Another one from the BMW Museum. The engine in the foreground is the first M engine that powered the M1. The display also had headphones so you could listen to how each engine sounded up to redline.
M Power and progeny
BMW 507
Found this on an old MacBook that’s being prepped for recycling. This was from a trip to the BMW Museum about 10 years ago.
Gorgeous!
Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2
Another photo from the Google cloud archive. This is a Giulia from 1968. When they got raced.
Random Photo
So this was from a while ago, when I was at the Vespa dealer asking all sorts of questions. The salesguy, after being bombarded with my inquiries, handed me a key, took my CDL and told me, “don’t crash”.
This was a GTS300 and I took it through the Broadway Tunnel going and over the hills and through traffic on the way back. After returning to the dealership, the salesguy asked how I liked it. I replied, “I get it”.
Although it took me a while to pull the trigger to get my GTV250. Garage queens are hard to find.
Beijing with the Chairman
I came across some photos in my Google Photos account that were initially thought lost (yay cloud storage). My last visit to Beijing in 2014 which was also my first ride on CHR. I don’t know where those photos are.
One rite of passage of all Beijing visits are black boogers. However, despite being smogged when I arrived (you could even see the smog in the parking structures, like an awful fog), the next day was blue sky and glorious sun. Also, the air cleared out because of a front that blew through overnight.
Being a Sunday, everyone had the day off. And this being the first clear day in months, the entire city went outside. Although I didn’t really think about it because my hotel was in the Financial District, which was blissfully quiet. I went “outside” to where everyone else seemed to be, Tiananmen Square.
And when you get to the square, the obligatory Mao on the Tiananmen Gate photo.
Commercials you WANT to watch
Great commercials (how often do I say that?) from Japan.
24 months of driving electric
1.13% of all cars are plug in hybrid/electric. I was part of that 1.13% for the past two years. Electrics are great in congested, traffic calmed cities. However, once you leave and enter “America”, electrics are little smug mobiles that are hindered with short range (at least the affordable ones).
Where electrics make sense
I live in San Francisco, where the city government actively makes it difficult to drive a car. From not fixing the potholes and cracks and diverting the money to bicycle lanes, speed humps and stop signs on every block to active Traffic Calming measures such as prohibiting turning, backwards diagonal parking, removing traffic lanes and timing traffic signals to turn red, thus creating congestion, San Francisco is the master of screwing up traffic. Driving here, especially in the Downtown core, is an exercise in not moving. If you’re in an electric, when you’re not moving, you’re not using energy. And when the traffic does go and stop, you creep along eventually creating enough energy to regenerate your battery, a mile at a time. In this environment, electrics win.
Aaaand where electrics don’t
Unfortunately for electrics and the liberals that like them (with taxpayer subsidy), most of America is not like San Francisco. America is long distances between cities, moving at high speed and where there is copious free parking. Its people cherish their freedom to drive untethered from range anxiety or lack of DC fast chargers. In this environment, electrics are at a disadvantage because at freeway speed, range disappears quickly and regeneration does not increase range at the same rate you lose it.
Conclusions
Electrics are best for car unfriendly cities. If you sit around a lot in traffic and drive short distances, electrics are for you. If you do a combination of city and non city driving over longer distances, a (plug-in) hybrid works best. And if you drive a lot on the freeway, get yourself a gas powered car. A lot of the new cars get 35+ MPG which is pretty darn good. I spent a week in Dallas and didn’t see one electric car on the freeways. I did see a lot of practical sedans that got good highway MPG. And this is the lesson I learned after two years with an E-Golf.
Read about the daily issues of driving electric here.
Getting itchy pants
So over the past week, friends of mine have taken off to Seoul, Paris, Singapore, London. Time to plan travel!
In Defense of Panda Express
Yes, I get that Panda Express is not genuine “Chinese food”. Even though the roots of this chain would count as genuine “Chinese food”. And it tastes pretty good. It fills a niche, along with Starbucks (coffee) and McDonald’s (hamburgers and breakfast) for making Chinese-American food available all over the US, cooked to a standard and satisfying the craving for chow mein with soy sauce and Orange Chicken (which is a very guilty pleasure). Let’s face it, getting different kinds of Chinese food is easier in the big cities than it is, say in Omaha or Des Moines. But those cities have Panda Expresses there so it satisfies the craving, at least temporarily.
And for each meal at Panda Express (usually at malls and airports), I have a renewed appreciation for Chinese food done properly. Beef chow fun and wontonmein at Hing Lung (San Bruno), Xiaolongbao at almost any Din Tai Fung. Yum Cha at Dragon Beaux. Mabo tofu and Kung Pao Chicken at a good Hunan place. Despite the food snobs saying otherwise, Panda Express does serve a purpose in the greater cause of Chinese food. And for the food snobs, you can always order the Wagyu truffle Hor Fun at Lokkee.
The term “Chinese food” itself is misleading. It can refer to Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hunan, Szechwan, dim sum, wontonmein, cha chaan teng and lots more styles I’ve probably missed. It’s all good stuff. I think we should put Panda Express in that same category.
Adventures with Keyless Entry
Most new cars have keyless entry nowadays. You keep the key fob in your pocket, the car detects it and allows you to unlock the doors and start the car. Usually it works fine. Unless the battery in the key fob goes flat. Late at night. In the cold.
So last night, a buddy and I went to the ballpark to watch the Giants beat the Nationals. Seeing that the game was won, we left at the bottom of the 8th to beat the traffic and what not. We get to the car. Doors won’t open. Pressed the buttons on the fob. No flashing LED. Flat battery! It took us an hour to get into the car using the internet and go through the owner’s manual to find how to start the car. Instead of having a chapter titled “In case of dead key fob”, where instructions on entering and starting the car could be, instructions for entering the car and starting the car were in two different places in the book.
Or we could have just found this video and gotten going in 10 minutes…
Ah well, learning moment.