badtziscool.com - Automotive

So today the Chevy Volt is announced and it claims an astounding 230 mpgs. To this I say, “What a crock!”

I really do have a problem with this and I’ll tell you why. It really isn’t 230 mpgs. The way they calculate this is that they start off with a fully charged battery. With a fully charged battery, the Volt is able to travel 40 miles without using a drop of gasoline. When this range is exceeded, the gasoline engine will activate and begin to provide the electricity to the electric motors rather than the batteries. In their 230 mpg calculations, they assume a daily mileage of 50 miles. With the Volt’s gasoline engine rated at 46 mpgs, that last 10 miles traveled will on only consume 0.217 gallons of fuel. So 50miles/0.217gallons equals 230 mpg.

But what they fail to do is calculate the cost of actually charging the battery to get the 40 mile range in the first place. I mean, its not free. You still have to pay the electricity bill and that electricity has to be produced somewhere.

So how would that mileage rating be affected if we factored in the cost of charging up the Volt’s battery everyday.

So the way the Volt manages its battery is as follows. The Volt will not use its battery if it’s below 30% of its capacity and it will not allow it to be charged above 80% of its capacity. This technique is used primarily to maximize the lifespan of its batteries, which is mainly true for nearly all rechargable batteries. To charge the Volt’s batteries from 30% to 80% takes 9.9kWh. As of today, Reliant energy charges 14.1 cents per kWh. That equates to $1.40 for a “fill-up” on the batteries. With gas prices currently at $2.40 per gallon, cost wise, the battery “fill-up” is eqivalent to .58 gallons. And as stated before, with a range of 40 miles on batteries alone, that equates to 69mpg. Now given this, lets recalculate the Volt’s rated mileage for that 50 mile per day average commute. 50miles/(40miles/69miles/gallon + 10miles/46miles/gallon) equals 62mpg.

Now, granted. 62mpg is waaaay better than 18mpg or 25mpg or even 35mpg but it’s no where near as impressive as 230mpg. In fact, 62mpg is about the same as some fuel economy diesels currently being produced in Europe and those diesels don’t cost anywhere near the $40,000 the Volt does. This forms the basis of my rant. Why are we producing these vehicles that only concentrate on improving mpg and only does so adequately. And why are we producing these much more complex machines that uses up even more environmental damaging materials? How and where are lead/lithium/acid/plastics being mined and produced? These cars will not solve our problems. It’ll reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it will never completely get rid of it. It’ll reduce emissions but it’ll never completely get rid of it. And at a time where the American car manufacturers are teetering on the brink of extinction, why invest in something that will only solve our problems 20 years out? Why not invest in something that will solve our problems indefinitely?

I believe Honda is going in the right step with its FCX Clarity. Hydrogen fuel cell is the way to go. I’ll explain why I believe this is the way to go sometime in the near future. I just needed to rant on this asinine Volt.

Yeah.  I have one of my Pro6800 on eBay for auction if you’re interested. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=230342393371

Here’s a pic of the two together.  Crazy.

No matter how much time and money I spend on my car stereo, I always find different areas I tell myself I can improve upon.  It’s not like it’s a crappy system.  It’s better than many stereos out there, both home and car.  I haven’t heard any factory or even “aftermarket” stereos that sound as good as mine and yet, I still find fault with it.

 Sucks ass.

 I know I keep saying this, but updated pics will come soon.

Man.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  The last time I posted was right before Hurricane Ike.  Man.  What an ordeal!  No power, no internet for 12 days straight.  Some nights were cool enough to sleep in.  Some nights was just unbearable.  And then after that, the financial and stock markets just went straight to the crapper along with the economy.  All within about 6 months time.  But we’re still ok out here in Texas.  Job market isn’t as bad as some places.  Home values haven’t dropped as dramatially.  The financial situation with the State is just fine.  It’s good to be in Texas now. 

Anyways.  During the life changing period of the past six months, I’ve managed to install my MB Quarts, Eclipse HU, install and tweak my PPI Pro6800, find ANOTHER Pro6800 in absolute mint condition (pics soon to follow), buy an MTX 5400x to use as my everyday amp, sell my PC4400, put up for auction my PC2300 (which you can find here), sell my stocks, file my taxes, go snowboarding, and adhear to my New Year’s Resolution.  Pretty good so far.

I’ll be posting more often here shortly.  There are a few things that I want to show, talk about, discuss, etc. 

Stay tuned!

