Bad Red Apple

Palin Harper 2012

2008-12-04T17:38:00.003-05:00

Palin - Harper for President in 2012.
Because Democracy is for Elitists.

Stephane Dion has a posse

2008-12-03T14:23:00.000-05:00

So, Stephen Harper thinks this is a schoolyard brawl between him and that wimp Stephane Dion.
He forgets that Dion has an unlikely posse. Turns out Dion's posse has a memory, or at least a elaphantine filing system.

Stephen Harper, so intent on wrapping himself in the flag and pounding on Dion's patriotism, just got a kick in the nuts from the Bloc Quebecois.

The BQ produced a fax from 2000 describing a coalition just like this new one, one thatat its time included the precursors to the current Conservative party, and led by a current cabinet minister, Stockwell Day.

First rule of bar brawls: While you are exclusively pounding on one guy you leave yourself exposed to a kick in the nuts from another.

That's what happens when your punching bag has a posse.

Understanding that merely requires social skills.

Second Chances

2008-12-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

Would the GG accept a Prime Minister's resignation combined with a prorogue if the purpose of the latter was to form a new government on the incumbent side?

Given that, assuming a sane second try, all bets might be off.

However, if the result was another government-side debacle, would that circumstance then offer her no choice but to give the opposition coalition a chance instead? Doesn't that situation put a huge onus on the GG regarding which side is more ready and more stable?

Grinch Government

2008-12-01T16:48:00.001-05:00

And what if the Grinch’s heart stayed two sizes too small?
The who’s-who of Whoville will answer the call!
There will be Eds and Jeans and Gilles and Stephanes!
To counter Jimmy and Johnny and Pollivere, man.
The whos in Whoville will see Jack Jack Attack!
But this time it’s not a wind up toy, no-sir-ee Mack!
This time he’s a statesman, a cabinet seat too.
It sure takes a Grinch to unite Whoville’s who’s-who.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss

On coalition governments

2008-11-30T14:20:00.000-05:00

September 9, 2004

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, CC, CMM., COMCD
Governor General of Canada
Rideau Hall
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1

Excellency,

As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government’s program. We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority. Your attention to this matter is appreciated.

Sincerely, Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Leader of the Official Opposition
Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

Gilles Duceppe, M.P.
Leader of the Bloc Quebecois

Jack Layton, M.P.
Leader of the New Democratic Party

There's a bear in the woods

2008-11-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

Yo, Cons:

Welcome to fear.

Nothing like it clears the head, right? It's really invigorating.

Guess what: Millions of people are going through it, for keepsies, 24/7, over issues of family survival: a roof on the head and food on the table. Lil' Jimmy's retort to them? Drop dead.

Look at this way: Steve and Jim have found themselves in the way of family security in the way hikers find themselves between a mama bear and her little cub. Only this time lil' Jimmy is poking the cub in the eye with a stick saying "loser loser".

It's not the Liberals who are about to eat you up and spit you out. It's the voters. The Liberals don't have to outrun the angry bear: they merely have to outmaneuver you.

Helluva Job, Steve

2008-11-29T18:51:00.000-05:00

So Prime Minister Stephen Harper has managed to unite the Liberals into a single cohesive fighting force, get Quebec separatists to speak candidly and constructively with the guy who developed the Clarity Act, while turning Jack Layton into an effective statesman and potential cabinet minister.

Helluva job, Steve.

Is the Liberal leadership race over before it has really begun?

2008-11-16T17:12:00.001-05:00

I think so. I do not think I am alone.

Murray Chotiner's political translation of Lao Tzu's military strategy still applies to this day: Never let your opponent define you. Bob Rae just let his ultimate opponents as leader define him, and in doing so has already lost to the Conservatives before he’s even announced himself as a Liberal leadership candidate.

