2019 Chevy BOLT

[aerohead]

The original 'plan' was that, I'd be buying AeroStealth's BOLT this coming September.
He called to report that he could get a good deal on a Hyundai IONIQ 5 ( right now! ), so I did an electronic funds transfer last Monday ( $15,000 ). He made the down payment on the '5', and drove it home that day.
So, now I'm juggling activities, figuring how to get myself, one-way, to New Mexico, to take possession of the car, and drive it back to Texas.
John's been keeping a log on the BOLT in the 'garage' section of EcoModder.
I have a 'wind power' option through my electric co-op, and, other than a seldom road trip each year, will essentially be carbon-free for most of the year.
The car has a new, 'larger' battery, and my typical commute is 14-miles, round- trip commuting, now about 3-times / week.
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The long-term goal is to fabricate an extremely light, composite monocoque, 1-wheel, full-stinger, gap-filled trailer with only 2-degrees freedom of movement, shooting for Cd 0.155 aerodynamic singularity, half the OEM drag, and negligible weight penalty. 300-miles / charge.
And that's on top of completing the 'Spirit' project at the A2 Wind Tunnel/ AeroDyne Wind Tunnel.

[freebeard]

an extremely light, composite monocoque, 1-wheel, full-stinger, gap-filled trailer with only 2-degrees freedom of movement,

Which two degrees? My surmise is pitch and rotation.

[aerohead]

I'm going to stick with the ' pitch-allowing', motorcycle front fork-to-trailer hitch-type connection to the car.
This will allow pitching freedom at both the hitch, plus at the trailer's swing-arm.
The 'fork' will have a minimum of 'rake', to allow for automatic 'centering' of the trailer, trailing behind, plus 'yawing' in turns.
There won't be any 'roll' allowed in the connection, which extremely simplifies the gap-closure, which will be an inflated bladder, energized at 45-mph, once away from 'urban' driving scenarios.
Since it's a 1-wheeler, there won't be any rotational torque ( roll moment ) induced, as in a two-wheeler, where one tire might experience a different elevation from the other ( pot holes, or oblique driveway ramp attack ). K.I.S.S. methodology.
The trip to North Carolina will allow me to simulate the aerodynamics of the 'singularity' in the wind tunnel. And if I like the 'numbers', the mockup can become a 'plug' to create tooling for laying up a thin-shell composite trailer body to pull behind SPIRIT. The 'numbers' will also inform me about any expectations about the BOLT trailer performance.
I was close to having everything ready for the 2017 testing, but just couldn't pull it off in time. No cigar!

[aerohead]

* I got insurance on the car.
* I managed to buy an electronic bus ticket online.
* I depart for New Mexico on Tuesday, late afternoon, on a 21.5-hour trip.
* AeroStealth will pick me up at the bus station Wednesday, early afternoon.
* I might have flown but our mass-transit system has no user protection from foul weather, between Denton and Dallas. And we've already had a supercell come by which tore up Frisco, Texas with softball-sized hail and an EF-0 tornado.
* I've struggled to get on electrifyamerica's charging system for 6-days straight, without any luck. If I can't, I'll be paying 25% higher rates for electricity on the road. The problem stems from leaving all my user names, PINs, and passwords, by accident, at the local Toyota dealership parts department a few years ago.
Electrifyamerica requires an email/Gmail account user name, and password, and It's been a struggle to navigate GOOGLE, as it's 100% AI, and zero human beings to assist ( Cricket wireless, and Samsung couldn't help), and I'm at the mercy of Google's robots.
* The BOLT has enough range to travel for the total solar eclipse. The greatest challenge will be the anticipated gridlock all over the a viewing area. Anyone going may be interested in the comet, which will also be visible in binoculars, not far from the sun, when the 'lights go out'. There will be 4-1/2-minutes of totality where I'm going, if the weather cooperates.

[redpoint5]

As you pointed out, Google has no human support. If you can't fix it yourself, they don't care, but the good news is Google has plenty of resources intruding into the genitalia and skin hue of their employees. That might be an access vector to exploit for the purposes of getting customer service.

