Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 331)

Friday Playlist

“The Trap” – R.M.F.C.
If you read these posts closely, you know how I love to identify Australian groups by their common sound alone. I don’t know that these kids jumped out as Aussie to me right away. It leans a little more Southern Cali surf rock, although that sound does have a big influence the Australian sound I like so much.

“Neon River” – Pond
Let’s stay Down Under with the latest from these Aussie psych-rock heroes.

“Apollo” – Slow Fiction
I hear a lot of early 2000s alt rock in here, recalling bands like The Superjesus and Remy Zero.

“The Dreamer” – A Country Western
I was expecting a Country or Not track with a band name like this. Rather, this is solid post-grunge.

“Cabin Song” – Rett Smith, Jessica Lea Mayfield
A terrific, smoldering duet.

“Go All The Way” – The Raspberries
Raspberries lead singer Eric Carmen died last weekend. He was most famous for his three monster solo singles: 1975’s #2 “All By Myself,” 1987’s #4 “Hungry Eyes” from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and 1988’s #3 “Make Me Lose Control.” This was his best song, though, one of the greatest power pop songs ever recorded. It made it to #5 in 1972. I never listened to the lyrics much before I read about his career. Apparently this was highly controversial with some radio programmers because they viewed it as being too suggestive. Much simpler times. Carmen became kind of a right wing nut job late in life, but his music, or at least this track, still holds up.

“Stop” – Jane’s Addiction
This week’s The Alternative Number Ones entry was this jam from September 1990. The history of Jane’s Addiction is fascinating. Tom Breihan does it right, and this is one of his best, and funniest pieces. I would say it’s worth a month’s subscription to Stereogum to read it. Support independent music journalism!

“Indianapolis” – Michigander
Usually when I leave town I include music about my destination. This time I’ll share a song about the place I’m leaving. We’re off to Florida for the next week. We may have drawn the short straw for weather – at the moment rain is forecast for several days – but even if we’re stuck inside I’m not sure there will be any blog posts next week.

“You Might Think” – The Cars

This was supposed to be about Weird Al Yankovic’s “Eat It,” but YouTube won’t let me embed that song, so I’ll switch to this, another monster hit from the spring of 1984. A fun song by a band that was never massive but everyone liked. A quirky video that featured a super model. That was the formula for a hit in 1984. This was one of the first videos to heavily use computer graphics, and won Video of the Year at the first MTV Video Music Awards. Cracking the Top 40 the week of March 24 at #39, it spend three weeks at #7.

Car Buying Notes

As promised, a second Car Buying post for the week. I’ve had to revamp this one several times, because my brain has been overloaded with info the past few days, and I’ve struggled to turn it into a coherent piece. Today’s mostly revolves around Ze Germans.


Why I Am Ditching Audi

I think I addressed this a bit in my first post, more about why I’m stepping down from my Audi in terms of finances. But I know the question is out there that goes along the lines of, “Your Audi was your favorite car ever. Why not just buy it when your lease ends and stick with it for a few more years?”

A very good question. One I considered for a bit.

There are a few answers.

The first regards short term expenses. Beyond just buying the car and paying the associated taxes, the next ownership year would be an expensive one. The Q5 needs new tires. We just spent $300 to put a new tire on S’s Telluride. Multiply times four and I’m dropping $1200-ish on top of the purchase price.

Then the next scheduled maintenance for the Audi is a beast, with a whole swath of “required” tasks hitting at the 40,000 mile mark. I was quoted $1500 by the dealer, and that’s before any unexpected repairs or replacement parts. I would likely take it to an independent shop to reduce the cost a bit, but I don’t think that would knock more than a couple hundred bucks off the price.

Audis, like most German cars, aren’t known for aging affordably, either. Looking at cost of ownership curves online, once you get five years into ownership, you can count on dropping at least a grand each year on service and repairs.

Between tires, maintenance, taxes, and the lease buyout, I was in the ballpark of what it would cost to get into a new, non-electric car. It always seems smarter to start over rather than stick with a car with miles and wear-and-tear on it for the same price.

Then the EV market got flooded with incentives and they became an option, which totally changed my thinking on what my new car would be.

The second reason for not staying with the Audi is the normal annoyances that come with driving something every day for three years.

I’ve had the tailgate fixed three times. Do I trust it to keep working normally after it is out of warranty? Not really. I’m shocked it hasn’t glitched out again since its last repair.

My biggest issue with the car has been the transmission and the Auto Start/Stop function. The transmission is sluggish in low gears. When I’m backing out of the garage and changing directions, for example, it often seems bubbly and hesitant. It reminds me of cruising at idle speed in a boat and that weird, wet, gurgling sound I would hear when I first started our boat and backed it out of the dock. If you ever need to punch it to go from low speeds to high quickly, the car is hesitant as hell. The engine revs, trying to supply the asked for power, but the transmission just can’t move it to the axles fast enough.

The Auto Start/Stop is terrible on Audis. It will get you killed if you’re not careful. There have been so many times in the past three years when I was coasting into a roundabout or yield sign, the car decided to shut off the engine, then I needed power and it refused to reengage immediately. Your heart rate will crank up a few notches when you see a car coming right at you as you mash the gas pedal and nothing happens for a few seconds, then the engine reluctantly kicks in and gives you just enough power to avoid being smashed.

Contrast that with S’s old Jeep Grand Cherokee or current Telluride, where the engine supplies full power quickly.

Or compare to an EV, where the power is never truly cut and the car responds instantly.

Even if you turn Auto Start/Stop off – which must be done each time you re-start the car – the Audi struggles in those quick stop-and-go situations.

I’m all for saving gas and cutting emissions, but not at the expense of safety.

I’ve also found Audi’s drive-assist functions to be annoying. Adaptive Cruise Control is far too conservative. Lane assist is too aggressive. For 2021, Audi had a pretty good package of “self driving” functions. I was never confident enough to use them all at the same time.

