I would be now...

At a recent appearance before the California Air Resources Board (CARB—familiar, I'm sure, to anyone who's seen Who Killed the Electric Car), Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard delivered a deliciously sarcastic three minute statement about California's Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate, fuel cells, and electric cars. A quick excerpt:

However, we are actually delighted by the way this bias [towards hydrogen fuel cell vehicles] finds implementation in the ZEV mandate. For the results of this mandate is that all of our potential EV competitors – all the big car companies – remain mired in non-productive, deeply-expensive fuel cell programs, keeping them out of the EV marketplace, and indeed out of the serious ZEV marketplace entirely.

The full text is available on the Tesla Motors blog. Politics, in my opinion, is in dire need of more sarcasm.

Apparently it's not just the MBTA and RMV that are extremely horrible at expediting transportation in Massachusetts. I'm starting to think that poorly implemented transportation is simply endemic to the Commonwealth.

I was at Logan airport earlier, at the E terminal, waiting to pick up some friends who have since flown in. The signage there is less clear than it could be. I wanted to just stay in the terminal E loop, but the only options I could see were Airport Exit and parking to one direction, and indeterminate other things in the other direction. So I went the other direction. It didn't seem quite right, but it was an airport, and they're never laid out logically, so I kept going. Besides, there was no obvious way to turn around and go the other way. Eventually, I found myself in Maverick Square; clearly I had made a wrong turn somewhere.

Having never been in East Boston or Chelsea before I didn't really know where to go. The plus side was that I had, by that time, learned that my friends had missed their flight and wouldn't be coming in until later, so I could go home rather than trying to find my way back to the airport. I had no idea where I was, but I could see the water, and, as I still know very little of the local geography, figured it must be the river and that following it must eventually lead me to Cambridge. So I drove toward the water ...and discovered many large ocean-going ships. Last I checked there are no large ocean-going vessels in the Charles river. This was when I realized that East Boston is on the other side of the harbor.

Still, I figured, following the water would probably be the best bet. Eventually it led me to the Sumner Tunnel where the signs indicated that the normal car toll is $3. I very rarely carry cash, and had been expecting to only have to pay the $1 I'm used to getting on and off the pike, so that was all the cash I had on me. So I decided to keep going and see if I can find a cheaper way to get home. A little while later I saw signs pointing towards the Tobin Bridge. Again, my lack of familiarity with the local geography, cause largely by the fact that I pretty much never drive here, got me in trouble. For some reason I had it in my head that the Tobin Bridge was actually the Bunker Hill Bridge. This idea was reinforced by the fact that the Bunker Hill Bridge is clearly visible from East Boston. So I followed the signs knowing that from the base of the Bunk Hill Bridge I could easily get myself home. The signs, of course, didn't take me where I expected and I ended up on the on-ramp for the Tobin Bridge, hoping that there was no toll to cross.

Of course there is, and as I was in a Zipcar which has commercial plates, that toll was $4.50. Being $3.50 short I had to tell the guy that I had no cash. I figured he'd give me some sort of ticket so I could mail the toll in later, maybe with a small fine. Well, he did give me a ticket, but closer examination leads me to believe that I'm going to have to pay a $50 fine. Plus whatever fee Zipcar charges me for having to deal with receiving the notice of violation and informing MassPike that it has to go to me instead which I think is about $20.

So, just because I don't usually carry cash and am not really familiar with driving in the area I may be out $70. That's just a load of crap. At least they offer an option to appeal the violation. An option of which I am definitely going to avail myself. One advantage to being self-employed is that I actually have the flexibility to deal with bureaucratic nonsense without fear of being fired.

Jeff Woelker just wrote a post about how ridiculous American car makers are when it comes to fuel economy. Apparently Chrysler is currently running ads for their cars (Jeff has an embedded YouTube clip of a Jeep commercial) in which they're touting 30 miles per gallon as if it were some sort of selling point.

I thought this would be an opportune moment to point out that the 24 year old, 4000 lbs Mercedes that Jessi and I just bought gets—get this—30 mpg! Doesn't seem quite so amazing anymore does it.

A related point: while we were in Wales, the owner of the B&B; we were staying at in Dolgellau drove a new VW Jetta station-wagon. It got 50 mpg. And I'm fairly sure you can get cars in Europe that get 70+ mpg, better than even a Prius.

These, of course, are all diesels, and the modern ones with amazing efficiency can't run on the diesel we're currently selling here in the US. But, as I've mentioned before, the decisions has been made already to start selling low-sulfer diesel here in the States that will allow us to suddenly increase our fuel efficiency from 30 mpg or less to 70 mpg or more. Of course we'll have to buy imports, because American car makers are still claiming that they aren't capable of mileage that high.

It will be an interesting day indeed when the low-sulfur diesel starts flowing through American pumps.

