the good old days

Apparently I’ve been driving around for eight years with this bit of insanity in my steering wheel.

If an affected inflator deploys, the increased internal pressure may cause its casing to rupture, possibly sending metal fragments through the cloth airbag cushion material and into vehicle occupants.

With my luck, my first head-on collision will be the day after I learn about the Shrapnel Airbag, while I’m driving to the dealership to have it repaired.

And the Honda site about this says I can’t take it in for repair until I get an official notice in the mail about it. I better not get the same story from the dealership when I show up with my deathtrap and ask nicely for it to be fixed now please.

Every time I get a little confident about all these science and engineering experts (myself included) with bright shining dreams about new technologies which will save the world, I read something like this…

“We know how to get electrical energy from sunlight by means of silicon converters,” said the Chrysler engineering expert. “If we continue to increase the efficiency of these converters, and if we are able to develop small, efficient energy storage cells solar powered cars will be feasible.” — Closer Than We Think, via Paleo-Future

1958 — fifty-one years — and we still haven’t gotten beyond knowing how, but just not quite there yet…

Well, apparently a Pontiac was well-built (and therefore priceless) in 1935. We can still live in the past on this blog…

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Lots of women have personal cars of their own, and we’re going to convince them it should be a Pontiac!

While the target audience for this movie clip is (as far as I can tell) the Pontiac dealerships and it concentrates heavily on advertising circulation, it’s fun to see glimpses of vintage Pontiac cars. If they still looked that cool, I’d buy one.

So my second day at the NHA conference was about the same as the first — some impressive, some underwhelming. I got to take a tour of “Innovista”, the “fuel cell district” in downtown Columbia (located in part on the USC campus) which is extremely interested in attracting investors and research companies. More interesting, I got to see the new hydrogen fueling station in Columbia (and watch a bus get fueled — COOL), and also visit nearby Fort Jackson and see a fuel cell they’ve installed as a backup power system for their emergency response stations. The fueling station was particularly interesting, because the level of attention required to make sure your hydrogen car is correctly connected is marginally higher than for a regular car — meaning the “hydrogen economy” is likely to see a resurgence of the full-service fueling station, with trained attendants making sure everything goes well.

I’d also like to have $12 million dollars to buy my own hydrogen-fueled bus. (The CEO of Proterra gets to drive his company’s bus around and show it off. I want his job.) It’s going to be on loan to USC and the city of Columbia for the next year, and I need to figure out which campus route it’s slated for and then go on that route a lot.

Based on a discussion session about home-fueling infrastructure development, I’d like to take the chance to ask a couple extremely informal survey questions. (I’m highly biased, due to my personal obsession with getting a hydrogen car as soon as possible; therefore, my “HELL YES” answer is neither scientific nor useful.)

If you could buy a home refueling station for around $2500, would you do it?

We’re talking about a little unit (maybe the size of a mini-fridge) that hooks up to your home water and electricity supply, creating hydrogen overnight and filling up your car while you sleep. The cost to make 1 kg of hydrogen, which could take the car about 65 miles, is ROUGHLY the same as half a gallon of gasoline which takes your car 20 miles (or so), so the cost-per-mile remains the same.

Of course, you’d need a hydrogen car for this — so, a follow-up question: If you could refuel your car in your own garage, would that make you more likely to buy that kind of car? It would presumably be a commuting-only car, because your trip range is limited by where fuel is available (and, if you’re the only fueling station for thousands of miles…)

When production of the Model T ceased almost twenty years after they were first produced, there were millions of them in the world in various conditions. New Uses for Old Fords (Modern Mechanix, 1928) described many ways the “defunct” cars could find new purpose, including an ultra-safe saw rig. (Bullshit inventions like that are why OSHA came to be, by the way. Don’t put your face within 12 inches of a huge freakin’ saw, unless you aren’t a big fan of your face.)

It’s interesting just how modern the idea of designed obsolescence is. Modern Ford would laugh for a week if you suggest their cars should have a life and function after their time as cars. (To be fair, Henry wasn’t intentionally designing his cars to be sustainable and reusable, simply durable.)

One out of every 10 people in America is employed in a service that is related to the U.S. auto industry.

