It had to happen eventually: Bob Lutz, the father of the Volt, admits his last but not least automotive child is not going to reliably meet his lofty expectations. ABC reports that in an interview at the NIAS,  Lutz let the air out of the Volt’s 40 mile EV range that has been predicted to be as reliable as the sun rising on a new day, and perpetuated by GM even more religiously than the 230 mpg claim: Sounding as if he had just read our recent post on EV range, ABC quotes Mr. Volt: (Read More…)

In the drippy, gray winters of the northwest, its hard keep things from growing, even on your car. Park it under a big fir tree, and the microscopic pollen sticks even to the paint. The greenish film attracts other species: lichen, moss, and even weeds and grass. That moss is pushing up through the holes on this vinyl roof like an alien invader. These are not junkers, but regular drivers. Even my ’05 xB has a bright green sheen on the outside bottom window seal. They were here first, and they’re determined to reclaim their territory. (Read More…)

My love and lust for cars is vast; I can (and do daily) rhapsodize about everything from giant dagmar-breasted yank tanks to pre-pubescent EV micro-cars. And I would gladly have affairs with (almost) any of them. But for some of us, there is one car that is the one, our automotive soul mate. You’re staring at mine, so watch it! Because even if this utterly perfect, exactly-according-to-my-specifications (except for the non-original hub caps) 356A daily driver doesn’t belong to me, we’re inextricably intertwined, and will reunite on another plane. Now that may turn out to just be the internet via this Curbside Classic, but since I’ve been carrying the 356 in my heart and head for over fifty years, that’s progress. But I have nagging doubts that I can do my true love justice in a blog post. I almost regret finding this Porsche; I don’t have the time (or ability) to write a book of love poems. (Read More…)

We’re going to stay with the finny-grilly theme a bit longer. The not-really-all-that-ugly Datsun F-10 was I.D.’d by DweezilSFV, who if memory serves me right, was a prior winner. Congrats! Let’s see what you all make of this little number.

Ok, it’s not exactly a new phenomena: car company shows a low and slick concept, and the final product looks like an obese baby seal. We took GM to task with its Volt bait-and-switch routine. And now we take on Honda, although probably not quite so ferociously; given that the gap between the CR-Z concept and production version is a tad bit narrower than the Volt Grand (Lie) Canyon. But the Volt was always intended to be a four-seater; not the CR-Z. Therein lies the Honda lie: it’s ok to just chop off the back of a sedan and call it…not good. (Read More…)

Is the Toyota FT-CH the first car deliberately designed to be a troll? It combines all the trigger elements that have kept servers warm since teh interwebs tubes were first hooked up: French, Low-CO, anti-Global Warming, Hybrid, Prius, Toyota, and Questionable Styling. Did I miss something? (Read More…)

One might quite reasonably have expected a smaller, lighter two-passenger variant of the Insight to achieve higher EPA numbers than its bigger brother. Say, like it did in 1989, when the CRX HF pulled a 41/50, compared to the ’89 Civic sedan’s 27/33. But reasonable expectations have been dashed by Honda more often than not lately, as in the Insight’s various shortcomings. But a 31/37/33 mpg combined rating for the new 2011 CRX manual, when the Insight is rated at a 41 combined? Does Honda have a death wish? That highway mileage is the same as the Chevy Cobalt XF, which doesn’t need any stinking battery and seats four. And even the combined mileage is only three mpg better. What gives? (Read More…)

(Curbside Classics paid a quick visit to TTAC Command Central in Portland on Saturday, and came away with a few goodies to share from that CC Elysian Fields this week)

With the presumed return of Alfa to our shores, its easy to forget that it seems like just yesterday (to us oldsters) that Alfa was selling its handsome 164 sedan hereabouts until 1995. To the more youthful here, the 164 may have been something you ogled from the back of the family Caravan on the way to grade school. Regardless; it’s a quickly disappearing part of the street-scape, and has some fascinating history behind that tasty exterior. (Read More…)

A major study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has determined that even if EV battery costs drop by a projected 65% by 2020, the economics will still constrain their widespread adoption. It challenges the industry assumption that a $250 per kWh cost for automotive batteries can be achieved by that date. Nevertheless, the report projects that hybrids, plug-ins and pure EVs will make up 26% of new cars sold in major developed markets. Specifically, the study projects 1.5 million EVs, 1.5 million range-extending EVs, and 11 million hybrids produced in 2020. Regarding the manufacturer’s holy grail of $250/kWh batteries:

Given current technology options, we see substantial challenges to achieving this goal by 2020. For years, people have been saying that one of the keys to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is the electrification of the vehicle fleet. The reality is, electric-car batteries are both too expensive and too technologically limited for this to happen in the foreseeable future.

—Xavier Mosquet, Detroit-based leader of BCG’s global automotive practice and a coauthor of the study

The study takes on the expectations that current EV technology with its range and cost limitations can effectively replace the IC powered car head on, (Read More…)

I’ll wrap up Van Sunday with this collection of vans that fit the stereotype of the kind of vehicle you warn children about. Why? because I have a compulsion (no, not that kind) to document all the old vehicles in Eugene, no matter what they are. Maybe these are of limited interest today, but who knows; fifty or a hundred years from now they’ll be a time capsule. Right! Actually, these snub-nose Econolines are getting pretty rare. More unhealthy vans: (Read More…)

Running into this Japanese Domestic Market Toyota Hi-Ace in Eugene was about as unusual as the cold weather that week. It was a frosty December morning after an overnight low in the single digits; pretty uncommon hereabouts. Well, it did have British Columbia plates on it, so that helps explains it. But it’s right hand drive, and a long way from home. (Read More…)

The last post on Mercedes campers got me thinking (wistfully) about the open road and how I have a grand total of four digital photos I could share with you from our six years and thirty-five thousand miles worth of travels in our 1977 Chinook. Like lots of amateur photographers, I have boxes and boxes of prints from our early years, and our first two kids. Guilt and a nagging wife kept me shooting film through our younger son’s childhood. And I took some nice shoots in a few dramatic places with the Chinook, on film. I transitioned very late to digital, partly because I couldn’t bear to give up the Canon 35mm rangefinder I bought new in ’77 and still works perfectly (I’m on my second digital, and the lens motor is already acting up). (Read More…)

I’m a lover of vans, especially those suitable for camping. Few things beats hopping into a vehicle with all the basic necessities of life and hitting the road. I have a vintage ’77 Dodge Chinook that I bought for $1200 in which we’ve racked up 35k memorable miles in trips to Mexico and all over the west. And in my younger days, I had a ‘68 Dodge A100 that I converted to a less wife-friendly (no bathroom) spartan camper. But all along, I’ve had my eyes on Mercedes vans. As a kid in Austria, I was absolutely in love with the delightfully rounded L319 (van) and 0319 (bus) Mercedes: (Read More…)

Truck Saturdays is when I can safely indulge my love of big rigs. And BigLorryBlog is the place to do it. Here’s a few selections picked for your truck viewing pleasure. This is described as a 325-ton transformer and 6000hp of go-power courtesy of five 8×8 Tractomas monster pullers and a 10×10 Tractomas pusher up the back crossing a bridge. Here’s another view: (Read More…)