's 33-37 (MT-CVT). Through a bunch of hypothesizing, I came up with an estimated MPG figure for a 1.5L non-hybrid (essentially Fit powertrain) CRZ, which would be 30-31 mpg combined. Still a ways off from the hybrid's figures. Really I think hybrid powertrains are a good option. It is mostly the batteries that make it so unwieldy (about 130~ lb weight penalty for Honda IMA/Battery pack -most of the weight coming from the battery pack). Battery tech needs to move forward faster!

I tend to visit manufacturers' websites quite often to gather facts about their cars and such. I'm sure most of your also do. Most of the time I am using my work computer, which has a mediocre business DSL Internet connection. I notice that some sites load fast while others load like slugs. I did this test about a year ago and decided I'd try it again. I timed each manufacturer's website load time using Internet Explorer 7, deleting the cache between each timing. I repeated the timing at least twice for the major manufacturers, and overall times were very consistent. The first number is the time it takes before the vehicle selector is available, since this is the most important part of the website. All the images do not need to be loaded, just as long as an adequately loaded list of vehicles is available and clickable. The second time is the time for the site to finish loading all its major components. In some cases there may be an extra script running in the background (maybe a tracking script) -I did not include the time it took for those to complete in the overall time. Some thoughts on this: Both the Honda and Acura websites loaded the quickest both to the selector page and overall. GM brands overall performed poorly. Everyone else, for the most part, fell around the 10-15 second range, with the exception of Scion and BMW.

A straight on side profile picture like that with no shadowing is going to make the overhang look bad. Wait until you see it in person and walk around it. Until then Inside Line has a quick video from the show with various angles of the CRZ. Looks pretty damn nice to me. As for the specs. The weight is disappointing, since it gained a good 150+ lbs compared to the specifications for the Euro model. The EPA ratings are also low, which is surprising. Easy to dismiss this vehicle based on the specs alone, but I am very curious to see how it pans out. The Insight, after all, exceeded its EPA ratings notably. Performance-wise I wouldn't expect anything more than a regular Civic coupe (I think I've said that before).

Full article Unfortunately the percentage of North American-made parts that went into each vehicle isn't available. It does state that Honda spends over $17.5 billion with North American parts suppliers annually. Without a frame of reference that number is sort of meaningless, but it would be interesting to see how much Toyota and other manufacturers spend annually with North American suppliers. Highlights of the article: Honda operates seven vehicle assembly plants in North America -four in the US, two in Canada, and one in Mexico. Three engine manufacturing plants in North America -two in the US, one in Canada. Two transmission and gear set manufacturing plants in North America -both in the US. Two new plants for the production of HondaJets and GE Honda turbofan engines are under construction in North Carolina. Honda exported 27,000 North American-built vehicles and 300,000 component parts in 2009 to other countries. Honda has maintained a North American production rate of approximately 75 percent or higher since 1996. Honda makes annual purchases of more than $17.5 billion in parts and materials from suppliers in North America. Doing some quick math, it would appear that Honda built around 966,659 vehicles in 2009 through a total of 7 North American assembly plants. That is 138,094 per plant annually, or 531 per plant daily given 260 work days a year (1,150,784 * 0.84 / 7 / 260). I'm not sure how that compares to other manufacturers, but it would be very interesting to know the differences in how efficiently the assembly plants operate between makes.

New model? It's been out for over a year and has been selling about where it normally has. There were a few months that the Fit shot into the 10,000's (last gen I think), but that was probably just overreaction by the public to gas price spikes. A selling rate of 5,000 is good. I'm not sure if Honda is building the Fit in the USA yet, but until they do they are suffering due to the exchange ratio on vehicles with small margins like the Fit -hence a fairly low supply.

I don't think there's any reason to make that assumption. There are the typical December incentives that most automakers use to boost December sales, but that is nothing new.

I've heard that quite a bit, that the Crosstour looks much better in person. I have yet to see one. No surprise on the ZDX, it just came on market and the inventory appears to be ramping up slowly. It's too early to tell how well it's going to do or how much demand there is for it.

Before anyone blasts it, the ZDX sales represent something like 2 weeks of sales with extremely limited availability (most dealers only had demos).

I want to upgrade soon. My current hardware is mostly 2 years old. x_x But thanks to consoles, I don't really have a big reason to upgrade since game graphics have been stalled for the last 2 years, with some notable PC-only exceptions. WTG consoles, saving me money!

Pretty exciting, since I could see the test flight from my work. Unfortunately my camera is a POS: My town's claim to faim: the largest freestanding building in the world and Boeing. If you haven't heard about the 787 before, it is the first major airliner to use mostly composites for its construction, resulting in improved fuel economy and range. It has been delayed for nearly 2 years now, but just had its first successful test flight this morning (like 30 minutes ago).

I agree completely. Too many people rush into marriage without thinking about just what it entails (including some of my friends - but they have mostly worked out thankfully). Fame and fortune can change anyone. Rofl

Yeah but they aren't Tiger Woods... and they don't the big-eyed guy looking at them over their shoulder.

I haven't really been keeping up with the events too much, however when I heard Tiger was going to quit golfing (permanently) I thought that something pretty extreme must have happened. Btw, trinacriabob, that Regal in your sig is the same generation and color as my first car ('cept mine had the 2.8L V6 I think). Brings back memories. Comfortable car, had a few engine issues but wasn't bad considering how high mileage it was (odometer was stuck at 130k and who knows for how long). When my Civic got stolen and I had to drive a poopbox Mazda around for 3 months, I longed to have not had traded it in. :-[

His forehead looks like a white guy in that picture, and he has gray hairs!! I bet he has one hell of a farmer's tan under that Nike shirt.

Can't wait for the Volt to come out so all this speculation can be, at least somewhat, put to rest!

I had forgotten about that... Now I'm angry again! I didn't play SC1 LAN often, but it was fun to own my friends at nerd-BBQs. They never wanted to play though, even 3v1.

Consoles are ruining the gaming industry. They're too much of a cash cow and businessmen want nothing more than to exploit them. If console gamers were more discerning, this wouldn't happen so much. Just look at Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision-Blizzard. Concerned with nothing more than profits and not attempting to hide it. He is probably the most hated person by enthusiast gamers, yet he makes companies too much money for any of the big wigs to give a hoot. Tell us how you really feel, Bobby! Console players may laugh at PC gamers because our MW multiplayer got f'ed over to the level of the console, but in the end it is everyone that is hurting. And currently it's only a very small percentage of PC gamers who are really making noise. I just hope Bobby's greedy influence doesn't F up Diablo III or Starcraft II. Hopefully Blizzard has more balls than Infinity Ward to stand up to their publisher if they try to compromise anything for profits. Thankfully Blizzard has a track record of making excellent games and taking their time. Who knows, after the Activision-Blizzard merger, and with Bobby in charge, he might just manage to F it up too.

Ah, so that's the infamous airport scene. I haven't played MW2. I was super pumped for it leading up to the release, assuming multiplayer would be like COD4. I still play COD4 MP here and there. Best MP FPS IMO. Unfortunately Infinity Ward said F-U to PC gamers, so I will not be purchasing MW2. And I just want to publicly say F-U back to Infinity Ward and anyone else would was responsible for this shameful act of corporate greed know as MW2.