Obviously these are super first world problems. I’m lucky to have an Audi in the first place, let alone be in a position to either keep it or replace it with something that might be less expensive but is still very nice. I’m sharing all this more to explain my car shopping than as true complaints.[1]


VW ID.4

I’ve written about the Volkswagen ID.4 a little already.

Kyle Conner, the main guy behind the Out Of Spec videos, is the biggest EV geek I’ve come across in my research. He owns and drives high end EVs on a daily basis. His videos are often about squeezing as much performance out of an EV as possible.

Where other reviewers are lukewarm about the ID.4, he absolutely loves them. He agrees they are quirky, not as exciting or technologically advanced as competitors, and have a few things that will drive you crazy. But, he counters, they perform just fine as a daily driver.

Last week I wondered how important it was to have a car that can leverage the Tesla charging network when I rarely take long trips, and when I do they are almost always to big cities with mature charging networks. And do I need 400 horsepower when that is mostly a party trick to use momentarily? The instant power of any EV will allow me to easily floor it to pass, merge, or momentarily avoid trouble.

Suddenly I was looking at ID.4s again. And there were still some great deals.

So I went and test drove one Monday.

I think Kyle’s assessment was perfect: it is indeed quirky, but it also a completely competent and enjoyable ride. The screen graphics seem 20 years old compared to a Tesla. There are some wild controls scattered through the cabin. The infotainment system is frustrating. The steering wheel buttons are easy to accidentally hit and, for example, turn on the steering wheel heater when you are making a right turn. It lacks some key functions that leverage the promise of electric motors.

It rides nicer than the Tesla Model Y, though. It has Apple CarPlay, supports SiriusXM, and has HomeLink integration. It manages an estimated 275 miles on a full charge, enough to get to Cincinnati and back without charging in ideal conditions. It comes with three years of free charging on the troublesome Electrify America network. For all of EA’s issues, the cities I will visit most often – Cincy and Louisville – feature EA chargers at the same locations as Tesla Superchargers, and these are often the best maintained and functioning EA spots.

For getting around town, which is 80% of my driving, it does the job just fine. With all the current incentives it comes in cheaper than the Tesla Model Y. Plus, VW Finance would waive my Audi turn-in fee since VW owns Audi, saving us another $500.

I got quotes from our insurance agent Tuesday. A Tesla Model Y would increase our premium by $400 a year. An ID.4 would decrease it by the same amount. So the ID.4 saves us almost a grand right there before you even get to sticker price, lease amount, and so on. Throw in the forgiven disposition fee and that’s nearly $1500 in savings.

Would it make more sense to go ahead and get a 2023 ID.4, despite their flaws and the fixes expected on the soon-to-arrive 2024 models, as the dealers try to push them off the lot?

For about 24 hours I thought the answer to that question was yes.

The big catch is I would have to buy one right now. With two payments still owed to Audi. There was only one on the lot that I liked, a gorgeous Silver Mist Pro S rear wheel drive with Cosmic interior, and I can’t imagine it will sit there for six more weeks.

The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense to sit tight. Tesla prices are fluctuating again. They just went up, but many expect them to take another drop soon. For a couple grand less, the ID.4 makes sense. If they are priced equally, I think you have to go with Tesla. Once the updated 2024 VWs land, the trim level I would want will check in about $4000 higher than the Model Y. The software in current VWs is being eliminated and replaced with a new Android Auto system, likely in the 2025 models. Even on a lease, not sure how comfortable I am buying a car running software that is no longer in development.

VW showed off the 2024 models a couple weeks ago, but there is zero guidance on when those will show up. If you go to VW’s website, it still allows you to spec a 2023 model then points you to existing inventory. There isn’t even a Coming Soon page showing the improvements in the ‘24s. The VW sales guy I met with – who was a very tall, very German guy, which seemed perfect – said they haven’t been told when to expect the new ones or when orders will open up.

I spent pretty much all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday making lists, watching videos, reading reviews and message boards, and generally making myself crazy trying to figure out what the best path forward was.


Tesla Questions

My re-interest in the ID.4 was prompted not just from reevaluating what my driving needs are, but also because I have one serious concern about Tesla.

As I’ve mentioned before, Tesla has dropped radar/ultrasonic sensors, relying solely on cameras and “neural network” processing to control all the driver assist functions. This can cause phantom braking, when the camera thinks it sees something and slams on the brakes for no reason, among other issues.

That seems like a huge flaw to me. While I won’t be on the highway a ton, if I can’t trust the adaptive cruise control and, thus, can’t use it, the Teslas take a big step back. Tesla is constantly tweaking its software in attempts to make improvements. I’m not sure that a bunch of new code will ever replace sensors shooting energy out and making calculations based on the returns.

Then I read five bad things about the ID.4 and it seems dumb not to go with Tesla, even with their issues.

I’m glad spring break is coming up so I can stop thinking about cars for a few days.


Electrical

We had an electrician out Wednesday to run the line for a garage charger.

I don’t think I shared how crazy the process was to find someone to even give me a quote. I sent messages to seven or eight different services, and only got responses from two. The first company sent a guy out and gave me an estimate on the high end of what I expected based on my research. The second had me send them pictures of our electrical box, basement, and garage plus a video of where the line would run. They quoted me about 30% less. I went with the second folks. They were also on the official Tesla Approved list of businesses, so hopefully that means I can trust them.

The bummer of the project was that our garage wall is on the far north side of our house while our electrical box is in the basement on the far south side. That required running about 75 feet of wire. If our box had been directly below our garage, or even in the garage in an older home, we would have saved another 50%.


  1. There is a car YouTuber I’ve watched over the last month who, multiple times, has said a good problem to have is a “Third World Problem.” I mean, come on…  ↩

Car Buying Notes

I’m finding the titles of these posts to be cumbersome. Plus they overlap with my high school hoops post titles. So, going forward, I’m just using this generic title.

