The California Files

Lamenting the Electric Car's Demise

2012-01-26T08:37:52-08:00

Recently I was forwarded a tome lamenting the passing of electric cars from GM and Toyota.

It seemed to suggest that this was the result of some evil corporate conspiracy. Or something.

That’s balderdash.

First and most important, neither corporation – and I sure as hell am not going to defend any corporation – planned for GM’s EV1 or Toyota’s RAV4 EV to be a long-term deal. They were experimental programs involving experimental vehicles with very limited life spans. When they wore out, and when the programs ended, they were done.

Just as well. The EV1 relied on lead-acid batteries. These are short-term batteries. You gots to replace them sooner or later. Probably sooner. Expensive. Same deal with the RAV4 EV. It used nickel-metal hydride batteries. Also not a lot of life, but huge replacement expense. These days, replacing them costs more than the base RAV4 EV is worth –close to $5,000. And if you do replace them, what do you do with the old batteries? This problem of battery recycling is extremely problematic, which is also the problem with current hybrids like the Prius, and with all other electric cars, no matter how advanced their battery packs.

Furthermore, the EV1 and the RAV4 EV had very limited ranges. You got beyond that range, you needed a tow truck, onaccounta back in the ‘90s and early 2000s when these programs were active, there were no charging stations. Zero, zip, nada, bupkis. Well, maybe a few, eventually. But far fewer, and far farther apart, than we have now. And even now it’s not like there’s a charging station on every corner.

If there was a conspiracy by the big companies to kill electric cars, how can it be that electric cars do in fact exist, built by those same corporations that supposedly killed them off? GM builds the Volt, Toyota has electric Priuses in fleet use prior to producing them for larger use, and Nissan offers the Leaf. If there was a conspiracy, none of these ever would have seen the light of day.

But wait, let us back up: Electric cars in the first place? Phooey!

Think electricity is generated without penalty, out there in the ether? It isn’t, you know. With the exception of the Pacific Northwest, which gets a good bit of its juice from the Bonneville Dam generation facility, that thing that has screwed up the salmon runs good and proper, most of our electricity is generated by coal-fired generating plants. In spite of what that industry says, there is no such thing as clean coal. Think heavy pollution.

Don’t believe me? Drive to the Grand Canyon. Notice the layer of haze that lies across that entire section of Arizona. It’s smoke from the coal-fired generation plants that dot the landscape there. Coal definitely is not our friend.

So no, electric cars are not the hot tip.

Also, while we’re at it, phooey to the so-called “water-powered” car. Man, we’re a gullible bunch. Think about it: We don't have enough water for drinking and crops in many parts of the country. Why would we want to fuel transportation with it, even if we could?

Then there’s the compressed-air car, which actually works. But that still takes electricity to supply the compressed air upon which it runs, and electricity is not our friend. We like it for keeping our refrigerators running onaccounta that keeps the beer cold and the pizzas frozen. But we don’t like it for this use.

Ultimately, what is? In my view, at least, hydrogen probably is the hot tip – BMW and GM both could produce cars today to use this fuel. So could M-Bz. They are absolutely pollution-free, and hydrogen is the most abundant substance on planet Earth. The problem is the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure. Can’t just pull into the corner station and fill ‘er up. And given the investment involved, such an infrastructure isn’t going to get built anytime soon.

So, where does that leave us?

It leaves us with the high mpg requirements and the internal combustion engine we know and love. Ultimately, we as a nation will use much less fuel because of them, and that’s a good thing, because the more gas we buy, the more money we send the Saudis and others, and the more of that money finds its way into the hands of people who hate us and want to use it to destroy us.

These high mpg requirements are good, and they’re why you won’t be seeing many more new generations of V8 and V6 engines. There’re why it’s not hard these days to find cars that routinely will deliver 30 mpg on the highway.

To meet those requirements, think in terms of smaller cars with smaller engines. The Europeans have lived like this for decades. No reason we can’t live without Suburbans, huge pickups, enormous sedans. We may want ‘em, but we sure as hell don’t need ‘em.

So, smaller cars. Or, maybe not-so-small. The new BMW 5 Series, quite a large and comfortable car, uses a two-liter (that’s just 122 cubic inches, friends) four-cylinder turbocharged engine. It is rated at 34 mpg in the highway cycle, and makes as much horsepower and torque as last year’s three-liter six-cylinder engine. So this can be done, and is being done. All we have to do is wrap our heads around this notion.

