Sleepless in Midland

An autonomous car race -- that will be one to watch

The concept of a fully autonomous car is intriguing. And a race involving them is even more so.

This will be a race to watch, even for those of us who are not race fans. It's the Indy Autonomous Challenge in which self driving cars will compete in a head-to-head race. To qualify, teams will have to complete 20 laps around the 2.5-mile track in under 25 minutes. Speeds will have to average 120 miles an hour over the 50 miles to beat that time. The ultimate prize will be $1 million, $250,000, and $50,000 to the first, second, and third finishers, respectively.

Entry is restricted to accredited, tax-exempt colleges and universities -- Texas A&M is one of them. The race is scheduled for October 2021.

I'll be watching.

Additional references:
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Will Host Its First Ever Autonomous Race In 2021;
Self-Driving Cars Will Race in Indianapolis. Tesla Can’t Take Part;
Autonomous Vehicles to Race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

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7:48 AM 7/23/2020

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Rolled steel doors on Tesla truck not a bad idea for regular vehicles

Who among us hasn't cringed at the sight of a door ding on a new vehicle? It's part of life as a vehicle owner. But it shouldn't be that way.

Most of us saw the video of Elon Musk promoting the new battery powered pickup truck. The feature that made the video go viral was the attempt to demonstrate the tough windows that turned out to be not so tough.

But there's one feature that should be emulated by other car and pickup truck makers: the thick doors made from rolled steel. Those things really were tough. And it would be nice to have doors like that on regular street vehicles. That inconsiderate slob in the spot next to it could open his door into it all day and not produce a single ding. Yeah!

See Tesla Cybertruck:

EXOSKELETON
Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.

and

Tesla’s Cybertruck is made of the same stainless steel alloy that SpaceX is using for Starship

Meanwhile, the bugs haven't been worked out of the windows yet. And that might be a tougher job. Regular car windows aren't that tough either. For a demonstration of how easily a burglar can shatter a car window with a small piece of spark plug porcelain, check out this Youtube video.

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2:43 PM 12/3/2019

Which bad drivers are most likely to crash? Speeders.

It wasn't too long ago that lawmakers were all bent out of shape over cell phone use while driving. Distracted driving was said to be the biggest cause of accidents.

Well, good news. Researchers discovered that speeding is the main cause of crashes. This resulted from a study of drivers in Canada and Texas by the University of Waterloo. See Speed identified as the best predictor of car crashes. Excerpt:

Researchers at the University of Waterloo examined data from 28 million trips for possible links between four bad driving behaviours – speeding, hard braking, hard acceleration and hard cornering – and the likelihood of crashes.

The earlier focus on cell phones was probably because of the annoyance factor more than safety.

In any event, drivers inclined to speed should probably opt out of any insurance company's offer to allow them to monitor the driver's habits with some inboard monitoring system.

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3:17 PM 8/28/2019

Traffic Jams in Texas -- Austin is the worst

Houstonpress.com is boasting about Houston's ranking as 2nd worst traffic congestion among large cities in Texas in Houston Traffic Is Not Nearly as Bad as You Think. Here's their explanation:

First, the rankings in Texas. Austin is actually the worst at 25 percent, Houston is second at 23 percent followed by DFW (18), San Antonio (17), McAllen (17) and El Paso (15). Houston, Dallas and San Antonio saw 1 percent decreases in 2018 over 2017. The other cities remained the same.

The numbers represent percentage of wasted commuter time because of traffic congestion and came from The TomTom Traffic Index -- measured with this methodology:

The congestion level percentages represent the measured amount of extra travel time experienced by drivers across the entire year. We start by establishing a baseline of travel times during uncongested, free flow conditions across each road segment in each city. We then analyze travel times across the entire year (24/7) for each city – and compare this information against free flow periods to derive extra travel time.

An overall congestion level of 36% means that the extra travel time is 36% more than an average trip would take during uncongested conditions. Average times are of actual taken trips, across every vehicle in the entire network, 24/7. Travel times in free-flow (uncongested) conditions are not based on speed limits but on actual trips made.

Alas, the fair city of Midland, Texas, failed to make the population cut for inclusion. But most locals will agree that the biggest time waster of all in this city is school zones.

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3:00 PM 8/26/2019

Just cruising through the grave yard

The other day I attended the funeral of a friend who owned a classic car. The family followed the hearse to the grave site in a sparkling 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.

