The True Danica

I'm not following Danica Patrick much, but there is a neat interview with her in Vanity Fair, here.

If somehow, inexplicably, you do win tomorrow, promise us that you'll moon the other racers and scream, "Suck it, losers!"

(Laughs.) I think it'd be really funny if I started winning all the time and became really annoyingly girly and put on lipstick before every race and started wearing heels and stuff like that. I probably can't back any of this up, because I'd feel really uncomfortable and self-conscious and I'd never follow through. But it's a funny idea.

I like her more after reading the interview... her whole bikini-girl-racer image, and the stupid dot com commercials she is doing make her seem very superficial. The interview shows a much more interesting person.

Subaru CVT

Scott Burgess writing at the Detroit News (article here) reviews the Subaru Legacy with CVT.

Really, the only way to sanely drive the Legacy Limited is with the paddle shifters. If you don't use them and leave the car in automatic mode, it's confusing and uncomfortable.

When you launch the vehicle, its revs tend to jump and then stay too high. Because the shift points are gone, something feels off -- though the Legacy is performing exactly the way it was designed. The CVT searches for the most efficient engine speed to produce the power it needs -- this is one of the reasons CVTs provide better gas mileage.

Paddle shifters, faux shift points, on a CVT?

It's Subaru's attempt to make customers feel at home. But it's silly. Instead of trying to fool you into thinking you are driving an automated manual gearbox, automakers should take the time to educate consumers about the benefits of CVTs. And if the unit whines, or the engine revs high longer than people are used to, perhaps what is needed is better noise management. Once people get used to the idea of CVTs, they won't be annoyed at their feel.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of the dual clutch automated manual designs. They have very good efficiency, and avoid some of the serviceability questions of CVTs. And they can have "real" paddle shifters.

The AutoProphet GeoCache Challenge, Week 2

No one has claimed my TopGear DVD geocache prize, so we are on to week 2. As far as I know, it is still there (I will check on it later today).

The coordinates are listed in the original post, here.

The Truth About Tango

Winding Road has a write-up of the Commuter Cars Tango T600 electric car, which was available for test-drives at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show.

What WR doesn't bother telling us is that the Tango is not really a production vehicle. It is sold as a kit. After you plunk down your $108,000, you get a shipment of a rolling chassis. Followed later by a shipment of missing parts that you can bolt on yourself, or have one of the Commuter Cars guys come out and install for you.

And if you live outside of the Spokane, WA area, where do you go if you need your Tango serviced? I assume you will have to have a Commuter Cars rep fly out to you.

There is currently one street legal, mass produced, electric-only vehicle in the U.S., and that is the Tesla Roadster. Everything else is, at this point, either vapor-ware or a toy.

Transportation Secretary: "Stop Driving Recalled Toyotas"

According to Reuters', Transportation Secretary Roy LaHood told the House Appropriations Committee on Transportation:

LaHood says his advice to owners is to "stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it."

Wow.

LaHood needs to be more careful what he says--he could cause some real public relations problems, for himself and for Toyota.

While sticky throttle pedals are a serious problem, the failure mode is rare, and completely controllable if the driver pays attention and keeps a cool head.

To repeat:

1) Press brakes firmly
2) Put the gear selector in N
3) Pull over

If 2) is a problem for some reason, you can turn off the motor.

Rocket Sled Man Fails Darwin Award Attempt

In the Oakland Press this morning, a 62 year old Independence Township man almost killed himself in glorious drunk fashion.

After consuming "unknown quantities of alcohol", he strapped on a motorcycle muffler which he had stuffed full of gunpowder, match-heads, and gasoline. He also put on a motorcycle helmet and a cape. Then he had a friend light his fuse, and started down the hill on a plastic orange sled, no doubt after saying something like "Hey guys! Watch this!"

It did not end well. But, he didn't quite make it onto the Darwin Awards--he's in the hospital.

Link.

The Toyota Pedal Fix

If you go to Toyota's media site, you can see this graphic which shows the change they are making in their pedal.
The toothy thing is a pedal feedback mechanism which uses friction to give the pedal a certain amount of resistance at the end of its travel.

What Toyota is doing is putting a shim in behind the pedal arm, to limit its travel. Which means that unless they reprogram their ECU to interpret the new position as WOT (wide open throttle), customers won't ever be able to get to WOT--instead they'll top out at 97% or whatever the new maximum travel point corresponds to.

So in addition to installing "precision cut steel", I would expect Toyota to also have to spend a few minutes on each car to reprogram the throttle pedal calibration curves. Unless, of course, the extra few percent of travel isn't needed.