G. David Felt

Any company if they wanted to compete on specific engineering item for item, performance for performance could with the Germans. Especially the Japanese, but they went after a certain price point, with a certain performance level for their customers and seems to have hit the bean counters desires.

East Coast Pork Roll AKA Spam on the west coast. I have tried both and like them both. Take you Pork Roll, cut into little cubes, cook up in a pan till crunchy, drain on a plate with paper towels to dry up and set aside. Next make creamy Mac N Cheese, then fold in your crunchy pork roll bits and save a little for on top. Serve and enjoy your cheesy goodness with crunch pork roll.

These guys need to learn what ugly trucks really are. I like a number of them.

2019 Grand Sport Corvette, totaled with only 15 miles. On Auction current bid $9,100 https://www.copart.com/lot/37414628 Hopefully the powertrain will make it into someones project.

http://www.thedrive.com/video/22036/jonathan-ward-shows-us-what-several-hundred-thousand-dollars-can-do-to-a-1965-jeep-wagoneer Awesome video on this ultimate ride restore

Living in the Pacific Northwest You might be from Seattle or Portland if you: § You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash. § Use the statement “sun break” and know what it means. § You know a bride & groom that registered at REI. § When you drive out of town, every other guy in a pickup truck looks the governor. § When you drive out of town, even the Hondas have gun racks. § You can point in the direction of two or more volcanoes even though you can’t see them due to clouds. § Know more than 10 ways to order coffee. § Everyday is casual Friday. § Know more people who own boats than air conditioners. § Feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant. § Stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “Walk” signal. § Consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain. § Can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Veneto’s. § Know the difference between Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye salmon. § Know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, Oregon and Willamette. § Consider swimming an indoor sport. § Never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho. § Are not fazed by “Today’s forecast: showers followed by rain,” and “Tomorrow’s forecast: rain followed by showers.” § You cannot wait for a day with “showers and sun breaks.” § Have no concept of humidity without precipitation. § Know that Boring is a town in Oregon and not just a state of mind. § Can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover. § You exclaim “the mountain is out” when it is a pretty day and you can actually see it. § Put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wear your hiking boots and Gore-Tex coat. § Switch to your sandals when it gets about 60, but keep the socks on. § Have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain. § Think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists. § Buy new sunglasses every year, because you can’t find the old one after such a long time. § You often switch from “heat” to “a/c” in the same day. § You use a down comforter in the summer. § You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat. § You know all the important seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Raining (spring), Road Construction (summer) Deer & Elk season (Fall). § You complain about Californians as you sell your house to one for twice as much as you originally paid. § You think that the start of deer and elk season is a national holiday. § Pop is not only what you call your dad, but is the ONLY name for soda. § A Friday night date is taking you girlfriend shining for deer. Saturday you go the the local bowling alley.

That qualify's for the Joke Thread. Plus I thought that is what we did in the 70's with all those cool custom vans!

Balance For six days God could not be found. Finally, on the seventh day, Michael, the archangel, found Him. "Where have You been?" Michael asked. God smiled deeply and proudly and pointed down through the clouds. "Look," He said. "Look what I've made." Michael looked down, but was puzzled. "What is it?" he asked. "It's a planet. And I've put life on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a place to test Balance." "Balance? What do you mean?" asked Michael. Pointing to the different parts of the Earth, God explained. "Over there I've place a continent of black people and there I've placed a continent of white people. Europe will have wealth an opportunity, Africa will be poor. There it will be extremely cold and there it will be extremely hot. Everything is in Balance." The Archangel was impressed. He pointed out a land area and said, "What is that?" "That's Washington State," said God, "the most glorious place on earth. It has beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers and streams, hills, forests and plains. The people there will be handsome, intelligent, modest and humorous. They will be hardworking, high achieving, sociable and producers of software." Michael was in awe and filled with admiration. He asked, "But what about balance, God? You said there would be balance." God smiled. "Yes," He said, "There's another Washington. Wait till you see the idiots I put in that place!"