Addictive Walkscore tells you how walkable a community is:

2007-08-02T13:34:00.000-04:00

I love this. Type in your address and it gives a walkability index regarding how walkable your neighborhood is: how easy it is to walk to a grocery store, a school, a bookshop, a cafe or a park. It's very 1.0, which means it doesn't understand that the shop is across a canal or an arterial, it doesn't distinguish between a corner store and a mega grocery store, and it doesn't factor in McDonald's vs our local organic Bridgehead coffee shop. What it does do is illustrate the walkability of some communities. It gives some samples: George Bush 's ranch scores a big fat zero. Central manhattan does a lot better. Mine scores in the 70's, and a block away it scores in the 80's.

The unintended benefit is that it tells you things about your hood that you may have not known about. Little details and surprises: I didn't realize that there was an underground experimental cinema a few blocks from my house. Cool!

Tastes Like Chicken

2007-04-12T21:55:00.000-04:00

I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen

2007-04-08T21:33:00.000-04:00

The Detroit News: Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the
leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to
prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen
tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last
week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration
of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical
outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the
hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed
someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel
tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the
President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated
all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved
him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure
he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen. This is all off
the record, right?"

Leafs Hockey Song (with apologies to Stompin' Tom)

2007-04-03T15:03:00.000-04:00

With Harry and Bob, those two old knobs,
It's Leafs night every night;
Panic grows as the season blows,
even eighth place sure seems nice!

The goalie flops, the defense just stops,
The fans are all insane (inane?);
Harry Neale roars, "Oh no the other team scores!"
He still doesn’t know their names.

Oh! The Leafs old hockey games,
are the best games they can name,
The best games are now played,
by those teams with whattheirnames.

(Learn ‘em, Harry….)

The fans make a dash as the players crash,
The Leafs again fall far behind;
They then grab it up and go hooking up,
And they trap along the line.

They approach the zone like an old dog on a bone,
Who’s offside again? McCabe!
A giveaway pass in the defensive zone!
Oh no, it’s a 5-1 hockey game!

Oh! The Leafs old hockey games,
are the best games they can name,
The best games are now played,
by those teams with whattheirnames

Third period.... Third last game of the season, for the Leafs. Forty Years, too.

Oh, take me where the hockey players,
Face-off down the rink;
And the Stanley Cup is all filled up,
For the champs who win the drink.

Now the final flick of a hockey stick,
Are seen on a gigantic screen,
For TV is how Leafs get to see these games now,
Between a few good golfing games.

Oh! The good old golfing game,
Is the only game Leafs can name;
And the only game Leafs can name,
Is the good old golfing game!

CBC News: Analysis & Viewpoint: Mary-Ellen Lang - Schooling

2007-04-03T11:24:00.000-04:00

This is a rare excellent piece that gets to the heart of the matter of special education:

CBC News: Analysis & Viewpoint: Mary-Ellen Lang - Schooling: "As a teacher in the public school system, I'd have to say the ones often getting the least consistent amount of funding, nurture or notice aren't the students who are challenged by the regular classroom environment. They are the ones who aren't being challenged enough — the gifted and talented.

Whereas the other special needs students often stand out in some obvious way, gifted and talented students are often invisible and unrecognized in schools. They drop out of school at rates that are out of all proportion to their numbers, sometimes after having been categorized as troublesome or lazy."

Of course the dirty little secret is that other parents want it that way to eliminate competition with their own children.

CBC Interview on-line

2006-11-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to a Real Audio stream of my interview. Clearly, I am not a professional speaker. I think I acquit myself adequately given how green I am at this.

My friend Michael Boyle makes the point that an expanded O-train / GO-train line (OGO, as in Ogopogo?) with a Carp Arnprior Almonte spur would cross the 417 near ScotiaBank Place, in line with the existing transit system that terminates near there.

It would tie the western edge of the system with a huge parking lot that lies idle most of the time. Hmmmm.

CBC Radio Interview

2006-11-23T08:37:00.000-05:00

Yes that we me this morning on CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning, going on about the O-train debacle, right after the outgoing mayor said his farewell to city politics and hinted at his run at Federal politics. Tough act to follow.

Kathleen Petty? Rowr. A proper Calgary woman, she probably drinks her beer straight from the bottle.

