There’s a tap on the door, the phone rings, a message in your in-box, you bump into someone you haven’t seen for a while. Who knows how it will happen, it just does. For whatever reason sometimes you don’t feel like getting out your comfy chair, other times you respond. Sometimes you’re looking for it, other times it looks for you. In the fall of 1991, I called about a job that I wasn’t sure I really wanted, sixteen years later I’m still there, but not for much longer. In the fall of 1993 I responded to a message and ended up meeting the love of my life.

Over the years I’ve gotten many, many calls from recruiters and none ever felt right. When the company that I worked for decided to unilaterally cut the pay and benefits of many of their best people while at the same time continually increasing the compensation of those at the top, I began to express my thoughts here on this forum. This place became my soap-box, a place to just spout off on whatever I felt like, the good, the bad, the obscene. This little corner that I carved out for myself allowed me to find another part of myself, to use the knowledge I had gathered over the years and to find my voice.

As it happens it also allowed others who otherwise wouldn’t to hear that same voice. Some liked what they heard, others carried on about their lives. After the incident that prompted my set up corner here, another opportunity arose that I meant to pursue, but my response to the message somehow fell through the cracks. A few months later it thankfully popped up again in a slightly different form and I went after it with a vengeance. It worked and my name began to appear on another nascent site related to cars. I began to make some contacts and not long after that opportunity presented itself yet again. My colleague Alex was busy and I was on vacation from the day job. A quick day trip to New York and back introduced me to a remarkable new car and a lot of very interesting people. That quickly ballooned as I talked to those people on a regular basis.

During one of those events I encountered a pair of gentlemen who would soon reappear. In the fall of 2007, barely a year after I stumbled into automotive journalism, the message appeared in my in-box. I called back. We talked and eventually the deal was struck. A new phase of my life and career would begin. I wish to express my gratitude to the clumsy, ham-handed HR department without whose bumbling, this may not have happened. Thanks to Sebastian and John for plugging in the amplifier that allowed my voice to spread to a wider audience. I look forward to continuing to work with you guys for a long time to come. To John, Rob and Scott for giving me a chance to make a left turn against the prevailing traffic. And most of all to Jules, Sofia and Max for supporting me so much as I make this momentous non-trivial change. Sometimes when opportunity knocks you need to respond in the affirmative.

As we were leaving the media center the other day, I had the opportunity to finally meet the legendary Brenda Priddy in person.  For those unfamiliar with her work, many of the photographs that appear in automotive magazines and newspapers of cars where bizzaro tape jobs or big clumps of black camouflage are the work of Brenda and her colleagues at KGP photography.  They have an uncanny knack for being in places where engineers are testing future cars.  These days in the business of automotive journalism Brenda is held in the same high regard as Jim Dunne and Hans Lehman.

At any rate Brenda made a remark in jest that after all her years in the business, she had come to the conclusion that all automotive journalists were either Jewish, gay or both.  Unfortunately my mental energy level at that point was at  low ebb at that moment and I found myself unable to respond with the same degree of eloquence and wit that I am told I exhibited during a verbal joust with our colleague Ray the preceding day.  For the record Ray (even though I doubt you will ever read this) Nothing personal, I’ve been stuck at the corner table many times myself over the years.  It just wasn’t your turn.

Anyway, back to my belated response to Brenda.  Keep in mind that printed word lacks much of the nuance of the spoken word, especially in person and none of the following is meant to offend, insult or denigrate anyone (except perhaps hypocrites like Larry Craig).  I have friends and colleagues are fall into either or both categories and many others and I appreciate and respect all of them.  Disclaimers aside, henceforth is what I might said to Brenda (who herself is Jewish, although I cannot attest to her other preferences) had I been more quick witted during our encounter.

Being at least partially of Middle Eastern descent, I’m certain that following my lineage back far enough would yield ancestors who were members of the tribes of Israel.  However, in recent decades, to my knowledge none of the members of my family have partaken in Yom Kippur, Passover or hanukkah as an active member of the faith.  I myself having been raised Catholic and becoming persuaded early on as to the futility of all religion am an unrepentant athiest.  As to the other half of the generalization, I am not nor have I ever been gay, although I’m sure when it comes time choose what color to paint the walls my wife would likely appreciate me a little more if I did have some tendencies in that general direction.

Alas these words did not emerge from my sometimes scattered mind until some hours after the fact.  Fortunately I have this little corner in which to record them anyway and perhaps she will someday see them.  Pleasure to finally meet you Brenda!

Yesterday I attended the 2006 SAE World Congress in Detroit. SAE is the Society of Automotive Engineers of which I have been a member for 17 years. The congress is basically the annual convention of the organization. The gathering includes dozens of technical sessions on all kinds of automotive engineering related topics. There is also an expo for car makers, suppliers, tool providers and other vendors. The big theme this year definitely seemed to be hybrids. There were hybrid vehicles and power-trains on display at many of the car-maker booths and hybrid components and systems on display at various supplier booths. GM had their hybrid power-train that is coming next year on their full size SUVs. Honda had their new Civic hybrid. Ford had the Escape hybrid. Toyota of course had the Prius and the new GS450H hybrid. Aisin showed a new automatic transmission with 2 motors built in that is designed for rear wheel drive applications.

Probably the most interesting thing I saw was from a company called Ovonic. Ovonic started in the early 90s developing advanced batteries for all-electric cars. They made the batteries for the GM EV1 electric car. Unfortunately for GM and Ovonic they didn’t really make much real progress in improving the energy storage capacity of batteries. Chemical batteries in general continue to be a very poor means of storing energy. In terms of energy storage capacity per volume and and weight batteries remain at the bottom of the list by a long distance. Just try picking up the battery in your car and see how heavy that is and all it can do start your engine. Compare that to a gallon of gas which depending on your vehicle can move it anywhere from 10-50 miles.

Ovonic has a new subsidiary that has been developing hydrogen storage systems. Hydrogen is great for use as a fuel because the only combustion byproduct is water vapor. One of the problems with hydrogen besides producing it is storage. Hydrogen gas needs to be stored at extremely high pressures. Ovonic and other companies have been working on methods of storing hydrogen in solid form, which is much safer. They showed a Prius that had been modified to run on hydrogen and used their metal hydride storage system. The hydrogen powered Prius gets the same mileage as the gas powered version and has a range of about 200 miles. Thats more than 3 times the range of the EV1 ( which went about 60 miles under ideal conditions). The fueling system they have developed can fill up the car in about 8 minutes right now. So Ovonic has pretty reasonable hydrogen powered car that unlike the EV1 is actually a practical mid-sized car that can carry four people in comfort and get decent range and doesn’t need to be plugged in when it’s not being used.

Now we just need a hydrogen fuel infrastructure. Hydrogen cars aren’t much use if you have nowhere it fuel it up. We need to develop a cost effective means of producing hydrogen and distributing it. In the coming days and weeks I plan to write some more stuff on hybrids. Hybrid vehicles as we know them now have some very good points but they really are not all they could be.