Dutch bank predicts that by 2035 the only new cars available in Europe will be electric.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

All new cars sold in Europe will be electric within less than two decades, driven by government support, falling battery costs and economies of scale, a Dutch bank has predicted. 

However, ING warned that with battery-powered vehicles accounting for 100% of registrations in 2035 across the continent, European carmakers would lose out to their rivals in the US and Asia who already lead on battery production. 

The forecast is much more aggressive than most other projections, such as the UK’s National Grid which on Thursday said it expects 90% of new cars in Britain to be electric by 2050. 

France’s commitment last week to banning new petrol and diesel car sales by 2040 suggests it also thinks the roll-out of electric vehicles will be slower than ING’s report expects. 

However, the bank said that it believed pure electric cars would “become the rational choice for motorists in Europe” sometime between 2017 and 2024.

Well whichever of these is the most accurate they all seem to agree that gasoline powered vehicles are about to go extinct, and that electric cars are the wave of the future.

Now if only America can emerge from under the influence of big oil and start working toward a similarly progressive policy.

Donald Trump takes credit for keeping American jobs from moving to Mexico. Except they weren't moving to Mexico.

Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky - no Mexico

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2016

I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2016

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

President-elect Donald J. Trump claimed credit on Thursday night for persuading Ford to keep an automaking plant in Kentucky rather than moving it to Mexico. The only wrinkle: Ford was not actually planning to move the plant. 

Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter shortly after 9 p.m. that Ford’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., had just told him that Ford “will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky — no Mexico.” 

Minutes later, Mr. Trump wrote in a second post: “I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!” Mr. Trump won 62.5 percent of the state’s popular vote in the presidential election.

But Ford had not planned to close the Louisville factory. Instead, it had planned to expand production of another vehicle made in Louisville, the Ford Escape. And the change had not been expected to result in any job losses. 

“Whatever happens in Louisville, it will not lose employment,” Jimmy Settles, a union official, told The Detroit Free Press. “They cannot make enough Escapes.”

So apparently Trump's version of "I worked hard" means that he worked hard to make up to make himself look good.

This is our new norm by the way.

Donald Trump will tells some ridiculous lie, the press will report on it, and it will make mo difference whatsoever because the only people who will read it are people who still respect journalism, and that does NOT include Trump supporters.

And why would they?

After all Trump himself has told them that you cannot trust the press to cover him fairly.

Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the "Trump phenomena"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2016

I guess if facts have a liberal bias, then it behooves a conservative to dismiss them out of hand.

Which leaves Donald Trump free to shape reality as he sees fit, and leaves the press with little if any ability to correct him.

Welcome to Donald Trump's America.

The Tesla Model S autopilot. The future is here. Well almost here. Update!

Courtesy of Jalopnik: 

The Tesla Model S isn’t the first truly autonomous car on the road and available for sale to the public. We’re not there yet, just as a society. But it is the first car with what Tesla’s calling its “Autopilot” system. And if this is the future not of driving, but of sitting in traffic, then please sign me up. 

Autopilot, if it isn’t a full autonomous system, is simple enough in execution. It won’t drive you to your ultimate destination, it won’t make navigational turns without your input, and it doesn’t know what the traffic light or the sign in front of you says. So think of it less like an autonomous system, and rather more like the ultimate execution of cruise control. It uses a forward-looking radar, a front-facing camera, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and GPS to make sure everything stays on the road, and it seems to work well enough using those. 

But even if it’s just the holy grail of cruise control, its execution is almost perfect.

The self driving car debate in my house is still ongoing and quite passionate.

Interestingly enough my daughter and I are not on the sides of the issue you might imagine.

I am all for self driving cars as I think they will be great for the elderly and awesome for long distance drives.

My daughter on the other hand does not like the idea of machines taking over yet another human responsibility and making us even more reliant on machines.

I see her point, and even agree with it to some degree, but then I think of the gee whiz factor and suddenly I'm like a kid in a toy store.

Besides let's face it, this WILL be the future someday whether we like it or not.

Update: In other car news Toyota has plans to virtually do away with all gas powered vehicles by 2050.

God I love the smell of progress in the morning.

In 14 states gun deaths outnumber deaths by motor vehicle. Well there goes another NRA talking point.

Courtesy of Oregon Live:

Oregon was one of 14 states where gun deaths outpaced motor vehicle deaths in 2011, according to a study by the Violence Policy Center. 

Data was compiled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. 

This marks the third year the Violence Policy Center has issued an annual report comparing gun deaths to motor vehicle deaths by state. The center is a nonprofit organization working to stop gun death and injury. 

Oregon's number of gun deaths also exceeded its motor vehicle deaths in 2009 and 2010, according to the center. 

Gun deaths include suicide by firearm, homicides, and fatal unintentional shootings. Motor vehicle deaths include both vehicle occupants and pedestrians. 

The 13 other states where gun deaths exceeded motor vehicle deaths in 2011 were: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state, as well as the District of Columbia.

