TTAC Live BlogCast With Dan Neil 6pm E.S.T.
Published: February 27th, 2009
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Sorry to have missed the event. Dan Neil's comment that Tesla is a stone ax technologically rang true with me. I wonder if he has seen anyone who has made it from the stone age to at least the bronze age.
Dan Neil is a wonderful writer. I really look forward to his articles in the LA Times because they are a lovely blend of social impact, environmental concern (where appropriate) and gearhead fantasies. "it'll spin the rear tires in third gear while cruising. Oh. My. God." I mean, what better way to sum up a ZR1? Anyway, I wish I could have participated to proclaim my love, although I don't know it would have gone as far as cock sucking.
Note to self: talk cars with Dan Neil if given the chance, but never while drinking tequila.
I guess pessimism is contagious. 1975 all over again. "...the city (Los Angeles) will begin shrinking in the next decade becuase of the water situation...." Don't be silly. LADWP is managing the current drought with a million more customers than the last major drought, with more supply restrictions relative to demand, yet with a much larger margin for error. Desalination hasn't been implemented in any significant way, except for Santa Barbara which never connected to the California water distribution system. I've been here 20 years and while water is used more carefully than when I arrived, we have a lot of potential ahead of us for water conservation. Reclaimed water for non-potable uses still lags application potential. Rates will, however, hasten consciousness. Further, even in dry SoCal, we don't capture nearly what we could nor are we eliminating leaks from the distribution system as quickly as we could. We need more reservoirs and faster upgrading of infrastructure. Water is still hugely wasted here, down from monumentally-wasted 20 years ago. Perhaps sprawl will slow in the outlying areas, but Los Angeles will be a larger city and metro in 2019 than it is today. If L.A. shrinks, it will be because of governmental incompetence and the consequences of that, before water hits a wall. Also, if driving a 600hp Corvette to work is "pathetic," is it equally so for a 250hp car (Mazda RX8 for instance) that gets no better real-world fuel economy? Just were is the threshold for patheticity? Phil