Sheila Gunn Reid and videographer Kian Simone ride the rails aboard the ‘Dope Train’, the crime ridden light rail transit system in Edmonton, Alberta, where the local government has imposed a media blackout in an attempt to cover up the tragedy unfolding on trains and in transit stations.
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
Well, first they have to make us buy them: National Transportation Safety Board Calls For Speed-Limiting Tech in Cars
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Via Dan McTeague: At the 6 min mark is GM having moved only 18 Silverado EV units in Q3. It’s over folks
But not before we go broke.
And How Was Your Day?
Live: Reykjanes multiview
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Fire departments across the United States face a unique challenge with the growing prevalence of electric vehicles (EVs). EV fires, unlike traditional gas-powered vehicle fires, are more difficult to extinguish, last longer, and have a higher tendency to reignite. These distinct characteristics necessitate a deep understanding and the development of specific strategies to ensure public safety.
The complexity of EV fires lies in the use of lithium-ion batteries, known for their high energy density. Poorly designed or damaged, these batteries can undergo “thermal runaway,” leading to the release of flammable chemicals that can cause unexpected reignition. EV fires also emit toxic fumes, posing risks to both firefighters and bystanders, and necessitating careful handling.
In response to the challenges posed by EV fires, some fire departments are reconsidering their approaches. For example, firefighters in Franklin, Tennessee, used an enormous 45,000 gallons of water to extinguish an EV fire, compared to the standard 500 to 1,000 gallons for a gasoline-powered vehicle fire. This has led to a potential strategy of letting future EV fires burn out naturally.
Drunk Woke
“Woke, among other things, is an elaborate system for escaping any accountability for one’s actions. It’s a functional personality disorder.” – James Lindsay @ConceptualJames
I Confess To A Certain Ambivalence
Harrowing images captured the shooter, a frustrated elderly man, climbing out of his car to argue with the eco-protesters who had stopped traffic on the Pan-American Highway in the town of Chame.
He initially attempted to reason with the protesters, but moments later pulled a handgun from his pocket and began gesturing wildly as his frustration grew. Despite the imminent danger, the protesters stubbornly refused to curtail their demonstration and continued to argue back and forth with the disgruntled motorist, who became visibly more enraged with each passing moment.
For a time it looked as though the gunman was prepared to back down, but when one protester holding a flag stepped towards him, he snapped the pistol back up and fired at his target from mere feet away.
Terrified onlookers and other protesters helped move the victim to the side of the road and laid him down on the ground as the gunman calmly began dismantling a small barricade made of stones and tyres erected by the demonstrators.
Still undeterred, another protester wearing a black t-shirt and jeans tried to confront the gunman and was also shot. Footage shows how he recoiled from the shot, holding his upper chest in pain and with an expression of disbelief on his face.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas, make it snow.
I Amuse Myself
In Saskatchewan, a GMC diesel slows for a rare Tesla sighting. This one was unfortunately, dead.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Racin’ Cars
Racer.com: Special ONE hits out at FIA, World RX over rallycross fire investigation
Special ONE Racing pointed out the cause of the fire in a statement issued Thursday, saying, “Various testimonies, surveillance camera footage, telemetry data, and expertise based on samples taken from the debris have definitively established the origin of the blaze: a thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery onboard the car.
“Kreisel Electric, the supplier of this equipment, which is common to all RX1e category models, could not guarantee that such an incident would not recur in the future. Therefore, the FIA has decided not to allow these cars to compete until further notice,” the statement continued. “If this situation persists, it will have the consequence of jeopardizing the future of the discipline, as it undermines the well-being of all its stakeholders.”
While the FIA and World RX began an investigation into the cause of the fire in its immediate aftermath, there hasn’t been a significant update since it began.
h/t @arlasko
We Don’t Need No Flaming Racin’ Cars
It’s a Hot Wheels track!
The second day of Formula E testing has been canceled after a fire brought the first day of running at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo to an early halt.
