Webs’ Random Ideas

Now when you first look at the following picture I’m sure the first thought may not be “Dream Car”…

but then again it wasn’t $60K of your money and months of design, thought, sweat, and work to create it. I know what you might be thinking, what a waste of money, etc… but it was a father creating something from spare parts with his two sons. I hardly see the waste of time or pointlessness of that. From the article in the Daily Herald…

Zanis would like to see American car manufacturers work faster in developing an electric car. He doesn’t believe the focus should be on converting a gasoline-driven car, but rather building a frame for an electric car.

I couldn’t agree more. And what Zanis is doing will help tremendously. It will spur interest, design ideas, new concepts, and get people talking about these vehicles. It’s going to make GM wish they didn’t get rid of the electric car.

Website for the project.
found via TreeHugger…

… Yes! Anything! That means, corn husks, trash, you name it. This great news comes from a Wired Magazine article:

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn’t interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

“It’s not five years away, it’s not 10 years away. It’s affordable, and it’s now,” said Wes Bolsen, the company’s vice president of business development.

This is pretty hug news. Imagine a system of energy where local cities and towns become closed energy loops. The waste we produce is turned into fuel for cars that is only shipped to local gas stations. This minimizes waste and increase efficiency across the board.

The other thing it makes me think of is the last scene in “Back to the Future” where Doc drives up and refuels his car with trash from Marty’s trash can. With the technology presented above this idea is a lot closer than I first thought when I saw the movie.

My 1994 Toyota Camry has finally met it’s end

Every time my Fiance takes a car in we get a repair bill for $1300. It happened two years ago with our Lumina and just a month ago with our Toyota Camry. So sadly we had to start looking for a new car. I consider myself to have a reasonable amount of financial knowledge, I am certainly no expert but I have learned quite a few things from others. The number one mistake people make financial is to buy a new car.

Reasoning on this is simple, as soon as you drive it off the lot the re-sale value decrease immediately. This is simply due to the markup all new cars have from the dealership. So the best thing to do is to buy a certified 2-3 year old car, or a 2-3 year old Corolla, at least financially. Well after looking into everything and test driving a Honda Fit, Honda Civic, and a Toyota Yaris we found out which one we liked. The Honda Fit.

Between the Yaris, Corolla, Civic, Camry and Fit, all have about the same MPGs (24-29 in the city with the Camry being the lowest and Yaris being the highest). The Fit came in at 27, so it was in second place. It is also a very small and light car with a small engine. So not only are MPGs good, but so are emissions. And unlike the other cars the Fit can do so much more with seat configurations. It’s sorta like a micro-mini-van-sedan, if that makes sense.

If you do some simple Google searches you will only find people stating positive things about the Fit. Couple that with Honda’s known reliability and couple that with the features of the Fit and you have one awesome car.

Unfortunately the Fit is such a damn good car no one seems to be selling any used ones. And dealers can only keep em on the lots for a couple weeks. After some more research, the dealer invoice for a Fit Sport is 15200 and the sticker price is 16700. This figure doesn’t include the shipping costs the dealer pays, but still they aren’t making much on em. So after a trade in and getting the dealer to take $300 off the top, my fiance and I got a Fit for under $16000. Then we had a down payment to apply.

I know, I bought a new car, poor financial move, etc… Yadda Yadda. But I thought about it. Used car loans have a higher interest rate than new car loans. We did have much to put down, so regardless our loan was going to be at least over $10,000. And I wasn’t going to buy a used car any older than 3 years old. I want something reliable that I won’t have to spend much money on in the coming years.

The other thing I thought about was that you really only need to be concerned with the re-sale value of a car if you plan on selling it. In my case I hope to keep it till it dies a natural death. So for me I didn’t necessarily care if I bought a new car or a used one. I had to get a loan either way, so for me I basically paid about $1000-3000 more for a new Fit. Which for the features I got, to me it was worth it.

If I could have found a used Fit in a short period of time (as my Camry was not driveable in any way, shape, or form) I would definitely have looked into it. But that was not exactly feasible at the time. And if we can keep the other POS car we have running smoothly for 3-5 years, we will then be ready to purchase an awesome hybrid or electric car.

If we did this in America there wouldn’t be many drivers in an American Green Zone… Come to think of it, I like this idea more and more

How it works is simple, cars get badges that certify their efficiency.

Cars without badges are subject to the not-too hefty ticket price of 40 Euros (US$58) and a penalty point on the errant driver’s license.

I was sitting on the toilet (where I usually come up with some of my brilliant ideas) and thought, “I never did write a post about my car, with the rough idle.” So without further delay, here you go…

Long Post Ahead

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