Where’s the passion, Acura?

Photo Courtesy of AutoGuide.com

I was watching some tv on Hulu the other day and, knowing that I like cars, Hulu showed the same commercial for the new Acura ILX about a dozen times. The scale of the car didn’t exactly dawn on me until about the 10th time that I watched the commercial and I realized that this was Acura’s new foray into the luxury compact market. A foray, that much like the rest of their lineup, I find to be a combination of boring and half-hearted.

Let’s be honest, Acura could not have created this car for any reason other than the fact that someone in Acura’s marketing department got together with a statistician and someone from accounting and said “there is a market to sell X-thousand small luxury vehicles between $25k and $35k and we could have a profit margin of Y per vehicle” and then some executive at Honda got dollar signs (or maybe yen signs?) in his eyes and said “brilliant! let’s do it!”.

So then, much like Acura did before with the CSX -the ILX’s predecessor, which was only sold in Canada-, they took the current Honda Civic, popped in some fancier headlamps, had the designers pull on some of the exterior lines a bit, stretched some leather over the seats, and pinched the top of the H on the grill emblem to form an A. The design of Acura’s makes it less blatantly obvious that the ILX is the Civic than the design of the CSX did but, to anyone capable of completing a 10 piece jigsaw puzzle, it’s not difficult to see.

The US market was probably added to the territory of the ILX so Acura could compete with the Lexus CT hybrid. In fact they offer the ILX as a hybrid at an MSRP of $28,900, undercutting the Lexus by roughly $200.

This kind of profit driven strategy is all fine and dandy for the share holder, but my issue is that it shows how clearly Honda has lost it’s libido and no longer has any passion in their products. Yes, the company is coming out with a new NSX, but it’s clearly because they want a slice of the luxury-sport GT market from which Audi is reaping so much success with their R8.

Honda is a company that makes family cars, but no longer offers any that will get mom and dad “revved up”, so to speak. The sporty S2000 which was so popular as both a driver’s car and simply a joyous little convertible is a thing of the past. The new NSX ads may feature car enthusiasts like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld (how could he betray Porsche like that!?), but it’s not like the old one where Honda touted a chassis developed with the help of Formula 1 Racing’s greatest driver, Ayrton Senna. Honda even pulled out of sponsoring an F1 team altogether in 2008.

Acura, much the same, is Honda’s brand for the socio-economic ladder climbers with a family. They tout cars full of tried and true technology, but never anything new or innovative. Acura puts an emphasis on safety, comfort, and fuel economy balanced with what they subjectively deem is sportiness. They load their cars up with a plethora of tech, though none of it is ever cutting edge and all of it seems to distract from the actual sensation of the driving experience. Their cars are priced in such a manner that they undercut other luxury automakers. They seem target young men or couples who can drop $30,000 on a car, then move them up their product line in $5,000 increments as their income increases. In short, their cars are designed and built to be sold to a specific demographic, but that leads to a problem, there is no passion. None. Zero. Zilch.

The whole lineup is reliable, perhaps more so than its competitors. My grandparents appreciate that reliability and are on their third Acura TL. I’ve driven their newest TL on a couple of road trips and around town a time or two, and once went with my grandfather to test drive other Acuras at  a dealership. The cabin in an Acura is a nice place to be, the seats are comfortable, the leather is of good quality, there’s lots of space, the sound system is decent, the back up camera is helpful, and the satnav… well actually the satnav is a bad joke, and the interior panels look as though two designers argued over wether to use cheap or quality finishes and settled on juxtaposing the two.

The brakes and suspension are both gentle yet manage to instill confidence in the driver. The steering and the pedals are all smooth and consistent, but they feel electronic and artificial, and their punchy-yet-smooth drivetrains can’t really make up for that. The optional automated-“manual” transmissions Acura offers is also slow to react and is based on a system that many European car manufacturers have left behind.

In the end an Acura is a good buy and hopefully the ILX will live up to that. However, I would much rather save up my money a bit longer and buy a slightly more expensive, less reliable car from a German maker. One that is willing to take a risk and offer me something that is not a rebadged econo-car, but something truly new and innovative, truly sporty, and most importantly, truly passionate.

Tired of Terrible Tires

Within the past week I’ve read a blog post from Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson and a column in the Radar section of evo magazine (issue 170) both talking about how terrible today’s tires are. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more with them and I don’t own a super car or even a car that rolls on special tires.