PNW Humor: Policeman: Lady, what gear were you in at the moment of the crash impact? Oregonian: Gear? Oh, Nike of course! (Beaverton, Oregon is the corporate headquarters of Nike). ________________ A newcomer to Portland arrives on a rainy day. She gets up the next day and it’s raining. It also rains the day after that, and the day after that. She goes out to lunch and sees a young kid and, out of despair, asks, ”Hey, kid, does it ever stop raining around here?” The kid says, ”How should I know? I’m only 8.” ________________ Question: What do you call two straight days of rain in Portland? Answer: A weekend. ________________ It only rains twice a year in Portland: October through April and May through June. ________________ Question: What does daylight-saving time mean in Portland? Answer: An extra hour of rain. ________________ What did the Portland native say to the Pillsbury Doughboy? Answer: Nice tan. ________________ A curious fellow died one day and found himself in limbo waiting in a long, long line for judgment. As he stood there, he noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the gates of heaven. Others were led over to Satan, who threw them into a lake of fire. Every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss him or her to one side. After watching Satan do this several times, the fellow’s curiosity got the better of him. He strolled over and tapped Old Nick on the shoulder. “Excuse me, there, Your Darkness,” he said. “I’m waiting in line for judgment, and I couldn’t help wondering why you are tossing some people aside instead of flinging them into the fires of hell with the others?” “Ah,” Satan said with a grin. “Those are Portlanders. I’m letting them dry out so they’ll burn.” ________________ “I can’t believe it,” said the tourist. “I’ve been here in Portland an entire week and it’s done nothing but rain. When do you have summer here?” “Well, that’s hard to say,” replied the local. “Last year, it was on a Wednesday.”

Blah Blah Blah AMG Blah, Mercedes Blah, Racing Blah, Blah Blah................ Not EVERYONE WANTS A FREAKING MERCEDES! Plenty of folks like what Lexus, Infinity, Genesis build and will continue to buy them over the overpriced Germans with crazy maintenance and repair costs. Some day your going to have to accept that not everyone wants your horse with blinders German only auto. After all German lost the war because of their arrogance about superiority and superior race. They murdered millions and to this day, my heritage brothers and sisters have yet to learn how to live in the worn with others that are not just like them. Lexus makes a profit they are happy with without needing 10 models all 500+ HP of over rev'd dual overhead came German machinery.

Supposedly I thought and I could be wrong but that they were building all the new auto's on a Modular single platform that fully supported EV or Hybrid. At this point you could then easily assemble them in one plant and switch the power train depending on what is ordered. Yet at the rate Potus45 the Idiot is going, the world will benefit and we will still be stuck in the stone age.

Nissan was smart to make an e-NV200 van with 124 mile range 40 kWh battery pack. This is far more than needed for inner city deliveries and service calls. You remove the complex ICE gas or diesel motor and gain cleaner emissions and less maintenance with an ultra quiet van that will not disturb inner city folks that live there.

Performance EV version should help this greatly.

If it is anything like the picture above, it will be way better than the Tesla 3.

Anyone up for a 2018 new Chevy Camaro Convertible Limo? https://americanlimousinesales.com/inventory/convertible-chevy-camaro-140-inch-limousine-for-sale-22662/

My dad and I had bought and totally cleaned up a car like this for my middle sister when she graduated High school so she would have a reliable auto for college. Lasted her 6 years till her husband totaled it looking at another woman on the sidewalk. That marriage ended after 10 years. New neighbor from BC moved into the area, the owner has his grandfather with him who wanted his car even though he had not driven it in years. I give you an Canadian Comet? Not sure what they were called up there but I loved these sporty 2 door cars. @balthazar Does this pass for a 2 door coupe? ? This coupe thing really confuses me.

Got it, Yup very dry sarcasm, such a hard thing to write on a forum. I know it well.

@balthazar A true 2 door coupe!

Until Venezuela moves on beyond Socialism, they are going to have a hard time investing and upgrading their decrepit oil sector. I honestly DO NOT see high oil prices helping out that country. EV's will displace oil, while consumption will continue as many products including internal and external parts on auto's are built using oil, various types of plastics, etc. Natural gas is the future fuel that will power a bulk of electrical generation for EV's. We reduce green house gas and more importantly clean up the air in the inner city areas and improve by reducing noise pollution such as the crazy illegal open pipes of motorcycles and cars built for street racing. Racing will especially from the street replace ICE once they realize they are harder to detect by the police due to how quiet they are and can sneak around. This is a reason I see both police and the public embracing ev auto's, the silent sneak attack.

Wife did a Garage sale with 3 friends at one of the friends house and I was the slave labor lifting and setting things up. Lucky for me, I went for a walk to check on the G-Sale signs and saw this lovely in need of some TLC Super. The only Toyota I have ever wanted. Been sitting there for a while but totally would be fun to have. An old geezer with a tube in his throat out for a drive as he says he takes it out ever day that is sunny. 55 Chevy

Hey GOV, Go jump off the Fuking cliff. No way do you have any right to this info. WTF, Potus, your not our dictator yet and nor will you be allowed to become.