It’s been an eventful week on the EV front. Not just for me, but also in the news. For today’s post I figured I would knock out thoughts on some of those macro issues. As this is a pretty quiet week leading into spring break, I may have another car post this week to continue to clear out some of the topics I want to hit.


New Rivians

Rivian announced three new vehicles last week. The R2, which was expected, and the R3 and R3X, which were surprises. All are designed to make the brand more accessible, with prices starting in the high $40,000s compared to the $70,000+ the R1T and R1S check in at. The event made quite the buzz in the EV scene, as the vehicles all look awesome. So many of the people I follow in the EV space put down deposits immediately. If the timing was different, I might have done the same.

The big catch is that the R2 isn’t expected to hit the market until 2026, with the R3s to follow. Given how Rivian is hemorrhaging money at the moment, there is a question of whether the company will survive long enough to release these new models.

Below is the best summary of the event I watched. I had never heard CEO RJ Scaringe speak before. Why aren’t there more tech CEOs like him? He seems very chill and normal, not the usual freak show that so many of his contemporaries are. Or at least one of them. I liked how he sat back and let Marques Browlee do most of the talking, where other CEOs would have taken control of the conversation to make sure they got all their talking points in.


Blazers

After pulling their Blazer EVs from the market because of serious software issues, Chevy re-launched the line last week. Since I’m in the market I took a look and it blew me away that they start in the $60,000 range. SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR A BLAZER!!!

Checking local inventory, most seem to land in the high–40s to mid–50s, but that is after the Federal tax incentive is applied. Not sure how that’s a winning strategy to make waves in the space when the Blazers’ competitors, most of which are much better reviewed, are dipping well into the $40s currently.


Ford Charging

Ford was the first manufacturer to gain access to the Tesla Supercharger network a week ago. It will take some time for adapters to be released to current Ford owners and their models to switch to native support of the Tesla plug, but this is a big first step to leveling the landscape in the fast public charging space. Hopefully it also forces Electrify America to get their shit together so they are a legitimate competitor to Tesla charging and we have some real competition in the market.


EVs in the Cold

I’ve had several people ask me why I would get an EV after what happened in Chicago and other northern cities during February’s cold snap.

That’s a very good question.

From everything I’ve read, the charging meltdown, which left dozens of EVs stranded without power and charging stations operating at limited capacity, primarily affected EV owners who are unable to charge at home. Which is much more common in big cities, where apartments/condos and parking difficulties make it almost impossible for people to do overnight charging at home.

I will have a home charger so am not too worried about bitter cold rendering my future EV useless. And if we had to take a long trip in super wintry weather, we would just take S’s car.

EVs are very much affected by cold weather. But so are traditional gas vehicles. When there’s a gas station every five miles we don’t register how bad our mileage can get when the temps dip and the winds blow. A few years ago I was driving my Suburban in a bitter storm and checked my fuel economy for grins. When I saw I was getting seven miles per gallon, I turned that screen off so I didn’t think about how fast I was ripping through my gas tank.


Sales People

I’ve been a little surprised that the Kia dealership I visited last month hasn’t hounded me more. They are known for being super aggressive, but other than a cursory follow-up email, I hadn’t heard much.

Until last week. When I got this crazy email. I’ll share the entire text so you can take it all in.

Hello again. Several days have passed since your visit to our dealership, and I want to let you know that our interest in earning your business has only grown since your visit. I would like to ask a favor of you, present me with a challenge that I would need to overcome for you to take home a 2024 Kia EV6. It can be anything: trade in value, price, terms, or perhaps a different vehicle that you were first considering.
Allow me the chance, and I will get the job done.

Yowsa.

It seems a little desperate, doesn’t it?

I’ve never seen a sales pitch like that, but it sure fits that dealer’s reputation. S and I laughed, then brainstormed “challenges” we could throw at him.

Do 100 pushups in a minute.
Take another $10,000 off the sales price.
Give me a straight answer about the electrical issues that Kia/Hyundai seem to have in their EVs.
Let me punch him square in the jaw.
Do a shot a minute until he passes out.

Or, my favorite: shut the fuck up.

I know car sales is a tough racket. You have to deal with casual shoppers who are just browsing, or are cross-shopping against the car they really want, who you have no chance of making a sale to. You have a-holes who will spend hours working you for every last cent on a deal. And you have your sales manager breathing down your neck about why a customer walked out the door without a deal in place.

Yet I’m constantly amazed by how many sales people do such a bad job of reading their customers or do weird shit like this. The “challenge” did make me laugh. Are there actually people who read that message and think, “You know what, I like the way this guy asked me for a challenge. I think I’ll buy a car from him!”?


My Buying Process

There has been some movement in my EV journey over the past few days. I won’t go into the details yet, as the situation remains fluid and I don’t want to share something that I end up backing away from in two days.

I did test drive a new vehicle on Monday, though. And may test drive something else today.

The electrician is coming tomorrow to run the 240 volt line to our garage for a level two charger.

I’m also waiting for some information from our insurance agent, which could make-or-break this whole undertaking.

Weekend Notes

In some ways it was a terrible weekend. In other ways it was a good one. The common theme was a lot of basketball.


Jayhawk Talk

I’m very glad that I didn’t see a minute of Houston destroying KU. I had this game chalked up as an L ever since KU easily beat the Cougars last month. A 30-point loss, though? I have to admit, that was unexpected.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that Kevin McCullar was ineffective then sat the entire second half. But Hunter Dickinson injuring his shoulder and leaving the game was not on my BINGO card for the day. I’m starting to think the Hoops Gods are punishing KU for not getting the hammer from the NCAA. Or perhaps for us Jayhawk fans for gloating when we didn’t get the hammer. This is shaping up to be a terrible March and lost season for my favorite team.

The Hoops Gods may also be preparing to punish me for talking shit to M every time KU beat Cincinnati in anything this year. If the Bearcats beat West Virginia Tuesday, they play the Jayhawks Wednesday. I’m assuming neither McCullar or Dickinson will play. Good grief.

