Author: Eric Peters

How good do we have it? If the measure of that is the power and performance delivered by the average new car, the answer has to be: Pretty damned good. Four cylinder-powered family-haulers like the 2018 Mazda CX-9 I just reviewed haul more ass than the V8-powered muscle cars of my youth. Than the V8-powered muscle car, I have in my garage. At least, when it was new. But it’s a story with two sides. The first side is the almost miraculous power and performance – and drivability, reliability, durability and mileage – achieved by the designers of today’s Mighty Mouse engines. Four-cylinder engines routinely … Continue reading →

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Car companies used to be places where car guys worked. Engineers, gearheads. People who at least liked cars and thought of them as more than commodities – like toothpaste, say. Today, they are places where former insurance company and fast food guys work. Like Jose Tomas, who is – well, was – GM’s chief human resources officer. He’s been fired – apparently – for unspecified reasons after only about eight months on the job. Might have been an ass grabber but probably got axed because he is still a guy. If he was straight, he never stood a chance. Tomas previously held “leading posts” at Anthem, … Continue reading →

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An interesting unasked question has been raised by Ford’s announcement that it is developing a cop-less cop car. That is, an automated and AI cop car that would sneak itself behind the bushes and use license plate scanners, facial recognition and other such revenue-raising technologies to automatically issue paying’ paper. All the time. Everywhere. For everything. No more need to pay cops to do it some of the time. In other words, no more part-time, scattershot enforcement of traffic laws. It would become much harder to flout – or evade – any traffic law. Everything from “speeding” to driving around without all your papers in order. Auto Cop would … Continue reading →

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Most people agree that sex ought to be consensual. Put another way, they think that no one should be forced to have sex against their will. And that if someone engages in sex without the consent of the other party, then it is sexual assault – and a moral horror. Well, what about being governed without consent? Does it not amount to the same thing? Another person – or persons – force themselves on you. They violate you. They – or their proxies – literally lay hands on you if you attempt to get away or refuse to submit to them. It may not be a … Continue reading →

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Here’s a video showing some “heroes” unhappy about a pair of guys taking video of the outside their nest – which is public property and which the citizens therefore have every legal right to take video of. But the “heroes” do not like this. They never do. Notwithstanding that it is legal. Mark that. When a law doesn’t suit them, they obey it grudgingly – or simply ignore it. They take filming them as an implicit challenge, an affront to their privacy and peace – which of course are sacred. Whereas ours is held in absolute contempt by them, to be violated at will whenever they feel so … Continue reading →

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A Florida man claims his BMW X3 accelerated unintentionally – contrary to his intentions, that is. News story here. The reasons why are being debated. Could it have been a glitch with the BMW’s “drive by wire” electronically-controlled throttle? Many new cars no longer have a cable that connects the gas pedal to the engine. Instead, sensors translate the degree to which the gas pedal is depressed into how much the engine revs – and how fast you go. BMW – like Toyota, after similar incidents – claims that run-amok acceleration caused by a defective electronic accelerator pedal is impossible. That it had to be … Continue reading →

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One step forward – one step back. Maybe both – posssibly, neither. There is a rumor that Trump is considering “action” to at least delay the imposition of the catastrophic federal fatwa requiring all new cars – and all new trucks –  average at least 46.6 miles-per-gallon beginning with the 2025 models. This fatwa was hurled during the final months of the Obama Ayatollahship and remains in effect and on schedule. This was – and still is – touted as a boon to the buying public. As if that public were somehow oppressed by the free choice to buy either a very fuel efficient car or one less … Continue reading →

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Go ahead – make my day. Back in 1971, Clint Eastwood’s character said it on screen – and people were shocked. But it was just a movie. And besides, Dirty Harry only shot bad guys – murderous psychopaths, as in the original 1971 film. In the sequel film – Magnum Force – Dirty Harry shot murderous, psychopathic cops.    Today we have Dirty Oddie – and he’s not a character on the silver screen. He’s an armed government worker – a law enforcement officer – in Tennessee. And he “loves this shit.” Killing people, that is.     Those are Dirty … Continue reading →

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Imagine how different cars would be if people had to pay for them – as opposed to financing them. Debt – which is what financing is – allows people to buy more car than they can afford. It hides the actual cost of the car. It enables the government to impose costs in the forms of mandates which would otherwise be unaffordable – and so, objectionable. People would complain in the one language the government understands. They would not comply – because they could not buy. This would put the brakes on what seems unstoppable: The endless and accelerating juggernaut of “safety,” “fuel efficiency” … Continue reading →

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Bad enough that we’re ordered about by the government in Washington. But what about this business of being ordered about by the government of California? Its befehlshaber (that’s German for order-giver) Jerry Brown just ordered the tripling – the almost quadrupling – of the of the number of electric cars which must be on the state’s roads by 2025. Instead of a ludicrous 1.5 million of them, it must be a preposterous 4.5 million. He did not suggest. Offer it up as a worthy idea. Befehlshaber Brown simply issued an executive order – a Fuhrerbefehl (that’s leader order, in German) that it will be so. In … Continue reading →

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Lots of advice goes out every year about how to drive in the snow. But the single most important piece of advice about snow-day driving is almost never mentioned – probably because the cardinal rule of modern advice-giving is to never tell people the truth when it might cause discomfort or offense. It is, simply: Stay home if you lack the skills or the appropriate vehicle – or both – to competently deal with snow on the road. But I have to get work! Would that fly in court, if spoken by a well-doused drunk? We are marinated in the sickly juice of saaaaaaaaaaaaafety. When it suits. The … Continue reading →

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Cars, it’s rightly said, are becoming like cell phones – but in a way that’s different than the purely techno-gadget way most people mean when they say this. A techno-economic leveling is under way, the same as has happened with our phones.  The $60 smartphone you can pick up at Walmart may not have quite as much memory or as high-res a camera as a top-of-the-line iPhone, but it still has one helluva camera and does pretty much everything the $600 iPhone does. It certainly makes a phone call just as quickly. Texts just as competently. You can download and use the same apps as the … Continue reading →

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2018 may be the last year for Chrysler as we have known it. Dodge, too. These two sell the automotive equivalent of lawn darts – big rear-drive cars with big V8 engines. At still-affordable prices. People love them but the government bureaucrats who have somehow been empowered to countermand our buying inclinations do not. Such cars use “too much” gas – notwithstanding we’re the ones paying for it – and so the bureaucrats have been systematically working for decades to make such cars artificially more expensive to build – and to buy – via punitive “gas guzzler” taxes. These taxes … Continue reading →

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In addition to “officer safety,” another de facto capital offense in this country is “failure to comply.” This past fall, a Northern Virginia man named Bijan Ghaisar was executed by armed government workers after a brief car chase. Apparently, the man had been involved in a minor accident – no injuries and he wasn’t the driver who caused the accident –  but he left the scene regardless. It’s possible he had an expired license or some other thing on his mind and feared (rightly) what the “heroes” might do to him if he stuck around. Given the run-amokness of “heroes” these days, avoiding them … Continue reading →

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It’s reasonable to adjust speed for conditions – snow, for instance. But what about drivers who drop their speed because it might snow later? Road (and school) closings, not because it is snowing. Because it’s possible it may. This appears to be the latest manifestation of the hysterical – in the psychiatric sense – overfixation on saaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety which has become the leitmotif of Red Giant Stage America. The slightest threat of snow – or rain, for that matter – triggers almost comical overcompensatory measures, no longer restricted the traditional idiocy of bum-rushing to the supermarket to clear the shelves of bread and milk. In the case of rumored snow, there’s a … Continue reading →

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