Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Union-made in the USA

At one point in time, I belonged to three different unions. Can't remember all of them, but I do remember there were three.

I may still be a member ('retired in good standing') of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 149 (long story).

But I wouldn't really call myself a 'union' man.

Still, when I see the abuse that's being heaped on the United Auto Workers (UAW) union by right-wing commentators over the UAW's failure to win an 'organization' vote at Volkswagen's Chattanooga Tennessee plant - saying that it means the South won't be dragged down like Detroit was - I marvel at these people who fail to study history.

It's as if the UAW was to blame for all of Detroit's faults.

I don't think it was a Union man who decided that all GM cars should look exactly the same back in the 1980s.

And I KNOW it wasn't a union man who designed the Edsel or the Pontiac Aztek.

In fact, if you look at the half-century starting in the mid-1930s when the auto workers unions began, the United States and Canada produced by far the most cars in the world.

They were also the best cars in the world, leaders in design, in technology, in safety, in efficiency.

Not to mention constituting by far the biggest component of the 'Arsenal of Democracy' which built the machinery that won World War II.

After the war, this system allowed legions of hourly workers to make decent wages, put their kids through school, and look forward to a comfortable retirement.

Sure, both sides made mistakes.

But the major flaw in the system was that in the States anyway, the unions forced the manufacturers to provide the benefits their own governments were too stupid to provide.

Geez; they're still fighting over universal medical care down there.

Because the cost of these social needs was forced onto the companies rather than onto society as a whole, companies with ageing work forces were penalized compared to newly-established companies, like the foreign-owned 'transplants' that began arriving in the 1980s.

The 'legacy' costs of supplying pension and medical benefits to their older work forces meant domestic manufacturers had something like $1,200 in every car before the first weld was made.

Toyota can compete even-up, thank you very much.

Give them a $1,200 head start - at cost, not at retail - and they'll eat your lunch.

Opposition by Neanderthal Republican politicians in Tennessee was the main factor that derailed the organization drive. They were claiming VW would move all the jobs to Mexico if the workers unionized.

What? And walk away from a multi-billion dollar three-year old plant?

Hardly.

VW was remarkably neutral in all this. It actually allowed the UAW access to its facilities to talk to the workers. VW is used to dealing with the gigantic and powerful IG Metall, the union in Germany. Relations aren't always pleasant, but Worker Councils are part of the way things are done over there.

Now, some of my best friends are Americans.

But sometimes, you have to wonder if they'll ever make it into the twenty-first century.

Have we Lost the 'Connected' Battle?

The saddest piece of news I have heard since learning that the BMW X6 sells better than the 5 Series Touring Station Wagon did in its best year ever - the X6 is ugly and goes downhill from there - is the list of vehicles chosen as finalists for the Car of the Year by something called 'Connected World Magazine.'

You'll get my point when you read the opening paragraph of the press release:

"Distraction-free driving, remote access to vehicles, gesture-controlled infotainment systems, blind-spot detection, and remote-sensing technologies, are just a few of the features that the editors of Connected World magazine looked at when selecting the finalists for the annual Connected Car of the Year awards."

Dear me; do these people know NOTHING AT ALL about cars?

Distraction is a mental issue, not a dexterity issue. That is a fact, not an opinon. Having our cars enable all this stuff makes us more vulnerable, not less.

And anyone reading this blog already knows there are no blind spots to detect.

Again, a fact, not an opinion.

The finalists include the Dodge Dart with the 'Uconnect' system (hint: get into any Chrysler product with Uconnect, and use the voice activation system to try and find 'Dundas Street'); Chevrolet Impala with MyLink (try to do anything with any MyLink-equipped GM car driving east on a sunny afternoon - the fingerprints make it totally unreadable); and several Ford products with the speclal-place-in-hell SYNC with MyFord Touch system (I spent three hours screaming at this thing in a Lincoln MKZ Hybrid on a drive down to Detroit a couple of days ago, trying to find a particular hotel. It said "No entries for that destination." OK, so Detroit is in trouble. But are there NO HOTELS in Detroit? Not according to SYNC wth MyFord Touch.)

Talk about a Hall of Shame.

Steven Jobs has a lot more to answer for than setting computing back 30 years (do you still need two hands to 'Forward-Delete' on a Mac? Come on... ) and making the dumbest Smart Phone ever (how they sold one of those things, let alone millions, remains a mystery; wish I had his Kool Aid. Then again, Celine Dion sells a lot of records - maybe you CAN fool almost all of the people almost all of the time.)