My wife still crushes on Anthony Germain. The flirtatious intellectual banter between Germain and the cello-voiced RBC Capital Markets analyst Tania Kotsos is, um, sorely missed in my household at six-friggin-fifteen in the morning.

We're now even in the crush department, although she'll accuse me of being in double trouble as there is the still very lovely Tania. But it's just not the same. You can't have a wonk-edition Mulder And Scully routine now that Wonk Mulder got Shanghai'd, the CBC equivalent of being abducted by aliens.

Maybe Kathleen will get some hot-traffic talk going with the news guy, Stu Mills, who doesn't have a "face made for radio" either.

That'll boost ratings.

A Challenge For The Mayor-Elect Of Ottawa (continued)

2006-11-15T16:51:00.000-05:00

Our city staff is lying to council about light rail.

Clive Doucet, my councilor, clearly didn't read what he voted on, even when it is his own key issue.

He didn't read the proposal. He didn't read all the details of an $800M project, and wasn't aware that the O-Train would be shut down until after the fact. He just trusted staff.

Clive trusted staff a little too much. It sure looks like he got sandbagged.

Check this out:

Then watch the lead staffer squirm:

The whole shebang is here.
What is going on?

A Challenge For The Mayor-Elect Of Ottawa

2006-11-15T12:44:00.000-05:00

Dear Larry O'Brien;

Congratulations on your victory. You were my second choice for Mayor. You won't have to try very hard to figure out who my first choice was, but that doesn't matter. You won.

Now that the election is over and the writing is on the wall I suggest that you seriously consider the proposal put out by Friends Of The O-train. The current Barrhaven electric plan is a piece of social engineering, not traffic engineering, and it is going to die. Time to do better, much better.

The 85% of people who voted against the one mayoralty candidate that supported the existing plan have it right, and the city staff experts in house have it wrong: this is a wisdom of crowds effect that should not be ignored.

The FOTOT plan is clearly a better solution: With Diesel trains along Via track to Barrhaven station it solves a real need in a practical manner. Add a link to Gatineau and the Airport and two other dire urban issues are solved.

Existing track can be used westwards towards the Kanata business park, through Carp, all the way to Arnprior. People who live downtown and work in Kanata could finally get off the roads and take the train. The bus doesn't cut it. I've tried. This does.

New track would only need to be laid for the link from Hurdman to Rockland along the 174 corridor, and the core infrastructure is done. Existing track would bring service as far east as Cassleman. Those spurs could be done using low-cost diesel trains in the same mold as GO transit in the Toronto corridor.

The new deluxe trains are nice, but for the more rural extensions a less expensive GO train may be enough. Commuters already come in via converted school bus. Believe me; they will consider this an improvement.

The existing Carp line goes as far west as Arnprior, and joins with track that goes south through to Almonte, Carleton Place, and as far south as Smiths Falls before looping back towards Barrhaven in a great circle that needs no turnarounds. Existing track solves the problem of cars on our roads for the next century.

If Ottawa was serious about getting cars off the road this is it, it would eliminate the need for long distance commuting from locations as far as Smiths Falls, Merrickville, and Richmond.

All communities benefit, not just one.

A GO-Transit style Diesel train solution would solve traffic problems for the foreseeable future. People in Almonte could take the rail to their jobs in Kanata, and comfortably travel downtown. Living in Almonte and working in downtown Ottawa becomes a viable option, without a car. People living in the downtown core would take two trains, one electric and one diesel, to their jobs in Kanata.

This solves problems for the greater area, not just for one neighbourhood. It is practical and it is smart. Even if it takes as long or longer you are no longer driving, you can do other tasks.

VIA rail already has wireless Internet in its trains. For a fee you can take your office with you onto the train. Why not offer the same service for commuters from the far west to downtown? Why not offer this as a premium service that makes the train better than the car, no matter what, for the person that wouldn't be caught dead in a bus? Why not make transit the excellent choice, the professional's choice?