That’s a statistic from the Center for Automotive Research, via GM Facts and Fiction. It’s actually plausible; there are factories around the nation, not just in Detroit, that are somehow related to putting a car together. (I will note, though, it’s not clear how many of those sub-suppliers also work for Honda, Toyota, BMW, or “foreign” companies with US operations.)

The “Big Three” will never simply vanish — they (and the extended support structure of dealerships, suppliers, mechanics, etc.) are simply too large and too integral to the country’s manufacturing landscape. The job loss, health care loss, and tax income loss would be spread over the course of a few years. And it’s also worth noting that, to a large extent, the American Auto Maker crisis is largely of its own making; the recession is simply pinching them harder and sooner than expected.

I’m not against bailing out the auto industry, because the ripple effect around the country would be incredibly bad. At the same time, I haven’t decided if I’m in favor enough to write to my elected officials about it. (Yes, Visteon, when you fire loyal employees, they’ll hold a grudge and not help YOU out when the time comes. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it.) But I am in favor, just enough, to mention it here. The issue is worth awareness and discussion and thought. And perhaps a large dose of nervous worrying as well.

If it is decided that they deserve a second chance, then the automakers need to be held to a much higher standard than they currently are. It would be inspiring to see them remade into an industry that is a leader in sustainable design and manufacturing, rather than grudgingly hoping global warming is a passing fad. But given the firmly entrenched old-style industry and infrastructure they have, I’m not holding out much hope.

This strikes me as quite an innovation in sustainable design. A car that you can eat at the end of your journey.

The “making of” video is almost cooler, because it proves they weren’t just pretending to build a car out of cake, they actually were building a car out of cake.

And they had an actual Home Economist on their team! How cool is that? In the few recruiting films I’ve seen, “edible car construction” was never listed as a possible occupation for home ec majors. I imagine the field might have gotten more students if they’d mentioned a job like this.

Found via Cake Wrecks.

I’m a big fan of road trips, even as ridiculously long as driving from South Carolina to Chicago for Thanksgiving. I could save time flying, but consider:

1. airports suck
2. security lines suck
3. airlines suck
4. I have a toddler
5. I have a preschooler [worse than a toddler]
6. they each have a car seat

I hate all that so badly, I’d rather drive 15 hours. Even with a well-behaved toddler and preschooler who aren’t screaming like banshees, I hate hate hate air travel.

Of course, a two-day drive is no picnic. One thing that would make any road trip easier (and more affordable) would be simply pulling over at the side of the road and falling asleep. The reason that rest areas exist along major interstates, in fact! This is doable in a regular car — indeed, we had to do it once when no hotels had vacancies — but it is incredibly uncomfortable. It’s surprisingly humid, too; the inside of the car was completely fogged up (and we were doing nothing but sleeping, get your minds out of the gutter).

I would buy an RV, if only they had better gas mileage and were a bit smaller. So — a car with seats that can convert to beds? WANT. And this concept isn’t new, although you wouldn’t know it given the total lack of cars-with-beds on the road. The first picture is a 1931 version, the second is from 1972.

At that rate, I can expect another Great Redesign in just about three years… nothing to do but wait.

I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces. — Henry Ford

The simplified, awe-filled view of Ford is that he invented assembly line manufacturing and the automobile. The truth is a bit more prosaic — cars had been around for years, as had assembly lines. But by combining the two, Ford was able to make cars at an inconceivable rate, which reduced the price from “hand-crafted luxury item for the ridiculously rich” to “affordable useful item for the masses.” The modern automotive age is largely due to that innovation and shift in manufacturing technique.

When first released in 1908, the Model T cost an equivalent of approximately $18000, although the price would fall by half by 1915. It allegedly got 21 mpg (although modern drivers of Model T’s quote 14 mpg), was durable, could go almost thirty miles per hour (!), and even a Ford factory worker could reasonably afford it. Amazingly, aside from an increased top speed and luxuries like seat belts and windshield washer fluid, nothing revolutionary has happened in the automotive world in the last 100 years.

Happy anniversary, Model T

Last December, my father had (and survived) a heart attack. He turned sixty-something last week. Between living many states away and his increasing age, I’ve indulged in a lot of random worrying about his health and well-being.

Yesterday my dad (who’s been looking at getting a car to replace his 15-year-old junker) sends an email titled, “Car Tryout”. There’s a picture attached…

Assumptions that he’s becoming decrepit are clearly a wee bit premature. Happy Birthday, Dad.