He probably would have preferred to be driving it himself. But it was a cool send off!

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2:29 PM 5/29/2019

Nitrogen in tires? This dreamy green idea is too far ahead of its time

The main selling points for nitrogen in vehicle tires are on display at Get Nitrogen:

Nitrogen in tires is becoming a popular replacement for standard air. Nitrogen is all around us... the air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and the rest is small amounts of other gasses. When it comes to tire inflation, nitrogen has many advantages over oxygen. With nitrogen tire inflation, improvements can be noted in a vehicle's handling, fuel efficiency and tire life through better tire pressure retention, improved fuel economy and cooler running tire temperatures. Here at the Get Nitrogen Institute our goal is to provide consumers, over-the-road truckers, fleet managers and others information about the benefits of using nitrogen in tires.

But the disadvantages are cost and availability. That same website has a portal that purports to steer the user to a nearby establishment where the vehicle owner can get nitrogen tire fill ups. But the site says there is only one such place here in Midland, Texas, and a phone call reveals that they don't provide that service. The kind lady who answered the phone said that she had to drive the 20 mile trip to nearby Odessa to get her tires filled when she owned a vehicle with nitrogen inflated tires.

So it's currently impractical, at least where I live. Meanwhile, Edmunds.com thinks it's probably not worth the extra expense and that the money would be better invested in a good tire gauge. Even Discounttire.com is recommending against it.

The passage quoted above from the Get Nitrogen site said nitrogen has become "a popular replacement for standard air." Here's an experiment for anyone wanting to test that theory. Look for green colored valve caps -- the symbol for nitrogen filled tires. My own limited survey produced zero sightings.

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4:20 PM 5/18/2019

Drag race: Electric car vs Cheetah

The other day we talked about electric vehicles and government subsidies. Now here's something new about EVs I learned. It's widely known that electric cars have remarkable acceleration, as long as they've got power. And now there's a Formula-E racing circuit featuring electric race cars. The obvious question is how they kept the EV powered. Well, the pit stops involve either a vehicle swap or battery change.

They put out an interesting video of a Cheetah racing one of those electric race cars. Here's a link to the two minute Youtube video. Spoiler alert: the distance decided the winner.

The enterprise is an effort to promote electric vehicles. So of course there's plenty of wordage in the related documentary video about global warming.

Addendum: This stunt was possibly inspired by Kenneth Cecil Gandar-Dower's efforts to promote the sport of racing cheetahs and greyhounds in the 1930s.

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3:19 PM 4/21/2019

Promoting environment or crony capitalism? Electric Vehicle subsidy predicted to continue

Electric vehicles are the hot new thing for those who want to be the first to own the latest innovations. And admittedly, there are intriguing.

The downside is the range. Tesla claims that a Model 3 has a range of 310 miles on a single charge. Charging is available at Supercharging stations where they claim the driver gets 180 miles for 15 minutes of charging time. That's a bit better than the 240 volt home charging connection which they say will charge at a rate of 44 miles per hour of charging time. So instead of paying by the gallon for gasoline, the driver pays for the kilowatts.

Anyway, what brings this to mind was a recent visit by Vice President Mike Pence for a fund raising rally here in Midland, Texas. A friend attended and said there were roughly five Teslas among the vehicles the attendees used to get there. Surprised the heck out of me. But I don't live in that world.

All that said, buyers of electric vehicles can still get a tax credit for their purchase. Here's what Veronique de Rugy said about that in Bipartisan Support for Electric Vehicle Handouts Betrays Taxpayers:

Under current law, a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 is available to consumers of the first 200,000 vehicles sold by each manufacturer, after which the credit is phased out. Both Tesla and General Motors have exceeded the cap, a fact that has driven a lobbying frenzy to extend the benefit. This wouldn't be the first time the credit was expanded, as the original incarnation of the credit applied only to the first 250,000 electric vehicles sold across all manufacturers.

This new legislation will allow for the purchase of an additional 400,000 vehicles to be eligible for a $7,000 credit, but it might as well be permanent. If Congress passes the bill and it's signed into law, Washington will be sending a clear signal to manufacturers that the gravy train may never end. All the EV makers must then do is flood Washington with lobbying and campaign donations once the next deadline approaches and the cycle could no doubt continue.

