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G. David Felt

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Everything posted by G. David Felt

  1. The company is bleeding billions and no matter how much you have in the bank, one has to face the music, how much more do you invest in a project that has yet to return a profit let alone break even cost and seems to still not be able to be legal for common road driving? The AMG One needs to be shut down, accept that this was a project that was not possible to achieve and focus on something that is.
  2. Welcome to the global recession start. Expect job cuts in many countries world wide of basic worker assembly line jobs to manual labor day jobs. Time for the world to take a break and focus on reduction of debt. This is going to hurt many.
  3. So let's take a hard look at MB sales which was posted here: Based on these numbers for the first 6 months, anything under 10,000 a year sold is not considered profitable by the auto industry, the following models should be cut: B-Class - Only 6 sold year to date. SLC - Only 1,187 sold year to date. SL - Only 928 sold year to date. AMG GT - Only 1,858 sold year to date. G-Class - Only 3,819 sold year to date. Smart - Only 496 sold year to date. I am sure there are other models that if we broke down the coupe versus regular models we could find additional efficiencies by model reduction. Also, All customers effective immediately should get refunds for the Vaporware Hypercar that is not able to be made roadworthy and really is a waste of time and money since the F1 engine was never designed for street legal roads.
  4. Wonder how long and which ones will last the CUV craze? Could it be FCA, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai still or will it reduce down to 1 or 2 only? ?
  5. @ccap41 I start it off for you.
  6. Agreed, was not a fan at all of his late night show or any of those shows, but loved his car show as a down to earth car guy. At least he has shared what other wealthy collectors do not share with the rest of us worker bees. Agreed that his tranny comments were a bit of a surprise and what made me think he is showing his age now and being forgetful. Wonder what will happen to his auto collection when he dies? ? Hopefully some museum will get it at least. Please Post, all brands are subject to be laughed at especially when they break in half.
  7. Just pulled into my 24hr Fitness to work out and a bright orange Challanger T/A plus is what I parked next to. Weird how many I am seeing of them now and it was a millennial who owned it. Been allot of that age group buying these cars.
  8. Today has been a Challenger day, 3 new one, 2 used with one being a demon. Wow
  9. Amazing how big a problem this is for Toyota and how no one screamed, yelled or got upset and people still think Toyota builds perfect auto's. Been a problem from 2001 to 2009, 8 years of weak ass frames and no one seems to be upset. ? Too funny Amazing what little area they covered on their Tacoma recall for frames.
  10. ? Is this sarcasm to get a certain german badge snob to bite cause only real cars, CUVs and Trucks come from Germany and are all RWD biased cause only Germans can build quality auto's?
  11. @Drew Dowdell how does this compare to Cadillacs Super Cruise?
  12. For me it is more like removing my head and holding it in my lap! For everyone that is not vertically in the clouds like me, the CLS is a nice looking car and if it fits your desires, go for it.
  13. Baby boomer use of so much processed foods made America Fat. Fast Foods just allowed other generations to come to become even Fatter. The laziness of Americans to use doordash or any of the other food delivery systems and not learn to cook is destroying America. Grow a Garden, learn to cook and then make healthy organic food dishes that can be heated up and eaten but far better for you. Sunday's I cook two large dishes so I have breakfast and lunch covered for the work week. My Garden
  14. While not a fan, I would agree with both @Drew Dowdell and @ccap41 Why would anyone really want a European Taxi in their driveway when they can have a classier looking CLS.
  15. Jay is really showing his age. Very cool video, Thanks @NINETY EIGHT REGENCY for posting this.
  16. Me thinking you sell both properties and buy a new house with your CT6.
  17. Guess when I test drove it last friday, the impact was not there as the XT6 rode like any other coil / shock auto. Was not impressive to me of a luxury isolate the world ride. Thanks for the info.
  18. Interesting in rewatching this video, so I wonder if the airbags are like those found on semi-trucks, firestone airbags? Also the fact that the shocks stiffen up tends to make me think Magnaride, so you have both firm ride for spirited driving and minimal body roll and yet airbagged to give a lazy boy comfort of absorbing the road imperfections. Very excited to have this come out and try it. Surprised it is coming out first on the Aviator and not the Navigator. Will be interesting to see how Cadillac responds to this.
  19. Very cool, this will be an interesting comparison of Lincolns Air Glide system to Cadillacs Magna Ride system.
  20. At least they are trying to keep cars going and offer it as a Hybrid. Be interesting to see how many they sell between now and a year from now to compare to the sales numbers of cars that were selling.
  21. Obviously with cutting of products, the money pit of money to spend on whatever MB wants is not true. There are limits and MB cannot and chooses to not bother trying to compete in the Trucks market.