But Jobs made the touch screen a 'thing'. And while you can get used to a touch screen on a phone when sitting at a desk, it simply has no place in an automobile.

I know this makes me sound like a grumpy old man.

Yes, I am grumpy. About this, anyway.

Yes, I am old - older than I was, which of course beats the only available alternative.

But ergonomics is NOT opinion; it is science.

And these systems simply cannot be made safe to work when you're careening down a highway at 100-plus km/h.

Any control which requires you to look away from the road is a bad control, especially when that same function can be done using the shape and feel of a physical knob or lever which does not require visual confirmation.

Yes, we do have more functions in our cars these days. We probably shouldn't, but we do.

But there has to be a better way.

Voice activation is supposed to be that 'better way'. But after at least ten years of intense development, they still are pretty awful, witness my Uconnect-Dundas Street thing.

And again, the distraction involved is mental, not physical.

Collectively, we managed to beat back 'talking cars' in the '80s.

But have we lost the 'connected' battle?

Probably.

But there has recently been one glimmer of hope.

On that previously-mentioned trip to Detroit to see an at-this-point-I-am-embargoed-from-telling-you-about-it vehicle, the chief designer for this automoible division pointed to two lovely shiny round chrome knobs on the centre stack.

They are for radio volume and station tuning.

Nobel Prize Committee, come and see!

He said all future products from this brand will follow this path, in response to massive negative feedback from the media (er, that would be me among others, athough presumably not 'Connected World Magazine') and, more importantly,  customers.

What's next? A slot in the dash where you can put the 'key fob' so you don't lose it when it falls down between the seat and the centre console? Geez; maybe you could even twist it to activate the ignition so you wouldn't need that extra push button...

One of the hardest things for me to learn in this game has been that the customer is always right, even when (s)he's wrong.

That (s)he seems to be recognizing - even if only in this one tiny radio knob example - that maybe (s)e HAS been wrong and is starting to come around, reaffirms my faith in humanity.

It's either that or we go for the Google driver-less car.

And if THAT doesn't scare you, nothing will.

Run-Flats Leave Me Flat

It has taken a little longer for me to have been made Supreme Ruler of the Universe than (a) I had imagined, and (b) than it should have.

Things would be so much easier for everyone!

The agenda remains pretty much as it always has been - the right lane can never disappear; left-lane bandits go straight to their own special corner of hell without having to die first; electronics manufacturers will have to come up with one plug, one voltage, one polarity - I care not which any of them are, but one of each will do, thank you very much.

There's a new item marching its way towards the top of that agenda - run-flat tires will be banned.

They're marginally acceptable in a car with sporty intentions - a Mini, for example.

But for a luxury car intended to provide a comfortable ride - well, at least so far, suspension engineers have been unable to compensate for tire sidewalls which are stiff enough to support the car if the tire loses its air.

Either the ride is unacceptably harsh, and/or they soften the springs to mitigate the effect, which means handling suffers too.

Why do car makers do this?

Weight.

A spare tire weighs a lot; its elimination results in a fractional improvement in fuel consumption - nowhere big enough that you as an individual customer could ever detect it, but when added up over tens of thousands of cars can help the manufacturer attain government-mandated sales-weighted fuel consumption targets.

A pox on all of their houses.

Governments - drop these stupid targets, raise the price of fuel (I know, I know - but you'll save money in the long run), and let the market sort it out.

Car makers - put a proper spare tire in the car.

Tire makers - give up the whole concept, and let's have cars that ride and handle better.

Now, about that right lane...

 

Odd Way to Market Expensive Used Cars

What I don't know about marketing high-priced used cars - well, any cars, actually - would fill every sales manual ever written. 

But I saw an ad in the little paper down the street (they give them away free on the airplane...) for a high-end used car dealership, and it got me wondering.

Their top-of-ad unit was a 2012 Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS roadster like this one. 10,400 km. Loaded.

The price shown in bold type was $174,900.

But what caught my eye was the previous price that had been 'crossed out':

$175,800.

Really? A $900 price chop?

Now, I have no idea if 175 large is a good price for a car like that. I do know it's a spectacular car, and its list price starts at $214,200, so this slightly used one looks like a pretty good deal.

But do customers in this snack bracket think, "Y'know, if I have to go over 175 large, well, I just can't handle that. If only they'd knock nine hundred bucks off that, I might be tempted...".

