car posts

about my car

New tires

I got new tires for my car Wednesday. General Altimax RT45’s. Those are the new version of the ones I’ve gotten several times in the past. They are a good mix of rating well on snow, rating well overall, and a relatively decent price. And just in time. They showed their worth on the snowy roads on Friday, having little trouble where my previous tires it would’ve been more nerve racking.

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Ideas: Hybrid energy storage for electric vehicles

I would like to see electric cars adopt hybrid energy storage / generation systems. An advanced controller would direct electricity to and from each system based on which is considered best at handling the current situation. If one has failed, it would simply be cut out of usage. It might include batteries, a generator, capacitors, compressed air systems, etc. A system like this would:

  • allow for characteristics that any one system doesn’t provide
  • provide an alternative / backup for if any one system fails / degrades
  • retain the simple, low maintenance drive system that an electric vehicle has
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Impreza transmission death

One of my larger fears when I bought my Subaru Impreza with a CVT transmission was that the transmission would fail early, but not early enough to be covered by warranty. I saw talk online about reliability problems with the tech, which was fairly new to cars, with the Impreza only being in its second year with them I believe. On last Wednesday, my transmission did fail, but luckily it is going to work out alright, as Subaru of America (SOA) is going to help me out.

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