The current credit is expected to cost $7.5 billion in federal revenue from last year through 2022, according to the Congressional Research Service and the Joint Committee on Taxation. The costs of the newly expanded credit are not yet available but would be considerably higher.

And here's an interesting tidbit from de Rugy's article:

Almost 80% of those utilizing the EV tax credit have incomes over $100,000, making it not just a corporate handout but also a transfer from all workers to wealthier Americans. And despite its advocates' claims, the EV tax credit fails to reduce the alleged threat of climate change.

One has to suspect that each of those five Tesla owners at the rally likely had a gas guzzling backup vehicle or two back home.

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2:15 PM 4/20/2019

An electric vehicle worth waiting for -- Rivian R1T pickup truck

Whenever I was asked whether I would buy an electric vehicle my reply was "I'm waiting for a Toyota electric pickup truck."

The theory was that Toyota would have worked out the major bugs in EVs by the time they tried it on a pickup truck. You've heard the old saying: "Be not the first on whom the new is tried nor the last to cast the old aside. Toyota isn't there yet, so I'm still waiting.

But here's one that's getting in on the early action. If it does all they say it will do then it will be quite a vehicle: tough and powerful with a long range of battery life. From the Rivian R1T website:

Up to 400 miles without recharging;
Able to drive through water three feet deep;
0-60 in 3 seconds;
Four motors cranking out a total of 740 horsepower;
Starting price of $61,500 after Federal Tax rebate.

They are speculating that they might be available a year after production starts in 2020. But anyone who has followed Tesla's development will know that early predictions aren't always reliable. In any event, the R1T certainly looks like a step in the right direction.

Now if only Toyota would make one.

Meanwhile, Cnet.com has a writeup about it:Meet the Rivian R1T, a 400-mile, all-electric luxury pickup truck.

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3:16 PM 12/31/2018

P.S. Does the front end of the R1T remind anyone of the Edsel?

Driving Corollary number 1 -- the more frequently the driver change lanes the less use the blinker gets

A friend sent me this jpg with the pithy connection between old and new technology.

And it reminded me to put into a corollary my own observation about blinkers on vehicles that are constantly changing lanes. To wit:

There is an inverse proportion between frequency with which the driver changes lanes and frequency the driver turns on the blinker.

If it happens out here in sleepy flyover country it must be quite common in the big cities.

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2:07 PM 12/6/2018

 

Two expensive cars that were totaled by insurance company because of tiny little matter

Here are two almost unbelievable stories about expensive cars that were totaled by seemingly minor damage.

First up: Here's How A Corvette Was Totaled Because Of One Inch Of Damage. It was a 2017 Corvette with which the owner drove over an unavoidable obstacle on the freeway. BUMP! From the article:

I had it inspected at Karl Chevrolet the next day and from a quick look, there didn’t seem to be any serious damage. We took it in to Karl’s for repair a few weeks later and we were told the frame strike caused a small crack, less than an inch and a half long and they were having difficulty finding a replacement part.

A few days later, the shop told us the part is not available from Chevrolet and the car would be totaled. ...

The insurance company finally came to the same conclusion on the frame part being unavailable, and declared it a total loss. We were surprised that after all of this, they gave us a fair offer and had a check to us for the car the very next day.

The insurance company took the hit. But it seems like a bad business practice for a vehicle manufacturer to put irreplaceable parts in vulnerable places on expensive cars.

Second: This Lotus Elise Was Totaled Thanks to One Microscopic Bumper Crack. It wasn't exactly microscopic, but it didn't look like a scratch that would total a car. Nonetheless, from the article:

We spoke to Philip Kingston, the previous owner, to see whether it was this damage alone that totaled out the car, and he confirmed that yes, it was. His body shop came back with a $19,000 repair estimate, so his insurance ended up buying the car from him for more than $33,000. New clamshells can cost more than $5000, and that's before labor to install it, which is notoriously expensive. That rare bronze paint was also an issue. Remember, an entirely new clamshell had to be painted, so a lot of material was needed.

Another insurance company took a hit. Don't you know insurance on those vehicles must cost a fortune?

Owning an exotic car could be a dream come true. But under certain circumstances, it could become a nightmare.

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2:29 PM 11/14/2018

Our vehicles will soon be spying on us

It's bad enough that our phones and TVs are spying on us, it turns out that our vehicles have that capability, too. Or if they don't have it now, they soon will have.

