Category: Vehicles

The electric car charging station at Kirkwood Mountain resort has six Tesla chargers and two by Clipper Creek. This was put in two years ago, and during ski season it's pretty busy.

What's notable is that there isn't a gas station at Kirkwood. There's like a gas pump with one type of gas (which is usually out of order) a 1/2 -mile before you enter the resort and that's it. The next gas station is a good 13 miles away.

Feels like these electric charging stations are the future. Why go to a gas station when you can charge your car at home, at work, or at your destination (like at Target via Volvo). Do have to love the direction where all this is going ->  no more gas, no more gas station visits, and hopefully renewable energy to power your car. Bright future for sure.

 

Here's the BMW iX3 concept version released today. I'm hoping the designers move towards a sportier/outdoorsy take rather than a people/kid mover. We take our X3 out in the snow, to triathlons, to other races, and we're putting road bikes and other gear in or on top of it.

I read the range will be 250 miles to start but 300-400 mile range would be nice. Who knows what the final specs will really be until it actually starts shipping. Apparently, iX3 will be made from China which makes sense from a demand/volume/production standpoint and China's strategic investments in lithium.

2025 is when we'll do a realistic evaluation to see if the BMW iX3 works for us, that or the Tesla Y. By then, range and features should be really good and hopefully costs will be reasonable/par with current car prices.

Tesla Model 3 is *THE* car that's changing the world and saving our environmental future. The long range 310 mile version will cost about $57,000 while the base car is $35,000 (but no one is getting that version). How Tesla will do with mass production is going to be interesting, in the long run they'll do fine.

$57k is not bad, given 5.1 0-60 seconds (BMW 340i is 4.6 seconds and $60k), all electric, no emissions, likely less maintenance, plus the cool factor.

The true competitors of Tesla Model 3 are the BMW 3 series, Audi S4, Lexus IS and ES. The competition isn't Prius or Bolt or Leaf or even the BMWi series. Fit and finish aren't in the same league. Teslas are head turners.

I do like the Chevy Bolt a lot (but not enough to consider buying one). You're looking at $44k for the souped up version. 0-60 is 6.5 seconds which isn't bad with a 238 mile range.

The Chevy Bolt looks great. Other cars in its style genre are the Chevy Spark and Sonic, Honda Fit, Nissan Versa Note, Toyota Yaris, Toyota Prius C, Ford Fiesta, and you could probably also include Mini Cooper and Fiat 500. So price is the issue, the Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris are in the $15k-$17k range and the Prius C starts at $20k.

When the Chevy Bolt drops down to $20k and all these other vehicles become fully electrified (which will happen), then we've got a ball game. It is nice to see all the Chevy Bolts on the road from folks upgrading from what I presume their Toyota Prius. At the end of the day, the Chevy Bolt is just a good looking and seemingly useful car.

The new BMW X3 looks nice, definitely much more aggressive looking and less soccer mom. Can't wait to see this as an all electric vehicle with 270-300+ miles of range.

Apparently this thing has more ground clearance too. Not sure what's going on with the quasi-M branding but too bad a true M version with a manual isn't available. Otherwise, yea!

Tesla Model S

2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year

The two questions are: should you buy a Tesla car (yes) and the second, should you buy TSLA stock (also a yes)!

For the latter, I look at market cap, product line, ability to deliver, future revenue opportunities, leadership/vision/intangibles (and balance sheets of course). Tesla makes a damn good looking car and they've only really made one (and they got into the NUMMI plant for a song). If you think they'll make more and better cars to more markets around the world and that they're just beginning and that their market cap of 16.7BB is low compared to Audi, GM, Ford, or Toyota, then you should buy their stock.

Telsa is limited by product line and production, not demand. That's a good position. My target for TSLA stock is $250.

For whatever reason, my dream car as a kid was a candy apple Porsche 911.  I'll have to say that this Porsche Spyder hybrid in whatever color for my 50th birthday (still along time away) would be pretty nice.  I suspect that by the time I'm 50 there'll be an even better car.  I like the Cayman S too, and the 911 Carrera 4S is not too shabby.

