1. "Dolls and Drinks for Likes and Clicks/The American Girl Cafe has become an unlikely party spot for influencers and their imitators" (NYT)("'Come with me to get absolutely obliterated at the American Girl Doll Cafe,' begins a TikTok video... The store comped their meal, as they sometimes do for influencers').
2. "Ship Carrying 1,100 Porsches and Other Luxury Cars Is Burning and Adrift" (NYT)("No rescuers or crew members were injured in the 'highly skilled and physically demanding' operation... that whisked the crew members to the nearby Portuguese island of Faial").
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15 comments:
Betcha dollars to donuts electric car batteries were the culprit. Dangerous environmental hazards.
I hadn’t considered the likelihood of those being hybrid electric cars. I’ll bet that is the cause. electric are are kind of dumb. And I love my Prius…
Don surber hardest hit.
One of the Bentleys had been ordered by his wife as a surprise anniversary present.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
We have about 10 American Girl dolls in the basement left from when my now adult girls were girls. So important at the time, now lonely and abandoned. Haven't bought them Porsches or Bentleys yet. They'll be waiting a long time for those, and unlikely those would be lonely or abandoned 10 years later. Of course, a shipload of burning American Girl dolls likely wouldn't be news either, unless it was used as a symbol of some impending doom. Don't think the American Girl dolls have gone electric, so maybe they aren't as susceptible to spontaneous combustion.
Interesting that the car ads at the Super Bowl heavily promoted electrics. So we're all supposed to transition to electric but they still have problems igniting at inopportune moments? And where's the power going to come from for all these millions of electric powered cars? Don't we have a shaky grid as it is?
The article doesn't even mention that American Girl is based in Middleton, Wisconsin, just up the road from the American Girl who hosts this blog.
Barry,
Stop being gloomy about where the power will come from. We only need 300 or so additional gigawatts of generating.
300 typical nuke plants
Or
40,000 square miles of solar (about the size of Ohio)
Or 300,000 windmills
Oh, you want to do trucks, busses, trains and so on as well? Double that (shame about Tennessee)
Then when you turn the power on, you fry the whole power grid to a crisp because it can't deliver that much.
Unless battery car enthusiasts can tell me where the power comes from and how it gets to the charging station, they can go fuck themselves
John LGBTQBNY Henry
"Unless battery car enthusiasts can tell me where the power comes from and how it gets to the charging station, they can go fuck themselves"
Don't forget the downtime while you wait for your vehicle to recharge, the owner cost to replace aging batteries and disposal of batteries that are no longer usable...
One of my brother’s friends had a specially ordered Audi RS5=Sportback on that ship. Guess he’ll have to wait for Audi to make another one for him. Thankfully, my brother’s special order Mercedes arrived in the US last week.
“Betcha dollars to donuts electric car batteries were the culprit. Dangerous environmental hazards.”
The Audis were what hit me the hardest. My family has driven Quattros for 35 years now. My mother bought a 4000Q in 1986, after moving up to the mountains west of Denver the year before. The next year, my father, me, and my next brother followed suit. My fourth brother started driving them after effectively moving back in with them (over protestations by our mother). Third brother followed suit after they moved from Austin to Fiskill, NY, and then Burlington, VT. Parents are gone, but the youngest and I have A4 Quattros, and the two between us have A6 TDI (turbo diesel) Quattros. My next car is planned to be a Q7. I wanted a TDI, but after the VW/Audi diesel scandal (both brothers with TDIs got nice settlements), they quit making them for import here.
My partner promised me a decade and a half ago a Porsche, when she could afford it. She still can’t. And probably never will be able to. I dreamed of a 911, but was going to settle for a cheaper younger brother. Now, I would be happy with one of their crossovers, which coincidentally shares parts with the Audi Q7, despite laughing at the idiots we followed into HS graduation a decade ago, who turned out to be the owners of the local NFL franchise.
In any case, one of the things pushing me to buy was the announcement that Audi was going to go completely EV in a very short number of years. Which is, of course, idiotic, since the reason that they are so popular in places like CO and VT, has long been that they are great snow cars. Back in, 1986 when we started buying Audi Quattros, the best in the market. Subarus were still turtling (flipping over) too much back then, and no one else had really figured out how to really do full time four wheel drive that well, and esp in a great road car. And why do they like great snow cars in these places? Because they are good on snow. Duh! But that means that these are cold states in the winter, when they would be most useful. Cold that sucks the power out of the batteries in EVs. I am now just imagining a string of Audi Quattro EVs stuck on the western approach to the Eisenhower tunnel, after a day of skiing, out of juice. Blew a clutch there once, which is when I went to automatics. It can take hours sometimes to do what is usually a 15-20 minute drive. It won’t help that these cars spent the day in freezing temps in ski area parking lots. That is a good part of Audi’s market in states like CO. Idiotic.
Let me add that the reason that I wanted an Audi TDI (turbo diesel) is that both of my brothers report insane mileage On the freeway. We are taking >40 mpg for semi luxury cars that can easily do over 100 mph. Indeed, it is not unusual to look down, thinking that you are driving the speed limit, and find that you are close to 100. We have had several A6s over the years, as both of those brothers do with their TDIs. They are bigger and heavier than our A4s, which means that they have a better ride at high speed on freeways, which we spend too much time driving (1200 miles each way between AZ and MT, at a minimum). Not as nimble, but no Audi I have owned was as nimble as my 4000Qs. Never drove a TT, like Ann has had. I am over 70 now, and nimble isn’t as important anymore (I was under 40 for my first couple of 4000Qs).
1. The ship isn't sunk.
2. The fire hasn't destroyed all the cars.
3. I could use a Bentley.
4. SALVAGE!
It's not just the down time while charging, you have to be there when it finishes.
A client took me out for lunch in his tesla once. We had to go to longhorn grill, not because we wanted to but because they had a charger in the parking lot.
About halfway through lunch he go a text to come move the car. He had to leave his meal to do it.
There is a 10 minute grace period but after that tesla charged some outrageous fee. 50 cents or a dollar a minute.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
NYT Headline,"Ship Carrying 1,100 Porsches and Other Luxury Cars Is Burning and Adrift"
This is the first such headline I've seen in a long time and it's certainly received lots of coverage. But, such events aren't rare ...
Shipping is the lifeblood of the global economy,
transporting approximately 90% of global trade. There
are over 50,000 merchant ships trading internationally ... The maritime industry saw the number of total shipping losses remain stable during 2017, declining slightly to 94 – the second lowest total over the past decade
SAFETY AND
SHIPPING REVIEW 2018
Maybe it's the Porsches ...
There is a 10 minute grace period but after that tesla charged some outrageous fee. 50 cents or a dollar a minute.
That's because there is usually one, and sometimes two or three, other people waiting to use the charger.
Would you think it was OK to pull up to a gas pump, stick the nozzle in, and then wander off for an hour or two?
"I hadn’t considered the likelihood of those being hybrid electric cars. I’ll bet that is the cause. electric are are kind of dumb. And I love my Prius…"
Older Priuses used NIMH batteries; newer ones use Li-Ion. NIMH has significantly lower energy density but I've yet to hear of one catching fire.
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