Does that worry car owners? It should, but people seem to have gotten very complacent about all those devices watching and listening to us.

Anyway, for a rundown on what's in the pipeline, see What Your Car Knows About You. Alternate link. Excerpt:

Already, some car makers are gathering this data to provide feedback to help improve a car’s performance, refine features and alert them to any potential quality problems early on. They’re also using it to create new and more personalized services for drivers.

But many car makers have bigger plans, including using the data to craft targeted in-car advertisements or selling it to mapping firms looking to provide more accurate traffic information.

General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. and other major car makers are hoping these connected-car services will generate new revenue streams that can help them diversify beyond their core business of building and selling cars. While it is still early days, McKinsey & Co. estimates monetizing data from connected cars will be worth up to $750 billion by 2030 as more cars are shipped with pre-installed modems and other internet-connected devices. ...

Car companies stress that they get the owner’s consent first before gathering any data. In cases where it is collected and provided to third parties, the data is anonymized, meaning it is scrubbed of all personal information and batched together with data from other vehicles to provide a more generalized picture of a car’s operations or consumer driving habits.

You did click "Accept," didn't you?

Still, privacy experts say it is not always clear to consumers when they are giving consent. As with other electronic devices, the data disclosures are often buried in the terms and service agreement and described in ways that aren’t always easy for customers to understand.

“That’s not going to give consumers a full sense of how their data is being used and collected any more than it is online,” said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington, who specializes in digital privacy.

This is all the more reason for drivers to hang on to those clunkers as long as possible.

The company rushing to get your data moving out of the vehicle is Otonomo of Israel.

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1:20 PM 8/19/2018

How long before self driving car gets hacked?

As we hear more and more about self driving vehicles it's tempting to get complacent and dream of the possibilities.

But it doesn't take a pessimist to imagine one negative aspect -- the possibility of remote hacking. We've already heard of vehicles being hijacked by laptop, i.e., locks and brakes disengaged without the owners' approval.

Making some computer device unhackable is probably impossible. The process can be slowed, but the risk can't be eliminated.

According to Reuters, a meeting was held in March in which Transportation Department officials met with interested individuals to compile information about self-driving vehicles in which law enforcement representatives wanted the ability to take over such a vehicle. That would be a lot safer than what they can do now to a moving vehicle.

But if law enforcement could take over an autonomous vehicle, it follows that hackers could eventually do it, too.

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1:26 PM 7/27/2018

Pininfarina Hypercar -- at least you know it will look good

Pininfarina is the design firm famous for Ferraris, so if nothing else, their proposed electric hypercar is going to look good.

The first ones expected off the assembly line are Codenamed PF-Zero , and the design is expected to be based on the H2 Speed -- pictured on the right. And it is expected to be powered by a 1,500hp electric motor.

They won't be cheap. For prospective pricing, we get this from New Pininfarina car brand to launch electric hypercar in 2020:

An inside source told Autocar: “Pininfarina has always made very special cars, but usually for other people. When we have sold cars ourselves, like the Pininfarina Sergio [of which six were built in 2015 and sold for a reputed $3m each], we have always done very well. It is not difficult to see what the next step should be. The cars will be exclusive and very beautiful.”

Meanwhile, for those of us who watch our pocket books, there will be SUVs, which should be cheaper. However, that will mean sacrificing a few hundred horsepower.

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2:01 PM 4/15/2018

Night driving with dims on is dangerous -- just ask that driverless car driver who hit the pedestrian

Most of us has seen that video of the Uber driver as his car strikes a pedestrian. If not, click here if you want to watch it.

There are two views, interior of car and exterior in the same direction the vehicle is traveling. Anyone who has driven through the Texas hill country after dark had probably had a close call with a living or dead animal on the road. Often the traffic just heavy enough that the driver can't keep the brights on for long stretches. But visibility is drastically reduced with dims only.

A deer carcass on the road can be a real hazard. Striking a large dead deer while driving a low fast car could result in a serious accident. And of course, striking a live deer will definitely do some damage.

And with dim light driving the obstacles don't appear soon enough to easily avoid them. There's no easy answer. Slow driving will never make a comeback. The solution might be some sort of dark glasses that will allow drivers to use brights all the time but avoid eye annoyance to oncoming drivers.

That or stop humans from driving in the dark and turn the nighttime over to creatures of the night.

