Category: Cars, including self-driving

Minivan news for the 2027 model year (TL;DR: time to buy a Tesla Y L)

by philg

There were no improvements in minivans from Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, or Kia for 2026 (see Minivan news for the 2026 model year). What did the legacy automakers do with the additional year of engineering time? There are no improvements in minivans for the 2027 model year either! Honda’s driver assistance tech on the Odyssey, for example, is the same as it was in 2017 (for the 2018 model year). The only change for Honda is a $400 price increase. Car and Driver says that “the [Toyota] Sienna carries over into 2027 unchanged” (this is the only manufacturer from whom we might have to wait until October to get official news; maybe there will be some tech improvement over what was introduced in 2020).

Chrysler killed the plug-in hybrid version of the Pacific and tweaked the styling (for people like us who buy minivans for maximum style/prestige!).

So… it is time to buy the Tesla Y L. Car and Driver:

A dynamic difference we can comment on is the Y L’s new suspension. The Y L uses the Y Premium’s single-valve adaptive damping with a specific tune for the L’s larger chassis that prioritizes comfort without permitting unnecessary body roll in corners. There’s even a passenger-comfort setting that attempts to absorb more impacts for those in the rear seats. Anyone who has ever bounced around in the back of a Tesla Uber will appreciate the idea of a softer rear-seat ride. The Model Y’s excessively firm ride has long been a sticking point at C/D, and the Y L addresses it in a way that doesn’t compromise the car’s handling strengths.

I guess we won’t be able to get one until March? It would be absurd to have an AWD version in Florida (the last snowstorm in Palm Beach County was on January 19, 1977 and deposited 1/4 inch). Dragging around a second motor that compromises the range makes no sense. (The extra acceleration from from the dual motor version isn’t interesting either given that the RWD Model Y can do 0-60 in roughly the same amount of time as our Odyssey, which is overpowered for America’s traffic-choked roads.) A friend in Maskachusetts ordered the Launch edition as a replacement for his Lucid Air due to that machine’s lack of FSD and, of course, he will be able to take advantage of AWD if Climate Change doesn’t progress faster than expected by the expert consensus. When he ordered the machine, a couple of weeks after the launch of the Launch, he was told that it would be delivered in September or October. This was later updated to perhaps as late as December.

I don’t think the Y L will win any beauty contests, but maybe it isn’t dramatically uglier than the Y? It’s 7-9 inches shorter than today’s minivans.

(source)

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Tesla FSD ergonomic disaster: no right footrest (dead pedal)

by philg

A friend lent his almost-new Tesla S out (not to me!) and the result was a Cybertruck rental while the bumper got some rehab.

The Cybertruck’s FSD struggled at low speeds due to constant phantom human sightings. We’re pretty sure that this was due to a camera’s interaction with the Maskachusetts front license plate (Florida does not require this disfigurement).

I sat in the driver seat for a 45-minute FSD from Dedham to Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA. The system performed commendably except that chill mode hogged third lane (out of four) on I-95/128 and obstructed traffic flow by driving 55 mph during the intervals without significant traffic. It should be smart enough to know that a strict speed limit driver should stick to the two right lanes if four are available.

My primary take-away is that Tesla hasn’t thought through the ergonomics of 98% self-driving. For close to 100 years, cars have been engineered so that the driver can extend both of his/her/zir/their feet (need to be gender-inclusive since we’re talking about a trip around Boston). The left foot sits on a footwell rest or, sometimes, a “dead pedal” that is at roughly the same distance from the driver as the clutch (old-school manual transmission requiring quick changes of position for the left foot). The right foot rests comfortable on the gas pedal.

With the 2026 Model S, however, there is nowhere to rest one’s right foot when self-driving. Either the footwell needs to be a little wider or the accelerator and brake pedals need to be moved closer to the center of the existing footwell so as to make room for a dead pedal on the right. More complex idea since Tesla buyers love technology for its own sake: a rest for the right foot that automatically extends slightly when FSD is engaged and that retracts back into the floor when driving manually (“like an animal”).

