The Tragedy

Chevrolet decided the base Corvette did not have enough power. They fixed that. I love my CT5, but if i did not live somewhere with snow and ice, I might have bought the less practical Corvette. 

Wait a minute: one of my garage bays is long enough for both. If you are a progun Chevy dealer with a spare Corvette you cannot sell, there is a spot open for it!

How Stupid Do You Have to Be?

I waa watching When PIT Maneuvers Are Used With NO MERCY!   I can half-understand why someone in one of the hopped-up up Chargers thinks they might outrun state police but a Toyota Camry or Corolla? Admittedly, many of these idiots have long criminal histories, so they are already among the mentally challenged.

Magic Cushion

 I mentioned a few weeks back that the seats in my CT5 were too painful for my wife to sit in for even short periods. (Her 2022 Hyundai Tucson Limited is only slightly longer until pain becomes unbearable.) The rather stiff bolsters cause her great pain. After many experiments ordering and returning cushions to Amazon, we found one that she can comfortably both ride and drive with.

Amazon.com: C CUSHION LAB Patented Pressure Relief Seat Cushion for Long Sitting Hours on Office/Home Chair, Car, Wheelchair - Extra-Dense Memory Foam for Hip, Tailbone, Coccyx, Sciatica - Light Grey : Office Products

Buy C CUSHION LAB Patented Pressure Relief Seat Cushion for Long Sitting Hours on Office/Home Chair, Car, Wheelchair - Extra-Dense Memory Foam for Hip, Tailbone, Coccyx, Sciatica - Light Grey: Back & Seat Cushions - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

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Lost Keys

I misplaced the keys that hold the roof rail crossbars on my wife's Hyundai. I eas planning to pay a locksmith to fit keys for them.

It was not an opium dream but a dream nonetheless revealed their location.

In Hyundai Tucson glove box, a stately key set I did find.

I Took The Girls For Their First Ride in the Cadillac (Driving Miss Rosie)

This got scrambled first time. A potential, and eventually actual buyer, wanted to see the house and Mom's Taxi was not home, so I loaded our Springer Spaniels in the back seat and away we went. Lillie tried to climb into the front seat, but I explained that she could not drive and she lay down in the back. Both girls calmed down and saw quietly in the back seat, without sedatives, sometimes looking out the window. I explained to my wife that Rosie and I could split driving shifts.  She was not convinced. The first prairie dog or pronghorn antelope along the road and we would driving after it.

The more I drive my CT5, the more impressed I get with the electronics. The SuperCruise lane change capacity at first disappointed me. I turn the turn signal on and I have to turn it off after the lane change completes. 

A few weeks back, I watched a YouTube video about features present in many cars that are not explicitly in the manuals and are very nice. One is that on many cars, if you turn the turn signal stalk just a little, it turns on the blinker just long enough to warn those in that lane, "I'm coming over." (In the 1960s, I repaired the blinkers on my 1964 Chevy Malibu wagon, and saw the very curious mechanism to implement that in plastic, without electronics.)

So I did the brief warning mode. SuperCruise did the lane change with no need to turn off the blinker. Very nice. It also will do uncommanded lane changes to get around road hogs. I do not understand how it makes this decision but it is possible to tell it to not make uncommanded right lane changes,  I have never seen it make a dangerous decision on this.

Memories of Being a Cool Kid

Remember these?

All the cool kids listened to these after 8-track went the way of the buffalo.  There were pre-recorded ones made very cheaply and short-lived. Or if you had the most minimal of technical know-how, you recorded from your turntable onto a cassette tape deck for your car. 

I had one of the highly hyped Pioneer AM/FM/Cassette decks in several of my silly cars as a young adult: 1977 Chevy Nova; 1978 Camaro Z28; 1979 Pontiac Grand Am.

The case was 1970s cool also:

Making a 1970s period piece? Let me know or in the trash it goes.

Hidden Features

 I was watching a YouTube video about cat features that most owners do not know about because they are not in the manual (or at least at least the quick start guides that many manufacturers use instead of the full War & Peace manual which I bought for my CT5.

Some are in the "Is that not obvious, why sre allowed out doors without adult supervision?" category.  The little arrow next to the had two filler icon means, gas nozzle goes here. They claimed only 10% of drivers know this. 

The first surprise was a feature my 2014 Jaguar had that I was disappointed not to have on the CT5. On the Jaguar, hold the unlock button for the seconds and all the windows roll down and the sunroof opens. Hold lock down three seconds and they all close. 

It is in the CT5 War & Peace manual. Double click unlock and hold unlock for three seconds and all the windows roll down. Double click lock and hold it for three seconds and all the windows roll up. There is an annoying chirp when it does this, but I am not planning to use this feature while engaged in covert operations. 