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1:15 PM 3/24/2018

Tesla -- note to Democrats, conservatives don't hate Tesla, it's the tax subsidies they hate

A few years ago a Democrat relative sent a screen shot and a link to Consumer Reports calls latest Tesla best vehicle they've ever tested, right wing goes nuts along with a note that one of her friends was buying one. I questioned why conservatives would go nuts. But without reading the article, I assumed it was because Elon Musk and Teslas were so highly subsidized with tax dollars.

I, as a conservative, love to see entrepreneurs succeed. And I would love to see Tesla succeed AND wean itself off subsidies. I would also like to see more established companies, like Toyota, make an electric vehicle with the high quality Toyota buyers expect from that company.

Because Tesla is having some problems. For example, Tesla employees report flawed parts are causing Model 3 delays.

Not long ago I watched a TV show with a title something like, "How They are Made," which featured in that episode about how the Tesla automobile was made. It was a very slow building process with a very high "hand made" aspect to it. Sometime later when Elon Musk announced a very ambitious production rate for the cars, I didn't go nuts, but I did question whether he could pull it off with so much hands-on work involved. Turns out he couldn't.

In any event, good luck Musk. But please quit clamoring for tax dollars.

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12:45 PM 3/16/2018

Good ad featuring nice ball handling by Stephen Curry

We have a good time on these pages poking fun at bad ads. So in fairness, the good ones deserve some recognition, too.

There's a good one airing these days for Infinity, the car. The ad features some fine basketball handling by Stephen Curry. He dribbles two balls in synchronization. It's very impressive. Watch it at this Youtube video if you haven't seen it already.

BTW, Mr. Curry made a smart move by doing this. His name appears on a screen during the ad, and it was a good thing. You probably know who he is, but I didn't know before looking him up on Duckduckgo. Now I know, too, and he's got a new fan.

Is Elon Musk ready to battle the plaintiffs' lawyers after Tesla Model 3 rolls out?

Car magazines are gushing over the Model 3, and if all the hype is true, it really could be a ground breaking automobile. But with the hurried roll out, will the car be fault free right off the assembly line?

The old school vehicle manufacturers test new models extensively, but many of the problem come to light only after their vehicles have been driven off the lot by paying customers. Anyone who has bought a new car in the past few years has probably encountered at least one of those ubiquitous recalls that seem to plague every manufacturer. The most infamous one was the recall to replace those Takata airbags which sometimes sprayed shrapnel at the passenger. It was an extremely expensive recall, and it's not over yet.

More recently, we learned that plaintiffs' lawyers are seeking another billion dollars from the GM bankruptcy trustee over a faulty ignition switch.

Will the Tesla company be able to weather these type storms? Mr. Musk has a lot of friends in government, and he has done well by them. He'll probably be calling on them for a bailout should some faulty part plague his new car.

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11:00 AM 8/12/2017

Without tax breaks Telsa car sales might get stuck in neutral

Just yesterday we made this observation: Tesla electric car and the 650 hp Camaro -- what a contrast!

But now we see this shocker, although it shouldn't be a shocker: Tesla sales stopped dead in Hong Kong after a tax break for electric cars was scrapped:

Data analysis from The Journal has shown that zero new Tesla Model S sedans and Model X SUVs were registered with the transport department in April, after the vehicle-registration tax waiver for electrics was discontinued at the start of that month.

Following that, just five privately owned electric cars were registered in May.

The Journal reported a sales surge just before the April 1 rule change, with 2,939 Tesla vehicles registered in March and nearly 3,700 entering the department's books for the first quarter of 2017. The end of the tax break was announced in February.

Mr. Musk has done well by governments that are happy to hand out incentives for green autos -- last year nearly 7% of cars sold in Hong Kong were Teslas. Take those incentives away, and Tesla is going to have to compete the old fashioned way.

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1:00 PM 7/10/2017

Tesla electric car and the 650 hp Camaro -- what a contrast!

The other day Elon Musk announced that the first deliveries of the Tesla Model 3 might come as early as July 28 -- a mere three weeks away. There's a guy in a hurry! First-one-on-the-block buyers are probably happy about that. The rest of us would do well to wait until those first buyers get the bugs worked out. After all, most new models have them.

We may also be reluctant to add to the profits of a company that is such a heavily subsidized crony capitalist, even as the purchaser gets to participate in the largess.