I remember two years ago I punctured a front tire in my family’s 2003 VW Jetta on one of the many roads of Tulsa, Oklahoma that ought to be condemned. I made a big deal about it and got the city to replace, not only the punctured tire, but also the other front tire, as I insisted they needed to match and Michelin no longer made the original tires that were on the car. Clarkson points out that a VW is probably the only car around that you could readily get a tire for without waiting, but even that is a stretch these days. I distinctly recall it taking several days to get the Michelin “Primacy MXM4”, a tire which is used by many cars including my neighbor’s Mercedes W220 S-Class and my grandfather’s Acura TL.

The saddest part is that while the “Primacy MXM4” provides more traction than it’s predecessor, the ride these tires provide is downright horrendous! Driving on highways is pleasant enough, but once you’re in a city the tires are a complete joke and you can’t drive more than five minutes without feeling like you need a spine transplant. Yes, they provide “more precise handling”, but what’s the bloody point if the wheel is practically shaken from your hands at every seam in the road?

And let’s touch on the fact that these low profile demons can ruin your car over time, especially some of the earlier models with large wheels. Our Jetta was nice and quiet when we bought it used with some 30,000 miles on it, but at nearly 80,000 I have to turn up the radio to keep from hearing all the rattles. Yes, things come loose on cars over the years, but rarely to this extent. The low profile tires provide such a rough ride that the chassis of your car can slowly begin to warp, causing things to no longer fit together perfectly, the way they once did. This was also the case with my neighbor’s S-Class and the rattling was one of the many contributing factors when he eventually got rid of the big German land yacht. Even some Porsche buyer’s guides warn potential owners against buying some of the earlier 911s to sport 18” rims for this reason. Newer cars have been engineered to take the brunt, but often this results increased weight and thus lower fuel economy. Ironic, no?

My 1994 BMW 3 series has what I would call “normal”, sane, high profile tires. Tires that, despite the BMW having 214,000 miles, give it a smooth, luxurious, and rattle-free ride while also delivering exceptional handling and performance. Traditional tires also don’t leave your wheels as vulnerable to damage as low profile tires. So why in the hell could VW and Mercedes not have put these wonderful tires on the Jetta and the S-class? Why did BMW switch to low profile tires?

The industry may make the excuse that these tires offer a lower rolling resistance, and thus better fuel economy but let’s face it, these tires don’t last as long as high profile tires. Replacing tires more frequently far outweighs both the cost to the environment of a couple less MPGs, and to your wallet of a few more dollars at the fuel pump. The other argument they might make could be for handling, but unless you’re taking it to a track you’re probably going to prefer high profile tires. Besides, most new cars are going to electronic steering systems that offer less feel, making it increasingly easier throw out the handling argument altogether.

The day the industry could justifiably put these tires on a car is the day that tires are made of compounds that last longer without sacrificing traction and that even the common man’s car can have adaptable magnetic suspension that let’s you forget that you’re on low profile tires altogether. Even then, however, car companies and tire manufacturers will have to come to a consensus and choose a few tires that everyone will use. This business of having five different kinds of tires with specific sizes and compounds for each model that a car manufacturer produces is complete nonsense. Even the high profile tires on my BMW, tires that fit a multitude of vehicles made over the past 20 or 30 years, had to be ordered a couple days in advance when I needed them replaced. This is simply unacceptable.

Advancing tire technology for the track is great, but it’s past time for the car industry to think about the actual customer and not the race car driver when they design tires for their products.

If I could do it all over again…

More murmurs surface about 15-, 17-inch MacBook Airs | Apple Talk – CNET News.

Now that the macBook Airs have the full size clickable touch pad, I’m wishing I had an Air instead of the Pro I bought before I came to college. The idea of a lightweight portable laptop with a solid state hard drive is just so enticing.

I imagine if I had one I would stop taking my iPad to meetings and I wouldn’t regret carrying my not so heavy laptop to classes anymore. I also can’t get the novel idea of having a laptop that could fit in a manilla envelope out of my head. Though, I would probably never actually carry around a laptop in a manilla envelope I would definitely search for a nice leather pouch that the Air could just barely fit into.

Furthermore, with the new optional i7 core processor the only drawback is the minuscule hard drive space. And that can be remedied with a nice external hard drive that would double as a backup. Because let’s be honest, the lack of a disk drive is not an issue. I’ve never even put a disk in my MacBook Pro!

So if you’re a high school senior about to buy a laptop for college next year, STOP! Be patient, wait a couple months and see if Apple comes out with 15″ and/or 17″ MacBook Airs, you’ll be glad you did.

