Running Around

[liralen]

After breakfast, John and I had a little time for us to just putz around in. So we went to The Green Car Company in Kirkland and tried out one of their tiny ForTwo Smart Cars. Yes, the same kind of car that a bus ran into and got stuck on the bumper and the bus carried it a few exits before his dispatcher radioed him to tell him there was a car stuck to his bumper. He thought it was just a speed bump.

They are *tiny*, get about 50mph, and are sold in Europe by Chrystler and only just started getting distributed in the US. They are very cute. They are just a two-seater, and have a pretty good safety cage, air bags, and crash test results eventhough they're so small. The panel construction means that you can get them in nearly any color.

We got to drive a convertable in 50 degree weather. It was noisier because of the cloth top, but the turning radius was astonishingly small, we could do u-turns between the rows of cars in a parking lot. The drive was clumsey and clunky, the electronic transimission was hesitant and rough on the down shift. We also kept bumping shoulders, which was mildly expected. The odd sensation of a car being right ON me from behind was exaserbated by some cars merging nearly on me when they couldn't see me. I would probably pick safety, neon green if I were to get one.

For more money than a Mini, though, I don't see us getting one. Especially since the front passanger seat air bag cannot be disabled (as is automatically done by the Mini) so that Jet could safely sit in the front seat. I was annoyed by that last bit. You'd think for an actual two-seater they would have thought that it might be a parent shuttling a kid around.

So there were just too many negatives to the whole thing for me to really be comfortable, any more, thinking about buying one of those. The surprising thing was finding that the Golf TDI running on biodiesel is considered the greenest car, since they also take into account the battery pollution problems when creating and replacing the batteries of electric cars, plus the pollutents when creating electricity. It's interesting to see how the comparisons were made.

Best thing was making off with a list of biodiesel stations in the area. Next best was hitting a Taco Time for crisp burritos (actually flautas), in typically Americanized Mexican style. I miss their take on them. So we had to have them.

Comments

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Hm. My SK3 didn't manage to post this before the crappy connection at work went down.

So.

When I was researching whether to buy the used Prius, I learned a bit about the actual battery life. The sealed cells aren't failing according to the plans. Expectation was that after 5-6 years an owner would see a massive fail, needing to replace at least half the cells. In fact, after about 8-10 years, one or two cells have been failing, with the remaining cells showing chemical and electrical behaviour well within spec for new cells. This means the environmental burden from the hybrids isn't nearly as bad as projected.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Cool! That's good to know.

[bwb-archive.livejournal.com]

Hey ho! On my way to call you, ran into a slight medical emergency far off to the east with my mom, and now I'm gone. Blast!

I call you tomorrow, eh wot? Saturday sounds fab to me.

Love!
(how to use Live Journal as your email service in 21 easy lessons)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the emergency! meep! I hope it all works out okay.

Call me tomorrow, wot? Hee. Yay for Saturday! We're having to drag poor Ross out of bed in North Seattle early enough anyway, so it would be easy to meet up with you on the busy side of Lake Washington that day. Coolness.

Taco Time

[anitar.livejournal.com]

Grandson Riley really likes Taco Time (but McD's with playspace is still number one). He usually pronounces it Taco Toime for some reason. I think the reason he's so fond of it is the crustos, the cinammon sugar tortilla chips.

Re: Taco Time

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Ooo... we'll have to try those on Jet next time. :-) He really isn't into anything they serve there, so it was easier for us to go there on our own. Cool though to know that there's something that might lure him there!

[tagryn]

Pity about the test driving problems, I first saw SmartCars during my London trip in '04 and it looked like a neat idea. I suspect the UK probably doesn't have nearly as many SUVs on the road as we do, though, which makes visibility of such a small car more of an issue over here.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

If it weren't $30k for the thing, too. I suspsect that the high price is because of the crashtesting that the importer had to do to get them into the country. Turns out that Chrystler is not importing them, yet, not until 2008, it seems, so some company is jumping into the niche and offering them with their own testing to get them imported.

So the high price, eventhough they were designed to be inexpensive. It is a great idea, but I think a number of issues have combined to make it the wrong car for us at the moment.

[blindgeoff.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall reading that Daimler/Chrysler plans to sell these at around 15-18k, so that importer is either getting a hefty mark-up, or suffering seriously from economy-of-scale issues in federalizing them!

Oh, and in 2009 or so they should offer a TDI diesel at around 65 mpg...

I'll believe it all when I see them for sale at actual dealerships...

[not-croaker.livejournal.com]

Taco Time? Interesting.

All we have around here is Taco Bell.

I've been looking (desperately) for a better-than-fast-food Americanized Tex-Mex place...