The other feature I vaguely knew about from the window sticker: Intellibeam. While driving in the dark, this will detect oncoming headlights and reduce from high to low beam and back again to high beam. I looked through the manual carefully and found no mention.  You turn it on when you start the car by pressing a button at the end of left stalk. I guess having on by default might be a problem in city streets.  There is an icon on the stalk but it is not all clear what it means. There are times when a picture is worth a thousand words and times when ten words are worth multiple icons. I am still trying to imagine the icon string to explain Intellibeam.

Dog Bone Taillights

 

What was Hyundai thinking?

Why AI May Be Useful for Skilled Craftsmen

My wife's 2022 Hyundai Tucson Limited has exhibited signs of demon possession for some time.  If we both have our key fobs, behavior is different than if only one of us does.  The dealer has no idea what the problem is, probably only one fob is there at a time.

So I asked ChatGPT to explain why if we both have our key fobs, pressing the external handle lock button does not work.  It gave a very clear explanation. The car has no idea if one fob is in the car or not so it does not lock.

It answered a couple of other??? questions as well.  If I do not carry the fob into the car with my wife for a couple of days her fob starts working more reliably. ChatGPT explained that if a fob does not move for 72 hours, it becomes secondary fob.

I Am Having Lots of Dreams, Most of Which Fade As Soon As I Wake Up

But this one was so pleasant and surprising thst I remember it.

Along with the Cadillac, I bought some crazy Jaguar that was more like a high-tech gokart than a convertible.  The sest was a couple inches off the ground and water more than a couple inches deep would stall the electric motor and worse wash over me.  That was okay because it was so light, I could pick it up and carry it to the next dry patch.  It was a cinematic thrill ride.

We were still living in the house above Horseshoe Bend.  After a series of adventures shooting the puddles on the way to the highway and driving slowly through very tony boutiques that are absolutely unimaginable there (being very polite to not get tire stains or oil on the carpets), i get to the junction of the Old Highway and State Highway 55.  It is great fun trying to figure out the obscure cruise control, stereo and drive mode buttons.

At this point, I can see i need to go get the Cadillac.  Snow banks are falling on the hillsides into a body of snowmelt many feet deep.

Freud would have so much fun analyzing this dream.

I Have Always Considered the 1970-72 Malibu One of the Outstanding Body Shell Designs of the Era

A roommate at the beginning of time bought a 1970 Malibu.  So imagine my pleasure at reading this SupercarBlondie article about a guy who restored his 1970 SS with a little change from stock: "Montana man gets his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle rebuilt as a 1,200HP beast."  Yes a twin turbocharged Chevy Big Block.

I shudder to think what top speed on this might be.  They weighed about 3500 pounds as I recall.  

It Was Foggy and Misty...

No, this is not a variant of "Twas brilliant and the slightly toves...."

I needed my rear windows defroster on.  Not seeing a button obviously enough labeled, I pressed the microphone button and said, "Turn on rear defroster," and it did.

EV Tax Credits As Subsidy to Car Makers

11/2/25 Fortune:

Goodbye, tax credits: President Donald Trump’s tax and budget bill ended tax credits of up to $7,500 on eligible EV purchases as of Sept. 30, and EV demand is expected to cool without federal incentives. Rivian recently cut 4.5% of its workforce, or about 600 workers, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“With the changing operating backdrop, we had to rethink how we are scaling our go-to-market functions,” CEO RJ Scaringe wrote to employees, per the WSJ.

Pricing starts above $70,000 for the EV maker’s current passenger vehicles.

“It meant that we needed to reduce our costs in our vehicle roadmap,” McDonough said of the end of the EV tax credits. “And the key strategy for us is to bring to market a more mass-market-priced product, which is coming out next year.”

The excuse that I hear from green EV fans is that a new technology needs subsidies to develop.  Subsidies reduce consumer costs allowing a larger market.  Rivian seems to think that losing the tax credits will require them to cut costs.  This should increase demand.  Wow!  Maybe free markets are a better way!

Car Manuals

 Oddly enough, the interior lights in my wife's Hyundai Tucson do not come on automatically when opening any of the doors.  This is odd.  At one time, police cars did this same thing to prevent the lighting from outlining an officer to a criminal as they were getting out of the car at night.

The manual showed an icon for a switch that controls this feature.  But it did not identify where this switch was located.  A Hyundai video showed me where this switch was located in the overhead lighting panel.

"Insult Me Again!"

Torque News:

"Tesla Cybertruck Owner Says, “It’s a Futuristic Chrome-Plated Dumpster Designed On an Apple II By a Stoned Elon Musk, But Requires Less Maintenance Than a Goldfish...

"Cybertruck owner knows it's a "futuristic chrome-plated dumpster," but he doesn't care. He says it goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds and has "less maintenance than a goldfish."