The KU women also lost their Big 12 tournament game to Texas Saturday. Bad day for the Jayhawks.


HS Hoops

This didn’t really bother me too much, but Kokomo and future Jayhawk Flory Bidunga were playing in the regional round of the Indiana state tournament at the same time KU was losing to Houston. Flory had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, but #4 Kokomo lost to #1 Fishers by 14.

Time for him to get in the weight room so he’s ready to compete in the Big 12. Unless he can play next week?


Pacers

The Pacers have been in a bit of a funk lately, sandwiching great games with ones when something just seems off. Their offense, which was bound to regress, isn’t nearly as free-flowing and fun as it was the first three months of the season. Some folks are complaining that trading Buddy Hield messed up the team’s chemistry. While Pascal Siakam has been solid since coming over from Toronto, I wouldn’t say he’s been a dramatic game changer.

The biggest factor is that Tyrese Haliburton has been in a slump. His shooting has gone in the toilet lately, and his already mediocre defense has taken a step back. I wonder if he should have taken longer to come back from his late January hamstring injury, even if that meant missing All Star weekend action.

Anyway, adding to the bad of Saturday was the announcement that evening that Bennedict Mathurin will undergo shoulder surgery and miss the rest of the season. After a slow start to his second year, he had really picked it up lately. He isn’t the shooter Hield is, but he’s a far more complete player and the additional minutes seemed to do him wonders. Until he got hurt.

Blech.


Youth Hoops

Why did I miss the KU game? L had two days of “training camp” this weekend with her travel team. The sessions were way out in Plainfield, about 40 minutes from our house. Don’t ask me why they were out there, I have no idea.

After Saturday’s session we had a team dinner for our first hang as a new squad. Three of L’s teammates from the past two years are back, but the other four girls are new. It was nice to meet the parents and new co-coach. The kids seemed to have fun. L said she really likes everyone so far.

They also had two new girls work out with them both days. I’m not sure if they will officially join the team or not – there’s some intra-program politics involved – but they are both above six-feet tall, which is huge. Literally.

I talked to the head coach after Saturday’s workout and he said one of them has some skill and promise while the other is pretty raw. However, he said that raw girl got a ton of rebounds when they scrimmaged. I suggested he teach her how to throw outlet passes and tell her to just get every loose ball she sees. It would be kind of crazy if we went from no height the past two years, to three girls 5’10” or better this year.

L missed her CHS awards banquet last Monday because she came home from school sick. The team FaceTimed her in so she could participate virtually. She won the Rising Star award, given to the best underclassman. She didn’t seem to think it was all that cool but I thought it was a great way to cap off her first year of high school ball.


Spring Break

M is flying to Florida today for a week in Sarasota with a group of UC friends. She sent us a picture this morning as she walked onto the plane, so her early alarm and Uber to the airport worked ok. We trust her to make good decisions. Still, I have to admit I’m a little nervous. I never went on spring break as a college kid, but I’ve seen movies and heard stories.

We leave for Anna Maria next Saturday. Our trips overlap by one night, so after we land we are going to pick her and her St P’s/CHS buddy up and they will spend that night with us. We haven’t seen her since she went back for second semester, if you don’t count the weekly FaceTimes and calls.


My Stupid Brain

Saturday night I fell into a car research rabbit hole again. I’m an idiot. The issue with these spells is they get my brain cranked up, increase my pulse and blood pressure, and make me a little anxious.

I couldn’t relax and stay asleep so after a couple hours of tossing and turning, I got up to try to re-set my body. Unfortunately I waited too long to do it and I was sitting in my chair, wide awake, when the clock jumped from 2:00 to 3:00 as Daylight Saving Time arrived. Wonderful. I need to lock away all my devices two hours before bed until I actually have a new car.

The rabbit hole gave me more content for posts, though, so you, my loyal readers, are the big winners!

Reader’s Notebook, 3/6/24

I might be reading too fast. This is the 10th week of the year and I’m about to finish my 14th book of 2024. Because of that they are running together a bit. I apologize, as these summaries aren’t the most detailed of my writing career.



The World We Make – N.K. Jemisin
Jemisin’s Great Cities series was supposed to be a trilogy. Between the pandemic, US politics, and some other things that got her down, she decided to cut it off at two books.

Because of that, this book felt rushed and incomplete. Her story about the avatars of the boroughs of New York battling with and against each other as forces from another dimension attempt to destroy the city just never found a good rhythm. What should have been an epic finale came and went with a whimper.

I understand why she decided to cut things off. If your heart ain’t in it, your heart ain’t in it. But I think she let what could have become a great story wither and turn into something not worthy of her talent.



Moscow X – David McCloskey
McCloskey’s Damascus Station was one of my favorite espionage books of this decade. This was nearly as good.

Instead of focusing on the Middle East, here McCloskey pivots to the growing, new cold war between the US and Russia. When a rift develops between the ruling Russian elite, a secret CIA group – Moscow X – pounces to exploit it.

Rather than standard spy stuff, though, this book reflects the reality of the new Russia: the conflict is all about using capitalism to gain leverage over an opponent. The Russians are fighting with each other over money they’ve stolen, in one way or another, from their country. The CIA is using money to gain entry into the world of the Russian elite to find ways to bend them to the West’s advantage. That seems a long way from the original Cold War, when capitalism was battling communism as much as the countries were competing.



Calico – Lee Goldberg
This mashup of genres was a terrific read.

On a February night in 2019, a vagrant runs in front of an RV in remote Southern California and is killed. At the same moment, there are mysterious fires at two nearby military bases. And, soon, a semi-famous TV chef is reported missing from the same area.

I don’t want to give away too much about the plot, but it is a delightful mix of mystery and sci-fi. I really enjoyed how Goldberg laid out the elements of the story. Time travel plays a big part in the book and I loved some of the observations about living in the past one of the characters made. Not many stories about going back in time mention how much the past stank!

