Streamlining of Toll Booths

One thing that I have never understood about the turnpike system is why the toll booths couldn't be more streamlined. There are plenty of locations where you cross a state line while on a turnpike. What this usually involves is waiting in line to stop at a toll booth on one side of the state line (to pay a toll). Then you drive a mile and wait in another line at another toll booth (to pick up a new turnpike ticket).

Why do you have to make everyone stop twice? Couldn't this be accomplished all in one stop? It would be quicker for all travelers, and you wouldn't have to pay as many toll booth attendants. It seems like a win-win.

Certainly, the developments in systems like EZ-pass and open road tolling gantry (where you don't even have to slow down from highway speeds) to take care of tolls are making things unbelievably better. But there will always be the need to have some cash lanes, and that is where consolidating toll booths could really help out travelers.

Well-Produced Autocross Video

I'm always looking for great videos to point people to when they ask me about autocross. The whole concept of amateur auto-racing can be really difficult to explain sometimes, because people automatically picture a completely different kind of racing when I tell them what I like to do on the weekends. Below is a really well-produced video showing some great shots of cars autocrossing:

Solo2 Part III from AdvanTech on Vimeo.

Ok, so maybe they overdid it with the high-speed video effects. But just watching that video is making me die to get back out there this weekend...

Fwing

They're calling it a "Fwing". I call it the next stupid thing that we inevitably see on riced-out civics.

Putting a wing on the front allows you to produce downforce on both ends of the car, which has some obvious advantages. Plenty of purpose-built race cars have had front wings for decades now. I suppose that it is inevitable that they would migrate to production cars.

From the article on Speedhunters:

"Love it or hate it, Chris Rado's fwing-equipped Scion delivered a 1:22.623 lap - destroying the competition in Unlimited FWD and shattering notions of what a front drive car is capable of. Apparently this was the fastest lap time ever recorded by a FWD vehicle at Willow Springs and no doubt this car will be even faster once Chris and the team get the boost issues figured out."

Seeing these things mounted on the street ultimately has the possibility of causing hazards to pedestrians, as well as creating blindspots. I wonder if these will trigger legislation specifically outlawing their use on the street, as whistle exhaust tips did [wisegeek.com].

New Autocross Numbers

I mentioned a while ago that I have gotten back into autocross, which is an amateur form of auto racing.

Like most forms of auto racing, the officials and announcers need a way to quickly identify cars, so you are required to have a set of numbers and class letters on the side of your car. Up until now, I have used a set of numbers that I made myself. They worked, but kind of looked like a trained beaver chewed them of a big sheet. And they didn't stick that well to the car. And because each letter and number was a separate magnet, one was always crooked (no matter how long I spent trying to line them up).

I finally got around to getting a nice set of numbers professionally made:


I decided to have the class letters on a separate magnet from my numbers, to accommodate any future class changes (if I changed class, I would only have to have the smaller magnets remade). I could have had the background match the color of my car, but then it would have looked weird when/if I buy another car. I figured the classic black/white was boring, but best for the long term.

Weaponizers

TV Week: Discovery Hopes for a Bang With ‘Weaponizers’

Holy crap. If you loved Battlebots, you're going to love the new show that Discovery is launching. It's called Weaponizers, and it pits full-sized radio controlled cars against each other in a demolition derby of sorts. Only these full-sized cars have armor plating and weapons.

From the article:

The object of the contestants on the show is to take an everyday civilian vehicle, such as a shuttle bus or an ice cream truck, and turn it into a destructive terror...

The first test is a race to destroy designated targets. In one show, the targets are medieval castles; in another they are “Mad Max”-style fuel depots.

The real fun comes in the second test when the contestants turn their fire on one another. The show calls this the “Carmageddon Round,” and there are no rules. It’s a battle to the death in which only one vehicle is left standing (or rolling).

This is like my dream come true. And it's from the creators of Mythbusters, so you know it's going to be entertaining.

Scuderi Split Cycle Engine

I was up at the SAE World Congress [mlive.com] last week. And one of the more exciting things that I got to see was the prototype of the Scuderi split cycle engine prototype. It's the basis of a pneumatic-hybrid engine (as opposed to an electric hybrid engine).

Instead of each cylinder in the engine performing all 4 combustion cycles, the jobs are split between two cylinders. One of the advantages is that when you are coasting or braking, the idling engine can be used to compress air. This compressed air will then be used later during acceleration (saving energy in the process). The following video does a much better explanation.



Scuderi Engine Theory of Operation by ScuderiGroup on YouTube

The great thing about having this video on YouTube is that you can stop and rewind it (whereas at the World Congress, you only had the option of watching it in realtime).

Crazy Car Chase

The following has to be one of the most ridiculous car chases that I have ever seen. Normally, when you see video of a car chase, you expect to see a car traveling at high speeds on a highway, with cops following. The driver in this video decided that "crazy" was the persona that they wanted to portray. And they did it by making U-turns in the middle of the highway so that they were going against traffic, getting out of the vehicle and taunting the cops, and otherwise just being a complete jackass.



Crazy Car Chase - ScionXB 04.10.09 by bishoplord on YouTube.

Dear driver, maybe the next time you decide to lead a police chase, you will want to do it in a car that doesn't look like its styling was inspired by a whale.

Woman Stuck in Car 911 Call

Ok, by now, almost everyone has probably heard one of the 911 calls in which someone calls, saying that they are locked in their car because the power door lock button isn't working. The 911 operator tells them that they just have to manually unlock the door by pulling up on the door lock knob. And it seems so ridiculous that someone would have to call 911 before figuring that out. If you haven't heard one of those calls, watch this:



Funny 911 call - Stupid Lady stuck in her car by krymz on YouTube

Ok, here's a thought that I had after hearing the call. I have no idea how old the people are in those calls, but let's say that you're 16, you just got your license, and are just starting to drive around on your own. If you're 16, that means that you were born in, what, 1992-3? Isn't it possible that a 16-year-old would have never seen a car without power locks? I mean, even my first car, the pinnacle of automotive engineering known as the 1988 Ford Tempo, had power locks. So, it's conceivable that you might not know what to do if the power door lock button stops functioning (remember, 16-year-olds don't always have the best common sense to begin with). So, those calls might not be as crazy as they sound.

And on a side note, I just got really depressed by the following realization that just occurred to me: being 32 years old, I started driving at about the same time current 16-year-olds were born...

Gas Advisor

I just discovered the Gas Advisor on BillShrink [billshrink.com].


Like most people, I probably don't shop around for gas prices as much as I should. And my commute is longer than most people's, so shame on me.

Anyway, on Gas Advisor, you can enter your home and work addresses, and you can look at what gas stations would be the most economical to fill up at. It takes into account the current price of gas (at the octane level that you specify) at the different stations, and also figures in the cost of the detour that you will have to take to get to the gas station. In other words, it might not make sense to take a 10 minute detour to buy gas that is only 3cents/gallon cheaper than a gas station right on your route. And Gas Advisor will run through the calculations to figure out which option will cost you the least. You can even enter in your car's average fuel economy, or it will automatically pull up the average's for your specific car model.


There is also the option to only search for certain brands of gas, or just gas stations near work or just near home, etc.

It's a great idea, but I think that it needs a little work. For one, it calculates a route from home to work based on the addresses that you enter, but it doesn't allow you to modify the route that it says you take. So, if you're like me, and take a slightly longer route to work to minimize stoplights, traffic, etc, there is no way to get Gas Advisor to account for those changes to the route.

It also has trouble finding certain stations that I know are along my route that typically have cheaper gas. It's a great idea, though, and I'm sure that as it matures, it will be a very useful tool.

C-Pillars in New Car Designs

Has everyone seen the latest pictures of the 2010 Chevy Camaro [popularmechanics.com]? The styling has its good and its bad points.

Actually, (in another sign that I'm getting old) one of the first things that I thought when I saw the pictures was why did they have to make the C-pillar so thick? That'll definitely create a blindspot.

For those of you who don't know what a C-pillar is, I have outlined it in yellow on a picture of a Toyota FJ Cruiser. The FJ Cruiser is one of those vehicles known for having huge C-pillars.


Toyota FJ Cruiser by The Toad on Flickr
The A-pillar is the forward-most pillar (supporting the windshield). The B-pillar is the next forward-most pillar (between the front and rear doors). And the C-pillar comes next.

I wasn't trying to single out Toyota, because many other manufacturers have the same problem. But here's another vehicle known for having poor rear visibility: the Toyota Prius.


Toyota Prius by Mike Hussein Cohen on Flickr
Again, I've outlined the C-pillar in a yellow box.

Making C-pillars that thick definitely creates blindspots when you are trying to change lanes or park (or back out of a parking spot). I understand that there are many tradeoffs that cause C-pillars to become thicker (such as styling or crash and rollover test ratings). But it seems like every new car these days has terrible rear visibility.

I can only assume that most drivers tolerate it, because it is not something most people look for when they are test driving a car (and by the time they notice a problem, they've already bought the car).

Linkdump

Latest interesting:

• MSNBC: Several Clay County Officials Arrested On Federal Charges

  "Clay County Clerk... allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and he also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine."

  Yet another problem with electronic voting machines. As if more arguments had to be made for mandating that these machines produce a paper audit trail.
  