A few photos of the Tesla Collision Center and the 10:00 am traffic that we suffered through to get there. (I can’t figure out how people in Boston are so passionate about open borders and the attendant population growth. They are gradually being imprisoned in their own neighborhoods by ever-worsening traffic.)

Car & Driver magazine, 1962, regarding the 1963 Corvette (250-360 hp!):

The pedals are extremely well placed. The accelerator is close to the tunnel, letting the foot rest against its side, and there is plenty of room left of the clutch pedal for the driver to brace himself.

A patent filed in 1961:

Related:

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Porsche 911 GT3 appears just in time to make me look smart

by philg

Happy National Financial Awareness Day to those who celebrate…

We had a family discussion about the possibility that even successful people might be forced to work, e.g., to pay for a child’s college expenses. “It doesn’t matter how much you earn,” I told the kids. “It is always possible to spend every last penny.” They dispute this. I cited examples of second and third homes, of first class airline tickets to Europe, of expensive cars and watches.

The very next day, I ran into a neighbor who had purchased a Porsche 911 GT3 Touring the day before (i.e., while our family discussion was occurring). “The dealer called me and said he had a white and gold one in stock,” said the new owner. “My initial thought was to reject the color, but I went over to see it and came home with it.” In other words, an impulse decision to spend $300,000(?).

(As far as I know, this purchase won’t put any financial strain on the owner, but I thought it was a funny coincidence!)

Meanwhile, any news on the 2020 Tesla Roadster? If it had been delivered as promised would the early ones already be ready for the lithium-ion scrap heap?

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Cars and Coffee at the Birthplace of the IBM PC (Boca Raton, Florida)

by philg

Happy “we’re still right our 2 percent annual inflation target” day to everyone from the BLS. Let’s look at part of the CPI that used to be deflationary and that is now inflationary: personal computers. June 25, 2026 invoice for 1.5 TB of RAM that my friend bought for his home PC:

The IBM PC was born with 16 KB (base) of RAM in Boca Raton 45 years ago (announced August 12, 1981). From the Boca Raton Historical Society:

In 1967 Thomas John Watson Jr., then Chairman of the Board, announced that IBM would open a large-scale manufacturing plant at Boca Raton to produce its System/360 Model 20 midsized computer. In December 1966, IBM announced its purchase of 550 acres west of what is now I95, south of Yamato Road and east of Military Trail. IBM was the first company to build an industrial site in the scrubland of the west. The original site eventually grew from 620,000 square feet to 3.6 million square feet in more than 40 buildings. The main complex was modeled after IBM’s research center located in LaGaude, France on a rugged slope just ten miles from Cote D’Azur. Marcel Breuer and Robert Gatje, the famed architects who created the LaGaude building adapted the design for Florida’s flat terrain and hot sun.

In August 1981, IBM launched a new product that put the city of Boca Raton on the map. A small engineering team led first by William Lowe and then by Philip “Don” Estridge, secretly developed a personal computer (code name “Acorn”) that was to be ready for market within one year. Under pressure to meet an incredibly tight deadline and with autonomy from management unprecedented in IBM history, a small team created a personal computer that became the standard for the PC industry. Rather than develop all the parts internally, the team, incorporating an “open architecture,” quickly pulled together existing resources from outside companies. Microsoft provided the operating system (DOS) and BASIC programming language; Intel the 8088 microprocessor chips; Tandon the disk drive; Zenith the power strips; SCI Systems the circuit board; and Epson the printer. The open architecture allowed for add-on components to the internal system. Also for the first time, IBM sold this product through outside sources; Sears, Roebuck, and Company and Computerland, were the official retailers for the PC.

The success of the IBM PC resulted in the rapid growth of IBM Boca Raton. Staff size grew to over 10,000 to keep pace with the demand for the PC. IBMers eagerly accepted positions at Boca Raton for, within IBM ranks, it had gained a reputation for being a place of exciting and revolutionary work.

