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Continue reading GMC Hummer EV EarthCruiser upfit finally here, for going out there
GMC Hummer EV EarthCruiser upfit finally here, for going out there originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 25 Aug 2023 09:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
2023-08-24
BEND, Ore. – Today, EarthCruiser announced the unveiling of the highly anticipated all-electric GMC HUMMER EV EarthCruiser –– an overland upfit solution from EarthCruiser. This EarthCruiser upfit sets a new standard in zero-tailpipe emission overlanding possibilities through its full integration onto the HUMMER EV Pickup chassis to offer adventurers the perfect blend of state-the-art technology, innovation and comfort to explore on- or off-road.
The fully functional GMC HUMMER EV EarthCruiser upfit will make its public debut at Overland Expo Mountain West in Loveland, Colorado and will be on display between Aug. 25-27.
“We are proud to work with GMC on the design and manufacturing of such an exceptional product. It feels right, it feels like it belongs,” said EarthCruiser CEO and Founder Lance Gillies. “Using our years of overlanding expertise, we have ensured nothing is out of place, unnecessary or wasted in this vehicle. This collaboration with the GMC team has provided the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the zero-tailpipe emission possibilities for overland and recreational vehicle travelers. We have produced a comfortable, capable product, built to a high caliber of excellence – one that our customers can take pride in.”
Crafted with meticulous attention to detail, the GMC HUMMER EV EarthCruiser upfit by EarthCruiser boasts technological and design innovations to help ensure a premium consumer experience, including:
The GMC HUMMER EV EarthCruiser upfit is expected to be available to GMC HUMMER EV Pickup owners in 2024 through EarthCruiser. Additional product availability details will be released later this year. The EarthCruiser upfit is not covered by the GM New Vehicle Limited Warranty and GM is not responsible for independent-supplier alterations.
To reserve the GMC HUMMER EV EarthCruiser upfit, please visit: http://www.earthcruiser.com/reserve-your-gmc-hummer-ev-earthcruiser
Additional Product Details:
Specifications:
Exterior:
Interior
About GMC
GMC offers a range of premium trucks and SUVs designed and engineered to the highest standard. With vehicles like the compact Terrain and full-size Yukon, all-new Canyon and Sierra light-duty, as well as the world’s first all-electric supertruck the GMC HUMMER EV, our trucks and SUVs deliver GMC’s signature combination of intuitive technologies, precise engineering and premium execution. Built on a strong foundation of manufacturing trucks since 1902, GMC now sells in a dozen countries across the world. Details on all models are available at www.gmc.com, Instagram at @GMC, Twitter at @GMC or at www.facebook.com/gmc.
About EarthCruiser
EarthCruiser is a company of designers, engineers, technicians and, most of all, adventurers with millions of miles of collective, real-world overlanding experience. With its EXP, FX and EC Terranova, Evado models, EarthCruiser designs and manufactures the ultimate world-renowned, self-contained, 4×4 off-road exploration vehicles in Bend, Oregon.
More information on EarthCruiser can be found at https://earthcruiser.com/
Back in July, AAA released the findings of a multi-year study it conducted of several speed limit update projects across the United States. The study included cases where speed limits were both raised and lowered, and touched virtually all road types. You can read my summary and find a link to AAA’s discussion in the link above, but the salient points are these: While crash frequency and severity did correlate with higher speeds, the most statistically reliable trends that emerged had nothing to do with property damage or personal injury. It was enforcement outcomes that were most demonstratively impacted. In other words, when speed limits go up, fewer people get tickets; when they go down, the opposite happens.
Many weren’t happy with AAA’s conclusions (or lack thereof) and it precipitated some rather heated social media discussion, with much of the thermal overload coming from those who took issue with the study’s fundamental validity. But those complaining the loudest weren’t citing other studies like AAA’s, instead they were citing something far more fundamental: physics. And they’re not wrong. Energy increases with the square of velocity; the quicker a car moves, the more exponentially dangerous it becomes to crash it, especially into something (or somebody) else. But AAA wasn’t performing crash tests in a controlled environment; it was studying the behavior that resulted from changing the rules.
Inherently, rules exist to impart order to a system that doesn’t inherently provide it. If everybody followed the rules — and I mean every single one of them, from precise adherence to manufacturing specifications and tolerances all the way down to wearing seatbelts, adjusting our mirrors and signaling properly — crashworthiness would be irrelevant. Defective parts? Eliminated. Driver mistakes? Gone. But if I need to explain to you why that’s a pipe dream, then you should probably bail out now and queue up another episode of “Care Bears.”
