Category: Drive Time

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Irritating, isn’t it?

So that’s why, whenever I have to drive more than a few miles on U.S. concrete-paved roads, I arrive at my destination in a mood that can best be described as “Gimme that puppy, I’m gonna bite its fucking head off.”

Look, I understand the installation of concrete roads instead of ordinary (smooth) tarred roads.  I know that tarred roads wear out more quickly than concrete slabs, and I know that replacing broken concrete is easier / cheaper than resurfacing tarmac.

Yet I wonder how it is that South Africa — which is just as hot as Texas, and can have temperature fluctuations just as extreme — can get by with smooth tarred roads over similar long distances, carrying about the same weight of traffic, and yet their roads are, if anything, better than ours to drive on.

The reason for all this rage is that a couple of days ago I went looking for a new apartment located closer to New Wife’s place of work, and had to drive there and back after, it should be said, great success.  (Cliff Notes: much cheaper than Plano, acceptable compromises and a better kitchen than our current apartment.  We move on June 1.)

When I got home at the end of all this, I had driven back the dozen-odd miles along the Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk road, and the closer I got to home, the more I wanted to rub a cheese grater over my scrotum because New Wife has had to endure this torture for the past two years.  That’s 125 miles a week along the Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk roads, and in Sputum, her Fiat 500 with its pathetic excuse for suspension withal.

Small wonder she’s sometimes kinda grumpy at the end of the day.  I myself would be reaching for the puppy the minute I walked in the door.

What’s even more interesting is that Plano has started to lay tarmac over some stretches of its concrete roads, and I have to tell you that this is in no small part why I get into such a bate about the fucking concrete Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk roads — the contrast is unbelievable, and I have been known to drive somewhat out of my way just to enjoy the noiseless travel over tarmac.

I should also point out that the very first time I visited this country, back in 1982, I drove from New York City to New England, back to New York and thence to Disneyworld, over to New Orleans and back to NYfC, over a period of about 3-4 weeks.  I-95 north and south, and I-10 / whatever I took back to New York put me in a fearful mood, and every time I could dump the interstates and head along back (tarred) roads, I took the opportunity to do so.

Small wonder, then, that my honeymoon (with Wife #1, a youthful mistake anyway) turned out to be, shall we say, less than a resounding success.

There’s nothing like having a running argument over the Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk-Ker-Chunk noise, for three full weeks, to doom a relationship.

I’m just lucky that New Wife is made of better stuff than I am, and I am horribly chagrined to have taken this long to improve her lifestyle.

Well, you were about to catch a flight out of St. Louis after having sold your company to a bunch of Missouri bankers, but Al Qa’eda / ISIS / Hamas blew up the airport, fortunately before you got there.

With the concomitant chaos, you figure that your best bet to get home is to drive there, wherever “home” is.  But you’ve got a large check in your briefcase, and as it happens, you come across Daniel Schmitt & Co, a purveyor of fine cars to the discerning customer — so you think to yourself, “What Would Kim Do?”, and of course, Kim would take some of that money and buy a decent car for the drive home.  Especially when Messrs. Schmitt & Cie. have things like this available:

Assume, for the sake of it, that all the cars in their showroom would be reliable enough to get you home (even the British and Italian ones).

So browse among them, and pick the ONE you would dump the dough on, start up and set off in.  And let me know in Comments which one, and why.

It may take you a while…

Okay, you may all start laughing at me now, but here’s my latest automotive crush:

…and all the details are here.

The biggest knock on the Healeys is, of course, their ability to spew oil and lose carburetors.  And then there’s , courtesy of Lucas Electrical (the Prince of Darkness) and failing instruments (the Rootes of All Evil).

But.

If that thing isn’t drop-dead gorgeous to you, we can’t be friends.  And its roaring 2.9-liter straight-six engine… I need a cigarette, and I don’t even smoke.

FYI:  we had one in the family, but my Mom made Dad sell it because she felt like a floozy driving it, and “all the men looked at her”.  (Which says all you need to know about my mother.)

I feel faint.  Mostly because of its price, but anyway.

I am often accused of being an EV-hater, in that I write so often about the shortcomings of said vehicles and, more often, the uncertainty of keeping them alive, so to speak.

I don’t hate EVs.  If I still lived where I used to live in Chicago, I would almost certainly be tempted by, say, an electric Smart Fortwo* or something similarly tiny with which I could make my way around the city in small, convenient trips to get stuff (like groceries) that are a huge PITA to carry around on the bus or in a taxi, both of which are in steady supply in Chicago.  In fact, the real utility of an EV in such a scenario comes not in the little trips to and from the supermarkets, book stores and liquor stores, but in trips slightly further afield, such as trips to the racecourse, a concert venue like Rosemont and similar suburban destinations.  You see, while getting a trip out there is no big deal, finding a cab or bus for the return trip can be problematic (ask me how I know this).

And if I lived in a coastal town e.g. somewhere in Florida, I could equally be tempted into using an electric runaround like an e-Moke for those little trips to restaurants, beaches and yes, supermarkets and liquor stores.

However, there are several drawbacks to owning an EV as one’s primary (or only) transport, principal of which is that the EV market presupposes a convenient, reliable and unending supply of electricity.  And as we’re rapidly discovering, said supply is not only none of the above, but in fact, the situation is likely to get still worse as demand starts to exceed supply and the infrastructure, already proving to be inadequate, start to fall apart.

“But you can always just recharge your EV at home,” you may say.

Perhaps this little story from Britishland may be instructive:

T.T. writes: Eon Drive installed an electric vehicle (EV) wall charger at my house last year but it has never worked. 

Despite offering a guarantee, Eon has refused to attend my property to investigate or fix the problem.

Tony Hetherington replies: Eon told you the problem was ‘voltage fluctuation’ in the electricity supply to your home, so you had it monitored by Energy North West. When this showed nothing was wrong, you contacted Utilities Alternative Dispute Resolution – a sort of licensed ombudsman scheme which referees problems involving EV equipment.

The ADR adjudicator ruled Eon had to fix the charger or remove it within 28 days. This did not happen, and in the end you sold your electric car.

The story continues, with all sorts of typically-British complications thrown in, but the point made is still valid:  electricity is not necessarily a slam-dunk commodity in terms of its supply… anymore.  Indeed, the very fact that EV batteries typically require a “boosted” power supply to work properly or at least be recharged more rapidly should give plenty of reason for skepticism.  Ordinary household electrical systems, apparently, are just not up to the task.

That seems to be the case in 240v-powered Britishland, in any event, with its short distances between destinations;  how we are going to fare in 110v-Murka with its endless highway system and huge distances between Points A and B?  I leave it to you to guess.

The reasons, by the way, why I said yesterday that FJB’s new regulations aren’t going to work Over Here are quite simple.

In the first place, there is no way in hell that we are going to be able to build not only the generation system (we used to call them “power stations” back in simpler times) but the delivery infrastructure to satisfy the enormous increase in demand that a mandated universal EV regime would require.

Secondly, we are not Europeans or Brits, who have a long and storied heritage of supine acquiescence to government diktat;  in fact, we are notorious for our inherent resistance thereto.

So government flunkies and their lickspittles can pass all the laws and regulations they want;  we’ll just ignore or –far  more likely — actively resist mandated regulation.

We shall see how it all shakes out, of course.  But I am more optimistic than most, in this scenario at least.

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*except that Smart can’t actually make an electric Fortwo because it’s not big enough to hold the size of battery required, hence the Smart #1 which is a complete POS, not the least in its nomenclature.