  
• NY Times: The Daily Me
  
  Kristof bemoans the death of large numbers of newspapers around the country, and attributes these deaths to people seeking out only media that confirms their own pre-existing views and prejudices.
  
  In other words, we're doomed to have crap, sensationalized media, because it's what everyone wants. And if you don't believe that, just look at any TV news source.
  
  
• One of my friends just got a Go Pro Hero Wide camera, which is a water-proof video camera for under $200 that you can strap to your car or bike helmet. It has a 170-degree view angle. The video quality is pretty decent, but the audio quality is compromised by the water-proof case. Here's a video that he recorded with the camera strapped to the grill of his car:
  
  
  GoPro in 350Z 3 from 350zsoloracer on Vimeo.

Nitrogen in Tires

In last month's Popular Mechanics, there was an article about nitrogen inflation of tires [popularmechanics.com]. And unfortunately, they got it wrong, because they buy into the hype being created by the nitrogen industry. For the average driver, there is no benefit to filling your tires with nitrogen over regular air.

Every time I see an article like this, it reminds me of a comedy routine that I once saw where a shady mechanic tells a customer that the problem with their car is being caused by "old air in your tires."

One frequent argument about nitrogen inflation that the Popular Mechanics article repeats is that:

"...nitrogen is less likely to migrate through tire rubber than is oxygen, which means that your tire pressures will remain more stable over the long term."

A test by Consumer Reports showed that over a year, tires inflated with nitrogen up to 30psi lost 2.2psi, compared with 3.5 for air. This means that no matter what you fill your tires with, there is no substitute for regularly checking your tires and inflating them properly.

Then there is the argument about oxygen degrading the properties of the rubber that the tire is made out of. So, filling your tires with nitrogen will help your tires last longer. But as the guys on CarTalk eloquently explain:

"...think about it: The outsides are exposed to the air all the time, so what are you worried about the insides for?"

People don't replace their tires when the rubber has aged or degraded too much; people replace their tires when the tread is worn out.

American Consumers are Idiots

In the latest issue of Road and Track, there is an editorial by Arthur St. Antoine, titled The Asphalt Jungle: Boob Tubes - Whenever I Fly, I Try to do it By Automobile [motortrend.com]. And unfortunately, he's just wrong.

The basic premise of the article is that flying used to be luxurious, back in the day. But nowadays, he prefers to drive when he can, and avoids flying unless he absolutely has to. This is an opinion that is shared by most Americans, I think. The problem is that he blames the horribleness of flying on the airlines. This is totally wrong. The problem is with the American consumer.

Here's why. When the average person books a flight, they go to Orbitz or Kayak or Yapta or whatever, and proceed to book the cheapest flight to the destination. Most people don't take much more into account, because they don't value service or comfort when flying. How else would you account for the amazing success of Southwest Airlines? As a result, airlines are forced to reduce their levels of service to accommodate consumers. Any airline offering superior service and comfort in the coach sections are going to have to charge more, and will quickly go out of business.

It's just like consumer electronics (such as home network routers or DVD players). Consumers vote with their dollars, and have told manufacturers that they want the cheapest pieces of crap they can find.

Contrast this with car-buying. When people buy cars, they don't just look for the cheapest thing out there and buy it. Consumers recognize that if they buy a BMW or Lexus, they will have to pay more, but get higher-quality comfort and service as a result. Believe me, if every consumer bought the cheapest piece of crap car they could find, BMW would be making tons of horrible A-segment an B-segment cars. But they don't.

It's our own fault that these things suck.

2009 Formula One Rule Changes

At this time of year, I always get excited about the start of auto-racing season. The two primary reasons are the auto-racing that I personally participate in and Formula One.

This year, Formula One features a ton of rule changes, from aerodynamics limitations to engine endurance requirements. Some are destined to be a mainstay of Formula One regulations for years to come. Some seem only designed to make the cars uglier and uglier.

To navigate all of the rules changes, there is this exciting video, which I think even non-Formula One fans would enjoy watching:



The Formula One schedule begins on March 29 in Australia!

Top Gear Magazine

A friend recently lent me his copy of Top Gear Magazine. It's the magazine from my favorite TV show -- Top Gear -- which is an extremely entertaining show all about cars on the BBC.


The first thing that I was amazed at was its size. Just look at it compared with a typical American car magazine like Car & Driver (which I subscribe to). First off, when have you ever seen a car magazine that thick? And secondly, even magazines that used to be thick years ago are much smaller nowadays -- the new issues look like pamphlets next to this thing. Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Playboy, etc are all significantly downsized from their heydays. And it's not just ads. That's a few hundred pages of content. It's thicker than issues of National Geographic.

What I love about the TV show is what I love about this magazine -- not only are they dead on with their commentary of the car industry, but they are just so damned funny in the way that they do it. For instance, take my favorite passage from the magazine. On the new Chevy Corvette ZR1:

"And that technicality is what makes the ZR1... the best performance car I've driven all year. By some margin."

"You still can't have one in Britain, obviously. With its chromed wheels and silly bonnet window, it'd be like walking around in a 10-gallon hats [sic] and chaps. We are a mature, sensible country. The people who designed this could only have come from a country that's eight."

Extending Range of Key Fob with Head

Here's something that I learned a while ago and then forgot: you can extend the range of your car's keyless entry remote by holding it against your head [yahoo.com].

Here's a demonstration:


Boost Car Remote With Skull - The top video clips of the week are here

Entering Highways in Northeast Ohio

Here's my guide for how to enter a highway in northeast Ohio:

Did you know...

Ok, here are some interesting things that I learned recently:

• Did you know there are world rankings for aquarium arranging [adana-usa.com]? It is so relaxing just looking at the different pictures of aquariums.


• A car show recently did a piece comparing drive-through car washes [brightcove.com], pressure washers and hand washing a car to determine which is best for your car. They specially prepared three identical cars, had each washed a different way, and then examined the paint on each to show how much damage was done by each washing method. The results were really interesting.


• Did you know that you can make your own laundry detergent [instructables.com]?

Drive Free, Retire Rich

Someone recently pointed me out to Drive Free, Retire Rich, which is a presentation explaining how much money you can save by not buying new cars. It is certainly thought-provoking, and a lot of people are probably following this philosophy due to the current state of the economy.

But let's break it down. One of the underlying assumptions in the analysis is the amount of money you could earn by putting money away in mutual funds. For their analysis, they assumed that money in mutual funds will increase at 12%/year. This is not an unreasonable rate, but higher than almost anyone is able to achieve over their lifetime. Anyone with the skill to continually manage a portfolio of mutual funds and hit 12%/year, year after year, probably doesn't need to worry about paying car payments.

Also, the premise of the whole argument is that you can save money by buying a car that is a few years old, driving it into the ground before buying another car, and saving the money that would have gone to car payments. This probably only works for weekend mechanics like me, because it is really hard to hold on to an older car when a mechanic hands you a $1500 repair bill. Even if the repair bills add up to less than the accumulated car payments over that period of time, you still have the hassle of not having a car while it's in the shop, etc.

And we haven't even touched on the issue of people selecting reliable cars to drive, instead of emotionally selecting a stylish car from a manufacturer with a horrible track record. Or what a pain in the ass it is to find a good used car (and buy it before someone else does).

Heimlich and I have been following this philosophy for years, and it works for us. But I bet a lot of people are willing to pay the premium to not have to visit a mechanic as often (or at all) by buying new cars.

If I were still in grad school and walking to work, I would totally join the CityWheels Carshare Club [mycitywheels.com] -- if you only needed to drive twice a week, it would be way cheaper than owning. And you can pick up cars right in University Circle.

10 Greatest Movie Car Crash Scenes

Over on Vulture, there is a list of The Ten Greatest Car Crashes in Movie History [nymag.com].

With each scene that is on the list is an explanation of what makes it so great and a clip of the scene in question.

"Car Crash" is used kind of liberally, since most of the scenes are really chase scenes featuring a series of individual car crashes. But it's hard to argue with the list, given that the scenes are so great. I was riveted, because for the most part, it reminded me of great movie scenes that I had long forgotten about. It's a great read.

Consider Car Crash #6, which came from Bad Boys II, and showed what might happen if a car carrying truck released the cars that it was carrying onto a busy highway:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [youtube.com].

Rhys Millen Fails Again

A little while ago, I wrote about how Rhys Millen was going to make a second attempt to do a backflip in a truck on New Year's Eve. As you may recall, he was going to attempt this stunt on New Year's Eve a year ago, but predictably, it went horribly wrong in practice [autoblog.com].

This year, he attempted the stunt on New Year's Eve, and did the back flip, but failed to stick the landing [motortrend.com]. From the article:

"Millen attempted the same jump in Vegas last year, but over-rotated and landed harshly on the topside of his fully caged cockpit in practice. He suffered a severe back injury and was forced to pull out of the event, an experience he labeled as
'a failure.'"

"Practice went as planned for this year's try, but during the climactic jump -- broadcast live to million of viewers on ESPN -- the rear passenger wheel of Millen's highly-modified, short-wheelbase, 2800-lb Chevrolet Silverado landed first. The truck bounced and rolled twice before stopping on its driver side."

Here's the video:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [youtube.com].

