Hello everyone,
This post probably should have come out a bit sooner ! It’s been a weird weekend, definitely haven’t been feeling particularly great over the last couple of days. That might be more fallout from vaccine but it’s probably more cumulative effect from getting close to needing more time offline.
Still, the deed is done, wrapped up the second last loose end today (the last one is getting the work related stuff updated but that’s fairly trivial), just need some excuses to get out and about in it.
Erm … what am I talking about ?
There we go. That’s Car as it was when I picked it up at the garage on Friday. Curious to see an electric charger point on the wall behind … That’s for their UX electric cars. This one is an ES300h hybrid. The power train is essentially the same as the IS300h’s I had before, except that it’s been turned through 90 degrees (I think !) and powers the front wheels instead of the back wheels. There’s a 2.5 litre long stroke* engine again with a couple of electric motor generators providing the hybrid bits and acting as a pseudogearbox.
*Engines are normally very similar bore and stroke. The bore is the diameter of each cylinder, the stroke is how much the cylinder goes up and down. That all calculates together to give the cubic capacity of the engine. More capacity, more power. What Lexus have done with their engines is to make the stroke a bit longer than usual, it doesn’t give as much power but it does extract more energy out of each boom that happens as the engine fires. And then there are a couple of big motors there to supplement the power.
This one is a little longer than my last few, which kinda takes them in a direction that I don’t want to go as I prefer smaller, nippier cars. I haven’t tested it round corners yet, outside of choosing the off motorway stretch I can go to when coming home. Felt good on that.
There’s more toys on this one, including a nicely chunky 12.3″ display in the centre. The music sounded great on the way back too. I’ve lost the seat coolers from the previous car but there’s a Climate Concierge thingy that apparently automatically blows cold air up from your feet if the temperature gradient suggests that should be a Thing. Hopefully the seats will be an improvement, the old ones weren’t bad but I am being more prone to cramping and hip issues as I get older.
I had to stop off at the farm shop on the way back, partly because of LOOT, partly due to wanting a couple more pictures and a little reset before the rest of the trip home.
The toys are a little different on this one. Low level autonomy is still in the car in the shape of radar assisted cruise control and lane keeping cameras. I don’t think I’ll be using the lane keeping assistance because it feels a lot fiercer than the last car and it felt like I was fighting the car instead of relaxing into the cruise. The road sign cameras can apparently pass the message on to the cruise control now, must try that. When the speed limit changes, I usually take back control and do the change in advance and more smoothly than cruise control does it, so it’ll be curious to see what the electronics do.
I need to read the book more to see how to get the best out of the satnav. The idea is to get the technology making things easy for you, instead of you having to interact with it to show you what you want to see.
As an aside, I can still vaguely remember the old days where I’d have an A4 sheet of paper that would have the big directions elements written down on it, from planning ahead with a road atlas. It’s like … remembering but I don’t miss that at all. I’ll come back to satnav later.
I don’t have all the toys on this one (like the automatic boot opener alas!) but I do have many, many toys to take advantage of and get used to. Like a blind spot manager that lights something up in the wing mirrors when someone is coming alongside. And the ones from before like the darkener for the mirrors that stops you getting dazzled when someone comes up behind with bad lights. I would definitely miss parking sensors and the reversing camera, they help out massively.
I’ve broken from tradition a little there by taking the description out of the alt-text and into the main text. I couldn’t go past the farm shop service station without bringing some things back with me. Here’s the list … In a box in front is a salted caramel chocolate brownie. To the left and right in front are a couple of bags of strawberry bonbons. On top of the box is a Chocolate Dwagonsaur and Chocolate Bunny (I oopsed! It should have been 2 Dwagonsaurs!) and lemon sherbets. Behind is an (empty) box with a large chocolate mint choc teacake (chocolate dome with marshmallow inside) on top, flanked by a bag of chocolate brownies on the left and all butter fudge on the right. On top of the box, there are 2 bags of Kola Kubes and a bag of candy mice. Behind, there is a blue box from the garage (which holds a bottle of Prosecco) upon which sit my Red Dwagon and my Green Dwagon. On top of the blue box sits a smaller black box with a brown case on top (which holds the spare car key).
Gosh, that’s a lot. That’s the kind of description I’m attempting to put in my alt-text for screen readers, it just felt like I needed to have that in the main text this time because there’s a lot going on there and some hidden things.
That loot should last me a good few weeks.
Gosh. Running out of speed. (Plus the F1 has started and I’m watching that live with time delayed cricket on the telly)
As to why I changed, there were a few issues with the last car which prompted changing away from it.
1 – annoying and embarrassing … the centre compartment lid liked to open at random, especially when the car was at rest. Probably expansion of air in the heat. This would make the alarm go off …
2 – annoying but mostly manageable – a change happened in the satnav which meant it just gave up before the crucial Last Mile.
3 – worrying … On one of the last pre-covid business trips in late 2019, I was driving back with colleagues when on the motorway, a large sturdy canvas bag came bouncing down the road towards us. I couldn’t avoid it due to cars to left and right, I had to drive through it with it going under the right side of the car and past. I never felt any effects after like the car pulling to one side but the mpgs were down by 10-20% since. Instead of getting 50+, I was getting 43-45. Car drove fine, nothing was spotted on 2 services since but I think there was damage there.
Oh and I think the dead car incident at the end of last year might have damaged the 12V battery.
So it will seem very extravagant making the change again but I think my reasons were good.
I’d better sign off there cos the F1 and cricket are kicking off 😀 … One last pic :
Did something strange appear in the sky between going into the farm shop and coming out again ? Hope they make it back to their time safely.
Stay safe everyone, be well.
PS A little covid related addendum … the garage adapted to the new situation we find ourselves in pretty well. Everything was done online, including digital signatures for finance documents and sending the other documents through via email. The only face to face meeting requirement was right at the end, where we did the handover and this was done outside the showroom with us being masked up.