I do know that down in the entry level, in the mid-to high-tens of thousands of dollars price range, people will turn on their heel and walk for $200.

But at $175,000?

The prices of most of the other cars in this ad - Porsches, Ferraris - were also dropped by a few hundred dollars.

Hmm-mm - I guess people who can afford cars like this didn't get rich enough to do so by tossing their money away.

But if you did want to indicate that the price had been 'reduced', wouldn't you fudge the old price up a little?

"Originally $184,900, now $174,900!"

Doesn't ten grand off sound like more of a bargain?

Nice Tatas

From the get-go, I figured that Jaguar and Land Rover being bought by the Indian Tata conglomerate would be a perfect marriage. OK, so maybe a three-way.

Not that this was a universally-held opinion (I'm kinda used to that).

Tata is a massive world-wide organization. They even have several thousand employees here in Canada, mostly in IT.

But few who don't actually work for the company have any idea it even exists.

My thought was that if Tata could be successful managing two iconic brands with world-wide renown, it would help put them on the public perception map.

That part of it has worked out far better than anyone dared hope. Tata has helped Jaguar and Land Rover finance the development of brilliant new models (e.g., the Jaguar F-Type and Land Rover Evoque; I'm sure you can tell which photo is which). According to my sources, as long as the two car makers keep "hitting their numbers", Tata management leaves them alone to do what they do best.

Sales of both brands are strong everywhere.

Meanwhile, Tata's share of the automotive market in India has seldom been worse, dipping into single-digit territory. India is largely (you should pardon the expression) a small-car market, and Tata is getting its butt handed to it by Suzuki and Hyundai.

The company's much-touted "Nano" (I'm sure you can pick that one out too...) was supposed to be the cheapest new car in the world. It was intended to do for India and the rest of south-east Asia what the Model T Ford did for North America and the Volkswagen Beetle did for Germany - provide reliable transportation for the masses.

But the car has been a dismal flop. My Indian colleagues tell me the car isn't all that bad, but few new-car buyers, even first-timers, want to be known as having had to settle for "the cheapest car in the world".

Tata has recently upgraded the Nano, trying to turn it into a hip 'urban car' for young people.

But new product is always what moves the car biz, and Tata hasn't had an all-new model since 2010.

You would have to think the company is too big and too smart to allow this to go on. 

Then again, we are only a few years removed from when car companies with a much larger global footprint than Tata almost went under.

Can Tata recover, with or without government assistance?

Time will tell.

 

France and Germany Lose their Cool

For whatever issues the European Union faces - we hear lots about the PIIG countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, not to mention Cyprus; will Britain join the euro or stay out?) - one undeniable fact remains: the two largest countries in that bloc, which were more-or-less in a continual state of war for most of the last couple of centuries, haven't fired a shot at each other since 1945. 

That is progress.

Now however, a minor battle has erupted.

No gunfire is involved.

But for the past three months, France has been refusing to allow the German Daimler-Benz corporation to sell a wide swath of its new Mercedes-Benz product line (including the CLA shown here) because - well, because of air conditioning refrigerant.

The issue dates back to the 1970s, when the chemical universally used in automotive A/C systems, a chlorofluorocarbon called R12, was deemed to be a threat to the ozone layer.

It was banned - subsequently, the ozone layer has apparently begun to heal; cause and effect, if any, not really established.

It was replaced with the seemingly less-threatening R-134a.

But when R-134a leaked, as refrigerants do, it turned out to be a way worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the universal Bad Boy of that branch of environmental science.

So another new compound - R-1234yf - was introduced, and became the European Union-mandated product.

As I understand it, this was invented and is made only by Honeywell and DuPont - I know a bit about cars, not so much about cartels...

But Daimler-Benz says that R-1234yf is extremely flammable, and when it leaks in crash tests, it can cause fires. Safety has long been a Mercedes touchstone, so the company has gone back to R-134 until a better replacement can be found.

This is in contravention of the EU rules. Almost needless to say, the German government gave Daimler-Benz a Mulligan on this one.

But France decided to put its foot down by refusing to register any new Mercedes models with R-134a in their A/C systems.

German cars tend to emit more pollutants by virtue of their larger, more powerful engines than do French cars, which tend to be smaller.

Gosh, you don't think the French government is playing politics here, do you? Using regulations to help their home-grown manufacturers? Who would even think of such a thing?

(Well, I guess I did, so...).

In any event, just three days ago, France's highest 'administrative court' - I guess it's like their Supreme Court? - struck down the ban.