Mr. O'Brien, I'll put this in personal terms: You are a millionaire who lives in the most expensive condominium building in the city core. If the light rail system can't be made attractive enough for you to take to Calian headquarters for a board meeting, it's broken. It's not good enough. If instead you could step outside your building, be whisked to the western terminal in minutes, grab yourself a coffee from your choice of vendors, and on the next train catch up on board minutes and the last minute flurry of emails, why would you drive? I bet you wouldn't, because it would be a waste of your time, and that would be dumb. That last five minute walk, even in -30 weather, won't matter, and the walk will do you good, it braces you up for the day ahead. The airport? Piece of cake. Add a little walk or bike ride and the same story works from Ottawa South to New Edinburgh.

It works in Hunt Club. It works in Bell's Corners. And yes, it works in Barrhaven. It works if your coffee is a Bridgehead Organic. It works if your coffee is a Tim Horton's Double Double.
The amazing thing: The millionaire's choice costs less than the electric white elephant.

A little secret: This option isn't limited to millionaires and corporate CEO's. But it won't work unless white collar professionals like it too. Stop thinking of public transit as a public necessity for the poor and start thinking of it as a real viable competitor to the single-occupant car.

Think as an intelligent winner, not as an anti-car whiner.

I am not sure why electric cars are a requirement. They are impractical in the outer suburbs due to low density and high implementation cost. If GO works for TO why not here?

Why wasn't this considered from the get-go? Is it because it is not expensive enough? Why?

It is your duty to find out why, Larry. It is also your duty to do much, much better.

Make this a very personal responsibility: if you can't see yourself using the light rail system, you've failed. If despite your personal wealth, access, and stature, it's the better choice, the smarter choice, you've succeeded beyond all expectations.

So, which is it going to be?

Regards

Michael Slavitch

Ottawa Ontario

Primary-electric plug-in hybrids

2006-07-25T12:25:00.000-04:00

This article from Edmunds is good for the layperson.

As batteries improve a hybrid will become primarily electric with gasoline assist, the reverse of today's model. I suspect that companies like Toyota will introduce such a vehicle as the fueling infrastructure is already in place, but not before 2010-2011. The pure-E car is for enthusiasts, but a vehicle that goes cross country without long stops has different requirements. The next edition of the Prius has more battery power and might have a plug-in option but will still be electric assist, gasoline-primary.

A primary-electric plug-in hybrid (how's that for a term!) would offer electric capacity in line with the Tesla along with internal combustion backup for charging or for long-range cruising.

Just doing the crude maths in Excel tells me that a 25KW (33.3hp) motor, something small and light, would offer 200mpg+ at highway speeds on long drives if the batteries were precharged and there are stops along the line. The ICE motor would never stop running (except during fueling, for safety reasons), it would either provide base cruising energy or charge the batteries during stops. Since the engine is running at a constant rate it will operate efficently and produce the minimum emissions possible, since emissions systems work best at a steady hot state. Such engines could be made very light and very simple because of their limited operating range. Both Toyota and Honda have experimented with plastic/ceramic engines that are reliable at middle energy levels. Such engines would be quick to manufacture as there is no metal in the casting, only formed plastics and ceramics.

A 25KW engine could also charge the batteries quickly during stops. An hour would be enough if the batteries could absorb the charge. More reasons for pit stops and picnics.

Such driving would require "programming", ie using a navigation system to describe the proposed route and proposed stops along the way. It's something that works great on a personal computer today, but is horrible in all cars, especially BMW, but even Toyota totally sucks at this.

An energy-plan program would tell the car how best to deplete it's cheap load of electricity, either quickly with no engine assist (commuting, errands) or with the engine as base energy provider using electric motors for acceleration (long range cruising). Both
work well in their respective regimes.

This is how all modern ships work. They are information technology systems. It's not by accident that engine systems engineers on large ships now have Microsoft and Cisco certification.

The biggest problem is marketing: How do you sell a car with a 33 horsepower engine when the sales guys are all mooks?

You change the sales channel, ie, who sells the car, from the realm of mechanical systems and horsepower to the realm of personal electronics and identity branding, in the same way Apple changed the model moved from geeks and suits to artists and hipsters.

I can just see Steve Jobs make greens swoon over iTrip and iDrive in the iCar.