Meanwhile, Chevy is putting out a 650 hp supercharged Camaro. Could their be a greater contrast?

With oil prices in a slump, gasoline prices seem like a real bargain these days. So those electric cars could be a little bit too far ahead of their time to have a major appeal. And the recharge rate of 52 miles of range per hour sounds like a major inconvenience. That souped up high horsepower Camaro might be awfully tempting to a young buyer who wants to make an impression.

Oops. Wall Street voted last week. Tesla sinks 20% from high—entering bear market territory—as concerns about 'bubble stock' mount.

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1:47 PM 7/9/2017

The real reason for bullet train's appeal -- boys like to play with trains

Once again we're hearing about the Texas bullet train and all that its backers expect it to bring. See With Trump on board, Texas puts high-speed rail on the fast track:

Texas Central’s plan is to build a private 205-mph bullet train that covers the 240-mile trip between Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth using Japanese technology.

Trains would depart every 30 minutes, 18 hours a day. A one-way trip would take 90 minutes, compared with five hours to drive or about three and a half hours by air, if you include all the transit and security, Keith said.

The promoters hint they can do it without taxpayer funds. That's a grand promise. It would be convincing if they could point to any passenger rail project anywhere that didn't ultimately require both government funding and property confiscation.

In this day and age when the driverless car appears be emerging from dream to reality, it would seem that the money could be put to better use in prepping vehicles and highways for smooth, coordinated transit. In that case maybe some Texans could benefit from it besides those relatively few who travel between Dallas and Houston.

hot wiring with high tech -- It's official, devices let thieves start our cars

We've been hearing about these devices for a couple of years. And it's still not clear just how common they are. But assuming that big car theft rings like the ones we see in the movies are real, we can probably assume they know about them.

The primary source of this news is the National Insurance Crime Bureau. See NICB Reveals Mystery Device That Opens and Starts Vehicles:

The device obtained by NICB was purchased via a third-party security expert from an overseas company. It was developed by engineers in an effort to provide manufacturers and other anti-theft organizations the ability to test the vulnerability of various vehicles’ systems. Called a “Relay Attack” unit, this particular model only works on cars and trucks that use a keyless remote and a push-button ignition. ...

The vehicles were tested to see if the device could:
open the door
start the vehicle
drive it away
turn off and restart the engine without the original fob present

The NICB was able to open 19 (54 percent) of the vehicles and start and drive away 18 (51 percent) of them. Of the 18 that were started, after driving them away and turning off the ignition, the device was used to restart 12 (34 percent) of the vehicles.

It makes sense that a car manufacturer would make a master key use at the dealers' shops. And it was only a matter of time before some unscrupulous mechanic pilfered and copied one of those keys.

I miss the good old days when a thief would use a slim jim to break in, then hot wire our cars like they did in the movies.

P.S. Next thing you know someone will invent a master wheel lock key so the tire thief doesn't have to make his own like this guy did.

Supercharge your Mustang -- as seen on TV

CNBC reran shows from the 2015 season of "Jay Leno's Garage" over the weekend, and the ones I saw were quite entertaining. One of them featured John Hennessy's high performance engine work. It was almost an infomercial, but it's something most of us can't afford, so it was more like National Geographic instead of an auto shop commercial.

The vehicle featured was a 2015 Mustang which they supercharged to crank out over 700 horsepower. Not bad.

Of course we had to see it perform. They used a long private tract near Uvalde for this particular feat, and sure enough, the vehicle hit a speed exceeding 200 mph. See some photos here. The samplers below came from that gallery.

Note the date on the inspection sticker in the one on the left: 10-15. Not that significant as we knew this was a rerun from 2015, but still interesting.

How much does that engine enhancement cost? According to Motorauthority.com, the engine work along with some body customization will run almost $18,000. The customer supplies his own Mustang.

What does one do with a car that will exceed 200 mph? Well, aside from bragging rights, here in Midland, Texas, it would certainly get me to the next red light in record time.

Texans would do just fine without mandatory vehicle inspections

Most Texans grew up with mandatory annual vehicle inspections and wouldn't have thought much about it had the Texas legislature not recently tied it into the vehicle tax law.

But those of us who have traveled to New Mexico or any of the 34 states without them couldn't help but notice that they don't seem to make much difference.

Progressives love regulating anything that rolls -- see the recent fight over Uber for example. So getting them on board would be a challenge.