The war isn't over.

But this battle goes to the Germans.

All This to Save Twenty Bucks on a Pair of Manolo Blahniks?

The so-called 'Toronto Premium Outlets' Mall is now open.

If only you could get anywhere near it.

Traffic was so bad on opening day last week that the OPP had to shut down the Trafalgar Road exit from the westbound 401 because it was blocking the highway.

From the east, it was stop-and-go from as far away as Mavis Road.

Traffic eastbound was also backed up west of Highway 25.

Not that there were that many cars exiting from eastbound 401. But if there's a traffic jam, well, you DO have to slow down to take a look, right?

(HINT: WRONG!)

Here's what it looked like Sunday afternoon, courtesy of the SatNav system in the Chevy Impala which shows traffic congestion in red:

Might be a bit hard to make out. Maybe there's a way to blow the photo up on your screen?

Anyway, I couldn't figure out how to have the SatNav system NOT show that address "8th Line Milton" on the map. But where those two red lines meet, that's Trafalgar Road. Steeles is a titch north of that (up and a shade to the left); the mall is on the south-east corner of Trafalgar and Steeles.

You can see that the 401 is essentially blocked in both directions.

The red line heading straight off the top is westbound 407 - it too is blocked. Imagine having paid twelve bucks to ride the 407 - kinda cuts into the 'Premium Outlets' savings, doesn't it?

Worse still of course if you don't give a damn about Manolo Blahniks or anything else they sell there. You just want to get to work, get home, get to the airport, get to the hospital.

But you can't, thanks to this wonder of modern retailing.

What - has nobody ever heard of Amazon.com? The days of Big Box stores and Outlet Malls are OVER, people.

Certainly, people who live in this area (like me - aw, you guessed...) wish this thing had never crossed anybody's mind.

They claim to have 2,300 parking spaces. What they need is their own exit from the 401 so customers could get to those spaces.

Presumably when the thrill wears off, traffic will return to something closer to normal. 

But until this thing goes bankrupt - it won't be a moment too soon - I guess we're stuck with it.

We locals at least know a few ways around this intersection. You'd better fire up your SatNav to figure out a bypass too.

Oh by the way, I don't even know if you can get Manolo Blahniks at this place. Do I get any brownie points for even knowing what Manolo Blahniks are?

More Diesel Pollution - from an Unlikely Source

Following up on my post of a couple of weeks ago about the stream of black soot emanating from a Diesel transport truck on 401 near Mississauga Road, Lady Leadfoot told me about being behind a truck with 'Diesel Doctor' written on it, stopped at a traffic light here in beautiful downtown Milton.

As it pulled away on the green, a similar cloud of black smoke poured out of this truck's exhaust.

"I could barely make out the truck!" she exclaimed.

She says it was gray; I saw another pick-up today with the same logo on it, a white Ram with the Cummins Diesel engine.

Likewise, "smoke pourin' black as coal", to quote Dave Dudley ("Six Days on the Road").

An InterTube search indicates that "Diesel Doctor" is a vehicle repair shop in Milton which advertises itself as being "Diesel Pickup Truck Repair and Performance Specialists".

As regular readers know, I'm a big Diesel fan. I currently own two. No, not pick-ups, but Diesels nonetheless - VW TDI wagons, one Jetta (350,000 km) and one Passat (250,000 km).

Terrific cars.

Given that I think we should be encouraging people to switch to Diesel to save fuel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and given that one of the main issues the general public has with Diesels is that they are smoky and smelly, it seems to me that for a firm which claims to be expert on all things Diesel, their own vehicles should set a better example.

Their web site is also full of shots of Diesel pickups emitting huge plumes of black smoke.

I think this is a case of, "Diesel Doctor, Heal Thyself".

 

Construction in the GTA

They say Toronto has two seasons - winter, and construction.

Out here in the sticks where we live, it's pretty much the same.

Except sometimes, the two seasons overlap.

Highway 25 - sorry; 'Regional Road 25', since the province pawned it off on the Regional Municipality of Halton during the Mike Harris era - has been widened from two to four lanes north of Highway 401 up to Number 5 Sideroad.

The construction started about the same time as the pyramids.

I can't tell you how many different ways that piece of road was torn up. Digging here, digging there, with the road layout seemingly changing twice a day.

At one point there was even a southbound detour through the adjacent industrial park.

I can only assume they put in sanitary sewers, unsanitary sewers, storm sewers, water mains, electrical conduits, fibre-optic cables, maybe pneumatic tubes for the transportation systems of the future.