It follows then that the more intuitive a given system is, the fewer rules you need in order for people to navigate it. Look no further than Germany — a country known for its fondness for order, yet its open stretches of autobahn are unrestricted straight-line paradises. Highway speeds that would be considered straight-up antisocial here in the USA don’t raise an eyebrow in Bavaria, yet its road fatality rate hovers around 1/3 of America’s. Why? Because the other rules are all so super? Or is it possible that it’s not about the rules at all?
Behavioral science is hardly exact; it becomes far more fraught when we try to measure it using hard math. But quantifying data is the best (and only, really) way of objectively analyzing it. Admittedly, When I first reviewed AAA’s results, I questioned whether the study was worth releasing at all, but even inconclusive data can be useful. In this case, the fervor behind the discussion brought into relief a fact that plagues regulators the world over: at the end of the day, the rules just don’t matter. Whether we’re driving, walking or brushing our teeth, we instinctively operate within our comfort zone.
While it’s probably easiest to believe that speed limits are established by vigorous debate between hard-nosed safety advocates and people with somewhere to be, the reality is that they’re dictated by us. This is the basis for the 85th percentile speed. If you looked at AAA’s study, you saw this term referenced several times. It’s important that you understand the concept, because it upends the notion of speed limits being set by bureaucrats in a closed-door session.
Its description may be verbose, but the concept is actually quite simple. 85th percentile speed is the average speed at which 85% of drivers travel on a given stretch of road (or one just like it, for the purposes of new construction). For our purposes, consider it synonymous with “the flow of traffic,” and it’s a necessary component in setting real-world speed limits. If 85% of drivers think a given speed is appropriate, it probably is. If it’s not, that means one of two things: either you have an epidemic of speeding on your hands, or the planners screwed the proverbial pooch.
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With that in mind, let’s take a look at one of AAA’s cases: SW Capitol Highway in Portland, Oregon (labeled C2 in the study). Along this 0.9-mile stretch of collector road, the speed limit was reduced from 35 mph to 25 (the largest swing among the projects AAA studied). It was also the most egregious example of the law of unintended consequences. The road was also widened to accommodate bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks during the project, which might explain why things didn’t quite go to plan. You see, rather than decreasing by nearly 10 mph to match the change in speed limit, the observed 85th percentile speeds on this stretch went up by 0.5 mph after completion. Why? I already told you: Speed limits don’t matter.
The new SW Capitol Highway is certainly more bike- and pedestrian-friendly than it was before (take a look at the before/after photos here), but in terms of managing driver speeds? Not so much. If the 85th percentile speeds increased, that means drivers are more comfortable traveling at — or even above — the speeds they managed back when it was a tight two-lane road with a dirt gutter and no bike lanes. Travel times along this stretch for vehicles also decreased while traffic citations increased. AAA says there are no data available for changes in fatality rates, but there were single-digit increases in accidents causing either injury or property damage during the study period. Remember, this is the slower, “safer” version of this road.
Now, I want you to think about your daily driving routine. Are there stretches of surface street where a true majority of the traffic goes noticeably quicker than the posted limit? Picture those roads. Are they wide, with big medians and deep building setbacks, few crosswalks and perhaps even traffic lights without pedestrian controls at all? I’m betting yes. These are cues that tell drivers they can safely open it up. How do drivers behave when these same roads are clogged by commuters or event traffic? I’m betting on aggression ruling the day, because the conditions aren’t allowing traffic to move at the speed where the majority of drivers feel comfortable.
Many urbanists will say that the only way to design roads safely is to force drivers to feel uncomfortable going faster than the target limit, but if you ask me, that’s looking at this from the wrong perspective. The trick is to design a 25 mph road, not design just any road and stick a 25-mph limit on it. Think about your daily driving habits again, but this time, visualize roads where you’ve caught yourself unconsciously driving slower than you might otherwise — those streets where your head tells you that you’re doing a pleasant 7 mph over the limit, but you look down to find you’re actually dead-on or even under. Now, think about what those roads have in common; I’m betting they’re nothing at all like what I described above.
Roads exist to quickly and efficiently move traffic of all kinds and should be engineered to that purpose. If Portland’s experiment has demonstrated anything, it’s that people, cars and bikes can actually coexist without dragging each other down. The result of the overhaul is a road that carries vehicular traffic at the same exact rate as before without any penalty to travel times or driving speeds. If the city simply adhered to the 85th percentile rule and raised the limit back to 35 mph, citations should return to normal (something AAA’s study actually established to a statistically significant degree) without any detriment to driver, pedestrian or cyclist safety.