As a person who has spent years studying dynamics, I am familiar with what makes this stunt so difficult and dangerous. Unlike on a motorcycle, a backflip in a car requires rotation about an unstable rotation axis -- meaning that any perturbation (wind, steering angle, etc) whatsoever will cause the truck to rotate about a different axis than intended (which is exactly what happened). This means that the driver has to hit the ramp exactly square and at the exact right speed -- almost impossible with a human driver.

It makes me wonder whether it will be worth trying to make another attempt next year. How many years can they drag out this stunt and still make it interesting for viewers?

As always, my advice to Rhys Millen is as follows: if you're going to use a highly modified vehicle anyway, build one that has the inertial properties of a motorcycle (so that the rotation axis is not unstable), and then make it look like a car by sticking 4 wheels and some body work onto it.

Danny Popp Video

Someone pointed me out to an in-car video from Danny Popp's car (Corvette Z06), as he goes from last to first place in his class at the 2008 NASA Nationals Qualifying Race:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [youtube.com].

There are some really hairy moments throughout the race -- three abreast through turns, passing with almost no room between the cars, cars spinning out right in front of him... It is really exciting to watch.

Top Gear Mall Chase

What happens if you get chased by bad guys (who are driving a Corvette) through a mall? Watch this and find out [link updated]:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [youtube.com].

That is so much fun to watch. I wonder how they managed to shoot that? No mall owner is going to let a bunch of people drive like crazy people through a mall that potentially has to open to customers the next day. That must have been a set, right? But that was a really elaborate set.

Mothball Fuel Mileage Booster

There's an old trick for using mothballs to boost the power and fuel efficiency of small cars that I hear about now and again. I was reminded by it when I read this article [caranddriver.com] in the latest issue of Car and Driver. In that particular story, the concoction is naphthalene mothballs, WD40 and fuel-system cleaner. I have no idea if this works, but it sounds pretty convincing.

It started making me think... If you could spend a dollar per tank of gas, and boost your fuel efficiency by 5%, you'll easily make back your money. That article actually claims a 10-20% boost in fuel economy on 4 cylinder cars.

Then that made me think, why isn't anyone producing this on an industrial scale? If it really works, you could make a killing selling this concoction to everyone. Well, apparently someone tried to do exactly that [smh.com.au]. From the article:

"The Texas attorney-general last year shut down a company called BioPerformance that was selling naphthalene-based fuel pills to US consumers. It had promised the pills would cut fuel consumption and emissions. Tests by the Texas regulator found this was untrue and BioPerformance eventually agreed to repay consumers $US7 million..."

Which leads me to wonder whether the technique actually works at all, or whether BioPerformance was just doing it wrong.

Picture of homemade mothball jar from mulmatsherm's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

World Class Driving Tour

I recently found out about World Class Driving [worldclassdriving.com], which is a group that tours the country with a bunch of supercars, and allows people to drive them. For $1495, you can spend the day behind the wheel of some bona fide supercars.


According to their website, their stable includes: Ferrari F430, Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, Maserati GranTurismo, and many others.

These cars are so expensive that I have never seen most of these in person before. Most can accelerate from 0 to 60mph in under 4 seconds. It would be amazing to drive any one of them.

On the other hand, driving your daily driver would seem like slow motion after driving that lot.

Picture of the Lamborghini Gallardo via Eric E Johnson's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Rhys Millen Truck Backflip

Last year, I wrote about a stunt that Rhys Millen was going to attempt on New Year's Eve (a backflip in a truck), why it wasn't going to work, and why it hasn't been performed successfully before. They never even got to attempt it on TV, because (predictably) things went so horribly wrong [autoblog.com] in practice jumps.


Here was my previous explanation:

"Take a typical book for example. Hold it in front of you so that the cover is readable to you. The longest dimension should be from the bottom of the cover to the top of the cover. Let's call that the x-axis. The 2nd longest dimension should be the width of the cover. Let's call that the y-axis. Try flipping the book up into the air so that it makes one complete rotation about the y-axis, but not rotating about any of the other axes (most notably the x-axis). You could spend all day attempting (and failing) to do that, because it's an unstable rotation axis."

Apparently, they are going to try it again this year [popularmechanics.com]. In their post-mortem of why last year's attempts failed so miserably, there was this note:

"The RC car experiments revealed a nasty tendency for longitudinal mid-air rotation, due to the engine and drivetrain's rotational inertia."

In other words, they knew that the rotation axis was unstable in advance, and still failed to account for it properly. This pisses me off.

My advice to them is the same as I had last year -- start over with a new vehicle. Add a ton of weight to the centerline of the vehicle to make the vehicle have the inertia properties of a motorcycle (so that the intermediate (unstable) rotation axis is no longer the one you are trying to rotate around). And then, make that vehicle look like a car (by attaching bodywork and 4 wheels). It's kind of cheating, but it's better than dying in the attempt.

Linkdump

Latest linkdump:

• Motor Authority: Chevrolet Volt prototypes reach 40 miles in electric-only mode
  
  The Chevrolet Volt [wikipedia.org] is a next generation series-hybrid car that will supposedly allow someone to drive for 40 miles on battery power alone -- before a conventional gas or diesel engine has to be started to provide extended range. The advantages of having such a vehicle (both as a manufacturer or a consumer) are obvious.
  
  The technological advances that must be made before this vehicle can be put into production are staggering (considering that current hybrids can only drive a mile or so at highway speeds with the engine off), leading many to be skeptical [caranddriver.com] of the feasibility of this car. Nevertheless, it appears that a test mule has achieved a key milestone -- driving 40 miles on battery power alone. Outstanding!



• Edmunds.com: The King Kong of Corvettes Versus the Godzilla of Japan
  
  The Nissan GT-R [edmunds.com] (pictured below) has been making a lot of headlines in the car world as the newcomer to the Supercar club, and the successor of the venerable Nissan Skyline [wikipedia.org].
  
  
  Now Edmunds has produced a thorough comparison to the new Corvette ZR1 (aka "Blue Devil") [motortrend.com]. Both have over 400 horsepower and a ton of torque, and neither will be affordable to me in my lifetime. But I can still dream. And the observation that the new monster Corvette has the same steering wheel as a Cobalt is hilarious.

Image of Nissan GT-R from Crouchy69's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Traffic

I keep seeing articles about how Americans are driving fewer and fewer miles these days due to high gas costs. Take, for instance, this article [newsday.com]:

"U.S. fuel demand averaged about 18.6 million barrels a day during the past four weeks, the lowest since June 1999, according to a weekly supply report from the Energy Department, released Thursday [Oct. 16]."

Depending on which source you use, the decline in US driving is generally down a few percent from last year. For instance, take this article [tirereview.com]:

"June figures [from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration] showed a drop of 5% and July continued with decreases of 3.6% from the previous year."

Every time I see an article like this, I scoff, because I'm out on the roads every day, and I haven't felt a decrease in traffic. Then again, without actually measuring traffic objectively, it might be difficult to perceive a decrease of a few percent.


I'm starting to become a believer, though. There are a few key bottlenecks along my commute that have been noticeably better in the past few months. One is along I-90, traveling west from Cleveland -- as you approach the West 117th St exit during afternoon rush hour, there would almost always be a slowdown due to the heavy merge of on-ramp traffic. However, I haven't had to slow down there in a while.

Image of traffic from respres' Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Linkdump

Latest linkdump:

• Top 10 Everyday Things People Do To Ruin Their Cars [ridelust.com]. Lots of interesting tidbits in there. [edit: link fixed.]


• The Next Meltdown: Credit-Card Debt [businessweek.com]. From the article:

  "Credit-card losses are already taking a bite out of lenders' balance sheets. Bank of America, the nation's second-largest issuer behind JPMorgan, revealed on Oct. 6 that roughly $3 billion of its $184 billion credit-card portfolio has soured, a 50% increase from a year ago..."
  
  "Likewise, American Express (AXP), which caters to wealthier borrowers, upped its provisions for credit-card losses from $810 million to $1.5 billion in the latest quarter, a sign that even upscale consumers are having trouble."

  About a year ago, when the stock market really started going down, I pulled almost all of my money out of the market and started buying CDs (thinking this would be the ultimate safe investment). I never imagined that we'd be looking at bank failures a year later. These days, we're looking at silent bank runs [charlotteobserver.com] that can very quickly sink banks. It makes me wonder if a healthy bank could be sunk these days by a media story hinting that it may be in trouble.


• Here's a video of a F-35B Joint Strike Fighter perform a vertical take-off, maneuver while hovering, and then vertically land [youtube.com].
  
  
  
  That is incredible.

Styling Improvements at Mercedes

I was into cars even when I was growing up. One of the brands that didn't even register on my radar was Mercedes. And the reason is because every time I saw a Mercedes, I thought that the styling just screamed OLD PEOPLE. Here's an example from the 90s:


Back then, the "exotics" that I wanted to buy when I grew up were the BMWs, the Porsches, the Corvettes, etc. Those were the cars that really made me impatient to get old enough to drive. As far as I was concerned, Mercedes, Bentley, Buick, Rolls Royce, Cadillac, and Jaguar were all the same -- cars for old people.