Best Buy Explains Its Leaked Apple HDTV Survey | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Best Buy Explains Its Leaked Apple HDTV Survey | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

I find it interesting that Best Buy leaks Apple product information so frequently. They’ve done this with several Apple products in the past.

Why Apple’s A5 is so big–and iPhone 4 won’t get Siri | Deep Tech – CNET News

Why Apple’s A5 is so big–and iPhone 4 won’t get Siri | Deep Tech – CNET News.

Kind of cool that they are integrating such impressive features into a single chip. I’ve been fairly impressed with how well SIRI works on on my iPhone. I have also noticed how much clearer conversation are on my 4S than they were on my 3GS so Audience’s noise reduction clearly  makes a big difference.

Patricia Marx: Help for the Fashion Phobic : The New Yorker

Patricia Marx: Help for the Fashion Phobic : The New Yorker.

This was an article I read back in September of 2011 that I particularly enjoyed. I think it explores the fashion phobia that some men have and others don’t and approaches it with a nice whit and a sense of comedic satire about the way men approach the subject.

Hope you enjoy it was much as I did.

-James

Last-minute gift that will last the whole year: a Coffee Thermos

This is a post of mine that was featured in Footprint Magazine in 2011.

Each year my mother spends the weeks after Thanksgiving repeatedly asking me what I want for Christmas, and I never know what to ask for! I usually don’t tell her and I end up getting socks, some books that aren’t on my desired reading list, and other things I don’t particularly want. So when my mother asked me this year I set about thinking of practical items I could ask for that I would want to use in my everyday life. One such item was a Starbucks coffee thermos.

Judge if you will, but I can honestly say that I am a huge fan of Starbucks. I love that almost anywhere I go, I can get the same product at roughly the same price and have a familiar experience. I find that consistency rather relaxing, in fact.

I usually go to Starbucks every Monday morning, to kick start my week, as well as Friday afternoon, as a sort of reward to myself for making it through the week. I also go a few more times each month to have coffee with friends that I may not see on a regular basis. If you think about it, that’s around 100 to 150 cups of coffee each year. Or, if you’re being specific, 100 to 150 cups, lids, and straws or cup sleeves each year.

I found it a bit disturbing that I was creating that much waste with my habit of going to Starbucks. Meghan Eldridge, who also writes for Footprint, pointed out to me that all of these items are recyclable, but that didn’t make me feel much better. Hence my asking my mother for a Starbucks thermos.

The one I chose was a 16oz. model so that I can get a tall or grande beverage (depending on how much caffein I’m in the mood for). I will now also have a thermos that I can use for my favorite tea that I make at home. Furthermore, Starbucks gives me a ten cent discount each time I use my thermos, meaning the $20 thermos pays for itself after 200 uses or in my case one and a half to two years. I’ve now had my Sigg water bottle for about five years, so I’m sure I’ll have no trouble using my Starbucks thermos for double or triple the time it will take it to pay for itself.

For those of you who enjoy an occasional cup of Starbucks coffee but don’t generally go enough to justify buying a reusable thermos, there’s no need to fear! Starbucks does lots of cool things to help the environment. One of the major projects Starbucks is working on is making their coffee cups more sustainable. In fact, they have held several “cup summits” over the years to bring innovators together to find ways to make their cups more environmentally friendly. They also recycle most of the packaging behind the counter that the customers never even see. However, one of their initiatives that I found most interesting is that, upon request, Starbucks will give you a free 5lb. bag of used coffee grounds for your compost. Some of the locations even take their used coffee grounds to commercial composting companies nearby.

Obviously Starbucks isn’t perfect. There are still many things they could work on, but then so could all of us. It’s just nice to know a business that I frequent is making an effort to improve it’s sustainability and that I can take part in that.

To find out more about Starbucks’ sustainability efforts visit the following link: http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/learn-more/goals-and-progress

Car-less Part I: Why Mizzou Students Don’t Need Cars at School

This is a post of mine that was featured in Footprint Magazine in 2011.

Everyone needs a car right? You’re important and you have places to be and your car is necessary to get you there. You need a car to drive home for the holidays or to Walmart to get groceries once a week. With a couple of programs Mizzou has on campus, it’s not actually true that you need your own car to do these things.

In this series I’ll have the answers to all your going Carless questions. Are you making your weekly run to the store or taking a short weekend trip within Missouri? WeCar has your back. Looking for a way home for the Holidays? Try car pooling your way home. Student Ride Board provides you with a way to connect with others traveling in the same direction as you. What’s it really like to live Carless? I’ll talk to someone who has done it for over two years.