But at least one Texas state senator, Don Huffines, R-Dallas, is trying to get the law changed. See Vehicle inspections should go, says state senator. Excerpt:

The state of Texas has no idea if its $275 million vehicle inspection program is doing what it is supposed to do, or ever has as far as anyone can tell.

Last year Texas inspectors checked 19 million passenger cars. That’s more than 50,000 safety and emissions inspection trips seven days a week, and more than nine million hours spent by vehicle owners complying, according to Department of Public Safety figures.

The program returns just $125 million of the $275 million generated in fees back to the state.

But there has not been a single audit or study by the DPS chief auditor’s office or the state auditor to determine if vehicle inspections have made Texans safer or allowed them to breathe easier.

As one of the few national studies — by the Government Accountability Office in August 2015 — points out, if you want to know if these programs work in Texas and elsewhere, you’ll have to take the word of the people who run them.

Their word is based on evidence, however scant, that completely contradicts their optimism.

Let's get rid of them. While we're at it, get rid of those annoying and expensive tire pressure maintenance systems, too. That, along with ethanol in gasoline, was progressivism at its worst.

TPMS blues -- Toyota owners, don't succumb to the cheap TPMS sensor Discount Tire tries to sell you

The last time I ranted about TPMS system in vehicles was because they prohibit the use of the aerosol can flat tire fixers that sealed the leak and got you on your way. Yeah, I know -- the one called Slime says on the label that it's "Tire Sensor Safe." But the disclaimer says that after installation it may disable the sensor which would require the owner to have the sensor cleaned. Furthermore, the guarantee is limited to the replacement cost of the Slime. So it's basically for people who bought those cars that don't have spare tires, of which there are plenty.

Tire-pressure monitoring systems are required on vehicles sold after September 1, 2007, by legislation Bill Clinton signed into law as a feel-good measure after a rash of vehicle accidents resulted from some faulty Firestone tires back in the 1990s. Thanks for nothing, Bill Clinton.

But to the point. The TPMS sensors in the tires contain a sending unit powered by a battery. As everyone knows, batteries have a life span. And as it happens, those vehicles sold in the early days of the TPMS requirement already have or will soon experience sensor battery failure. It has happened to two of the four tire sensors on my 2007 vehicle, and replacing them is expensive.

The last time was a couple of weeks ago. I tried to cut corners, and I paid the price. Discount Tire lured me in with a tempting proposition. They would charge me $60 for the sensor and install it for free. What a deal!

Unfortunately, they had no way of programming it so that it would work with the vehicle's system. Apparently, they thought simply installing it was all that was necessary. So after a very long wait for them to install it, they handed me the key and the receipt, and ushered me out the door. The vehicle was parked behind the building. The first thing my eyes went to was the "Check System" light on the dash. The damn TPMS system was still not working, and Discount Tire was helpless in trying to correct the problem. Grrr.

Ultimately I had to get the local Toyota dealer's shop to install one that worked at a cost of around $155. Discount Tire refunded the money I paid them after returning their sensor.

By the way, the Toyota shop told me on the phone right off the bat that they couldn't program Discount Tire's sensor to work with the vehicle's system. If they knew that, how come the people at Discount Tire didn't know that?

So this is a warning to Toyota and Lexus owners. Don't fall for the siren song of the low price at Discount Tire when your TPMS sensors start going out.

The joy of driving a stick shift

The greatest pleasure of driving a vehicle with a manual shift is the smugness that comes from knowing that there aren't many others who could do it. Then again, there's that nagging feeling that those other people may be onto something.

I've got two vehicles, one with a stick and one with automatic. The problem now that I've gone senile is that sometimes I forget which vehicle I'm in and try to depress a clutch that isn't there, or worse, forget to depress the clutch at a stop.

In any event, fewer and fewer vehicles with manual shifts are being sold. Zusha Elinson tells us in Do You Drive Stick? Fans of Manual Transmission Can’t Let Go the following:

The proportion of cars and light trucks in the U.S. sold with manual transmissions has fallen to around 7% in 2014 from 35% in 1980, according to WardsAuto, which keeps data on car manufacturing and sales.

The decline is expected to accelerate as high-performance sports cars, once holdouts, increasingly shift to hybrid automatics.

Ah, but here's the silver lining. The number of potential car thieves who would be tempted to steal a stick shifter is probably declining, too.