I'm amazed at how Mercedes has turned it around. When I look at a Mercedes these days, the styling makes me want to buy one:


Don't get me wrong -- I would never buy one, because the styling doesn't change the fact that they are stupidly heavy, and needlessly (mechanically) complicated cars. But from a styling point of view, I dig them.

It kind of makes me wonder whether Mercedes styling has actually changed that much relative to the rest of the car market, or whether I have just "matured" as a car buyer and am starting to like the cars that are traditionally aimed at old people. I'm pretty sure that it's the former. And I think that Lexus has gone in the opposite direction -- their styling is clearly aimed at old people and is no longer appealing to the younger audiences.

Picture of 1990 Mercedes 190E via michieldijcks' Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Autocross

I have mentioned here and there about participating in autocross, which is an amateur form of autoracing that is relatively safe and economical. You are racing against the clock, not wheel to wheel. And whenever I try to explain it to people, I can just tell that what they're imagining doesn't match reality.

Below is a well-produced news segment explaining what autocross is. I need to remember to link to this every time someone asks me to explain autocross.



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [racingfilm.com].

Oh, and the 2008 Autocross National Championships [scca.com] is next week.

Red Light Cameras

Like many other cities, Cleveland has deployed several red light cameras, that are designed to automate ticketing for people who run red lights at intersections.


It is readily apparent to everyone that these devices are there to generate revenue for the city, not encourage driver safety as most cities argue. But I had not seen actual data to back up this assertion until now. It turns out that there have been several studies that show that red light cameras actually increase the rate of crashes, instead of increasing public safety. For instance, an article on Science Daily [sciencedaily.com] cites a study performed by Florida researchers. Here is a quote from the article:

"'The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work... Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections.'"

"Traffic fatalities caused by red-light running are not increasing in Florida and account for less than 4 percent of the state’s yearly traffic deaths. In contrast, more than 22 percent of the state’s traffic fatalities occur at intersections for reasons other than red-light running."

What's even more aggravating is that 6 cities have been found guilty of shortening yellow light durations [motorists.org], in order to increase revenue from red light cameras. The cities are Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Springfield, Missouri; Lubbock, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Union City, California. And you can bet that they're not the only ones who are guilty of this practice.

Picture of accident at intersection from Scoobyfoo's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

IOUSA and Autocross

• Tonight, you can see showings of the documentary I.O.U.S.A. [agorafinancial.com] at locations all over the country. Here's a description of the movie:

  "I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens..."
  
  "The ultimate power of I.O.U.S.A. is that the film moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer potential financial scenarios and propose solutions about how we can recreate a fiscally sound nation for future generations."



• Heimlich took some incredible shots at an autocross event last weekend. Here are a selection:
  
  
  
  More pictures on Flickr [flickr.com].

Falling US Demand for Oil

Bloomberg.com: U.S. Retail Gasoline Falls to $3.85 a Gallon. From the article:

"Gasoline prices retreated along with inventories, which have fallen 3.6 percent since July 18 to 209.2 million barrels, the Energy Department said August 6."

"U.S. gasoline demand fell a 15th consecutive week, as motorists cope with high fuel prices by driving less..."

Congratulations, America. You have done it -- you've managed to drive down prices by driving less. Now that the prices have reached a more reasonable level, you may resume wasting gas again.


On a related note, there are more and more articles being written now about the demographic inversion of American cities [poligazette.com] -- the more affluent parts of society used to move as far away from cities as possible, but in some cities, the general trend is for them to move back in (gentrification). Is this a real movement, or are we just setting ourselves up for another housing boom/bust cycle?

And on another related note, prices for new and used SUVs have been decimated, because no one wants to buy them [nytimes.com].

Image of traffic from respres' Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Fuelly

Matt Haughey [wholelottanothing.org] and Paul Bausch [onfocus.com] have started up Fuelly [fuelly.com], which is a website that allows you to share and track your car's fuel mileage, among other things.

They just opened their doors to the public last week, and apparently, it has started to take off.

I actually have been tracking the fuel consumption in my daily driver (and using Matlab to plot the statistics), so I can see why people would want to use this kind of service. If you are looking for a new vehicle, you can get access to a database of real-world fuel consumption by owners of that vehicle (albeit the data may be skewed, because Fuelly users will probably be more fuel efficient than average).

The reason that I have started to track my fuel mileage is because there are several things that I would like to measure (being a scientist), such as:

• Is there a noticeable impact on fuel economy when I change my engine air filter?
• Does my car do better with certain brands of gas than others (as I suspect that it does)?
• There is certainly a temperature-related effect on fuel economy, as lower ambient temperatures absolutely cause lower fuel efficiency numbers. But what is the relationship? Linear? Asymptotic?

In tracking my own data, I notice that the measurement of gallons of fuel is the largest source of uncertainty. The underlying assumption in these measurements is that if you fill your tank to the top every time you refuel, you will know how much gas you consumed in the miles that you have driven since your last fill up.

However, the gas pumps don't always fill your gas tank up to the same level. And if you "top off" your tank, you totally will throw the measurement off. My data once (erroneously) showed that I achieved 45mpg over one tank in my non-hybrid car (which is unrealistically high), because the gas station I went to didn't fully fill up my gas tank. And then on the next stop, where my gas tank did actually get filled to the top, my fuel economy dropped precipitously. Maybe there needs to be a way in Fuelly to add an asterisk to data that is questionable.

Image of Fuelly stats from mathowie's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Secret Agent Driving Experience

My sister sent me a link to a great gift idea for all of those car nuts: Secret Agent Driving Experience [excitations.com].


From the description of the driving school:

• "...grab hold of the wheel and test your limits in the same training programs used by professional special forces, SWAT teams and protection agencies and learn to nudge your adversary into a spin at high speed without losing control of your own vehicle!"


• "Learn to thwart vehicle assaults, break through barricades, do a reverse 180, and outrun the bad guys at 100 mph"

That looks like a ton of fun! This reminds me of those crazy police chase videos where the police try to use the fish tail maneuver [google.com] to spin out a fugitive's car. This is the kind of driving school that I dream about.

Picture of drifting car from jepoycamboy's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Ugliest New Cars

Recently, I saw a link to A List of the Ten Ugliest Cars Currently Sold in the United States [jalopnik.com]. Not surprisingly, I disagree with most of the ones on the list. So, here is mine:

10. Buick Enclave

Grills with just vertical bars are retro. Except that it's not retro in the cool, 60s and 70s, Mustang and Camaro way. It's reminiscent of the automotive design dark age known as the 80s. Ugh.

9. Chrysler 300

This car has always made me think of a really bad Bently ripoff. Why anyone would want to ripoff the design from a car that only elderly people would buy is beyond me.

8. Mitsubishi Lancer

Even though this car is clearly an econobox, it doesn't have to look like an econobox. That is where they went horribly wrong. And on top of that, the taillights are the final straw that send this car to the ugly car hall of fame.

7. Scion Xb

It's like they took the distinctive design of the previous generation Xb and let the people who designed the (insanely boring) Corolla designers run amok with it. So, now, instead of having a distinctive shape, this car is just another rounded box. By the way, great job making the C-pillar huge so that there is no rear visibility.

6. Subaru WRX

I have previously written about how ugly this cars taillights are, but really, it's just ugly from any angle. They took a rounded shape designed to appeal to older buyers, and then slapped a huge-assed hood scoop on it so that it will appeal to absolutely no one. The previous generation WRXs look beautiful next to this one.

5. Ford Focus

Yet another car with no redeeming stylistic qualities. I can't help but think that the other half of the taillights are supposed to be on the trunk lid, but were somehow forgotten.

4. 2009 Nissan Maxima

The Maxima hasn't looked attractive in nearly a decade. Now it looks like they decided to rip off the new Honda Accord exterior -- they shifted the headlights to the sides of the car to make room for the most enormous ugly grill that they could slap on it.

3. Dodge Caliber

The Dodge Caliber has always looked like a prototype that never got finished. The took the boxy front and rear ends from one car, and then took the rounded middle from another car. Congratulations on producing a mid-sized car with an appallingly small amount of interior space.

2. 2009 Ford Flex

All of these crossovers have convinced me that we have now come full circle in car design. In the 90s, we shifted away from station wagons to SUVs. And now we're going back to station wagons -- they're just called crossovers now. Ford did a great job of not even trying to disguise the fact that it's a station wagon. The result looks like the Mini Clubman's ugly big brother.

1. 2009 Honda Pilot

What is the point of even putting a badge on the grill, if you are going to surround it with so much metal that it looks camouflaged? It's like the designers were so worried about people commenting how ugly the rest of the vehicle it is, that they decided to throw a grill on it that is so over-the-top ugly that it would make people completely forget about the rest of the car.

Car Soccer

My favorite TV show these days is Top Gear [bbc.co.uk], which I probably have mentioned several times. It's a show for car enthusiasts, where they never stop amazing viewers with the crazy shit they think to do with cars.

Someone recently pointed me out to some segments that I missed. They actually put together a soccer match, where they used cars to kick the ball around:



Later, they did the same thing with VW Foxs vs. Toyota Aygos [youtube.com].

Those are incredible! Especially where they spin the cars out to hit the ball with the back end of the car. They look like they would have been a ton of fun to shoot.

1988 Lincoln Town Car

We sold one of our cars this weekend - the '88 Lincoln Town Car. It had a lot of sentimental value, because it has been in Heimlich's family since it was new.