Well, Zooomr (my photo hosting service of choice) is currently in the middle of an upgrade so I can't upload the pictures I have either from the trip or of the car. So I'll unleash my newest rant about the RMV.

As you may recall, Jessi and I went to the RMV a little while ago to convert our out of state licenses to Massachusetts ones. After more or less an entire day and two trips to the RMV in Chinatown, we had failed. So we decided that this past Monday, as our first full day back from Wales and the day before Jessi started her new job, we would handle all the car stuff: picking up the plates and registration from the insurance company who had taken care of all that for us, getting our Massachusetts licenses, and actually driving the car to Somerville from Franklin. The RMV, of course, apparently felt the need to throw a wrench in our works yet again.

We got there pretty early, maybe 10 am, so there weren't that many people in front of us. We waited for about an hour until there were only two people ahead of us in line. Finally we were going to be finished with the damned RMV and have all that needless, inefficient bureaucracy behind us! Then, mere minutes before Jessi's number was to be called, and mine right after, an RMV employee appeared in a flash of smoke and brimstone to inform us that 'Social Security [was] down' and so they couldn't process any new licenses or license conversions. All they could do was renew existing licenses because that process didn't require confirming your identity with social security.

As I had already gone most of the way through the process before only to be turned away when my passport, California license, and bank statement proved to be insufficient proof of my date of birth, signature, and Massachusetts residency, I thought that maybe they would still be able to take care of my license. Alas, this was not too be. They also informed me that the problem would be affecting all branches foiling our backup plan of going to the Watertown RMV once we had our car.

So now we have our sweet new ride, insurance, registration, and parking permit, but are still without our Massachusetts licenses. For the time being, at least, the RMV has overtaken the MBTA (and IRS) as my least favorite governmental body.

Well we're back in the US. Today is mostly dedicated to sorting out the car (I've got another nice rant about the RMV to post), and that's keeping us pretty busy. But once that's all taken care of and I've sorted through the 300+ pictures I took in Wales, you can expect some updates.

Well, Jessi and I are off to Wales. We'll be gone and more or less completely incommunicado until the 21st. So don't expect any blog posts from either of us until then.

Cheers.

Somewhat ironically, a story was just posted on TreeHugger entitled '10 Reasons to Ditch the Car'. Why is this ironic? Because Jessi and I just bought a car after six months or so of car-free living.

When I moved here from California, I brought my car with me. But it didn't take long for me to decide that I'd be better off without it. Both the apartment we were in before and now our condo are only blocks away from a T stop, we live within easy walking distance of all the necessities, and I haven't really felt compelled to spend all the money involved in getting a Massachusetts license, registering a car in Massachusetts, insuring a car in Massachusetts, paying for gas, and paying for parking. And for those few times when we needed to get somewhere the T couldn't take us, Zipcar has done a fantastic job of meeting our needs.

But now, with Jessi's new job, our needs our changing and we're getting a car. Being me, I put quite a bit of thought and research into choosing the appropriate car. Really, there's only one important factor when it comes to choosing a car, and that is cost. Cost of purchase, cost of insurance, cost of fuel, cost of maintenance, and, of course, environmental cost.

Happily enough, there's one easy way to minimize the purchase, insurance, and environmental costs involved in buying a car: buy used. Used cars obviously sell for less and are cheaper to insure (we're not talking about a collector's car here), what's less obvious is that they're also the more environmentally friendly route. For the most part, new cars don't get any better mileage than older ones did. In some cases they're even worse. Additionally, when you buy used you're not incurring the added environmental damages of the manufacturing process. Money-wise, with a used car you're not committing yourself to any sort of financing plan, and it will depreciate in value much more slowly, so you can always just put it on Craigslist and sell it again without throwing away most of the money you spent on it. So we're getting a used car. The issue of minimizing cost of fuel and maintenance is a little trickier.

There are two ways to minimize fuel costs: get a more efficient car, or get a car that uses cheaper fuel. There aren't that many choices for fuels, it's pretty much gasoline or diesel. For a select few ethanol might be an option and I suppose compressed natural gas might work for some people as well, but in general that's it. Despite the bad rap that it seems to have, diesel is actually a very good choice. Diesel vehicles pretty much always get better mileage than their gasoline counterparts, and even an older diesel will get as good or better mileage than pretty much anything on the road today (other than hybrids, obviously). Some modern diesels get even better mileage than hybrids, though they aren't currently available in the US, and won't be until we start selling low sulfur diesel at the pumps (which should start later this year, I believe). Plus, diesel isn't particularly expensive (Usually $2.99 around here, while 87 octane gasoline is about $2.85. Although one place I saw right by our condo was actually selling diesel for less than gasoline.), and diesel prices are a little more stable than gas prices. Diesel really appears to be the way to go, especially in hopeful anticipation of the introduction of the modern diesel cars that the rest of the world already enjoy.