IBM shrunk and the buildings are now the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRIC). I visited with a neighbor who is a car expert (senior engineer for a Big Three manufacturer) back in March for Cars and Coffee Palm Beach. What do the buildings look like today?

Practical advice: use the bathroom before you arrive because the BRIC landlords don’t open up the buildings and let people use the real restrooms, ask for donations, present the history of the PC, or show off what is being done today in their 1.7 million square feet of space. There is a McDonald’s within walking distance and, for the ladies, a Starbucks in a mall across the street. Also, bring your own coffee because the food and drink vendors usually had lines. Budget about 1.5 hours to see the 500+ cars and chat with some of the owners. Perhaps 2,000 people show up (it was free for spectators and $15 for those showing off their cars).

Northerners will appreciate this Kei car, which sported “Floridiots” bumper sticker and flag plus a Confederate flag on the front bumper:

The 1,064 hp Corvette ZR1 was almost impossible to get in March 2026, but there were two at the event.

Note the “Florida Stands with Israel” plate, consistent with Palm Beach County’s status as the world’s #1 investor in Israeli bonds. If this $200,000+ car were in Maskachusetts it is tough to know whether it would be keyed first by an inequality zealot or a pro-Hamas zealot.

Here’s the other ZR1:

If a real Chevrolet is too pedestrian, maybe you’d like to see this $1 million fake Ford (a GT that, instead of being made in the Islamic Republic of Michigan by Ford is made in the Islamic Republic of Canada by Multimatic, which also makes the fake Ford Mustang GT3 and GT4).

My favorite part of this 12 mpg machine is the “EcoBoost” logo on the engine (660 hp out of 3.5 liters of V6):

Maybe Chevrolet should slap an “Eco” label on the 12 mpg 670-hp Corvette Z06?

McLaren and Lamborghinis were everywhere, but we saw only a handful of Ferraris.

At the other end of the performance spectrum, a Volkswagen Rabbit GTI:

A replica (I think) Mercedes 300 SLR, complete with removable steering wheel (impossible to get in/out without removing it):

A Mercedes sedan converted to Tesla power:

(Maybe this will become much more common as old Teslas become more numerous and less valuable.)

Here’s a 1976 Pontiac that cost $6,746, which the BLS says is roughly $40,000 in today’s mini-dollars:

Maybe the closest modern equivalent is a Toyota Camry, which starts at about $32,000 including (an outrageous) destination charge?

Do you really need to drop a modern muscle car drivetrain into a motorcycle? Yes:

It’s a great event, but I think something more needs to be done to commemorate our best desktop friend!

(I like to do everything in the dumbest way imaginable so I held off on buying more SSD back in October 2025 when building my new desktop PC. I figured that I would be able to get 16 TB on an M.2 stick, rather than merely 8, and that the price would keep falling. Instead, the 8 TB Samsung 9100 that I did purchase has more than doubled in price and 16 TB limped into the market in March with a price of $16,000 (below).)

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Remembering Alex Kowalski at the National Corvette Museum

by philg

Our loyal reader and thoughtful commenter Alex Kowalski died of cancer two years ago (see Rest in Peace, Alex Kowalski). A few of us got together on some memorial tiles at the National Corvette Museum. One of Alex’s skills was dealer-level car maintenance and he rebuilt the engine on a 1968 C3 Corvette.

We stopped into the Cathedral of Corvette in August 2025 to pay our respects to Alex and to the engineering behind the machine that he loved enough to rebuild.

The visit started with a Nissan Altima identifying as a Corvette:

The memorial for Alex is just inside the entrance:

Here’s a crazy story about a Corvette that rose from its tomb:

The same year/generation Corvette that Alex had, driven by Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell (passed away just a few days after our museum visit, on August 7, 2025 at age 97):

Some relevant advice from the Corvette Club of Tennessee: “Life is Short: Keep the Pedal to the Metal”. I wish that Alex’s life had been longer, but am glad that we have the memories at the museum and here on this server.