It was in really good shape, despite its age. We knew all of its ins and outs, like exactly how many cellos will fit in its enormous trunk...


And it was built back in the era where the odometers only had 5 digits, so it is impossible to tell whether the car has 118,000 miles on it or 218,000 miles:


We were really sad to see it go, but it was time.

Toyota's i-real

Have you guys seen articles [jidpo.or.jp] about Toyota's new concept vehicle, the i-REAL?


How can anyone look at that and NOT think of those fat people in the movie WALL-E [imdb.com]?

For those of you who haven't seen the movie (this isn't really a spoiler), everyone in the future is fat and lazy, and spend all day being transported around on hover chairs so that they never have to actually get up and move around. It looks like all you would have to do is add a TV screen to the i-REAL, and you'd be there.

Oh, by the way, Toyota... Congratulations on taking the "worst car name EVAR" award away from the Subaru B9 Tribeca [edmunds.com], which has been the reigning champion for 4 years now.

Anyway, here is a short description about the i-REAL:

"It is the attainable vision of a seamless movement from room, to pavement, to road. In pedestrian areas, shortening its wheelbase allows it to maneuver naturally among people at eyelevel. And on the road, the wheelbase lengthens to provide a lower center of gravity and more agile driving performance."

Electronic Climate Control

I would like to expose the stupidity of the electronic climate control in cars. This has been a standard feature in luxury cars for some time, and is quickly becoming a standard feature in every other segment.

Ideally, the way that electronic climate control would work is you would set it to 75^o or so, and then leave it there. But that's not how it works. At best, you have to constantly fiddle around with it to maintain a comfortable temperature in the interior of your car. At worse, it takes far longer to fiddle around with it, because it takes several button presses every time you want to adjust the temperature.

How could the car manufacturers think that you will just want to maintain one temperature in the car at all times? The temperature that you will want it at is going to depend on how much sun is coming through the windows, the humidity, how much clothing you are wearing, etc.

Remember the old style A/C controls?


There used to be a knob for the fan control and a knob for temperature control. Adjusting the temperature was quick and easy, because you just had to turn a knob -- something you could easily do while driving without even having to look down from the road.

Here are the A/C controls from my car:


This is actually the best case scenario, because the settings are similar to the older style controls. In the morning, when it's cold, I can easily flip the temperature control to one end of the dial... and in the afternoon, when it's hot, I can flip it to the other end of the dial.

In many cars nowadays, instead of the temperature control being a knob, it is a set of buttons. So, if you want to go from 78^o to 68^o when you get in your car in the afternoon, it takes 10 button presses. And let's not forget that those buttons are harder to find when driving...

And don't forget about the automatic fan control. We have three different cars, all of different makes, and the first thing that I do whenever I turn on the A/C in any of them is turn off the automatic fan control. Why do the car makers think that they will know how to control the fan better than I could? The desired fan speed is going to depend on whether you have passengers in the back, or whether you're wearing sunglasses (higher fan speeds bother my eyes if I'm not wearing sunglasses), etc.

Just give me the old style A/C controls, please...

Picture of older style A/C controls from phoenixdailyphoto's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Top Gear

The show Top Gear [topgear.com] on the BBC has quickly become one of my favorite shows, and is indeed the only show I watch on a regular basis anymore. It's a show where new cars are reviewed and compared, where crazy car stunts are performed, and where cars are raced to show relative performance. But the best part is how funny the hosts are.


Now that it has been announced [thecelebritycafe.com] that Adam Corolla is going to be one of the hosts for the American version of the show, I can't help but think that the new one is going to be totally bastardized. I think that Corolla is a really funny guy, but I just can't see how it's going to be as funny.


In the British show, one of the things I love is how they will race a car against anything -- people on skis, people in jet-powered kayaks, bobsleds, you-name-it. It's incredible. And they're willing to do whatever it takes to make a great show -- whether it be turning a regular car into a ridiculously huge radio-controlled toy, and then try to jump it over camper trailers... or race huge RVs. I hope that they will be able to maintain the same amount of fun in the American version.

Picture of Top Gear host Richard Hammond with Bugatti Veyron from Garrette's Flickr Photostream [flickr.com].

Picture of Top Gear set from smin's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Coasters for Car Nuts

Ok, here is another one of those kitschy gifts for car nuts:


Get it? They're drink coasters that look like brake rotors (buy them here [everythingcarz.com]). And they even have a holder that looks like a brake caliper!

I love it! What are they going to think of next? This is even better than the rings that look like tires [brianbergerondesigns.com].

Alignment Equipment

I've been thinking lately about doing my own car alignments. I haven't made a decision either way, but I'm trying to sort through all of the issues. Here's a picture of someone's homemade alignment rig:


For instance, what kind of equipment would I need? Most of the work can be done with basic tools (wrenches, tape measure, string, etc).

I think that the main problem with doing alignments is eliminating the friction between the tire and the ground. You need the full weight of the vehicle to be sitting on the tires. But when that occurs, it is very difficult to steer the tires left and right. Furthermore, that friction creates forces and moments that prevent the wheels from going to their natural positions (preventing you from being able to measure the toe correctly, for instance). I have seen that some people have solved this problem by parking the tires on top of a stack of two vinyl flooring tiles that have grease smeared in between them.

I see that Pegasus Racing has a full suite of alignment tools to choose from. I might start there.

Car Tail Light Styling

What is with those crazy automotive stylists these days? They just have one bad idea right after another.

Right now, one of the disturbing trends that I have seen is the migration towards "ricey" tail lights. For example, take the newly redesigned Subaru WRX:


Do these kinds of tail lights actually appeal to Subaru customers? My hunch is that there is a narrow (VERY narrow) segment of the population who actually like those tail lights, and the rest of the population is turned off by them. And the narrow segment of the population that likes them probably would be willing to change them out in the aftermarket, anyway.

I mean, what person sees a vehicle like that and actually thinks that they would want a car that looks like a 16-year-old wannabe street racer riced it out for them?

Picture of WRX courtesy of thatjonesboy's Flickr photostream [Flickr.com].

Remaindered

Latest linkdump:

• Here's a link to a video of a Honda Civic with a Corvette engine [streetfire.net] dropped into it. It looks like it would be incredible to drive, albeit really scary. And at the same time, I can't help but think how much work that would that have been, for something so pointless...


• PostSecret [blogspot.com] has a bunch of postcards on display from people who have sent in their Mother's Day secrets. After reading them all, it is clear that there are a lot of disfunctional family relationships out there, some of which are caused by issues that seem so simple to solve. It is yet another reminder of how easy it is to take loved ones for granted.


• On kottke.org [kottke.org], I saw a link to an interesting article about Niagara Falls [newsweek.com]. Did you know that they adjust the flow of water over the falls to make them more dramatic during the tourist season? Here's a quote:

  "...of all the world's natural wonders, Niagara Falls may be the most artificial. Upriver, technicians turn up the falls for the tourist season, by diverting less water for hydropower. From April through mid-September, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., they let 100,000 cubic feet per second go over the falls—double the usual 50,000, but still only half the natural volume. Starting as early as the 1830s, the topography has been tweaked, even rebuilt... The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has blasted and excavated, filled and graded; it has added eight acres to Goat Island, between the Bridal Veil and Horseshoe Falls, implanted sensors to detect rocks coming loose and reshaped the Horseshoe's American edge; the Canadian falls is now 400 feet narrower than it used to be.

Intelligent Highways

I was talking with some friends about the future of highways. Are we really going to be able to just keep adding lanes to highways as the required capacity increases? Arguably in most major cities, we have already hit the point where adding more lanes wouldn't help much, because highway width doesn't scale well.

Most American cities are now so decentralized that there is no hope for conventional mass transportation to ever work efficiently. What we can do is make our vehicles and roadways more efficient, although I am not claiming that I have the solution.


What if vehicles could communicate with one another? What if we could automate the task of driving (at least on the highway, and switch to manual control on surface streets). Maybe one day, if you wanted to drive from Cleveland to New York, you could put your car on the highway, switch to auto-pilot and sleep. Then you'd get awoken near your destination.

Although there are several technological challenges that lie in the way of automated driving, the most difficult one, IMHO, is the collision avoidance problem. I think that in order to reduce the collision avoidance opportunities, you'd want to have a system where vehicles on auto-pilot link up to form a train. The aerodynamic drag and cost of propulsion could be divided to make them each more efficient. Once they are mechanically linked together, there is no collision avoidance that has to be performed in between those vehicles.

Another reason why collision avoidance is such an important problem is because people will probably be unwilling to adopt an auto-pilot unless it offers a dramatically reduced chance of getting into an accident, compared to a human driver. I think that if an auto-pilot reduced the chance of getting into an accident by half, people would still want to drive themselves, because they would rather have their fate in their own hands.

The left-most lane could be reserved for these vehicles, and the speed limit for linked up vehicles could be higher, which would encourage their adoption.

Picture of highway at night from Nrbelex's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

225/45ZR17 Tires

Anyone need some 17" tires? I am trying to clear the garage, and I have two (2) General Exclaim UHP tires of size 225/45ZR17. Exclaim UHP are ultra-high performance summer tires.