No rule is going to eliminate speeding; as long as we live in a society, antisocial behavior will exist, but artificially low speed limits and aggressive and/or automated enforcement serves nobody except the bean counters in charge of police budgeting. Forget about correcting behavior through arbitrary limits and focus instead on building good infrastructure that meets the needs of the communities it serves. As Portland inadvertently demonstrated, a good road doesn’t have to be hostile to anybody.
HOUSTON – Crude oil fell into negative territory as it battled possible U.S. interest rate increases and uncertainty around future Chinese demand on Monday.
Brent crude was at $84.48, down 33 cents, at 11:41 CDT (1641 GMT) after briefly turning negative.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was off 8 cents at $81.17 a barrel.
In Monday’s session both crudes have been up $1 and then turned negative.
Interest rate increases by the U.S. Federal Reserve to tame inflation are driving down U.S. economic activity while China continues to tarry in returning to pre-pandemic levels, said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC.
“It seems that (China’s recovery) is not going to happen,” Kilduff said. “It’s doubtful they’re going to be buying. They bought a lot of crude for storage earlier in the year. They’re sitting on a lot of crude.”
Both front-month benchmark prices snapped a seven-week winning streak last week with a weekly loss of 2% on concern that China’s sluggish economic growth will curb oil demand, while the possibility of further increases to U.S. interest rates also overshadows the demand outlook.
China’s central bank trimmed its one-year lending rate by 10 basis points and left its five-year rate unmoved. That was a surprise to analysts who had expected cuts of 15 bps to both as recovery in the world’s second-largest economy has been slowed by a worsening property slump, weak spending and tumbling credit growth.
Top exporter Saudi Arabia’s July shipments to China fell 31% from June while Russia, with its discounted crude, remained the Asian giant’s largest supplier, Chinese customs data showed.
China’s crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia are expected to remain depressed through the third quarter, analysts said.
China is drawing on record inventories amassed earlier this year as refiners scale back purchases after prices were driven above $80 a barrel by supply cuts implemented by the OPEC+ group comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia.
“We still see a tight oil balance for the remainder of the year, which suggests that prices still have some room to run higher,” said Warren Patterson, ING’s head of commodities research, adding that the dollar was also providing support.
A weaker dollar makes oil purchases less expensive for holders of other currencies, potentially boosting demand.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston, Natalie Grover and Paul Carsten in London, Florence Tan in Singapore and Mohi Narayan in New DelhiEditing by David Goodman, Mark Potter, Barbara Lewis and Nick Macfie)
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Continue reading 2024 GMC Hummer EV pickup gets a price hike – with a catch
2024 GMC Hummer EV pickup gets a price hike – with a catch originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 21 Aug 2023 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Trucks with the best gas mileage for 2023
Trucks with the best gas mileage for 2023 originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 19 Aug 2023 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Hummer EV SUV overland camper teased from GMC and EarthCruiser
Hummer EV SUV overland camper teased from GMC and EarthCruiser originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 8 Aug 2023 11:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Junkyard Gem: 1956 Buick Special 4-Door Sedan
Junkyard Gem: 1956 Buick Special 4-Door Sedan originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 6 Aug 2023 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Most of us are guilty of speeding now and then, but some drivers seem to spend their lives in the passing lane. Newly proposed legislation in New York aims to curb chronic speeders with a device that limits their vehicle’s speed. A whopping 30 percent of traffic fatalities in New York come from speeding drivers. If passed, the bill would require drivers to install a special device that holds the vehicle’s speed to five miles per hour over the posted limit.
New York City is generally packed with slow-moving cars, but it saw an uptick in pedestrian deaths in 2022. Shockingly, the city saw 59 fatal incidents in the first quarter of the year, and 131 people died in the first half of this year. This type of legislation will likely start popping up in other states. Pedestrian deaths reached a 41-year high in 2022, with more than 7,500 people killed by vehicles.
Though it sounds heavy-handed, the bill in its current form gives drivers plenty of chances to slow down before the device comes into play. Drivers who get six tickets in a year or rack up 11 or more points on their license in 18 months are candidates for the device, but some feel the number should be much lower. Speaking with CBS News, one Brooklyn resident said, “Give them three. Three is enough. After three, let’s do something.”
New York City has piloted the devices in city vehicles and found that drivers obeyed the speed limit 99 percent of the time with them installed. Lawmakers said they were inspired by the interlock devices that convicted DUI offenders have to install in some cases. Several states require the breathalyzer boxes, but New York would be the first to require a speed-limiting device. We don’t know how much the speed limiters cost, but drivers will likely be on the hook to pay for them.
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Continue reading Buick Regal lives on in China, gets visual and tech updates
Buick Regal lives on in China, gets visual and tech updates originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.