Would you rent your car to a total stranger?

Here's an interesting concept aimed at young drivers: Car rentals by the hour from private owners.

Many young people are saddled with a huge college debt, and in this economy they may have to work menial jobs to make ends meet. A new car is not at the top of their wish list. So what they're calling a peer-to-peer rental program might draw some interest. The Washington Post tells us about Ford's program. Take out:

The car-sharing program, running now through November, will cover cars, trucks and SUVs in six of America's younger cities: Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago and Washington. The Ford-financed vehicles are rented to pre-screened drivers through Getaround, an Airbnb for cars, for anywhere between $5 and $9 an hour.

Getaround takes a 40 percent cut, but Ford gets a few perks, too: The car owners get more money to pay off loans, and the renters take a test drive that could persuade them to buy a Ford, if they ever buy a car at all.

How many people would want to rent out their vehicles? There's an auto insurance company currently running a TV commercial featuring a lady looking me in the eye telling me I named my car "Brad" and that I love Brad. Somehow that doesn't really square with the idea of allowing a stranger to handle Brad out on the road. Insurance notwithstanding, renters generally don't treat rented property as they would their own.

But what do I know? I've got a vehicle I've owned for 27 years, and it's part of the family.

In any event, if you want to put your car in the pool go sign it up. Maybe Brad needs a change of pace.

Advertisements that don't work -- Acura "Drive Like a Boss" commercial

Some commercials just won't work. Oh, they may win awards, or they may get big laughs. But they won't sell widgets.

A case in point is the Acura commercial "drive like a boss." It features a young attractive woman singing along with the song coming from her audio system while driving her Acura. Her cell phone rings, and she touches a button which connects the caller.

But she seems oblivious to the panel of guys in a conference room attempting to talk with her. What they hear is a woman singing out of tune. Very funny.

Watch it here.

One wonders who would be inspired to buy that car after seeing this commercial. My suspicion is that young women may be the target audience. If so, is the image of a clueless female looking like an idiot to her co-workers or boss going to make a sale? Doubtful.

On the other hand, men have been the butt of advertising jokes for the longest time. Maybe we're seeing some gender equality.

Acura ad -- I did it my way. No, you copied someone else.

There's a TV commercial now airing for Acura TLX featuring non-Asian non-speaking actors portraying proud, happy, and exited car builders. The accompanying music is a punk rock version of "I Did It My Way."

Watch it here. That was the song Frank Sinatra made famous a couple of generations ago. Watch him sing it here when it was just a golden oldie.

Here's the thing. If you do it your way, don't you come up with your own song instead of redoing some old song you found on a top ten list from years gone by?

Maybe the message is that the Acura contains nothing new. And if you read the lyrics -- see the text at the Youtube site -- you might wonder if it's even appropriate. To wit:

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.

They bit off more than they could chew, and ate it up, and spit it out. Yeah, that's what we want in a car manufacturer.

It's almost as ironic as the Mercedes commercial a few years back that featured Janice Joplin's "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz" -- the satirical hippy jab at the people present day hippies would call "the one percent."

How to conceal a gun in your vehicle

The pickup trucks cruising down the boulevard with a couple of long guns in a rack in the rear window seem to have gone the way of the built in eight-track tape player. These days it's all about concealment.

In that regard, Guns.com has a great photo spread showing examples of firearms stored or hidden in vehicles. See Wanna hide a gun in your car? Here’s a few ideas (30 Photos). Some of the ideas are pretty good.

Some of them require a little bit of remodeling, but others are quite simple. My favorite is the handgun in a green holster that appears to be stuck to the carpet of the console wall. If it's Velcro then it's conveniently removable. The Ferrari logo on the steering wheel is a nice touch, too.

Then there's the semi-auto long barrel with short stock strapped to the back of the fold down back seat. Nice idea, although it might take a moment for the driver to retrieve it.

Lots of good ideas there. Check them out.

Meanwhile, it's good to remember that thieves love to rip off loose items from vehicles whether the doors are locked or not. Even if the property isn't in view it's vulnerable. I'm reminded of the tactic a friend uses. He keeps a cable lock in his vehicle, and whenever he has to leave a weapon in there he locks it to the structure under the seat. A dedicated burglar could eventually steal it, but the time it would take to defeat the cable lock should discourage the typical smash and grab offender.