They are used, but have plenty of tread left (see pictures below). The tread is still way above the wear bars. They have never been patched or plugged or anything like that.

Click for larger version:


New ones sell for $80 on Tire Rack [tirerack.com]. I am looking for $80/obo for the pair. Anyone want to make me an offer?

Formula One

I have been waiting for this weekend for a long time. It will be the start of the Formula One racing season.


Last season went down to the wire before it was decided which driver was going to win the championship. There hasn't been a Formula One season that exciting in a while. There were incredible battles on the track, nutty behavior by drivers off the track, a spying scandal between teams, and a driver nearly won the championship in his rookie year (Lewis Hamilton, seated middle in the below picture).


I have no reason to believe that this season won't be the same. New cars, same incredible drivers....

Picture of Ferrari via chrispercival's Flickr photostream, and picture of post-race interviews with Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen via varlen's Flickr photostream.

Buying Car Parts

Recently, I bought some car parts off of some guy on a message board. I was buying a set of used wheels, and the guy was in Indiana (which is a few hours drive from here). I decided to drive it, because the cost of shipping them to me would have been almost the amount that the wheels cost in the first place.

I think that it goes without saying that any aftermarket wheels I would be buying would be gaudy chrome-plated spinners. For my '92 Tercel.

Ok, anyway, the thing that I always worry about with these exchanges is being held up. You know, like, at gunpoint. I mean, call me paranoid, but it probably wouldn't be that difficult to spoof an IP address, post a few items that are for sale, and then use a prepaid cell phone to make contact with any potential buyers. Boom, instant cash. Wheels aren't cheap, which is why I was buying them from some potentially-shady guy on a message board.

Luckily, as usual, my fears were wildly out of proportion with the actual threat, and the exchange went off without incident. Being paranoid has given me a bunch of ideas for novels I could write, though...

Michelin Next Generation Airless Tires

Jim recently sent me some information about Michelin's next generation airless tire. In the name of full disclosure, I will mention at this point that I work for a tire manufacturer (one of Michelin's competitors).


I tried finding something official about it, and all I was able to find was this pretty impressive video [qj.net].

Like a lot of technology releases, the information that you can find is heavy on the eye-candy, and short on the details and technical info. If they are able to bring it to market, it might be huge. No more checking your tire pressure, or worrying about punctures.

They'll have a lot of difficult hurdles to clear before then, though. If it's substantially more expensive to manufacture, people won't buy them. If they feel harsh when driving over bumps, people won't buy them. If the mass of the tires are significantly higher than conventional ones, or if they have higher rolling resistance, car manufacturers will not want them, because they won't be able to hit their fuel economy targets. Any of these issues have the potential to relegate this type of product to a niche market, like military vehicles, where ride and rolling resistance are of secondary concern.

Nevertheless, it's a very interesting design, and they are intriguing.

2008 Saturn Astra

Recently, I got to check out the new Saturn Astra [motortrend.com]. I didn't get to actually drive it, but I got to poke my head around, and see it for myself (although I wasn't serious about buying one).


For a small car, it seems to be proportioned well, and has a well laid-out interior. The new offerings from GM are notably better than what they were selling only a few short years ago (which I never would have considered buying - EVER).

Some of the interior pieces seemed to be a little too cheaply made. But maybe that is inevitable in an economy car. It has a twist-rear axle suspension system. That is the first thing that I noticed that would make me hesitate to buy one of these, due to the tendency to not handle as well as multi-link systems.

Then I noticed that the front swaybar endlink was actually made out of plastic. That actually really shocked me, because that is not the type of part that you want to worry about failing on you. I don't think that suspension components should be made out of plastic. If a front endlink breaks, the swaybar will no longer be connected to the suspension system. The swaybar resists body roll, but also affects the front/rear balance of the vehicle. If you disconnect the front swaybar, the roll stiffness of the vehicle will shift rearward, and the vehicle will tend to oversteer (which is bad).

I don't think that I would buy a car that had plastic endlinks (or, at least, I would switch them with metal ones). I hope that this does not become a trend.

Picture of the European version of the Astra via mabarto's Flickr photostream [Flickr.com]

Unhappy Lexus Customer

I haven't always done all of my own car maintenance. I did some of it here and there. But it wasn't until last year when I really made a conscious effort to get up off my lazy ass and do as much of it myself as possible. And like many other weekend mechanics, I am finding that paying a dealer or a mechanic to do the work for you doesn't work very well, because they often don't do the job properly.

We have a fairly old Lexus that I used to take to the dealer for maintenance, back when I was too stupid to know any better. I've had bad experiences at some domestic brand dealers with service, but figured that a luxury brand like Lexus would be far better.

Except that now that I'm doing all of the maintenance myself, I am finding all of the half-assed things they did. According to the maintenance schedule that I found for my vehicle, it is now due for a new cabin air filter. So, I bought one, figured out how to take apart the dashboard, reached inside and found... nothing. There was a slot for one, but no cabin air filter was installed.

Of course, I wasn't doing my own maintenance, so I had no idea how long it has been like this. It's possible that it never had an air filter. I then discovered that many other people have complained about the same issue. This annoyance is just one of the latest in a series of things that have caused me to be fairly unhappy with Lexus -- a brand you would expect to have the best customer service (or nearly so) out of all of the makes.

Car Fuel Economy Increases

I'm sure that everyone has read about the new legislation mandating fuel economy increases for automobiles [yahoo.com]. This is something that I generally support.


The thing is, the last time there was a big fuel economy push, we went through this automotive dark age called The 80s, where all of the cars were crap until the automakers got their heads out of their collective asses. That was the era that spawned the Chevy Citation, the Dodge Omni, the AMC Pacer, the Chevy Chevette, and the Cadillac Cimarron. Need I say more? In fact, it is difficult for me to think of a single car from that era that was memorable for a reason other than how crappy it was. Despite my fanatical devotion to Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Motley Crue, it's not really an era that I would want to revisit.

Even the Mustangs and Camaros were total crap.

Picture of Chevette via dave_7's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

ESPN's New Year's Even No Limits

Apparently, ESPN is going to have a crazy New Year's Eve broadcast this year, featuring two different motorsports stunts sponsored by Red Bull [redbull.com]. From their website:

"Maddison, a freestyle motocross star from Australia, will attempt to jump the length of a football field (more than 300 feet) to set a new motorcycle distance jumping world record. Millen, a champion drifter and movie stunt driver hailing from New Zealand, will attempt the first-ever backflip of an off-road racing truck."

As a guy that is into motorsports, this is something that I will definitely want to watch.


The thing about doing a backflip in a vehicle is that you are trying to get the vehicle to rotate about an unstable rotation axis. This is why it hasn't been done before. Take a typical book for example. Hold it in front of you so that the cover is readable to you. The longest dimension should be from the bottom of the cover to the top of the cover. Let's call that the x-axis. The 2nd longest dimension should be the width of the cover. Let's call that the y-axis. Try flipping the book up into the air so that it makes one complete rotation about the y-axis, but not rotating about any of the other axes (most notably the x-axis). You could spend all day attempting (and failing) to do that, because it's an unstable rotation axis.

People have tried (and failed) to do this before with a four-wheeled vehicle -- people who don't understand dynamics. My guess is that they have altered the mass distribution of the vehicle in this new stunt such that the lateral axis is no longer the intermediate inertial axis. For instance, if you made the mass distribution more like a motorcycle, the lateral axis would be turned into a stable rotation axis, and the stunt would become possible. Otherwise, that driver is in for a world of hurt.

Canada's Ice Road

Recently, I saw an article about Canada's Ice Road [popularmechanics.com].


Way up north in Canada, there is mining for diamonds. Canada is now the third largest producer of diamonds by value. Fuel and other supplies going to the mines are carried by trucks along a road that mostly consists of ice over frozen lake beds.

I have been fascinated by the articles I have read. Here's a quote:

"As a laden truck moves over ice, it creates a shallow depression all around it — a sort of bowl in the ice, several inches deep and many yards across. The greater the speed, the deeper the depression. Above a critical velocity that varies with local conditions, a truck can damage the roadbed so severely that the next vehicle to come along will break through the ice. For this reason, the top speed on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto route is usually about 22 mph. In some stretches, as on Waite Lake, the maximum is just a few miles per hour."

The water that is displaced by this depression forms a wavefront in front of the truck. And that wavefront can cause the ice to break when it reaches the shore. So, the roads are constructed so that the trucks have to make s-turns as they approach the shorelines, so that the wavefronts are directed away from the road. They also have to keep the roads plowed, because any snow will insulate the ice and cause it to warm up, weakening it.

Plus, the trucks have to travel in groups, so that if any fall through the ice, the others can radio for help. But obviously, the ice can only support so much weight, so the trucks have to keep their distance from each other.

Picture of the Ice Road from Andrew Johnson's Flickr photostream [flickr.com]

Luxury Vehicles Going Weird Direction

I feel that a lot of the luxury car companies are going off in a weird/bad direction with their features and/or styling. Every year, their cars get more and more unappealing to me.

Let's start with BMW. All of their new cars are equipped with run-flat tires, which might be the worst solution ever. No reputable garage will patch them if you puncture one, new run-flats in the right size are difficult to find in stores (unless you go to the dealer), and they're horrendously expensive (even if you don't go to the dealer). That's enough of a reason not to buy one.

