cars

It definitely wasn’t a Dream for me

This entry was posted in cars on by

dream_cruiseAfter all these years of living in southeast Michigan, I’d never actually made the trek over to Oakland County to check out the Woodward Dream Cruise.  Yesterday I finally did in role as a pro blogger and I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t missing anything.  As someone who hates both crowds and traffic jams, this was definitely not the event for me.  I’m into cars and I like them two ways.  When they are static I can stop and check them out and appreciate the details.  As devices of mobility, I also like to see cars at speed.  Slow speed crawls like the Dream Cruise hold no appeal for me.

The problem we had yesterday was that most of the manufacturers display areas were at the north end of Woodward around 15 mile road.  We had our base of operations (including a live video stream) at Royal Oak Ford near 11 mile.   Getting from our base to where carmakers were took forty minutes and the crowds made photography tough.  Max went along with me and in spite of the crowds and periods of tedium he did great.  He took some awesome photos and was never complained.   If we do this next year we’ll definitely have to find a base of operations closer to Birmingham.  As for those million plus spectators I’m at a loss as to what draws them to set up chairs all along Woodward every year.   Plus it’s hard to find anything to eat south of 13 mile.

Here’s what I want my next new car to be

This entry was posted in cars technology on by (updated 6307 days ago)

sam’s voltI’ve photographed and written extensively about the Chevy Volt since last January. But until a few days ago I hadn’t actually sat in it. With all that I know about this car and what it will hopefully become, this is what I want my next new car to be. It’s cool looking, environmentally friendly and could represent the way cars will be powered for some time to come.

This entry was posted in cars Ypsilanti on by

smart fortwoIt’s that time of year again, the Art Fairs are back! The action kicks off this weekend at the Corner Brewery with the Shadow Art Fair. From noon to midnight on Saturday July 14 over forty artists will be hawking their wares amidst live music from Patrick Elkins, Black jake and the Carnies and more. Once the fun is over at the brewery if you have any cash left over you can over to A2 for some other fair. Actually their is a reason why some of you might want to head down to South University between Wednesday and Saturday to check out the Smart USA road show. The tiny Smart ForTwo is coming to the US market early next year and they are touring the country this Summer to let people check out the cars. If you’re interested you can even get a test drive in a Smart.

Positive attention for Ypsi events

This entry was posted in cars Ypsilanti on by

corvairFor those who haven’t been paying attention to my activity over on Autoblog.com I’ve been giving car related events in Ypsi some national blog love of late.  I’ve done features on the Show and Shine, Vintage VW and Orphan Car shows in recent weeks.  If you didn’t get a chance to get down to Riverside Park you can still see some of the vehicles that were on display.  It was nice to see a big turnout for each of the events both from participants and spectators.

Manhattan

This entry was posted in cars New York this and that travel on by

stackable parking in ManhattanI spent a couple of days in Manhattan this week for the New York Auto Show some interesting stuff.  For a city that claims to be as progressive as Ann Arbor they sure have missed the boat when it comes to parking.  As everyone in the area knows downtown parking is at premium.  Unfortunately the choice to build parking structures on small footprints of land like the one at Fourth and Washington is somewhat counterproductive.  The space taken up by ramps so that cars can get in and out as well as stairs, elevators and the supporting structure itself, leaves too too few parking spaces per level.  Overall it’s a very inefficient design and leaves drivers often trolling up and down the levels looking for a parking space.  If you are going to build a structure, it needs to have a large-enough footprint that the ramps don’t take up such disproportionate amount of the potential parking area.

Manhattan on the other hand seems to have the solution.  Rack mount parking that provides the maximum density of parked cars per area available.  There is little wasted space and it’s probably cheaper to install than a parking structure.  I saw all kinds of these structures during my cab rides between the hotel and Javits Center and the airport.

With my limited time in the city, I didn’t get to really do any sight-seeing.  Manhattan is a very densely populated city with stuff going on everywhere you look and all kinds of noises.  The city is very much alive and an interesting place to visit, but the kind of place I’d want to live.  It seems like the majority of actual moving cars on the streets of Manhattan are yellow cabs, with most of the private vehicles sitting in those racks.  Given the traffic in the city, that’s probably just as well.

Getting out of New York was a real pain in the ass.  The Javits Center is on the western edge of Manhattan island while JFK airport was east of Manhattan in Queens.  Judging from my several cab rides over 48 hours in town plus my previous visit in December, going north-south in Manhattan is pretty straight-forward.  Going east-west on the other hand is anything but.  My ride to the airport involved the cabbie continuously turning norht or south trying to find an east-west route that wasn’t backed up.  The 17 mile ride took about an hour and a half.  It’s a good thing I left with plenty of time.  more later…

AutoblogGreen Podcast 2

This entry was posted in cars podcasting on by

tesla roadsterThe very first AutoblogGreen podcast went live this morning.  My editor Sebastian Blanco and I will be doing these every couple of weeks and in the first one, we talk about some of the new green cars that debuted at last weeks Geneva Motor show and then run I interview I recorded with Martin Eberhard.  Martin is the CEO of Tesla Motors, maker of the new Tesla Roadster electric sports car.  You can find the podcast at this page.

Something about Detroit that doesn’t suck! 1

This entry was posted in cars travel on by

I spent a couple of days in Chicago this week with the Autoblog team covering the Auto Show there, and between this trip and my December trip to Manhattan, I came to the realization that there is at least one thing that Detroit can be proud of, the MacNamara Terminal at Metro Airport.  After flying into LaGuardia and O’Hare’s terminal 2, I was reminded in both cases of the nasty old terminal that Northwest flew out of.  They are both crowded, narrow and kind of dark.  Leaving O’Hare in particular was awful.  The entrance to the security screening area was in the middle of the terminal and the lines spread from there in both directions to the entire length of the terminal.  Once we got to the security check point, there was a grand total of TWO lanes for the whole terminal.  Metro on the other hand, is open and bright and easy to get around.  Of course, all is not perfect, all airports need far more electrical outlets for travellers to plug into.  With so many people travelling with laptops, dvd players and all manner of other electronics, people need to charge their devices, especially when they are stuck between flights.

Now having said something something positive about Detroit, I must say that Cobo Hall must be demolished immediately if not sooner and replaced with a new convention center.   Cobo as everyone who has ever been in there knows how dark and unpleasant it is, not to mention not that big.  McCormick Place by comparison is huge, bright and just generally a much more pleasant place to be.  If we had a facility like this in Detroit, we might actually atract a lot of national scale events besides the Auto Show and the SAE World Congress.  As it is, the only reason the Detroit Auto Show gets any attention at all is because it’s home to Ford, GM, and Chrysler.  Otherwise, the Chicago show would probably get all the big introductions.

Would you buy a Chevy Volt, and how much would you pay?

This entry was posted in cars electric environment Hybrid technology on by (updated 3391 days ago)

volt revealI’ve put a new poll in the right sidebar about the Chevy Volt. I’ve written a lot about the Volt recently which if you haven’t checked out AutoBlogGreen is an electric car with an on-board gasoline powered battery charger. The articles on ABG have generated a lot of comments, and I’m curious about how much people might be willing to pay for such a car. Such a car has the potential to dramatically reduce fuel use and carbon emissions. None of the EVs built up until now have appealed to me personally, but this is definitely one that I’d buy.