Nixy

How much of this is even liquid vs something like Microsoft offering an equivalent dollar amount of Azure compute time anyway?

*the Ultium refresh of the Bolt
I need to learn to better proof read my posts before hitting send :v

Yeah I think they'll gradually chip away and get a decent marketshare but the way people talk about them it's like the instant BYD shows up in a market all the other vendors get wiped out.

Absolutely agree about the later point; would love to have something like a Nissan Sakura as a daily driver!

It's been really nice seeing Ultium vehicle production ramp up gradually over the last few years. Seeing Blazers, Equinox and even Brightdrop vans pretty much daily now. Just hope they don't kill the Ultium refresh because my god we need a domestic EV that isn't the size of a house.

Not really? Like even with the European vendors half committed to EVs/having far less mature platforms the Chinese imports aren't that much cheaper in Europe. Just compare how something like the Seal is priced compared to the Model 3 in most markets.

Oh I'm aware it's AM radio loudmouth hell zone but the weird evangelical shtick does not have seem to have stuck outside of small circles of sickos thank god.

Think the dumbest part is the original article mentions the latest cancellation was in Quebec City. Wtf kind of crowd were they expecting there? 20 confused francophones who thought they were going to hear country music and like 3 fans that drove up from Maine?

zebrafinch/キンカチョウ/錦華鳥

守りたい、この寝顔

Was looking for a kerf maker recently and forgot how to spell kerf but searching for "sawblade compensation tool" on Amazon and harcware store sites and it just brought up multitool blades!

Best part is the pitch for this is it's supposed to allow you to search for something without naming it directly but they can't even do that anymore. No wonder people marvel at McMasters interface, it's not advanced, it's archaic really but works because it actually indexes items.

The SAS cost report was really illuminating in that regard. If I recall correctly, the total cost for excavation was in the ballpark of 300 mil despite it being entirely done via TBMs and underground excavation? It was maddening to see how small of a percentage the infra was relative to total budget

I don't know that C&C is honestly that big of a cost driver after talking to engineers that work in the field. I agree we should prioritize open excavation when possible/desirable (*cough* SV BART) but the more data I look at the less tunneling method seems to be a cost driver.

You're in the service area of a transit agency about to have its budget gutted and going "well why don't they just fire all the drivers make the bus a computer" instead of pointing to this as a distraction/stunt and calling for financially reaming anyone who wants to own a Durango in Center City.

Do you think I'm a lobbyist for the Big Three? I want to see the automobiles modal share crushed. My point is buying into the AV crap just feeds into the narrative cars aren't a nuisance/hazard in cities. How many breathless takes in publications talk about AVs as the thing that will "solve traffic"

Kent cigarette with a blue asbestos filter.

Surely a big corporate conglomerate wouldn't put out products they know to be unsafe just to push wider policy goals or juice their financial numbers. Would be totally unprecedented. Anyway, I have to go pick up the kids in my new Pinto.

I rode an AV pilot pod and the poor bastard from Kéolis had to control the damn thing around a tree because the LIDAR sensor interpreted leaves that had grown on a tree situated on the sidewalk as an obstacle. Insane to see supposed advocates pretend this tech is anywhere near production ready.

Interesting! Glad to hear they didn't force mobile down everyone's throats. Surprised they still have paper tickets too. Out of curiosity, are they just using a vendor like Conduent on the backend or was this built by a domestic vendor?

Hadn't heard about ROGER until now and god does any transit agency actually ship a decent mobile app? Please tell me they at least have a physical fare card and don't force everyone to use an app.

It would be interesting to try and quantify at what population and/or density threshold farebox recovery becomes significant enough to justify the overhead of a fare system and its administration. Could study how much regionally managed fare collection actually helps with admin costs too.

I'm aware there's edge cases like Kingston that adopted their current fare card system before Presto was really ready and it wouldn't make sense to migrate it before EOL but there's no reason agencies migrating at this point in time shouldn't just be given Presto readers to deploy on their fleets.

Weird thing is we in theory have all the infrastructure for this in Ontario in place already. The first major project of Metrolinx was Presto and while it didn't have the smoothest rollout it works fine and I really don't understand how we haven't made it a point to push all the agencies to use it.

Is it known where these are being manufactured? Is this a case of one model being built at scale in a factory out near the Urals or is it diffused across a load of small shops?

Four pinback buttons depicting various cute little cats dressed as clowns.

me and the squad

Fantastic list, thank you for compiling this. Just a heads up, I noticed the link to KNFB readers appears to point to a... Thai gambling site? Definitely one of the oddest cases of domain squatting I've ever seen.

Oh balls, my apologies. I've run into too many Yglesias types who just think everything in Japan has ATO and it broke my sarcasm detector.

True. NiMH being such a mature chemistry that isn't nearly as picky with operating temperatures and charge/discharge cycles over NMC and LFP is definitely a huge plus in terms of reliability.

Oh interesting! I've encountered people who went from looking at PHEVs to plain hybrids because of the insane lead times but first time I've heard of someone going to a BEV instead. Guess BEVs are finally not nearly as supply constrained; we got quoted 6+ months wait for the Ioniq 5 back in 2023.

Yeah that's definitely still a big issue. Have a friend that had to wait 6+ months for a Prius Prime recently and he only got one not because he got a call by Toyota but because he started phoning every dealership around Toronto for stock!

Theory is since you're splitting duty cycle between a traction motor and engine the engine isn't being pushed as much as on a pure ICE car. Plus the traction motor is handling the low speed/0-30 which usually involves ramping up at high revs between several gear changes on traditional drivetrain.

You could make the same point about PHEVs though and those at least have full electric autonomy for city driving if you chose to install a charger/EVSE.