But then BMW decides that it's also going to remove the oil dipstick from the engine compartment (which is just annoying from a usability standpoint [jalopnik.com]).

And every review that I have seen of iDrive has been negative [roadandtravel.com].

Then there is Lexus, which apparently hired the designers of the Pontiac Aztek [wikipedia.org] (a.k.a. the ugliest car in history). Take a look at the latest IS:


The rear end (especially the tail lights) looks way too much like the Mitsubishi Lancer (pictured below). You should never have a situation where a really expensive luxury car is almost indistinguishable from an econobox.


It's not that I don't like the styling or features of new cars. Just the ones of several luxury manufacturers that should know better. I dig Mercedes, Honda, Audi, VW, Saturn, Volvo, etc.

New Nissan GT-R

I've been seeing a lot of articles recently about the new Nissan GT-R [nissanusa.com] (latest version of the legendary Skyline GT-R [wikipedia.org]).


The thing is, did anyone else see the pictures of the new GT-R and not think that it just looked like a Toyota Celica (picture below) with a really bad body kit?


And when I say "bad", I don't mean "good bad". I mean, "bad bad". A Toyota Celica is really an econobox, to top things off. It really doesn't have the type of image that you would expect to be emulated in a venerable super-car.

Random Car Thoughts

A couple of random things that are car-related:

• I frequently am asked questions like, "What is the difference between understeer and oversteer?" Recently on a message board (related to autp-racing), I saw perhaps the best explanation I have ever heard in someone's signature:

  "Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car.
  Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you take the wall with you."

• In the past few weeks, I have had to drive a lot of cars that I don't own. And what I have noticed almost universally (in other words, independent of manufacturer) is that I use the tilt steering feature most often in order to make the instrument cluster fully visible -- and not for the purpose you would think, which is to put the steering wheel in the most comfortable position possible. It seems that packaging constraints these days are such that you can't have both.

Body Blading

One of the things that I was able to do last weekend (one of the first relaxing weekends in a long time), was catch up on all of the YouTube videos I have wanted to watch.

One of the videos I found was of body blading:



Essentially, a guy gets dressed up in a suit that has tons of in-line roller skate wheels, so that in virtually any position, he will be supported by the wheels. That way, he can head-first luge down a road... without the luge. It's pretty amazing.

Near the beginning of the run, the guy has to make a pretty tight turn, and he uses some ridiculous slip angles to generate the necessary cornering force. You can actually see material being left on the road from the wheels as he drifts through the turn.

Near the end, there is a tunnel section that totally reminds me of an infamous level in Test Drive 5 [wikipedia.org] (a.k.a. the best driving game EVAR). And my favorite part of the video is where he blows by a motorcyclist.

Motorhome Racing

Here's one of the funniest YouTube videos I have seen in a long time:



The deal is that some people get the idea to try to put together a motorhome racing league. You know, those huge land yachts? The idea being that most auto racers have a motorhome anyway, which they sleep in when they are traveling to and from races. So, why not just race the motorhome that they're bringing anyway?

In the course of things, they end up rewriting all of the rules that they wrote before the actual racing began...

Weekend Mechanics, Part 2

Being a weekend mechanics has just given me a great idea for a TV show.

All you would have to do is take a couple of people with wildly-overpriced educations, hand them tools and watch them attempt to fix stuff on their cars.

Having a show where you are guaranteed to see someone get hit in the face with brake fluid, etc every episode would just be pure comedy gold.

It would even be funnier if they had contestants with actual technical achievements in their career. You know:

"The next contestant has a PhD in Astro-Physics. He was the first person to identify an extra-solar planet and pioneered new techniques in radio telescope interferometry. Now let's watch as he tries to figure out how to use a wrench..."

Weekend Mechanics

One of our friends owns a fleet of cars that would put some of the smaller car rental offices to shame. This weekend, I'll be attempting to teach him how to change the oil in a car.

It's going to be like the blind leading the blind.

Seriously, this has all of the makings of a future posting on Fark [fark.com]:


"See, after you get the car jacked up, you take this wrench-thing and remove the hooby (which is the technical term for whatever this thing is)..." I would video tape everything, but I'm afraid that it would become evidence.

At least I know not to try to use a shotgun to remove the lug nuts [yahoo.com].

Synthetic Motor Oil

Last week, I went to a lecture being hosted by the Cleveland section of the Society of Automotive Engineers (of which I am a member). The topic of the lecture was motor oil, and why there are so many varieties.

Of particular interest to me and many of the other attendants was whether synthetic oil was really better for your car than conventional oil. The lecturer went through all of the components of motor oil, from the base oil to all of the additives. Motor oils have all kinds of additives in them to reduce friction, change viscosity, and a ton of other things...

Basically, the take home message that I received was that the base oil in synthetic motor oils is superior to that in conventional oils for resisting volatility and breakdown in high temperature applications. However, the additives in synthetics are consumed at the same rate. And because the maximum quantity of additives is regulated, they will be consumed in the same amount of time, regardless of whether you use synthetic or conventional motor oil.

The bottom line being that if you switch your car over to synthetic motor oil, you cannot go longer in between oil changes.

Automedia has an article about synthetic motor oil that basically says the same thing. Unfortunately, it is difficult to separate a lot of facts from myths about synthetics, because a lot of the information is put out there by the oil companies, who have a vested interest in convincing consumers to pay more.

Defroster without A/C

My 2002 Acura RSX-S is a little quirky. For instance, whenever you turn the knob to make the heating or air conditioning air come out of the vents on the top of the dashboard, the A/C is automatically kicked on. There are plenty of times when I want air to hit the windshield, but don't want the A/C on. For instance, there are some days when I am worried about the window fogging up, but it is warm enough to have the windows open.

I finally found a page where someone described the process to get the defogger on without the A/C:

• Turn the car off.


• Turn temperature knob to full blue (all the way to the left - counter-clockwise).


• Turn vent knob to off (all the way to the left - counter-clockwise). Make sure the vent knob is in the face position - NOT the auto position.


• Hold down air recirculation button as well as A/C button.


• Keep both buttons depressed and start car.


• Keep both buttons depressed for 7 seconds.


• The A/C light should blink.

Voila! I am copying it here so that I can find it the next time I need it. I wish that car manufacturers would stop adding useless features that owners have to spend lots of time trying to figure out how to defeat.

DARPA Urban Challenge

Well, the DARPA Urban Challenge is over [theregister.co.uk] and the winner (Carnegie Mellon) has been announced. The DARPA Urban Challenge was a competition between teams developing autonomous cars that have to run around in an urban environment, obeying traffic laws, interacting with other vehicles, and planning and replanning their routes without human guidance or intervention.

It has been a little difficult getting detailed information. I am interested because my PhD adviser has been involved, along with several of my former co-workers. Team Case apparently did not get selected from the National Qualifying Event to go to the finals. I caught this interesting little blurb [wired.com] on Wired about what happened to them:

"It was a case of too much work, too little sleep, and too much voltage that nearly doomed Team Case's entry in the DARPA Urban Challenge. One team member accidentally connected 24-volt laser range finders belonging to the team's robot dune buggy, named Dexter, into a 48-volt power supply, frying them instantly."

"Dexter is the only car in the race without any seating for humans, and it's the only one to be built from the ground up as a robot car. It made a good showing in the 2005 Grand Challenge, covering 81 miles of the 132-mile course for Team ENSCO before a blown tire forced it out."

The blog on Wired [wired.com] actually has had the most detailed information that I have been able to find on the event.

Michelin Lawsuit

Disclaimer: I work for a tire manufacturer.

I recently saw a link to this article [greenvilleonline.com] about a woman who sued Michelin and won. Apparently, she only bought two new tires and they were put on the front axle of her vehicle by the shop. She later lost control of the vehicle, and claimed that had the shop been informed that new tires should go on the rear axle, she would not have lost control of the vehicle.

"The jury found Michelin 100 percent responsible for the negligence that caused the accident, granting $32.4 million in damages to Boudreaux and her sons, according to court documents.

"Michelin officials were 'a little surprised and a little disappointed' by the verdict, Mann said."

It kind of makes you wonder whether we're going to get to the point where tire shops will only replace all 4 tires at a time, to protect themselves against litigation.

The article says that the accident happened on a wet road, but it would be interesting to know the other details of the accident: was driver error involved, did the car have ESC, etc.

It would also be interesting to know why the new tires were put on the front of the car, as I'm sure the shop knew the rule of thumb about always putting new tires on the rear axle.

Capital One Auto Finance

One of our friends kind of owns a car dealership. The kind that he owns looks like a lot of fun, because he has a lot of turnover in the types of cars that I could never afford -- classic Mustangs and GTOs that look pristine, along with almost new Porsches and Land Rovers.

Recently, he gave us an interesting bit of information. Capital One Bank has Auto Financing [capitalone.com] now. They typically have the best rates. And you can apply for auto financing on-line and find out if you are approved within minutes. If you are approved, they next-day air you a blank check (authorized for a reasonable range, based on what you asked for) that you can then use to buy the car with.