  22. Send it to me, love the rain.
  23. The more people say we cannot do something or everything is already good enough why change, society goes through a major revolutionary change. This has never been more true than in the 21st century with those that say why change when ICE or internal combustion engines are perfect do we need to change to a different power train design? The PNW or Pacific Northwest has been a source of disruptive technology for the last 40 years. From Microsoft, Google, Apple to Intel corporation we have seen technology change the way we live. Tesla came on the scene July 1st, 2003 and has been a major disruptor to the auto industry. In mid 2018 Tesla confirmed that they had sustained battery production of 20 GWh, more than any other auto company in the world. They also stated that by 2019 with their partner Panasonic they would be at 35 GWh of battery production. Since then Tesla has announced that by the end of 2021, they will be at 105 GWh of battery cell production with a 150 GWh of total battery pack output. By now, one would be asking why am I reading about Tesla when I want to know about a 700 mile battery pack? In a word, REVOLUTION using an old technique with a new application. It should come as no surprise that this startup based in Portland Oregon is founded by a well educated PhD team of former Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Citibank and investment capital companies. With PhD in chemical engineering to marketing and finance, this company has been quietly perfecting their battery technology based on using an old tech product that even Intel has moved away from. The 12 inch Silicon Wafer Stack, yes the same thing that was used in 486 / Pentium computers is a perfect medium for energy storage without all the current drawbacks of the current Battery design. Existing EV battery technology has had the following concerns of overheating, catching fire, degrading through repeated charge/discharge cycles and a major issue is the "dendrite" buildup, which looks like stalactites on the battery cells and leads to failed cells and shorter battery life as to why current EV's only have a 10yr battery life. Instead of a two-dimensional surface as is found in today's existing EV battery tech, XNRGI's battery tech is able to take advantage of the three-dimensional surface area of the silicon wafer. Per XNRGI, each silicon disc can have up to 160 million microscopic pores. These wafers are then coated with a non-conductive surface on one side and a conductive metal on the other side to carry the electrical current. The big benefit of what XNRGI is capitalizing on is that the wafer tech, coatings are all taken from existing tech used in the chip industry per President and CEO Dr. Chris D'Couto. To quote Dr. D'Couto, "Each of these little holes is effectively a very tiny battery," allowing a 70 times increase in total surface area for holding power compared to today's existing batteries which equals about a 10 times energy density in comparison to existing lithium-ion battery anodes. The bigger benefit of this battery design is that each pore is separated from its neighbors, eliminating internal short-circuits which results in resisting degradation over time and use. To quote Dr. D'Couto, "When any of those individually fail, the failure doesn't propagate. This architecture makes battery's completely safe by preventing thermal runaway and explosions." In layman's terms this removes the Airplanes refusal to have Lithium Ion batteries in the freight hold of a plane due to potential thermal runaway explosions. End result is that XNRGI Powerchip battery are a safer denser solution for today's demanding electrical designs. Another key benefit to the XNRGI battery design is life, current auto industry designs from Tesla, GM and Nissan is a 10 year battery life before degradation sets in. This is where the rub is in that some owners of these companies auto's have seen degradation set in, in only 5 years. Existing battery life is affected by not only the "dendrite" issue that can pierce the physical separator between the anode and cathode shorting out the battery on top of the other issues of build up much like plaque on teeth that happens with today's batteries. XNRGI uses a non-conductive coating on the silicon wafer that resists the dendrite formation and plaque build up. This ends up meaning that XNRGI batteries are able to offer three to five times the service life compared to today's existing Lithium-ion battery. This means a 30 to 50 year battery pack. Safety and density have been addressed by the XNRGI battery design which brings up a final question by many, what about recharge times? XNRGI Powerchip battery is able to discharge and recharge faster than conventional Lithium-ion cells due to its increased surface area. Quoting Dr. D'Couto, the Powerchip battery is able to achieve from empty 80% recharge in only 15 min. This benefit then means we have two options of how to apply this technology. One you can build smaller batteries that reduce weight making everything from small electronics to EVs lighter and more efficient or you can build for range by increasing the density with keeping the existing weight. Think of a pair of ear pods that will last weeks on a single charge or a cell phone that will last 6 to 7 days of heavy use rather than 1 to 2 days or an EV that currently goes 250 miles on the existing battery pack is replaced with an identical sized XNRGI battery pack and you now have 700 miles of range. Dr. D'Couto states they are working with multiple companies from around the world for including their solid state battery design into various products that will show up in 2020 such as motorbikes, scooters, drones, robots, cell phones and more. XNRGI expects their batteries to show up in EV's that are released in 2022 and 2023 from the auto industry which is due to their extensive testing. Toshiba was one of the first companies to come up with a solid state battery that will be coming out next year in Nissan and Mitsubishi EV products. XNRGI having signed or working on licensing agreements with various companies expects to see their batteries out in products around under limited volume in 2022 with high volume production in 2023 to 2024. XNRGI has put together this video of their company. View full article
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