Today I’ll start by giving you all the answers you need to use the WeCar program!

You’re in college, you don’t have much money, so your first question is obviously going to be what’s the cost?

WeCar is actually fairly inexpensive, especially considering that AAA says the average person spends well over $9,000 per year on expenses for their car. For Mizzou students a WeCar membership costs $35 per year, plus $8 an hour or $7 per day (add a dollar  if you would rather your car be a hybrid). Keeping the car over night will only set you back $30 ($35 for hybrids). There is also a $0.35 per mile cost added if you drive more than 200 miles.

“But gas is soo expensive!” you might say, “won’t I need to pay to fill the car up too??”

Nope! WeCar pays for the gas with a nice little gas card kept in the glove box. Just use the card to fill up if the car gets bellow 1/4 of a tank.

Who actually uses WeCar? Lots of people and it’s growing!

I spoke with Libby Pugliese, a Mizzou student, who uses the WeCar program regularly.

Libby said she typically uses WeCar to travel for field work observation hours she must complete as a student majoring in education. She also uses WeCar for occasional errands.

I asked Pugliese how easy it is to use WeCar:

“The WeCar program is a very easy program to use. All you do is go on the website, pick the time you need to rent out the car and push reserve. When that time arrives, all you do is swipe your [membership] card over the sensor [located by the windshield] and the doors unlock, so yes it is very easy.”

She did, however, say there was one draw back to WeCar:

“If you are over 15 minutes late to your scheduled pick up time, your card will not work and you will still be charged for the rental plus 5 additional dollars for late cancellation which is an inconvenience and an annoyance. This would be the one thing I would improve about the program.”

Pugliese said she would recommend the program to anyone with short term transportation needs not filled by bicycles or busses. She was also supportive of the idea of there being more programs like WeCar:

“This program should be more common!! It’s so easy to use and it helps cut down pollutants in the air. Also, it relieves traffic because the carpool kind of style that WeCar promotes.”

I also spoke with Pat Fowler, the Coordinator for Mizzou’s FIGs and TRIGs programs. Pat says she was one of the first staff members to get a WeCar membership in the summer of 2010. This was a year after she moved to downtown Columbia and sold her car in an effort to have a smaller carbon footprint and a healthier lifestyle that includes bicycling and walking to work.

“WeCars are not problem free, but the customer support people are kind and thoughtful.” Pat said.

“In the winter months I rent a car once or twice a month to go shopping, to the doctor or any place I can’t get to on Columbia Transit.  I’ve been stuck once or twice in the winter when the batteries were dead.  I once called ahead to the local Enterprise office to let them know that I was planning on reserving a car, and since it was semester break, would he come by and charge the battery?  They did it the first time, after that I’d have to call for a credit to my account,  move my appointment, and come back another time.”

Pat was also quite knowledgeable about the insurance cost of driving a WeCar (because you do need insurance to drive any car):

“If you are still on your parent’s policy, there is a $1000 deductible for collision.  For me, I have a non owner policy with USAA for which I pay $15.00 month.  This provides me with the same liability coverage I carried when I owned an automobile.  My collision deductible is still $1000, but my liability is covered by me, where as the average student would rely on their parent’s policy for liability.”

This is significantly cheaper than owning and insuring your own car. Non-owner insurance policies also ensure that you are covered if you’re driving a friend’s car.

Pat loves WeCars pointing out that they “are easier than having to keep a car clean, or pay for gas, or pay for repairs.” She said one thing she misses about not having a car is listening to the radio, so she likes to crank it up whenever she rents a WeCar. Her favourite WeCar memory was when Missouri experienced Snowmageddon, this March:

“Feb 3^rd, the first day we were permitted out on the roads, I rented a WeCar for 5 hours, I had to leave it in the middle of the street to unload it, and then carry my stuff over the snow bank to get to my house.”

So there you have it! WeCar is a great way to save money, save the environment, and have a good time! Stay tuned for the next segment in my Carless series where I’ll tell you about programs that help you get home for the breaks without owning your own car.

For further information about WeCar go to their website. Their FAQ page is particularly helpful about answering any question you might have.

Mizzou Students can click here for a WeCar membership application if you’re sold on the program.

What happens with your old phone once you’ve moved on to a snazzy new one?

This was a post of mine that was featured in Footprint Magazine in 2011.

