G. David Felt

According to the latest news out of Bentley, they are changing their whole lineup to Plug-in Hybrid by 2026 with being full EV only by 2030. This comes after in 2019 a board member who is in charge of Engineering said there was no reason to spend any time with electrification. Bentley is the worlds larges manufacture of 12 cylinder auto's. It now seems that due to European and Asian changes supporting electrification and banning ICE that Bentley is seeing a need to change and with that changing fast for such a high end luxury auto maker. This does make me wonder about the CEO of Ferrari who said in his life time they would have a hybrid option but would not waste any time with electrification. Ferrari might not have a choice as governments move away from ICE to Hybrid/EVs. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1130208_bentley-plans-to-go-all-plug-in-by-2026-all-electric-by-2030

Android

overpriced

Massachusetts passes right to repair bill meaning Tesla will have to open up their books allowing non-Tesla auto repair shops to work on Tesla auto's. Gonna be interesting to see how that goes over with Tesla CEO Musk. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/massachusetts-passes-right-to-repair-protections/ Land Rover will not Confirm or Deny reports that their two door Defender SUV that has a Turbo 4 or inline 6 engine is getting a twin turbo V8 from BMW in their refresh of the two door SUV. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/report-land-rover-considering-more-oomph-for-defender/

Ferrari 65 year old CEO says that in his life time Ferrari will not go pure EV only. He believes that customers still want the sound of their ICE motors and at the most they will offer for those wanting a bit more green in their exotic sports car a plug-in hybrid at most. https://www.autoblog.com/2020/11/05/ferrari-not-going-electric/

Rapid E

James Bonds (Daniel Craig's) new car for No time to Die!

British Humor

Same here @Robert Hall Wife, kids and I have not been in a restaurant since February. I do pickup an occasional curbside order from the couple places locally here to support our local small restaurants, but otherwise, we have been avoiding everything, but I do a once a week shopping trip to Costco. Yes I could have it ordered and delivered, but this keeps me sane getting out of the house.

Asian Cheerleaders

I do think that society is tired of this pandemic, yet by letting our guard down now we are seeing the last few days with 100,000 infections happening daily and thousands of deaths. A very sad time with loosing so much life needlessly. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map We still need to stay vigilant till we can vaccinate the country. I find this story very weird to me as they call the 19840Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta, a Sports Car for Luxurious People. ? I remember this car and I never considered it Luxurious! 2.8L V6 with Automatic. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/rare-rides-the-1984-chevrolet-camaro-berlinetta-a-sports-car-for-luxurious-people/ In reporting news, Ford is going back to Monthly sales reporting and leaving GM and Tesla to be the lone Quarterly reporting companies. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/11/ford-returns-to-monthly-sales-reporting/ In tech news for ICE Auto's. Seems the blind spots are getting so big, that one company thinks the whole dash should see what is in front of the car. Not sure how that would help you not hit your front end., An IDIOT in LA stole a customer Velociraptor Ford 6x6 HD and then tried to evade police to a no wine situation. I really like this car from Jay Leno's garage.

EV update of the day. Tesla has secured a 150 Tesla Semi Trucks from a truck leasing company with options for 350 more surpassing Walmart's firm commitment to 130 Tesla Semi Trucks. https://electrek.co/2020/11/05/tesla-tsla-order-tesla-semi-electric-trucks-biggest-yet/ Australia has been struggling with brown outs this past year much like California has due to fires and extreme climate change. As such, South Australia has committed to what is being called the Worlds Biggest Tesla Battery for a green renewable storage system to insure power supply. https://electrek.co/2020/11/05/tesla-tsla-wins-contract-giant-battery-australia/ California has landed on a bumper crop of Lithium, enough to support 1/3rd of the worlds needs due to California's expansion of GeoThermal Power. Seems the Lithium is a by product of using GeoThermal to create power to supply the state. https://chargedevs.com/newswire/report-highlights-the-potential-for-lithium-recovery-from-californias-geothermal-industry/ FOR THE SPEED FREAKS, Audi has released their E-Tron GT details. Plenty more pictures and slides covering their tech at the story link at the bottom, but the car will have a 235 HP front motor and 449 HP rear motor for a total of 684 HP total but limited to 590 HP all the time and an overboost feature of 640 HP at this time. 0 to 60 time of 3.6 seconds. Rather than a 79 kWh battery pack or performance mode of 93 kWh battery pack like Porsche is offering, Audi is going with a 83.7 kWh battery. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1130199_2022-audi-e-tron-gt-electric-car-details-battery-charging-performance

It is surprising to see that a Country would just turn over in this case an island and let them change the way auto's are used by the population. I totally agree with you that changing Transit, Municipal and commercial auto's can have a huge affect and give a much more decent time frame for conversion of the private residential auto's. I do get that they are wanting to reduce the chance of pollution into the local eco system, but a flip like this so fast is pretty surprising. I do wonder how the 1,400 permanent locals think about this. Did a Search and found more detailed writings about this carbon neutral mobility project. All power comes from burning fossil fuels and with 72,000 tourist a year as well as other ships stopping by the island, the need to reduce the carbon footprint has led the Greece government to the following conclusion, Government nor Private business can fix the problems, only working together with the local population can fix the problem. As such the Island residents have chosen this route in such a short time frame. Seems VW sustainability council working along with the Greece Government sustainability council and the local Island Council that is wanting to get to a Climate Neutral Mobility and power supply has chosen this path. Seems this is a 6yr plan according to the press release from VW and Greece is planning for the whole country to be Climate Carbon Neutral by 2050. ? https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/volkswagen-group-and-greece-to-create-model-island-for-climate-neutral-mobility-6583