The 918 Spyder prototype combines high-tech racing features and electro-mobility to offer a fascinating range of qualities: An emission level of just 70 grams CO2 per kilometre on fuel consumption of three litres/100 kilometres (equal to 94 mpg imp) truly outstanding even for an ultra-compact city car, on the one hand, combined with the performance of a super sports car and acceleration from a standstill to 100 km/h in just under 3.2 seconds, top speed of 320 km/h (198 mph) plus, and a lap time on the Nordschleife of Nürburgring in less than 7:30 minutes, faster than even the Porsche Carrera GT, on the other.

Mitchell wrote about her experience with traffic school, and I had a good laugh at that (not that I was surprised, it was just funny). Anyway payback sucks in terms of schadenfreude and I got my first ever speeding ticket in April on my way to San Diego. I've gotten a bunch of tickets lately, a no U-Turn ticket in Alameda (on Park Street), and a couple of parking tickets. And I'm like what the heck is going on!

Anyway, I used http://www.gototrafficschool.com/. It took me a little over an hour to complete the course and test which was pleasant. It was a good refresher but I don't remember anything (thank goodness for tabbed browsing and the nifty find feature).

What differed with my experience from Mitchell is that verification of who I am was done online (otherwise a notary or some other method is required). I did my verification through Experian the credit history people. I gave them information about my accounts that really only I should know and they gave a time limit for me to answer them. They asked about accounts I've held and also how much my mortgage was and a few other challenge questions. [I'm wondering if someone could just buy my credit history and do the same thing.]

Now, there's got to be a better way to verify identity than me having to pay Experian a $15 convenience fee. I need to read about DSS some more which I guess is standardized? And I don't know about personal certificates either. People just won't get how that works.

This is what my drive to Arizona looked like a couple weeks ago. I'm in the Blue X3. (I need to help reset the marketing around BMW X3 so that soccer moms stay away from this car dammit)

"Do not touch me or even look at me. I am too expensive for you."

Thus sayeth the Ferrari 250 GTO that I saw Saturday morning at a car classic. Apparently this Ferrrari 250 GTO:

• was named the top sports car of all time,
• only a little over 30 were made in the '60s,
• and one recently sold for $15MM cash money.

And, folks who own these cars actually drive them around the track and race 'em w/ no insurance. Damn, it must be good to be rich.

There were a lot of cool cars at Infineon Raceway last weekend for the Classic Sports Racing Group. Saw a birdcage Maserati (above), a Shelby Cobra, a forumla one car driven by Andretti, and several cool Lotus cars — even got to ride in one around the track, that was freaking fun!

The classic race car hobby is a little pricey. It's fun hanging around people with that kind of money though. It would be cool to take racing school. Skip Barber is supposed to be pretty good, a three day intensive course.

Let's just say I get to ride in this thing once in a while and maybe get to drive it to Mountain View especially since it gets 24/32 MPG. It's got Navigation, the Luxury Package (whatever that means), but I have to say my favorite feature is the keyless entry. You just walk up to the car, open the door handle, and go right in. Press the button, and the engine starts. No messing around with a key.

The handling isn't as good as a BMW, it's a little soft on turns. The sports shift is cool and the paddle shifters aren't bad either. It's going to take a little getting used to, I'm old school and love manual cars. But, this thing is fast, fast, and smooth. On the practical side, this car will be around for like 20 years and it's pretty darn safe.

Tough life right? Never expected I'd take part ownership in a red sports car/rice rocket. I'm still more the dark blue Jeep wrangler, khaki soft top, off-road type, while wearing Keen sandals, khaki shorts, and some blue or black generic polo shirt. I have no idea what to wear in this car. I need to bust out the Armani suits I guess.

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A few more things:

• Ask for Eric Stern at Coliseum Lexus of Oakland.  Unbelievable salesperson.  Who makes endorsements about car sales people right?  Definitely would get another car from him (which won't happen for another 20 years) and my highest recommendation for Eric Stern.
• This car and the now beater BMW X3 are the cars I'd want even if I was stupid rich (which I'm not even close).  Kinda cool.
• After a couple hundred miles on this thing, this car is bad ass!