Too bad BMW trademarked the latter for a fucked up implementation.

The next technology revolution is the car

2006-07-20T13:31:00.000-04:00

What is interesting about the Tesla is that it is marketed like a Mac.

Similar word-feel, similar attitude.

It strikes me that there will be a disruptive shift in the next few years as cars move from mechanical machines to becoming another form of consumer electronics.

That will be a disruptive event. In that world GM might as well be Univac. Ford might get away with being DEC. Toyota is smart enough to get away with being HP. Who will be the new Apple?

The first Taiwanese-designed MP3 players were horrendous.

It took Apple design savvy and cheap Chinese manufacturing to make the iPod work. Why not a car >by< Apple? If it's in the realm of consumer electronics, why not? Who gives a crap about the engine if the engine is a commodity and the batteries are too?

The price point of the Tesla depends more on Dell than on GM, as it is driven by the economies of scale that come with the manufacture of Li+ batteries. It's different. Not sure if it's better, but it is different. And for the masses this is where Chinese manufacturing and American savvy can win.

Improvement in engines and automobile technology operate at a telecoms-like snails pace, not surprising, since both have their origins in mechanical and electrical engineering (mechanical cross-point switches were literally clockworks).

Cars as personal electronics? Much faster development cycles, much more lean manufacturing, and the potential of Moore's-law effects. The next technology revolution is the car.

Moore's Law will kill the internal combustion engine.

2006-05-19T17:06:00.000-04:00

If the link above is true, this means that plug-in hybrids are viable, and that the internal combustion engine will become a backup to a battery, and that battery range becomes a plug and play commodity.

"The new hybrid battery pack was unveiled this week at the Advanced Automotive Battery and Ultracapacitor Conference in Baltimore. It could be appearing in vehicles within three years, Fulop says. The pack weighs about as much as a small laptop computer, yet fits into a case smaller than a carton of cigarettes. Ten of them would replace the 45-kilogram battery in the Prius, Fulop says; and if one failed, the consumer could continue to drive the car using the remaining batteries, then replace the faulty one as easily as changing the battery on a rechargeable tool."

A123 is a disruptive entrant. The only way for them to get into the market is with plug-in hybrid conversion kits. This battery could be stacked to suit the range needs of an individual driver. That changes everything.

Does Moore's Law Apply To Plug In Hybrids?

2006-05-17T12:42:00.000-04:00

Modern petrol and Diesel engines are getting lighter and lighter, however they are now approaching maximum efficiency given the medium and the design cycle is slow and expensive.

Improvements are now calculated in percentage points per decade.

Li+ batteries are still on the high side of the price/weight curve for energy density, but this is dropping quickly, not quite at Moore's law rates but close enough to qualify. Battery technology is improving at rates that are more in line with information technology than with mechanical engineering. It doesn't matter if the cycle is three years or ten years if the improvement are orders of magnitude in scale.

The power densities of Li+ batteries have increased 8-fold in the last few years. New 1-pound Li+ packs have the same power densities that 8-pound packs had just a few years ago.
Want proof? Go buy a new-release cellphone and look at the battery, and compare it to the cellphones that shipped only five years ago. That rate of change is in line with Moore's Law.

The internal combustion engine is mature. Fuel cells are like fusion reactors. They will always be the next big thing because big science loves science fiction dreams and frowns upon chemical engineering.

If I had a billion dollars to invest I would put it in commoditization of the Li+ battery and its successors. In ten years you may no longer need an ICE except as a backup generator for the batteries when the car is sitting idle away from a plug.

Real Life Numbers

2006-05-13T14:45:00.000-04:00

Felix Kramer gets 123mpg in real-life mixed use in California. His real numbers are better than my theoretical numbers, so I'll have to recalculate my analysis upwards. Felix however is trying to make a point, and I'm a brake and go leadfoot, so MMMV*.