Car Shopping Chronicles, Season 2 Part 4

I said in my last car post that despite deciding to get a Tesla Model Y, I would continue to research EVs until I actually pulled the trigger to make certain of my final decision. It doesn’t take much to send me down research rabbit holes, and I spent a decent chunk of the weekend re-evaluating my choice and diving back into review videos and posts.

It started Friday when my brother-in-law in Boston, Uncle Maaaahk, mentioned that if I had time for more test drives, he has a friend who owns a Volkswagen ID.4 and loves it. The ID.4 had, in fact, been on my initial list of EVs. But I was underwhelmed with its specs and while reviews were generally positive, they also pointed out serious software flaws in the vehicle.


I checked prices Friday and was floored to see the ID.4s at our local dealer were all marked down anywhere from $10–12,000. They support Apple CarPlay, SiriusXM, and have HomeLink modules, all things missing from Tesla. Reviewers and owners raved about how nice they rode. Maybe I owed them another look!

Here’s where things got weird. Last week Volkswagen showed off the updated ID.4s to the public for the first time. These updates make the car more powerful, solve a lot of the software flaws, and smooth out some other issues. If these fixes worked, might the ID.4 be on equal footing with the Model Y? And if VW was cutting prices, maybe I should run over and test drive one on Saturday?

Then I realized the cars on the lot are all 2023s, while the ones that had hit YouTube are all 2024 model years. It looked like VW was marking down the ’23s at dealers to clear them out for the ’24s which should start rolling out of the Chattanooga plant soon. Some of the software updates might hit the existing models, but VW generally gets poor grades on their software strategy and there has been no clear guidance on how much, if any, of the improvements will be available for the pre–24 models.

Still, a seed was planted and I spent several hours Friday night and Saturday morning reading up on the ID.4, making lists, and comparing specs.

In the end it came down to the ’23 ID.4 having too many quirks and software issues to match the Model Y, especially when priced the same. Had VW cut prices further, so they were cheaper than the Model Y, then I would have been more interested.

My Saturday research then pivoted and landed on a car I really like but had also cut from my list because of price and charging network, the Polestar 2.


I think these look incredible. They get positive reviews. Like the VW, they also support Apple CarPlay and SiriusXM. They are more car than SUV but I just love their looks.

The hook for me was that the used Polestar market, as with so many EVs, has crashed over the past year. I found several that were under 20,000 miles and could he had for half their original price. I smelled blood in the water.

Again, I dove into videos and spec comparison lists.

Then S pointed out something very important that I had not thought of: since there is no Polestar dealer in Indy, what would I do if I needed service? I can have the tires rotated anywhere. But if it won’t start one day or I get a display full of warning lights, who would I call?

The nearest Polestar dealer and service center is in Columbus, OH. Polestar will pay to have your vehicle transported up to 150 miles if needed for service. Columbus is 180 miles away.

Plus it uses the wrong charging network (for now).

Fortunately I only spent about an hour diving into Polestar info.

That wasn’t the end of my hemming-and-hawing, though.

Tesla recently refreshed their Model 3s, the sports car sibling of the Model Y. The new ones look incredible! I’m not usually a red car guy, but I love the new red available on the Model 3.


The newest Model 3 also comes with several other interesting upgrades and improvements, ones that the Model Y will likely receive in 2025. Even better, the low-end Model 3 is the cheapest car in the Tesla lineup, checking in below forty-grand.

Alas, there is almost no backseat space in the Model 3, that low-end model is rear wheel drive, and I recalled from when I drove the Audi A5 for a week last year that I did not like being low to the ground, or at least the getting in-and-out of the low car.

So it’s back to the Model Y. Which isn’t a bad place to be. I’m just making sure.

One other thing about non-Teslas I’ve considered. There was a series of videos about the Kia EV6 I watched at the beginning of this process that got me really juiced about that car. The guy who made them just released a podcast discussing his two year experience with the car. He had the dreaded 12 volt battery issue that scared me away, although he said a simple jump start brought his car back to life. He said other EV6 owners he knows have almost all had a separate, major electrical issue right around 30,000 miles, a milestone he is about to hit. He assumes his car will have the same issue. He confirmed what I had read, that Kia corporate doesn’t seem nimble enough to deal with these issues and the dealerships in his area are clueless when it comes to fixing them.

He loves his EV6 and has been mostly happy with it. He and his wife own three cars between then, so one going out of commission is more of a bummer than a life-altering incident. He confirmed most of my fears about Kia, though. I felt validated.

That’s your update for this week. There’s still plenty in my notebook, so look for more posts about 1) why I’m ditching Audi, 2) my on-going sales experience with Kia, 3) how New Car 2024 fits into my long-term plans, and more.

February Media

Movies, Shows, etc

The Greatest Night In Pop
The funny way to sum up this look at how “We Are The World” was recorded would be to say it was outrageous. Some of you will get that joke.

I’ve read about that night several times, but there were still some terrific little tidbits in this film. I’m on record as not being a fan of the song, but I liked how Bruce Springsteen described his experience: no matter what you think of the song, it was a tool for helping people. That’s probably the best way to remember it. (Chuck Klosterman was on Bill Simmons’ podcast last week and said something along the lines of, “Bruce said the song sucked in the nicest way possible.”)

We still don’t know why Dan Aykroyd was involved. And it kind of ignores Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder singing back and forth to each other near the song’s end. Otherwise very much worth your time.

A

Ed, season two
Year one was better, but I didn’t complain about re-watching 22 more episodes featuring my old pals from Stuckeyville. A few observations. The season premiere was in early October, so a matter of weeks after 9/11. The persistent NBC peacock logo in the corner of the screen included a waving flag graphic for the first half of the season. America! A punch line for many jokes continued to be the word “homosexual” or “gay.” I don’t think the writers were anti-gay, but 20 years ago that kind of stuff was considered normal. I wish these VHS transfers weren’t so grainy because there were some fetching guest stars. Whoever posted these videos also corrected the biggest error of season two. The creators dropped Foo Fighter’s “Next Year” as the theme song. This person put it back in, which is kind of brilliant. On to season three at some point.