After Robert Shwartzman’s DS Penske stopped on track in the morning session, the car’s battery was removed by supplier Williams Advanced Engineering. It subsequently caught fire, resulting in a paddock evacuation and one WAE staff member being taken to a local hospital as a precaution. […]
The fire is the first incident of its kind in Formula E’s 10-season history, but follows one at July’s World Rallycross event at Lydden Hill in the UK which destroyed Special ONE Racing’s cars and equipment, ruling it out for the remainder of the season.
h/t Allan
Don’t Worry, It’s Transitory
Subprime auto loans, which are issued to people with lower credit scores, are falling into past-due status at an alarming rate, reaching the highest rates of borrowers behind on loans in almost 30 years.
Subprime borrowers at least 60 days past due on their car loans grew to 6.11 percent last month, the highest rate since 1994. A combination of rising interest rates and higher purchase prices have made monthly payments more expensive than before, and an unstable job market isn’t helping the situation.
Repossessions are expected to show an increase this year of up to 300,000 actions as bills pile up for unfortunate buyers. As Automotive News pointed out, interest rates for subprime borrowers can be as much as three times more than those for everyone else, pushing payments up by hundreds a month in some cases.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
The Ford Mustang Mach-E has had some weird recalls in its short time on sale, including one for the glass roof, which could separate and fly off while driving. Its most recent recall is also weird, but it’s also a little embarrassing: The electric SUV could experience a component failure in its battery pack that occurs while DC fast charging or romping on the accelerator.
Ford recalled almost 35,000 2021 and 2022 Mustang Mach-Es equipped with the extended-range battery for the issue. Recall documentation states that DC fast charging and “repeated wide open pedal events” could overheat the high-voltage battery main contactors, causing them to deform and arc. That could cause a loss of power and increase the risk of a crash.
Go Woke, Go Broke
Play Stupid Games
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
I used to drive a propane fueled van. I don’t recall doing it this way.
Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Random Hitchhikers Into Your Car
Early Tuesday morning vandals in New York went on a spree of destruction that lasted a full day, smashing 97 windows on MTA trains. The damage was so bad that five subway lines were impacted and one wasn’t able to fully return to service until Wednesday evening.
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
I used to think I paid too much for my 2018 Savana. Now I wonder if I paid too little.
As part of the move toward electric cars, most automakers are copying Silicon Valley’s playbook and making drivers pay monthly or yearly fees to unlock new features. Sometimes those features are fairly basic, like a remote starter; in other cases they’re more advanced, like autonomous parking assistance. Accessing them typically requires just a few taps on a car’s touchscreen or its related smartphone app, the same way you might subscribe to anything else online. It’s part of why the new generation of cars is often described as “smartphones on wheels”: Cars now offer various downloadable apps, automated driver assistance, and even integration with platforms such as Spotify and TikTok. But more digital features that connect your car to the internet provide openings for data theft, tampering, and other cybersecurity risks that simply have not existed on the roads until now.
Car hacking may call to mind action-movie-like scenes of millions of Teslas being remotely seized by terrorist groups and commanded to drive into hospitals. That’s thankfully far-fetched. The bigger risk is to personal and financial information related to various digital add-ons and connected features, which are essentially unavoidable with modern EVs—as is the requirement that you pay for them over time. Mercedes-Benz will unlock more horsepower for up to $90 a month, BMW lets its cars’ safety cameras record 40-second snapshots of video for $39 a year, and Ford’s BlueCruise hands-off driver-assist feature is now $75 a month.
Of course I don’t use a “smartphone on phone” either, so I might be an outlier.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm …
… recently took 4-day EV caravan trip across the southeast to “draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.”
What happened next is like a scene out of VEEP…
Steve from Rockwood – The irony is not lost that a politician is in an Armada of high-priced vehicles to make a point on Earth sustainability and a young family with children appear to be in the way.
Ban All The Things!
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appointed an Obama-era group made up of 24 “leading experts” to advise him on “transportation equity,” claiming the privilege of owning a car ignites “systemic racism” and should be banned because of their negative impact on the environment.
Members of the Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity include “spatial policy scholar” Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, who says, “All cars are bad” and calls for “zero emission transit.”
However, she told the Free Beacon that she is not “advocating for a complete erasure” of cars but hopes to convince Buttigieg to re-direct the U.S. from relying on private motor vehicles.