It was actually a nice day today, which motivated me to install my head unit.  It’s the Eclipse AVN 5500.  I like it.  Yeah, it’s not as nice as the newest ones like the 6600, but all I really care about is improving my sound quality, and man, did it ever.  The factory head unit SUCKS BALLS!  There’s just too much equalization in all the wrong places to make it sound good.  I’m still not done with it.  I have all of the functions running, except for the navigation.  I just need to find the speed sensor wire and tap it for the navi system to work.  All else works beautifully, and I even modified it so that it will play DVD movies without having to be in park and with the parking brake on.  I have a bunch of pics, but I’ll put them up later as part of my How-To section.  For now, here it is installed in the bracket.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know I need to make some sort of bezel to cover the gap.  Maybe something out of carbon fiber?  =)

Well, I finally got the stuff to redo my system.  The amp came in and the head unit came in.  It was a close call though on the amp.  It seems like DHL dropped the box at one point in time.  When I opened it up, I saw one of the feet was bent severely.  Then when I flipped the amp, I heard something like a metal rod flopping around.  I was not happy.  The sender was kind enough to let me return the item and get a refund, but this amp is so rare that I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to see it again for a long time.  So I opened it up, and luckily the bar was some sort of grounding bar in a compression fitting.  So I just lightly hammered the bar back into its fitting, reassembled the amp, and tested every channel.  It seems to work just fine.  Even the xovers worked.  So I told him that I’ll just keep it.  Hopefully, it won’t go bad down the road.  Perhaps this is a testament to the indestructability of these old school amps. 

Beautiful.  Isn’t it!?

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted.  I guess I was getting bored of the car.  At one point I was even considering trading it in for another car.  I always talked myself out of it though because getting another car would prove to:

1. Cost more.
2. Cost less but be even more unsatisified with it.
3. Be even more impractical.
4. Be just not as nice or good looking to me.

I considered a Z4, 350Z Roadster, 335i, 4-door Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, but the convertibles were more impractical, the BMWs would cost more and the Jeep would be more practical but much slower and more clumsy, and the one thing that I found in common with ALL of the choices was that I would have to modify them in some way or form.

 Which takes me back to square one.  It’s modified somewhat, and the mods that I’ve done I’ve been pretty satisfied with… except for one:  the audio system.

The factory sound is…. umm…. ok for what it is.  I didn’t opt for the Bose system because they aren’t really worth it no matter how much people say it is.  Call me picky.  Call me anal.  But don’t say that I’m not right.  A while back I tried to fix my audio dilemma by adding some subs to the factory system.  Here’s the parts and them installed.

Image Dynamics IDQ10 with Precision Power PC2300 and PC4400.  I love these amps.  I think they’re the best looking amps ever made and these were the last models produced by PPI before they were bought out by DEI and went to crap.  I planned to use the PC4400 for my MB Quarts 5.25″ components I’ve had for a while, but I never got around to installing them up. 

I guess in the back of my mind, I knew the stock head unit wouldn’t do the MBs any justice.  Months later, I found that I was right.  I dusted off the MBs and plugged them up to the PC2300 just to see what they would sound like.  Nothing but NOISE!  The problem was that I was using a high level signal from the rear speakers that I tapped.  In addition, the factory headunit manipulates the signal in such a way that it allows the factory crap speakers to play within their capabilities, so the really low and really high frequencies are eq’d out.  Sucks.

So now I’m re-doing my entire system.  I bit the bullet and bought the necessary components to make this happen.  What’s funny is that all of the new parts that I bought just kinda made themselves available almost at the same time.  The double din aluminum finisher for the 05+ G35 became available along with an Eclipse AVN5500 and other stuff like iPod connector, rear view camera, steering wheel adapter, etc. was found on G35driver.com.  For a good price I might add.  Then a 4080 single 10 sub box made itself available a couple of days later, and it was local!!!  No shipping charges here.  But here’s the real kicker.  For the longest time I’ve been looking for a Precision Power Pro6800 amp.  6 channels.  800Watts of continuous and glorious power.  Channels 5 and 6 are bridgeable into 2 ohms.  Built in 3way crossover.  This thing is AWESOME, and I finally found one on eBay.  Bought it on the spot. 

I CAN’T WAIT for it to arrive.  I’m still a bit nervous, mind you, about the amp and headunit because I haven’t seen them personally, but from what I can tell I bought these things from reputable people.  Let’s hope my instincts are correct.  Knock on wood!

Everyone is saying that LED tech is the future of automotive lighting and will soon be adapted to provide lighting for headlights, foglights, running lights, etc.  I beg to differ.

 Introducing Luxim’s Plasma Light Bulb.  The size of a typical LED, Luxim’s Plasma bulb is double layered with the inner layer filled with argon gas.  Very similar to Xenon/HID technology used today but about the 10th the size.  Where it differs the most to current HID technology is how that electrical energy is delivered to the bulb.  Using what’s known as a Puck, which is basically an electrical lens, they can concentrate the electrical energy to the bulb, heat up the Argon gas which turns it into plasma and thus emits a bright light.  However, this energy delivery is effeciently converted to light energy rather than heat energy.  Luxim’s Plasma bulb can generate 140 lumens per watt vs. the latest LED tech which can “only” deliver 70 lumens per watt.

 CNET has a video demonstrating the brightness and efficiency of Luxim’s Plasma bulb.  Have a look!

http://www.news.com/Luxims-tiny-but-powerful-plasma-lightbulb/1606-2_3-6234653.html

You can visit Luxim’s website at http://www.lifi.com/

Merry Xmas everyone!  It’s been a while since I posted.  Well, I just recently ran into a good bit of information on motor oils.  I figure this would be something good to have and share.  Enjoy!

http://auto.badtziscool.com/informational/oil-analysis-and-information/

Just a couple more pics of the roof overlay.  I had some sun today, but I need to rewash my car again.  Damn construction.