Cars rarely explode their battery cells all over the place either. And I’ve picked up plenty of cars that DID catch fire from a fuel release after a wreck (I drove wreckers in Corvallis during grad school). One of my co-workers was called out to one where both occupants did not escape, and were burned up in the…

Not only that, this happened in Corvallis. The whole town is basically 4 square miles with full bus service, plus there’s a dispensary within walking distance from anywhere in town. And they do deliveries too. But I did LOL when I got the alert on NextDoor. Even more amused when all the “Why would they build such a…

Meh.... You don’t need MCAS to stall a plane. Look what happened just a few days ago:

My mom’s Mercedes GLK350 has all fake-leather seats. My Focus has all real-leather seats. Explain that.

Whoa good catch! You’re right. And it’s definitely a conversion van, not a factory passenger van, based on window shape. It does make sense you might find one at a port. If you want a fancy van, but need to tow your yacht, you aren’t going to get even half the power or torque from a european van.

One of the rapid tests misses HALF of positive cases. So yeah, it might also miss half of HIS tests. And he’s most likely treating it like a breathalyzer: “I didn’t pass??? Do it again!”

The grid may need less upgrading than you think, depending on region, and what part of grid. Rather than only having a handful of mega-generators supplying the grid, we now also have a bunch of small and micro generators, reducing the strain on primary transmission lines. It’s gotten to the point were utilities have…

There’s a graph in the article, showing that the throttle pedal position was not at 100% until the time of impact.

Vinyl resins can be made from soybean oil, but if they don’t explicitly state plant-based esters, I’d assume it’s regular petroleum-based resins. They cost less. And are still vegan, since no dinos were intentionally harmed in the making of crude oil.

FWIW - Ford uses soy esters for seat foams, but that’s not the norm…

Why not? They don’t give you a dead pedal to rest your foot on while using AP. Somebody tired is just going to put their feet wherever comfortable. That’s kinda the point of the article. Current autonomous driving as-implemented helps drivers zone out, but can then thrust you into a high-resource-scenario with little…

You can find used 1st gen Connect EVs. Powertrain was installed by Azure Dynamics. 80 mile range. They previously teased EV and hybrid variants of the current connect, but I’m guessing they never found any launch customers to commit to enough orders to make it happen.

It’s vinyl. But you can charge more when you call it “vegan leather”.

Where do you see he was “flooring it”? The graph shows TPS starting at 40 and steadily climbed to go, and then “floored” at time of impact. This looks like somebody resting their foot on the throttle while zoned out or even asleep. Aggressive drivers don’t use steady state partial thottle.

This market segment is full-size vans in the North America, so yes, it is. But, it would be neat if you shared some tech specs of existing offerings we don’t get.

The highest GVWR in a single-rear-wheel variant is 9950 pounds. Ford is claiming similar payloads (ho similar TBD) to the gas variant, which makes complete sense, since fleets need to maintain common capacities to have a vehicle in rotation. Can you imagine being an Amazon dispatcher, and have a handful of vans that…

The Fusion was available with a 3.0L V6 and AWD since launch in 2006, then available with a 3.5L V6 and AWD in 2020.  The V6 option did go away in favor of the 2.0L turbo in 2013, but then came back in 2017 with the 2.7L twin-turbo from the F150.

Better cargo rail networks? Um no. Not even close. Sure, US passenger rail sucks, but US freight rail is pretty amazing.

Don’t forget all the eviction and foreclosure bans coming to an end, and the full curtailment of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or the end of Covid-related illness or dependent care as a qualified reason for Unemployment benefits.... Plus the construction bond market is having rough go right now, so we might be…

For sure. The Transit is barely feasible as an EV, and its at least 50% more efficient than a SuperDuty. Thinking “EV all the things!!!” is pretty ignorant of the physics and current battery tech. You’d spend more time charging than driving, and the battery weight needed for reasoable range would mean folks would be…

The only thing shared between the ‘75 and ‘92 Econolines was the rear axle and the engine blocks. While the chassis does share similar dimensions, it is actually different and nothing is interchangeable. Source: Learned to drive on a ‘78 E250, and my driving privileges were based on me doing all maintenance and…