The gas engine on the 2016 Volt can and does drive the wheels directly, much more frequently than the earlier models. I own a 2016.

The gas engine on the 2016 Volt can and does drive the wheels directly, much more frequently than the earlier models. I own a 2016.

Umm, the gas engine in the Volt isn’t a generator, it drives the wheels.

What’s your opinion on the Chevy Bolt or the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid?

#COTD!

Gone in sixty-two seconds...

If the $7,500 subsidy was paid on *every* EV sold in the U.S. thus far, it would total a little over $4 billion. The oil, natural gas, and coal industries got $600 billion in 2013 alone.

Yes! Totally correct!

This should only apply from 1/2 mile before to 1/2 mile after an interchange or on-/off-ramp, and only during a busy period. This shouldn’t just be a standard rule, because someone going too slow in your #2 lane can essentially turn a 4-lane highway into a 2-lane highway.

Thank you! Too many people just say to keep out of the left lane, but people need to keep out of *every* left lane. “Keep right except while passing” means “stay in the right-most lane you can”, not “stay out of the left lane”. The right lane should have a draw like gravity, and you should always be trying to move…

I’ve had a soft spot for Australia ever since it won me a game. I was down to just Australia, my opponent had the rest of the map. I survived a turn of combat, turned in cards for a massive amount of armies, and proceeded to run the board. It was great.

For some reason, I taught a lot of my friends to drive a stick. I had a crappy old manual 1987 Hyundai Excel 4-door hatchback on a salvage title, but this was more than most of my friends had.

These engines are designed to handle a fan bladeout situation. Look up GP7200 blade out tests on Youtube to see an example.

Ahh, the GP7200. I was on the first flight ever of that engine; literally the first time it powered an aircraft in flight, on a 747 test bed. I’m proud to see that it still kept the passengers safe despite a catastrophic failure. Makes my job have so much more meaning.

Are the drivers of other cars considered a design element? Because it would totally be that.

Why is this even a feature? They have auto-opening doors, but the auto-braking safety feature isn’t “always-on” without a complicated set of steps to disable it? Their engineering is great, but some of their decisions are questionable.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

NACLK9 took me longer than I’d care to admit, but I had to laugh when I got it.

I work for a company that tests jet engines in flight, and have been on around 400 test flights. I’ve been in stalls, zero-G dives, and in the middle of ice-generating clouds that airline pilots will avoid. There are many times I have spent several *hours* in turbulence at only 2500 feet above the ground; we can’t…

I play the advanced ABC game - for license plates that have three letters in them (California cars, for instance), find words that contain all three letters. The rules are - no punctuation between the letters, proper names are allowed, and no personally made up words (made-up words from published novels are…