B+

Perry Mason, season two
Season one was very good. Everything about season two was better. Despite terrific reviews and decent ratings, it is another victim of mis-management at HBO and there will be no season three. Idiots.

A

Goodfellas
This aired on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, and I watched the whole (edited) thing. Still the best.

A+

Lethal Weapon/Lethal Weapon 2
One night I came across these and watched a decent chunk of each. Say the last 90 minutes of the first and the first hour of the second. These were high rotation flicks for me back in the early 90s. Parts hold up. Parts are kind of fucking stupid. No grades since I didn’t see the entire movies.

Incomplete

Mr. & Mrs. Smith
I thought this had some terrific high points, some slow points that dragged a bit, and then some bits that were just odd/confusing and distracted. Much like The Americans, it is a spy show that is far more about being in a marriage than being a spy. Unlike Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings, who we met nearly two decades into their relationship, we see John and Jane Smith come together and try to navigate a new, forced relationship as they kill people. And, like The Americans, Mr. & Mrs. Smith does a great job at demonstrating that marriage is a tough task to begin with. Throw a bunch of super stressful stuff on top of it, and it gets even harder.

I think the strength of this show became more obvious after completing it, when I had time to contemplate and connect those broader observations about marriage together. I wish it had maintained the trajectory of my favorite episodes, but the less successful ones did not cancel them out.

B

True Detective: Night Country
Most disappointing show I’ve watched in some time. It arrived with the promise of calling back to season one, one of the best years in recent TV history. And there were some connections, but they often felt forced. The bigger problem was the story fell apart as the season progressed. Through much of the final three episodes it felt like the writers were meandering, looking for ways to make the story compelling but always falling short. Much of the dialogue seemed lazy and couldn’t be saved by the fine actors asked to speak it. And then the resolutions to the various mysteries? Some of them seemed flat-out dumb. From what I’ve read this was a highly polarizing season, for a variety of reasons. I’m in the camp that was not convinced.

B-

Help! I Wrecked My House
We got sucked into this one Sunday and watched it for approximately 153 consecutive hours. I like that the host isn’t all over-the-top about things. California chill works for me.

A-

Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 10
Spite store! RIP Richard Lewis.

A


Shorts, YouTubes, etc

I haven’t been using the YouTubes as much lately. Last month I had a goal of watching a little more so I could get my algorithm back to recommending cool, random stuff.

Japan’s Most Terrifying Bridge: Eshima Ohashi
I would never ride a bike or run across this bridge.

The ONE thing keeping this iconic vintage laptop from working…
I love the concept of videos like this, tinkering with old tech tools and getting them to work again. I always question the utility of them, though. How much can you really accomplish with a vintage computer. I guess, like so many hobbies, it’s all about spending time doing something you enjoy.

NA1SS Voice Contact Astronaut
The radio geek in me thinks this is pretty cool, contacting the international space station from your backyard with a handheld radio and antenna.

I knocked the bastard off – Retracing the footsteps of a murderer (Ep 3)
Beau Miles wraps up his hike.

DIRT Episode 7 – Atlanta
I didn’t like this one quite as much as the previous ones in the series. Seemed to lack a bit of focus.

Experience a Recording Studio On the Edge of Iceland’s Arctic Circle
How This Photographer Manifested His Dream Home on the Oregon Coast
An Exclusive Look Inside The Explorers Club’s Members-Only Clubhouse
Inside This Green Beret & Entrepreneur’s GORUCK Home Gym
Explore An Austin Musician’s Bohemian Bungalow
After watching DIRT, I dove into some of Huckberry’s videos about cool homes/hangouts. The recording studio and Oregon house are my two favorites.

Secret cafe in Kyoto
This is very cute and very Japanese.

LiMu Emu & Doug
This was some quality SNL-ing.

Finally, my EV content, which took over my life the last two weeks of the month. Rather than share every video – which would probably make you worry about my mental health – I’ll ID the feeds I spent the most time in.

The Out of Spec community has a bunch of feeds, but I watched their Out of Spec Reviews and Out of Spec Dave ones the most.
Ryan Shaw
Gjeebs

There were lot of other randoms I watched in addition to deep dives in those feeds.

This Is the Biggest Problem With EV Adoption
Actually news related to EVs rather than reviews or road trip vids.

Weekend Notes

A relatively laid-back weekend, although some of that was unexpected, so a quick post to get the new week started. No, I did not buy a car.


Jayhawk Talk

Another road loss, although the game at Baylor was chalked up as an L to begin the season, so no real harm. Kevin McCullar came back and looked decent. He still can’t hit a 3 and missed two makable layups, so maybe he’s 100% healthy? He was certainly rusty, so maybe the outside shot comes back if he can stay on the court.

KU battled well, coming back multiple times to take the lead. Baylor just did not miss in the last 5:00, or when they did there was a 100% chance they were getting the rebound. Still, the Jayhawks blew a couple possessions in crunch time that could have kept it close to the final buzzer.

The most concerning thing was Johnny Furphy getting absolutely cooked on defense. He’s generally been fine on D, balancing bad possessions with decent ones, his length making up for bad footwork and his lack of strength. But, man, the Bears put him insolation against either smaller or longer players and worked him over. KU fans immediately requested that film be sent to every NBA GM to show that he isn’t ready to be a pro yet.


Illness

Sunday was supposed to be L’s first “training camp” for her travel program. She had to stay home, though, because she tested positive for Covid Friday after school. She felt pretty bad most of the weekend but was acting better Sunday evening. She’s like a Covid magnet. She told us it seemed like everyone at school has the flu. I’m guessing those kids parents don’t test them for Covid anymore like we do.