Freedom

Interesting how one comes into this thread which was on Alternative fuels and starts calling California Commies or specifically calling them commiefornia and I respond to his remark and he says I started the politics. ? So back to our Alternative Fuel Propulsion thread. Greece is working with VW to change over to pure electric auto's and renewable power starting with the island of Astypalea in the south Aegean Sea. This will be the start of the country converting all areas to clean renewable power and transportation reducing contamination from the environment by petrol. The current 1,500 ICE auto's on the island will be replaced with 1,000 EVs as well as all municipal and commercial auto's. Public transit is very limited as such the island will be setup as a sharing service for private EV use. VW did not confirm or deny that this is related to their diesel-emissions scandal, but this does mirror other settlement programs with other European governments and looks like what Renault also did with an island off France and another off Portugal where their own issues were settled out with those governments. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1130195_vw-project-to-transition-greek-model-island-to-electric-vehicles-renewable-power

GM Defense was awarded in June a $214.3 million contract to build the all new Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV which is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. GM Defense will build 649 ISV's with a extension of up to another 2,065 ISV's over eight years. The initial contract order of 649 ISVs makes each auto cost $330,200.31. If the full contract is full filled, the additional cost for the 2,065 ISVs is $681,863,636.36 or what is approximately a $900 million contract. The ISV is light enough to be sling loaded from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter for air transportability. More details at the link below. https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/oct/1027-gmdefense.html GM-Defense-Delivers-First-Infantry-Squad-Vehicle-to-U-S--Army.mp4

Meet the hummer team, story at this link: https://plants.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/ev.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/nov/1102-hummer.html Cool vid on the Ultium Battery Pack. https://www.gm.com/masthead-story/ultium-battery-electric-future.html Battery-Pack-modularity-enables-range-variance.mp4

BMW has started production of their all new BMW ix3 EV suv in China and will export it to Europe for sale. Plenty of external and internal pictures at the link below. Quote from the story: BMW confirmed the specs of the iX3. The BMW iX3’s 80-kilowatt-hour battery pack — 74 kWh of which is useable — offers a range of 460 kilometers (286 miles) using the generous WLTP testing numbers. That likely translates to around 200 miles in real-world driving. The battery pack feeds a 210 kW/286 hp electric motor with a peak torque of 400 Nm (295 lb-ft). and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h [62 mph] in 6.8 seconds. As for charging, the BMW iX3 can take a 150 kW DC fast-charge output. The electric SUV costs about €70,000 in Europe. As we previously reported, BMW canceled its plan to launch the iX3 electric SUV in the US, but the price would translate to about $67,000 USD before taxes and incentives. https://electrek.co/2020/11/04/bmw-ix3-electric-suv-price-specs-gallery/

Battery tech is moving forward at Warp Speed. The new SuperBattery using man made curved Graphene carbon material has the individual battery cell down to a 15 second recharge time. This is brought to you by Skeleton Technologies and KIT or Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. A $1 billion letter has been signed with an Automotive OEM to bring these cells to market. This would make a 40 kWh battery like what the Nissan Leaf uses recharge from empty to full in 6 minutes. https://www.skeletontech.com/news/skeleton-and-kit-are-developing-a-new-graphene-battery-charging-in-15-seconds

Consumer reports has published their latest report on auto cost savings for owning an EV over a comparable ICE auto. Seems the average savings on owning an EV to a comparible ICE is $6,000 to $10,000 with Tesla 3 being the best at $15,000 savings over it's lifetime. Average fuel savings is 60% alone. https://chargedevs.com/newswire/consumer-reports-popular-ev-models-cost-less-to-own-than-comparable-legacy-vehicles/

First Chinese made EV car EPA certified and cleared for use in California. Deliveries to start between now and the end of the year. The basic entry level EV car qualifies for the California $2,000 EV credit and the federal $7,500 ev credit giving it an effective cost of just $7,999 out of the customers pocket. Cheapest EV on the road. The Kandi K27 comes with an EPA rated 59 miles from a 17.7 kWh battery pack and a top speed of 63 mph. This micro subcompact car is clearly for inner city use for the most part. The 4 passenger car is only 136 inches long, more than a foot shorter than the Mitsubishi Mirage. Kandi K27 will have the following standard: backup camera 9" touch screen infotainment system bluetooth connectivity Before any credits this car costs $20,499 and right now for the first 1,000 customers, Kandi is offering a $3,000 discount which brings it to $17,499 then add the credits and you end up at $7,999 Kandi K23 is the more expensive and little bit bigger car that is $29,999 before incentives or discounts and has a rated top speed of 72 mph and 111 miles of battery range. The K23 will be available for purchase in California come 2023.

TBG SS is limited production, has a collectors status with high resale value even with the miles I have on it. Once I think I convert the Suburban, I will probably garage the SS for just weekend trips is my long term thinking. After all, how many TB SS do you really see, they stand out from the standard TB. Even now I get compliments and people are surprised when they learn it is a TB SS edition.

Yup, posted about it on the last couple of pages. I am excited that GM is going to use the Ultium family of batteries and motors for various connect and cruise packages that will have all the controllers, wires, cooling, etc. in a package that can be then used to convert any ICE to EV. Thinking of this for my 1994 GMC Suburban.

I miss you too! ?

Not to mention that the engines themselves have gotten much bigger and as an example, the Dreamliner 787 can fly for 5000 miles on 1 engine alone.