@riviera74 @Drew Dowdell Yet the story also states that consumption in Asia, especially China would absorb that increased production that would keep the oil prices high. Thoughts on that?

Yes and No, In the past tech breakthroughs tended to take a 5-10 years to get to commercial application. Yet we are seeing like in the computer world a drastic drop in getting breakthroughs into production in a more realistic 18 months to 3 years. I can easily see this battery tech going into production and showing up in an auto in the 2021 or 2022 calendar year. Perfect example is Toshiba's SCiB battery, almost 10 years to go from lab concept to production. Now it will be replaced in a short amount of time as Toshiba is planning to go into production with Gen 2 battery in 2020. So only 2 years of production of Gen 1 which will show up in auto's in 2019 as 2020 versions and in 2020 as 2021 versions before being replaced by gen 2 battery packs.

The whole ICE auto industry started out the same way. Also as my example for simplicity sake of how the same size battery in a Bolt or Volt would triple the range. Many OEM builders if they can still have 238 miles of fast charging in less than 6 minutes, they will reduce the size of the battery by 2/3 rds and save a ton of weight, money and space making the auto much lighter and as such in the example of the BOLT. 238 miles would increase to almost 300 miles by the weight reduction. No matter what ones feeling are about EV versus ICE, the world is moving to EV auto's and ICE is going to go away. Makes sense from a less maintenance standpoint, makes sense from an eventual less cost stand point too as economy of scale takes over. Interesting times we live in and this will all shake out over the next 5 yrs.

Battery Density Starting to Surpass Moore's Law Something old is new, the picture above is the first Thomas Edison Storage Battery. This was an Alkaline Battery that he started developing in 1890 and completed in 1903. As the Auto industry started up, Edison felt that electric auto's was a superior way to go versus steam, gas or any other form that was being played with. Edison found the traditional battery to be toxic, heavy and short life with only average energy storage. In 1903 Edison declaring his battery finished showed off his potassium hydroxide battery that would react with the Iron / Nickel electrodes creating a battery that was reliable and rechargeable. This battery also was 3 times as dense energy wise as traditional lead-acid batteries. Those building electric auto's flocked to buying Edison's batteries. Sadly due to various issues of leakage post manufacturing, electric auto companies did not get the long term benefit they had hoped for and went back to using cheaper to produce lead-acid batteries and Edison closed his battery plant in 1908 and Edison who was friends with Henry Ford acknowledged that the electric auto had lost to the Model T Car. While Edison's battery was of too low a voltage for ICE Auto's to use starting in 1912 when electric start began, they were profitable due to their long life and reliability that allowed them to be used in railroad crossing signs and especially in lamps for use in the mines. These batteries once Edison had fixed the packaging issue became his biggest moneymaker. Now you might ask why the History lesson? Battery density has been a slow but growing segment and many in the computer industry has felt that we are on the cusp of starting to use Moore's law for CPU's in regards to batteries. Reminder ( Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.) Recently, I posted about Toshiba's Generation 2 SCiB batteries that have tripled the density while maintaining charge times using a Titanium Niobium Oxide Anode to charge the battery. Researchers at the University of Maryland in partnership with Brook-haven National Laboratory looked to what had been invented in the past, the issues that existed and if they could possibly improve upon them to overcome limitations to allow a new product to come to market fast. Here is where Edison's battery comes into play as he had already figured out how to triple the density of the battery, but not how to improve the voltage recharge time as the batteries were slow to recharge. The short answer for those not wanting to look at the scientific paper listed below or download the document file is that they have designed due to current technology a new cathode material (Iron Triflouride) that triples energy density of Lithium-ion batteries while reducing recharge times greatly in a stable battery package. As the picture above shows, a traditional button 2032 battery now has triple the energy density of the original battery. Think of your laptop or cell phone battery that would now give you three times as much life before recharging is needed. The end result is that only a year ago we had batteries with a certain density and now 12 months later we are seeing proto types of batteries in their same size but three times as dense. Consider a Chevy Volt in it's current battery pack of 54 miles now 162 mile range or a Chevy BOLT's battery pack of 238 miles now 714 miles. The future is looking shockingly BRIGHT for long range batteries for all sorts of technology from cell-phones, laptop computers to other forms of portable electronics and especially electric auto's. Edison Alkaline Battery Info Iron Triflouride scientific paper release