I know… the title of the post seems… unbelievable! But it’s true… this missionary wanted to be able to reach the indigenous tribes in Ecuador easily and so sought out to solve the problem himself! Not only that, powered by a 250-hp Subaru engine, this baby will do 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds!
I salute you, Mr. Saint (yes, that’s his name!), on a job well done! His non-profit group I-TEC will build and sell this puppy at $80,000 and hopes to build about 100 per year! Wish I had one!
I found a man who not only has heart for missions but also the innovation to make it happen! My hero of the year!
This is the 21st century folks. Let’s make that clear. With that, things are moving to all sorts of new directions. One of those is a new style of show distribution called “podcasts”. It’s a talk show of sorts that talks about just about anything. Here are some of current favorites that I recommend.
Car Enthusiasts
Car Talk – By far the best car-related podcast anywhere…. hands down!
Autoblog – A great resource of new cars and other related things.
Consumer Technology
Engadget – A very entertaining way to keep on top of new tech on a weekly basis.
PC Gaming
PC Gamer – Entertaining way to keep up to date with the PC gaming world.
Gamers with Jobs – If you can stand their dirty mouths, these guys are very honest and fun to listen to
If you haven’t been watching news lately, Toyota has announced the biggest, if not one of the biggest, recalls on vehicles… EVER! Evidently it’s a pedal that seems to get stuck. It has already claimed lives… and its luxury sibling, Lexus isn’t immune to this defect either.
Picture courtesy of NY Times
According to the NY Times article, four people died in a tragic accident that shouldn’t have happened in last August in a Lexus ES 350! How the hell does this kind of stuff happen?! Well, from my sociology class from yonder years in college at WPI, I am reminded of the ethics falling behind the curtains of schedules and costs. Ford & GM had similar safety issues but with gas fuel tanks in the ’60s and the ’70s.
Back then, I thought Ford and GM had made one of the worst choices by choosing not to recall the cars and leave it to statistics and chance and paying out lawsuits rather than spending millions in repairing the dangerous defects. I still hesitate because such an inherently terrible oversight makes a consumer think twice and buying such product. Only recently (since 2005) have I actually thought that Ford has come a long way and made the cars actually decent and safe. So in essence, it has taken about 30 to 40 years to erase the reputation damage that were burned into the minds of the consumers.
So I was rather shocked and disappointed to find out that Toyota has been so slow in doing something about this recall and dealing with its defects! It applies to millions of cars including the best-selling Camry! When you choose money over people, you are telling the consumers that you don’t care about us and only care about money. Well, that will always be true to certain degree because of the nature of for-profit companies. However, if you look at things in long-term perspective, you think Toyota would have learned from the lessons of Ford and GM. Come on! Toyota is repeating history!
Today’s headline in Business Weekly shows that their decision to recall and repair was too slow. Trying to hide it or ignore it (or whatever they call it) is definitely the worst business AND ethical decision they have made EVER!!!
I will say this… Toyota, welcome to my black list. I will buy your cars in maybe 30 years or so… when that terrible stigma of poor decision making process wears off from me, your typical consumer. Sheesh… Just the picture of this Pinto makes me shriek and reminds me of some of the terrible decisions made from the past…
Courtesy of Motherjones.com
UPDATE: Now, though fixed somewhat more or less, 2010 Prius have had some brake issues as Toyota admits its problems. Like I said in the last comment, Toyota is at best becoming like Sony, just big in its head and riding on its popularity.
UPDATE 2: This lady was driving a ’07 Tundra pickup….
After my sharing about the bittersweet parenthood, I am sharing yet another bittersweet event in my life. Of all things, I am parting with someone (or something) that I have been together with since I have been in high school… What in the world am I talking about?! It’s my auto insurance company, State Farm.
It is rather true about brand loyalty. I have been with them for my auto insurance for almost 20 years! Sure I started under my parents’ coverage when I was in high school but I have since moved on… and while they haven’t treated me all that badly, their rates have not gone down.
Ok, so I do have an accident from July 2005 under my belt that is labeled as my fault (even though that is not the case and will hold onto that till I die!) and my wife’s accident from November 2008 is not her fault. Yet our rates have not gone down. If anything, it has slowly crept its way up.
When I went home for the holidays, I was rather suprised to find out that both my parents and my brother had switched from State Farm! 😮 I thought they had retained the same insurance over the years! So after I recovered from my shock, I looked online and over the phone, got some rates to compare with. Full coverages on both of our cars, both Geico and AAA quoted about $600 per year below State Farm price! That is with renters’ insurance as well.
So after much reluctance (trust me, I was just as suprised as you were about how loyal I was to State Farm! and trust me, I do have at least one bitter story to tell but will save that for another time), I decided to switch. And for the record, I am switching to AAA only because my parents have that and my co-workers seem to have good experience with them. What finally won me over? This question…
Is my loyalty to State Farm worth $600 per year?! You know the answer to that one… 🙂
It’s one thing to cut your losses but it’s totally another to burn the bridges in the process. I swear that when financial folks are involved, they take the humanity out of the process! So we all knew that GM, Ford, and Chrysler were planning on cutting off a slew of dealerships throughout the country but there’s a right way to do it and then there’s a wrong way.
GM did things decently at least. They gave out the notice in October and gave them decent amount of time to close out their stores. Chrysler, however, have been less than helpful. They gave only 30 days to sell off the cars and parts! Many that were told to close ended up losing a lot of money due to time constraint.
GM seemed to go through arbitration process at decent pace bringing back some of the dealerships. Chrysler however made the process expensive and with no guarantees that dealers that were shut down seemed to refuse to even consider the arbitration.
Where’s the decency in that Chrysler?! Chrysler is not learning. They don’t seem to realize that bad news travels way faster than good news. Now that the people know how Chrysler treated the dealerships by burning the bridges, I am fairly certain that the consumers will have even more bitter taste in their mouth and stay further away from them when their pockets and auto needs meet. Seriously, nobody seems to look at long-term effects anymore… Sheesh…
Yes, you read that right. After reading about this Suzuki SX4 winning the famous Pike’s Peak rally racing, I was reminded of my secret dream of my past (and still present). Ever since high school years, I developed serious interest in cars. And racing.
No, I don’t have any racing experience. I wish. It’s an expensive career to get into. You gotta start as an amateur and you need serious cash to get started. So obviously, I never got into it. If JJ wants to become one and has the means to do it, I’m very tempted to encrouage him! 😮 But it’s not just any racing that I’m interested in… it’s the rally racing. Why? It’s because I find track racing too… boring. You drive around the same track over and over and scenery doesn’t change. What’s the fun in that?! Enter the rally racing and it’s a constant change of scenery and roads! That’s why you need a co-driver in rally racing… one who navigates each turns and plans ahead!
Shucks… At this point in time of my life, I’d be happy to just drive through one course one time. 🙁
Wow… I totally wouldn’t have guessed or known that!! My son JJ loves the new Camaro thanks to the Transformers movie! It’s great to know that such cool car was designed by a Korean.