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The LeMay car museums in Tacoma

by philg

It’s Father’s Day. For those handful of American men who have any control over their kids’ lives, a suggestion….

If you’re anywhere near Tacoma, Washington and haven’t been carjacked yet (Tacoma is “safer than 1% of U.S. cities), the LeMay car museums are well worth a stop. The primary one is near the Almond Roca factory in Tacoma proper and styles itself “America’s Car Museum”.

We were there for a special American Supercar exhibition, in which the Corvette and Ford GT were featured prominently.

Here’s an astonishing 1000 hp Oldsmobile:

GM loaned the museum the C8 Corvette test mule:

Those who loved physics class will appreciate this 1923 Lincoln, the first car to drive over the doomed Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940:

If you need a last-minute art idea for America’s 250th:

Thanks to Harold LeMay’s fortune built hauling garbage, the museum has magnificent examples from every era of the automobile, a 1906 Cadillac, for example:

A 1930 Duesenberg:

A wartime Chevrolet:

A 1954 Chevrolet wagon that would be awesome to own with retrofit A/C:

If Greta Thunberg hadn’t segued into pro-Hamas activism, this would be the perfect 100 mpg car for her, from aircraft engineer Jim Bede:

In order to skip out on Tacoma’s reputation for violent crime, we stayed in the new development of Point Ruston, a bit to the northwest. Fortunately for Florida real estate values, the breakdown of order in the West Coast cities is still in evidence. A CVS in the moderately-rich area locks up the precious laundry detergent:

Immigration has resulted in a random assortment of humans with conflicting cultural and religious values. Below, Muslims complying with Islamic dress codes are juxtaposed with (1) a pet dog (haram), and (2) a female rollerblader shamelessly displaying her bare midriff:

Our good fortune with the weather and Mount Rainier views continued:

The counter-serve taco place has a trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag to which customers can pay their respects prior to ordering, an example of Rainbow-first Retail (examples from Bozeman, Montana).

We’re informed that Floridians are stupid. The hyperintelligent progressives of Tacoma, however, need to be reminded to close the water tap after filling a cup at the ice cream shop:

The coffee shop nearby has a complete Righteous Boomer No Kings Rally Starter Kit:

The fridge magnets for sale during morning coffee include one that situates anti-Trump protest in the context of Martin Niemöller-level heroism (which makes sense since The Reverend Niemöller hated Jews almost as much as today’s progressives and actually voted for the Nazi Party three times!):

Although the residents of western Washington State are surrounded by neighbors who are in obvious need of assistance, e.g., due to being unhoused, their political energies go into parading around in front of each other to show how much they hate what Donald Trump is doing 3,000+ miles away in D.C. Here’s the reading material provided at the coffee shop:

The next morning we hit the LeMay Collections at Marymount, a less-glitzy venue in south Tacoma. This shouldn’t be skipped! We opted for a docent tour, which included a ride in a Ford Model T and a visit to a massive car warehouse that is normally off-limits.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if Stellantis brought back the AMC Pacer?

The Collections includes a large exhibit on the Elon Musk of the 1940s, Preston Tucker. Promoting the public sale of stock in an unprofitable company whose products were delayed did not make Tucker a trillionaire, however, but got him prosecuted and shut down by the U.S. government. Tucker beat the rap, but the company was killed. Tucker’s design had a lot of safety features that would gradually appear in mass-market cars over the subsequent 30 years. The museum explains that the original design even included seatbelts but that they were removed due to a fear that the public would infer that the car was more dangeorus than existing designs. One design goal was that the engine and transmission could be removed and a loaner engine/transmission swapped in. This would take less than one hour and would enable repairs to be done offline.

How much fun would it be to have this Edsel station wagon? Our docent reminded us that Edsel Ford shouldn’t be associated with business failure, despite the lack of success of the Edsel cars that were introduced after his death. It was Edsel who twisted his dad’s arm into adding the Model A to Ford’s product line as an alternative to the Model T, which Henry Ford considered to be ideal.