Apparently, Capital One has been getting very aggressive at getting people to take out loans with them, and have a great system for doing so. The last time we bought a car, we had to make a million phone calls to find out who had the best rates... Capital One's system sounds so much easier, and we'll have to keep them in mind the next time we are ready to buy a car.

Grades of Gasoline

I was reading some articles about the fluctuations in gasoline prices recently, and saw some interesting details. For instance, check out this article on Business Week [businessweek.com]:

"Gasoline demand typically drops in the fall, and beginning Saturday, refiners will be able to sell cheaper winter-grade gasoline."

So, one of the reasons why gasoline prices typically decline in the fall is because the oil companies are able to produce cheaper gas. This detail kind of intrigued me, so I decided to see if I could learn more.

I then found a few sites which essentially had the same information, but is most clearly explained by this site [vinefuels.com]:

"The main difference between gasoline made for cold weather use and hot weather use (or winter and summer grades) is a higher volatility type gasoline for winter use, and a lower volatility for summer use. When cold, gasoline will vaporize in the carburetor more slowly, so it is made with a higher volatility to help it vaporize faster. This makes for better engine-starting when the weather is cold. On the other hand, when gasoline is made for hot weather, it has a lower volatility rating, so that it doesn’t vaporize in the fuel system before it reaches the carburetor, causing what is commonly known as 'vapor-lock' which stalls the engine until the system is cooled... Government regulations are now imposed on refineries, terminals, and fuel distributors that mandate when these winter/summer changes are to be made."

2nd Wedding Anniversary

Heimlich and I finally made it to our 2nd wedding anniversary. I ended up getting some phat lewt out of the deal:


She got me a new creeper (the thing outlined in the box in the lower part of the image), which was the perfect gift. A creeper is a wheeled device that allows you to lie down and slide around on your back -- tremendously useful when you need to work on your car.

I used to throw cardboard or towels down onto the ground, and then try to slide under the car. Not only was that uncomfortable, but it was really a pain in the ass when I had to get out from under the car to get another tool and then get back under there. (Not to mention that it screwed up my hair, which is, of course, the worst thing imaginable.) The creeper came in handy this weeknd, as I needed to work on my car.

Anyway, it is hard to imagine that only two years ago, we gathered our closest family members and friends together, just so they could scream at us to smash cake in each others' faces.


Of course, I'd do it all over again.

Convergence of Car Designs

It seems like almost every sedan that is on the market nowadays looks almost exactly the same. There are a few exceptions, but it seems like there has been a significant convergence in sedan styling of late. Certainly, some of that is fuel-economy driven, but not all of it.

I hate how every sedan has a very high beltline (the line formed by the bottoms of the car's windows) that goes into a high trunklid:


I don't mean to single Lexus out on this, because every manufacturer seems guilty of this, but when I am following cars on the highway, there are a lot of vehicles where I can only see the top half of the driver's head over the trunklid. It's getting to the point where the average 6-year-old could probably stand directly behind a car, and the driver would have no chance of seeing them while backing up.

I hate how high trunklids make it very difficult to parallel park a car. I consider myself a very good parallel parker. But when you aren't even into the space yet, and cannot see any of the hood of the car behind you, how are you supposed to know how much space you have left?

Above image from Ian Muttoo's Flickr Photostream [flickr.com]

Model T

Heimlich's family got out their Ford Model T over the weekend.


It's beautiful. And at the same time, so much simpler. No special, expensive tools required. No lights on the dashboard programmed to come on at predetermined intervals to trick you into bringing your car back to the dealer.

More pictures here [flickr.com].

How to Check My CEL

I always am forgetting how to determine what code is being thrown on my car when the check engine light (CEL) comes on. I don't have a scan tool, and the nearest Autozone (which will check CELs for free) is pretty far away.

Anyway, this site [k-series.com] tells me exactly how to do it. It involves shorting out pins on the OBDII connector, then turning the ignition key to the "on" position (just like on my last car). Then you watch for a light to blink on the dashboard, and the number of blinks tells you what code has been thrown (in a kind of roundabout way).

Uh, this is a totally boring post, but I needed to post it so that I can find it the next time I need it.

Crash Testing

Check out this website [bridger.us] that I ran across... It has pictures of a Mini Cooper and a Ford F-150 after a 40mph offset crash. It is unbelievable how different the structures of the vehicles look afterward, and which one appears to be safer.

It also lists a bunch of fairly common cars, and driver deaths per million of those cars. According to those statistics, there are a ton of mid-size and compact cars that are among the safest vehicles on the road. The author speculates that is not because they protect the passengers better in an accident, but because it is easier to avoid being in an accident in those vehicles.

Hail Damage

On Friday, the city of Akron, OH received hail that was larger than golf balls. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me.

Another unfortunate fact is that I happened to be there, along with my car, which took a pounding. Below is a picture of the top of the right rear quarter panel, with arrows pointing to two of the large dents that are now in my car:


This car is slowly getting the hell beaten out of it. Literally. Like it's not bad enough that I have been driving it 30k miles/year.

Luckily, the hail storm only lasted for five (very long) minutes. So, there are probably only about 15-20 of those sized dents (plus a ton of really tiny ones). Some of the other cars in the area ended up with broken windshields. So, I'm lucky I was still able to drive it home.

Formula One Racing

This weekend, I am going to be glued to my TV, watching coverage of the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Spain.


I can't wait. For the first time that I can remember, there are legitimately four drivers who could win the championship right now. Over the past 10 years, there have been some spectacular battles between various drivers. But it almost always came down to an epic fight between the top two drivers. And it has usually been obvious who those drivers are, even at the very beginning of the season.

But this year, with the great Michael Schumacher in retirement, it's no longer clear even who the top two drivers are. Four drivers -- Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Mass, and the rookie Lewis Hamilton -- seem evenly matched in every way.

In the first three races this year, there have been three different winners. And the rookie finished 2nd in two of those.

This is going to be one hell of a season.

Picture of Felipe Massa's Ferrari from Yulete's Flickr Photostream

Autocross

So, I used to participate in an amateur form of auto-racing called Autocross [wikipedia.org]. It's a grassroots form of racing that is very safe - the speeds are kept relatively low, there is virtually nothing to crash into, and appropriate safety equipment is used. I stopped autocrossing two years ago for a number of reasons. Two of those reasons were money and time, but there are plenty of others.

Recently, I was contacted by an autocross friend that I haven't seen in a while, who apparently is going to be autocrossing a Porsche Boxster this year. And talking with him about the "good old days" when we used to race against each other reminded me how much fun I used to have.

So, I have started thinking about what it would take to get back into autocrossing in 2008. It is definitely not a definite that I will start racing again. I'm just thinking about it. And *if* I decide to get back into it, the earliest I would be looking at buying a car would be the end of this summer. So, I'm just thinking out loud right now, and it might not amount to anything.

But, if I was going to buy something, it would be for a Stock class, where you aren't really allowed to make any modifications to the car (my last autocross car was not in a Stock class, and Heimlich HATED how stiff the ride was from the modifications). If I buy anything, it will have to be my daily driver. I drive 30k miles/year, so it will have to be relatively comfortable to drive over long distances, and have such luxuries as cruise control. It will also likely be my only car, so it'll have to get me to work in a snowstorm (which makes me hesitant about anything RWD). Finally, you can't drive to an autocross event on race tires. So, it would be ideal if the car were big enough to carry another set of tires.

So, here's a short list of the cars that are competitive in stock classes:

Class	Most-Competitive	Other Possibilities
Super Stock	Corvette Z06, Lotus Elise, Porsche 911 GT3
A Stock	Honda S2000, Porsche Boxster, Porsche 993, C4 Corvette	Subaru WRX STi
B Stock	Mazda RX-8	Nissan 350Z, BMW E30 M3, BMW E36 M3
C Stock	'99 Mazda Miata Sport, Pontiac Solstice	Toyota MR2 Spyder
D Stock	Acura Integra Type R, BMW 330 ZHP	Lexus IS300, Dodge SRT-4 ACR, Volkswagen R32
E Stock	'94-'97 Mazda Miata, '93 Toyota MR2 (non-turbo)
G Stock	Mini Cooper S
H Stock	Mini Cooper

I should mention that many people will probably disagree with me on some of the above table, because it represents my opinion. Also, all cars in Super Stock (and most in A Stock) are WAAAAY out of my price range.

Honda SH-AWD

A friend recently sent me a link to a Honda video [honda.com] regarding relatively new technology in the Acura RL [acura.com] (which is their flagship model).

They call the new technology "SH-AWD", which stands for Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. The video is fairly long (almost 12 minutes), but it goes into a significant amount of detail on how the system works. It seems that there is a actively-controlled rear differential, which is able to distribute power to individual wheels, based on the direction that the driver is trying to make the car go into.

For instance, if you are accelerating through a turn, the differential transfers power to the outside rear wheel, which creates a yawing moment and prevents the car from understeering (see below picture). Similarly, when you remove your foot from the gas pedal in a turn, the engine braking torque can be distributed appropriately, as to prevent oversteer.



This is different from the open differential [wikipedia.org] that most passenger cars have, where the differential's job is to make sure that the thrust generated by each drive wheel is even. It is also different from a limited-slip differential [wikipedia.org], where the distribution of power to the outside wheels in a turn is not controlled actively.

That is very cool technology, and I would *love* to take one of those cars out for a spin.