[Piotrsko]

More likely you are overthinking the search process. Wife who is relatively computer illiterate has huge success with google while I tend to throw my devices at the wall because the precisely defined search string is too limited in scope and returns a null answer.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

More likely you are overthinking the search process. Wife who is relatively computer illiterate has huge success with google while I tend to throw my devices at the wall because the precisely defined search string is too limited in scope and returns a null answer.

* I believe that to be the case.
* Whoever did the technical writing for the accepted Google ' password recovery' protocol, used language that I still do not comprehend.
* I think that when their AI uses the word 'recovery', it's actually 'talking' about a password 'reset.'
* The AI never 'reveals' the forgotten password, it's just going to allow for a 'new' password, if you throw the 6-digit verification code back at it.
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I was able to purchase the bus ticket with my phone number, the original user name, and debit card info.
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* What worked for Greyhound, is a fail within electrifyamerica's app, when trying to set up an account.
* And the 'fail' there is also a function of 'password.'
* They accept the GMAIL user name, then ask for a 'password', without specifying whether they want the GMAIL password, or to create a new, electrifyamerica password ( when I try that, using their metrics, they refuse it [ three times in a row ] ).
* I'm gonna talk to a third party about it after lunch today.
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I'll be able to get home from New Mexico without being an EA member, but it will cost me an extra 25% on each KWh.

[freebeard]

Electrifyamerica requires an email/Gmail account user name, and password, and It's been a struggle to navigate GOOGLE, as it's 100% AI, and zero human beings to assist ( Cricket wireless, and Samsung couldn't help), and I'm at the mercy of Google's robots.

I feel your pain. Literally. A technician came to fix my land line last Saturday, the symptom was inability to receive incoming calls. 15 minutes after he left I lost dial tone and DSL. (It appears, from Recent Posts that nobody missed me) Five days of waiting, three calls and two service tickets later, I'm at the city library to check in with Ecomodder.

OTOH I read a whole book (first time a decade) and rebuilt a bookcase and am working on restoring a 1940s metal kitchen cabinet. And I've taken to listening to the radio.

* The BOLT has enough range to travel for the total solar eclipse.

What's up with that? I heard rumors of civil unrest in it's path.

I've seen four so far. The best one was from the Stonehenge replica at Marysville, WA in 1979; when the Druids drove a big cloud away at the last minute. 2017 was good, I saw it from my brother's back yard.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

OTOH I read a whole book (first time a decade) and rebuilt a bookcase and am working on restoring a 1940s metal kitchen cabinet. And I've taken to listening to the radio.

Few more days of that, and you'd have sold the paper weights you've got, and finished the big projects. Maybe we all need to lose internet for a week.

I'd have noticed you were MIA after another week. This week has been much more busy than usual for me. Plus, I'm engaged in combat with the incompetency that is my HVAC. It annoys me whenever I can spot the flaws of a professional knowing nothing in particular about the trade. It annoys me more that paying for "home inspection" is completely worthless. They didn't tell me the intake ventilation for the attic was inadequate (which is obvious by anyone with eyeballs and a functioning brain), or that my HVAC was installed by apes.

Here's my overall gripe; that the Law of Diminishing Returns works both ways. I'd gladly pay 2% more for a house if it's 20% better. At some point paying more doesn't justify the increased cost, but practically no homes these days are any where near that threshold.

On the theme of internet woes (mine a 1st world problem), we're past year 2 of the fiber internet installation. So far I've gotten damage to my sidewalk, and an inferior replacement (brush finish).

[freebeard]

Few more days of that...

I just called again from the public phone at the library. Their new (3rd or 4th) service ticket is scheduled for Friday. That would make a full two weeks. I am going to look into a different vendor once they deliver. (their maintenance yard is 2 blocks from my house)

Here's my overall gripe; that the Law of Diminishing Returns works both ways. I'd gladly pay 2% more for a house if it's 20% better.

The other thing I've been doing is working on some designs. I showed five or six to my brother (shed, garage, house, shopping mall, Mars colony) and he just said "Are those from somebody else, or did you do them yourself?" A few might show up in my I Had A Dome Idea thread. "Conventional construction for the price of a mobile home"