The Collections has far more cars than the downtown museum and they don’t always get a lot of room for display and walking around:

There are a lot of gems, however, and the place is well worth 2 hours. You’ll learn about at least a dozen car brands that you hadn’t previously known existed. Below, I learned about an entire class of car that I hadn’t heard of, the “cyclecar“. 14 hp out to be enough for anybody, as Bill Gates famously never said.

Just imagine how much surplus oil we’d have if people did most of their errands in a modern version. Even with 1913 technology, this machine supposedly achieved 40 mpg at 40 mph (more than enough speed to get around Seattle and, in fact, even 15 mph was overkill during a lot of our time on I-5).

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New Bumper Sticker for my Tesla and/or Honda Odyssey

by philg

A righteous neighbor here in Abacoa (not everyone in Florida is Deplorable, especially here in Palm Beach County, though it is rare even for the Righteous to have a political/social justice bumper sticker), this afternoon:

I asked Grok to redo it to read “I bought this before Elon had four commas” rather than “I bought this before Elon went crazy”:

The updated sticker is perfect for adorning any Tesla, of course, but it also makes sense for those of us with non-Tesla cars. We can proudly proclaim that we didn’t help Elon get to his envy-stoking level of wealth.

How are others dealing with their grief? New York Times front page:

The Native American community:

Not sure who this guy is:

Some folks who probably didn’t work too hard to get IPO shares:

An old lady from Maskachusetts:

(What evidence does Ms. Markey have that Elon ever “traded stocks”?

Bernie:

A reasonable suggestion regarding Bernie:

Another candidate for a wellness check:

An envious California progressive at the peasant level of wealth for Palm Beach County (at least $30 million for Mx. Newsom and the female companion he/she/ze/they plucked from Harvey Weinstein’s hotel rooms):

(If California could confiscate 100% of Elon’s $1 trillion would that be sufficient to realize at least part of their high-speed rail dream?)

The grandson of Muhammad Kenyatta:

The pro-Hamas next U.S. Senator from the Islamic Republic of Michigan:

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What could Honda do to pull out of its tailspin?

by philg

In case you were wondering whether to take investment advice from me, 15-20 years I confidently predicted that Honda and Toyota would jump in and take the EV market away from Tesla as soon as Tesla had run out of early adopters. Honda and Toyota were so much more experienced and better at making cars than Tesla that of course they’d be able to make better electrically-powered cars. (Honda is, apparently, able to design a better electric car than what Ferrari is offering, but that’s like being a dwarf among midgets.)

Honda, the maker of our beloved Odyssey that hasn’t been updated since the 2018 model year, is doing especially poorly. “Honda Posts First-Ever Annual Loss After Pullback From E.V.s” (NYT):

The automaker reported a net loss of $2.7 billion for the fiscal year that ended March 31. Earnings were weighed down by more than $9 billion in restructuring charges and write-downs after a retrenchment of its E.V. strategy. It is the first loss that the 77-year-old company has reported since listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1957.

“The business environment and customer demand have changed beyond our expectations,” Toshihiro Mibe, Honda’s chief executive, said in a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday. “We were not able to respond flexibly enough.”

Is there a comic-book villain who can be blamed?

On Thursday, Mr. Mibe said the company would nix its 2040 target of selling only electric and hydrogen-powered cars. That target was based on the Biden administration’s environmental policies in the United States, the company’s biggest market, he said.

“A year ago, there was a drastic change. We have seen a shift from a focus on the environment to the opposite,” Mr. Mibe said. Honda’s previous target, he added, “is now not realistic.”

Hmm… if Joe Biden was virtuous and wise who might be “the opposite” in terms of virtue and wisdom levels?