(My Milage May Vary)

A pious Prius improved

2006-05-12T13:38:00.000-04:00

Regarding the analysis below. A critic on The Well complained that the battery wouldn't be nearly new on install eight years later. Which is true. However, if the original battery pack was sold at conversion time, at wholesale or 40% off retail replacement you could take those savings, stuff them in a long-term note for 4.0% and recover 82% of your nominal retail cost.

Those batteries will likely be a lot less expensive in eight years, if the notebook computing market is an example. Eight years ago notebook batteries were horrible beasts with little life in them, and they were expensive. Now they are cheap. So, yes, the original battery pack: If it's not kept in the conversion process sell them off and use the cash proceeds. Always sells off the depreciating commodity as fast as you can.

Hymotion doesn't touch the original batteries, making the install simpler and hence less expensive (and less prone to a justifiable warranty risk, I might add), making this all moot.

This simplicity is why they will likely win the aftermarket refit game, as the biggest cost that can be reduced is labour.

With a pious Prius, cash becomes King

2006-05-12T10:59:00.000-04:00

There is a lot of activist activity these days regarding plug-in hybrids. A plug-in hybrid is a hybrid vehicle with additional battery capacity that can be plugged into the electrical grid at night. The result is a vehicle that can be driven at low speeds for up to 50 miles on battery power alone. In mixed use driving the result is that for the first 100 miles the vehicle gets approximately 100 miles to the US gallon after a full charge. The plug-in hybrid concept became popularized in California but several aftermarket manufacturers are preparing plug-in hybrid conversion kids based on lithium-ion batteries. Tiny Hymotion, Inc., based in Toronto, is one of these firms.

On a new Toyota Prius the conversion costs USD$10,000, although this price may fall to USD$5,000 in volume. Automobile manufacturers will be able to sell for less as they can capitalize on the supply chain and the economy that comes with size. To understand the economics it's better to look at Dell than it is, say, at GM.

American plug-in Hybrid activists are typically pursuing either a green or neocon dream. Greens love plug-in hybrids because they are clean and pump less CO2 into the air. Neocons love plug-in hybrids because their broad adoption will help wean the US off of foreign, non-NAFTA, war-prone oil. The fact that this gives the nuclear industry a new excuse for revival might explain why conversion kit manufacturers are receiving financing and lobbyist support. Plug-in hybrids are friendly to many.

The current $10,000 premium, however, is more than enough to scare off manufacturers. They can't afford a dud, no matter how green. Not even Toyota. That is, except in Canada.

Building a plug-in hybrid may not be economic in the US, but it is economic, at least for the short term, on this side of the line. The fact that automakers are pricing their cars too high in Canada relative to the United States creates the opportunity.

Here is why: The depreciation of the US dollar vs. the Canadian dollar makes it financially better to purchase a US Prius, convert it into a plug-in hybrid, and import it into Canada instead of purchasing a base Prius, a regular hybrid, from a Canadian dealer. This is true as long as you are willing to risk a void warranty.

The base price for the 2006 Toyota Prius purchased in Canada is as of now $31,280. In Ontario you pay 8% provincial sales tax, and there is a 7% Federal Goods and Services Tax on top of that 1.08%, Ontario offers a $2000 tax credit against the provincial sales tax for purchasers of alternative vehicles and for after-market modifications.

Given that the cheque that must be cut for a base Prius is CAD$35,413.00 all inclusive with all credits applied. Which makes hybrids too expensive a proposition for many, the economics aren't worth it. And that price assumes a 6% GST on delivery, as the GST drops to 6% on July 1.

The funny thing is that the economics ARE worth it if the car becomes a plug-in hybrid.

The price of the Canadian Prius seems based on CADUSD=0.74, or the Canadian dollar being worth 0.74 US. Today CADUSD is approximately 0.91, plus or minus half a cent, and we're one oil shock away from parity at a minimum as the Canadian dollar is now a petrodollar.

An equivalent base Prius purchased just across the border, however, can be imported, with the additional tariff (6.1%), import fees ($208) and all taxes and such, for CAD$28,648.88 based on CADUSD=0.91 and at CADUSD=$25,515.98 with the dollar at par. Under NAFTA rules there is nothing that Toyota can legally do about this.