As I am sure most of you know the NRA and  Ammosexuals have long argued that there are more deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents then are caused by guns. However as the article above states, that is not true in at least 14 states.

What's more, as I have pointed out repeatedly, the primary function of a vehicle is transportation, whereas the primary function of a gun is death.

But if the gun fetishists wanted gun owners treated more like car owners they may want to keep this in mind.

 Seems reasonable enough, don't you think?

Paul Ryan blames President Obama for the closing of GM plant which happened BEFORE he was President. WTF?

Courtesy of the Detroit News:  

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan on Thursday used the closing of a General Motors plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., to take a swipe at President Barack Obama's energy policies. 

He contended Obama's "terrible energy policies" led to $4 a gallon gas and the closure of the company's oldest assembly plant, breaking the Democrat's promise to keep it open. 

In fact, Obama made no such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when President George W. Bush was in office. 

"I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he'll keep that plant open," Ryan said Thursday at a campaign stop in Ohio, recounting the fact his high school friends worked at the plant. "One more broken promise. We used to build Tahoes and Suburbans. One of the reasons that plant got shut down was $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president's terrible energy policies are costing us jobs." 

GM cited the low demand for SUVs and high gas prices during the Bush administration as the reason for closing the plant. 

Obama did speak at the Janesville plant in February 2008, and suggested a government partnership with automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan suggested. 

Yeah I see Ryan's point. I mean why should we elect Obama for the NEXT four years if he could not solve the problems that occurred before he served his LAST four years? 

I mean Jesus, what kind of a President is he if he can't do a simple thing like time traveling? Sheesh!

Next Ryan plans to blame Obama for the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Hindenburg disaster. Stay tuned kids!

Probably NOT the person with whom you want to discuss religion.

Wait I can go to hell for drinking? What about that whole "water into wine" thing? Dammit, Jesus is SUCH a bad influence!

You know I think I may have found our Palin troll's car.

Usually people like this try to keep the crazy on the inside.

Only driven on Sunday's. Of course it was driven OVER any atheists or Muslims standing too close to the curb.

(That's all I've got. Your turn!)

Another GOP talking point bites the dust. High gas prices have NOTHING to do with domestic production.

Courtesy of SF Gate:

The Alaskan Explorer had sailed to a Washington refinery, but was forced to return to Alaska with 300,000 barrels because the onshore storage tanks were too full to accept the oil, Anil Mathur, CEO of the Alaska Tanker Co., which owns the ship, confirmed last week. 

"Not the normal course of business," said John Kotula, one of the few outsiders privy to the incident because of his position as manager of the state of Alaska's environmental office in Valdez. 

The tanker's inability to unload its oil underlines a startling reality: Crude oil supplies in the United States have been at historic highs for two years, while Americans are using less of its most important product - gasoline. The Gulf Coast is particularly glutted with crude, due in part to a pipeline bottleneck. But federal statistics show another recent development: West Coast refineries are decreasing their production as the domestic demand for gasoline shrinks. 

"If there is so much crude oil around, why is the price of gasoline so high? Why is the price of heating oil so high?" asked Dan Lawn, an environmental consultant who was in the same job as Kotula for decades before he retired in 2005. 

Government statistics show that gasoline isn't selling the way it used to, and on any given day, crude oil could be backed up in storage tanks from Valdez to San Francisco Bay to Long Beach. 

"Valdez inventories are pretty high. Our inventories are high. Nobody is taking much crude on the West Coast," said Kidd. 

So why aren't gasoline prices pushed down by the forces of supply and demand? 

"You've keyed into an interesting puzzle, a paradox," said Richard Newell, professor of energy and environmental economics at Duke University and until last year the head of the federal Energy Information Administration, which tracks statistics generated by the oil industry. 

Well why doesn't somebody ask the GOP's leading "expert" on energy in America, Sarah Palin?  Surely SHE could explain this conundrum to the American people.

Greta?

 Sean?

Anybody?

President Obama brings the house down in front of the United Auto Workers Annual Conference. You know the people whose vote Mitt Romney will NEVER get!

Just in case the video will not play for you here is a link to the text.

But I do have to remind you that it is a WHOLE different experience to hear the President speak those words then to just read them off yourself.

Clearly the President is feeling confident these days. And considering his opposition on the other side of the aisle, who can blame him?

While we were all watching Palin drive cars off of the road with her giant bus, Obama was saving the auto industry.

I bet Obama has no problem describing what Paul Revere did back in 1775 either.

If you get my drift. 

Let's get a little geeky this Monday morning. Yep I am talking about a freaking flying car!

Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually it’s both. The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month.

If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time.

Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said: “This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.”

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air.

Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph.

Dietrich said he had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000).

For the little boy that lives in every grown man this is the Holy Grail of technology.

A car that can fly. Just whisper that phrase into the ear of ANY man you know and watch his eyes just light up.

Impractical? Hell yeah!

Unnecessary? Probably.

Dangerous? More then likely.

Going to buy one if I can? You bet your ass!