Greta Thunberg (pre-Queers for Palestine version) won’t be happy with the recovery plan:

For now, Honda said, it will double down on gasoline-electric hybrids, introducing 15 next-generation, high-efficiency models, including larger vehicles in North America, by 2030. Combined with plans to cut costs and accelerate development, this push is intended to restore Honda to record profits by the end of the decade, Mr. Mibe said. The company is also forecasting a return to profitability this year.

If Tesla is close to cracking self-driving and Honda hasn’t even begun to try (the 2026 Odyssey has the same feeble driver assistance features as the 2018 Odyssey), how could Honda conceivably compete? Maybe some sort of monster pseudo-military vehicle like the G-Wagen? Here’s one in military green at the Stuart, Florida airport:

People have demonstrated a willingness to pay huge $$ for this truly terrible car. Speaking of huge $$, one of our neighbors apparently bought a Maybach EV:

Imagine being rich enough to spend $200,000 on an EV that can’t drive itself and will be worth $30,000 after a year or two. (See Mercedes EQE review for my own attempt at living with a Mercedes EV.)

Will it truly be possible for Honda to muddle through to profitability and significance with slight improvements on the Accord, Civic, CR-V, etc.? The stock market doesn’t seem to think so. Tesla is worth more than 10X what Honda is worth (and at least 6X Toyota’s market cap).

Our own Honda seems to be giving up. At five years of age and 62,000 miles, the dealer said that the rubber boots on the lower control arms, which protect the ball joints, are cracked and should be replaced soon ($1100 plus $130 for an alignment that is necessary after the replacement). They also want $70 to replace the pollen filter for the ventilation system, $160 to cleaning the A/C evaporator (is that a thing?), and $230 for “Platinum Fuel Induction Service (GDI). ChatGPT says that the filter should be regularly replaced, but it is a $20 part that can be replaced with no tools (behind glove box) last three suggestions are fraud. ChatGPT says that the second two suggestions are fraud:

Yes, “A/C evaporator cleaning” is a real thing, but I would do it only if you have symptoms.

It usually means spraying a foaming cleaner or disinfectant into the evaporator case or intake area to reduce mold/mildew smell. It can help if the A/C smells musty, especially at startup or after the car sits.

But if your Odyssey’s A/C smells fine and drains normally, this is not a routine “must do at 62,000 miles” service.

Verdict: Real service, but mostly for odor/mildew complaints. I’d skip unless the vents smell musty.

Your Odyssey’s V6 is direct-injected, so in theory intake-valve carbon buildup can be an issue on GDI engines because gasoline does not wash over the back of the intake valves the way it does in port-injected engines. But a dealer “fuel induction service” can mean a lot of things:

  • Fuel-tank additive
  • Throttle-body cleaning
  • Intake cleaner misted through the intake
  • More involved intake-valve cleaning

For $230, it is probably not a true walnut-blast intake-valve cleaning. It is likely a chemical cleaning package. If the van starts smoothly, idles smoothly, has no check-engine light, no misfires, and fuel economy is normal, I would not consider this urgent.

Verdict: Plausible but likely optional upsell. I’d skip unless there are drivability symptoms, or unless Honda’s maintenance schedule specifically calls for it, which I do not think it does as a routine 62k service.

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Are air-conditioned cars the reason that we tolerate America’s jammed roads?

by philg

My April/May sojourn in Boston was plagued by traffic jams far worse than anything I remember from our pre-coronapanic life there. Mobility for the Righteous is seriously compromised by a road network that was substantially completed circa 1970 for a population of 4 million and is now being used by a population of 5 million, each of whom is more likely to own a car (registered motor vehicles per 1000 Americans has gone from 534 to about 875 today) and each of whom is more likely to use a car than to ride public transit (MBTA ridership among people who call themselves environmentalists remains roughly 25 percent below 2019 levels). I didn’t do any trips during traditional rush hour, but still was slowed to a crawl except after 8:30 pm.

Here’s a 7:14 pm 3.6-mile route that Google expects will take 27 minutes, i.e., less than 8 miles per hour.