Road Trip! Road Trip!

Yes, a very funny sequence from Animal House.  The one from which I just returned was not that entertaining but still I am glad to have done it.

A gun rights activist of no national importance was a friend who passed several years ago.  The Bible teaches us to look after widows and orphans.  His widow is not financially in need but being there as a friend is important.  (They had no children.  You may think children are an impediment to your lifestyle at 35 or 40 but that will look different at 60 or 70 or 80.)

Anyway, we drove from Boise to Silver Springs, Nevada.  This is a road that goes through Middle of Nowhere via Next to Middle of Nowhere.  Desert, scrub, areas so desolate that their only economic value is lithium mining.  Even with speeds consistently above 70 (in places above 90) the Cadillac averaged 28.0 mpg, quite a bit above the advertised highway mileage for the AWD supercharged V6.

SuperCruise performed perfectly even on two lane roads where I was not expecting it to have data.  Would it operate at high speeds?  At one point in Oregon, I needed to pass on a two lane road.  Put your foot down in the Cadillac and the experience is utterly incomprehensible.   There is power that I have never experienced before.  Even with car set to not pump exhaust noise back into car, there is very satisfying sound of a revving engine, and burbling noises as it upshifts through several gears.  

As I was saying, I was in Oregon and shortly after blowing through 100 mph, SuperCruise disengaged.  So, a very unsurprising adult behavior imposed by GM. 

A few miles later, I was in Nevada, which has much higher speed limits (especially on Interstates) and well north of 100 on these amazing passes, SuperCruise remained in operation.   I suspect that it treats disengage speeds based on state maximum speed limits.

On rough roads, the stiffness of the suspension reminds you that this car can pull 1g lateral acceleration.  On smooth Interstates, it is astonishingly smoth.

UPDATE: While passing, I had great confidence that the governor-limited top speed of 154 mph is entirely plausible.

So Cool

 The Cadillac has a WiFi using the car's cellphone.  It is faster than using my own cellphone as a hotspot.  Cellphone antennas are a bit less effective than the car's antenna. I get 15 Mbps in here, and I can power my laptop from the USB-C power connector.  Deeper into Nevada would like requiring hotspotting from my cellphone's StarLink connection which would likely remind me of dialup.

SuperCruise

I just did a substantial road trip.  About 6 hours of driving, much of it at 75-90 mph using SuperCruise.  A few interesting discoveries thst I class as nice surprises.

1. Speed set at 80 but the road curved and slowed to about 72 to compensate for curve.

2. Even at 85 and 90 SuperCruise still sets speed.  It seems to trust me more than state speed limit.

3. I needed to pass on a 2 lane road.  In Oregon, i passed on a two-lane road.  This required putting my foot down.  The 75-100 mph transition is startling fast with some lovely exhaust notes as it upshifts through several gears.  (The supposed governor-limited top speed off 154 seems entirely plausible.  It also seem a bit stable at speed than my 2000 Corvette which often became a little light in front above 100.)  Somewhere after 100, SuperCruise shut off.  This was no big deal because I was paying very careful attention at this speed moving back into lane.  This seems like a reasonable action.

The next pass was in Nevada and again the pass (in this case two semis) ended above 100 but SuperCruise remained in effect.  Perhaps because Nevada has posted speed limits of 80.  Oregon tops out at 70.  SuperCruise may figure that there are legitimate reasons for you still be in SuperCruise mode some 25 mph above maximum posted speed for situations like this.

I Keep Promising to Stop Bragging About That Cadillac

Driving with adaptive cruise control makes keeping speed limits so easy.  Instead of setting cruise control after every use of the brakes,  I just set it and leave it on.  When traffic slows, the car slows, even to a complete stop.  When the car ahead moves away, my car slowly accelerates away.  I can go for miles on city streets without touching brake or gas.  

It still requires some attention.   A curving lane means it may not see the car ahead until an unnerving closeness.

SuperCruise

I had to drive to the Malheur Sheriff’s Office as part of renewing my Oregon Concealed Handgun License.  Much of this is on I-84 so a good chance to test SuperCruise. 

Once you set a speed, it stays there, adjusting speed for traffic in the way.  It makes relatively subtle steering adjustments to follow road turns.  When I say subtle, I mean more so than the 2014 Cadillac CTS I t test drove some years ago.  If you are hands barely touching the wheel, you can see it steering for you.  But I would never take my hands completely off the wheel.  Software engineers who completely trust software have not had enough experience.

Is it as good as a self-driving system?  I do not think so, but it is still nice to have.  It will not fool you into the doubtless apocryphal tale told in the late 1970s when Los Angeles was awash in privileged Iranian college students with $4700/month stipends from hone.  The tale was an Iranian set the cruise control on the van, then went in the back to make a sandwich.