Interior center stack of the upcoming Tesla S:

Tesla is Elon Musk’s company that currently makes the little electric sports car. He also started/runs SpaceX. His company is the first private U.S. rocket company to send a payload into orbit. Their Dragon capsule can either deliver cargo or be outfitted to accomodate up to 7 astronauts and is scheduled to have a close rendezvous with the International Space Station before the end of this year.

All of the science fiction from my youth had space being conquered/developed by private enterprise. Governments militarize it — the private sector makes it pay.

Musk was the co-founder of PayPal and got his mega-hundred-millions when PP was sold to Ebay. He’s now a automotive manufacturer and a space pioneer . . . not a bad way to redistribute his own wealth by creating companies, creating high-tech jobs — paying it forward to better humanity, and I’m sure, hoping to make a few billion bucks in the process.

What is it about this that Progressives just can’t manage to understand?

Each AM my little schnoodle, Missy, and I go on at least a mile walk, 2-3 miles on the weekends. Every once in a while we run across something interesting, an old classic car from the 30′s say, or a rare exotic. Today we walked past a white vehicle and at first I thought it was a BMW X6, although that wasn’t right — almost as ugly and ill proportioned from the rear, though. Then it hit me — no emblems, none, nada — not even inside. Manufacturer plates even. Here was a new vehicle from who knows what maker. I don’t have a clue, maybe you do?

© 2009 OkieontheLam.com — Image usage OK with link back to this page.

© 2009 OkieontheLam.com — Image usage OK with link back to this page.

© 2009 OkieontheLam.com — Image usage OK with link back to this page.

What you see here is the 2009 model year Corvette ZR1, a monster of a supercar that will be the first $100,000 Chevy. However, from the specs and performance envelope, it will be well worth the bucks and undoubtedly will be the most performance for the dollar from anyone. It all came about due to the General’s CEO Rick Wagoner, upon seeing the current Z06 Vette, asking something like, “Gee, if you guys can do this for 60 grand, wonder what you could do for 100K? Asked and answered! Motor Trend reported that it would have 620 plus horsepower and at least 600 lb/ft of asphalt buckling torque.

Now, if you are a motor-head like yours truly, you’ve known about this amazing sports car for awhile. So, why the post ‘Okie’? Because I read something that Mark Tapscott wrote last Wednesday about a statement made by Marge Oge, director of the EPA’s office of transportation and air quality. She said the following: “We must bring about an end to the horsepower arms race among auto makers and replace it with another different kind of a race, a race to produce the most affordable and desirable, low carbon-vehicle each year.”

Mark makes a great case for ol’ Marge here being a royal example of an inside the beltway blithering idiot, and out of tough car-hating liberal, someone that has no idea whatsoever about how supply-and-demand controls markets and merchandise availability. Read the whole thing. I sure like his finishing statement, especially the last sentence in light of Super Tuesday being less than 48 hours away.

Maybe Oge is just jealous that other people are having so much fun driving their powerful cars (or watching them being raced at places like Daytona and Indy). It’s that same old familiar Puritan/liberal fear that somewhere, somehow, somebody might be enjoying themselves too much, so the government must step in and “fix the problem.”

Interesting, isn’t it, that we trust the wisdom of crowds when it is expressed politically via free elections, but not when it is expressed economically via free markets.

The Left hates free markets, come to think of it, they don’t much like real free speech either. But hey, back to the fun stuff! Fast Lane Daily caught this monster’s development mule out in the wild!

That’ll give those ol’ Puritan/liberals areason to be afeared! Sweet!

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Corvette ZR1, Marge Oge

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time (thanks Glenn, Norma, ???) knows that this ol’ Okie might have finally been convinced our climate is warming — slightly — but I don’t believe for a second that it’s mankind-caused. I certainly can’t stomach ol’ Big Al Gore’s nightmare scenarios, although they did make a trippy Hollywood disaster flick. But I am afraid that the time for reason and common sense over Global Warming is “over” now that all the GOP primary candidates are giving it lip service, with McCain gobbling up Gore’s madness whole hog — not to even mention that industry is buying in big, not so much because they actually believe the B.S., but makin’ a buck is makin’ a buck. The visionaries are seeing the next great technology bubble here, and if it creates a lot of great-paying jobs and delivers a cleaner planet, more power to ‘em I say. But the downside is that Liberals, especially the far-Lefties, are always looking for more reasons to “tax & spend” the way they see fit, always looking for more and more ways to implement governmental-controls on both individuals and businesses. Which brings me to Bill Clinton’s comments while out on the stump for Hillary.

