Prius C

time for another post, here it is,

The Prius c uppercase C!


(source: caranddriver.com)

Well, it's a Prius. It is also a Prius variant. It is also just downright terrible. To start, it isn't actually eco as the salesman would have you believe. The amount of pollution created from mining the nickel, extracting the neodymium, and not dying from the cadmium makes the Prius more environmentally damaging than a Land Rover Discovery!

Is it only me, or does anyone else see a bit of crossovery-ness in this 2018 model? A Prius crossover or CMax would pass the point of bad, and reach the point of just pitiful. This current, not-quite-crossover Prius is currently straddling the line of bad and pitiful in the power department, however. The c makes an earth shattering 99 horsepower! This is enough to propel it to a supersonic 102 miles per hour, and it gets to 60 of those MPH's in 10.8 seconds! These figures are nothing compared to the astounding fuel mileage, though.

The "eco-friendly" and "hybrid" Prius gets 46 highway MPG. It also costs $21,000. I have done the math using the combined MPG (46) (assuming that gas is $2.60 USD everywhere, and that the Prius does 10,000 mile years) you would have to own the Prius for 24 YEARS for the fuel efficiency to validate not buying a Ford Fiesta costing $16,520.

The Fiesta goes from 0-60 in 8.7 seconds, and goes 115. Certainly not fast, but a lot better than the Prius. So, to all the Fiesta owners out there, you can feel even more smugly superior in front of Prii, because you have saved a quarter of your life!

So, the Prius c, slow, possibly a crossover, slow, and environmentally damaging.

Do you have any thoughts about cars/cats? What drives you crazy? One post a week so stay tuned!

Telsa is Having Problems With the Model 3

'bout time for another post, here it is,

✊Tesla is Having Production Problems With the Model 3!!✊


(source: Car and Driver)

The all electric car maker that has been taking quinoa and sandal enthusiasts (and strangely, suburban families) with tons of money to throw away by storm, has suffered several large problems. You may start clapping now.

The C.E.O. of Tesla (Elon Musk) readily admits to the fact that they are in "Pre-production hell". Apparently this is because the Model 3 is made of steel, where the Model S (sedan) and the Model X (horrible crossover) have aluminum bodies. It doesn't help matters that the Model 3 has specific parts, that it doesn't share with the X and S, and not enough of those parts have arrived at the Tesla gigafactory®™© regular factory without a dumb name. The whole thing has become a bit of a PR shambles.

The Model 3's delivery quota hasn't been met, so a lot of people are quite upset, because they just payed $35,000(!) for a "people's car". To add insult to injury, Tesla is now refusing the limited free supercharging credits that you get with the X and S for the 3. In fact, there will be no free charging for the 3 at all, long distance or otherwise! This is a fairly good thing; it means that the money you pay for other people to charge their Teslas (through taxes, and other fairly boring things of that nature that I don't understand fully, so hey, read this with a grain of salt, also, do you notice that this bit of writing in parentheses is getting really long? I do, and would like to say that really long parentheses writing is cool a[ijoareioj DISREGARD HIM[removed by editor]) you keep, and Tesla has a PR nightmare on their hands.

The Model 3 isn't any really great engineering feat, either. It only gets 220 miles of range! The Challenger SRT Hellcat is not only amazingly cool (at least quite a bit cooler that the Model 3) but it gets 425 miles of range! The Model 3 is an electric car. Frequent readers of my blog will know what I think about these nickel-cadmium menaces.

So, the Model 3, electric, a PR nightmare, a "people's car" for 35 grand, a bit of a scam, and they might not actually get delivered.

Do you have any thoughts about cars/cats? What drives you crazy? One post a week so stay tuned!

The Camaro SS

Time for something a little different, here it is,

The Camaro SS!

(credit: puzzlewarehouse.com (if you can't see the image so well, here is a link to a blown up one: https://cdn.unifiedcommerce.com/)
(This review is for the first-gen Camaro)
A little while ago, it was the birthday of the Chevrolet Camaro, a car which (barely) stood the test of time, as well as the tighter 1972 emissions restrictions, that killed off a lot of muscle/pony cars (the actually good version of the Mercury Cougar comes to mind).

The basic image of the Camaro was simple: it was fast, handled well (for the time period; it actually handled like a dresser full of bowling balls), practical, and cheap. It could (and was) used as a family car. The aforementioned speed has to come from something, though.

The motivation in question is a 396 V8 chucking out 375 horsepower in '65. In the non-street-legal COPO version of the Camaro, the 7.0 liter L89 was making 435 horsepower in '67. Not only is the Camaro fast, but it is famous, too.

The fame comes from the fact that it was introduced as a pace car at the Indy 500, and that it was Bumblebee in the Transformers movies!

Do you have any thoughts about cars/cats? What drives you crazy? One post a week so stay tuned!