Gail’s Pic of the Week
Sunday, May 15, 2022
It's not COVID
For the past 3 days I've been sick as a dog. I did that "at home" test they send you in the mail, and it was negative, so I guess I don't have to quarantine. I just stepped out of the shower, so for the moment I'm experiencing some relief from the congestion.
If you noticed the picture up above, that's my new car. It's a 2022 Kia Niro EV, and it's been jinxed. Since I got it, it's already been in a wreck and had a flat tire. Hopefully I'll be getting the car repaired in a week or two. It needs a new lift gate and the rear bumper needs repainted. I don't know what the deal was with the tire. It just started going flat, but that was an easy fix.
After I bought this new car, I sold my Leaf. The dealership I bought my Kia from tried to lowball me on the trade, so I took it to the Kelley Blue Book website. Believe it or not, I sold it for over $1000 more than I originally paid for it. The dealer then tacked on another five grand to sell it on their lot. I've been watching my old Leaf on the Autotrader site. It's a nice car, and I really hope it sells soon. (* Just checked. and it's gone already!)
So yeah, this Niro is a fully electric vehicle (BEV). It's amazing how many times I've had to explain to people that you cannot put gasoline in it. It has an advertised range of 239 miles on a full charge, and more or less, that's what it gets. I've been limiting my charge to 80% and it easily gets around 200 miles of range. I charge it about twice a week.
One of my favorite aspects of this car is when you turn on the lane keep, lane follow, and adaptive cruise control while going down the highway. It's not quite self-driving, but it's pretty damn close. When traveling along a well marked road, I only have to occasionally bump the back of my steering wheel with my knee to keep the system active, and most of the time I can just relax and enjoy the ride. You actually can install Comma.ai with Openpilot on this car to get an even more robust self-driving effect.
Kudos
So it's the strangest thing... Someone or something keeps posting stuff that's not jokes to the submission page. They are surreal word salads that don't make any sense. I'm just guessing it's some sort of bot and added a challenge question to the submission page to try to block them. There is, however, one actual joke for this week. Thank you, TOR.
Pax,
-f2x