“We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

He may not have meant what he actually said, remember, this is the guy that parses the meaning of “is” when that’s convenient or necessary, so I could easily be convinced to give him the benefit of the doubt, ’cause that’s not a smart statement to make when one of the biggest campaign issues is the current (perceived) economic slowdown, with the White House and the Congress tripping over their own Johnsons to borrow funds and distribute them to the populace pronto. Bill then went on to say this:

If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She’ll give it to you. She’s got the right energy plan.”

Right, Bill — we gotta wait for a Billary White House before any of that is gonna happen. I don’t think so! And that brings me to the vehicle that you see here — the Chevrolet Volt concept which is going to be a true “plug-in” hybrid not from an Asian manufacturer, but from our very own domestic auto-making leader, General Motors.

The March ’08 issue of Motor Trend magazine says this:

Officially, the Volt isn’t yet approved for production, but the E-Flex platform now has its own studio, with 45 engineers, designers, and techs beavering away on this “concept”.
{…}
Work also is underway to develop future battery-electric and fuel-cell-hybrid variants of the E-Flex system, which — if approved for production — should arrive in early 2010.

If you care about the domestic automobile industry, that’s great news. If you don’t, you’re probably a Democrat. If you are far-Left you hate automobiles, period, as they grant to the common man far too much mobility for your comfort and mercy, “you might just get hurt in one, peace out, dude.”

Development of technologies like a plug-in hybrid is expensive, and a Chevy needs to be a Chevy priced like a Chevy, unless it’s a ‘Vette, so what’s the General to do to cover all that upfront cost? Pump up the volume with a hybrid Caddy, that’s what!

This is the Cadillac Provoq “concept” revealed at this year’s Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago and it’s a beaut! It’s “a 4 door crossover concept, which uses the E-Flex platform with a hydrogen fuel-cell range extender.” See all the specs at the link above, and realize that this is a glimpse at a very real Caddy coming to a dealer near you late in ’09 built on the “premium-Theta” platform and powered most likely by the 3.6 liter gas-direction-V6 until the hydrogen-fuel-cell drive train is ready.

That’s the difference between industry and politicians. Bill & Hillary bloviate about passing laws to “force” the automakers to make fuel-efficient, alternate-fuel vehicles sometime after she gets in the White House. GM, Toyota, BMW, Chrysler and others are making it happen already — ’cause Toyota has shown the world that a Prius is green in the way that really matters — sales dollars!

Still, creating entire industries based on a lot of imaginary “hot air” seems like a fool’s errand. Guess at this point in time we haven’t many options left except to wait it all out and see. All one can know for sure is that it’s gonna be EXPENSIVE! That you can take to the bank . . .

Technorati Tags: Global Warming, Chevrolet Volt, General Motors, Cadillac Provoq, Bill & Hillary, GM

All I can say about how I felt after leaving the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show last night was, “At least I wasn’t as bummed as last year,” but let me tell ya, that don’t mean all that much. Perhaps it’s because it now comes too close on the heels of the SEMA show that we just got back from a couple of weeks ago, perhaps it’s because all the latest/greatest show cars go to Detroit in January, perhaps it’s because even though the LA auto market is the largest in the US, historically LA has always sucked hind tit, auto show wise. And perhaps, this year it has a lot to do with the automakers trying so very hard to prove how “GREEN” they are, with hybrids galore . . . yawn.

Not that this o’l Okie isn’t feelin’ the pain of mid-three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline coupled with a 9.5-in-town-mpg average for the Envoy — why???? (Must be that over-5,000 lb GVW, huh?) At least it holds a lot o’ stuff, when lots o’ stuff needs holdin’! I tell myself “I should have had a V8!”, with cylinder deactivation — but that model wasn’t available at the time. Ah, progress . . . cruelly throwing up in your face what you wish you could have had when you got what you got. That’s called capitalistic-consumerism, son — what makes the American economy grand. At least until we run out of credit, out of oil, or someone convinces us that we are going to suffer obliteration of life as we know it if we don’t all get together en mass and “GO GREEN!” — gotta save the planet Broh, ya know. For Chrissakes, Porsche had a hybrid Cayenne at the show — with a cute little “smiley face” front fascia they must have contracted out to the Toyota Prius designer. Sheesh! (No, I didn’t take a pic of that one, couldn’t bear it.)

When the five of us go to the show, it’s a dog pack mentality. Our alpha lead dog got a bit worked up and asked where do these wacko do-gooders think all the electricity is gonna come from if our Governator and his ilk finally force all of us into an Electric Car future? I said, the power grid, and we all laughed. Out here in good ol’ CA we have seasons when we face the specter of brown, or blackouts on a daily basis. Can’t imagine what it will be like with a few million plug-in-hybrids all pluggin’ in at once — just to top off the ol’ battery pack at work for the ride home, don’t ya know. I also wonder how much screaming and wailing over the monthly electric bill we’ll hear. All you need out here is a computer on most of the day and a big-screen TV on in the eve. to bump you way past the baseline allotment into the Oh-My-Gosh! over-baseline rates. Slammin’ a few more kWh per day into lil’ Sparky’s gonna turn some folks’ hair pure white, mark my word. Of course, if ol’ Hugo Chavez and ol’ Mahmoud have their way, the cost of gas will be so high, obscene electric bills will seem like a blessing in comparison.