So far no one else is the house has got it. I guess it was good for her to get it out of the way two weeks before spring break.

She has her school team end-of-year gathering tonight then first official travel practice tomorrow night.


School Calendar

She and C have reached the silly part of their school year.

Wednesday C takes the SAT, so she only has half a day and L gets to stay home and eLearn. They get next Friday off going into spring break. The week after spring break they get Good Friday off, then Easter Monday the following week. Finally CHS announced two weeks ago they are elearning on eclipse day, April 8.

The next time they have a normal, five-day school week is the week of April 15. And then the school year is almost over.

Thursday Links

Weird week here. It was in the 70s Monday, high 60s Tuesday, then the wind chill was in the teens all day Wednesday. The sun is bright and dazzling today, but it is still very chilly. That combined with some other things has thrown my body clock off.[1] I’m having trouble sleeping at night then struggle all day to avoid taking a nap, usually unsuccessfully, so I can go to bed tired. The cherry on top was our tornado sirens going off at 2:00 AM Wednesday morning as severe thunderstorms blew through. Pretty sure I got less than four hours of sleep that night.

So rather that write about the Jayhawks and get mad again, finish up a Reader’s Notebook post, or share some more thoughts on the car-buying process, here are a few pretty solid links.


Sally Jenkins with a fantastic piece about how the NCAA’s stance on Lynette Woodard’s scoring mark – which Caitlin Clark passed last night – is just another hypocritical stance in its long history of them.

There is nothing trivial about this. It’s an act of erasure. Example: the NCAA regards Michigan as the holder of the record for most college football victories of all time, with 989. Yet the NCAA didn’t come into existence until 1910, and Michigan began playing football in 1879. The NCAA doesn’t strike or asterisk anything Michigan won “pre-NCAA.”…The NCAA wouldn’t dream of ignoring those years.

Yet they do so with women’s basketball.

The NCAA erased an entire generation of women’s sports


If someone writes about the Voyager spacecraft, I’m obligated to share it. I loved the opening line of this piece about Voyager 1’s impending death.

Billions of miles away at the edge of the Solar System, Voyager 1 has gone mad and has begun to die.

Death, Lonely Death


You know those sketchy texts you get occasionally about some package that can’t be delivered unless you do X or Y? In this piece, the author did a deep dive and learned that a text he thought was a phishing attempt was actually legit. Things are just going to get more confusing as AI takes over more and more of the logistics/customer service stack.

Thanks FedEx, This is Why we Keep Getting Phished


I dig stories about submarines, so this was pretty awesome. Well, other than the fact the Navy signed off on it because the world is as unstable and close to major war as it has been since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Life Aboard a Nuclear Submarine as the US Responds to Threats Around the Globe


  1. Trust me, the very stupid basketball game Tuesday contributed a lot to my messed-up sleep cycle.  ↩

Car Shopping Chronicles, Season 2 Part 3

When I realized that the Kia EV6 likely wasn’t the car for me, I started thinking about the areas where it failed to be sure about what I was looking for. Kia is fairly new to EVs, so their products are not mature. They don’t seem to have a strong organizational commitment, on either the corporate or dealer side, to EVs at the moment. With the electric market softening over the past year, I wonder about how serious they will continue to be about their models going forward. If they are already having difficulty identifying and fixing wide-spread electrical issues now, what happens if their EV sales tank? Kias currently rely on the less common and reliable charging network, although with the Tesla network opening to other brands in the next 18 months, that will change. If I want an EV, I need one that addresses all these shortcomings.

There was an easy answer to most of these questions.

Oh, God.

Fuck.

Tuesday I test drove a Tesla Model Y.

As usual, we back up before we go forward.

One year to the day before my Tesla test drive, M and I rode down to Cincinnati for a campus visit with her buddy A and her dad T in his Model Y.[1] He is a true convert, ditching a BMW for his Tesla, and extolled the car’s virtues during our roughly four hours in it. This was my first long-term ride in a Tesla, and I liked it, quizzing T about his perspective along the way. As soon as we got home M said, “You’re going to get a Tesla now, aren’t you?”

I said no but, dammit, the girl might have been right.

OK, back to last Tuesday.

I arrived at the dealership, signed a waiver, and an associate led me to a Model Y. She showed me how to get the steering wheel and mirrors to comfortable positions. Being a Tesla, this is not as straightforward as in most cars. Then she guided me on how to find pretty much everything I would need during the drive on the car’s touchscreen.

The dealership sits right in the middle of a huge construction area, so I asked her for a suggestion on the best route to get to the highway. Knowing I had never driven a Tesla before, she recommended taking a couple laps around the next door mall’s parking lot to get used to the acceleration and braking before I drove on the actual street.

Good advice! Kia dude just had me jump on the street and go.

Then she plotted me a route, saying it would take me through neighborhoods and on four-lane streets so I could get a feel of how the car reacted to those scenarios. From there I knew how to get to the nearest interstate on my own.

Then she said, “OK, take it wherever you want, just be back in half an hour or so,” and walked away. No yappy sales person sitting next to me. I was on my own!

The full regenerative braking on the Tesla is trippy. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, although it was weird to have the car slow in proportion to how little pressure I put on the accelerator. I never had an “Oh shit!” moment of panic or confusion. Rather, sometimes I would forget to hit the accelerator when a light turned green since my foot wasn’t putting pressure on anything. Kind of a weird mental block.

I took her advised route, which led me through a rough section of pavement that confirmed that the Model Y has a relatively stiff suspension. Not sure I love that, but it’s not a deal breaker either. I would prefer a more cushioned ride, but also want sporty responsiveness. Those often don’t go together in the budget range I’m currently in. The Tesla definitely leans to the sporty side of that equation.