A second option involves modern diesel engines. With these, you get the best of most worlds – great economy, wonderful power and torque, excellent fuel economy -- and the new tech being used allows them to run very cleanly. Diesel fuel tends to be a few cents more expensive than gas, but the mileage is so much better it’s basically a wash. A pal with a diesel VW station wagon gets 45 mpg. Routinely. Why would you not want that?

A third option, if a bit more extreme, is to not buy a new car at all. Keep the one have for as long as you can, drive it, fix it when you need to, keep it in top running condition. Buying a new car is very expensive, and manufacturing a new car is a very high-pollution enterprise – even the cleanest new car, like a Prius, pollutes terribly during the manufacturing phase. There are lots of environmental penalties when you’re making steel and plastic, aluminum and glass – not just scratching those materials out of the ground, but also generating the electricity to make things from the base substances.

Or, this: If you absolutely must have an electric car, buy a Volt. These things are cool, and the dealers are struggling with them, thanks to a recent scare about “car fires.” The feds have inspected this and found there to be no problem. But buyers have stampeded away from Volts like a bunch of chickens frightened by a coyote. Now’s a good time to get a good deal on one. They get about a zillion miles per gallon, and drive quite nicely, from what I’m told, even if they also have the battery recycling problem.

As bad luck would have it, we’re coming up on needing a new car. What to buy, what to buy! Undecided yet. But whatever it is, it’s going to get killer miles per gallon. Gas will not get any cheaper. And we’d much rather spend money on good wine and travel. We sure as hell don’t want to give money to the oil companies.

So the next time someone sings the praises of the electric vehicle, remember the message of this post: Phooey! There are much better ways.

-JFT

Just Shoot Me, Part II

2012-01-22T15:56:41-08:00

I’m still surveying this poor old wreck of a Bronco and trying to get it cleaned up a little. The more I look at it, the more apparent it is that I will have to strip it completely. I was going to just stop the decay and preserve it as it is, but I do not think that’s going to fly. The poor thing is just too far gone.

I’ve sanded the rust off the two front downtubes that had been sanded bare and hit them with a bit of Krylon that’s more-or-less the same color of the bike. Good!

Have worked with rubbing compound on the front fender, fork, and the frame main tube. They all look exactly like they did before I started. Bad.

Here are a couple of photos that provide a good look at the thing as it sits today. If you want, click on 'em to see 'em fullsize.

Plus, there is dirt and crud accumulated everywhere – a mixture of mud and grease that probably is 40 years old, at least.

So it’s becoming clear that I’m probably going to have no choice but to strip it completely.

Much of this work I can do myself. But the left footpeg needs the attention of a welder. I don’t have the equipment for that, unfortunately.

See, that footpeg was pointing skyward. Fine, I thought, I know how to fix that. I whacked it with a hammer to try to bend it back into place. It didn’t move. No worries. I got a bigger hammer and whacked it again. Uh-oh. It broke where someone welded it on a previous occasion. So you see, this helps me decide to strip it down and renew everything.

When I move the fork around, I can feel that the bearing races are very loose. So it may just have to come completely apart. In fact, I suspect that in my race box, I’ve still got the stock bearings from the Ducati Sebring I built into a racebike, complete with killer Marzocchi fork and uprated bearings. I wonder if they’ll fit? They might.

There’s an interesting problem with the wiring loom. Here’s the mystery: The engine, out of the bike, has a lead coming from the flywheel area – I don’t know yet whether there’s a magneto in there, or a generator. This lead contains brown, white and green wires.

Meanwhile, a connecter block dangling from the main loom, which runs rearward from the headlamp, is empty on one side, and on the other side, has blue, black, green and red wires running to it. Plus there’s also a second, much longer black wire extending from that part of the loom. There’s also a long black wire extending from the brake-light switch dangling in thin air.

So here’s the question – where and how does everything connect? Fortunately, a fellow Ducatisti has just this minute e-mailed me a PDF of the Bronco owner’s manual, which contains a wiring schematic. So figuring this problem out shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe. The electrics are Italian, after all, which isn’t as bad as it would be if they were British. Quite.

