G. David Felt

@balthazar We'll your crystal ball is proving correct as Tesla now says the semi's will be out by late 2020. Slipped a year to focus on the Tesla 3. continuation of proving Tesla always late delivery.

Easy, they are beating Tesla as they are delivering trucks this year to customers for field-testing. Tesla is nowhere near that yet. Tesla has 2 trucks that they are still trying to figure out the details on compared to Freightliner who is building for delivery 30 trucks in two different classes for customers. That beats Tesla.

Have to say that some of these refurbished rides from the past on The Blocks website from GM are sweet. I am really loving the Shift into Summer series. http://www.theblock.com/?article=4754798a-1933-4af0-858f-83eaa0e9a8c4#news

Class 8 Semi e-Mobility by Daimler's Freightliner beats Tesla Freightliner website Daimler website Daimler has been big on talking about their electric class 8 semi's and how they will have them out in truck as well as bus form. Yet with all the interesting concepts they have built, it seems they have chosen to take Tesla head on in it's own backyard and with that even beat them to the market. Freightliner has two trucks they have completed the engineering on, their full size Class 8 semi called the eCascadia is a heavy duty highway tractor designed for local and regional distribution runs. This new electric semi will have 730 peak HP, 250 mile range, 550 kWh battery pack with 80% recharged in 90 min. Their medium duty truck designed for local distribution, pickup and delivery for inner city use is a 480 peak HP, 230 mile range, 325 kWh battery pack with an 80% recharge in 60 min truck called the eM2 106. Yesterday in Portland Oregon, home to Daimler Freightliner division, they rolled out these two trucks with a promise to have them in full production and on sale by the start of 2021. Yet the bigger news as reported by Reuters who was at Freightliner for the news event and rides in these new EV trucks was that Freightliner will deliver 30 of each truck to various existing Freightliner customers this fall for field-testing around the US. This will allow them to tweak their powertrain and driver interface in the truck before going full production. Daimler as the world's largest truck maker has much to lose if they let Tesla or pretty much anyone else grab the leed for electric trucks. According to the story from Reuters, Navistar International Corp has partnered with Volkswagen to delivery Class 8 and medium duty EV Trucks by 2022 to the market. Freightliner is planning as mentioned above to have their trucks on sale in 2021 while Tesla has stated they will have their trucks on sale in 2020. Yet Tesla is known to run 1-3 years behind their goals. Freightliner has 40% of the North American heavy-duty truck market which is a $39 billion dollar a year market. Martin Baum, head of Daimler Trucks which overseas Freightliner says that they see a fast big conversion to EV trucks for local delivery and inner city use where reduced exhaust pollution and noise is key as Cities put up regulations that ban diesel trucks from the roads. Yet diesel will have a long life still especially in long-haul trucking where range anxiety and refueling time is critical. Daimler's R&D investment in Freightliner of Portland Oregon is a $2.9 Billion US dollars investment for these trucks and an additional $500 million for recharging, connectivity and self-driving development of these trucks. Reuters Story

Time to retire that tree and get something less pollen for shade. Fast growing Leyland cypress are nice.

Unless you were in Hawaii on the big island. Lava broke through and in a matter of hours yesterday evaporated and filled in their 200 foot deep lake, the largest body of fresh water on the island and a source of fresh drinking water. OUCH. RIP to the fish and the water. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/us/green-lake-lava-evaporates-hawaii-trnd/index.html I have two time a year that my nose goes crazy. Mid spring when something here blooms and I just yuck up and again in the fall and yet all the allergy testing comes back negative. ?

Coming home from work today! Gotta love it when you come across true Muscle car! Olds 442

Been enough advertising about it that I have heard people talk about it and want to see it in person. I think many just do not know that it is only available on the CT6 right now. They should have rolled it out on the CT6 and Escalade at the same time.

Talk about allot from Chevy this month in their newsletter. Some cool stuff.

That is one BAD ASS RIde! Bum, gotta wait till fall 2018. http://www.gmc.com/gmc-life/trucks/introducing-the-2019-gmc-sierra-elevation-edition

Seems VW is all in, in setting a new EV auto record for the fastest time up Pikes Peek.

Twin Turbo I6 needs more cooling!

Interesting, says the mods have gotten old, really just speakers and extended battery packs. Wonder how their camera stacks up to the current camera on a Note 8.? Does it really do better with a real zoom lense compared to the dual lense camera setup?

Reminds me of a few movies where all the cars are taken control off and driven to attack others. This is how I can see Vehicle to everything (V2X) if a hacker gets in. Wonder if you can turn it off or just limit it to your cell phone? ?

Agree, interesting comparison of the 2018 to the 2019.

All interesting smoke and mirrors stuff. I want Tesla to survive, but I have to question if they can deliver profitably at a time that costs have gone up so fast.

But it is German and top of the line for Audi. So they can charge $100,000 easily because it is not American.

Just think of all the steel sitting around the country that could be recycled.

Not bad looking and at least real exhaust ports out the bumper but a much better color matched cover. This is way nicer looking than the Audi. Audi reminds me of Lincoln trying to play luxury.

Atlas is 6 inches shorter than the Tahoe, 4inches lower in height, 2 inches narrower. Only available with a V6 that is 80hp less, 120lbs ft of torque less, interior dimensions are way smaller and gets the same gas mileage as Chevy V8. Not sure I would consider it a Full size as much as a tweener and I think it is struggling to be a true full size on the golf platform. Yet with that said, VW made their module platform to be stretchable as they wanted to use it for compact to full size in the US market. https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401732710&veh2=401709867 Sergio the Idiot did not do that with the Alfa platform. It will never be a full size car or SUV platform without some major re-engineering.

That must be why Hawaii is vomiting so much lava!

They had 3 colors, Grey, Black and Tan.Most of the ones around here are tan or black, yet I saw many Grey in Texas when I lived in that hell hole for a year. Weird

I have to doubt this as much of what Idiot Sergio has stated in the pass has not happened and you cannot take a platform designed from the beginning for small to medium auto's and just magically make it fit full size or bigger. You can only stretch engineering so far before you break something due to it not originally being designed that way.

Kinda like coal country, if they try to force people to buy power at higher costs to just keep a few plants open, the current administration is going to loose out. Cost out weigh the profits from retiring nuclear plants and switching over to Natural gas, solar and wind. or in those areas that can support it like here in the PNW, hydro.

I suck at photoshop but after playing around with it, Audi should have gone the Monochromatic route than the fake exhaust tips in the lower bumper with black / grey plastic insert.