The warning from Toyota is that if you do this you may void your warranty. The operating word is "may". This is supposed to be a disincentive against purchase of a regular hybrid. This is also an area where Toyota must tread very carefully lest they lose their well-honed image and their well-stuffed ledgers. Toyota "may" have recently settled a class-action lawsuit over cars going the opposite direction, from Canada to the US. Thus the word "may" may have cost them far more money than they anticipated.

What this does do is create an incentive for purchase for plug-in hybrids, based on pure economics alone, because an additional cost of modification is that Toyota "may" void your warranty. If the threat is the same, the threat has no value if there is enough of an upside.
The common threats cancel each other out.

At CADUSD at par the difference is $9,897.02, or about the price of a plug-in hybrid modification based on the prices from various sources, and the real price may be less. At the current exchange rate it is C$7,394.03. But read again that tax credit of $2000, it applies again for modifications, and that means higher savings, at least on the PST portion of a plug-in modification. It starts to add up.

Where I live the cost of gasoline is about C$1.10 per liter or $4.18 a US gallon, but Canadians are more used to higher prices than Americans and the culture shock has been less. Given an average annual use of 16,000 kilometers at 100mpg this translates to 100 gallons of gasoline a year for a gasoline fuel cost of $418 per year. At 45mpg the stock Prius would cost $930 in gasoline costs per year. This all assumes that the price of gasoline stays at $1.10. It likely won't. And all indicators say that the changes will be more up than down.

Ontario electricity rates off-peak are 3.5 cents per kwh. Assuming a full charge every weeknight, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, the electricity charge would be $81.90 per year using off-peak rates of 3.5 cents a kilowatt hour. The energy cost difference is $428 per year, and over an 8-year lifetime that difference is about $3500.00, assuming the price of gas stays flat. I can contract this off-peak rate for up to 10 years. This gives me price stability for an energy input in uncertain times, without fighting a war to get it.

At net present value costs it is now cheaper for Canadians to import a US Toyota Prius, convert it to a plug-in hybrid, tell Toyota to go stuff the warranty, and drive it for eight years until the batteries wear out. With the dollars at par you're ahead $3500.00 vs. the base Prius alone. At current exchange rates you break even. Better still: the electricity portion can operate on fixed cost. This is a stabilizing effect that has economic value, an 'opportunity cost' that is hard to measure but easy to appreciate in uncertain times, the same uncertainty that gets people to lock into five year mortgages starts to apply.

Now, the surprise part. In conversions where the original batteries are removed and kept this means that the original batteries could be reinstalled as new or nearly new and with minor bodywork the car goes back to original state even if the plug-in components are fully depleted. This reversal would cost about $500-1000 depending on the installed technology, and that includes all body work needed to restore the car to original spec. The Prius itself would have a higher resale value than it would otherwise due to the nearly-new batteries. You would then recycle that plug-in adapter, sell the car as stock, and go on with extra cash in your pocket if you chose not to buy an extended warranty.

We are now at the point, right now, where plug-in hybrids make economic sense, make geopolitical sense, and they make environmental sense, which means that they are the only choice if you're in any way rational and sane. We are at the point where the economists and the neocons and the hippies must agree, and that speaks volumes.

It may also save Toyota's Canadian bacon as the US dollar tanks. I'm willing to do the work to make this happen, at least on a personal scale, but that means thumbing my nose at Toyota and their irrational Canadian pricing. If Toyota Canada is willing to sell me a Toyota-made Prius Plug-in Hybrid at the same Canadian price as a regular 2006 Prius, I'll stay a fan.

Otherwise, I'm an activist, and Toyota becomes my economic and environmental target.

Quailtarnation

2006-02-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

Boingboing reports on the Quailtard kerfuffle. Wikipedia frootbats panic and delete the entry several times, admonishing people for... being... not encyclopedic and watching basic cable.

Of course, most every word has its origins in some form of popular culture.

That's how they become words.

This guarantees the increased use of quailtard in common discussion, so much so that it enters common use, like, well, frootbat.

Hmm. There's no entry for frootbat yet. Hmmm.