It seems clear that the engine, out of the bike and supposedly at least partially renovated, hasn’t been touched by the hand of man in decades. It’s now superficially clean because I made it that way, but its nooks and crannies sport the same caked-in gunk that I spoke of previously. This is why a can of mechanic’s hand cleanser is our friend.

The “shifting problem” that the previous owner spoke of – hmm, I wonder, could that have been a clutch problem? I cannot see that the aluminum lever on the engine that actuates the clutch rod actually contacts that rod. This suggests that there’s something deeply amiss inside the clutch assembly, which is housed inside the right-hand side cover. Interestingly, the Allen bolts that hold that to the engine’s case look a good bit cleaner than those on the other side. So maybe it’s been off. Maybe this has been apart. Regardless, there’s still something wrong in there, it seems to me.

No matter. All these mysteries will be sorted out.

In the meantime, I’m pondering the future of the seat and tank. The seat looks wholly constructed of leather. And I mean very thick lever, like a quarter-inch thick. I measured. It’s as though the seat’s designer intends the natural strength and springyness of this assembly – a top sewed to two sides – to do all the support.

So I think I might take it over to the saddle-makers in the equestrian area of town to see what they say about bringing it back to life. Or check out an upholstery shop, see what they say. Or maybe I’ll just wimp out and buy an aftermarket racing-style seat.

As for the tank, I’m undecided about what to do. It’s kind of a mess and decent paint is so stinkin’ expensive! At least ProItalia, the big-league Ducati dealership in SoCal, is right up the street – maybe I can just go up there, get some decals, cover the thing in those.

In any case, this clearly is going to take a while. But at least the tires and tubes seem to be retaining air. See, you have to take these bright spots where you find them.

-JFT

Good Lord, What Have I Done?

2012-01-15T17:45:03-08:00

From the “Just Shoot Me” file, the following:

Neighbor asks me awhile back, "Hey, you want to buy my son's old Ducati?"

Naturally, I said, "Well, hell yes!" We worked out a price and an arrangement was made. Click on the image to see it fullsize.

Naturally, I waited awhile to tell Laura about this, and when I did, I pointed out that the thing is so small, it never will leave the neighborhood. Now, I've ridden since I was a kid but pretty much swore off motorcycles after my last crash, a highside during testing for a client at Spain's Jerez grand prix track. That wasn't any fun at all. Came home, healed up a bit, then sold my two bikes - my Ducati streetbike, a big red thundering 851, and my racebike, a much smaller Ducati Sebring that I built, with the help of friends, for vintage racing.

I have been motorcycle-free for probably 15 years. Didn't like that. Feels great to have a two-wheeler back in the garage.

Today I stepped across the street finally to retrieve my prize - and yes, the cache of parts that came with it seems to be pretty much complete. This is it, a 1965 Ducati Bronco, the very most humble offering from the proud Ducati stable.

It apparently was running, but not shifting properly, when the neighbor’s son pulled the engine and sent it out to have the shifter problem solved. We shall see. Again, click to see it fullsize.

While the engine was away, he started sanding the paint from the frame and “fixing” the tank. I would have left the whole thing alone, just rubbed it out as much as possible. Again, we shall see.

Even in a machine as humble as this, the Italians sure do have style, though, don't they?

So I'm pretty stoked about this. I don't anticipate that it will be running anytime soon. But fooling around with it ought to keep me off the streets for a good long while - and keep me even broker than usual, as I chase for parts that inevitably will need. Wait, that means I'll be less able to afford bottles of good wine. What was I thinking?

-JFT

My Work Here Is Done.

2012-01-06T22:21:15-08:00

“Arrgh! It’s my first lesson of the new year, and I’m already ready to kill my student!”

Yes, that would be my banjo instructor John David today.

Hey, all I did was ask a question! Or two. Or maybe three.

And maybe I did respond to his answers by saying, “Yeah, but….”

And he went nuts! Go figure.

Actually, it was kind of satisfying, in a “My work here is done” kind of way.

The good thing is, I’ll get him another crack at him next week, when he’s recovered from this week’s trauma. So maybe my work here isn’t quite done yet.

But it's good to know that I haven't lost my touch.

-JFT

The New Year

2012-01-03T09:06:10-08:00

Are we all ready for 2012?

Laura and I are, we think.