Each project seemingly done totally independently of the other, so a fresh dig each time.

Then all of a sudden, they tossed some asphalt over it all, painted lines on it, and it was done.

Here's what it looks like now, southbound from the intersection of Regional Road 25 and Number 5 Sideroad:

Looks pretty normal, doesn't it?

Exactly.

Which means they made two grievous errors.

One of them could be fixed by the application of a few litres of white paint and a new sign. Where the northbound road reverts to one lane in each direction north of Number 5 Sideroad, the right lane disappears, merging into the passing lane.

As you can almost see here - the sign (the one that needs changing) on the far right shows you what's wrong; the actual merge is just over that little hill:

Southbound, the opposite happens - the 'new' lane is created to the right.

Come on, people.

When you need to add a lane to a road, you add it to the left, creating a passing lane.

When you need to lose a lane, you chop it from the left, eliminating the passing lane.

The right lane is the driving lane; how can it EVER disappear?

What the hell do they teach in Urban Planning and Civil Engineering classes anyway?

Does nobody in the Ministry of Transportation read Canada's biggest automotive publication? Since those people build roads, wouldn't you think someone there would have at least a passing interest in cars?

Or do they just sit there laughing, saying, "There goes Kenzie again hahahaha..."

Or do they know something about highway design that has escaped me over the 30 years I've been whining about this? (Anything is possible...).

But if that IS the case, why doesn't somebody clue me in about what I'm missing?

From my perspective, how are we ever going to get people to "Drive Right" as common sense, courtesy, traffic flow, driving safety and The Law demand, if the design of the road network actively discourages it?

They could repaint those lane markings and erect a new sign in an evening, and do it right.

True, eventually they might have to paint the lines again when Regional Road 25 north of Number 5 Sideroad gets expanded. Not in my lifetime...

The second flaw to the redesign of this highway is more egregious, because we won't likely have another opportunity to fix it for another fifty years when it will be time for a further update.

There were at least four opportunities to put roundabouts in that road.

They missed them all.

So now traffic typically grinds to a halt four times in about a kilometre and a half, 24-7, when 95 percent of the time it could flow smoothly through those intersections with barely a lift off the accelerator.

Faster, safer, 'greener' - no stopping, no idling, reduced fuel usage, reduced pollution.

What are the downsides?

None.

Absolutely none.

This has been proven time and again. Look westward a few km to Waterloo and the Wellington Region. 70 percent - SEVENTY PERCENT! - fewer crashes at roundabouts than at the former 'conventional' intersections they replaced.

My understanding is that Ontario's 'official' highway building policy is that a roundabout is at least supposed to be 'considered' during the planning phase.

Maybe it wasn't 'considered' in this case because as I said, the planning for this project obviously happened before the planning of the pyramids, before the Ontario policy was put in place.

The policy SHOULD be that a roundabout be the PRIMARY option for ANY intersection, unless there's a good reason not to build one.

Not that I can think of a reason why just about any intersection shouldn't be a roundabout.

There's another possible factor at play here. The Regional Municipality of Halton includes the conurbations of Burlington and Oakville in the south, Milton in the middle, and the fabricated 'town' of Halton Hills - essentially, "what's left" - consisting of Acton, Georgetown, and the surrounding countryside in the north.

I have always assumed that on the map in the Halton Region Head Office in Burlington, the area north of the 401 is marked "Here Be Dragons".

Because Milton, south of the 401, gets roundabouts.

They work a treat there, as they do everywhere.

Yes, there can be a bit of a learning curve.

But pretty much every society in the world figures them out.

We can too.

Maybe the Regional officials figure us rubes up north of the 401 can't handle them.

What's it gonna take?

What Does Detroit's Bankruptcy Mean for the Detroit Auto Show?

Again, an 'alert reader' asked me the other day what impact the bankruptcy of the city of Detroit might have on the Detroit (officially, "North American International") Auto Show next January?

This link (somewhat surprisingly, sent to me not from the good people at the Detroit Show itself but from their counterparts at the Tokyo Motor Show) says it all.

In case you don't want to read the entire release, let me summarize - no impact at all.

The venue, Cobo Hall, and the show itself are independently owned, and do not depend on the city for their operation.

I suspect there might be some issues if there are no police officers to direct traffic, etc., but I imagine that sort of thing can be handled privately.

The show will run as scheduled January 18 - 26, 2014.