I wasted more time in traffic during this 10-day trip that I do in a year in and around Jupiter, Florida (that includes West Palm Beach, a reasonable-sized city, and Stuart, a small city). Bostonians who experience this every day remain passionate supporters of open borders and, thus, of population growth (growth without regard for available resources is usually called “cancer”!).

I’m wonder if Americans in general and Bostonians in particular have been lulled into complacency regarding traffic jams because their cars are so much more comfortable than cars in 1970, when traffic flowed much more freely:

I couldn’t rise to the local level of traffic jam tolerance, unfortunately, because I had borrowed my neighbor’s 12-year-old Mini, which lacked functional air-conditioning. I was literally stewing while sitting in long lines at red lights. The manual transmission was occasionally fun, but was mostly an annoyance in stop-and-go 3 mph traffic.

(I don’t think traffic in Boston will be solved by robot cars. Unlike in Florida, the typical intersection lacks dedicated left and right turn lanes. Unlike in Florida, the major roads can’t be widened. Unlike in Florida, the typical urban street in Boston/Cambridge is actually getting narrower over time as four-lane roads turn into two-lane-plus-two-bike-lanes roads.)

Loosely related, people who live in Cambridge want their local government to “fight the Trump administration” rather than try to reduce traffic congestion:

Also, the MBTA is adding elevators to a subway station. It will take three years:

Three years is how long it took the Chinese to build an 800-mile 200 mph train from Beijing to Shanghai. This includes the world’s longest bridge. Up to 800,000 people per day use the train.

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Tesla full-self-driving tackles the bikes, pedestrians, and general chaos of Cambridge

by philg

My April trip to Maskachusetts included a couple of trips within Cambridge in a new Tesla Y with FSD (see The Trump- and Elon-hater leases a Tesla Model Y). After lunch at Happy Lamb Hot Pot in Central Square, the owner, a mutual friend (pilot, $5 million townhouse owner), and I piled into the miracle vehicle for a trip to Micro Center, an Ohio-based chain that is one of the things I miss about Cambridge (the closest store to Jupiter is in Miami, which is to say… not close). The Tesla was almost immediately faced with the challenge of a one-lane one-way road with parked cars on both sides and a cyclist on a non-e-bike. An impatient human might have squeezed past the bicycle, but the Tesla wisely waited until there was a gap in the parked cars on the right and the cyclist moved over.

The Tesla navigated around a couple of delivery trucks that were stopped in right lanes.

The car navigated to a bizarrely back corner entrance to the Micro Center parking lot, drove behind the Trade Joe’s, and then found itself a parking space with empty spots on either side. Thus ensued the apparently mandatory 2-minute denunciation of Elon Musk as a person, e.g., for allowing non-compliant speech on X, tempered with praise for the engineering achievement of FSD.

On the way to my old condo, the Tesla got flummoxed by an SUV that was parked almost in the middle of the (standard Maskachusetts practice). There actually was enough space to squeeze by in the opposite-direction lane, but the owner had to take the wheel and press on the accelerator. Tesla’s software had dealt beautifully with pedestrians in crosswalks, but trying to turn right from Harvard St. there was a confusing situation. A guy in a wheelchair was waiting to cross the side street. The Tesla, just like a human, was waiting for him to cross. I envisioned the Tesla and the wheelchair attendant getting tired of standing still at the same time and a collision enusing. The attendant waved us through and the Tesla FSD seemed to undestand the hand gesture (not my imagination, apparently). The car tried to park in the driveway to the right of the condo, which has three unmarked angle parking spots. That seemed like a recipe for disaster so the owner selected a curbside dropoff instead.

Overall impression: very impressive, but also rather terrifying not knowing whether the machine was going to run over the wheelchair user. Maybe there needs to be a soothing voice repeating “trust the process”?