Coming off the best holiday season we’ve spent together in years, we’re eager to return to the routine of work. She’s just left for her office, on this first work day of the new year, and I’ll head out in just a bit.

No way to know, of course, where the year will take us. When the markets opened this morning, the Dow was up by something like 250 points. Now, that’s optimism. But maybe it’ll be a good year. We’re due for one, God knows.

Can only hope that the crazies in Iran don’t start a conflagration over sanctions and oil. Or that none of the countries in the eurozone default on their debts. If either of those things happen, all bets are off.

My hopes? That we all stay healthy, that the cats stay well, that work remains stable, and that we’re able to take some time off to do something interesting and relaxing, while making a few photographs that satisfy us.

Oh – and that my old heap of a car gets through its smog test next month.

We shall see.

-JFT

"Give Me the Banjo!"

2012-01-02T16:20:54-08:00

Give me the Banjo! That's part of a quote from Mark Twain, and it's kind of been my unofficial credo, my musical call to action, since I was a high school student and bought my first instrument, a marvelous old S.S. Stewart, seen here on the right.

Several months ago, a program called “Give Me the Banjo” was shown on public television.

I set our DVR up to record it.

But I had never watched the program because it got mixed reviews, to say the least, from my banjo-playing associates. I thought, ‘Eh, why bother?”

But I finally sat down and watched it last night.

Brilliant. That’s what it is, brilliant.

Narrated by Steve Martin, a seriously talented musician in his own right, this film traces the history of this wonderful instrument from its arrival here with slaves right up to – well, now.

My picker friends bitched that it failed to concentrate on bluegrass. But that was one of the things I liked about. It presented a nice balance, starting with the very earliest iterations of the instrument. It told us about the earliest players, including minstrel star Joel Walker Sweeney, about who I wrote a paper when I was a college student.

It included audio and film clips of some of the early players of the last century, brought us through Earl Scruggs, Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio right up to the present, through Bela Fleck and beyond.

Like I said, brilliant – even if it did leave out some well-known players such as Stringbean and Grandpa Jones, and their contributions to old-time music. That doesn’t matter, so much, I think. I’m absolutely thrilled that the instrument I so admire got such an intelligent treatment.

I’ve kept this one on the DVR, rather than delete it. It’s worth seeing again.

But first, I need to make the time to watch “Freedom Songs,” a film about the music of the Civil Rights movement. I recorded that last night and will settle in and watch when I can savor it.

I’m thinking that at least some of the music it will bring us could be concurrent with the music of the folk era of the 1950s and ’60s. We shall see.

In the meantime, I just wish my old friend Hal, with whom I shared so much of this music, was here to watch this stuff with me. He left for me his favorite banjo, a Bart Reiter Grand Concert - again, seen here on the right. It hangs here on my studio wall, right next to that old 1880s vintage S.S. Stewart that I still own and still cherish. The two of them make a good pair.

-JFT

New Year's Summer Day

2012-01-01T14:44:47-08:00

What's going on here? It's Jan. 1. The dead of winter. But the thermometer in our back garden indicates that it's 84 degrees at 2:30 this afternoon. Tomorrow is scheduled for more of the same.

I hate this! The Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl, broadcast from a city that is very nearby, will be viewed by millions of couch potatoes, a great many of them stuck in God-forsaken places like the Midwest, the East, and Washington State. I'm talkin' rain, cold, snow all the time.

They see this weather, the bastards all move here. No wonder the state has gone to hell in a handbasket.

But today I did my duty in the hope of much crappier weather.

I washed my car. That almost always brings on a downpour. We can only hope.

- JFT

Who Are All These People and Why Are They In Our Way?

2011-12-29T07:25:53-08:00

We drove up to the family ranch for Christmas, as usual. The trip up was relatively painless, probably because we traveled on Christmas day. Ah, but the trip home was a different story.

Usually, the 315 miles from ranch to home takes us four hours, 15 minutes: set the cruise control for 75 mph – that’s a safe five-over, mind you – and let the miles roll past. This time the trip took us a little more than six hours.

The ranch is 10, maybe 15 miles east of Interstate 5. As soon as we left the local ranch roads and hit I-5, we encountered mile upon mile of stop-and-go Boxing Day traffic - an endless and flow of cars as thick as something flowing from a faucet. Traffic would come to a complete stop, and it would stay stopped. Then it would move slowly for awhile. Then stop again. Faucet on, faucet off.