A couple Thursdays ago I stayed up until 3:30 in the morning to pre-order the new iPhone 4S. It was a purchase I had been waiting nearly six months to make since my two year contract with AT&T had lapsed, and I could get a new phone. My parents and I had already discussed that we would give my old iPhone to mother, who has used a Motorola SLVR for the past 7 years and is ready to move into the age of the smartphone. But as I was sitting at my desk clicking “refresh” over and over on Apple’s online store page I couldn’t help but wonder what other people do with their old cell phones.

I found the thought rather distressing. Cell phones are chock-full of toxic substances that you can’t just toss into a landfill. They contain substances like lead, mercury, brominated flame retardants, and PVC just to name a few and that’s not even including the batteries. You might think that throwing out your phone, it being such a minuscule item and whatnot, wouldn’t be a big deal but think of the millions of cell phones that people throw out every year. Soon rain leaches these toxic substances into the ground and your water supply is undrinkable (unless of course you like heavy metal poisoning).

Needless to say, donating if your old phone is useable and recycling if it’s not is a no brainer. But how do I do this you may wonder? Well look no further! Here are some links to help you on your quest to save the world one phone at a time.

• Cell Phones for Soldiers
• Cell Phones for Domestic Violence Survivors can be donated through Verizon Wireless
• The Environmental Protection Agency lists other places where you can donate your phone or other technology or have it recycled
• There are also boxes at the front desk of each of the University of Missouri’s residence halls where you can leave your phones to have them recycled. You can also run them by the MU Sustainability Office.

—

I decided to set about discovering what most people do with their old cell phones. Personally, I’m a bit of a technophile and a fan of nostalgia so I generally keep my old technology. In fact I still have my first iPod in its original box, an Apple IIc from 1980s, my lime green 1976 BMW despite having upgraded to one from the ’90s,  and when I bought my first iPhone I kept my motorola SLVR for when I go running and bicycling.

Sarah Kranau, a George Washington University student, said that, much like myself, she gave her old iPhone to her mother.

Emma Faist, a Mizzou student, said “I always keep my old cellphones and put them in my memory box. I think it’s cool to see the technology advances as I get new ones. Sometimes I look at them and just laugh because some of them are really silly looking. I would recycle them but that’s no fun because then they are just gone!”

When I asked Seth Amos, a student at UPenn, I got quite an interesting response. He said: “I kept it and I carry it with me when I run in case I need to throw it.”

“Wait,” I said, “so to be clear, you carry around your old cell phone on runs to throw at someone if they seem to have an intent to harm you?”

“Yes, exactly” he said.

Taylor Dukes, a Junior at Mizzou, said that she kept her old phone in case she ever had a problem with her iPhone.

So perhaps my worrying was unwarranted. If most people simply keep their old phones and put them to good use or save them for emergencies or to look at, then they aren’t really contributing to the growing issue of eWaste. Let’s just hope they recycle their phones when the time comes to get rid of them. I did, however, get a few other responses. One of which wasn’t particularly reassuring, but others certainly make the case that some people are conscious of the issue and trying to make a difference now.

Mizzou Sophomore Tracy Qin, said that she usually gets new phones because she loses them. While Mizzou Junior Laura Ebone said she placed her old phone in the electronics recycling box by the front desk of her residence hall. Which is what Matt Mazick, a Mizzou Sophomore, does unless “it’s still functional” he says “then I store it away as a backup or give it to one of my family members as an upgrade.”

Anna Valiavska had this to say on the topic: “A few years back I realized that there were a lot of cellphones that I acquired and I wanted to do something with them. There were a few programs that were available at the time. Two programs I have used for cell phones that were usable were cell phones for soldiers and cell phones for domestic violence survivors. Best Buy takes old cellphones in stores and recycles them.” She went on to say that her main motivation is “to not be wasteful. We have a lot of resources and it would be useful to reuse as many of them as we can.”

Stuck in a garden with no way to bargain

This is a post of mine that was featured in Footprint Magazine in 2011.

Photo courtesy Missouri Botanic Garden.

There once was a little red tree

Who liked to think she was free

But she was stuck in a garden

With no way to bargain

So the world she couldn’t travel and see

—

More from the Leaf Lyrics collection:

“Leaves flutter like flames” – a haiku by Meghan Eldridge

“All things elm” – a playlist by Kelly Gehringer

“If trees had names” – an illustration by Kat Seal

“Not all leaves are created equal” – a Footprint photo gallery