Yea, I was just being an asshole. Diesels don't have a very stellar reputation lately. Thanks Volkswagen! There's a high probability my next car will be electric.

Been reading about the ethics of self-driven cars, and how they would (likely) choose to resolve certain life-or-death situations. To cut a long story short, in some cases the car may have to decide to deliberately crash itself (and the driver) to avoid hitting someone or something else.

In most of the scenarios I've seen so far, they basically prefer the survival of larger groups of people over individuals, and that of young people (children in particular) over the survival of the elderly. Which makes sense. But then I realized that this also means that your chances of survival in these cars would become significantly higher if you travel in groups. Or travel in a group of children, like a school bus.

It's funny since I've never heard any of the ethical theory people bring it up, but it seems like a logical consequence. So...is the future of safe travel public transportation? Hahahaha.

So Shiny and I recently purchased a third vehicle together, something we can use on vacations to haul our family about (consisting of the two of us and our two dogs). We ended up getting a 2017 Kia Sorento. Looks basically like this:



It's now my daily driver going to/from work. Better gas mileage than my SS (21mpg instead of 15), uses cheaper gas (regular instead of premium), and it keeps miles off my nice car. I still take the SS out on the weekends to keep the fluids moving and whatnot. After buying it, we pretty much immediately took it to a place to get it modified... added front and rear dash cams, backup camera, side mirror cameras, an upgraded stereo, front speakers and sub woofer. We ended up getting the vehicle Shiny wanted, so I got to upgrade the stereo.

Still no electric car. I may get one of those after we (finally) purchase a house. That, unfortunately, isn't in the cards for at least another year or two. Unless the housing market tanks and we both manage to keep our jobs through it. Then who knows.

Nice! Is that a minisuv or a regular sized one? It's hard to tell from the picture.

Although you are in Texas, so pretty sure it's the latter.

Thanks! It's a mid-sized SUV... not as large as an Explorer or something like that, but still pretty large. It's really a very different vehicle to drive compared to my SS.. or any other car I've ever had. So odd being higher than most other vehicle, excepting large pickups and the really big SUVs of course. At any rate, it's out at a place getting modded again. This time we're adding a roof rack and a tow bar so we can haul Kayaks and crap. I'm actually quite excited. Unfortunately, my wallet is not happy with me.

Will it fit bicycles too?

I was at a classic car show recently and they had some American classic models from the 50s like a Packard. Those things were HUGE. Seriously, all square and built like a tank. Crazy shit. You'd need 3 Malta parking spaces to fit one of those I think. And that was a regular family car back then.

Haha, yea, we've definitely had our share of enormous vehicles. As fro bikes, yes, you can mount bikes on a roof rack. There are also rear racks that attach to the doors somehow, but since I don't own a bike it's not really something I researched.

Stupid SUV is still in the shop. Initially we were quoted about $1100 for installing the roof rack and tow bar. After we dropped the car off, suddenly the number ballooned to $2300. So we spent a few days looking at alternatives and apparently the initial quote was very, very wrong. So yea, wallet is in crying and hiding in a corner mode. We haven't even bought the kayak mounts or the kayaks yet.

Well, funny thing. We finally agreed to the roof rack stuff and several days later, they say they can't do it because they'd need to drop the headliner and crap. However, at this point they've apparently fucked us around so much they feel sorry for us. Or they're tired of Shiny yelling at them. So they are going to refund all our money and put on the tow bar for free. We just need to get the roof rack installed somewhere else. So...not a win, per se, but not a loss, either. *shrug *

My Xmas present to myself

Not sure if you noticed but the steering wheel is on the wrong side .

Haha just kidding, congrats and enjoy.

lol, damnit, I was totally going to make a crack about the steering wheel.

Nice ride Derf! Congrats.

Everytime I get back to Malta from a holiday abroad I get into cars the wrong side for a day or two. (they drive left here too fyi)

Sweet ride man. Enjoy the fruits of your labour as you cruise along the motorways!! Vorsprung durch Technik and all that.