As for maintenance, you either have to get a car that's cheap to repair (such as a Civic or something), or a car that won't have to be repaired very often. One good thing to note when dealing with reliability in cars is that all cars, even new ones, have the potential to be lemons and require a ton of repairs. In fact, new ones are probably more likely to have problems, because the old cars that are still around today are the ones that were well made and not prone to problems. Over the years, the cars that aren't so reliable are just going to get weeded out, so that the only used cars available to be bought are likely to be pretty sturdy. Of course this only applies to cars above a certain age as the weeding out process can take some time, and new cars will have warranties and lemon laws to protect you. So this one's a bit of a toss up. It really depends on your situation. But considering the low price of a used car, if you get one and it craps out on you, you can get another and still have paid less than on a new car.

So, with all that in mind I picked a car with a low purchase price, good mileage, great dependability, and a touch of class: a 1983 Mercedes Benz 300sd turbo diesel. It was cheap (another car in the same price range was a '92 Accord), it gets 25-30 mpg, it's probably one of the most reliable cars ever made, and it's also an absolutely beautiful piece of machinery. It looks like it must have cost a fortune, and in 1983 it did at around $40,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's over $80,000 in 2007 dollars. It's currently still sitting in the driveway of the guy who sold it to us, because he was kind enough to let us leave it there while we're in Wales next week, but as soon as we've picked it up on the 21st and brought it home, you can be sure I'll be out there with my new camera. So there will be picture of it available soon.

In Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, he uses the DMV (or whatever local variant he said) as an example of why people generally feel that the government isn't really working for them. Today has left me inclined to agree with him.

Today Jessi and I headed over to the Massachusetts RMV to (finally) get around to changing our license over to Massachusetts ones. A process that I'm sure you know was loads of fun.

The first obstacle to converting our California and Illinois licenses to Massachusetts ones was one of location. There is no RMV office in Somerville. The closest one is in Cambridge, annoyingly enough at the Cambridgeside Galleria which is on the Green Line, not the Red Line. Of course, that doesn't really matter, because that location doesn't let you convert an out of state license. So we had to go into the Boston location, which is on the Orange Line at the Chinatown stop.

Once we got there, which took 30-45 minutes, we headed inside and found ourselves at the 'Greeter Desk'. This isn't something that I've encountered during my previous experiences with the California DMV, but I think it's actually a pretty good idea. Rather than forcing us to figure out which part of the building we need to go to and which line we need to stand in and which form we need to fill out, we simply told the greeter what we were there for, she handed us the appropriate forms, gave us each a number for the appropriate line, and directed us to the third floor.

It was at this point that we realized we had forgotten to bring any of the documentation needed: a passport or social security card, proof of date of birth, proof of signature, and proof of Massachusetts registry. We didn't have anywhere to be just then, so we got back on the T, came home, got the documents, went back to the RMV, got new numbers, and got back in line.

At this point it was about 2:30. Jessi had a 3:30 appointment, which fortunately was nearby. So we waited in line. And waited. And waited. And then Jessi had to go to her appointment before her number got called. So I stayed, and 15 minutes later my number was called.

I went up and gave the woman behind the desk my form. Had my picture taken. Then gave her my supporting documentation. Only to discover that I didn't have all the supporting documentation needed. I had my passport, I had my old license, and I had a bank statement. By any reasonable standard, this should be enough. The passport proves that I am who I say I am. It proves my birth date. It proves my signature. My old license also proves my birth date and my signature. And my bank statement proves my Massachusetts residency. But no, that's not good enough. Apparently each document can only be used for a single purpose. You need separate documents for each of: passport (why?), date of birth, signature, and residency. This is just completely ridiculous. Why is my passport, a federally issued document intended to prove my US citizenship, identity, date of birth, and signature, not count as proving my date of birth and signature to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? And why can a single document not prove more than one thing, especially when it's specifically designed by the federal government—and recognized by state governments in other capacities I might add—to prove those very things?

I just saw a very interesting Google Ad. I was on a discussion board I frequent (the MacNN Forums) reading a thread about Mitt Romney. Above the thread I saw this ad:

Apparently, someone's still paying to run Healey/Hillman '06 ads. Perhaps a disgruntled campaign worker left it active to cost her some money. Or perhaps her team was just so disheartened they completely forgot to clean up after them selves.

In any event, I encourage everyone to follow the link. Maybe they'll get enough ad clicks that they'll actually notice it's still up...

As you may know if you've been reading my blog for a while, in addition to my own freelance work I'm also a managing partner and account manager at Triworks America, the American branch of a global design firm that, among other things, creates some absolutely beautiful Flash websites.

Our design team has just updated our own home page at www.triworks.net, and, once again, they've done amazing work. I really can't begin to describe how much I'm impressed by these guys. It was their utter genius for design that led myself and two of my friends (who are responsible for the College Poker Association site) to partner up with them and form Triworks America.

So check out the site, and prepare to be amazing. I think you'll be as impressed as I am with their work.