Random thought: I would really love to see a Checker Marathon EV conversion. I guess I find the prospect of super-anachronistic cars really appealing.

Good old American craftsmanship!

Mitsuoka built the Blazer that Chevy refused to build.

I nearly ponied up for Star Citizen because I’m an old Chris Roberts fan from the Wing Commander days. But as time has gone on and things remain unfinished, I wonder whether it might have been better to limit ambitions to something more like Freelancer or Wing Commander: Privateer. The perfect has been the enemy of…

The problem is that all of those cars are *boring* compared to the Soul. The Soul is a practical and kind of edgy. Getting a Soul EV wouldn’t feel like giving up. Getting a Niro, Kona, and Ioniq does feel like giving up.

The R1T isn’t what fleet operators will likely be buying. It’ll be something closer to, say the Renault Master ZE, or the London Electric Taxi Company’s delivery van, or, on the larger scale, Renault Trucks D ZE. Delivery trucks and vans in stripper spec, rather than fully-kitted out, four-motor, tank-turning status…

I know anecdotes are not data, but most privately-owned pickups I see in the suburbs are “hauling” loads that could have fit in a hatchback

I wonder whether the USPS LLV might be a good candidate for a drop-in electric drivetrain replacement. Set up a production line, get LLVs from the post office at regular intervals, and drop in short range EV drivetrains.  If their total mileage is less than 40 miles each day from their charge station, you can drop in…

There are a couple of things that make this a little more complicated.

Doesn’t matter what a truck is actually used for. The engineering and marketing is driven by truck capabilities. That’s what sells the truck. In the North American market, self-effacing trucklets are ruthlessly eliminated.

The problem of a hybrid truck, as far as I see, is that by the time you have electric motors big enough to supply the tractive effort that these things are called upon to supply, you’re also looking at big batteries. If you want a hybrid, you’re then looking at a relatively bulky generator unit. Pretty soon, you’ve…

Not to mention the fact that commercial vehicles drive more predictable routes, within more defined territories, which makes range management less of a problem for a fleet operator than for a private user.

Maybe not over the driveshaft, but over nearly everything else. Here’s what I’m thinking it might be like:

I’m guessing (guessing only) that you’d see a longer/broader belly pan that would run continuously from the bottom of the engine pan through to nearly the differential, including some sort of provision to direct air onto the cooling fins of the diff cooler they’d have to put on the GT500. 

Not as such, no. The stock GT doesn’t have much in the way of underbody aero. There’s the front splitter, the the rear diffuser, and the side skirts...but the underbody is just plain. 

The Ford Racing part tucks up just under the rocker panel--more of a sound mod than a looks mod, for sure. But I love it. It deletes the factory resonator and the side-dumps sound GLORIOUS. I still have the factory axle-back tailpipes and honestly I’m happy with the side dumps plus the factory exhaust. 

Of all the aero that would actually be useful in normal driving, the underbody stuff is what I want. I probably won’t feel a meaningful reduction in front-end lift unless I take it on the track. But on the street, a very slight improvement in aero could make a bit of difference in fuel range on a road trip, and that’s…

oh boy. The underbody aero parts excite me. That means I have a chance (possibly) to improve the aero on my way more plebeian GT for some marginal highway cruising range benefits.

This is pretty much the ideal Los Angeles vehicle, I imagine. It seldom rains there. There are places to ride it with intent within the electric range. EV infrastructure in California is more developed than elsewhere in the country. The law permits lane-splitting.

the number of banana peels I have to avoid on a daily basis is actually shocking