Once I got to the interstate I zipped around between traffic but, without any big openings, didn’t get a chance to properly punch it. I exited and prepared to turn back towards the dealership. I was the first car at a red light with a long entrance ramp ahead. This was my moment. And then a big ass tractor trailer truck pulled onto the ramp just before I got a green light. Ass.

No worries. Once he got onto the interstate, he quickly moved to the left and I blew by him in the right lane. The dealer had set a speed limit of 85 MPH. I hit that pretty quickly and started laughing. Going from 50-to–85 might be more impressive than 0-to–60. It felt instantaneous. There wasn’t much traffic around me this direction so I let my speed drop and floored it several times just to feel that sensation again.

The big knock about the Tesla driving experience is that so many things are accomplished via the touchscreen.

Like 98% of car functions are controlled through the giant, iPad-like screen. It is a little odd, especially the lack of a center display in the dashboard, but I found it to be very intuitive. You can set shortcuts for most-used settings at the bottom of the screen. I think once you get those dialed in to your preferences, it’s pretty easy to interact with for someone who is fairly tech savvy. The screen is incredibly responsive, very Apple-like, in fact. I didn’t detect any lags in my brief time playing with it.

I much prefer physical knobs and switches. I think it is super annoying that everyday controls are a layer deep on a display. But Tesla’s screen seems to work good enough that this can be overcome. I think their system would be annoying for a casual driver. S and I rarely swap cars. That will likely happen even less often if I get a Tesla because these controls would drive her crazy.

Which brings up one big negative: Tesla does not support Apple CarPlay in any way. You can connect your phone via Bluetooth, but unlike a CarPlay-equipped vehicle, you don’t get access to the entire screen for your media, just small controls at the bottom of the screen. If you want to change playlists in Spotify, or switch between audio apps, that must be done on your phone’s screen. Which isn’t super safe at 75 MPH. But even my buddy who works at Apple and owned a Tesla admitted that their systems are good enough that he didn’t mind having to use them over CarPlay. That said, he now drives a Lucid which does support CarPlay.

There are some third party adapters that allow you to add a CarPlay screen, but they seem pretty janky. For their cost you might as well pay for Tesla’s Premium Connectivity to run Spotify or Apple Music natively.

Another bummer is that Model Ys do not support SiriusXM. I’ve been an SXM subscriber for ten years and it is a huge part of my music life. I could still stream it via the app and Bluetooth, but I’m not sure that’s worth the annual cost given the lack of on-screen controls.

The car’s interior is very spare. There is a ton of storage room, like amazing amounts. I think that can lead to having too much crap in your car. But I also find my Audi has like 20% too little space, making it difficult to store necessities within reach of the driver. Other than all that storage, the Tesla is pretty spartan inside. I would describe it as nice but not luxurious by any measure.

I’ve also learned that Tesla has moved from a combination of ultrasonic sensors and cameras similar to my Audi, to exclusively using cameras for proximity alerts. While their cameras are of amazing quality, they are far less accurate and users complain that the car will often scream at them that they are about to hit a wall, parked car, etc when they are actually several feet away. Not sure how cool that is when the charging port is in the rear of the vehicle, normally requiring the driver to back into a charging station. The lack of sensors can also make some of the assistive driving functions a little wonky, especially in poor lighting conditions. I guess these are all things that you get used to, and may be adjusted with future software refreshes. It seems like a misguided cost-cutting move, though, to ditch the sensors.

In summary, the Tesla felt far more competent than the Kia. Teslas aren’t without their issues; a lot of owners complain about fit and finish issues inside and out. The driving software can be temperamental. Apparently the automatic windshield wipers are infuriating in their lack of consistency. But Tesla is also famous for a constant flow of software updates that both fix reported issues and roll out new functionality. When mechanically possible, a Tesla that is several years old can have the exact same, updated functionality as a car straight off the production line. Teslas have been around for a decade and are backed by a company that is solely focused on EVs. Throw in their massive, easy-to-use Supercharger network, and the Model Y was a clear winner over the Kia EV6.

After I returned to the dealer the lady who had helped me get set up was out on a break so I talked to another associate. He was very chill. I asked him how come their website shows a bunch of cars on the lot that are exactly the same with incrementally different prices. Other than the type of motor (Rear wheel, all wheel Long Range, or all wheel Performance), about all you can select as options are exterior and interior colors, tire size, five versus seven seats, and if you want to add a towing hitch or not.

“Honestly I couldn’t tell you,” he said. His best guess was their pricing algorithm is based on how long a car has been on the lot and inserts discounts to move the oldest first for tax purposes. “They are all the same. My best advice is to find what you want and pick the cheapest one.”

I liked this process much more than Kia’s. Hell, if S was into EVs, she would 100% buy a Tesla just because of their laid-back, low-contact sales interactions. You can actually buy a car on your phone without ever talking to another human if you want!

Tesla’s current incentives aren’t quite as aggressive as Kia’s. Kia’s are generous enough at the moment that we were considering buying one even with two months left on my Audi lease. Tesla’s current price cuts are not as steep, meaning there’s no rush. They’ve been aggressive with price cuts over the past year, so I bet they’ll drop prices again between now and the day my lease expires.

So as of today, I think I will be replacing my Audi Q5 with a Tesla Model Y Long Range. I already got my buddy T’s referral code so we can both earn some goodies out of it.

I had one electrician out last week to get an estimate to run a line for a home charger, and have messages out to several others to take a look. Being able to charge your EV at home is a game changer, the step that truly makes owning an EV radically different from a traditional car. Superchargers are great for road trips, but charging at home for everyday travel is cheaper and far more convenient.

I’ll continue to do research over the next couple months to make sure this is the right choice. I’ve been reading about a few other cars, but nothing has jumped out at me as requiring a test drive.

To close this post, I want to make a very important point: Elon still fucking sucks. If I get a Tesla I might get a bumper sticker that says “Fuck Elon.” That’ll start some conversations!


  1. I apologize for all the initials, I know it makes for awkward reading.  ↩
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