G. David Felt

CES 2021, GM teases New Bolt EUV with SuperCruiser video. New Bolt and Bolt EUV will come out February 2021. Chevrolet Shares Preview of 2022 Bolt EUV Steering Wheel Bolt-EUV-SuperCruise.mp4

Seems Ford is pulling back in their restructure to be a profitable auto company with higher ATP's. As such 5,000 people will loose their jobs as Ford closes manufacturing in Brazil. They will still keep sales, but auto's will be brought in from Argentina and other places around the globe. Ford ending manufacturing in Brazil, continuing South America operations (detroitnews.com)

I agree with you on the first two points, but the 3rd I think many have missed the comments that they wanted to see if this could be done and how. The battery pack on the inside is not what is planned and will either be encased between the frame underneath or as you mention some sort of cover over the battery pack inside so the space can still be used. I could see a steel strength plastic cover over the battery pack if you wanted it inside like they did for this concept experiment. I suspect since they do have a wide range of e-crate motors and battery pack options coming that you will have choices on how you package or place the battery in an auto that is converted. I see in the comments that people were asking when the 1,000 HP 3 motor e-crate would be available. This it sounds like is the same electric motor package that will be in the Hummer EV.

Richie Rich

Chevrolet Performance e-Crate Story. This is a very cool video, Lovely Truck and Blazer EV style.

FYI, while I agree that the Buick Envision is a bit pricey, as long as you do not mind color, you usually can get the fully loaded Buick Envision for about 1/3rd off at the end of the year. I helped my oldest sister a little over 2 years ago get a fully loaded Envision for $39K including tax and license out the door compared to the sticker price of $51K that was on it. I see even now a fully loaded Premium II that still stickers for $51K is currently on sale for $44K. I would expect with the all new 2022 coming out this spring that you can get the last model pretty cheap.

Wine @ocnblu Beer was an important staple in Egypt. So important that it was one of the most common goods placed in tombs with the Sarcophagus so that they could enjoy a beer in the After Life!

Based on how deadly this virus is, the long term 6months on average symptoms stick around with all kinds of crazy side affects, I will PASS, HARD PASS on auto shows for this year. Sad, but reality. Plus I think with most tradeshows being virtual and the amazing success they were last year that it is going to be interesting to see how if ever they come back. I hope so as I really want to get back to an auto show and test drives.

Beer

Good Read, seems Ford nailed the mileage. 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E range test: At 70 mph, true to EPA highway results (greencarreports.com)

Pyramid

Some funny posts of the Pandemic changes and impressions.

The new numbering system will make more sense for EVs than the current ICE product. Cadillac should stay with C.I. or C.C. and leave the Torque to the EVs.

My wife and I did one 500 mile road trip, the North Cascade Loop. North Cascades Scenic Highway (scenicwa.com) We only stopped in a true Western Cowboy town, still has wood sidewalks, horse tie up posts, etc. Winthrop (Scenic Washinton | Best Small Towns in Washington | Winthrop) to use the bathrooms, otherwise we had all our food with us in the Escalade and only stopped at places where no one else was at to stretch legs and look at the beautiful scenery. Lucky for me the Escalade can make the loop on a single gas tank, so minimal people interaction there too. This is the kind of road trips we will do in 2021 planning to minimize any interaction with other people during this pandemic.

Totally agree with you, I have NEVER seen any marketing for the Cadillac XT6. I talked back in November when I got the oil change done on my Escalade and my sales rep informed me he was retiring due to the pandemic and decided to stay safe in the woods. I asked him how the XT6 was doing and he said that they had sold maybe 6 for all of 2020 at the time compared to the dozens of XT5 and Escalades over the year. Problem he saw was that people seem to like many other options out there better than the XT6 and the interior. He said which I agree with that the fit n finish is good but GM did not give it the luxury level that people are expecting for the price. In fact he said the weird part is people have a better luxury impression of a Denali equipped CUV over the XT6 as his sister GMC/Buick store was selling gang busters all they could get of CUVs. It is sad as while I was excited for when Cadillac talked about it, was disappointed when I actually saw it and the rushed job to just get it to market and have another niche filled with a product. GM needs to stop doing this if they want Cadillac to grow. Focus on the Luxury and let GMC/Buick fill in all the Niche areas for appliance sizes.

As a Skin Cancer survivor, I know even while I was never a sun worshiper or fan of having sunny days, I am even more now of an avoider of the sun and lather on sun screen lotion even during cloudy bright days. Course Seattle has Drizzle 9 months of the year and as such, we are used to hiking, camping and playing in the drizzle no matter what the temp is, so I love it and it does not stop me from gardening or doing pretty much anything outside. I can respect everyone for enjoying the sun and less so the rain especially when you do not live in a place that has it often. Course the rain storms in Texas were crazy huge when they hit. Talk about flooding events.

I totally understand this, I am an eternal Optimist that I believe we all have BEST INTENT for what we do. Hopefully we can weed out the companies that truly are fly by night grab the money and run and leave only the solid long term looking companies that believe in building quality products. I truly believe GM with their new electrical nervous system that is Terabytes in data movement has the goods to go back to being a global leader. But like all things, will take time to build and get there.

Fishing

Dementia

In the 90's it was a crap shoot on Software with no standards to security, quality, etc. Today, software changes cannot be allowed to break the tree when you check in your fix or new feature. If you break it, you better be ready to explain why and dish out the donuts. Before the pandemic, if you broke the software check-in tree, you had to bring donuts for everyone in the building. In the case of my Isilon team in Seattle, that was 1,200 donuts. OUCH As such, Microsoft and Apple both instituted around 2005 SDL or Security Development Lifecycle. This brought a ton of reliability and improvements to software development. The last decade has seen a big improvement from storage to smartphones in the way software is developed. Most people do not know this, but the FORD Sync system is a Secured Kernel of NT from Microsoft.

I love a Cloudy day or drizzle over sunny days.

Hard freeze after rain this morning and the water freezing patterns are amazing. This was on my Suburban.

Medium Rare

Software World Updates every 4 months is the normal with a major update once per year. GM after CUE 1.0 and 2.0 which was solid if you stayed within the lines, but broke every time people tried to do things the way they approached their smartphone broke all over. Was a smart move to bring in an actual software group with UI experience and customer feedback groups to get what is now a very reliable interface. Still have room to improve, but things are getting better. I am interested to see the new UI / System that will go into the EVs that take advantage of the new larger displays.

These are the 3 colored logos that will be used.