You might think that I’m biased against electric cars, but that’s not the case. I get a little tingly when I see a Tesla, although for 100-large a lot of big luxury sedans begin singing out their siren song to me — can you say Audi S8? Sigh. GM’s The Electric Car was cute in its own way — I loved the commercials — but a ridiculous 20-30 mile range made it the toy of the likes of Ed Begley and Co. All those whiners and protesters when GM actually did what they said they would do, not renew the leases and destroyed the cars. That was a big development program, not a real production scenario, regardless of the Enviro-weenies’ protestations otherwise.

In our pack of five, I was the only one that spent a little quality time with the Chevy Volt show car. It debuted at the Detroit show last January and had a prominent display here in LA. Telling was the fact that I was the only one standing there looking at it — really, everyone was walking by without a cursory glance. Some “GREEN” crowd there last night, huh? It is neat. If they get the battery pack right, I’d consider one — as long as it “goes like stink!” That’s important. Just ask those Tesla folk about that.

Mazda Design Challenge Winning Sketch

One of the trippiest exhibits was Mazda’s. They held The Mazda Design Challenge as a way to showcase concepts for the 2018 version of the Mazda 3 with the winner being Mallory McMorrow from South Bend, IN, an industrial design student from the University of Notre Dame. The Mazda research CA group was turning Mallory’s design into a full size clay model at the show and it’s supposed to be finished by this coming Saturday. It’s a good thing for the average Joe and Jill to see what’s involved with bringing those masses of metal, rubber and glass they wash and polish on the weekends to life. What I never find less than flabbergasting is with all the time and trouble it takes to conceive, design & engineer a car or truck, why there are so many mediocre ones green-lighted for production.

I’m gonna take an ol’ ex-wife’s great-grandmothers advice now and “Quit my bitchin’!”

Here are a few more randomly sorted 2007 LA Auto Show pics for your enjoyment.

Scion Exhibit — Looks like a set of Matchbox cars, doesn’t it?

Honda’s new hydrogen fuel cell powered car — for a few lucky leasees at $600/month, ins. included!

One of a trio of mini-Chevys coming to a dealership near you . . .

(more…)

There’s nothing like spending 5 days, 4 nights in Vegas, walking a couple of miles of trade show exhibits a day, waiting in cab lines, eating tons of food late, going to bed later and getting up early to bend your mind a bit. I guess a lot of the committed bloggers will be doing just that this coming weekend at BlogWorldExpo, but yours truly had his share starting last Sun. and going through the better part of this last week. Yep, Okie went to the 2007 SEMA Show — the premiere automotive aftermarket trade show. Boy, is it ever big! This year I was there representing an exhibitor as their exhibit designer, and also as a buyer for a couple of retail automotive websites.

Airforce One Performance at 2007 SEMA Show

The company exhibiting at the show is Airforce One Performance, an intake manufacturer out in Canyon Country. The fates were with us as the Santa Clarita fires came as close as a block to where their facilities are located and where the exhibit was being finished. Whew!

What’s crazy is how much the finished booth actually looked like the original sketch. The craftsmen at AF1 really stepped up to the plate and hit a home run with this! The framework was made of 3-inch stainless steel tubing, then highly polished. Black carpeted and blue filter-media panels allowed the polished stainless of the products to really shine, while an LCD monitor provided the main signage — a trick that caught the eye from many rows away.

While SEMA is supposed to be all about the aftermarket, when you’ve been going there since ’89 it starts to feel like when you’ve seen one new muffler, you’ve seen them all. So, I’ll post a few interesting pics of some upcoming vehicles for ya. Like this 2009 Camaro gallery. Can’t wait for this beauty to hit the streets!

GM also showed a customized 2008 Pontiac G8, the new rear-wheel-drive sedan coming out soon — based on the new Zeta platform from GM’s Holden division in Australia. Sweet!

The next series of shots is of a vehicle that I had never seen before, not even in pictures. It’s Pininfarina’s 1963 Corvette Concept. It caught my eye and I knew at once that it was a 60′s Italian job, but man, is that fine or is that fine? It will be sold at no reserve during the 37th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event on Jan. 12-20, 2008, in Scottsdale, Ariz. so if that’s your thing, bring a Suburban load o’ cash to the auction and go get it!

And then, just to wrap up for now, you always stumble onto a really trick paint job or two, or three, or . . .

Enough of this already Okie! Enough! See, not everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!