Speaking of what happens when our AI overlords meet the Boston-area roads… a friend here who drives a late-model Kia gets frequent alerts from the car about his drunkenness. When he swerves around the numerous potholes, the car thinks that he’s impaired. Google AI:

A 2021 federal law (HALT Drunk Driving Act) mandates that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) require new passenger vehicles to be equipped with advanced, passive drunk and impaired driving prevention technology by roughly 2027–2028. The technology will detect impairment—via alcohol sensors or behavioral monitoring—and prevent vehicle operation, though the final rule is delayed due to technology readiness, privacy, and accuracy concerns

Kia is ahead of the mandate!

In other driving news, I broke into my neighbor’s apartment and took the keys to her 2014 Mini, which she leaves sitting for months at a time while she’s in California. The car has 90,000 miles on it and won’t die, though many important systems have failed and the check engine light was lit. BMW’s engineering is rather impressive in that the car is virtually impossible to stall no matter how incompetent one is at driving a manual transmission. Backup cameras became mandatory in the U.S. in 2018 and it was alarming not to have one in the Mini. As compensation for this tech loss, I was treated to a continuous diet of NPR news while driving the car. What did I learn?

  • high gas prices have reduced consumer sentiment to the lowest it has ever been since 1952. This was a 20-minute segment on the ills of high gasoline prices without a single mention of how the end-of-April prices are actually lower in both real and nominal dollars than what Americans were paying in 2022 and no mention of NPR’s previous climate change alarmist and calls for carbon taxation to make fossil fuels more expensive. (Separately, are the University of Michigan geniuses behind the poll confident that, from a consumer perspective, things are worse than after the 2008 collapse? Than during the 22 percent misery index (inflation+unemployment) during the Jimmy Carter administration?)
  • when Democrats are back in power they need to force companies to continue to pay health insurance when workers go on strike. But really we need universal health care and universal taxpayer-funded child care so that union workers can strike for months or years if necessary to get what they’re owed as a consequence of AI.
  • there is an important a PBS series about the “often-overlooked history of Muslims in the United States” (“19 young Muslims went out for plane rides in beautiful weather on September 11, 2001”?)
  • Trump wasn’t being attacked for political reasons at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, but rather because there has been a rise in the amount of “gun violence” overall in the U.S.; Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to resort to violence, but the Democrats are generally shooting while the Republicans have subjected Democrats to “verbal violence”.
  • climate change is bad, but the muscular intelligent government of Maskachusetts is ready, e.g., with doors that will seal off the Blue Line MBTA tunnel from the airport (“If the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 were to happen today, AccuWeather experts estimate the total damage and economic loss would reach $440 billion”; maybe this is why my friend with the townhouse pays $20,000 per year for insurance and rates are yet much higher on Cape Cod?)
  • Michael Tilson Thomas, a symphony conductor who had just died, was a “pioneer in the gay rights movement” because, after moving to San Francisco, he was open about having a male partner (Thomas moved to San Francisco in 1995)

[What were gas prices at the time of the NPR Boston broadcast vs. in 2022? CBS: “The current average in the state is $4.16 for a gallon of regular gas, AAA said on Thursday. … The record high for Massachusetts is $5.05 back in June of 2022”. What if we adjust $5.05 June 2022 dollars to today’s mini-dollars? Gas cost about $5.95 April 2026 dollars in Maskachusetts during the Paradise Years (TM) of the Biden-Harris administration.]

With the withdrawal of federal tax dollars and substitution of money from rich progressive Democrats (example), the content of NPR seems exactly the same!

Loosely related… what if you hate Elon Musk and Donald Trump so much that you’re willing to drive yourself (“manually”!) while saving the planet via purchasing an EV of epic expense? A friend in Cambridge did just that. His Lucid Gravity has some nice features, but it can’t be parked next to a standard-height Maskachusetts curb without severe door damage on opening. Every time he parks and someone in sitting on the right side, he must use the touch screen to tell the car to jack itself up to maximum suspension height. After that, a door will just barely clear the curb:

I assume the idea is that those who save the planet are so elite that they never have to park on the street.

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