We figured there must be one hell of a wreck somewhere up on front of us. Carnage. Mayhem.

But no. It was just an excess of vehicles, far more than the freeway could handle.

It was worse than traffic here in Lost Angeles. It took us about 90 minutes to reach a spot called Santa Nella, which we usually reach in about 30 minutes.

So just south of Santa Nella we jumped off of I-5 and took route 152 east to Highway 99. This was quite busy, but at least it flowed well.

Traffic got heavy again when 99 and 5 joined, just north of the Grapevine, and got really heavy through Valencia and over the Newhall Pass. We were able to dodge around some of this by using the truck lanes.

Finally we were home. And damned glad to be there. The cats, however, were indifferent, reminding me of my eldest son.

I think we’ll think twice before we again try to drive anywhere on any holiday weekend.

-JFT

Excellence Gone

2011-12-18T16:52:01-08:00

Photography and music. Two of my favorite things. But it seems that the technology that each use these days is marching backwards, in terms of quality of reproduction. And so are the expectations of most folks. In fact, many folks seem to be willing to accept standards that are – well, lower than the belly of a snake that’s crawling along the bottom of a ditch. Low.

Photography, for instance: We’re told that point-and-shoot cameras now are nearly obsolete. That’s because every cell phone now has a built-in camera and that’s what people are using. Oh, you think a cell phone is capable of the same kind of photographic quality that even the rankest point-and-shoot is? I. Think. Not.

Some folks still do make prints of the photos they shoot, but most apparently are interesting in sending photos over the Web. I like prints. But when I shopped for a new printer not long ago, I had to work hard to find what I want – most don’t provide the kind of sharpness I require. This certainly is true of hobbyist printers, and it also seems to be true of at least the lower levels of the semi-pro large-format printers. And don’t get me started on those printers that will print directly from your phone, with its crappy little plastic lens – oh, and when was the last time you cleaned that lens?.

I find this curious: Why would you not want your images just as crisp and tack-sharp as possible? And as big?

People these days seem to insist on HD television, so they seem to know what a great image looks like. But they don’t insist on great images when it comes to their own photography. This baffles me.

The concept of high fidelity also seems to be obsolete. When was the last time you saw a store that specialized in high-fidelity reproduction equipment? Sure, you still see speakers and things, but these days they’re oriented toward surround-sound systems for video.

Rather than listening to music over a stereo system that offers actual, you know, high fidelity, people listen over iPods. Or maybe they dock their iPods in chintzy little devices that channel the iPod’s contents through tiny speakers.

Oh, you think your iPod qualities as hi-fi? I. Think. Not. And if you’re downloading music, because of the extreme sampling rate used, you’re getting low-fi material that’s on a par, in terms of reproduction quality, with the old 78-rpm records. And maybe not that good.

For sure, I take pictures with the camera in my phone. And I listen over an iPod (though the music is all transferred direct from CDs, so actually is quite detailed). But when I’m serious about photos and music, I used a real camera, a real printer that will produce killer, tack-sharp 8 x 10s. And when I want serious music, I crank up a stereo system – one of several in the house – that will provide a near-concert-hall experience.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

Or maybe I’m just showing my age and general crankiness.

-JFT

Why basses are Bad in Alabama

2011-11-30T08:50:22-08:00

My friend Carolyn Roth Sutton moved a while back to Alabama. Probably moving into that state isn’t nearly as common as moving out of it is – she and her husband Jim went there to be closer to his family.

Now Carolyn, whom I’ve known since boarding school – her pop was principal of the boarding school to which my parents sentenced me – is a pretty good picker. And her husband plays bass.

What she tells me is that whenever folks gather in a back yard there for a bit of music, they always keep a long-handled hoe handy.

It seems that for whatever reason, snakes are attracted to the thump of a string bass. Play the bass, a bunch of rattlesnakes come calling. Just what you need, right?

She says when that happens, people kill 'em, skin 'em, cook 'em and eat 'em. But I think that rattlesnake is a delicacy I can do without.

Seems like a pretty good reason, to me, to avoid the bass, avoid back yards, and avoid Alabama altogether. But what do I know?

-JFT